Yes that's me. I look at the pay cheque and it makes it ok.
I do a lot of stuff that I don't hate at home though.
Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?
31–40 of 350 posts
Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s a difference between programming for fun on personal projects etc in your own time vs. doing work without compensation. Working overtime for free is not only allowing your employer to steal from you, but sets unreasonable expectations on all of your colleagues, too.
I work at a place where if you don't work overtime you are considered garbage. Everyone will beat up on you any chance they can because they are bitter. Meanwhile, not everyone has that luxury. Single parents, caregivers, etc. Just because you write code doesn't mean you live a kushy life...
Plus I've observed that people who consistently do a lot of overtime for prolonged periods of time rarely seem stop and think, and are fairly consistently some of the worst programmers I've had to work with. They're not necessarily stupid or lacking in skill – often the opposite actually, they just never stop long enough for their brain to actually process things, so questions like "hey, is this actually a good idea?" or "how can this be done better?" just don't seem to percolate; your brain just needs some "downtime" for that.
Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?
#33I think most people here can. That's why, when people have enough money to retire, they DO retire, and not continue working. Work for most people is trading time and physical and mental health for money. In our profession, we got it better than most, but the underlying principle is still the same. Also, there are definitely better and worse companies. I'm currently in the best job of my life (well paying, fully remot…
No post body was provided.
Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?
#34I think most people here can. That's why, when people have enough money to retire, they DO retire, and not continue working. Work for most people is trading time and physical and mental health for money. In our profession, we got it better than most, but the underlying principle is still the same. Also, there are definitely better and worse companies. I'm currently in the best job of my life (well paying, fully remot…
I disagree about the retirement thing - I knew a lot of multi-millionaires from a very successful IPO who kept working for 5+ years afterwards. Even fully vested they had all their friends at work, they had a lot of influence, it was like a weird little social club for mostly dudes who didn't really have other hobbies outside of work.
I agree about the second half, though. My current job is just a terrible meat grinder, hiring and churning like crazy, and they just keep pouring gas on the fire by trying to grow headcount without retaining people they already have. Everyone is sick of interviewing and the solution is to hire more people so the new people can start interviewing and take some pressure off the old people.
Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s a difference between programming for fun on personal projects etc in your own time vs. doing work without compensation. Working overtime for free is not only allowing your employer to steal from you, but sets unreasonable expectations on all of your colleagues, too.
I work at a place where if you don't work overtime you are considered garbage. Everyone will beat up on you any chance they can because they are bitter. Meanwhile, not everyone has that luxury. Single parents, caregivers, etc. Just because you write code doesn't mean you live a kushy life...
I haven't faced this, although I could expect it at the worst places.
If I do really high quality work, am positive and proactive towards the companies goals, contribute and encourage others, I have never been looked down on for working reasonable hours and not working weekends.
I think some employees think they can be fulfilled as a spectator in their companies journey rather than someone who believes in it and helps it. At my current employer, it isn't necessarily the subject I would choose as my most favourite thing but I believe in what they are doing to help people with online data collection and I am an active part in that journey so I can feel fulfilled.
Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?
#36I find this extremely relatable actually. So much so I wrote two articles on it. You're not alone OP - micromanagement, pointless requirements that have been (sometimes deliberately) misinterpreted from user requests, treating developers as worthless replacable tools, constant time pressure, big Agile ™, is honestly killing the industry.
https://www.lloydatkinson.net/posts/2022/my-thoughts-on-what...
https://www.lloydatkinson.net/posts/2022/one-teams-eight-poi...
Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?
#37> Yet I can't bare it. I can't bare the devs that go out of their way to work weekends without being asked Wait... You love programming but you can't stand those that code during the week-ends?
I belive his point is that he finds it bizzare how they give their lives to a company instead of their own interests.
Throughout my 20s, I did a lot of extra hours on work projects. I'd have been doing programming anyway (it's what I love and did a lot of) and here were some ready-made problems that I could work on, that expanded my skills, and that mattered to someone.
It literally was my interest, not much different than when my kids would come to me asking me to make up a long division problem for them to work out when they were first learning multiplication and division.
Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?
#38What I hate about the industry is politics, short-term thinking, selfishness, dogmatism and other forms of irrationality. If you care about your craft, spend time learning and cultivating your skills and want to do the right thing, once you try to put things into practice you'll find a bunch of people along the way that hate programming and don't care about quality. You will also find people that will try hard to gam…
I don't think this is "the industry" i.e. Software, it is "industry". The exact same stuff exists in all kinds of companies.
Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?
#39I think many people in this industry can relate. Development is stressful and rife with collaboration and management issues in many organizations. Sometimes, it's possible to knock down the small things one-by-one until you have a more pleasant working environment and home life. But in other cases, the best course of action may be to become a farmer like in this Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/ub1rmi/cor...
Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?
#40I once saw a documentary about commercial Scuba diving. This is for the guys who work on oil rigs and such. At one point the instructor asks the students, "How much will you get paid for diving in the first year?" They throw out a bunch of numbers and then he draws "0" on the blackboard and follows up with "You will get paid nothing for diving. You will get paid for what you do while diving." That means welding or whatever.
Programming is a tool. Computers are tools. You're not getting paid to program. You're getting paid to solve some problem for your employer by programming.
So I can related. I think we all can. But all that other stuff that you hate doing is really what you're getting paid for. Some jobs will have a lot of it. Ohters will have less. But you'll never get away from it except for possibly the most junior jobs where you're literally given tasks to complete by other engineers.
For me, I enjoy understanding and improving systems. YMMV.
Perhaps you'd enjoy something lower-level more? Fixing Linux kernel bugs is by its nature going to be more technical than, say, developing an ad revenue and reporting system. But even more technical projects will get large enough that you have to deal with other people.