Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Burnout Machine

unionize.fyi

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 695 posts

Re: The Burnout Machine

#321

Post by dismalaf »

conqrr wrote: post #294
stared wrote: post #100

Software engineering is one of the ways of playing life in "easy mode" (I moved from academia over a decade ago, and I know the difference). This blog post tries to paint it differently - and it feels like it lacks perspective compared to virtually any other occupation. > We’re living in a world where billion dollar tech companies expect us to live and breathe code, demanding 80 hour weeks under the guise of "passion…

I can't relate to "easy mode" past the layoffs. Everything has turned into a nightmare with employer expectations. Everyone I speak to feels the same. Things are not the way they are. Absurd Schedules - Yes Unrealistic Deadlines - Yes Competing Colleageues -Yes Toxic environment - Yes Hard to switch - Yes Outsourcing - Yes Training your replacements -Yes How is this easy mode? Mental labor can be as bad or even worse…

> How is this easy mode

There's jobs where you work 80 hours per week to maybe make $50-60k, and are so physical your body will be shot by 40 or 50...

Devs get compensated extremely well.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#322

Post by YZF »

chasd00 wrote: post #226
bawolff wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Software engineering is one of the ways of playing life in "easy mode" Is it though? People in software seem to be constantly talking about burnout/mental health issues. Like we need some explanation as to why software has such high pay, flexibility, limited education requirements, and yet not everyone in the world is doing it. High pay is usually a sign the job is compensating for being shitty in other ways.

One thing about software dev is it’s hard to do very well but pretty easy to do good enough. It’s when good enough becomes no longer acceptable all of a sudden that the job gets very hard and people get burned. That’s not always fair though. Another interesting part of software dev is expectations change radically. I’m not in construction but I don’t think a developer can ask a construction team to build a skyscraper…

You're under-estimating how easy it is to do good enough. During the dot com boom many people with academic degrees in various fields tried to move over to software development with very limited success. That's like the top few % of the population to start with. Only some tiny fraction of those were in the good enough to successful range and many were ejected from the market when it crashed to never come back.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#323

Post by umeshunni »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #18

Class consciousness is firmly in the zeitgeist: witness season 1 of Severance. There is no going back from this, as once you are disillusioned it is much harder to be re-illusioned. There will be some sort of collective response by white-collar professionals at some point. I think people are ready for change.

> Class consciousness is firmly in the zeitgeist

More like people who work in some media companies have certain political beliefs that may or may not be out of touch of broader society. Witness their constant surprise at election results as an example.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#324

Post by rockemsockem »

whoisthemachine wrote: post #310
rockemsockem wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK why, but I totally mixed up ABET with the professional engineering credentials where individuals get accredited as opposed to curriculums. I'm not sure ABET is the most relevant here? What would making CS programs accredited change?

Consistent educational standards leads to a common shared understanding of what knowledge and training your engineering colleagues have. This also makes it easier right off the bat for an employer to know what a "junior" engineer is - and leads to more consistent experience levels afterwards. And you didn't quite mix it up, a degree from an ABET accredited school is required to get your professional engineering certi…

I think there's still a lot of inconsistency and judgement that happens for gauging whether someone is junior and for what skills they might have. Many software engineers don't have CS degrees at all and even more have ones from different countries.

I am unable to find concrete numbers on this, but I would bet that the majority of employed engineers in the US do not carry a professional engineering certification.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#325

Post by rockemsockem »

Apocryphon wrote: post #304
rockemsockem wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't trust a credentialing board to vet my coworkers for me. EDIT: i.e. I'm still going to want to interview them and have them prove to me that they can write code.

And yet, that's what we do with CoderPad, Leetcode, Karat, etc. Yes, of course you should still interview them afterwards, I'm sure that's what credentialed professions do as well. My point is just to have the Leetcode portion be done once rather than for every company's interview.

No, but that's what I'm saying though.

I don't trust someone else, especially some credentialing body to administer leetcode style questions. I'm still going to want to have a candidate prove they can actually write code.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#326

Post by malfist »

dismalaf wrote: post #321
conqrr wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't relate to "easy mode" past the layoffs. Everything has turned into a nightmare with employer expectations. Everyone I speak to feels the same. Things are not the way they are. Absurd Schedules - Yes Unrealistic Deadlines - Yes Competing Colleageues -Yes Toxic environment - Yes Hard to switch - Yes Outsourcing - Yes Training your replacements -Yes How is this easy mode? Mental labor can be as bad or even worse…

> How is this easy mode There's jobs where you work 80 hours per week to maybe make $50-60k, and are so physical your body will be shot by 40 or 50... Devs get compensated extremely well.

So what? Because somebody has it worse means billionaires can exploit us without recourse?

Because that's the alternative. Either we advocate or they take more and more

Re: The Burnout Machine

#327

Post by actionfromafar »

Aeolun wrote: post #263
bombcar wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

How much experience with contract killers do you have to make that assessment?

Most "contract killers" aren't the super pro movie kind. (Though I'm sure they exist.) Most are young guys, or children even, doing sloppy hit-n-runs to climb some gang hierarchy for really not a lot of money.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#328

Post by api »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #18

Class consciousness is firmly in the zeitgeist: witness season 1 of Severance. There is no going back from this, as once you are disillusioned it is much harder to be re-illusioned. There will be some sort of collective response by white-collar professionals at some point. I think people are ready for change.

It’s certainly one thing in the zeitgeist but I still have the sense that culture war stuff has a much firmer grip on a larger number of people and has a lot more power to swing elections.

That includes both its left wing “woke” form and its right wing reactionary form.

Very anecdotal but it also seems that the culture war stuff is stronger among those making less money, which would be the target audience for any class revolt rhetoric. Could be wrong though. Maybe my sample size is just small.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#329

Post by dismalaf »

malfist wrote: post #326
dismalaf wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is this easy mode There's jobs where you work 80 hours per week to maybe make $50-60k, and are so physical your body will be shot by 40 or 50... Devs get compensated extremely well.

So what? Because somebody has it worse means billionaires can exploit us without recourse? Because that's the alternative. Either we advocate or they take more and more

It's fine to demand more. I'm a believer in market power.

But have some perspective, there's a ton of far worse jobs...

Re: The Burnout Machine

#330

Post by AndyKelley »

stared wrote: post #100

Software engineering is one of the ways of playing life in "easy mode" (I moved from academia over a decade ago, and I know the difference). This blog post tries to paint it differently - and it feels like it lacks perspective compared to virtually any other occupation. > We’re living in a world where billion dollar tech companies expect us to live and breathe code, demanding 80 hour weeks under the guise of "passion…

This is the kicker:

> How many of us have been forced to work on projects that make us sick to our stomachs - surveillance tech, data mining tools, algorithms that reinforce social biases - because we don’t have the power to say no?

Those unprivileged people that you're trying to compare tech workers to, in order to undermine this manifesto, are exactly those who are harmed by dark patterns.

Anyway that's besides the point. Your profile says "Co-founder and CTO" which means you are biased against unions. Your comments cannot be taken at face value, because you are incentivized to come up with any reason to side against this movement.

Post reply on HN