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The Burnout Machine

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Re: The Burnout Machine

#521

Post by hylaride »

mojomark wrote: post #399
mojomark wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting take, but I have a slightly different take. My ding dong company pays everyone including myself, salaries that are way too high. They gave ne a 30% raise I didn't even ask for or expect. We get a contract to do X, which say should take a team of 5 folks. However, we can only staff the contract with 3 folks because our salaries are too high. Now, we're all working 80hr weeks and stressed to the…

Really weird that my comment was downvoted. No idea why. I guess HN just isn't for me after 10 years. Peace out.

Nah, there are people that run companies here, too. Many of them drink the cool-aide.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#522

Post by wat10000 »

roncesvalles wrote: post #279
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…

In my experience as a software engineer rounding out 6 years now, what I have observed in myself and others is that the work pressure that leads to burnout in SWEs is largely self-imposed. I have some conjectures as to why that may be: 1. High variability of pay, not only between companies but within companies. As a SWE your total compensation can be expected to double every two promotions, and promotions can be pret…

I'd add 3: most of us really like this stuff. Sometimes I get pinged in the evening for some issue. I have the freedom to say I'll check it out in the morning, or on Monday. Sometimes I do, but often I'll look at it. There's definitely a little bit of 2 in there, but mostly it's because checking it out is fun, and solving it is rewarding.

I try not to overdo it. You can still burn out from that sort of thing even if you like it. But as long as it's not excessive, I enjoy the occasional "Sorry it's late, but are you around to take a look at this?"

Re: The Burnout Machine

#523

Post by snozolli »

nradov wrote: post #431
snozolli wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software engineers do basically no physical labor I developed debilitating tendinitis in both wrists right about the time I graduated college. A decade later, I developed a bulged disc in my neck that ended my career. There are very real risks to your body from sitting at a computer, deep in thought all day. There's a whole other swath of health issues, too, beside injury risks.

Take some responsibility for your own health. You're not chained to your desk; get up and walk around occasionally. Go for a run or hit a quick gym session during your lunch break. I started having wrist pain years ago and switched to an ergonomic split keyboard years ago which completely fixed that problem. Little laptop keyboard are terrible for any extensive typing.

Take some responsibility for your own health.

Thank you for the lecture about problems I solved decades ago.

I started having wrist pain years ago and switched to an ergonomic split keyboard

Oh, wooow, such sage advice. If you spend some time dealing with repetitive stress injuries, you'll learn that causes and solutions vary tremendously.

Little laptop keyboard are terrible for any extensive typing.

Why are you telling me this?

Re: The Burnout Machine

#524

Post by nerdponx »

film42 wrote: post #11

I think unions need to work on their marketing. I resonate with all of these problems, but the "fixes" sound like a politician saying, "elect me and I'll solve your problems." What's the A+ example out there of a unionized engineering team that has been able to find a great work-life balance, great benefits, and a fun product development life-cycle that is profitable or clearly on its way to profitability? Show me th…

Unions need to stop marketing themselves as a way to get better work-life balance. The main benefit of unions is that employees are protected from individual abuse, because the entire union can put pressure on management in support of individuals who are being mistreated, underpaid, etc.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#527

Post by bluefirebrand »

thom__ wrote: post #28

Awesome to see something like this on HN. As we keep working for less pay, more hours, the constant threat of layoffs, and business leaders frothing at the mouth to replace us all with AI, it's important to remember that we aren't powerless as workers. It's also important to remember that your relationship to the higher-ups is adversarial. They want to get as much productivity out of you for as little pay as possible…

> It's not because they're evil, it's just good business

Almost everything I have ever heard described as "good business" is pretty evil

You never hear "Oh we should give everyone a raise, that's just good business"

It's always stuff like "we put 10000 orphans through a meat grinder to make 10 cents, it wasn't personal it was just good business"

Edit: of course that is an exaggeration

But more realistic examples include things like "we laid off 200 people the week before Christmas so we hit our targets for the next year. Not personal, just good business"

Frankly, maybe if companies need to make such "good business" tradeoffs frequently, it shows that the people running them aren't actually good at business in the first place

Re: The Burnout Machine

#528

Post by fwip »

paulcole wrote: post #498
bradlys wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a capitalist market, it is explicitly not proportional to the amount of value you provide. That is the underlaying principle of capitalism… Read up a bit, man. Even a capitalist would agree with this.

I can assure you it is. You get paid X. You deliver Y value. The proportion is X / Y. Sometimes that proportion is very high, sometimes it is very low. Sometimes it is negative. Sometimes you get a divide by zero error. And again, the questions. What specific proportion do you think is fair? And how do you calculate the value you provide?

I don't think you understand what "proportional" means. It doesn't mean "there are two numbers."

It means that when looking at all employees, compensation is strongly linearly correlated to provided value.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#529

Post by hiatus »

rockemsockem wrote: post #325
Apocryphon wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you perform interviews on potential doctors or lawyers you may choose to use? If you trust credentialing bodies for such important services why the distrust for something non-lifethreatening like an employee?

Re: The Burnout Machine

#530

Post by nekochanwork »

I am an engineering manager for a large team of developers. Part of my job is to estimate the cost and potential revenue of big projects. I have a spreadsheet of everyone's salaries (including bonus compensation, other perks).

I've done the math at my own company: average developer salary is approximately $100k. Our largest teams have 10 developers, so about $1M in labor costs. These teams work on projects that bring the company $10M every year.

We literally earn $1,000,000 for every $100,000 developer salary. Developers are some of the most productive workers in the world, but only keep 10-20% of the fruits of their own labor.

I am shocked that developers haven't figured this out. Almost all of the value they create goes into the pockets of their CEO.

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