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It's okay to code on nights and weekends

tej.as

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Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends

#61

Post by erosivesoul »

devsda wrote: post #57
zelphirkalt wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this hits the mark, or almost hits the mark. I think there is more to it. People who are passionate about computer programming and also do it off the job will over time gain more experience and knowledge than their only on the job counterparts. There is at least one additional anxiety, which is, that in a company people don't listen to those, who do it with passion, and rather play hierarchy games. When they…

> People who are passionate about computer programming and also do it off the job will over time gain more experience and knowledge than their only on the job counterparts. Those who are passionate also have a tendency to use their personal time to "try/do/fix that one last thing for work" because they are really excited. The problem is the said extra work gradually eats into personal time & projects and it raises ba…

This is something I had to learn the hard way. My first job, I didn't even sign up as a programmer. One day someone was like, man, this is such a boring task (setting up excel sheets from one format to another). So I wrote a VBA script to automate it. At the time I was playing with C# and bash at home, setting up a home lab. So when I started getting asked to write other things, I was elated. Fast forward a year or two and now I'm the "VBA/bash/C#/typescript/react/sql/blah" guy and I've gone from solving work problems for fun and doing it just because I have to. That job didn't last long after that point. My current job has pretty clear-cut lines. I only work on work-related stuff at work, and personal stuff at home.

Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends

#62

Post by datavirtue »

diggan wrote: post #49
ghaff wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Music making? Probably. If I'm a landscaper, I'm not sure I need to have a garden at home. Finance? Other than managing my personal finances, I'm not sure I'd have any reason to be an active bond trader in my spare time even if that's what I did all day. Hopefully you like your day job well enough but lots of very competent people shut it off when they go home.

> If I'm a landscaper, I'm not sure I need to have a garden at home. There are more professions around gardening than specifically landscaping :) And yes, they have communities and hard-core fans who read books, engage with community members and spend basically 24/7 thinking about plants and what not. Same with finance. You've never met any finance-bros who just can't stop talking about finance every time you look th…

I'm so bored with software, be careful not to bring up finance around me.

Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends

#63

Post by asdasdsddd »

boh wrote: post #54
asdasdsddd wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes like 5 years ago

Without pointing out that what happened five years ago doesn't reflect current priorities, that wasn't really a thing back then either. Unless you're fresh out of college with zero previous experience, your work experience is the only thing that matters. Don't let the feel-good, you-can-do-it, power-through posts fool you, a side project getting you a job is a rarity (unless you're one of the first 10 programmers on…

My data points were from employers, not blog posts.

Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends

#64

Post by hello_moto »

htrp wrote: post #51
diggan wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I agree with all that. But software development also often seems to have a strong thread that if you don't also do this for fun, you're not really A material--in a way that really doesn't apply to other engineering disciplines. This is the same in every space/community/hobby I've ever participated in. The people who don't live and breathe $SUBJECT 24/7 are often passed off as "posers" and only doing it for the mone…

> in everything from software engineering, finance, gardening, music making, game development or whatever. In finance, the A tier people don't have work/life balance. It's expected for them to demand effective 24/7 availability (and they get paid accordingly)

Likewise in Software. Those A-Tier paygrade is expected to be on-call (24/7 through weekend) no-bonus, lead big projects, review codebases, teach juniors...

Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends

#65

Post by ghaff »

hello_moto wrote: post #64
htrp wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in everything from software engineering, finance, gardening, music making, game development or whatever. In finance, the A tier people don't have work/life balance. It's expected for them to demand effective 24/7 availability (and they get paid accordingly)

Likewise in Software. Those A-Tier paygrade is expected to be on-call (24/7 through weekend) no-bonus, lead big projects, review codebases, teach juniors...

Or exec salaries tend to come with a lot of baggage. Yes, some do fairly disconnected personal travel. But there tend to be pretty long hours and a lot of business travel that I've seen.

Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends

#67

Post by [deleted] »

bee_rider wrote: post #11
threatofrain wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a hypothetical employer, should I be allowed to select for people who love programming because my internal metrics say they're an awesome fit? If so, then that's where the fundamental pressure is going to come from. So we can be on HN and sing "Oh, you do you!" but that won't relieve the fundamental source of pressure.

You can, but I think it might be a little hard to do so. I mean it is a well known thing and so people will game it, right? We have people grinding levels leetcode now to trick you. Of course you are probably savvy to that. But who knows what else they’ll do? Getting a good job is a life-changing event, so they are very motivated to trick you… I love programming. How much? I’ve written a bunch of little programs that…

[deleted]

Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends

#68

Post by bad_haircut72 »

bee_rider wrote: post #25
x0xrx wrote: post #3

A lot of people that are in tech because it’s a good job got pressured to make it their life. They reasonably pushed back, but the upshot was those of us that are passionate about programming as a hobby got pressured to not do it for fun. Both things are unreasonable. You shouldn’t have to program for fun to get a job. You can be good at it as a profession only. You also should be allowed to love it as a vocation or…

I think there is some anxiety on the part of people who love code, and find the computer to be a little magic almost-thinking box that is one of the most interesting things humans have ever invented, that the boring careerists will take all the fun out of it. Somebody is willing to pay us to play with the magic box, but now these other folks have come along and they don’t even seem to enjoy the game? WTF, go away if…

There's more anxiety in the people who only code for $$ because deep down they know they're at a disadvantage, so they try to suppress the hobby/passion people with all kinds of "x should y" statements.

Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends

#70

Post by shswkna »

threatofrain wrote: post #4
x0xrx wrote: post #3

A lot of people that are in tech because it’s a good job got pressured to make it their life. They reasonably pushed back, but the upshot was those of us that are passionate about programming as a hobby got pressured to not do it for fun. Both things are unreasonable. You shouldn’t have to program for fun to get a job. You can be good at it as a profession only. You also should be allowed to love it as a vocation or…

As a hypothetical employer, should I be allowed to select for people who love programming because my internal metrics say they're an awesome fit? If so, then that's where the fundamental pressure is going to come from. So we can be on HN and sing "Oh, you do you!" but that won't relieve the fundamental source of pressure.

If a company’s goal is to bring rockets to mars/solve world transport logistics/create driverless cars/etc/etc, you are not going to care about what is fair or what creates pressure. You will find the persons that can get the job done. Things like preventing burn out or balancing work with personal life will be dealt within the scope of reaching that goal. Many sensitivities in this thread or considerations of whats fair and isn’t, is really irrelevant. What goal is being pursued, and how can it be reached sensibly, is what matters in the end.
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