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

What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?

alexkras.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 213 posts

Re: What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?

#81

Post by fridek »

crispyambulance wrote: post #63

I think "CRUD" applications are getting an undeserved bad rap. There's always interesting challenges involved, which sadly gets dismissed as "business logic". If CRUD apps were really so brainless, there would have been a race-to-the-bottom plethora of platforms/tools by now that allow domain experts to create their own applications. Another way to look at is that CRUD apps put food on the table for you guys. Be grat…

CRUD apps are 90% brainless. The only challenge not solved by phpMyAdmin or others alike is UI and nice connections between the data. There were already attempts at generating this 90% just to decorate with UI and additional logic, but I feel it will take some time to do it well. People got burned by GWT and other backend + frontend solutions.

Also "CRUD apps put food on the table for you guys. Be grateful!" is a really broken way of thinking. Salary after a certain point doesn't increase happiness that much [1] so there is no good reason to work on CRUD apps if one doesn't like that and can cover their needs otherwise.

[1] http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2019628...

Re: What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?

#82

Post by dkopi »

askyourmother wrote: post #16

For me, the best part is interviewing for new jobs. You have not lived till you are asked to reverse sort a binary tree, whilst skipping on one leg, having to show you are passionate about the job! The disappointment was that the actual job did not entail data structures, Algorithms or even skipping! Just CRUD web apps.

Yeah, but If I had to reverse a linked list without recursion to be hired, I'll be damned if I'm going to allow someone else to be hired without doing that.

Re: What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?

#83

Post by Gigablah »

erikb wrote: post #25

I love being tech lead or team lead or project manager or whatever you want to call the mid level just above software dev. I feel I can have more impact in that area, meetings aren't bothering me too much yet (after a little over 3 years), and most of the problems can be circumvented by being smart, just as in software dev. Think about the scope problem. You never have enough resources to achieve all the goals the cu…

I dunno, you get to call your compiler all sorts of names without violating HR policy.

Re: What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?

#84

Post by lgieron »

fridek wrote: post #81
crispyambulance wrote: post #63

I think "CRUD" applications are getting an undeserved bad rap. There's always interesting challenges involved, which sadly gets dismissed as "business logic". If CRUD apps were really so brainless, there would have been a race-to-the-bottom plethora of platforms/tools by now that allow domain experts to create their own applications. Another way to look at is that CRUD apps put food on the table for you guys. Be grat…

CRUD apps are 90% brainless. The only challenge not solved by phpMyAdmin or others alike is UI and nice connections between the data. There were already attempts at generating this 90% just to decorate with UI and additional logic, but I feel it will take some time to do it well. People got burned by GWT and other backend + frontend solutions. Also "CRUD apps put food on the table for you guys. Be grateful!" is a rea…

> so there is no good reason to work on CRUD apps if one doesn't like that and can cover their needs otherwise.

Early retirement.

Re: What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?

#85

Post by fit2rule »

jventura wrote: post #62
fit2rule wrote: post #46

For me: new hardware. There's nothing I like more about this business, than to get code working on a new piece of gear. It just keeps coming and coming. So fun!

Give it a few years doing the same thing, and it'll probably get boring as hell..

30+ years, still going strong! :)

Re: What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?

#86

Post by lgieron »

scotty79 wrote: post #31
Flashuk100 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a comp sci student up north, are the salaries in London worth the hassle of living in London? Don't get me wrong I like visiting London, but I wouldn't want to live there unless the incentive is too good to pass up.

They are barely worth the hassle of relocating from Poland to London. High rent eats up almost all of the gain.

How's that? You net maybe 2-2.5k pounds per month contracting in Warsaw, and 8k for an equivalent job in London. Rent and commute in London is maybe 1k more than in Warsaw.

Re: What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?

#87

Post by alex_hitchins »

cm3 wrote: post #74
blowski wrote: post #34

When I was at school we had to interview our headmaster, and somebody asked him if he thought his job was difficult. His answer has always stayed with me: "Compared to lying on a beach drinking cocktails, it's difficult. But compared to a coal miner, it's ridiculously easy." Would I rather be a software developer - even one who is building boring CRUD apps - or a coal miner?

That's too simplistic of a view. Physical work is hard on your body, but mind work is equally hard and you cannot brute force most of it. The mind needs to process complicated problems asynchronously, while you let it rest by taking a walk or doing house cleaning, but physical work needs no such thing, as long as your body condition is sufficient.

Have you ever tried a hard, manual labour job?

Re: What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?

#88

Post by epalmer »

I don't develop more than 30% of my time but I love it none-the-less. I'm 62 years old.

I find software architecting, developing, and operational troubleshooting to be fun, requires a holistic view of a problem set, requires creative problem solving and more.

I find development an outlet to create (make) stuff. I work at a university on the east coast of the USA and am on a high performing team that has not lost a member for at least 5 years. We love each others talents and respect each other's abilities.

I expect to work full time till I am at least 67 and hope to be able to work part time till I am ~70.

Edit: 62 years old not 63

Re: What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?

#89

Post by lgieron »

jetengine wrote: post #76

What are your experiences with creative jobs? I'm currently making 1.5 times median income (compared to the rest of the country) as a Java back-end programmer. But it's not the most exciting job because all I'm doing is keeping legacy code alive and implementing new business specifications. I have thought of going back to my old job as web-developer, doing cool stuff with Node, Angular and all the cool cutting-edge t…

> I have thought of going back to my old job as web-developer, doing cool stuff with Node, Angular and all the cool cutting-edge technology.

I'd take Java over JavaScript any day. These technologies are trendy, but they're definitely not cutting-edge or cool.

Re: What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?

#90

Post by bshimmin »

joshvm wrote: post #65
Flashuk100 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a comp sci student up north, are the salaries in London worth the hassle of living in London? Don't get me wrong I like visiting London, but I wouldn't want to live there unless the incentive is too good to pass up.

If you see living in London as a hassle, then you should stay up North. I would hazard a guess and suggest that the salary would have to be at least double what you could earn up there to make it worthwhile. Have a look at Scotland, plenty of tech companies there and it's a lovely place to live.

100% this. Some people simply do not like London - they stand atop the tube station at Oxford Circus and look at the succession and repetition of massed humanity (to quote Waugh) and think, "How unpleasant." Even if you're making a six figure salary, if you find that many people - and everything else that goes hand-in-hand with that - unpleasant, it will grind you down; that salary won't cheer you up every time you're having a horrible, hot, sweaty commute, or you're staring in misery at your lack of garden, or wishing that the other tenants in your building would stop stealing your copy of The Economist.

I personally like London very much, but eight years of it (and now just a day every two or three weeks) was plenty for me.

Post reply on HN