4 ms·

> My eyes couldn't be rolling harder. I have a successful career in tech of 20+ years, without a degree, and a HUGE amount of what's wrong with the culture of t

by dvt 9y ago

> My eyes couldn't be rolling harder. I have a successful career in tech of 20+ years, without a degree, and a HUGE amount of what's wrong with the culture of tech is that we are surrounded and led by folks who haven't studied sociology, political science, even economics, having HUMONGOUS impact on what those fields teach. Couldn't agree with this more. I'm relatively young, but I'm trying to get out of tech (and especially engineering) because of the lack of a stimulating cultural environment. The kind of conversations I like having, the kind of women I'd like to meet, and the kind of company I like to keep just don't exist in tech. Talking about video games was cool in my early 20s, but I've had 30+ coworkers that literally only talked about video games and the most recent tech stack. Yuck. Coming from having studied philosophy (at an elite school) and where most of my old classmates are lawyers now, it's kind of a bummer. As an aside, startup people/founders/investors tend to be much more eclectic, but tech, at the ground level, is an intellectual wasteland.

grivescorbett 9y ago
I’m glad other people feel the same as me. Sometimes it seems like if you’ve got a SDE job people think you’re the king of the hill. I’m working on an exit from tech as well.
- tayo42 9y ago
  Exit to what? It'll be really hard to get paid anywhere near what software jobs pay?
  - hdkmraf 9y ago
    Farming
  - grivescorbett 9y ago
    The idea that software engineers are paid more than everyone is a fallacy. There are a good deal of jobs that pay significantly more, especially when looked at over the long run. It generally does require going back to school, which is a risk/reward tradeoff that must be examined.
jschwartzi 9y ago
I can say that the older colleagues I've had can definitely have better conversations than what you're describing. One of my coworkers and I talk about skiing form, mountain climbing, and some of his experiences growing up in the 60's. I think your experience is a byproduct of the ageism in most of the web-development companies in the bay area. You might want to consider getting in to embedded development, or some similar field that's totally unsexy and where the tools haven't changed or lost their usefulness in decades. It's a good living and none of your coworkers will talk about video games if you don't want to.
uxp100 9y ago
> Coming from having studied philosophy (at an elite school) and where most of my old classmates are lawyers now, it's kind of a bummer. As an aside, startup people/founders/investors tend to be much more eclectic, but tech, at the ground level, is an intellectual wasteland. Now my eyes are rolling. It must be contagious. I'm sure the famously fascinating and well loved folks known as Lawyers will be better to work with.
- torstenvl 9y ago
  I know you were just trying to get in some cheap laughs by putting other people down, but being a lawyer has made my life much more fascinating. It's hard to imagine another profession that has as good a balance between intellectual depth (law is very much a technical skill) and intellectual breadth (a natural result of having to become conversant in whatever domain forms the context of the current dispute). Because of my job, I've learned so much about fields as diverse as Vitamin D testing and DNA identification to Sikh religious apparel to Hellfire missile post-launch abort procedures. So, I mean, you are of course entitled to laugh at the cliché of lawyers being boring suits. But the simple reality is that it's a deeply enriching field.
  - uxp100 9y ago
    Read that quote. Philosophy at an elite school, all my former classmates are lawyers, intellectual wasteland. The cheap laughs already happened.
- dang 9y ago
  Regardless of how annoying another comment is, please don't post unsubstantive comments here and especially please don't do flamewars here. Your comment downthread breaks the site guidelines even worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
solipsism 9y ago
Completely fucking anecdotal. I've been in tech for decades, in diverse industries, and I've had countless interactions with others on every subject imaginable, from Dostoevsky to quantum physics and everything in between. Perhaps you're unlucky, or perhaps there's some reason you're only ending up at places full of mindless cretins. Or perhaps the interesting people just don't care to invite you to the bar. In fact, some of the most interesting people I've interacted with worked with me at a game company. They could talk about games all day, but there was much more to them.
- dvt 9y ago
  > from Dostoevsky to quantum physics I can't really explain it, but that (embarrassingly) sounds like exactly what an engineer would say. As if people are supposed to swoon over Dostoevsky and quantum physics. It just reeks of pseudo-intellectualism and try-hard-ness. Compare that to @torstenvl's laundry list, which might seem a bit esoteric, but it definitely sounds genuine.
  - dang 9y ago
    Now you're crossing into personal attack. That's not ok. Please don't do that, even if another comment seems wrong or shallow. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

by dvt 9y ago

grivescorbett 9y ago

I’m glad other people feel the same as me. Sometimes it seems like if you’ve got a SDE job people think you’re the king of the hill. I’m working on an exit from tech as well.

tayo42 9y ago
Exit to what? It'll be really hard to get paid anywhere near what software jobs pay?
- hdkmraf 9y ago
  Farming
- grivescorbett 9y ago
  The idea that software engineers are paid more than everyone is a fallacy. There are a good deal of jobs that pay significantly more, especially when looked at over the long run. It generally does require going back to school, which is a risk/reward tradeoff that must be examined.

jschwartzi 9y ago

I can say that the older colleagues I've had can definitely have better conversations than what you're describing. One of my coworkers and I talk about skiing form, mountain climbing, and some of his experiences growing up in the 60's. I think your experience is a byproduct of the ageism in most of the web-development companies in the bay area. You might want to consider getting in to embedded development, or some similar field that's totally unsexy and where the tools haven't changed or lost their usefulness in decades. It's a good living and none of your coworkers will talk about video games if you don't want to.

uxp100 9y ago

> Coming from having studied philosophy (at an elite school) and where most of my old classmates are lawyers now, it's kind of a bummer. As an aside, startup people/founders/investors tend to be much more eclectic, but tech, at the ground level, is an intellectual wasteland. Now my eyes are rolling. It must be contagious. I'm sure the famously fascinating and well loved folks known as Lawyers will be better to work with.

torstenvl 9y ago
I know you were just trying to get in some cheap laughs by putting other people down, but being a lawyer has made my life much more fascinating. It's hard to imagine another profession that has as good a balance between intellectual depth (law is very much a technical skill) and intellectual breadth (a natural result of having to become conversant in whatever domain forms the context of the current dispute). Because of my job, I've learned so much about fields as diverse as Vitamin D testing and DNA identification to Sikh religious apparel to Hellfire missile post-launch abort procedures. So, I mean, you are of course entitled to laugh at the cliché of lawyers being boring suits. But the simple reality is that it's a deeply enriching field.
- uxp100 9y ago
  Read that quote. Philosophy at an elite school, all my former classmates are lawyers, intellectual wasteland. The cheap laughs already happened.
dang 9y ago
Regardless of how annoying another comment is, please don't post unsubstantive comments here and especially please don't do flamewars here. Your comment downthread breaks the site guidelines even worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

solipsism 9y ago

Completely fucking anecdotal. I've been in tech for decades, in diverse industries, and I've had countless interactions with others on every subject imaginable, from Dostoevsky to quantum physics and everything in between. Perhaps you're unlucky, or perhaps there's some reason you're only ending up at places full of mindless cretins. Or perhaps the interesting people just don't care to invite you to the bar. In fact, some of the most interesting people I've interacted with worked with me at a game company. They could talk about games all day, but there was much more to them.

dvt 9y ago
> from Dostoevsky to quantum physics I can't really explain it, but that (embarrassingly) sounds like exactly what an engineer would say. As if people are supposed to swoon over Dostoevsky and quantum physics. It just reeks of pseudo-intellectualism and try-hard-ness. Compare that to @torstenvl's laundry list, which might seem a bit esoteric, but it definitely sounds genuine.
- dang 9y ago
  Now you're crossing into personal attack. That's not ok. Please don't do that, even if another comment seems wrong or shallow. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html