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Since my best and most enjoyable programming happens at home during off hours, I wonder about how good the job is. If you happen to work at a company that 'get

by johnrob 18y ago

Since my best and most enjoyable programming happens at home during off hours, I wonder about how good the job is. If you happen to work at a company that 'gets it' (let this mean whatever YOU want it to mean, different for everyone), it's probably the best job around for a tech oriented person. However, LOTS of companies don't 'get it', and they make longstanding infrastructure decisions that make our job less fun and productive.

Tamerlin 18y ago
It continues to amaze me that so many companies, my present one included, recruit people with a lot of talent and experience, pay them a lot of money, and assign them exactly the same work as the interns. In some cases, they end up having the interns build the new stuff and the seniors maintain the crap that the previous interns built... and they wonder why their systems are bug ridden, poorly thought out, and require gargantuan amounts of effort to fix.
- jrockway 18y ago
  they wonder why their systems are bug ridden, poorly thought out, and require gargantuan amounts of effort to fix. I think the problem is that nobody wonders about this. They think it's normal for software to be broken and very expensive to maintain. If you watch a novice user use software, you'll notice that they blame themselves when the software fucks up. If they're in a building that collapses, however, they blame the engineer. I'm not sure how we convinced users that bad software was their fault, but it's not something I'm proud about. "Civil Engineering" means something. "Software Engineering" is meaningless. The other problem is that programmers don't know what users want, and users don't know what to ask for. So we guess, and they're unhappy, but they don't know why. sigh.
  - Tamerlin 18y ago
    Good point. One depressing thing that I've noticed is that most of the best people I know in the field are seeking to leave it. This community is for an exception, although it probably has a lot to do with the fact that I was in the DC area for most of my career, and most of the work there is government-related in some fashion, even in the startups. Still, the fact remains that because people are willing to accept crappy software, the bar for entry is low, and the industry has a tendency to drive out the good people by treating them the same way that they treat the bad ones, which is to say, like peons.
  - xiaoma 18y ago
    How do you do italics on Hacker News?

by johnrob 18y ago

Tamerlin 18y ago

It continues to amaze me that so many companies, my present one included, recruit people with a lot of talent and experience, pay them a lot of money, and assign them exactly the same work as the interns. In some cases, they end up having the interns build the new stuff and the seniors maintain the crap that the previous interns built... and they wonder why their systems are bug ridden, poorly thought out, and require gargantuan amounts of effort to fix.

jrockway 18y ago
they wonder why their systems are bug ridden, poorly thought out, and require gargantuan amounts of effort to fix. I think the problem is that nobody wonders about this. They think it's normal for software to be broken and very expensive to maintain. If you watch a novice user use software, you'll notice that they blame themselves when the software fucks up. If they're in a building that collapses, however, they blame the engineer. I'm not sure how we convinced users that bad software was their fault, but it's not something I'm proud about. "Civil Engineering" means something. "Software Engineering" is meaningless. The other problem is that programmers don't know what users want, and users don't know what to ask for. So we guess, and they're unhappy, but they don't know why. sigh.
- Tamerlin 18y ago
  Good point. One depressing thing that I've noticed is that most of the best people I know in the field are seeking to leave it. This community is for an exception, although it probably has a lot to do with the fact that I was in the DC area for most of my career, and most of the work there is government-related in some fashion, even in the startups. Still, the fact remains that because people are willing to accept crappy software, the bar for entry is low, and the industry has a tendency to drive out the good people by treating them the same way that they treat the bad ones, which is to say, like peons.
- xiaoma 18y ago
  How do you do italics on Hacker News?