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I became a software engineer because I enjoyed programming as a hobby and I was good at it. That was twenty years ago. Now I'm still doing it because of the pay

I became a software engineer because I enjoyed programming as a hobby and I was good at it. That was twenty years ago. Now I'm still doing it because of the pay and not much else.

yetihehe 6y ago
The same, but I'm still enjoing it. I'm working in day job in erlang, c, python and sometimes in what's required at the moment. Probably the most important thing is to find a job, where what you are doing is challenging.
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  Rather than challenging, I look for work that helps people. I don't mean necessarily charity work that feeds the homeless or something, though that obviously fits. But even if I'm just working on an Outlook plugin that helps you schedule your meetings, that's useful work for people, it hopefully reduces your hassle. That's the kind of thing I find rewarding, making your day suck slightly less. This isn't me saying your way is wrong and my way is right, just offering a different approach to job search.
  - lhorie 6y ago
    Personally, I took to heart at an early age the idea of not looking for something you love, but instead finding something you can tolerate. Work - almost by definition - "sucks" in some very subjective way, otherwise it wouldn't be called work. But at the same time, one person's pain is another's gain. Thinking about work in terms of objective drudgery that one doesn't mind doing (or even better, that one enjoys doing) is one way to avoid the mental dichotomy of drudgery-vs-reward since then the work itself is either its own reward, or it just doesn't tip the scales negatively, philosophically speaking. In a way, it's a form of taking pleasure in small things, like feeling accomplished after cleaning the kitchen even though cleaning a kitchen is almost universally considered drudgery.
    - Consultant32452 6y ago
      I'm very aligned with this. That's why I didn't focus too much on whether I enjoy the task, because every "job" will be drudgery after a point. A woodworker has a new cabinet or something at the end of the day. It's a real thing that is useful in the world and even if you stopped enjoying woodworking you at least see real tangible results from your work. This is much harder to get from IT/software dev. That's why I try to focus on whether my work makes someone else's drudgery less awful. It gives me the feeling that I did a real thing that accomplished something (however small) in the world.
    - huachimingo 6y ago
      Funny thing, in spanish we associate "trabajar" as the modern meaning of "working", but in old times was meant as "to torment or torture with the triple-club". This also happened in other romance languages.

I became a software engineer because I enjoyed programming as a hobby and I was good at it. That was twenty years ago. Now I'm still doing it because of the pay and not much else.

yetihehe 6y ago

The same, but I'm still enjoing it. I'm working in day job in erlang, c, python and sometimes in what's required at the moment. Probably the most important thing is to find a job, where what you are doing is challenging.

Consultant32452 6y ago
Rather than challenging, I look for work that helps people. I don't mean necessarily charity work that feeds the homeless or something, though that obviously fits. But even if I'm just working on an Outlook plugin that helps you schedule your meetings, that's useful work for people, it hopefully reduces your hassle. That's the kind of thing I find rewarding, making your day suck slightly less. This isn't me saying your way is wrong and my way is right, just offering a different approach to job search.
- lhorie 6y ago
  Personally, I took to heart at an early age the idea of not looking for something you love, but instead finding something you can tolerate. Work - almost by definition - "sucks" in some very subjective way, otherwise it wouldn't be called work. But at the same time, one person's pain is another's gain. Thinking about work in terms of objective drudgery that one doesn't mind doing (or even better, that one enjoys doing) is one way to avoid the mental dichotomy of drudgery-vs-reward since then the work itself is either its own reward, or it just doesn't tip the scales negatively, philosophically speaking. In a way, it's a form of taking pleasure in small things, like feeling accomplished after cleaning the kitchen even though cleaning a kitchen is almost universally considered drudgery.
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    I'm very aligned with this. That's why I didn't focus too much on whether I enjoy the task, because every "job" will be drudgery after a point. A woodworker has a new cabinet or something at the end of the day. It's a real thing that is useful in the world and even if you stopped enjoying woodworking you at least see real tangible results from your work. This is much harder to get from IT/software dev. That's why I try to focus on whether my work makes someone else's drudgery less awful. It gives me the feeling that I did a real thing that accomplished something (however small) in the world.
  - huachimingo 6y ago
    Funny thing, in spanish we associate "trabajar" as the modern meaning of "working", but in old times was meant as "to torment or torture with the triple-club". This also happened in other romance languages.