4 ms·

58 minutes after posting, your post has 134 points and sits at the top of Ask HN. I think that answers your question a lot more clearly than the comments themse

58 minutes after posting, your post has 134 points and sits at the top of Ask HN. I think that answers your question a lot more clearly than the comments themselves. What you've said is clearly resonating with a lot of readers, even if they may not say so in the comments.

abledon 5y ago
its like one of those 'chat' scenes in tv shows where a bunch of AA or drug recovery people sit in a circle on chairs in a church basement and discuss their kafka-esque worklife issues
01100011 5y ago
Yes, but they're upvotes from people browsing HN on a work day. Don't think of it as a particularly random sample of programmers.
- aliceryhl 5y ago
  It's evening in Europe. We also have programmers here.
- NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
  Some of us (me) are on lunch.
- spurtrenolds 5y ago
  Ummmm You do realise the world (and time zones) extend beyond New York and Los Angeles don't you?
Viliam1234 5y ago
> What you've said is clearly resonating with a lot of readers, even if they may not say so in the comments. The way it resonates with me specifically, is that I am curious how does one get a job like this. Is this company hiring? Do they allow work from home? Don't get me wrong; I am a lazy person. If I had an opportunity to work like this, I probably would do it, too. But I don't know how. For example, it happens to me that I am assigned as the only developer on a project, the management prepares the list of features that must be completed during this month... but of course, we are "agile", so I have almost complete autonomy over choosing which part of the list I implement during the first sprint, and what will be left to implement during the second sprint... so at the end of the month, if the features are not implemented, it is obvious that I didn't do as much as I was supposed to. Or, how could I do "5 - 10 hours of actual work a week. I'm not even discounting job related but non-coding time as not work" when the meetings alone already take 5 hours a week. I keep regularly hearing about jobs where this is possible. So my question is, where exactly am I making the mistake that prevents me from getting one? As far as I know, this is not about salary; sometimes it seems to me that the companies that pay less actually require more work. Could it be that the mistake is the productivity itself? Like, if a manager notices you doing a lot (or just the average amount), then their "path of least resistance" is to assign more work to you, because then they know that the work will get done? But this sounds too self-congratulatory; I am actually not that productive. Or maybe I'm still above the average? That is a scary thought.
- breakpointalpha 5y ago
  1. You need to look for a team/project with more developers. It's hell to be a solo developer when you don't also control the "promised" features and timelines. I've worked 6 positions for 5 different companies over 12+ years. Two of those as a solo developer. Neither had upper management promising things I could deliver on deadlines. I was still fairly stressed out because I was always afraid I wouldn't be able to solve problems by myself. I can't imagine how torturous it would be to have someone with little understanding of code or my personal output making promises that I would have to keep! Look for an out, ASAP, in my opinion. 2. If you target very large organizations, you'll tend to have a lot more slack in delivery pace. Nearly everyone that works in the Fortune 50 or at a major US university works slower. I've worked for both, the feeling is just different. I think it's because everyone expects delays, paperwork, and process bureaucracy at every step. This gives you lots of breathing room to take a more pastoral approach to what's considered "productive". I think the work from home revolution has further enhanced that. I can say for sure in the 7 years of being a "senior full stack engineer" at a major org, I've worked after 5 pm less than 10 times. This isn't a bad thing, as typically you can trade time for less risk to the company. "I need an extra day to make sure this won't embarrass us / leak data / hurt customers / etc."
  - Viliam1234 5y ago
    Yes, working solo is scary. There are so many things that are needed for development these days, that almost everyone has a blind spot somewhere; at the very least in the "unknown unknowns" category. (People who insist that they know everything... they usually don't, they just refuse to admit when they are wrong about something.) My experience with working in a team is that when a team gets too successful, the management will start removing team members, to put them on a different project. (At the extreme case, this is how one can become the solo developer.) Which drives me crazy! It's like -- if you see that our team has great synergy and no personality conflicts, so we are too productive and could get more work done, why don't you instead assign a second project to the same team, so that we could use the same synergy there, too. And if the other project is similar (projects done in the same company usually are), we could even re-use half of the existing code. -- But, nope.
loeg 5y ago
People upvote interesting posts; they don't have to agree with OP's premise to find the discussion interesting.

abledon 5y ago

its like one of those 'chat' scenes in tv shows where a bunch of AA or drug recovery people sit in a circle on chairs in a church basement and discuss their kafka-esque worklife issues

01100011 5y ago

Yes, but they're upvotes from people browsing HN on a work day. Don't think of it as a particularly random sample of programmers.

aliceryhl 5y ago
It's evening in Europe. We also have programmers here.
NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
Some of us (me) are on lunch.
spurtrenolds 5y ago
Ummmm You do realise the world (and time zones) extend beyond New York and Los Angeles don't you?

Viliam1234 5y ago

> What you've said is clearly resonating with a lot of readers, even if they may not say so in the comments. The way it resonates with me specifically, is that I am curious how does one get a job like this. Is this company hiring? Do they allow work from home? Don't get me wrong; I am a lazy person. If I had an opportunity to work like this, I probably would do it, too. But I don't know how. For example, it happens to me that I am assigned as the only developer on a project, the management prepares the list of features that must be completed during this month... but of course, we are "agile", so I have almost complete autonomy over choosing which part of the list I implement during the first sprint, and what will be left to implement during the second sprint... so at the end of the month, if the features are not implemented, it is obvious that I didn't do as much as I was supposed to. Or, how could I do "5 - 10 hours of actual work a week. I'm not even discounting job related but non-coding time as not work" when the meetings alone already take 5 hours a week. I keep regularly hearing about jobs where this is possible. So my question is, where exactly am I making the mistake that prevents me from getting one? As far as I know, this is not about salary; sometimes it seems to me that the companies that pay less actually require more work. Could it be that the mistake is the productivity itself? Like, if a manager notices you doing a lot (or just the average amount), then their "path of least resistance" is to assign more work to you, because then they know that the work will get done? But this sounds too self-congratulatory; I am actually not that productive. Or maybe I'm still above the average? That is a scary thought.

breakpointalpha 5y ago
1. You need to look for a team/project with more developers. It's hell to be a solo developer when you don't also control the "promised" features and timelines. I've worked 6 positions for 5 different companies over 12+ years. Two of those as a solo developer. Neither had upper management promising things I could deliver on deadlines. I was still fairly stressed out because I was always afraid I wouldn't be able to solve problems by myself. I can't imagine how torturous it would be to have someone with little understanding of code or my personal output making promises that I would have to keep! Look for an out, ASAP, in my opinion. 2. If you target very large organizations, you'll tend to have a lot more slack in delivery pace. Nearly everyone that works in the Fortune 50 or at a major US university works slower. I've worked for both, the feeling is just different. I think it's because everyone expects delays, paperwork, and process bureaucracy at every step. This gives you lots of breathing room to take a more pastoral approach to what's considered "productive". I think the work from home revolution has further enhanced that. I can say for sure in the 7 years of being a "senior full stack engineer" at a major org, I've worked after 5 pm less than 10 times. This isn't a bad thing, as typically you can trade time for less risk to the company. "I need an extra day to make sure this won't embarrass us / leak data / hurt customers / etc."
- Viliam1234 5y ago
  Yes, working solo is scary. There are so many things that are needed for development these days, that almost everyone has a blind spot somewhere; at the very least in the "unknown unknowns" category. (People who insist that they know everything... they usually don't, they just refuse to admit when they are wrong about something.) My experience with working in a team is that when a team gets too successful, the management will start removing team members, to put them on a different project. (At the extreme case, this is how one can become the solo developer.) Which drives me crazy! It's like -- if you see that our team has great synergy and no personality conflicts, so we are too productive and could get more work done, why don't you instead assign a second project to the same team, so that we could use the same synergy there, too. And if the other project is similar (projects done in the same company usually are), we could even re-use half of the existing code. -- But, nope.

loeg 5y ago

People upvote interesting posts; they don't have to agree with OP's premise to find the discussion interesting.