4 ms·

I'm an engineer at heart, but I do have bills to pay and I can become interested in basically any complex system. If EE paid better, I would be an EE. EE is in

by vostok 4y ago

I'm an engineer at heart, but I do have bills to pay and I can become interested in basically any complex system. If EE paid better, I would be an EE. EE is interesting. Neither SWE nor my chosen career are sufficiently less interesting than EE though so it's not like I picked an uninteresting career for financial reasons. At the end of the day it's all just problem solving. If the puzzles are all fun and don't go against my principles, I might as well go work for the highest bidder.

resonious 4y ago
I agree with this. It's easy to get caught up in a very binary "in it for the money" vs "doing what you love" mindset, but I think the reality is a balance of both. Money is actually quite great and I am willing to compromise a little bit in my day job in order to receive more money. At the same time, there are some jobs I simply do not want to do, even if they may be higher paid than what I'm doing now.
- bumby 4y ago
  This is exactly my point. The issue I was pointing out is that the comments only spoke to a single side of this, with none of the nuance you provided.
lordnacho 4y ago
Exactly this. In uni I got offered internships as part of the course, to write my Master's thesis. An engineering firm in Aerospace offered me a job doing something with airplanes. Pretty interesting, but paid £12K/yr, which really isn't much money, even for a student. I kept my mouth shut (uni wanted us to take whatever came) and got offered a job at a major chip manufacturer, but in marketing. Also interesting, £15K/yr. I took it and learned a bunch about that business. I went to visit a friend in London who'd gotten an internship working at an investment bank. £38K/yr. What do you suppose I applied to when I graduated? It wasn't engineering or marketing. As things happened, I'm still an engineer. I just make algorithms to move money around, and that's also got nerd value, since there's interesting problems in financial trading as well. I've literally has days where I made more money for myself than I would have gotten in a whole year at either of the other careers. I also ran into people who'd dumped those careers to work in finance, because the incentive is so strong (colleague directly told me he saw his boss's payslip, then decided to leave).
- bumby 4y ago
  I had a professor who’s brother worked in finance and he openly admitted his brother sometimes paid more in taxes than he got in salary. So I understand where you’re coming from. And I do think some of that finance work has value. But let me ask, if you had to put a percentage on it, how many of the best and brightest would you want going into finance vs say, medicine or physics? At what point does it tip to being a worse outcome for society? What percentage should go to ad-spend software jobs? The problem as I see it is when we’re acting on a value system with the singular goal of making the most money, it can become a sort of prisoner’s dilemma where the rational choice at the individual level leads to worse outcomes for the group (to include the individual making the choice)
  - lordnacho 4y ago
    I don't know what the right amount is, but with the numbers being where they are, it just seems like doing any of the jobs that are considered socially useful (doctor/nurse/policeman/research/etc) is simply too big a sacrifice if you have the choice. You might be right about the prisoner's dilemma: if you are an engineer and you get an offer from the cure for cancer research group, vs potentially 7 figures in a few years, it's going to be awfully hard to save humanity.
bumby 4y ago
This is a very reasonable take. As you say, you can become interested in any complex systems to try and solve problems, so the main differentiator can become money. The issue I was pointing to is nobody else was pointing out that same context, they were solely about money. Not solving worthwhile problems. Not developing skill sets. Just the paycheck

by vostok 4y ago

resonious 4y ago

I agree with this. It's easy to get caught up in a very binary "in it for the money" vs "doing what you love" mindset, but I think the reality is a balance of both. Money is actually quite great and I am willing to compromise a little bit in my day job in order to receive more money. At the same time, there are some jobs I simply do not want to do, even if they may be higher paid than what I'm doing now.

bumby 4y ago
This is exactly my point. The issue I was pointing out is that the comments only spoke to a single side of this, with none of the nuance you provided.

lordnacho 4y ago

Exactly this. In uni I got offered internships as part of the course, to write my Master's thesis. An engineering firm in Aerospace offered me a job doing something with airplanes. Pretty interesting, but paid £12K/yr, which really isn't much money, even for a student. I kept my mouth shut (uni wanted us to take whatever came) and got offered a job at a major chip manufacturer, but in marketing. Also interesting, £15K/yr. I took it and learned a bunch about that business. I went to visit a friend in London who'd gotten an internship working at an investment bank. £38K/yr. What do you suppose I applied to when I graduated? It wasn't engineering or marketing. As things happened, I'm still an engineer. I just make algorithms to move money around, and that's also got nerd value, since there's interesting problems in financial trading as well. I've literally has days where I made more money for myself than I would have gotten in a whole year at either of the other careers. I also ran into people who'd dumped those careers to work in finance, because the incentive is so strong (colleague directly told me he saw his boss's payslip, then decided to leave).

bumby 4y ago
I had a professor who’s brother worked in finance and he openly admitted his brother sometimes paid more in taxes than he got in salary. So I understand where you’re coming from. And I do think some of that finance work has value. But let me ask, if you had to put a percentage on it, how many of the best and brightest would you want going into finance vs say, medicine or physics? At what point does it tip to being a worse outcome for society? What percentage should go to ad-spend software jobs? The problem as I see it is when we’re acting on a value system with the singular goal of making the most money, it can become a sort of prisoner’s dilemma where the rational choice at the individual level leads to worse outcomes for the group (to include the individual making the choice)
- lordnacho 4y ago
  I don't know what the right amount is, but with the numbers being where they are, it just seems like doing any of the jobs that are considered socially useful (doctor/nurse/policeman/research/etc) is simply too big a sacrifice if you have the choice. You might be right about the prisoner's dilemma: if you are an engineer and you get an offer from the cure for cancer research group, vs potentially 7 figures in a few years, it's going to be awfully hard to save humanity.

bumby 4y ago

This is a very reasonable take. As you say, you can become interested in any complex systems to try and solve problems, so the main differentiator can become money. The issue I was pointing to is nobody else was pointing out that same context, they were solely about money. Not solving worthwhile problems. Not developing skill sets. Just the paycheck