13 ms·

Software engineering changed my life

86 points by koinedad 4y ago

melony 4y ago
If you want more confidence, try electronic engineering. It will make you question the value of your time.
- throwaway81348 4y ago
  Can you expand on " It will make you question the value of your time." ?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- koinedad 4y ago
  I would love to learn more in electronic engineering. But you’re saying the time necessary to spend can quickly feel not worth the investment?
wpietri 4y ago
Aww, this is great! I'm all for career-switchers joining in. As this describes, software is a very human pursuit. Outside experiences help bring different skills and perspectives to the work. And as he describes, that goes the other way too.
spaniard89277 4y ago
It's sad to see that fewer and fewer jobs provide enough to have a good life. If I have to point my finger to something it would be housing/land. Housing throghout the west is the instrument that extracts the most from poor and modal income brackets. Software development is above this misery line for now. If we want to live in places where all the employees that support your lifestyle can find meaning and means to a decent life, we have to take care about this. I remember when I was in my small northern Spain faculty, learning about the beginnings of industrialization and urban planning, it was pretty clear to me that there was a sentiment in the ruling class that, for them to have a decent place to live and not being forced to live inside their palaces and houses, social stability was needed. And such goal could only be achieved providing amenities for the common man. It was for the best interest of the ruling class. Nowadays it seems to me that one can move up the payscale and forget about it. But I don't want crime in my neighborhood, nor homeless. I don't want to hear that someone I know lost his job and it's on the verge of hitting the street. A cashier should be able to pay rent, transport, utilities and a decent life.
- kqr2 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noblesse_oblige https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noblesse_oblige Housing in the West due to insufficient development is effectively a zero-sum game. So once people have their share, they do everything they can to maintain it's value. Great HN comment on a recent thread with regards to land and rent-seeking: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32961554 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32961554
  - peterangular 4y ago
    Shelter as an investment vehicle leads to consolidation. And, no one in the capital class is going to address the scarcity as it's a conflict of their interests. Rent in my city has been going insane. At the end of the day this is all just capitalism and voting for your own interests. We optimize for this.
  - kitsunesoba 4y ago
    Housing and land as a store of value needs to be done away with. While Japan don't get everything right, I think this is one area in which their attitudes/policies are more aligned with the wellbeing of the masses. There, houses are more like cars in that they start deprecating the moment they're moved into and if anything are seen as a value subtract past a certain age, because it's expected that when you buy a plot of land the house on it will be demolished and a new one will be built in its place. Houses are more tied to families that live in them than they are the land they're built on. This might seem wasteful, but it's kept living costs in the residential outskirts of Japan's urban areas a lot more affordable than they would've been otherwise and also means that housing on average is more up to code, and it drives costs of building down since building is routine instead of something unusual. I would love to see this come to the US, and I say this despite standing to gain from the present system.
- amelius 4y ago
  > Software development is above this misery line for now. Yeah, the dream may be over when Asia gets a high quality development machine in every home.
dccoolgai 4y ago
I'm really happy to see this and that this field has a positive effect on people's life. That's really the top line takeaway for me: But as someone who's been through more than one of these "market cycles" in tech, I have a fear (based in reality/experience) that when people start viewing Software Engineering as a gateway to a "good life" it usually means we're at an inflection point where things (at least in the U.S.) are about to get a lot worse. We're already seeing this with FAANG layoffs. I'd like to believe "it's different this time" but I don't have anything I can point to as a logical basis for that belief. And it really scares me.
- 29athrowaway 4y ago
  Remote work means that now you are competing with people from all around the world, some of them living in places with very permissive labor laws, which means that wages around where you live will go down.
  - ravenstine 4y ago
    We'll see. The idea that Indians will replace us all has yet to pan out. But the increasing prevalence of remote may be the tipping point.
    - miscaccount 4y ago
      Right now there is shortage of qualified software engineers in India and many companies are finding it harder to hire in India. Also the cost in India is also increasing and running your operations remote is not simple.
      - samarthr1 4y ago
        And we have hopes of greater growth in domestic demand... I dream of the day when the student in cs for the money will reject the faangs of today during poor races, and instead join a home grown startup.
    - 29athrowaway 4y ago
Nextgrid 4y ago
The biggest perk of software engineering is that you can literally create something from nothing, and that something can have enough value for someone to pay you. The barrier to entry is basically zero, assuming you already own a computer (and if you don't, you'll need that computer for other things anyway, so it won't be a waste even if you do not end up pursuing software engineering as a career). Beyond software engineering jobs, having those skills means you can easily build all kinds of services and put them out there for prospective customers to buy. You can also automate your own repetitive, annoying and boring shit instead of spending time doing it manually or paying someone else (or a service) to do so. Besides making software products, software engineering expertise will also help you make other jobs more efficient, sometimes automating them away. If shit hits the fan and developers are no longer in demand and selling software products/services doesn’t work out, you can just look for any kind of computer-based, repetitive job such as data entry and automate it away.
- koinedad 4y ago
  The idea of creating something from nothing is what got me into programming. Somewhat related to the idea that I can make a computer do what I want, presupposing I know what kind of limitless potential “telling a computer what to do” opens up
  - thundergolfer 4y ago
    ‘Building sandcastles in the clouds’ is a nice Fred Brooks aphorism that conveys this. Pure thought-stuff.
- j-bos 4y ago
  Strongly agree with something from nothing. As a former carpenter I spent quite a bit of effort lugging tools around and on moves, today I just grab a laptop.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    While carpentry also creates value, a carpenter needs significant equipment & capital to create something. A carpenter down on their luck can't immediately start building houses from scratch. A programmer down on their luck just needs a laptop (which is easy enough to get) and can start churning out MVPs that could at least provide some income.
electrondood 4y ago
Got into software engineering for the money, figuring it wouldn't be intolerable. Benefits I didn't expect: * Forced me to confront lifelong imposter syndrome. * Forced me to slow down and pay attention to details, step through a process sequentially during debugging, etc. * Forced me to take ownership of finding the answer when I didn't know the answer. * Forced me to convert theoretical "I solved it in my head" into practical application. * Forced me to overcome "math anxiety," the fear of not finding the "right" answer.
- koinedad 4y ago
  I second these!
bitwize 4y ago
Yeah, wait till you've spent a year on a major project, turning predigested niblets of a requirement ("stories") into snippets of code ("implementations"), and your boss is breathing down your neck because your niblet->snippet conversion rate per sprint (as reported by JIRA because everything at work fucking spies on you) is not where the OKRs say it should be. Your life will feel changed all right.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

86 points by koinedad 4y ago

melony 4y ago

If you want more confidence, try electronic engineering. It will make you question the value of your time.

throwaway81348 4y ago
Can you expand on " It will make you question the value of your time." ?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
koinedad 4y ago
I would love to learn more in electronic engineering. But you’re saying the time necessary to spend can quickly feel not worth the investment?

wpietri 4y ago

Aww, this is great! I'm all for career-switchers joining in. As this describes, software is a very human pursuit. Outside experiences help bring different skills and perspectives to the work. And as he describes, that goes the other way too.

spaniard89277 4y ago

It's sad to see that fewer and fewer jobs provide enough to have a good life. If I have to point my finger to something it would be housing/land. Housing throghout the west is the instrument that extracts the most from poor and modal income brackets. Software development is above this misery line for now. If we want to live in places where all the employees that support your lifestyle can find meaning and means to a decent life, we have to take care about this. I remember when I was in my small northern Spain faculty, learning about the beginnings of industrialization and urban planning, it was pretty clear to me that there was a sentiment in the ruling class that, for them to have a decent place to live and not being forced to live inside their palaces and houses, social stability was needed. And such goal could only be achieved providing amenities for the common man. It was for the best interest of the ruling class. Nowadays it seems to me that one can move up the payscale and forget about it. But I don't want crime in my neighborhood, nor homeless. I don't want to hear that someone I know lost his job and it's on the verge of hitting the street. A cashier should be able to pay rent, transport, utilities and a decent life.

kqr2 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noblesse_oblige https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noblesse_oblige Housing in the West due to insufficient development is effectively a zero-sum game. So once people have their share, they do everything they can to maintain it's value. Great HN comment on a recent thread with regards to land and rent-seeking: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32961554 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32961554
- peterangular 4y ago
  Shelter as an investment vehicle leads to consolidation. And, no one in the capital class is going to address the scarcity as it's a conflict of their interests. Rent in my city has been going insane. At the end of the day this is all just capitalism and voting for your own interests. We optimize for this.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  Housing and land as a store of value needs to be done away with. While Japan don't get everything right, I think this is one area in which their attitudes/policies are more aligned with the wellbeing of the masses. There, houses are more like cars in that they start deprecating the moment they're moved into and if anything are seen as a value subtract past a certain age, because it's expected that when you buy a plot of land the house on it will be demolished and a new one will be built in its place. Houses are more tied to families that live in them than they are the land they're built on. This might seem wasteful, but it's kept living costs in the residential outskirts of Japan's urban areas a lot more affordable than they would've been otherwise and also means that housing on average is more up to code, and it drives costs of building down since building is routine instead of something unusual. I would love to see this come to the US, and I say this despite standing to gain from the present system.
amelius 4y ago
> Software development is above this misery line for now. Yeah, the dream may be over when Asia gets a high quality development machine in every home.

dccoolgai 4y ago

I'm really happy to see this and that this field has a positive effect on people's life. That's really the top line takeaway for me: But as someone who's been through more than one of these "market cycles" in tech, I have a fear (based in reality/experience) that when people start viewing Software Engineering as a gateway to a "good life" it usually means we're at an inflection point where things (at least in the U.S.) are about to get a lot worse. We're already seeing this with FAANG layoffs. I'd like to believe "it's different this time" but I don't have anything I can point to as a logical basis for that belief. And it really scares me.

29athrowaway 4y ago
Remote work means that now you are competing with people from all around the world, some of them living in places with very permissive labor laws, which means that wages around where you live will go down.
- ravenstine 4y ago
  We'll see. The idea that Indians will replace us all has yet to pan out. But the increasing prevalence of remote may be the tipping point.
  - miscaccount 4y ago
    Right now there is shortage of qualified software engineers in India and many companies are finding it harder to hire in India. Also the cost in India is also increasing and running your operations remote is not simple.
    - samarthr1 4y ago
      And we have hopes of greater growth in domestic demand... I dream of the day when the student in cs for the money will reject the faangs of today during poor races, and instead join a home grown startup.
  - 29athrowaway 4y ago

Nextgrid 4y ago

The biggest perk of software engineering is that you can literally create something from nothing, and that something can have enough value for someone to pay you. The barrier to entry is basically zero, assuming you already own a computer (and if you don't, you'll need that computer for other things anyway, so it won't be a waste even if you do not end up pursuing software engineering as a career). Beyond software engineering jobs, having those skills means you can easily build all kinds of services and put them out there for prospective customers to buy. You can also automate your own repetitive, annoying and boring shit instead of spending time doing it manually or paying someone else (or a service) to do so. Besides making software products, software engineering expertise will also help you make other jobs more efficient, sometimes automating them away. If shit hits the fan and developers are no longer in demand and selling software products/services doesn’t work out, you can just look for any kind of computer-based, repetitive job such as data entry and automate it away.

koinedad 4y ago
The idea of creating something from nothing is what got me into programming. Somewhat related to the idea that I can make a computer do what I want, presupposing I know what kind of limitless potential “telling a computer what to do” opens up
- thundergolfer 4y ago
  ‘Building sandcastles in the clouds’ is a nice Fred Brooks aphorism that conveys this. Pure thought-stuff.
j-bos 4y ago
Strongly agree with something from nothing. As a former carpenter I spent quite a bit of effort lugging tools around and on moves, today I just grab a laptop.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  While carpentry also creates value, a carpenter needs significant equipment & capital to create something. A carpenter down on their luck can't immediately start building houses from scratch. A programmer down on their luck just needs a laptop (which is easy enough to get) and can start churning out MVPs that could at least provide some income.

electrondood 4y ago

Got into software engineering for the money, figuring it wouldn't be intolerable. Benefits I didn't expect: * Forced me to confront lifelong imposter syndrome. * Forced me to slow down and pay attention to details, step through a process sequentially during debugging, etc. * Forced me to take ownership of finding the answer when I didn't know the answer. * Forced me to convert theoretical "I solved it in my head" into practical application. * Forced me to overcome "math anxiety," the fear of not finding the "right" answer.

koinedad 4y ago
I second these!

bitwize 4y ago

Yeah, wait till you've spent a year on a major project, turning predigested niblets of a requirement ("stories") into snippets of code ("implementations"), and your boss is breathing down your neck because your niblet->snippet conversion rate per sprint (as reported by JIRA because everything at work fucking spies on you) is not where the OKRs say it should be. Your life will feel changed all right.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]