5 ms·

Making six figures (by sheer luck of the fact that their work scales better than most jobs, including most harder jobs)

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
danielvaughn 3y ago
This. I feel fortunate that I didn't start out in tech - I didn't become a programmer until I was 30. I'd been working since I was 15 or so, so I'd had about 15 years of experience in various industries. I think a lot of devs who go into comp-sci and land into tech right after college have very little understanding of how hard life can be outside of tech. This isn't an easy industry, but goddamn it's so much better than the vast majority of other options out there.
- rjbwork 3y ago
  Yup. When I get frustrated I just take a deep breath and then remember how relatively easy and well compensated this career is compared to just about anything else - for me, anyway.
  - sanderjd 3y ago
    I think this hints at another truth though: If you switch your metric to up-weight happiness and down-weight material rewards, it moves down the rankings IMO. Believe it or not, I know some people who essentially never get frustrated by their work, while making a decent wage. In some of these cases, they also don't have the "is what I'm doing useless or even actively harmful" ennui that is prevalent in the software industry. I try to remind myself that some of my pay is compensation is for frequent frustration.
- LarsDu88 3y ago
  I worked in biology before going into tech. Dear lord its so much easier to scale your labor in tech. I have manually genetically engineered multiple types of organisms. It's insanely tedious. To the extent that if I ever went back, I would probably immediately focus on roboticizing most of the work.
- waynesonfire 3y ago
  > it's so much better than the vast majority of other options out there. The journey towards enlightenment or personal growth is highly individualized and subjective, making comparisons with others is not only unhelpful but also irrelevant.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - kayodelycaon 3y ago
    Better in terms of effort to money.
  - danielvaughn 3y ago
    Certain kinds of comparisons can be unhelpful. Others can be illuminating, often instilling a sense of gratitude and humility.
- ravenstine 3y ago
  Reminds me of the recurring conversation on HN about how people should stop driving cars and just walk everywhere. It's like, yeah, in an ideal world, all 8+ billion humans could pick up craft coffee as they stroll 5 minutes to their big tech employer who doesn't actually care when they show up. There's legitimate criticisms for how cities have been designed, but going further by vilifying car owners in the present and suggesting everyone could just walk or ride a bike to work is a level of being out of touch that only Silicon Valley types could achieve. Even politicians aren't as brazen with such silliness. As if the rest of the world can choose where their employer is located, how far their groceries are, or how much child support they have. Just be a tech bro, bro.
  - dgfitz 3y ago
    This has also been something I’ve noticed, and I share your sentiment. It really is an opinion, strongly held, born out of massive ignorance.
  - d0mine 3y ago
    What do you think about public transport vs. personal cars?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
jasonpeacock 3y ago
I spent a summer in college working construction as a general laborer, making $20/hr. I was rich!! ...and every person on the jobsite said "stay in school, don't do this full time". I've never experienced that same end-of-day exhaustion before or since doing construction (and I was a fit & healthy college student). No matter how bad my day is, sitting at my desk and typing for a LOT of money, I know it's better than many alternatives.
lambdasquirrel 3y ago
Programming isn't hard. It isn't easy either, but it isn't hard. I think the thing about programming is that so much of the "old" world misunderstood how it was hard. There is a lot more creative process stuff involved with programming, and not nearly as much that is codified, that you need to study, as in other fields like physics. And so, it gives people wide leeway to footgun themselves. Just as much, going the other way, it puts a premium on the ability to think and reason in abstractions, to which point, we don't have as strong a "liberal arts" for the STEM world as we do for the literary / humanities / cultural world. So yes, on one hand, programming is not as hard as physics (to make one example of it). But on the other hand, I knew a person or two doing research in physics who complained how much their work was held back because their colleagues didn't appreciate the effort it took to process all the data that came from their experiments. Folks didn't appreciate how critical all that code was to their research. We see this sort of dynamic replicated throughout the rest of the world.
- kazinator 3y ago
  Programming isn't hard if you exclude debugging as being a different activity.
  - lambdasquirrel 3y ago
    I think it elevates it to the level of other STEM fields, but I wouldn't put it over wrapping your head around Lagrangians or figuring out where the noise in your experiment is coming from. What'd I'd say though is that managing the process of shipping software isn't easy. e.g. building AWS was probably not easy. But then again, building a tokamak or a stellarator is not easy either.
    - kazinator 3y ago
      You can get help with Lagrangians; they are not your original work; other people understand them. In debugging there are situations in which nobody can help you. There are people with good debugging skills, but only you know that code. There are no papers or books about the bug in your program.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

This. I feel fortunate that I didn't start out in tech - I didn't become a programmer until I was 30. I'd been working since I was 15 or so, so I'd had about 15 years of experience in various industries. I think a lot of devs who go into comp-sci and land into tech right after college have very little understanding of how hard life can be outside of tech. This isn't an easy industry, but goddamn it's so much better than the vast majority of other options out there.

rjbwork 3y ago
Yup. When I get frustrated I just take a deep breath and then remember how relatively easy and well compensated this career is compared to just about anything else - for me, anyway.
- sanderjd 3y ago
  I think this hints at another truth though: If you switch your metric to up-weight happiness and down-weight material rewards, it moves down the rankings IMO. Believe it or not, I know some people who essentially never get frustrated by their work, while making a decent wage. In some of these cases, they also don't have the "is what I'm doing useless or even actively harmful" ennui that is prevalent in the software industry. I try to remind myself that some of my pay is compensation is for frequent frustration.
LarsDu88 3y ago
I worked in biology before going into tech. Dear lord its so much easier to scale your labor in tech. I have manually genetically engineered multiple types of organisms. It's insanely tedious. To the extent that if I ever went back, I would probably immediately focus on roboticizing most of the work.
waynesonfire 3y ago
> it's so much better than the vast majority of other options out there. The journey towards enlightenment or personal growth is highly individualized and subjective, making comparisons with others is not only unhelpful but also irrelevant.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- kayodelycaon 3y ago
  Better in terms of effort to money.
- danielvaughn 3y ago
  Certain kinds of comparisons can be unhelpful. Others can be illuminating, often instilling a sense of gratitude and humility.
ravenstine 3y ago
Reminds me of the recurring conversation on HN about how people should stop driving cars and just walk everywhere. It's like, yeah, in an ideal world, all 8+ billion humans could pick up craft coffee as they stroll 5 minutes to their big tech employer who doesn't actually care when they show up. There's legitimate criticisms for how cities have been designed, but going further by vilifying car owners in the present and suggesting everyone could just walk or ride a bike to work is a level of being out of touch that only Silicon Valley types could achieve. Even politicians aren't as brazen with such silliness. As if the rest of the world can choose where their employer is located, how far their groceries are, or how much child support they have. Just be a tech bro, bro.
- dgfitz 3y ago
  This has also been something I’ve noticed, and I share your sentiment. It really is an opinion, strongly held, born out of massive ignorance.
- d0mine 3y ago
  What do you think about public transport vs. personal cars?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

jasonpeacock 3y ago

I spent a summer in college working construction as a general laborer, making $20/hr. I was rich!! ...and every person on the jobsite said "stay in school, don't do this full time". I've never experienced that same end-of-day exhaustion before or since doing construction (and I was a fit & healthy college student). No matter how bad my day is, sitting at my desk and typing for a LOT of money, I know it's better than many alternatives.

lambdasquirrel 3y ago

Programming isn't hard. It isn't easy either, but it isn't hard. I think the thing about programming is that so much of the "old" world misunderstood how it was hard. There is a lot more creative process stuff involved with programming, and not nearly as much that is codified, that you need to study, as in other fields like physics. And so, it gives people wide leeway to footgun themselves. Just as much, going the other way, it puts a premium on the ability to think and reason in abstractions, to which point, we don't have as strong a "liberal arts" for the STEM world as we do for the literary / humanities / cultural world. So yes, on one hand, programming is not as hard as physics (to make one example of it). But on the other hand, I knew a person or two doing research in physics who complained how much their work was held back because their colleagues didn't appreciate the effort it took to process all the data that came from their experiments. Folks didn't appreciate how critical all that code was to their research. We see this sort of dynamic replicated throughout the rest of the world.

kazinator 3y ago
Programming isn't hard if you exclude debugging as being a different activity.
- lambdasquirrel 3y ago
  I think it elevates it to the level of other STEM fields, but I wouldn't put it over wrapping your head around Lagrangians or figuring out where the noise in your experiment is coming from. What'd I'd say though is that managing the process of shipping software isn't easy. e.g. building AWS was probably not easy. But then again, building a tokamak or a stellarator is not easy either.
  - kazinator 3y ago
    You can get help with Lagrangians; they are not your original work; other people understand them. In debugging there are situations in which nobody can help you. There are people with good debugging skills, but only you know that code. There are no papers or books about the bug in your program.