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It's interesting that this article was written in 2012. I can totally relate. Back in 1991 when I started my computer science degree, I just wanted to create n
by afpx 2y ago
It's interesting that this article was written in 2012. I can totally relate.
Back in 1991 when I started my computer science degree, I just wanted to create new things - I liked to reverse engineer, take things apart, hack code and build stuff that never existed before. My friends were going into chemical engineering because the average salary was like $45k / year whereas programming was something like $38k / year. They thought I was short-sighted because I didn't go for the money. But, it didn't daunt me that I got paid less. I thought it was awesome that someone would even pay me to do the type of work I was doing. I earned $33k in my first year. In contrast, I had a friend who managed a Barnes and Noble and was making 45k, but I didn't care.
The early years were pretty awesome. In the 90s it was exhilarating to be working with your brainy hacker friends late into the evening. No chaos or rush - we'd release every 3 months on a regular schedule. We had tons of slack time to just play around. After work, we'd go out and have beers and talk philosophy and art and culture (It was during this era that Paul Graham wrote Hackers & Painters). But, then the salaries started going up, and up, and up. I knew the field wasn't sustainable when my salary greatly exceed my chemical engineer friends. It was sometime in the mid 00s that I realized I needed to make an exit plan. While my collegues were out there buying giant houses and fancy cars, I doubled down on the minimalist lifestyle and dumped everything into investments.
By 2010 I was making 30% more than my boss, and I could see the discontent. I was making more than some of the executives. The expectations became super high, and I could see the end was nigh. The field became flooded with people who didn't care about anything but the money. It diluted the creativity and energy. The status-seekers viewed programmers as blue collar, and they weren't going to let blue collar guys make more than them without some punishment. The consultants made fortunes teaching the 'boss class' how to turn programming into a factory. Programmers weren't allowed to create anymore - we would get a 'Program Manager' who would give us a 'backlog'. It was super demotivating and not fun anymore.
- azinman2 2y ago> The field became flooded with people who didn't care about anything but the money. This is what ruined SF. All the people who made fun of me growing up for being into computers were all of the sudden working at Twitter as a product manager. They don’t give a shit about the craft, potential, OG hacker culture that’s an offshoot of counter culture movement, the history… it’s just let’s monetize the iPhone since everyone has one and I can understand that.
- afpx 2y agoI felt things got to peak silliness when a friend of mine (who had gone on to make a fortune) bought his first $20,000 watch. I mean watches are cool. I'm not a watch hater. But, this was a guy who had never cared about luxury things for all the years I worked with him. I used to get a little jealous of my friends who went to the bay, got connected, and made it big. But, nowadays I feel very, very fortunate to be able to spend the rest of my life being a dilettante - painting, reading, writing, cooking; learning about quantum mechanics, math, cosmology; and watching as Kurzweil's predictions come true. It's bittersweet, but what an amazing experience and time to have lived. When I was kinda depressed a few years ago after I stopped working, someone recommended that I get into 'Web 3.0'. My brother called me yesterday to tell me "it's amazing, man - they figured out how to update websites in realtime because they use blockchain." I'm not joking. lol. The search space has been exhausted.
- morning-coffee 2y agoMan, you nailed it. I finished EE degree in 1992 and was having so much fun by 1994 writing C for a small software company. That led to a job with a FANNG (actually a MAMAA) where I've been ever since. I'm still lucky to be writing the kind of code I like writing, but the process is way more frustrating than ever due to what you've described. There are way too many people involved now who picked the field because it was high-paying, not because they were inspired by the Apollo program, or tinkered on a TRS-80 when they were 12 and were hooked. I'm also lucky I went full time remote in 2014, and had managers who supported me taking a part-time side gig as a paid-on-call firefighter/EMT for my local small community. This has transitioned into a great opportunity to "retire" from software and still have something very fulfilling to direct my energy towards. It's just that I'm not ready to ditch the code-writing habit.