
Most Software Dev Jobs Are Bullshit Jobs - MagicAndi
https://medium.com/@melissamcewen/most-software-dev-jobs-are-bullshit-jobs-b768bcea01ff
======
bmj
This article assumes that every developer works for an SV-style start-up that
requires 80 hour weeks building trivial things. I work in the medical
industry, rarely work more than 40 hours a week, take six weeks of vacation a
year, and can generally feel okay about my output actually helping people lead
better lives.

Of course, yes, sometimes I do a lot of BS things at my job. However, as
another comment has already noted, there are few jobs that include some sort
of BS at some point. That is why it is called "work."

~~~
fileeditview
I really don't think it's about doing some "BS" or annoying things at work.

It's about creating products(in this case software) that are utterly useless
to the world. That maybe even make the world a worse place over the long run.

It's about products that nobody would miss if they wouldn't exist.

It's about the 1000th clone of some app that offers some wannabe feature plus
social networking.

The problem is not software alone.. our world is full of shit products no one
really needs. But in software you don't need to cut down trees or mine ore.

You just have endless resources.. which increases the crap output by a lot.

EDIT: Oh and I'm sure not every software dev job is useless/boring/..

~~~
sreenadh
> But in software you don't need to cut down trees or mine ore.

Lets not forget the dictators with child soldiers that use forced labour to
mine the rare earth materials & the factories with nets to catch the workers
that attempt suicide, which are a part of making computers & mobiles that is
vital for software development. Also, where our old devices & batteries end
up. Softwares do rack up a huge carbon foot-print.

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danharaj
Software development has proven methods for organizing labor by labor instead
of by the whims of the owning class. The most useful software in the world is
developed by an ecosystem of communities that resembles anarchist, communist
ideas of how society at large could operate. Because of the unique capital
requirements for software development, cooperative firms are more viable than
in any other industry. We could be doing our work in radically different ways.

Too bad most programmers are allergic to collective labor action.

~~~
drb91
"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as
an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."

Nowhere is this more true than Silicon Valley.

~~~
seppin
This implies the poor are better off under socialism than as lower class in a
rich country.

~~~
iamcasen
If you know what socialism is, then you would know that they would indeed be
better off.

It's simple really, eliminate this concept of capital ownership by individuals
or corporations. That way, when you work, your boss is not getting a profit on
top of your labor. That means your wages go up! Best thing of all, whatever
your participating in, you have part ownership in.

~~~
Tehchops
It'll surely work this time!

~~~
gremlinsinc
We need a marriage of systems... where private co-ops own the
corporations..they set supply/demand based on market considerations just like
capitalism -- but everyone shares in the profits.

Full capitalism/Full socialism isn't the answer...there's got to be some sort
of middle ground where more people can be lifted up by the system.

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pendar747
This article says nothing about how software engineering is a "bullshit job".
Her only point that comes close is that she once worked at a job where she was
building a pointless website, but that only makes her job in that instance
"bullshit".

Look all around you and you see almost endless ways that digital systems are
transforming and running our lives, every single one of those needed to be
engineered, designed and tested by someone, which could have been a software
engineer. I think it wouldn't be an overstatement to stay without software
engineers our modern life would be impossible.

I often hear complaining that they are going to leave software engineering
because of a flawed list of problems, while the real problem lies in their
perception of what the profession should be.

IMO software engineering is about solving challenging technical problems, and
not necessarily what is created in the process. A lot of what a software
engineer does is not apparent in the end result, but is absolutely necessary
to get those programs, systems or applications running.

I think there are far worst professions out there, which in comparison achieve
so little to SWE.

Working hours does not make any job a "bullshit" one, and the working hours
and the pay grade of a SWE are obviously far better than most job. The parts
of the article talks about SWE from a completely biased and personal view,
which almost have no value to the reader.

I'm surprised that such article would even be by on HN's first page!

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deckar01
I have had about 10 jobs in my life. About half of them were specific to my
career. I have found that I am happier building things that the author might
consider "bullshit" (relative to my interests) compared to working on things
that I am passionate about. When I have a job doing what I "love", someone
inevitably takes a steaming shit on the thing I created and forces me to break
it in some stupid way. I would rather do the things I love on my own time so
that I don't have to compromise my work to keep food on the table.

~~~
WalterSear
> my own time

The co-option of that by the forces of capitalism is much of what the author
is complaining about.

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Tepix
Melissa McEwen is spot on. I have had 30h jobs software development jobs for
the last 7 years. I make enough money as-is and see no reason to switch to 35h
or 40h. I'd rather see my kids more. The only reason to work more would be do
found a company again.

Btw I have 30 days of paid vacation per year (which is not unusual in
Germany).

------
blacksmith_tb
The author comes close to making the more obvious leap to "Most Jobs Are
Bullshit" but for some reason doesn't quite make it there. But unless you'd
like to forage for sustenance in the woods, I'm not sure we have much of an
alternative... and at least some dev work is mildly interesting.

~~~
danharaj
They don't make the leap because they link to the original Graeber article
which makes that point in general.

~~~
blacksmith_tb
I saw that, but it seems like that makes writing this piece superfluous -
unless it's just to clarify that software dev is part of the 'most jobs' and
not the few, non-bullshit ones.

------
reaperducer
Something happened around the time computer programmers started calling
themselves "engineers" \-- they became self-important. And in doing so,
convinced others that they are indispensable.

I tell people, if you don't have a flashing light and a siren, your job is not
that important.

My employer tethers me to a work cell phone that I never ever use. Why? In
case the web site goes down while I'm not at work. Except that the site is on
an intranet. And the entire company is 9-5. If I'm not there, nobody else is
there, either, to see if the site has crashed. But somewhere along the line,
coding became more mission critical than it really is.

------
cominous
Most of her claims are true for all 40h full-time jobs, which is the majority
of all jobs. In that logic, nobody would have kids.

But.. I totally struggle with keeping a life aside to 40-60h work aswell so I
wont blame her - I feel the same.

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iamcasen
In software it is more true than any other industry. The software we develop
has the power to be leveraged across all industries. Much like the wheel, it
should not be constantly re-invented.

I truly feel like most software development should be done via autonomous
software partnerships not unlike law firms. There would be so much less waste,
and I imagine it would be a huge boost to the economy. We don't need any more
eye-grabbing, social-media-connected, neopet apps people. Software engineers
are building useless and inane shit because that's how incentives work under
capitalism. It's a shame.

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matt_s
The article barely touches on the bullshit factor. Sure every workplace has BS
people have to deal with, that doesn't matter if it is a tech company.

I would venture a guess that the majority, perhaps vast majority (i.e. 75% or
greater), of software development jobs are doing CRUD with data in a RDBMS.
Even if you work on UI/front end, its still a CRUD app.

There's nothing wrong with that, just call it what it is. We (the majority)
aren't progressing the science part of computer science in any way really. We
are making some set of problems easier to be accomplished/solved. They may be
data sets in interesting industries or enabling things like health care or
medical research but CRUD apps aren't revolutionary.

If anything we are making things more complex with a glut of new shiny tools
and abstractions that don't do things that much differently than 15 years ago.
The sheer amount of dependencies some tool/frameworks require is mind boggling
for basically sending text around over the internet and storing it on disk
somewhere. Yes we all like to mock the way the web looked 15 years ago but is
the tech underneath drastically different?

I feel like we tend to paint ourselves into a corner sometimes with the
tech/tools and then end up remodeling the house to finish painting the room.
That is definite BS.

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tenpoundhammer
This article brings up a common theme, people don't want to work 40 hour
weeks. I see nothing wrong with that sentiment, but I also don't see any
wrong with a 40 or 60 hour work week.

Every person on this planet needs to decide how they want to spend their time
and the quality of life they want to have. If you want to work fewer hours you
will have less money. It's pretty simple.

If you want to do that good for you.

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ai_ja_nai
I agree that the link with SWE is not so apparent, but there is and it's a
subtle one:

as software engineering, we take pride in researching and leveraging the best
and latest to solve our challenges. Time management included. And yet we
systematically end up working in overburdened teams and overdue projects.

We surrounded ourselves of IDEs, instant messaging platforms, calendars with
reminders, automation and all sort of stuff to be more productive.

And the agile methodologies! The holy Scrum/Kanban! How much time we dedicated
to People Management, Release Management, Sprint Planning and the like.

Our schedules should be bulletproof.

And, yet, we work at least 50 hours per week with continuous surprises from
the managerial perspective due to disorganization. And we tolerate all of this
because we have been told it's heroic, instead of beheading the profitering
gluttons that come up with the usual "goodmorning, this unannounced thing must
be delivered tomorrow".

This is the bullshit. The cultural hysteria that sacrificing our health and
free time is necessary due to some kind of higher purpose

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> And the agile methodologies! The holy Scrum/Kanban! How much time we
> dedicated to People Management, Release Management, Sprint Planning and the
> like.

The problem is, you need to do some planning. The question is, what's the way
of doing planning that takes the _least_ amount of time and effort, and still
gets done what needs done?

~~~
ai_ja_nai
The metodologies and all of the aforementioned tools are fine. But instead of
using them to stay in the schedules with less, we used them to make more in
the same amount of time. We pursued efficiency ("more with less") and profit
instead of keeping the profits constant and give more free time to people. In
other words, economic growth demand eroded the margin that we gained through
these efficiencies.

------
horsecaptin
To many people your job looks like BS, but it isn't because someone clearly
values the fact that you are where you are and is willing to pay real money
for it.

If you think your job is BS, then do yourself a favor and work hard towards
moving to a job that you do not think is BS.

Other people's opinions are like the tides and the wind - sometimes they bode
well and sometimes they don't.

------
cleandreams
I think if I had had an easy out I might have left the profession. But I
didn't and so I've done a lot of somewhat scary but ultimately really
rewarding things: took the hardest jobs I could get, then went out
contracting, then founded a start up myself, then got into AI. My career has
been fascinating and fun, with some genuine difficult patches. I'm grateful I
didn't have a family farm to escape to.

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relics443
So she wants people to work less and get paid more? To work on stupid things,
that aren't critical? And someone is willing to pay a lot of money for you to
do that?

Also, her idea that getting paid well means nothing because there are people
who make more money left me scratching my head.

~~~
eberkund
No, I think she is saying that if 20% of the software we develop is important
lets stop working on the 80% that isn't and instead work 1 day per week on the
important stuff and get paid the same amount. In theory this makes sense, but
I think it is a massive oversimplification.

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PrunJuice
So sitting AND standing are both out. Now what? Walking desks? Neutral
buoyancy fluid desks? Supine desks?

~~~
NathanWilliams
Maybe just less hours in total at a desk (aka work)? I think that was the
point she was trying to make.

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wrs
Is there not a little bit of irony in someone writing this and then posting it
on Medium?

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geogra4
workers of the world unite!

