
Programming is not a Glamorous Job - fatalerrorx3
http://techbyproducts.com/programming-is-not-a-glamorous-job/
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TallboyOne
I hate these broad sweeping titles on HN. Speak for yourself.

I love my job, I work from home in an amazing home office I designed. I filled
it with plants, little bonzai trees, art on the wall, inderect lighting for
the evenings, and all the best work equipment money can buy. My environment is
pretty much an extension of me.

I have awesome clients that invite me out for events, I go to programming
conferences and have a great time, I can buy pretty much anything I need to
(not a rolls royce, or anything that expensive, but anything I realistically
need is mine.)

and it even sounds cool. I tell people what I do and they're really
interested.

I can travel whenever, wherever - as long as they have internet and I can
bring my laptop.

And if you aren't known... then make yourself known. No brainer. It's tricky
but not that bad to build a small network, just interact with the people you
look up to in your career on twitter, go to events and network, build
something that a lot of people use and love. If you love your job you may have
quite a lot of failures building this 'thing' but eventually you'll hit on one
that people really love.

Lastly but not least, its FUN. FUN FUN FUN. I wake up some days at 8am, eager
to make some french press coffee, heat up a danish in the microwave and just
look at some code. It's really probably the best job in the world I think.

Disclosure: I am not a corporate programmer -- I would imagine in that exact
scenario you are treated less than you are really worth, so I'm not trying to
downplay the frustration I'm sure many of you guys face. I'm talking from my
point of view that the statement "programming isnt glamorous" is just silly.

~~~
stuff4ben
I am a corporate programmer and even though I work in a cube farm, I
thoroughly enjoy my job. I get paid awesomely (at least compared to all of the
startups I used to work for), the hours are great (except this weekend because
I'm on call and we just deployed some new code), and I get to use the tools,
languages, and machines I want. Maybe the company I work at is an anomaly, but
it's definitely FUN FUN FUN for me too!

Programming is fun because I derive a lot of my satisfaction from solving
problems using a computer. Seeing end-users enjoying my creations is just
icing on the cake.

I get that satisfaction when I worked at a startup, now in my cubefarm, and I
imagine even if I were a consultant.

~~~
TallboyOne
Awesome! This puts a smile on my face :)

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jacques_chester
Most lawyers don't fight exciting cases that expose a complex web of deceit.

Most police don't get into firefights with mastermind serial killers.

The families of martial arts masters have a homocide-by-mobsters rate that is
in line with the general population.

Aliens do not invade very often.

None of these facts make for good entertainment.

~~~
moron4hire
Biggest disappointment of my teenage years: no induction into a secret cadre
of American ninjas to go along with my black belt to help our master avenge
his murdered wife.

I blame it on our instructor not having a murdered wife. Just a wife few would
miss if she were.

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banachtarski
Being a doctor is also super glamarous. You lead a team of extremely
attractive individuals and identify diseases that are as rare as a narwhal.

Who the hell ever cared about how TV portrays a job anyways?

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jcheng
I get to work with highly intelligent people, doing work that impacts tens or
hundreds of thousands of people.

My day-to-day involves taking the most powerful and complex invention in
history, and bending it to my will in ever more elegant and sophisticated
ways.

For my efforts I'm paid X times the average US wage and receive regular kudos
from strangers on Twitter and blogs.

My friends and family assume I must be a genius to be able to do what I do. On
my best, most satisfying days, I'm not so sure they're wrong.

I'm just an ordinary programmer at an ordinary startup, but from where I sit
this job is amazingly glamorous.

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dsyph3r
I'm not so sure that public percepiton is different. Loads of people I know
still think that because I'm a programmer I must be an expert in fixing
printers, or formatting spreadsheets.

~~~
avenger123
Totally agree. Just because a movie came out and there is a show about
startups doesn't mean its gone mainstream. Far from it. To top it off, what is
represented in the media is such a small slice (ie. the startup scene) of what
real world software developers do that its almost meaningless.

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ErikAugust
As someone who worked more than a dozen jobs that no movie has ever depicted
as glamorous before becoming a professional programmer, I can say the pay,
benefits, relative career security are amazing.

Not to mention, the feeling I get from solving problems and creating things
others (and myself) find useful (and fun) for a living.

Quit programming for a month and work as a menial worker. See how you feel. I
dare you.

~~~
stuff4ben
I agree. I've worked as a developer in places from startups to financial
institutions to large fortune 100 tech companies. Definitely not glamorous but
sure beats working fast food that put me through school 15 years ago. I derive
my enjoyment from solving problems using a computer and seeing people who use
what I create enjoy what I've created. I definitely didn't do it for any sort
of fame or glamor.

~~~
ErikAugust
Right, and to add:

It's an awesome profession: the tiny chance of becoming rich and/or famous
coupled with the safe odds of relatively good pay, benefits, job security.

Every other "rich/famous" profession is completely all-or-nothing: actors,
musicians, artists, athletes, etc...

~~~
UK-AL
Many other professions allow you become rich. Too become rich as programmer
you need to own some part of the company. You can do that in nearly every
proffesion.

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dasil003
Is this just another form of the lament of geek culture going mainstream?
Because the idea that software engineering could or should be represented
realistically in media is completely ridiculous. Of course they over-glamorize
it because that's what media does. Point me to a profession that is not
glamorized, villified or otherwise sensationalized by television and I'll show
you a really boring job.

So no, programming is not glamorous, but it's a damn good job (at the right
companies) if you can get it.

~~~
h2s
It's the ultimate irony. People of all walks of life will tell you that the
way their profession is depicted in the media is unrealistic and silly. And
yet we all seem to share the equally silly misconception that those who work
in the media are attempting to depict us realistically and failing.

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kimagure
"Most of us are indie programmers"

I would think most career programmers work for corporate entities, but neither
I nor the author have any statistical evidence presented.

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nicholasjarnold
Stop worrying so much about how other people perceive you and your profession.
Anyone worth talking to is going to realize that what they see depicted in a
Hollywood film and B(or C)-level shows on Bravo is probably not representative
of the vast majority of real experiences in the field.

I say stop worrying, not because I simply don't care, but because no matter
what we're needed now and will continue to be needed in the future. If public
perception sways a bit and begins to define us as 'lazy slacker partiers',
then we should just get back to the keyboard and create something. It's just a
function of society trying to come to terms with something that many of them
don't have the slightest clue about. We all try to categorize the new and
unknown using simplistic stereotypes. It's part of how we build mental models
of how the world works.

With time, people will begin to understand more realistically what we do.
Until then, let's just enjoy our relatively high job security, satisfaction
and compensation while continuing to push technology forward.

~~~
fatalerrorx3
Good points. What's funny is that by posting this, it's almost like temporary
fame, albeit to mostly techies like myself, but none-the-less it's kind of
ironic how that happens.

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BjoernKW
Well, so is being a lawyer or a doctor. Those jobs aren't what TV series and
movies would have us believe either.

Most lawyers don't try high-profile murder cases. Most doctors don't save
countless lives during their day-to-day work.

Even the most glamourous job of all - being a rock star - isn't really all
that glamourous if you take a closer look at it. Those rock stars who
ultimately love what they do and hence take their work seriously have to work
very hard and be very disciplined to make it.

Same thing applies to programmers. Sure, most programming jobs are in a
corporate environment and working in such an environment can suck quite a bit.
However, the more your work sucks the more potential there is for actually
changing something for the better, even more so if you're a programmer.
Programmers can create wonderful designs and feats of engineering with little
more than a bright mind and a computer.

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jamiltron
My girlfriend worked in crime scene investigation. I think they probably have
it way worse than programmers when it comes to public perception of the job
based on shows and movies.

~~~
fatalerrorx3
Good point, and I agree with that lol, being that I used to be a fan of the
original CSI series.

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codgercoder
I agree that glamorizing programming is not particularly helpful, except that
coder-entrepreneurs can get more attention from venture capital. Glamorizing
programming, along with the app-stores, is pushing the independent programming
business into a "blockbuster" mentality, a winner-take-all situation where a
small number of practitioners do very well and most don't ever make their
development money back. Thanks, Steve Jobs!

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hsmyers
Could be worse. Could be an artist and therefore free to starve to death in a
garret any where in the world, so that your agent can become rich when you're
dead. Or as others have said, pick your profession. To paraphrase C&W, "What's
glamour got to do with it?"

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bcl
I don't do this for the glamor. I do this for myself and the users. Everything
else is gravy.

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ExpiredLink
"Why a career in computer programming sucks"
<http://www.halfsigma.com/2007/03/why_a_career_in.html>

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Millennium
Most jobs are not glamorous in and of themselves, but can be glamorous for
what you do with them. Programming is no different: it's the project, not the
job, that makes the glamour.

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demian
Why not embrace it? It's not all negative.

God knows that, as well as other STEM careers, we need less social stigma.

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fatalerrorx3
Moral of the story: 1and1 VPS Hosting can't handle the HN effect.

~~~
jacques_chester
You may have heard the saying "Never attribute to malice what can be
attributed to WordPress".

~~~
fatalerrorx3
Fixed and all it took was a WP cache plugin, thanks.

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codgercoder
and don't forget the fact that there is new competition coming on the market
everyday that is probably paid a tenth as much as you are.

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leugim
Programming is funny if you do because you want.

