
I don’t want to be a software developer anymore - Yhippa
https://medium.com/@melissamcewen/i-just-dont-want-to-be-a-software-developer-anymore-a371422069a1
======
jaymzcampbell
I feel like we as an industry can sometimes forget just how good we have it.
Many of my friends do not work in tech, they are low paid, they have stressful
jobs with little autonomy, they are not challenged at all and they feel little
personal accomplishment in their day today. I appreciate the author alludes to
this but having seen friends recently job hunting (outside of tech) I am
reminded that even on the worst days I have it many times better than a lot of
people.

> If I won the lottery would I still code? I would, but it would not be like
> work. It would be projects I enjoyed. And it would be fewer hours.

But wouldn't we all love to do that no matter our vocation? Until basic income
comes along I think we have to just get over it. Most jobs aren't going to
provide you with fun for 8 hours a day. I feel like the older I get the more I
understand that a job is a way for me to trade time for money, I don't have to
(or should expect to) like it.

~~~
jameskegel
> Until basic income comes along I think we have to just get over it. Most
> jobs aren't going to provide you with fun for 8 hours a day. I feel like the
> older I get the more I understand that a job is a way for me to trade time
> for money, I don't have to (or should expect to) like it.

This is something I think is a fault of my generation (née 1985), when we
started to create this fairytail narrative of participation trophies, and
tech-places covered in brightly colored toys and snacks, where every developer
constructed their cube from Mountain Dew and Surge cans. This is not reality,
and for a while we were able to fool our minders into believing that this is
just "the silicon valley way" but increasingly, those few that just 'buckle
down' and work hard in a normal setting are outperforming the ones that took
ridiculous valuations and then squandered them on perishables and amenities.

I think what we're witnessing here is the maturation of our industry; it's not
so much the wild west anymore, and nobody is generating breakthroughs in tech
every week like we were in the 90's, everyone should act accordingly. These
are jobs, we do our jobs then we go home, if we like our homes and things and
activities, we need to go back to our jobs. There is a balance that must not
be disturbed.

~~~
fpisfun
There's still a huge divide in terms of talent, the vast majority of
programming jobs outside silicon valley seem to be working on legacy code that
is terribly architected (think Java apps written in a procedural style, etc)
whereas top companies are making full use of more modern approaches and tools.
It will be a very long time things even out and programming jobs are similar
across the board.

~~~
jameskegel
> the vast majority of programming jobs outside silicon valley seem to be
> working on legacy code that is terribly architected

How can you say things like this? The internet is the great equalizer of
distances; it does not matter what geographic location you live in, you could
be working on anything.

On a sidenote, I can't tell if you are trying to be deliberately offensive or
if you're someone who's never left SV.

~~~
tormeh
>How can you say things like this? The internet is the great equalizer of
distances; it does not matter what geographic location you live in, you could
be working on anything.

It really is not. Culture matters. If you're from a conservative place, your
boss and colleagues are likely to be conservative. It'll be JEE for you until
the end of time.

------
psyc
I feel the same as the author about software jobs. I love CS, coding,
architecture, and UX design more than just about anything. I spend at least 60
hours coding most weeks, and mostly for the love of it. But I dearly hope that
I never have to go to work at a company, any company, ever again. I've happily
accepted a very minimal standard of living to help ensure that.

There are a lot of top comments here already that sound like "keep quiet and
stop being ungrateful." Well, being grateful for what you have is good for
your mental health in general, but it isn't the answer to everything.
Otherwise, why have any preferences?

Obviously, I feel this way because of _my_ experiences in the workplace, and
you feel differently because of yours. Sorry, but ditch-digging is not
universally a worse deal than a software job. I put in 4 years at Walmart,
during which I cleaned a lot of shit and vomit off floors and walls, pushed
carts through snow in the northeast winters, and physically exerted myself to
exhaustion regularly. Yet I was never very unhappy. I never got anywhere close
to the raw misery and near mental breakdowns I experienced in several of my
developer jobs.

I would have expected more of us to understand all too well why dev jobs can
be truly terrible, stressful, unrewarding, and dis-empowering. If you feel
lucky to be in this line of work, maybe you _are_ lucky, but not every
software engineer is lucky to have their job.

~~~
abledon
"""Sorry, but ditch-digging is not universally a worse deal than a software
job. I put in 4 years at Walmart, during which I cleaned a lot of shit and
vomit off floors and walls, pushed carts through snow in the northeast
winters, and physically exerted myself to exhaustion regularly. Yet I was
never very unhappy. I never got anywhere close to the raw misery and near
mental breakdowns I experienced in several of my developer jobs."""

So True, money is good in our industry, but sometimes the stress that comes
with it is nowhere worth it. We spend our health earning money and once we are
rich, spend our money trying to regain our health lol.

------
jameskegel
I read the article; I'm not sure this is so much a criticism of the industry
as it is an examination of this developer's personal anecdotal experience.

As developers, we lead a very charmed life that others sometimes aren't even
born with the chance to intellectually compete for; the author neglects to
address how lucky we are to be able to do this at all, let alone to then find
employment in it. If it's not an industry that benefits you holistically, find
something you love that doesn't strain your neck or involve gender-politics-
dentistry for example, or maybe upholstery or culinary arts.

Personally, it's the hundreds of days spent in a dish pit, and burning my
hands on a hot grill for 12 hours every night that gives me the ability and
patience to appreciate this opportunity we have, and all of the different
elements of it. I've had very few experiences in life that afford me this type
of luxury or time to examine my surroundings and then have time to compose
them in words for others to read. This doesn't make the author wrong, this
makes our perspectives different, and perhaps a tour of duty in other
professions would benefit the author.

~~~
jib
Shittier jobs I've had than a desk job:

5-6 hours a day biking in -15C snow with wet feet (Mailman).

8 hours a day moving chips one by one in and out of an EPROM writer because it
was cheaper to have me do that than pay the extra 2c to have them
preprogrammed. The chips were 25c without programming and 27c with. (Ericson
subcontractor).

And I am privileged as hell, coming from Sweden with a good education and a
family I can rely on.

I think the point of burning out on work is relatable still. It is not fun to
work long hours of anything, and it is even less fun when something you used
to do for entertainment turns into a chore. But I'm pretty happy with my desk
job in the software industry because the other jobs Ive seen have been a lot
less nice.

~~~
hackermailman
I'm a developer and still a mailman in Canada in the freezing rain and snow
because that indexed pension is just too good to give up, plus they let you do
awesome things like bank all your overtime so you can take more days off. I
had one month off paid this year in addition to my regular 5 weeks off. Before
my shift these days I program for a university medical research lab, which
isn't highly paid but it's satisfying work where you are always learning
something, and they keep writing me letters of recommendation so I keep
picking up new research contracts when one ends. Very casual environment,
coworker post-doc's are helpful to bleed for information, no performance bonus
paperwork to fill out or bosses harassing me with nonsense the lead
researchers thankfully take care of that.

Before I was working remotely for various companies and hated it as the unpaid
hours kept growing with ridiculous meetings and paperwork. Their management
kept sending me these surveys to fill out and very long emails and slack
distractions that always required immediate attention so the job became more
trouble than it was worth and I quit. My criteria for work these days is "Will
they lay me off in X years?" and "How much mandatory overtime is there?"
nothing else really matters including the pay being below average.

~~~
justboxing
> I'm a developer and still a mailman in Canada.... Before my shift these days
> I program for a university medical research lab.

So your mailman job is a full-time job and the programming job is part-time?
Or is it the other way around? Or are both part-time?

Asking because part-time jobs in software engineering are quite hard to come
by, atleast in the US.

~~~
hackermailman
Check universities, because P/T developer work is in abundance here usually
weekends or remote once you get to know the researchers you work with, showing
up on odd weekends. These contracts pay less than industry but the education
you receive working with post-doc's imho makes it worth it and it's still more
than a livable wage. CompSci dept students don't often apply for whatever
reasons, I suspect it's because they are chasing internships at big money
corps.

~~~
brailsafe
Yep, this is true. In fact the only software dev work I've been paid to do in
2 years has been part-time a uni in Manitoba working with a post-doc there.
It's way more rewarding overall than anything I've been fired for doing in an
office somewhere accounting for my story points.

------
Spark9001
I too spent 10+ years as a professional software developer before I decided I
just didn't want to do it any longer. I still love "hobby coding", as the
author calls it, but production/professional software development is entirely
different.

Luckily, I stumbled into a job in the "solutions" genre: i.e. solutions
architect, solutions consultant, pre-sales engineer, technical account
manager, etc. There are subtle differences between these jobs, but they all
require a fairly high level of technical knowledge, but also require soft
skills and business acumen. I found this was the sweet spot for me. I'm able
to stay close to technology without the immense pressure of professional
software development. Plus, I get to learn more about the big picture,
business operations, my clients needs, grow my network, etc.

I still hobby code in the evenings, out of pure enjoyment, and the knowledge I
gain helps me do my day job better. It's the perfect situation. If you're over
professional software development, try a "solutions" gig.

~~~
azatris
Thank you! This is exactly where I'd prefer moving too!

------
ablomen
Coming from a country with cushy laws on the side of employees etc (the
Netherlands), and as a male, I can say that I can really identify with the
opening paragraphs of this piece.

When I started as all round IT guy 10 years ago it felt like a dream, getting
payed for doing what I was doing anyway. And the first 4 years of turning in
to a web developer was fun and challenging.

But after a while the shine wears off and getting up every day to make
software for clients you are not interested in, with deadlines and promises
that where not made by your self, it just drains you.

After finding my own solution (starting up a beer brewery) another thing
dawned, sitting behind a computer hours every day for work just is not good
for your body or your mind. The money is great, the work can be fun, but at
least for me, the best thing I have ever done is starting something totally
non-IT (or other office job) related.

~~~
wsc981
My dream would be to have a house in a tropical country with a nice big garden
and inside the house have a nice office. Inside the office I would work part-
time for clients, part-time for myself (on games). Or perhaps only for myself,
if my own projects would provide me enough income. Additionally, the garden
would be used as a farm. I would divide my time between farming groceries and
fruits and work on some apps or games. I would also like to have plenty of
time to spend with my girlfriend and daughter. Do enjoyable things together
often, because you never really know when you will die (or your significant
other, or your children) - so you really have to try to make most of the
little time you have in this life.

As a software developer it's probably easier to achieve your dreams in life
compared to many other professions. When living in a country like The
Netherlands you can get decent pay as a freelancer and safe money for future
dreams.

I've already made the first step to achieve my ideal work/life balance. I am
building a house in a tropical country right now. Currently the garden is
small, but I am sure in the future I can buy some land from neighbours that
will serve as a nice farm. Since the standards of life are lower in this
tropical country (average income around 500 EUR / month), it means I can work
less if I find a decent paying online job and hopefully can find better
work/life balance, while still earning plenty of money for good hospital care
(if needed) or pension.

Most people are not able to make these kinds of choices. Being a software
developer is really a luxury. Because you _can_ really have more freedom if
you choose to.

~~~
brailsafe
In only a vaguely related tangent, was it at all challenging to immigrate to
the country? I've been thinking about these sorts of possibilities but for the
most part there always seems to be some challenging aspect to long-term
residence. I'm from Canada, and am thinking about various countries in Europe
and the tropics.

~~~
wsc981
My emigration will happen officially next year. For me there would be several
ways to make this emigration work:

\- I could get married to my girlfriend, this would give me a marriage visa.

\- I can pay for a special type of visa with a certain duration (choices are
5, 10, 20 years). A 5-year visa would cost around 10.000 EUR or 8 EUR / day
and gives some extra benefits, like yearly health check-ups at a major
hospital, free limousine service near airport, preferred treatment at airport
(not wait in long queues), legal help, etc...

\- From 50+ years one can get a retirement visa (but I am only 36 years old,
so this doesn't apply to me).

\- I can work for a company inside the country and get a work visa. Easily do-
able as a software developer, but obviously will earn a lot less compared to
North Western Europe. But earning 2.500 EUR a month as software dev is still a
lot, about 5x the average income.

\- At least one company allows you to freelance and they handle taxes for you
and give you a work permit. But all invoices should be handled through this
company and they take a 30% cut.

There are some other ways as well, like an investor visa if you invest a large
amount of money in the country.

I will go for the second option for now, pay for the 5-year visa. After 5
years I could extend this with a 10-year visa. And from then on I can use a
retirement visa.

~~~
mclightning
which country is this?

~~~
wsc981
Thailand. The paid visa plan is called Thailand Elite[0]. Apparently there
should also be some sort of new visa that could be useful for digital nomads
introduced in 2018 [1]. The company that can provide a work permit in exchange
if 30% of your invoice is called IGLU [2].

By the way, after staying 5 or 10 year inside the country, one can apply for a
Thai citizenship, which is something I will consider [3].

\---

[0]: [https://thailandelite.org](https://thailandelite.org)

[1]: [https://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/997836-4-year-
professio...](https://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/997836-4-year-professional-
visas-get-green-light/)

[2]: [https://iglu.net](https://iglu.net)

[3]: [https://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/121353-story-of-my-
thai...](https://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/121353-story-of-my-thai-
citizenship-application/)

------
danieka
The author may not have intended it as such, but what I read is a excellent
argument for a shorter work week.

She writes that if she won the lottery she would still program, but fewer
hours. And I wonder how her work related injuries would look if she had worked
say six or five hours per day. I'm guessing a shorter work week would have
been cheaper for both her and her employer and that she would have been more
efficient at her job. There is certainly a price to be paid for working long
hours, and for each additional hour you have a lower output. There are many
companies that don't get this and (hopefully unconsciously) treat their
employees like disposables. Work 'em to the bone and replace 'em when they
break. Companies can easily form a toxic culture around working long hours.

I guess my point is that most people would probably be happier if they traded
a little income for a little free time. And they may just find that it makes
sense financially as well, both for individual and company.

~~~
vlehto
To me the optimum would be two part time jobs. Two days a week doing job A,
other two days doing B and three days off. Eggs in different baskets.

For companies it's often said that you should never rely on single customer.
But it makes sense for companies to force employees to rely on single customer
simply by buying all of their excess time.

------
auggierose
There are a lot of answers here that say "there are so many worse jobs, and
I've done some of them, so be grateful for the comparatively cushion job you
have".

I can understand this, and it is great to have people working for you who are
willing to push through whatever shit you give them.

On the other hand, great people really are about bending the context space to
make seemingly large distances become small distances. Then you don't have to
push through as much shit as you thought in the beginning.

You don't want to lose the second kind of people by creating work environments
in which only the first kind of people can thrive.

------
fpisfun
To be honest I had started to hate programming and the industry overall until
I started learning functional programming and about category theory, etc. It
turns out I've been working on crap my whole career, at least in my opinion,
and that's why most of my time has been spent fixing bugs, slowly adding new
features while working around horrible design. Working on crappy software with
crappy design and crappy developers is terrible but this isn't how it has to
be. Now I don't ever see myself getting out of the industry as, even if I'm
managing my own company or working as a manager for someone else, I'm always
going to do some coding and manage things at the code level because it's fun
when you're doing things right and it's also extremely important.

~~~
en-us
I couldn't agree more.

I've read that the people most satisfied in life are craftsmen who dedicate
themselves to mastering a craft. There is not much craft in managing deadlines
and customer commitments and such. It is necessary work but it is not
creative.

On the other hand, crafting code is a creative activity. Even for the simplest
projects you can appreciate the structure, and learn about the varying
tradeoffs in complexity that are made by any particular design pattern. This
type of thing is a very rich craft, and very satisfying to master.

The good news for us is that mastering this craft translates into satisfied
deadlines and confidence in ability to deliver on customer commitments. We can
be master craftsmen and be nearly guaranteed success in the knowledge economy,
which is not a luxury of other crafts like art and writing.

------
johnwheeler
I’ve held jobs where I was able to work on only greenfield projects with
minimal oversight and the ability to put in 3-4 hour days if I wanted to, and
I’ve held jobs like the blog post author’s, working on hellish enterprise
CMSes.

I can say the former is incomparably better and makes you grow into a
stronger, more fulfilled engineer. I think as long as I could support myself
financially and keep living somewhat comfortably, I’d take a 30% paycut to
work that way.

~~~
Clubber
I agree. I always work for startup type companies and they end up getting
acquired and the process changes from what worked great (enough to get
acquired) to shackles and mud. I hold on as long as I can and move to another
startup type company.

Big companies suck the soul and passion out of you. You really have to be
careful. Any passionate developer that wants to get out of development was
most likely crushed by large company process.

~~~
cholantesh
Looking at this paragraph:

>Because it’s not really “passion” they are looking for, but people who are
merely willing to endure long hours. They aren’t really looking for the person
who spends a few hours on the weekend on an open-source project, they are
looking for the person who comes home from work and spends all night on it.

I feel that the author is describing a lot of startups or mid-sized companies.
Personally, I think the size of the organization is not the best indicator of
how rewarding your work there will be.

~~~
Clubber
For me, it isn't necessarily the long hours that do me in, it's the
overburdening process that strips any creativity or problem solving out of the
trade.

I don't mind working long hours as long as they don't _expect_ me to. I'll do
it because I want to finish something cool and useful I'm working on, and move
to the next cool and useful thing I get to create.

Also, my perspective is from outside SV. I don't have any desire to work
there.

~~~
cholantesh
>I don't mind working long hours as long as they don't expect me to.

And there's the rub, there seems to be a tacit expectation at a lot of
software-based SMBs that you should be staying longer. They justify it with a
bunch of perks they can't afford, by applying not-so-subtle mental pressure
(using the right phrases like 'we're a family', 'we're changing the world' 'we
love it here so much we often stay later' and 'hustle and grind').

And at the end of the day, most of them are building yet another CRUD-heavy
inventory app with some reporting feature thrown in.

------
grad_ml
This is a new trend of tech blogging. Complain on each and every thing. I have
this, I'm this. I'm that. I have that. I'm goood. pretty much crux of the
whole article. Software jobs are complex, demanding, which is mostly
`reflected` in salaries. She has devoted half of article sniding/criticizing
here male peers >It’s really hard to celebrate “women’s day” with free
feminist speakers when I just found out some guy who does the same work as me
is getting paid 20% more.

Well, many men who do the exact same work, don't get same money. Women/men in
tech, imo are getting paid, whatever they could negotiate. I think, it's not
about gender at all. I have never witnessed hiring manager not willing to pay
because candidate is women/asian/white/black or purple. Is there backlash
against women in tech? I think, not at all. As a matter of fact, companies now
have quotas for women in dev/engineering and management positions. Equality..
that's some real double talk. Workplace is not a political place, which
guarantees freedom of speech. It's a controlled environment, which tries to
achieve business objective. On top of that, I feel like women criticizing men
in workplace is acceptable, like calling them "jerk" in article. I feel like,
dev community is fine with that. Is dev community fine with, men calling names
to women in workplace, without any consequences? On the top, we all know what
is modern feminism movement about it. I don't how as a male engineer, I'll be
comfortable, a bunch cribbing about men all the time around me, neither would
women feel comfortable when a bunch dude pushing the idea of men rights. Dude
from google got fired for expressing his opinion. I'm not quite sure, what
kind of workplace we are trying to envision.

------
iamleppert
I too am planning my departure from the tech industry. I've been at several
major startups in the bay area and I've worked for large tech companies.

I'm one of those people who are completely self-taught and passionate about
technology, and I'm good at what I do. For me its a creative outlet. However,
the dark side to this is that I'm frequently taken advantage of. And like the
author in the article, I often work alongside people who couldn't care less or
be bothered with this stuff. To them, its just a job, and they are masters at
putting in the least amount of effort. They'll look at you with some kind of
wonderment and incredulity and question why you even care at all.

Working in big tech (and some startups) were the worst. You had very little
creativity, and there are plenty of other engineers devoid of any ounce of
talent that will be quick to identity you as different than them and summarily
drown you in dozens of pointless code review comments to stall your work and
demotivate you. You'll often be forced to work with antique tools, ancient
code bases and languages you hate and that have no future. Throw in a
territorial devops person and a manager who treats you like a basic I/O device
for shits and giggles.

If you have a vision for anything you want to build, or have an idea, better
forget it. You better not collide with your product manager or the loads of
management above you that don't actually contribute in any meaningful way to
the actual product. They'll isolate you from customers and if you do come up
with something original they will work to make sure you don't get any
recognition for your accomplishments.

Sometimes it won't even matter if you're an early employee at a startup that
is successful. The investors will just bring in all their own management and
put you in jail anyway. If you're lucky once you quit or get fired you might
be able to only get away with paying $15k or $20k to exercise your worthless,
unsaleable options. This entire industry is a pathetic joke. I'm passionate
about it still but I only like working on my own projects and ideas.

Eventually, you just give up. Its better to work in another industry, I'm
trying to get into the art/design industry myself.

~~~
grad_ml
Well, I don't know man. If I don't like something, I would try to change it.
I'll do something on my own, but not give up career in tech. I have, had some
terrible demotivating code reviews,too. It's pointless at times, but I would
rather focus more on merits.

Product managers have their own contributions and most of the times direct
feedback from the customers. If I'm not able to convince folks, assuming
they're reasonable, I would consider it personal failing. And companies can't
change the entire stack overnight, not even the most progressive companies do
that. It requires carefully articulated discussion keeping an eye how it may
impact production systems, cost and available expertise. There are times when
people are rigid, unwilling to listen then change the job. Do not get
disappointed.

------
nickbauman
If your job as a programmer is being measured by the hours you're putting in
every day, you are experiencing a conflict of mission. I have a co-worker who
never seems to be working yet he's one of the most productive people in the
office. He works for 1 hour in the morning untangling a hairball in the code
that creates 22 hours of productivity for the rest of the team. He's been
programming since the 1980s. Stop this madness of applying 19th century
industrial England's work "ethic" to the job of a programmer, please.

------
derwiki
> Passion is prized in this industry and people who come into code out of love
> are considered special. It is also considered the reason why certain groups
> of people are less represented in tech, because not as many of them are
> building Linux machines in their basements for fun.

I apologize in advance for being time deaf / lack of empathy. But why is this
surprising? The best musicians I know were obsessed with their guitar when
they were 11 —- like I was with QBasic. Most professional musicians don’t
start playing at 18 when they enter conservatory. I can’t even fathom a
conservatory admitting a student who wasn’t already obsessed to some level. Is
this a valid complaint of the music industry as well?

~~~
internetman55
There's little demand to hear someone who isn't a top talent perform music.
You can just go to a concert hall and watch someone world famous play with
several hundred other audience members, or buy a recording. There is a lot of
demand for simple custom business applications, and many people without an
obsessive interest in the field are more than skilled enough to provide the
product.

~~~
derwiki
Very good point. Although many professional musicians aren’t selling out large
venues, they are playing small gigs/lounges, which sounds similar to the
custom business apps you describe.

------
Mattish
If you replace 'developer' with plenty of other job roles, then everything
here still applies.

There is /no/ job that allow you to ignore all risks a business has like a
hobby does. That is the difference here.

>If I won the lottery would I still code? I would, but it would not be like
work. It would be projects I enjoyed. And it would be fewer hours. >I took the
developer job because the medical bills piled up

You want it to be a enjoyable job with lower hours, but you don't want deal
with hardship that comes with it? You can't have it both ways.

------
johnnymonster
It's hard for me to read articles like this. If you don't like working at a
high paying tech job, please quit and dig trenches, drag brush, or pick
lettuce for minimum wage and no benefits. Then come tell me how much it sucks
to write fragments of code while sitting in your air conditioned office.

~~~
pmoriarty
_" If you don't like working at a high paying tech job, please quit and dig
trenches, drag brush, or pick lettuce for minimum wage and no benefits."_

Those trench diggers, brush draggers, and lettuce pickers are actually lucky
and should be grateful for the jobs they have. If not, they should try picking
through garbage to make their living, working in toxic mines, or defusing
bombs.

There are always worse jobs than the one you've got. That doesn't mean your
job doesn't suck, that you shouldn't complain or try to get a better one.

~~~
jasonmaydie
her job doesn't suck and frankly it doesn't get any better than what she has.
The article pretty much boils do I have to do something unexciting because I
need money. Welcome to the real world

------
dahart
> As a developer I’ve often had trouble figuring out if a job would be Snow
> Crashy or not, and been seduced by promises of engaging work only to find
> myself ferreting out bugs on some enterprise CMS.

Some jobs are more engaging and some are less. In my experience, all dev jobs
involve some time spent doing things that I don't consider fun, but the
company needs done. Employers do usually sell the work as interesting and
engaging for the person with the right skills.

Companies do tend to value the people that willingly take on the ugly stuff
and get it done. Sometimes (but not always) those people are paid more. I
think there are ways to make it more engaging, by studying the value of the
less fun work and working to fix it. This might mean developing interests in
and spending time doing some non-coding skills. And certainly there are also
some jobs that don't have much to redeem them.

Does anyone have advice for identifying what portion of the work will be
engaging during hiring interviews?

~~~
starik36
> ferreting out bugs on some enterprise CMS.

Yikes, that hits close to home. The job was sold to me as helping improve
performance of a website with 1 million + daily visitors. Which I took care of
in the first month.

Now I ferret out bugs on an enterprise CMS.

------
jorgemf
First of all. It is called Software engineering for a reason. Engineering
means to handle big problems in a way they can be solved by a company in an
efficient way.

Second, women earn 20% less in average, yes, but for the same position the
earn the same as men. The problem is women in top positions. That is why
companies don't go crazy to hire women because they are not cheaper (otherwise
the company would be in a big legal problem).

Said so, maybe the author would be happier working for smaller companies with
smaller products where she can have a bigger impact on the final product. Even
so, it is very unlikely a single programmer would be in charge of product
specification, design and development. Those are very different things, and
even in a small startup there are specific roles for those positions.

~~~
wyclif
_The problem is women in top positions. That is why companies don 't go crazy
to hire women because they are not cheaper_

That is not why women earn 20% less than men. It is because men work longer
hours over longer periods of time than women do.

~~~
jorgemf
If you work longer hours that is your problem. You are paid to work a fixed
amount of hours and the salary is linked to it, it doesn't matter what gender
you are. So sorry to tell you but you sound like the typical guy women don't
want to work with (neither me).

~~~
dang
This crosses into personal attack, which is not allowed here. Please don't do
it again.

~~~
jorgemf
Please explain how is this a personal attack as it wasn't my intention. And
how saying that women earn less because men work more is ok to say.

And I am sorry to tell you but you supporting him saying those things and
complaining about what I said is one of the reasons women are complaining so
much about tech guys.

~~~
Chris2048
This is a personal attack:

> you sound like the typical guy women don't want to work with

You don't substantiate this claim with respect to why they "sounds like" this,
what a "typical guy women don't want to work with" is, or why it matters in
context to this thread - but decide to air this unflattering view anyway.

~~~
jorgemf
I didn't ask you. So I am not sure you are telling me the correct answer.

But I want to ask you something. How "That is not why women earn 20% less than
men. It is because men work longer hours over longer periods of time than
women do." is not disrespectful and how it was backed? Sorry but I cannot
stand without doing anything with such claims, and it pisses me off that the
mods here think my comment is a personal attack and the said claim (that is
not supported by any reference and it is also false) can pass without
problems.

~~~
Chris2048
I can only offer a guess at what dang thought was a personal attack, but I can
opine on what is a personal attack independently.

There are different contexts in which different levels of evidence or backing
might be supplied, but the first thing I noted is that you don't explain why
the things you mention are relevant. "That is not why women earn 20% less than
men", regardless of if it is true or false is clearly relevant to the
discussion, but why is what someone "sounds like" relevant?

Also, there is enough information in the above claim to search on it - or at
least the claim can be refuted and thus begin an exchange of evidence. But
_your_ claim is about the character of the anonymous person you are talking
to. Claims about a population of people, brought up in a relevant context is
not disrespectful (possibly, depending on the legitimacy of the claims, but
that is _yet to be decided_ ); Making remarks out of context about an
individual is entirely different.

> that is not supported by any reference and it is also false

Who says it's false? Just say you don't believe the claim, and ask for
evidence, or make a counter-claim of your own.

~~~
jorgemf
> why is what someone "sounds like" relevant?

Because we live in a world where women are treated as less
important/intelligent than men. And we must try not to promote that stereotype
with lies.

> Claims about a population of people, brought up in a relevant context is not
> disrespectful

So things like "people is stupid", "most people here are male chauvinist", are
ok to say? The context is that the author of the article makes some claim
about how women are treated worse than men in tech.

> Who says it's false?

All the articles posted in HN about salaries. Every year stackoverflow makes a
survey for developers where they analyze among other things the salaries (for
example: [https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2016#salary-
gender](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2016#salary-gender)) There
is almost no gap in salary by gender with same years of expertise, the gap
only happens with age, >35, where the position is important (it means less
women in top positions). But this topic has been brought here over and over,
it doesn't need to cite it all the time.

I repeat the question again: How "That is not why women earn 20% less than
men. It is because men work longer hours over longer periods of time than
women do." is not disrespectful and how it was backed?

~~~
Chris2048
> Because we live in a world..

We live in a world consisting of different, distinct societies and community
groups. In some of those groups "women are treated as less
important/intelligent than me"; But this is not true of all groups - so whose
norms do we assume in online conversation?

> we must try not to promote that stereotype with lies

There is a difference between "sounds like" and "is". If you believe a lie is
being told, refute it rather than attack a persons' character.

> So things like .. are ok to say?

In relevant context, if it exists, yes. Neither of those things seem like they
would be relevant to this thread.

> All the articles posted in HN about salaries..

That's still something you had to provide evidence for, and couldn't just be
assumed. So long as it's an objective subject, the personal attack is not
justified.

Plus, there are HN articles that "debunk" the gender pay/wage gap too.

> the gap only happens with age, >35, where the position is important (it
> means less women in top positions)

Who says that's what it means. "over 35" means exactly just "over 35". Your
interpretation that it's "top positions" as the relevant factor is just one
explanation. "men work longer hours over longer periods of time" is another
explanation, that is _not_ refuted by your example.

The question _wasn 't_ backed, but neither was your own until just now (
_after_ the PA).

There is no way to definitively answer "How [the claim] is not disrespectful"
since "disrespect" is subjective. It seems uncommon to treat something that is
true or plausible as disrespectful though, so let's focus on plausibility
instead.

------
dep_b
It's kind of weird how people in the US seem to struggle with work life
balance. I'm constantly working for US companies remote from outside the US
and I can work +/-40 hours per week without any problem.

~~~
ironjunkie
It took me a while to understand this also especially in the US where everyone
complain all the time they work 80 hours a week, especially in tech. In my
experience, only a very small fraction of those claiming to do >45hours a week
are actually working that much.

I think for a lot it provides them a subconscious feeling of importance,
and/or an excuse for failed goals in their personal life.

~~~
derwiki
I think some 45+ hr/wk employees really don’t know what _else_ to do with
their time, and working longer hours is the “easy” way out.

~~~
the4dpatrick
I can personally speak to this because during the times I was working long
hours, I was avoiding some other aspects of a personal life and was using
programming/work as an escape. This paints some of my perspective on seeing
coworkers who are working these types of hours. I am unsure whether they are
passionate or are avoiding other things.

------
dlwdlw
I think one perspective shift that needs to occur in tech is not of lowering
some bar but recognition that many bars are unnecessarily high. Many
interviews can end up selecting for group compatibility "Can she passionately
discuss Haskell at our group outings." Rather than ability to do the job. It's
actually "important" though as without group cohesion new people can find it
difficult to get help and up to speed.

Though this sounds like an "immature" type of environment it's probably fairly
common at different levels of extremeness. Male vocations tend to have less
work/life balance with more meaning derived from work than other things like
family/relationships/hobbies. The bar can't be lowered without draining a
portion of meaning which exists primarily in arbitrary
difficulty/moats/hazing-rituals.

Everyone just wants to feel good about themselves. But when that feeling can't
be derived internally (like being able to choose and follow a hobby) the only
option is externally derived feelings of usefulness which necessitate one-
upping something. If it's not "I'm Ok" then it's "I'm better than you." If
it's not about living then it has to be about winning.

And winning is the culture of young males striving for meaning in the world.

------
Jazcash
I hated working in the "software" industry until I quit doing typical
enterprise website development and started doing web apps and games which is
99% Javascript.

Working with CMS' was especially awful. Complete lack of creativity and felt
like it was mostly just hooking up inputs to outputs without anything in the
middle. Even when there was some custom functionality required it was mostly
copy paste jobs.

If I ever have to make another Wordpress theme I'll slit my fucking wrists

------
brooklyntribe
A heads up? Don't take a cabinet making workshop with an instructor passionate
about what you can do with a plank of Birds Eye Maple, a router and a piece of
sandpaper.

You may never look at another Javascript framework again. So DON'T take that
class. You may do something crazy like quit your day job and make wooden bowls
all day. And have way too much fun.

You don't want to have way too much fun. And don't get me started on
glassblowing!

You can do pretty well on Etsy, and code on the side. And keep that grad
degree in CompSci as Plan B. :-)

------
tboyd47
The thing that kills me is that these problems don't have to exist. A company
that can afford to hire a developer full-time can also afford a decent
ergonomic setup and equitable salaries for women. It's just that we have
collectively made this kind of treatment okay, as evident in the majority of
these comments.

------
keithnz
This is why I have always enjoyed working for smaller companies. I've got to
do lots of things, I'm a multi stack developer (tm), I code for embedded
systems, Web, and Desktop. You build from scratch the things you need, you
make "executive" decisions about technology stacks and generally do kind of
hobby like stuff but in a proffesional way. You work with a few other
individuals in the same boat and constantly have to innovate.

There are downsides, you rarely get to focus on one thing for any extended
amount of time, so some of the bigger pieces of work get trickier to do. Often
you come up with really good ideas that would be great to do but just go on
the back burner.

------
smnplk
How about if I say this: Just because other people have it worse, doesn't mean
that software developers are privileged or lucky. Many don't enjoy it, but
they've put in hard work to learn it. I don't like how the word privileged
get's tossed around these days.

------
alistproducer2
I'm leaving IT after 5 years to start a real estate company and work with my
hands. I feel exactly the same way as the OP. Sitting on my butt for 6 years
is wrecking my health and I hate the work.

I've saved lots of money and as long as I don't screw up my investments, I'll
never have to work for anyone else again.

I love open source software and will continue to build and contribute to
projects. I hate enterprise software and development culture and will never do
it again. To each his own.

~~~
kowdermeister
Good for you. That's really exceptional that only after 5 years you can do
that. I'm not even close after 10 :/

~~~
alistproducer2
To be fair, I'm in a 2 income household and my spouse bought into the "save
everything now, retire early" plan.

------
MrGilbert
I basically lost my hobby (writing desktop applications) by turning it into a
profession.

I successfully compensated that with game dev. I started writing little games,
working on game engines, and tinkering around. I'm pretty happy with that now.
I guess that happens to a lot of people when turning your hobby into sth. you
do for your living.

And I also realized that humans are simply not made to sit 12+ hours a day.
(Count the work time + spare time). So some kind of activity is recommended, I
guess.

 _/ /Edit: However, it took my quite some years to figure out why I hadn't fun
coding Desktop applications in my spare time any longer..._

------
throwaway_121
I'm a 40 year old male and have worked as a Front End Developer & Designer for
the past 8 years who is scared about having to give up my IT career. I lost my
last Govt IT job due to being bullied and harassed by a peer who I reported to
management. Managements response wasn't until they went hostile, put me on a
PIP and made my bully the judge of my performance.

I wonder has anyone ever faced something similar and or what would you do
besides moving on/getting another job because I've been on 15 interviews and
oddly haven't received any offers(anomaly for me).

------
mk89
Good luck to the author. And kudos to her that, despite all issues endured in
the software industry, had a relatively good career.

Our industry is not easy, and I don't feel like saying that it's the worst.
This is what bad management does, unfortunately.

If companies want to win they have to train management to be better and
educate them regularly, implement a feedback system and act on it (no,
collecting is not enough).

We have lost a resource, a person who got trained for years not only at school
but also on the job. Why? Because we got her frustrated and demotivated. I
blame it all on bad management.

------
katzgrau
I understand that a job gets boring and you have to do things you wouldn't
choose to do yourself for decades on end, but that's what a job is.

And as a developers, we're pretty lucky that we're generally respected within
our companies, well paid, have plenty of work/life flexibility, and have the
ability to go solo and do our own thing on our own terms - all within what is
mostly a meritocracy in that talent often trumps pedigree.

I make a living running a company that I bootstrapped 5 years ago. It was fun
when I started, but I do find plenty of days where I'm feeling burnt out or
uninterested. I'm reasonably certain that no matter what you're doing - if you
do it long enough, you'll find things you don't like about it.

My only tip for anyone feeling this way is to look for microchallenges. If
you're basically just fixing bugs in an established enterprise product, for
example, find clever ways to improve the code, refactor code, make debugging
easier, improve system stability and monitoring, etc. Perhaps find something
that you could parlay into an open source project. There are plenty of fun
little challenges that can align your personal and work life if you look for
them.

------
throwawayy60
This really hit home for me, and I personally know plenty of other
dissatisfied software developers who would feel the same. It’s incredibly sad.
And this doesn’t even take into account the problems female developers run
into.

The biggest thing for me was the hours. I can’t stand “startup hours”. In my
first three years of software development, I guess I lucked out because this
wasn’t a problem. But after my first two jobs, I started taking in 9:30-6:30
and 10-7. When I interviewed elsewhere, I came across a new term. I was told
“we work startup hours.” Some companies described it using different words,
but the meaning was always the same. You’ll be here late, just like everybody
else. If you don’t like it, don’t work here.

I got that from three out of the four companies I interviewed for. Not a huge
sample size, but hugely demoralizing.

I became a consultant thinking billable hours might save me. It’s not perfect
but it’s a hell of a lot better. Working long hours is no longer the norm, as
it’s cinsidered “eating hours” and doing free work for clients.

------
smsm42
That's why I have avoided working for huge companies so far. The pros of
working for big company (including the Government which for this purpose is
the same) are the benefits are usually pretty good, and if you're going to do
decent job you probably will have decent job security - unless somebody 5
levels up decides to close your whole subdivision, in which case you're out no
matter what. The cons are you are not even close to where the decisions are
made, have very little chance to influence anything substantial and can spend
years perfecting formatting on TPS reports without even knowing whether
somebody ever looks at them.

I would suggest people feeling the upsides of nice paycheck do not cover the
downsides of being a corporate drone try to explore smaller company scene.
Maybe not fresh-baked startups (too risky unless you have good cash cushion or
so young that expanding your resume is worth it anyway) but ones that are
already established but still did not develop to Facebook/Google sizes.

------
misingnoglic
After graduating college, I really wanted to be a CS teacher, but the finances
and logistics just didn't make sense at all. My current goal is to save up
enough money where I don't have to rely on a teacher's salary (or have to
worry about getting fired should I not bow down to an administrator), and then
start looking.

------
staticelf
Maybe live in a country that has a better work life balance? Or find an
employer that is willing to give that benefit?

~~~
derwiki
Moving to another country might not be as easy for everyone as you make it
sound.

------
phkahler
Assuming she passed our interview process - which I think she would - I would
gladly hire the author into a software development position that is entirely
different from her previous experience. It's not all roses - work is work -
but I feel like everything she complained about is different where I work.

------
ots
I am not a software developer. As a sysadmin, I'm paid less than a software
developer with similar experience. I started doing support after college, even
though I have a CS degree. At the beginning I wasn't sure if I want to this
and was a bit envy to software developers. It took me several years to realize
that I actually prefer to what I'm doing than full-time coding. I've been at
jobs that I can travel to different parts of the work to support our
infrastructure or build a company's server infrastructure from scratch and
having significant impact on the organization.

There is always a different path one can take, especially at such young age as
the OP.

------
fulafel
Not to reduce this to one thing, but

> Coding for a couple of hours a day in your spare time isn’t the same as
> coding for 8+ hours a day. Over the past decade it has worn me down. I have
> regular painful migraines triggered by working long hours. I have the
> beginnings of arthritis in my neck.

I don't recommend anyone does 8+ programming days because of deadlines. It's
different if you're "in the zone" of course.

Normal good programming jobs are fine with 8 hours days consisting of much
less than 8 hours of actual programming.

That's why you are in a salaried job: you do your best but you you're not
responsible for getting things done "at any cost".

------
pascalxus
the author has clearly been taken advantage of by her work as many people have
been both in the software industry and outside of it. The biggest problem, is
our need for money. If we only needed 1/3 as much money to live, then you
wouldn't need to work nearly as much. You could work for 5 years and then take
several years off. And, if everyone else did the same, the labor supply would
shrink to amount that forces employers to treat labor with more respect. At
that point, I don't think they'll mind you have a 3 year gap, as long as your
skills are up to date.

But, reducing your need for money to 1/3 is hard, partly due to our financial
decisions: but this part can be changed. It's pretty easy to cut spending on
the frivolous parts. The hardest part is taxes. In the US, on average, 1/3 of
every dollar you earn gets taken by the Gov and it's much much more than that
if you're in an expensive area like the bay area. If you find this surprising,
take a good look at gov spend of GDP.

Housing cost is probably the next biggest area that's hard to reduce, mainly
due to laws that prevent land supply and zoning from increasing and lots of
other political factors.

Anyways, I think it's not reasonable to expect everyone's work to be fun 100%
of the time. We just have to expect that some of the work will be interesting
and some of it won't and reduce the total amount of work done in a lifetime
accordingly.

------
johnrichardson
In my experience, it's counterproductive to code more than 4-5 hours per day.
At a certain point you start introducing bugs/inadvertent complexity whose
negatives outweigh any feature contributions you're making. There's lots of
research which bears this out. E.g., [https://www.inc.com/jessica-
stillman/why-working-more-than-4...](https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/why-
working-more-than-40-hours-a-week-is-useless.html)

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I've been working 3-4 hour days for years now, however the only reason I can
do this is because I work for myself.

~~~
derwiki
The other option is to show up at your job for 40 hours/week but only put in
15-20. Especially in software, where one engineer can be 10x more productive
than another, one can easily get away with this.

(I’m not advocating this, just pointing out that it is a strategy I’ve seen
employed)

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I think that's probably quite common.

------
dahart
> That savings was originally for a downpayment for a house, but now gives me
> a landing pad where I can take some time to really do what I love.

Saving up and taking two years to do my own thing made me appreciate the old
saying "time is money" like nothing else ever has, I literally bought time to
do what I want with that money. It ran out before I figured out how to turn it
into a sustainable business, but I still had the best two years of my
professional life so far.

~~~
Clubber
I recently took a 4 month sabbatical and money is certainly freedom. I
appreciate it more.

------
lkrubner
In one of his essays, Paul Graham remarks that the startups at Ycombinator who
fail have several traits in common, and one of those traits is that they don't
listen. He meant they don't listen to him, but I would make it general --
these failed leaders often don't listen to their own teams.

I've been surprised at how often I have an important insight about a business,
and my clients/managers feel uncomfortable with my insight. The most common
reaction I get is "We need to stay focused on ideas that deliver real business
value." But I can think of examples where that response couldn't possibly be
an honest response, since the top leadership felt the company was in crisis,
and they were trying to brainstorm new ideas for moving forward.

I was present for cases where software developers push for a new way of doing
things, and the top management pushes for the status quo -- and this happens
even when the top leadership feels the company is in crisis and the status quo
is untenable.

The most rational explanation for this behavior is that the top leadership is
worried that a new idea will take too much time, or cost too much money. The
tech team might say "We have this brilliant idea, and it will take 3 months to
implement" but the top leadership is worried that it will really take 6 months
to implement. But this is really the same as saying that the company doesn't
have the right leadership. If the status quo is untenable and the leadership
lack the skills to properly evaluate alternative strategies, then new
leadership is needed. But it is obviously difficult to get the top management
to agree to this. I say "obviously" though in some sense it is surprising how
many leaders would rather cling to power, and oversee a spectacular failure,
than step aside and let someone else save the situation.

Why does top leadership drive the software developers so hard? There are
several reasons. Fear of failure. Fear of unknown risks. Fear of uncontrolled
costs. Fear of unexpected expenses. Fear of having to rely on something that
one doesn't understand. Demanding long hours, and implementing rituals such as
Agile or Scrum, are seen as ways of reducing risk. And then of course, there
is the simple fact that the top leadership can do this -- the USA has weak
labor unions, the tech industry has almost no labor unions, therefore the
government allows harsher working conditions than what you find in France or
Germany or Sweden.

~~~
codingdave
This sounds like a very one-sided perspective. Because while we devs might not
want to admit it, incremental improvements in product quality don't have a
huge business impact. There are 3 states of a product -- Not Working, Works
OK, and AMAZING. Not working --> Works OK is the initial dev of a product, so
you are likely already past that. Now, if your improvements don't move the
product from OK to Amazing, or if your product is already amazing, but the
business has other problems... then your organization is at a point where devs
simply don't have the business impact that a refactoring of
sales/marketing/strategy can have. This is not a bad thing -- it means the
devs did their job, and everyone else needs to step up.

But unless you understand the bigger picture of the business, it can seem like
they are ignoring you. The truth is, they aren't rejecting your idea... they
just think it isn't making the leap to amazing.

~~~
lkrubner
I'm not sure who are responding to, but you are not responding to me. If you
re-read what I wrote, you'll see that I was speaking of cases where the
leadership agreed that the status quo had failed.

------
xupybd
>That what James Damore said that really cut to the core was that a lot of us
women in tech were only there because a bar was lowered to get us in to meet
some quota.

I don't think that is what he was saying, he was saying lowering the bar is of
limited utility if not that many women are choosing tech careers. Maybe
addressing the reason that tech is not attractive to women is a better
solution?

------
cmroanirgo
The article reminds of my story. I left 5 years ago. I'd written everything
from 3d games to accounting & stock market analysis. Couldn't wait to get out.

I now write for me, and for friends. For free. Some of it could even turn very
lucrative, if I felt inclined -- which I don't. I'm living off savings mainly,
but occasionally do a bit of manual labour -- and am happier for it.

------
qntl
I’d love to teach high school math or physics (or hell, even programming)
classes. I’ve looked into it a little, and the bottom line is that no school
district is ever going to pay me even half what my <Big Tech Firm> employer
will pay me to shine their latest shiny app. I think it might make a good
retirement career for me some day though.

------
stmw
A relevant Harvard study - "Ten-month-old infants determine the value of a
goal from how hard someone works to achieve it"
[https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-11-ten-month-old-
infants...](https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-11-ten-month-old-infants-goal-
hard.html)

------
vnrst1
At Spot.coach, we work with a lot of engineering teams to help them design
their dream work life.

[http://www.spot.coach/managers](http://www.spot.coach/managers)

------
fapjacks
I dunno. I spent a bunch of years shooting at people and getting shot at,
literally, and I can't tell you how much that has helped me not take this
dreamlike existence for granted. This post serves as a reminder that the
biggest problem some people will face today is that someone at Chipotle forgot
they didn't want guacamole on their burrito. We should be grateful for the
opportunity. Meanwhile, just open really any history book or newspaper. Most
people are living or have lived _hard_ lives.

------
azinman2
Almost anyone’s hobby is less fun when done as work, especially as a team
grows and systems are necessary.

E.g cooking, painting, furniture making, etc.

------
folknor
I really struggle to find anything worth reacting to in this blog post. It
sounds to me like the story of every individual worker in every economy.

Most of what she says is entirely self-evident, except for the anecdotes about
pay/equity, for which she presents zero evidence.

Where is the substance? Why is this interesting?

Every dad in the world knows that a hobby is different from work, and that
turning your hobby into work is not always ideal, because you lose your hobby,
you lose your steady salary, and your dreams do not always work out. I
postulate at least that every dad knows this inherently.

Most people have way more taxing jobs than IT. I've been in construction for 3
years, and that work is no joke. Outside in rain/snow/storms, lifting tons of
material on a normal day, for little pay, and no "worker satisfaction" or
"team building" events, etc. I only did it for 3 years - one of the people I
worked with was over 70, and had done it since he was 13.

Is it because she postulates that companies are hiring more women because they
think that they can pay them less?

And I'm not saying I think that's true/false (she presents no evidence), I'm
just asking if that's the reason the blog post is interesting.

~~~
BenchRouter
> Most people have way more taxing jobs than IT. I've been in construction for
> 3 years, and that work is no joke.

There's some discussion of this above, but I think it's interesting that the
alternative to software development is seemingly always construction, or
delivering food, or being a waiter.

Wouldn't the more apt comparison be something like law? Or medicine?

Or has software development truly reached blue-collar status and we're
essentially plumbers/electricians?

I'm not accusing you of anything specifically, just using your comment to
ponder.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
> _Wouldn 't the more apt comparison be something like law?_

An often stressful profession, requires extensive post-graduate education
(which most developers don't have), has strict licensing requirements to keep
out people. Doesn't pay as well as software development, relative to the
requirements and responsibility.

> _Or medicine?_

A highly stressful profession (your patients could die), requires extensive
post-graduate education (which most developers don't have), has strict
licensing requirements to keep out people, and high liability for making
mistakes. Also doesn't pay as well as software development, relative to the
requirements and responsibility.

Software development comes out well ahead there too.

> _Or has software development truly reached blue-collar status and we 're
> essentially plumbers/electricians?_

Maybe I'm just getting jaded but I'd say yes. Outside the big 4 and a few
other niches, most developers seem to just be gluing together whichever pre-
made web frameworks and libraries happen to currently be in vogue. Patience
with the endless yak-shaving needed to get anything to work rather than any
particular technical brilliance is the primary requirement for career
longevity.

~~~
BenchRouter
I'm not sure I buy that attorneys are significantly better educated,
especially in some more traditional firms (e.g. MS) where a masters isn't
unusual. It's only an additional year of schooling on top of that.

Fair point on the licensing though. Maybe that's what most commonly separates
blue collar from white collar these days - licensing? Trying to think of other
professions I would compare software development to, and they all require
licenses (traditional engineering, for example).

> Maybe I'm just getting jaded but I'd say yes. Outside the big 4 and a few
> other niches, most developers seem to just be gluing together whichever pre-
> made web frameworks and libraries happen to currently be in vogue. Patience
> with the endless yak-shaving needed to get anything to work rather than any
> particular technical brilliance is the primary requirement for career
> longevity.

Yeah, I'm starting to get that impression as well.

To be fair, though, I think many US physicians would tell you a similar thing
(being brilliant isn't nearly as important as how adept you are at navigating
the healthcare/insurance system).

------
wolco
For someone in her position I would be looking at a manager role or project
manager.

------
xstartup
I work 20 hours a day and I don't even feel like I am working. This involves
coding 10-15 hours a day with 5-6 hours of sales pitch and customer service. I
know plenty of folks who really enjoy working all time.

~~~
k3a
It may look cool at the beginning but I guess you will change mind after 5-10
years..

------
cup-of-tea
> I just found out some guy who does the same work as me is getting paid 20%
> more.

Yeah and there's probably some guy getting paid 20% less than you for the same
job and some woman getting paid 100% for an easier job. Maybe it's best to
quit software if you don't even understand basic statistics.

This is a great profession which pays very well and has very flexible hours.
Go shovel shit if you want. The author just doesn't seem to want to work. That
is all.

~~~
sctb
This is not a civil or substantive comment. Could you please take a look at
the guidelines and then follow them? We're trying to do better than drive-by
personal attacks and dismissals here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
cup-of-tea
Please explain, in plain English, how this breaks the guidelines or how this
is "not a civil or substantive comment".

~~~
sctb
> _Maybe it 's best to quit software if you don't even understand basic
> statistics._

This is a personal attack, which is not civil according to the standards of
this site.

> _Go shovel shit if you want. The author just doesn 't seem to want to work.
> That is all._

This is not a substantive statement.

~~~
cup-of-tea
Thanks for your explanation. But I think the point of my comment was that the
article itself was neither civil nor substantive. Am I not allowed to make
such a criticism?

~~~
sctb
That's all fine. Please make it within the guidelines.

------
draugadrotten
> Also once in a while some jerk will be like “if women really were paid less
> why wouldn’t companies hire more women to save money?” I’m pretty sure they
> already do this and that recent lawsuits will reveal it is a common
> practice. My experience is companies are thrilled to hire women, it makes
> them look good AND they can usually pay them less. It’s not about quotas.

This misandristic conspiracy theory distracted me from the other message in
the article.

~~~
nickthemagicman
Lol, messed up but it makes an interesting point. Why don't people hire mostly
women and save a bunch on payroll? Does the wage gap exist because companies
pay women less due to being sexist or because of other confounding factors?

~~~
zimablue
For one thing, the wage gap as you're usually used to seeing it presented
doesn't mean what it's passed off as meaning. The media prints a number of "X%
pay gap, women should stop working every year in July because they're paid
that much less" and kind of presume that it means paid less for doing the same
work.

The gender pay gap number that is always reported is actually just an
aggregate mean of salary across the population, NOT a difference between
people employed in the same job. For people employed in the same job the
difference is a much smaller number. The main reason behind the reported
number is that women on average work less hours in their life and take career
breaks, and salary tends to go up with time worked. There are more reasons but
this is the big chunk, women earn pretty close to men who work the same
average number of hours.

So in summary, you might be able to save some percentage per-hour by hiring
female developers but the number is much smaller than you'd imagine. You'd
then have to offset that against the much higher difficulty of finding equally
skilled female developers. There are just objectively less of them, and those
that exist are at a premium because companies like Google are facing political
pressure to have equal numbers of male and female developers.

~~~
arkh
The solution as usual is to start working on programs to train new developers
earlier instead of relying on colleges and CS curriculum.

Something like the apprenticeships you have in lot of trades.

~~~
zimablue
I'd say the solution is to stop looking for a solution and worry about a
problem that matters.

Not that there's 0 discrimination or that it doesn't matter that there is but
we live in a heating planet where the US just elected Trump and people live on
$1 a day.

And a significant fraction of all arguments on the internet are about why
there are more male developers. And the honest truth is mostly that men are
way more interested in being developers. It's like funny if it wasn't tragic.

------
spectrum1234
Please leave. You suck as a dev. Bye!

~~~
SliderUp
Just fuck right off. I hope she coffees as much as she wants to, on what she
wants to.

You're an asshole, on the other hand.

------
pfarnsworth
I don’t agree with James Damore’s writing, but he never said that women were
there because the bar was lowered.

He said that the reason there are less women in tech is due to the fact that
the way it’s set up right now makes it less interesting or desirable for most
women, and he suggested ways to change the nature of programming jobs and how
programming is done in order to naturally attract more women to the field.

If anything, OP’s blog post reinforces what James Damore was trying to
accomplish, albeit in a misguided way.

~~~
jungletime
Programming can be incredibly tedious. I often wonder why men want to do it.
Why is it controversial that women find doing other things more compelling and
interesting? Look at the subjects given a choice, chose at University. Isn't
it a win for society when people get to do what they're interested i and
passionate in. Instead of being shoehorned into some position that they hate.

~~~
thesmallestcat
In the '50s, when the computer industry was young, some people (weasel words,
grasping for the source) floated the idea of having prisoners write the actual
code. The thinking was that they would tolerate the drudgery and being stuck
in one spot all the time. Oh boy...

------
watwut
The realization that people I considered friends never really have been after
that memo got to me too. They might like my presence, but I don't really count
as a women should be to them and they never considered me good as they
pretended to. Good thing I don't always get subtle social clues I guess.

But the rest sounds like burnout. Old programmers I see around had all learned
not to let companies burn them out.

~~~
gjvc
> "Old programmers I see around had all learned not to let companies burn them
> out."

Great observation. Did you ever have any of those "old programmers" offer you
any advice in this respect?

~~~
arkh
"The only pressure you get is the one you accept". Just learn to say no. I
think that's the most important thing women and shy people need to learn. No.

"You should work late to show your commitment". "No".

"We over-promised so it is crunch time". "No".

"Here is a company phone so we can contact you easily in case of emergency".
"No".

And sleeping enough every day is one of the most important things you can do.
And finding a job in a good company even if you earn a little less.

~~~
walshemj
"Here is a company phone so we can contact you easily in case of emergency".

Id say ok what's the rate for 1/4 and of course I will be paid a minimum of 4
hours for any call out at OT rates (or the equivalent in TOIL)

------
randcraw
It's difficult to know if the OP now dislikes her life in software or her life
in general. Unless she can identify an activity or role she _does_ like, a
place where she clearly would rather be, it's hard to know whether her
specific objections with tech are truly causal to her ennui or just attempts
to explain how she got where she is today. Perhaps her physical ailments and
career ennui are actually symptoms of a general sense of disengagement with
life outside of work as well.

