Ask HN: Are any tech workers still happy?

[throwaway0125]

I work as a software engineer at a publicly traded company with 10-20k employees, and I’m incredibly unhappy with my job. The pay and benefits are good (for now), but the past two years have thrown our workloads into overdrive, our previously cherished company values are all but dead, and our old performance review system has been replaced with “we refuse to call it” stack ranking and mandatory PIPs. And it’s not just me, I haven’t interacted with a genuinely happy or optimistic coworker in over a year. We are all burned out, no matter how much of our “unlimited PTO” we take.

Is it like this everywhere nowadays? News stories about “big tech“ paint a pretty dismal picture, but are these experiences endemic to the whole industry?

Are you still happy (or at least neutral) about your job?

[marssaxman]

My current job is one of the best I've had: a post-series-A startup which is executing smoothly on a product the market seems to want. The work is interesting and comes in Goldilocks quantities, neither too boring nor too stressful. Coworkers are happy, culture is healthy, vibes are good, and the future feels bright.

I like it here. I'm sure there must come a day when it will be time to move on, but I hope it's not soon.

[troymc]

It sounds like you need to quit and get a different job.

Maybe you should do a different kind of work. Lots of people derive happiness, even joy, from their work (including software developers; Steve Gibson [1] is a good example of that).

If you need help finding that, I recommend the book What Color Is Your Parachute?

[1] https://www.grc.com/intro.htm

[throwaway0125 → troymc]

I think you might be right. Perhaps I’m just looking for reassurance that this problem isn’t as universal as it looks from my current vantage point.

[bdangubic]

never been happier at work than now, 27th year in the industry. I've always been happy though, avoided all the pitfalls of this industry, bigtech/faang/... and stuck with small but profitable companies and never looked back. last 8 years 1099, mostly government sub contracts

[gregjor]

I have preferred smaller companies for a long time, particularly those that make a profit and don’t have “growth at all costs” as their real mission statement. I’ve worked at some dysfunctional smaller companies too, but nothing like the big tech firms. Working for real customers you have to care about versus working for increasing the share price makes a difference.

I don’t expect to derive my happiness from my job, but I can reduce the frustration and overwork and feeling like nothing I do matters by working at a place where my contribution has clear value and the org doesn’t have the management slack for lots of bullshit.