One thing that the article doesn't touch on is how a passion for software craftsmanship can be completely undermined by the recklessness of business decisions.<p>I love the experience of writing and using rock solid programs, but in the real world, there are deadlines to meet, flaky requirements, and tech debt. For people in it for the money, it doesn't affect them. For people that appreciated good software, it turns them into people just doing it for the money, except it also affects them.<p>I always explain it like this: imagine you were a chef, that loved the complexities of cooking; preparation, presentation, and recipe formulation. You enjoy preparing food and experiencing food. With this passion, you're forced to work in fast food, churning out meals as fast as the drive through will take them.<p>"Well, you can always cook in your free time!"
I totally agree with her priorities. I too don't want to work on just one tiny cog of a system where I don't know the big picture, so I try to avoid projects that sound boring, and look for projects that sound interesting. I want to keep that passion alive. Now I'm building interesting stuff and we're responsible for the entire thing. In fact, many companies have moved to fullstack devops roles, which is basically just new corporate speak for doing the whole thing as well as deploying it.<p>> <i>"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’ve tried standing desks, balance board desks, treadmill desks, special diets, exercising more before and after work. "</i><p>I don't spend 8 hours per day programming either. And I only work 4 days. No single desk is ever going to solve your problems; you need regular change. Pause, get some coffee, take a walk outside. It's great for clearing your head and making a fresh start.<p>But I can imagine corporate culture matters a lot. If you're at a company that expects you to spend 8 hours typing hard behind your desk, that's going to suck. If your employer doesn't respect your work-life balance, that sucks. Many Dutch companies do care about those things, but I can imagine that countries like the US or Japan have a very different culture.
I went through exactly the same thing.<p>I love the coding aspect. I love using my brain, solving problems, working with intelligent people.
I can't handle sitting inside for 50 hours a week, and I can't handle business politics and nonsense.<p>So I quit my Software Engineering job and took 2 years to drive from Alaska to Argentina, having the time of my life. [1]<p>Then I worked for a bit again to save money, and quit again and just got back from 3 years driving all the way around Africa. [2]<p>I've decided I want to be a travel writer and photographer, because it makes me happy. I have way less money, but I'm happier than I've ever been. I have written a couple of books about my adventures, and I write for a slew of magazines now too.<p>Do what makes you happy.<p>[1] The Road Chose Me Volume 1 - <a href="https://amzn.to/2wkxceX" rel="nofollow">https://amzn.to/2wkxceX</a><p>[2] 999 Days Around Africa - <a href="https://amzn.to/2H93IUH" rel="nofollow">https://amzn.to/2H93IUH</a>
I agree with a lot of things in the article and I can relate to the author but this quote really threw me off<p>>"some guy who does the same work as me is getting paid 20% more”
(the author being female)<p>Several times in my career I've found that other male developers (me being male) that I considered not even good made 50% more than me. Sometimes I found out that I made 50% more than other younger developers that I considered way better than me.
I understand that women are underpaid compared to men in general but this specific situation can be explained by so much more than sexism.
This article makes me feel a little better about my life decisions. I started programming at age 12, but as my major I chose mechanical engineering because at the time, there was a lot of talk about the US software industry crashing and it all going to India.<p>I'm not going to try to portray mechanical engineering as all roses - the pay is a bit lower, and the chances of becoming a break-out rock start are much lower (think of the capital investment needed to build your own business). But the work weeks are a true 40 hours for at least 90% of weeks in most places, the work is much more varied (office, shop, lab, travel), and mechanical engineers with grey hair don't seem to have problems finding a job.
Ultimately I think it's difficult to find a job with the correct combination of everything you want. I don't think this is unique to software development.<p>I've worked in places in London that I really enjoyed. Good colleagues, good environment, tip top.<p>But then you're in a place with a hellish cost of living, and it's basically a requirement to play office politics and earn $BIGNUM, else you'll be in a pokey flat with a shit commute forever. And that can really eat in to motivation - because suddenly your work is no longer about the craft, it's about increasing your personal numbers.<p>I imagine the same to be true in SV/SF.<p>You can then have the other extreme, whereby perhaps you have a very low cost of living, but there's 1 software company and you either work there or not.<p>Remote work can help to solve this, but there are a whole bunch of unsolved social issues there.<p>A lot of the stuff I read on here about burnout I think isn't really linked to the work itself. It's the whole environment - everything feeds in.
What's 1000x worse than working on small code fragments, is designing programs by talking in meetings. Management types are drawn to it, not software geeks.
After reading this, I felt the she is painting all the industry that software is applicable to with the same brush.<p>Software development as a discipline is applicable across many types of industry (automotive, mobile, communications, aerospace, Internet, etc).<p>I wonder how much of her wanting to quit software development is due to the industry that she is in.
I agree with most of what she says about being a software dev, expect, for the long hours - how many companies has she worked in? I have worked in 7 companies over the last few years (mostly as a contractor though a few were permanent) and in not one of them had employees working more than 40 hours a week.
A sad story indeed, but I've never felt any of my work has been "Snow Crashy" or monotonous or lacking the need for autonomy and creativity. I doubt it's representative of the entire industry, and it's not even fair to treat the industry as a monolith to begin with.
I don't see this particular story as a problem with the industry itself, but seems like a terrible employer to work for if you need to hide your pain. Good companies don't push people this far, and even help employees when needed. Some have even health-preserving programs.
Inst this more of a rant against corporate, big companies only offering desk jobs? There are many other types of companies. Smaller ones with flexible and/or remote work exist out there
IMO a lot of problems with our work culture come down to too many hours. If we cut down full-time to mean 20 hours a week, I think a lot of the suffering would disappear. Health conditions would be reduced, ennui from the meaninglessness of tasks wouldn't seem as stark, balancing work and life would be a breeze. It just seems so weird to me that employers are willing to pay me $X for 40-50 hours a week but not $X/2 for 20-25.
I’d love to be a programmer but it seems that my job would likely consist of some database programming or nuts and bolts of a internal corporate program. Not exactly exciting or fulfilling work! Correct me if I’m wrong, I’m not in the industry but that’s my impression. This blog kinda confirms my concerns.
Work culture in the western world is broken.<p>We face so many issues because when it comes down to it, humans spend most of their time in very cold, disconnected working environments that are designed to break your soul and turn you into a drone.<p>I think what should be remembered is that swdev is a high demand job, and you should have high demands and standards of yourself and your needs.<p>The author admits to hiding away her flaws as to not show weakness, this is the wrong approach. Admit your weaknesses, be honest with yourself, your colleagues and your boss. If they don't understand or reciprocate, tell them to go get fucked.<p>Become a freelancer or consultant.
It sounds like what she's discovered that 40+ hours a week sitting in a cubicle is not the most physically or mentally fulfilling task to be had in life.<p>Seems pretty straight-forward to me!
By no means should we ever stop trying to improve working conditions for all, but we should also keep in mind that throughout history, most workers haven't had the luxury of being able to feed their families by doing fun- or personally-fulfilling work. At least we don't have to wrestle a heavy plow behind a balky ox or mule for hours on end in hot, humid weather (to give just one example).
If you don’t like most of the software development lifecycle and are not willing to learn new strategies, you probably shouldn’t “write code” for a living, and that’s ok. You are more than just a requirement to code translator. Learn to grow a little task into something special. There is always a way to make it better. Spend more time designing and less typing. That’s my 2 cents
Is it common for people under ~35 to have so much back pain and medical issues? I thought back pain in young people is usually related to something like a bad injury.<p>I get back pain when I'm working at the desk <i>a lot</i>, but that's at the end of 14+ hour days sitting around with minimal movement.
> But for a long time I pretended it was fun. That I loved it. Because there is a lot of social pressure to portray yourself that way in the industry. People hiring you will run the other way as soon as they see a crack in that facade.<p>Yes, having to put up this facade is one of my least favorite things about this industry. It's all a load of bullsh*t, I'm only in my technical area because there are jobs and money - if money weren't an issue I'd be working on my own FOSS projects that are way more interesting and meaningful to me.<p>> 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.<p>Yup, it's a tough pill to swallow when one realizes the exploitative nature of wage labor, and the lie we've been fed our whole lives about employers being benevolent and treating employees like family. The reality is sociopathic managers who won't hesitate to stab you in the back to cover their asses and/or get that promotion.<p>> 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.<p>I agree with most of the sentiment of the article so I don't want to be arguing here, but getting underpaid isn't an issue exclusive to women. Just because you're underpaid doesn't mean that it's because of your gender.<p>Ultimately, this article is the perspective of a wage laborer waking up to the bullshit of the system, and the meaninglessness of 8 hours/day of mandated "ass in seat" time doing boring work for a boss and having to put a smile on your face and pretend like it's your passion.<p>Everything she writes, all of us but the most brainwashed lemmings already know, but we're not allowed to say it for fear of being blacklisted from the industry. I appreciate her having the courage to speak out what everyone secretly wants to say, and wish her success in her new endeavors.
> 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.<p>Please stop this. STOP. If "a man" is paid 20% less, they're expected to change job and ask 20% more at the new one. This is what is expected of "men".
I'll agree that the job is not fun, but it's still a decent job overall I think. I have definitely been miserable at many points, on the other hand. The real problem is that a lot of other jobs seem worse, not that coding is so great. I definitely do not have any sort of passion for it, that left long ago. Just a job.
The OP needs to place (2017) in the title.<p>> I still love coding, but I hate this industry<p>This essentially can be summarised by only doing software development as a hobby rather than as a profession. But again, this industry isn't for everyone.<p>While its always unfortunate that people who once enter this industry have now quit due to the 'long hours', 'deadlines' or 'burnout', perhaps they should have looked twice at the job requirements or questioned the number of hours before applying in the first place, rather than finding out the hard way.<p>This industry is unforgiving for those who cannot handle it or have no passion in the trade and only do it for the money. If you think a job as a SWE or a SDET is 'bad', wait until you go for a software engineering interview at a FAANG or FTSE 100 company.<p>If this sounds too 'hard' I have heard many vacancies for easier roles in the circus though who are willing to hire what they call 'clowns' and 'idiots'...