I have to agree. We get paid very well to play on computers all day; something most of us would be doing anyways. Don't confuse this with the job of running a startup though.
Less stressful...? Let's see...<p>Burning your brain all day to solve problems that are usually underspecified, while having to meet deadlines set by people that don't have much of a clue of what it really means to program, to satisfy users which don't know exactly what they want, and wouldn't like it even if you gave it to them.<p>Yeah, what's to be stressed about...
The main sources of stress in computer related jobs:<p>- Dealing with failure scenarios (everything's down and won't come back up)<p>- External time pressure (This needed to be done yesterday)<p>- Dealing with human issues (payment, expectations of work, etc.)<p>Some bits of programming/SE are high on certain forms of this - for example in the service provider world, it's often #1, whereas game development is high on #2 (and #1 if it's an online game).<p>But for the most part, programming is somewhat stress free.
Software Engineering for an advertising agency gets pretty stressful. It pays well and it's fun usually but crazy demands from clients that account and project managers don't push back on, constantly getting the creative for sites late and not being able to push back the development schedule, etc. I would describe my job as frantic.
The actual list: <a href="http://www.careercast.com/jobs-rated/10-least-stressful-jobs-2011" rel="nofollow">http://www.careercast.com/jobs-rated/10-least-stressful-jobs...</a><p>I wonder how their "stress rank" is calculated...
For how it was ranked:
<a href="http://www.careercast.com/jobs-rated/2011-jobs-rated-methodology" rel="nofollow">http://www.careercast.com/jobs-rated/2011-jobs-rated-methodo...</a>
Software Engineering? Really? As an ex-IBM employee I beg to differ!<p>Don't get me wrong, I love to hack. At the end of the day, it all depends on how your employer treats you.
Mathematician falls into the 10 least stressful jobs (at #8) after years of also being in the 10 best jobs in America (at #2):<p><a href="http://ti.me/ivYEZr" rel="nofollow">http://ti.me/ivYEZr</a><p><a href="http://on.wsj.com/g7MTWh" rel="nofollow">http://on.wsj.com/g7MTWh</a><p>Both lists also contain Software Engineers. Does that mean math majors (esp. computer oriented ones) should take more software engineering classes? SE helped me (although I was surprised how much), I encounter Use Cases and Requirements on a daily basis here. I majored in Computational Mathematics.
I am an audiologist who programs for a living (audio-stuff, obviously). I guess that must make me a really relaxed personality. Only I don't live in the US. Oh well.
Any job that makes it easy to take work home, and/or has real customers, and/or involves several teams that you might block can be very stressful if you let it.
I work 12+ hour days. I am constantly harassed to fix things 'now'. A companies future rests on my ability to do all of this.<p>How is this not stressful?
I know that there are semantic differences between "Software Engineer" and "Computer Programmer", but they seem really insignificant to me. I'm curious how they differentiate the two. How does HN differentiate them?<p>I've always just thought of "Software Engineer" as someone who takes their profession more seriously, but it is more of a self-applied label than anything else.
The criteria for this are pretty terrible in terms of defining mental stress. I'd be far more interested in a study that looked at actual stress as evidenced by medical conditions and tied it back to careers, rather than a set of arbitrary categories that are chosen base on a perceived link to stress.
Philosopher is a job? Surely it's a university research post, at least if you're not willing to live in poverty like Socrates, or are independently wealthy like Thoreau [later in life].