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With programmers, there can be a surprisingly low bar for competence (that fizzbuzz is an actual barrier to some interviewees is amazing), and there's also a lot of entitled thinking involved where rather than understanding programming as a skill they picked up and a had a knack for, they treat it as if they've been blessed by Alan Turing himself with the ability to Machine-speak (but no homo, lol). Tie this with businesses desirous to throw money at them to automate everything, and many programmers think they are Randian Superman. The classic born on second base and thinking they hit a double. And it can be very misleading for quite a few reasons, because hey, you show up to work around 10 (or later), get to wear casual clothes, fight each other with Nerf weapons and play Magic, and hey, it's fun! They give us free food! And these are your first adult non-college "friends" in a city you probably know nobody from. You should be glad you're sleeping in the office and doing  things with computers and haven't been home in a week. Yeah, it's a hosed up field in many ways, but still better than a lot of other fields.
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Aug 17, 2015 19:41
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 01:44 |
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SquadronROE posted:Quoting this so it gets attention on this page. This is really interesting, and I wonder how different peoples' experiences will be. It may come down to division by division leadership, I know that a culture is really based on the leader of the organization you report to. Some managers and mid-managers may be really strongly in favor of a work-life balance, since it's the only way to sustain employees with high morale. Mine was extremely different, and I was extremely overworked and stressed at Amazon and probably had a serious breakdown because of it. I've also had these at Microsoft and other companies in the Seattle area, and definitely have my own issues, so I can't completely blame software engineering corporate culture. But yes, it really matters a lot on division, because these companies all run like a bunch of mini-companies, some times in direct competition with each other. And the pressure from above is of course dependent on what's profitable and not profitable, but perhaps not even then. It's also worth mentioning that this corporate structure exists so I can come in, bash out some code and not have to think about business bullshit at all. It's useful for that, but then it can feel super mysterious why things happen, and it can give the low-level programmers a misleading perspective of how the upper echelons of the business work.
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Aug 17, 2015 19:47
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SquadronROE posted:Every single time I see what leading software companies pay new grads, it makes me want to start drinking. I'm an engineer in a really hard to recruit for field and I make about half that with bonuses. It's insane. I generally justify it by having more vacation than most Europeans get, as well as lucrative benefits and great work-life balance and prospects for advancement (although I don't think I'll get to six figures anytime soon). I went to an engineering college, and on career fair day, I ran into an aeronautical engineer who was bummed because there were no jobs for him, and even though Boeing had come, they were only looking for software engineers. The demand is way over the top, and I'm not sure how much it is warranted based on market value and how much is speculation.
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Aug 17, 2015 20:29
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Cicero posted:I agree that the level of demand from top companies seems pretty crazy these days, but what do you mean speculation? Programmers at your company aren't a resource that you can sell off to another company at a profit. Speculation is a bad term, perhaps, I was referring to investment into personnel way above their value, which can occur for many different reasons. Yeah, speculation was a mistatement.
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Aug 17, 2015 20:41
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SquadronROE posted:I have to wonder if this is going to be continuing or if there's going to be some sort of influence to depress wages again. Maybe the push to get more people in on visas will make competition for devs less? Interestingly, it might get worse before it gets better, because several big ones just settled a case alleging they were colluding to keep salaries down or at least equal between them: http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/01/16/377614477/tech-giants-will-pay-415-million-to-settle-employees-lawsuit
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Aug 17, 2015 21:20
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H.P. Hovercraft posted:Protesting Valve Staff Stage Walkoff, Delaying Half Life 3 Indefinitely I'm imagining Gabe Newell blubbering as he hires Pinkerton Police to crack the skull of a guy in an utilikilt while millions watch over a twitch stream playing dubstep in the background. I mean this is serious business, but drat if that's not an image!
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Aug 18, 2015 03:15
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 01:44 |
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Yeah, I think part of the problem is that our working culture seems to really have evolved around manufacturing, where it's easier to say more hours=more things=more value. Yes, there are quality issues, but when you've reduced an individual job down to screw in these bolts, pass it on to the next point in the assembly line, then it's less of a problem. However, that type of repetitive work is perfect for automation, and we're left with the more wishy-washy mental work, where that does not apply. A creative thought had when showering could have vastly more value than an entire week of implementing a lovely solution.
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Aug 20, 2015 19:18
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