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by rvz·7y ago·view on hn ↗
The OP needs to place (2017) in the title.

> I still love coding, but I hate this industry

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.

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.

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.

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'...

4 comments
Do you have any idea how hard it can be to get a job in any decent circus? Most of them require decades of training and education and pay less than most manual labour jobs. Honestly working as a software developer (which I do) required far less investment of time and money then circus. (Where I am now a Partner Acrobatics trainer)
Clearly accepted Cirque du Soleil performers are scarcer than Google developers. This can also be applied to top performers in classical music as well.
The thing that shocked me is it isn't just the best. Even the worst usually have massive amounts of time and effort invested and the pay is normally awful. It's the hobby effect, similar to art and music, however the top performers make vastly less. Cirque du Soleil performers who are some of the best in the world still mostly make < 100k/year.
No job I've ever applied for has "Will work 60 hours a week on tedious ass bugs with a ton of pressure on you from higher ups." in the description.

School doesn't teach you about it.

The internet propaganda from both the positive and negative sides of the tech industry doesn't clear anything up.

You're doing that thing certain types of people do where they tell someone to just do something extremely ambiguous to be successful.

If the industry is chewing up and spitting out people as a matter of course, perhaps the problem is with the industry rather than the people.
> If the industry is chewing up and spitting out people as a matter of course, perhaps the problem is with the industry rather than the people.

Or with wrong expectations that people who go into the industry have.

Nope. The bosses are wrong. People are finite. Cant just keep eating people forever. Shit comes back eventually.
I can’t imagine being so self-hating that doing a job for money instead of my passion for JavaScript or whatever caused me to look down on myself. I also can’t really conceive of any sane person having a passion for JavaScript (or whatever).
then why the hell do we use it?! The inmates are running the asylum!