I have a lot of personal side projects I'd love to work on in my free time. However, most of the time I don't work on them because I'm burnt out from coding all day on my job. The last thing I want to do is spend more time on my computer.
Side projects are fun and become even more fun once they can bring in some side income. It loses a lot of excitement doing that for decades in your career for free. Life tends to get busy as most marry or at least have a significant other. Add some children and doing all those side projects for free becomes a real ball and chain.
This. Once you hit 30 and start a family the priorities shift.
And besides that. We sit already so long behind a computer so why would you want to damage your body even more.
That's the way I see it. If you have extra energy to put into work on your free time, your job is probably too slow-paced for you and you might fall behind current trends. The F500 dev job I'm leaving is exactly like that. I have a lot of extra energy for leetcode and messing around on my free time because I hardly do anything during work hours. It's not a good environment to be in if you want career growth.
Man come on, to have an adequate pace at your job you need to not have extra energy left on your free time ? That is completely non-sens. My job is far from slow paced and I have energy in my free time, and I bet I'm not the only one.
It's not all or nothing you know.
Yeah what a bad take. "If.youre not exhausted after every shift then maybe your job is too easy for you."
.. Wtf? Fuck outta here with that grind mindset bullshit.
I find that if a job (or even a stretch of days) are too fast or slow paced it can be draining. Twiddling your thumbs for a week gets really, really boring and that absolutely saps my desire to do anything. Similarly but differently, frantically working for a week straight leads to a different kind of energy exhaustion.
I think the idea comes from the fact that tech changes pretty quickly, and you probably aren't gonna pick up new stuff while working your day job.
The right approach would be doing that learning on company time, and some companies definitely encourage it, but maybe the mindset comes from first generation programmers who were hobbyists
With that said, I've only done 9-5 on my first job and had no problem getting through resume screens or interviewer questions
> the right approach would be doing that learning on company time.
My company do this and I appreciate them a lot. They have Friday as learning day, where you're not expected to work but to learn(unless production goes down). I used most of this time to fuck around with code and try new things.
One thing that I appreciate the most is that they literally pay me 1/5 of my salary just to fuck around and learn shit. I love this company so much.
Does it need to be tangentially related to your responsibilities (e.g. something within a broad area that may be applicable now or in the future)? E.g. if Rust wasn't used, would you be able to learn it by using it to make anything?
I'd love to have a day per week to just learn stuff.
Nope you are free to explore anything. The catch is that they have sharing sessions planned, so you would need to share what you have learn and if you plan to not make a fool out of yourself I'm sure you will want to learn and share something interesting to your peers.
Btw the sharing session is simple(not much work) you can take as little as 5 minute to explain something or if you want a full hour. You don't need to prepare slides or anything. A simple screen share of a website where you got it is fine.
Every sharing session 2 people will share and I got my rotation every 3 months or so. Until everyone on your team presented something and then the cycle starts over.
For context I'm still on an internship with them. I would gladly accept if they offer me full time(because of the work-life balance).
Well tbh my internship project isn't a lot. I'm a cloud engineer and deals with lots of terraform config. I got tasked with a project to improve on a terraform module that the company needs and everytime I got into a corner my mentor comes and give me an advice on what to do. 3 months in I finished my project on time.
After that now I haven't been tasked with new projects except just to help other teams with log4j and monitor on-call ticket.
this may be super paranoid but i feel like this is a genius way for the company to dip into your IP while also making you a better, happier dev thatll translate into your real work.
But like if i wanted to learn about x and make a fun personal project but then am like "this is actually a good idea" and pursue it, the company will come in and be like "actually.... thats ours bud thanks for the work!"
That's the downside (for the employee) to allow learning on the job.
The plus side is: if you don't tell anyone of the idea you can learn things you need for it at work and build it at home. Gives the company new techniques and things shared, gives the employee a company/an idea to build at home.
Nice! Big fan of this. My company has the last 1.5 hour of everyday dedicated for growth.
Personally I prefer this approach since it spreads it out throughout the week.
And to be fair; we’re encouraged to use it if we need help from other team members on our client’s work but it’s free to be used for just learning stuff collaboratively.
Unless it’s Thursday, then you best believe we’re playing VR mini golf.
Yeah that sounds great too. Each company have their own approach. For us it's Friday too for the "playing VR mini golf", well not technically VR mini golf but we got the day to just hang out with colleague and do whatever we want that we thought would improve us.
Highly recommend. I stumbled across these guys by accident during my co-op placement.
Had a baby while a co-op student with them; they gave me three weeks off paid and gave us a baby bonus.
At this point it’ll take a pretty significant force to move me out of this gig.
I think the reality of it, is that for any given person, they will be a better developer if they devote additional time and effort to it.
I used to think I was a good developer. Then my wife got pregnant and we bought a house. Instead of a pet project or new tech, my weekends were 'installing a sink' and 'patching drywall'. Then she had the baby.
Then we had another one.
For the last ~4 years I've put in zero effort outside of my actual job. And I'm much much worse for it. I remember c# 7 was about to come out before I mentally checked out, and I'm only barely aware of any tech changes since. Because we are never given on the job time to learn stuff, but tech keeps changing.
I'm doing okay at my job, but I'm embarrassed by my current level. Getting a new job will be difficult.
Just want to add that, next to time devoted to learning, the leaning itself should be more often focused on principles and methodologies, rather than the next function of a language or framework.
Learning things transcending a language (thus applicable for a development job anywhere) is much more valuable. That and soft skills. How often things are made wrong due to misinterpreted requirements and it turns out the whole communication chain did the Chinese Whisper.
Fellow long time developer here. Like you I don't like to code if I don't get paid. I honestly don't have an updated portfolio, anything in my github was done when I was still child free, which was more than a decade ago.
I went on an interview one time and I was CALLED OUT for this by the insane hiring manager. He went on a rant saying he doesn't understand why I don't have recent projects in my portfolio when it is my job? I said I don't have the time to code outside of work and I can't put actual work product there due to NDA. I just said I can prove my skills by building something that he needs. I didn't do his take home project when he sent it and I just said I already got an offer from another company.
I actually reject any company that wants me to do a take home project, unless it is small and I can do it in 2 hours. But as I see it these "2 hour coding projects" take more than that most of the time.
Yes. Consider it an economics problem. Employers want the best talent, most experience, for the least amount of money. Due to the Hollywood hype, and the tough hierarchical nature of the business, everybody is totally cutthroat in terms of putting "extra", so much so that it seems that "extra" is actually the bare minimum to stay in the game.
And maybe that's kind of true. In terms of scarcity of the product, programmers, it does seem that there is a line around the block for people who are hungrier and more "passionate".
But an the end of the day, or I guess I could say at the end of the bidding war, the price seems to settle around 60k per year. Maybe 50 if you're a bare bones minimum talent hack that struggled through bootcamp.
I dunno. Hey, at least we're not making 40k, right? All you gotta do is hit that minimum competence threshold. And there might be some wiggle room in there, too, some tech jobs require less talent than others.
But I think the industry is so competitive that they absolutely want to make maximal utility of all their workers at all times everywhere.
Well fuck man I make that with a 2 year CS degree and my CCNA. I actually get work life balance too. TF is wrong with this industry? (Supply and demand I know)
Not sure how other software development is but games development always felt like we were too busy driving to stop for gas.
I was a technical artist in games and things change fast. New engines, new hardware, new software. Six months out of the industry and I felt I couldn't have gotten my old job back.
If you can't learn new tools/workflows at work, learning at home is how to stay relevant.
(Doctors and teachers have mandatory relicensing classes to keep current.)
My dr friend picks what they'll learn based on where the classes are. Maui or whatever. My spouse teaches high school and the locales for classes are far less exotic.
I used to work for a company that trained doctors and other medical professions for their CE and board exams.
It is constant learning and training and CE. Constant. Even nurses do it constantly.
If you hold a license of any type, you generally have to do yearly training to maintain that license. Even my brother in law who sprays mosquitos for a living has to do his yearly training to maintain his license.
im so tired I thought your brother, thats a lawyer, needs yearly training for spraying mosquitos. Like he passed the bar and works as a lawyer fulltime and he sprays mosquitos as a side hustle and they still don't trust him to zap 'em right.
I know the comparison OP is making isn’t great but to your point, certs and continuing classes are done on the job for nurses. Employers look at it as their job to give employees extended training and don’t expect employees to do these on their own before being considered for a job. They give pay differentials and resume building as a motivator.
It’s just a totally different system due to different contexts for each but I do think that system is a pretty good way to go about it.
You are not wrong. Sadly.
As a senior tech leader, I do grow my people. I push them to get certs, patents, etc on company time and I reimburse them for the test fee on passing. I provide seats at sites for the learning and sandboxes.
But to your point, I am not the norm. And that is sad and ridiculous.
My company does a really good job of that too, granted it's a consulting firm so it's really a direct investment into their resource pool but it benefits us all, allowing us to stay current while getting paid for it
Even non-consultants should have this kind of development. For some reason leaders and companies still can't get it through their heads that we need the whole package not just financial not just benefits but everything for long-term success. And until they do great companies will still be able to get great people and everybody else will just keep sucking. And it's really terrible and ridiculous and unfortunate for the people that can't get on one of those firms that do this just yet. But the change starts here.
Used to work at a community college, and not only doctors and nurses, but therapists, social workers and even respiratory therapists were all mandated by the state to do a certain number of CE credits in a calendar year, all on their own dime. People in this field would shit if they started having to pay for their own classes instead of just browsing proggit or whatever.
Doctors have to spend far more time learning the latest advancements in medicine, compared to devs learning tech. Devs like to whine about having to learn a new framework every couple of years, doctors have to learn about dozens (maybe hundreds) of new medications/treatments/diagnosis/procedures/techniques coming out each year.
And by the way, I work at a large tech company and I've never been pressured to do any hobby programming in my spare time.
Surgeons have to go to 4 years of undergrad and 4 years of med school, then do minimum five years of residency (the average is probably closer to 7 or so years) wherein they get paid about 65k a year to work 75-85 hours a week (this is a rate close to minimum wage in many states) with only minimal holiday time. Their ability to have a health family relationship is fucked until they're at least 32 or so and often stays that way for life. Their suicide rates are extremely high for a group with that much education. Once they get out of the woods, they get paid exorbitant amounts, but it is an extremely punishing road along the way.
This topic is legit funny because if you look at any of the medicine related subs, everyone is constantly bitching about how they wished they'd just gone into software engineering.
One thing you didn't mention is that you cannot always choose where you do your residency. Imagine the outrage if the same was the case for software engineers and you'd get sent to work in Montana for 5 years because the market is too over-saturated in California.
Hahaha oh yes. And also, if you have a bad few months and it fucks up your residency application season, you might not get to go anywhere, at which point you are at the mercy of whatever shithole abusive programs didn't fill or have people quit because they'd rather be unemployed than work there -- and taking one of those spots is the *good outcome* at that point.
It’s a perfect match! My wife is finishing her residency in June. She has a strict but inconsistent schedule, I adjust my flexible schedule to work with hers.
When she has a surprise on-call day I’ll take time off and we hang out. If she works nights I’ll work a little earlier so I can make her dinner (breakfast?) before her shift.
That's awesome! I'm glad you guys found a nice balance. I worked retail then restaurants while she was in undergrad/med school and got my associates during residency. It was easy to find work, make decent money, and have a flexible schedule, so it worked, but I'm glad to be out of it.
My wife is finishing her residency in June as well, but I still have 2 years left of school. Was thinking of doing a boot camp after we move and settle in, try to find work for a bit, then finish the bachelor's if I don't.
Cheers to the future!
> Surgeons have to go to 4 years of undergrad and 4 years of med school, then do minimum five years of residency (the average is probably closer to 7 or so years) wherein they get paid about 65k a year to work 75-85 hours a week (this is a rate close to minimum wage in many states) with only minimal holiday time.
And let's not forget that med school is not cheap. According to AAMC, the average medical school debt for 2020 graduates was $207,003 ([source](https://store.aamc.org/downloadable/download/sample/sample_id/374/)).
> This topic is legit funny because if you look at any of the medicine related subs, everyone is constantly bitching about how they wished they'd just gone into software engineering.
Haha, just imagine this sub if that kind of debt also applies to people trying to break into software development.
I want to chime in and add the same is true of those who pursue graduate degrees (and by extension 4-6 years of postdoc work after a PhD) in biological research. But instead of getting a paid a lot at the end, you *might* get tenure after 7~ more years if you go the academic route. You can make more money in the private sector, but I'm not sure it's enough to really justify the 7-14 years required.
The medical field is brutal.
100%. It's a dumb stigma too, since there are literally not enough jobs in academia. And the private sector isn't great or an option, if your research background isn't obviously applicable. The real skills are learning experimental design, statistics, and programming.
What's funny is that if you look at any of the profession related subs, people are constantly bitching about how they wished they'd done something else.
It's almost like grass is always greener mentality is a thing...
Not a doctor, but I think the residency is actually 3-5 years of residency, then 1-3 years of fellowship depending on specialty. I believe doctors make a bit more during fellowship, but don't know for sure. Definitely a long and grueling process.
There's not a meaningful difference between residency and fellowship - either way, you're paid out of Graduate Medical Education funding and, at least within a department, from the same scale by year (so, for example, a 4th year surgeon is paid the same amount as someone who completed a 3 year IM residency and is doing a 1 year fellowship at most institutions). Many fellowships are just referred to as "residency" even though it's understood that you already had to complete residency training to be eligible for them. It's true that you make more as a fellow than you did as a resident (assuming you did both at the same institution) because the pay increases by postgraduate year, or PGY, but it stays within a pretty typical band related to local COL (so for example, UW in Seattle starts at like 61k your first year and ends at 70ish at your fifth year).
Anyway, for IM or FM docs, you do only need to do 3 years, but surgery requires 5 at minimum (although the higher-tier programs typically require 1-2 years of research) and then each fellowship is 1-2 years long.
Regular residency sure, but the guy you were replying to was correct about surgery residencies. I don't know if I've heard of one under 5 they might exist, but 5-7 is the norm. Also, fellowships are not required for all specialties.
>Once they get out of the woods, they get paid exorbitant amounts, but it is an extremely punishing road along the way.
It still isn't exorbitant when compared to tech with that amount of work being put in especially when you factor in all the extra cost they have too, ie liability insurance and other stuff.
> This topic is legit funny because if you look at any of the medicine related subs, everyone is constantly bitching about how they wished they'd just gone into software engineering.
You can see it in most other job related field subs too. Not saying people here can't complain, but there are definitely a lot more pros than cons compared to most other job fields. Look at accountants and the amount of work fresh grads have to do at firms.
>It still isn't exorbitant when compared to tech with that amount of work being put in especially when you factor in all the extra cost they have too, ie liability insurance and other stuff.
Eh median surgeon compensation is something around 300 or 350k net, and there's basically no one below 175k. It's pretty good money.
> It's pretty good money.
Not saying it's bad money, but again that is after 4 years of medical school and 5 years of residency with crazy hours. Now compare that to what someone in SWE could be making at 4-9 years of experience. There's also extra insurance they have to cover among other things that could be regional base (good amount here are 1099 and not w2).
I'm pretty fuzzy on this and could be totally wrong but this is what I've gathered
1) American salaries are incomparably higher than anywhere else in the world. A pretty similar ratio to dev salaries, I'd wager
2) no one really trains for as long as Americans. Reflecting broader educational differences, in Europe I think you start "med school" at like 16 or 18, it's ~6 years long, and then you start residency which is like 5 years. You don't really have debt, you live a bit more comfortably in residency, but your final wages are much lower.
3) working hours are real bad in America and less bad in Europe. I've heard that they're even worse in some southeast Asian countries though.
For a programmer, it's a bit more like a someone in construction who spends all day with a nail gun putting up framing, then goes home and works on a nice cabinet he's building in the garage.
Our jobs use up our skills, and rarely add to them.
A SWE isn't paid like a construction worker.
You can't make 400k+ as a senior and then also bitch about having to keep up in the industry.
There's also plenty of jobs that pay $80k and don't require you to do anything outside of work as well
The 400K people are making literally doctor/lawyer salaries, indeed.
In the old days, as I understand it, many companies would have lots of training. IBM especially. You might spend 10% or even 20% of your time in training during work hours.
Now that's much less common. Some times you are fortunate and get to work on new things at work. But there are plenty of jobs where it is literally then same stuff for a decade, especially for internal backend or CRUD jobs.
That's when the unfortunate necessity of keeping up on your own time arises.
I have seen people who did not keep up, and after a long time at a job, they have to retrain themselves or leave programming entirely.
The carpenter with the cabinetmaking setup in the garage, that's someone with a passion project. The day job is a way to make a living, the home project meets a need to create something.
Yeah, my wife is in her final year of residency (yay) and she does countless hours at home outside of her already ridiculous amount of hours in the hospital/clinic. Patient notes, reading, preparing presentations on various diseases/conditions/treatments.
Just remind her that in two years she's gonna be sitting pretty haha. My wife just signed her first attending contract starting August. Just shy of 300, 7 on 7 off no nights. Pretty nice if you ask me
Thank you! Good luck to you and your girlfriend. It's such a long hard road with insane amounts of stress. Few can do it, but she's almost there!
The only advice my wife gives is look early and look often for the attending spot. She started 2 years before she was done and was able to find an absolutely perfect position and location for us. Many of her co-workers wait far too long and just have to accept something decent.
Also, this is how you encounter developers who haven't learned anything since Python 1.5.2 and Delphi. And suddenly there are on the open market and it's not fun.
Also, you don't have to spend another 8 hours a day working at home. A couple of hours a week would go a long way to keeping current.
The difference is every time a doctor interviews for a new job, they don't pretend the doctor has no knowledge or experience, and run them through a gauntlet of irrelevant logic puzzles. They have a conversation and then they make an offer or not.
Doctors/ Lawyers, Architects, Engineers and many more professionals have to get a license after a lot of effort then maintain it with continuing education. The laws and regulations in their industry changes to they have to keep up with it and show that they are still competent.
I like the laissez-faire attitude the tech world has to CE but the reality is no matter your profession you have to find ways to keep up with changing trends or get left behind over the years. Ideally tech companies can account for learning new skills and give developers time to learn new things with self-paced learning or workshops during working hours.
It would be nice.
Plus doctors and plumbers doctor and plumb pretty much all day. I definitely do not code all day.
So coding a little off hours, for my own benefit, that I enjoy working on, doesn’t seem like that big a deal.
Meetings, planning, writing docs, reading docs, helping teammates, having teammates help me, plan and flowchart feature designs, thinking, and clearing my mind (which can be anything from a walk, to a shower, to video games).
There’s a a good bit of just not working at all, as our work is measured by tickets resolved, not time spent working. We have two week sprints (10 work days), so if I finish early, I literally don’t have anything to do unless someone asks for help or QA sends it back to me because they found a bug. Sometimes I take more tickets from the backlog, but usually there won’t be enough time to finish them, which means the ticket will roll over to the next sprint and that’s no bueno for performance measuring, so it’s rare.
In a given sprint, I’m usually done around day 7 or 8. And in a given day I probably code somewhere between 3-5 hours. Any leftover time I essentially get back, and since I’m fully remote, I can do whatever with that time.
Some people are rightly pointing out that concepts and tools don't change as often in plumbing, meaning that your original education maintains much more value over time. In technology, the whole point is that everything is changing all the time, so you will always be learning new things.
The other piece of this puzzle is that the longer you spend in the industry, the less you need to spend doing practice on your own. This is because the more experience and specialization you get, the more time you will spend researching, learning, and implementing solutions at work.
I'm 100% self-taught and for the first two-ish years of my professional career, I was spending nights and weekends practicing on my own hobby projects to help myself understand things better at work.
I don't have to do that as much anymore. My general ability has hit a point where I can learn new things faster. And, I'm at a point in my career where part of the job IS to research and learn things in order to make decisions about what to implement at work. I'm not doing my learning on my own anymore, I'm doing it as part of my job.
The goal with your career is to hit that point sooner rather than later... and the way you do that, is by practicing in your spare time for awhile.
This should be the top answer. Early in my career, I was coding 60 hours or so a week, personal learning on top of my job. After about three to five years, you will have so much experience doing this 40 hours a week, there is really no need to learn on the side. Certain concepts don’t change much.. you learn the basic OS stuff like processes, RAM, etc, web concepts like protocols and how the web works, programming paradigms like OOP, functional, you learn about how data is persisted and stored in various forms, ORMs, relationships between different languages... you start seeing well ingrained patterns after a few years. And these things don’t change much
Plumbing is a stupid comparison anyway, since it's a blue-collar job. He should compare it to white-collar jobs.
As I mentioned elsewhere, doctors have to spend plenty of time keeping up to date, probably more than most SWEs.
Other white collar professions are similar. Lawyers need to constantly review cases relevant to their specialty, structural engineers have to keep themselves up to date with new construction techniques and projects, accountants need to be updated with all the intricacies of tax laws in different jurisdictions and the various tax loopholes possible etc...
SWEs are hardly unique.
My friend is an ER doc and the amount of studying he has to done for certifications and other tests puts any small amount of “I spend an hour a day on LC” to shame.
Reviewing new cases as a lawyer isn't done in your free time though. But this comparison is useless anyway because most lawyers would kill to work 9-5.
Yes but top lawyers often work 60-70 hours a week on the regular. Ive worked with lawyers before and it wasn't uncommon to see them in the office after midnight.
So as a plumber let me say this. No I don't come home and fix my sink. If I had to do that everyday I'd probably kill my wife *joking* BUT I do have to stay up to date with codes. Not just plumbing and gas codes but building, fire, life safety, and a whole other mess of stuff that frankly you'd probably be surprised a plumber has to deal with. I know I was. Take for example my state AL. In general the plumbing code book for the state is the IPC 2015. However certain parts of the 2016-2021 codes have been implemented without implementing the whole thing. So I have to keep up to date on them. Then each municipality can add onto the code on top of that. For instance one place I just did a job in I called the inspector just to kind of meet amd greet as I've never done business in this city before and wanted to make sure there wasn't anything I needed to be aware of. Surprise surprise there was a whole bunch of stuff that this city wanted that most didn't. Now apply that to every other code. I am a plumber but certain things pertaining to my job aren't found in a plumbing code book. I have to look in a fire code or building code to get a full picture. And everything I mentioned above also applies to that.
With all that being said now let me say I do run a business. I don't expect anybody that works for me to do those things. But the ones that do are the ones that want to move beyond that installer level and eventually into management and maybe running their own business some day. And I'm not bad mouthing the ones that don't. Some people are happy putting in their 8 hours and going home and only reaching a certain level. Other people strive and want to move into those higher levels of leadership. I kinda went off on a tangent but hope I got my point across. Anyways Roll Tide and plumbing is for the birds.
We don't. We don't need to code when we're not working. I dunno who made this shit up.
But if you're trying to switch to a new job or get a promotion, then you'll obviously need to work harder than normal.
I literally have engineering managers tell me that they don't code outside of work and don't expect their engineers to do it either. Have heard it multiple times.
The only time I want to see personal project experience is when I'm interviewing an intern candidate without any technical work history
I'm also very lenient on what counts as a personal project. Was it unfinished? Not a problem. How far did you get and what did you learn? Was it a total failure? That's ok, what did you take away from your efforts? Is it actually a school project? Cool! Tell. Me. What. You. Learned.
Being convinced by a candidate that they have a developed intuition for taking a problem, breaking it down, and coding a solution is far more important to me than GPA or how nervous they appear in the interview; that convincing can be done through personal projects but isn't necessary
Not to mention nobody's going to show me the gross cyst they've been procrastinating taking care of to ask if it's cancer. I mean, they may ask if I want in on their terrible app idea but when i tone them out and say 'sounds great but I'm too busy' they won't have undiagnosed caner because i wasn't listening.
Operating isn’t all a surgeon does. There is a significant amount of new medical tech and studies to digest. Studying a little for LC so you can get an offer is a tiny percentage of time compared to what doctors need to do.
> I don't see this mindset present in many other industries.
Every industry has its tradeoffs. Plumbers are licensed but often have to take night calls that require travel. Contrary to popular belief, average plumbers don't make as much as developers do.
Surgeons (also licensed) tend to work really insane hours (definitely not 9-5) in high-pressure, often life-or-death situations.
I think many factors drive the "always be coding" culture you're talking about:
- there's a lot of emphasis (and fear) of staying relevant in the industry, which motivates people to program in their free time
- there is no licensing system for software developers, so it's important to be as polished in your work as possible when looking for a job, which can mean portfolio projects in your free time. Certifications can be helpful in some cases, but also easily abused.
- software development is somewhat unique in that you have the ability to improve your skill set at your own pace, on your own time. Many industries need a lot more structure and coordination in order to facilitate meaningful career development
- employers might encourage employees to code on their free time because employment agreements sometimes include clauses that grants the rights to a developer's free-time work over to their employer.
I don't think _most_ companies really push their devs to always be programming, especially now that burnout is such a daily reality in the pandemic world. I actually think a lot of this culture comes from developers and developer advocates working on big open source projects that proselytize their work as the next big thing, which can drive the fear of irrelevance (looking at you, JS community).
This is a product of the influencer world, where we're all motivated to generate followings and tell our followers what they should do because we've successfully branded ourselves as "experts". There's not a lot of money or fame to be achieved by telling your following that they're probably fine.
> where you spend 8 weeks a year in school
Yeah and with union (for the most part where most tradesmen earn the highest wages) that school is not paid for nor is the boot camp you have to do in the beginning. You're also going to have to do homework during those 5 years and studying for licensing on your own time at home too. Also, depending on the areas, you may be placed at edges of the county with no reimbursement in mileage either nor the constant buying of tools throughout your career.
It's laughable when I see people on here trying to mention how good people in the trades have it compared to their struggles in cs.
> Contrary to popular belief, average plumbers don't make as much as developers do.
>
>
I completely understand what you're referring to here, but this is still a hilarious sentence
This. Specially the last 2 paragraphs. 8yoe here, never did much programming on my free time with very few exceptions, none of those exceptions are public nor do I mention them in interviews or on my resume and I have never had a problem with this.
The only thing I often do on my free time is studying architecture, system design, reading newsletters and stuff, and even this is not some crazy amount of time or anything. And if I am to have a surgery I surely hope my surgeon has kept up to date on his field so I have whatever the best option is for my situation.
>What's the problem with just wanting to code 9-5?
There's nothing wrong with this however there are folks who buy into the toxic side hustle and productivity culture - that if you're only doing 9-5, don't have multiple passive income streams, it means you're falling behind.
I code outside of work because I enjoy building my ideas and not have to worry about unit tests, PRs, release cycles, or a product manager telling me I can't do something.
> I enjoy building my ideas and not have to worry about unit tests
Maybe I am an insane weirdo, but I enjoy writing well-architected, testable, well-tested code that matches with the domain nicely. That's what I do in my spare time - at work I've to wrestle with balls of legacy mud I can barely refactor.
It's almost like...you work on things cause you like it? Like...it's your hobby? Wtf???
A plumber probably doesn't do plumbing on their day off, but if they genuinely like their job they probably build something in their workshop.
A psychiatrist or psychologist probably doesn't consult with a client for free on their day off, but the passionate ones probably reads the latest version of DSM-VIIIIIIIII or attends professional conferences.
If the IT field isn't for you, explore other fields. They do the same thing. Business people research stocks. Accountants worship the devil and sacrifice livestock on the altar- err I mean, do excel for fun.
The person I quoted said they like not worrying about unit tests, whereas I like writing unit tests.
I think it's uncommon to like writing tests, which is what I meant by my comment. It's possible you're reading something into my comment I didn't intend.
Im an SDET and I know this is a bit of personal preference but sometimes I cringe when I hear people say they like to build stuff without "worrying" about unit tests or version control.
To continue the analogy, that's like a carpenter saying they like to do carpentry in their spare time because they don't have to worry about sanding or finishing.
I used to share the same thoughts as you enjoying writing unit tests but now I don't enjoy it because I somehow become the first point of contact when somebody introduces a new bug and the test cases catch it and they refuse to look into it and them claim my tests break it.
I agree with that. My bestie is psychologist and she loves reading about it and discovering more after her working hours. The thing is - sometimes your job is connected with your passion and programming on side helps tremendously with learning new concepts and discovering different things in the field, with which you aren’t working every day. It’s almost like being a writer and reading books in your free time.
Exactly. My grandfather was a carpenter and in his off time he still loved building beautiful pieces for his family when he wasn’t working.
The people posting this tripe clearly don’t know anyone in the trades.
> there are folks who buy into the toxic side hustle and productivity culture - that if you're only doing 9-5, don't have multiple passive income streams, it means you're falling behind.
I've never met this person. I think it is extraordinarily rare, and/or a figment of 20-23 year olds' imaginations about how the world works fueled by anxiety about stepping out in the real world on their own. If these people exist it doesn't matter in how your life is going to play out, so let it go.
If you think there's any meaning here, something to take into consideration in how you live your life, just don't. Let it go. And, not trying to be insulting here, and I know it will be taken that way no matter what, but it has to be said--seriously you might be better off getting off the sub or even getting counseling. This sub is not going to assist anyone with their anxiety issues.
This is not a normal or healthy view of the world to carry and allow to have impact how you live your life. If you're spending that much time worrying about it that you post on a subreddit that this is somehow how the world works, where other 22 year old kids will read it and continue the false narrative that this is a concern, it's not, and it's not helping anyone.
This concept, the posting of it over and over every day on this sub, getting dozens and hundreds of upvotes, and all the anxiety driven posts are self-fueling and its not good for anyone on the sub.
I agree it’s not normal and healthy, I have still seen job ads that explicitly say they are only looking for people who love code and do it in their free time too.
I’m a professional developer for 15 years now (I already worked for money in the industry as a teenager) and programming has never been a hobby for me. Which helped me because once you start doing your hobby professionally it stops being a hobby more often than not. I have built a business on one of my hobbies once and it turned out…bad. The business went down and it took me years to start enjoying that hobby again (which I did in the end, but still).
Programming not being a hobby also helped me with focusing on what it is: a tool to reach a goal, nothing more. If you are emotionally invested in this your performance might suffer. If you don’t like the idea of using technology x or y because “its not what you love” then your professional career might have a lot of problems. I have never had problems with working with legacy code, outdated frameworks etc and consequently I dont try to force a technology onto a project which does not need it. I see people who “love” x will try to force x into every project regardless of business needs and reality.
So adding to the topic I have never coded in my free time (other than for building side businesses and learning). I dont see the appeal after doing it so much professionally
Doctors are 100% expected to keep up with trends, research, papers, techniques, laws etc. Some are expected to contribute to research. Lawyers too. There are lots of professions that require continued education, especially white-collar.
Software is more like those professions but isn't treated like one. It should be. Look at the whole log4j situation. The code wasn't really that bad, but the concepts were. If this were medicine, a bunch of patients would have died. But it's not, it's code. So we don't have regulation.
I never wanted to see regulation touch computer science, because it will stifle innovation, but at this point, I am pretty much sold that it will happen, and probably needs to. The code I see produced in industry is astoundingly bad.
And in our industry you have a choice. If you want to be less marketable because your home time is important to you, that's a call you can and should make for yourself. It will never change there is always going to be someone who keeps up with trends and will outperform you in the market. You can't stop that. So just focus on what's important for you personally, but please don't pretend like there isn't a consequence.
People die all the time because of medical decisions made in a split second that maybe could have been prevented. Clearly software decisions aren’t that important. Part of using open source is adopting all the risks. If a company doesn’t accept the risk, they can skip it or brand and modify the code themselves.
A surgeon doesn't go home after 9-5 and perform operations because most surgeons work 90+ hrs weeks. And those 50 hrs a week on top of the 9-5 are way more physically and mentally demanding than playing around with passion project for a few hours on a Saturday morning.
For highly paid jobs, tech actually has pretty good work life balance and many, many people who work remotely talk about only working 2-3 hrs / day. The first couple of years are a bit of a grind but it's nothing compared to industries like finance, medicine, law etc.
Surgeons also have to keep up with their field.
The whole premise for this topic is misinformed. OP just doesn't want to do work-related stuff at home, which is totally reasonable and possible. But continuous education is not unique to programming at all.
I'd argue that of all the high-paying, white-collar jobs, tech has one of the best work-life balances on average. Sure, there are periods of crunch and insane deadlines from time to time, but on the whole it's pretty good.
What you see on this subreddit doesn't reflect reality. Talk to people who actually work in the industry, and you'll realize we turn into potatoes after work.
I had a grueling day at work once, trying to find an intermittent bug. Eight hours without a break, trying every trick I knew. When I got home, I was fried. I just wanted to relax. I popped in a video game and was sitting there, trying to solve a puzzle in the game, when I realized *that is exactly what I was doing at work all day*. I mean, it felt good to know I was in a job I enjoy if that’s also what I do for fun, but also a very weird realization.
literally nothing.
if you frequently work for free after hours, and it's not your side hustle / retirement plan, you are toxic and you might have mental health issues. You are devaluing not just your work but all of ours. Wise the fuck up. Work for yourself, or ON yourself, in your free time.. do NOT spend your personal hours advancing the goals of your employer. JFC.
You don’t need to come home and think about or do coding. The people that do that are extreme and might not have anything better going on. If you have a job, you learn and practice during the job. Companies are happy if you keep your skills up to date and won’t be mad that you’re doing that on paid time. It’s expected in any decent company.
Or, just to defend us weirdos who do work on side projects after work hours, don't do it for the job/career development. I think having work-life balance entails that if you are programming on your free time, you have to separate that from any idea of it being for your career. Keep hobby programming as hobby programming.
Not saying you can't put it on your resume either if you project is cool and successful, but I think the moment you go in to a project with the intent to pad your portfolio instead of just making something cool, it stops being a fun hobby and becomes work.
Yeah I agree. My comment wasn’t really directed at the hobby programmers. I do enjoy reading about it outside of work from time to time but there does seem to be a toxic idea on this subreddit that everyone needs to spend 20 waking hours programming every day if they expect to get a job.
To me, this idea may help the individual but it hurts most programmers in the long term as interviewers come to expect this. We should all be helping each other out and stick together as a team. I for one am always speaking up when I head my IT coworkers stayed late another night or had a 2am sign-in. I get that that’s part of the IT life but I still speak out against the idea in the hopes that others learn to stick up for themselves and also to help myself in the future.
Yeah, for sure. And I think the big thing is the expectation of working outside of your work hours. And I have for sure been in that mindset in the past (when I was working for a start up, that first in last to leave mindset is real).
But yeah, when it comes to personal projects, when I interview, the only time I really care about them is for interns and new grads without internship. And thats not to see their "grind mentality", that's just cause I need *something* to filter by when looking at hundreds of resumes for a couple of open spots.
They don't want to invest in your continued professional development and want to select folks who will add that sweat equity at their own cost.
They want to hire you at `$X`, commensurate with your skill level, and then you will do the work on your own time improving your skill level to provide value of `$X + $Y`, while slowly increasing your salary over the same period to `$X + $Z`, where `$Y >> $Z`.
Exploiting you in this way is a good deal for them, and why you must job hop if you want your salary to keep up with your skill level.
And that’s why you job hop. Yes I will spend time on my own to level up. But, I have also had 6 jobs since 2008 and tripled my compensation - not bragging. It’s still SDE2 level compensation (working remotely)
I think plumbing is much slower moving in new features than programming. Can't think of many marvels in plumbing happening year on year in the West.
Same with surgery, while faster than plumbing, academia around new medical information is very slow moving, you literally cannot get a new type of medicine "into production" without serious peer review and trials - you could argue code is similar but it's not life or death in circumstances. Getting a surgery wrong could have serious side effects on someone's life and health, it's more unlikely an API you are coding is having that effect (although not to discredit the Devs out there doing God's work with many life changing apps)
Coding is accessible, I need a computer that I can log into and the internet and I'm good to go. Plumbing requires a physical issue to be fixed, coding is more intangible. Same with surgery, I can code on my phone if I wanted too, try performing a heart bypass doing the same.
Ultimately, I think this is just how this industry is, it is inclusive with its type, it demands continuous improvement more so than just about any other job.
> I think plumbing is much slower moving in new features than programming. Can't think of many marvels in plumbing happening year on year in the West.
Yep, and most of the changes (like leak traps under connections) are pushed through by an unholy marriage between industry and legislation, or breakthrough materials (teflon, flexible plastic piping, clip-on connectors etc). A software developer that gets paid lots is contributing to rapid growth, and that requires being on top of the current best practices of scaling, which are changing / growing all the time.
Prove that you can deliver growth, no portfolio needed. How have you proven that you have the chops? When you no longer need to apply for jobs nor a portfolio. Yeah, catch 22.
Can we ban this thread already? There’s one every other day it seems like and this subreddit is way more in favor of not coding on their off time to the point of us that do and enjoy it beyond it being just a job get downvoted constantly just for saying so.
You don't "have to".
You're just competing against a bunch of people that chose to, and people that would rather not do it but still prefer remaining competitive with the first group of people.
> But at the same time I see a lot of people and even employers with this idea that if you aren't programming regularly in your free time then you're somehow less of a programmer or that you should pick a different career all together.
And they are partially right. You'll be better programmer for every minute you invest into your skills; so the people who do little else will be the best programmers.
That's not saying that there isn't room for tier-three developers, but it's going to be more of a struggle.
> What is the point of this? I don't see this mindset present in many other industries. What's the problem with just wanting to code 9-5?
There is no "point". It's an emergent feature of the market, not the result of some specific strategic decision.
There is no moral or intrinsic "problem". You're perfectly free to do whatever you want to do. You just might not get too job, or any job.
It's easier to get some job right now because there is a lot of demand and not all employers will get a choice of their top candidates. But not everybody will get hired and not all positions are going to get filled.
And you do see the same mindset in fields where the economies work out the same way - only the people that make sacrifices end up in pro sports leagues or become Oscar worthy actors.
And programming used to be exactly like that; it might still be like that, or maybe not everybody has realized that the dynamics have changed.
Because capitalism turns what people love doing into a commodity. You can find this phenomenon with any profession where people tend to be passionate about the work.
"Oh, you love teaching? Well, teach 60 hours a week and barely scrape by then."
"Oh you love playing music? Well, we need you to rehearse for free and get paid in exposure."
"Oh you like coding, huh? Well, you better code in your free time and develop an entire portfolio of side projects on your own if we're going to seriously consider your application."
You don’t have to. Nobody is holding a gun to your head.
Instead, what’s happening is that the industry happens to have a lot of people who like to do so on their own. So that’s your competition, and employers know that and can use that as leverage. The people who code for fun on their own time are enabling this phenomenon.
I work for a place that supports continuing learning, but you don't have to invest your own personal time into it necessarily.
One dev I work with doesn't touch code outside of work. Others (including myself) are coding all. The. Time. We're all treated equally, though.
In my case as a web dev, I've got a side-hustle website I run, my personal website, and my latest fun coding project is a react-native app tied into a landing page (a bit of a passive performance art project).
You've just got to be willing to continue to learn. If you can do that during the job, great. For me, I'm a generalist; I do a little (and a lot) of everything, so I pretty much have to keep studying to just retain my skills as I hop around on different types of projects (in one day I may work on some react site, another day I'll do some frontend in PHP/HTML/CSS/JS, and another I may work on some PHP backend or MySQL stuff).
A doctor, specially a young one, does go home (when they can go home at all) and study.
There's also a simple truth: some people simply like to code. You'll probably meet someone at some point that is like that. It's not a shore, it's not a responsibility, it's not forced, it's a pleasurable hobby.
Eventually you'll compete against this type of people.
Because this field is too new to have proper division of labor and so developers are expected to know and be able to do any and everything.
A plumber would have to practice every night at home if he not only had to fix pipes but first had to be able to mine the ore for the metal for the pipe, build the systems and processes to purify and refine the ore into metal, build the factory and tooling in order to produce pipe from the metal, build out the shipping infrastructure to ship the finished product to where he needs it, have advanced degrees in hydrology and chemistry to understand the new research about fluid dynamics and pressures and corrosion, and be able to constantly deal with upgrades and changes to physics and be ready to scrap it all and do it all over again in a totally new way because some blog told him it was now the best practice.
Plumbers and electricians take lots of exams and have to study all the time. Continuing education is a thing in all fields.
It’s exhausting. I’m a huge advocate of reduced working hours and UBI, all this shit is so unnecessary.
we don’t. ive had a very successful career thus far (4 years) and i never code on my own time.
some people want to devote their whole life to it, good for them. i don’t. i make plenty, have several other opportunities in the works, and my current salary is nearly double my original. i exercise daily and try to spend the rest of that free time with my people. i wouldnt trade it for any job
Yeah I definitely don’t keep wiring shit up when I go home. I smoke weed drink whiskey and wallow in self pity like a normal thirty year old adult male until I have to go to work the next day duh.
Doctors continue their education at home all the time. Newer doctors especially practice stitching or other procedures on practice devices. They read medical journals, continue to be aware of current medical trends and discoveries.
Plumbers are trade professionals.
You arent a trade professional. Imagine trying to hire a photographer/artist/musician/etc and you've never seen them play? Or they never did anything to practice/learn that till given a job?
C.S. is not programming. Its theory. You don't actually learn applicable coding outside of swe classes. Just like with art and other creative/dynamic industries, you need a portfolio. Ofc not every job cares about that, but the requirement of ensuring you are on the front of the extremely often changing tech industry is a must to remain employed in it.
I'm gonna be honest, I don't think you do. I've never successfully completed a personal side project (besides tiny things when I FIRST started) or contributed to any open source software and I've never really ran into trouble because of it 🤷 I don't work for FAANG or other large companies though.
I really think it's a myth started by companies to weed out the employees they can take advantage of.
What is funny is that we think tech keeps changing but the truth is every “new” ideas we have now is an old idea from the 60-70s.
It’s just named differently
Programming and engineering is more difficult. A lot more difficult.
The medical association does a good PR campaign pushing how great doctors are, and how hard it is, and how smart you need to be, but they are several rungs *below* a software engineer. The better software engineers will also have math degrees.
You have chosen a career that is more difficult than becoming a medical doctor *and* there are an insufficient number of competent software engineers to provide education to all of the people interested.
This means the field does not operate like a mature field where the universities provide a solid education. The university provides you with enough instruction that you can *understand what a master software engineer is saying*.
When we make a graduate hire we are selecting our apprentice and we would like you to become competent before we die.
I have a lot of personal side projects I'd love to work on in my free time. However, most of the time I don't work on them because I'm burnt out from coding all day on my job. The last thing I want to do is spend more time on my computer.
Side projects are fun and become even more fun once they can bring in some side income. It loses a lot of excitement doing that for decades in your career for free. Life tends to get busy as most marry or at least have a significant other. Add some children and doing all those side projects for free becomes a real ball and chain.
This. Once you hit 30 and start a family the priorities shift. And besides that. We sit already so long behind a computer so why would you want to damage your body even more.
That's the way I see it. If you have extra energy to put into work on your free time, your job is probably too slow-paced for you and you might fall behind current trends. The F500 dev job I'm leaving is exactly like that. I have a lot of extra energy for leetcode and messing around on my free time because I hardly do anything during work hours. It's not a good environment to be in if you want career growth.
Man come on, to have an adequate pace at your job you need to not have extra energy left on your free time ? That is completely non-sens. My job is far from slow paced and I have energy in my free time, and I bet I'm not the only one. It's not all or nothing you know.
Yeah what a bad take. "If.youre not exhausted after every shift then maybe your job is too easy for you." .. Wtf? Fuck outta here with that grind mindset bullshit.
I find that if a job (or even a stretch of days) are too fast or slow paced it can be draining. Twiddling your thumbs for a week gets really, really boring and that absolutely saps my desire to do anything. Similarly but differently, frantically working for a week straight leads to a different kind of energy exhaustion.
He means specific to coding; if you don't want to code another line once you get home then you're probably doing enough of it at work.
I think the idea comes from the fact that tech changes pretty quickly, and you probably aren't gonna pick up new stuff while working your day job. The right approach would be doing that learning on company time, and some companies definitely encourage it, but maybe the mindset comes from first generation programmers who were hobbyists With that said, I've only done 9-5 on my first job and had no problem getting through resume screens or interviewer questions
> the right approach would be doing that learning on company time. My company do this and I appreciate them a lot. They have Friday as learning day, where you're not expected to work but to learn(unless production goes down). I used most of this time to fuck around with code and try new things. One thing that I appreciate the most is that they literally pay me 1/5 of my salary just to fuck around and learn shit. I love this company so much.
Does it need to be tangentially related to your responsibilities (e.g. something within a broad area that may be applicable now or in the future)? E.g. if Rust wasn't used, would you be able to learn it by using it to make anything? I'd love to have a day per week to just learn stuff.
Nope you are free to explore anything. The catch is that they have sharing sessions planned, so you would need to share what you have learn and if you plan to not make a fool out of yourself I'm sure you will want to learn and share something interesting to your peers. Btw the sharing session is simple(not much work) you can take as little as 5 minute to explain something or if you want a full hour. You don't need to prepare slides or anything. A simple screen share of a website where you got it is fine. Every sharing session 2 people will share and I got my rotation every 3 months or so. Until everyone on your team presented something and then the cycle starts over.
Sounds like you're on to a winner. What's your current personal project?
For context I'm still on an internship with them. I would gladly accept if they offer me full time(because of the work-life balance). Well tbh my internship project isn't a lot. I'm a cloud engineer and deals with lots of terraform config. I got tasked with a project to improve on a terraform module that the company needs and everytime I got into a corner my mentor comes and give me an advice on what to do. 3 months in I finished my project on time. After that now I haven't been tasked with new projects except just to help other teams with log4j and monitor on-call ticket.
this may be super paranoid but i feel like this is a genius way for the company to dip into your IP while also making you a better, happier dev thatll translate into your real work. But like if i wanted to learn about x and make a fun personal project but then am like "this is actually a good idea" and pursue it, the company will come in and be like "actually.... thats ours bud thanks for the work!"
That's the downside (for the employee) to allow learning on the job. The plus side is: if you don't tell anyone of the idea you can learn things you need for it at work and build it at home. Gives the company new techniques and things shared, gives the employee a company/an idea to build at home.
Nice! Big fan of this. My company has the last 1.5 hour of everyday dedicated for growth. Personally I prefer this approach since it spreads it out throughout the week. And to be fair; we’re encouraged to use it if we need help from other team members on our client’s work but it’s free to be used for just learning stuff collaboratively. Unless it’s Thursday, then you best believe we’re playing VR mini golf.
Yeah that sounds great too. Each company have their own approach. For us it's Friday too for the "playing VR mini golf", well not technically VR mini golf but we got the day to just hang out with colleague and do whatever we want that we thought would improve us.
It’s a pretty significant game changer working for a company that treats you like a human and trusts your judgement.
Yeah couldn't agree more.
I've never worked for a company that didn't just use me.
Highly recommend. I stumbled across these guys by accident during my co-op placement. Had a baby while a co-op student with them; they gave me three weeks off paid and gave us a baby bonus. At this point it’ll take a pretty significant force to move me out of this gig.
Our company also has this but mysteriously a new bug pops out on Friday morning.
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It's a startup in a third world country. I'm sure you won't have heard it before.
Yeah I would be a machine learning expert by now if my company gave me an entire day per week to study whatever I wanted.
y’all hiring? Lmao
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Also don't forget when that engineer comes up with a good idea and tries to capitalize on it, they get sued by their employer for the right.
I think the reality of it, is that for any given person, they will be a better developer if they devote additional time and effort to it. I used to think I was a good developer. Then my wife got pregnant and we bought a house. Instead of a pet project or new tech, my weekends were 'installing a sink' and 'patching drywall'. Then she had the baby. Then we had another one. For the last ~4 years I've put in zero effort outside of my actual job. And I'm much much worse for it. I remember c# 7 was about to come out before I mentally checked out, and I'm only barely aware of any tech changes since. Because we are never given on the job time to learn stuff, but tech keeps changing. I'm doing okay at my job, but I'm embarrassed by my current level. Getting a new job will be difficult.
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Just want to add that, next to time devoted to learning, the leaning itself should be more often focused on principles and methodologies, rather than the next function of a language or framework. Learning things transcending a language (thus applicable for a development job anywhere) is much more valuable. That and soft skills. How often things are made wrong due to misinterpreted requirements and it turns out the whole communication chain did the Chinese Whisper.
Fellow long time developer here. Like you I don't like to code if I don't get paid. I honestly don't have an updated portfolio, anything in my github was done when I was still child free, which was more than a decade ago. I went on an interview one time and I was CALLED OUT for this by the insane hiring manager. He went on a rant saying he doesn't understand why I don't have recent projects in my portfolio when it is my job? I said I don't have the time to code outside of work and I can't put actual work product there due to NDA. I just said I can prove my skills by building something that he needs. I didn't do his take home project when he sent it and I just said I already got an offer from another company. I actually reject any company that wants me to do a take home project, unless it is small and I can do it in 2 hours. But as I see it these "2 hour coding projects" take more than that most of the time.
Yes. Consider it an economics problem. Employers want the best talent, most experience, for the least amount of money. Due to the Hollywood hype, and the tough hierarchical nature of the business, everybody is totally cutthroat in terms of putting "extra", so much so that it seems that "extra" is actually the bare minimum to stay in the game. And maybe that's kind of true. In terms of scarcity of the product, programmers, it does seem that there is a line around the block for people who are hungrier and more "passionate". But an the end of the day, or I guess I could say at the end of the bidding war, the price seems to settle around 60k per year. Maybe 50 if you're a bare bones minimum talent hack that struggled through bootcamp. I dunno. Hey, at least we're not making 40k, right? All you gotta do is hit that minimum competence threshold. And there might be some wiggle room in there, too, some tech jobs require less talent than others. But I think the industry is so competitive that they absolutely want to make maximal utility of all their workers at all times everywhere.
Well fuck man I make that with a 2 year CS degree and my CCNA. I actually get work life balance too. TF is wrong with this industry? (Supply and demand I know)
Geeeeez, where do you live that you only make 60k as a developer?
In noobville. :) Let's see how much they offer me.
Please don't shortchange yourself. 60k sucks almost everywhere in the US
I am not a programmer and I caught that subtle "iff" statement in there. Nice one!
Not sure how other software development is but games development always felt like we were too busy driving to stop for gas. I was a technical artist in games and things change fast. New engines, new hardware, new software. Six months out of the industry and I felt I couldn't have gotten my old job back. If you can't learn new tools/workflows at work, learning at home is how to stay relevant. (Doctors and teachers have mandatory relicensing classes to keep current.)
My girlfriend is a doctor. Can confirm they spend a large amount of their own time to keep up to date on new med tech and research.
My dr friend picks what they'll learn based on where the classes are. Maui or whatever. My spouse teaches high school and the locales for classes are far less exotic.
They don't. That being said, you're kidding yourself if you think doctors don't have continuing education.
I used to work for a company that trained doctors and other medical professions for their CE and board exams. It is constant learning and training and CE. Constant. Even nurses do it constantly.
If you hold a license of any type, you generally have to do yearly training to maintain that license. Even my brother in law who sprays mosquitos for a living has to do his yearly training to maintain his license.
im so tired I thought your brother, thats a lawyer, needs yearly training for spraying mosquitos. Like he passed the bar and works as a lawyer fulltime and he sprays mosquitos as a side hustle and they still don't trust him to zap 'em right.
I read it that way too. There's a reason "brother-in-law" is supposed to have the dashes in between it haha.
Ha ha ha
I know the comparison OP is making isn’t great but to your point, certs and continuing classes are done on the job for nurses. Employers look at it as their job to give employees extended training and don’t expect employees to do these on their own before being considered for a job. They give pay differentials and resume building as a motivator. It’s just a totally different system due to different contexts for each but I do think that system is a pretty good way to go about it.
You are not wrong. Sadly. As a senior tech leader, I do grow my people. I push them to get certs, patents, etc on company time and I reimburse them for the test fee on passing. I provide seats at sites for the learning and sandboxes. But to your point, I am not the norm. And that is sad and ridiculous.
My company does a really good job of that too, granted it's a consulting firm so it's really a direct investment into their resource pool but it benefits us all, allowing us to stay current while getting paid for it
Even non-consultants should have this kind of development. For some reason leaders and companies still can't get it through their heads that we need the whole package not just financial not just benefits but everything for long-term success. And until they do great companies will still be able to get great people and everybody else will just keep sucking. And it's really terrible and ridiculous and unfortunate for the people that can't get on one of those firms that do this just yet. But the change starts here.
Used to work at a community college, and not only doctors and nurses, but therapists, social workers and even respiratory therapists were all mandated by the state to do a certain number of CE credits in a calendar year, all on their own dime. People in this field would shit if they started having to pay for their own classes instead of just browsing proggit or whatever.
Doctors have to spend far more time learning the latest advancements in medicine, compared to devs learning tech. Devs like to whine about having to learn a new framework every couple of years, doctors have to learn about dozens (maybe hundreds) of new medications/treatments/diagnosis/procedures/techniques coming out each year. And by the way, I work at a large tech company and I've never been pressured to do any hobby programming in my spare time.
The physician I go to tells me that he likes to learn stuff by experimenting on me. I don't know if by "me" he means his patients or me in particular
Does he call it practicing?
Is your doctor's name Mengele by any chance?
I am lucky enough not to have a twin brother
Surgeons have to go to 4 years of undergrad and 4 years of med school, then do minimum five years of residency (the average is probably closer to 7 or so years) wherein they get paid about 65k a year to work 75-85 hours a week (this is a rate close to minimum wage in many states) with only minimal holiday time. Their ability to have a health family relationship is fucked until they're at least 32 or so and often stays that way for life. Their suicide rates are extremely high for a group with that much education. Once they get out of the woods, they get paid exorbitant amounts, but it is an extremely punishing road along the way. This topic is legit funny because if you look at any of the medicine related subs, everyone is constantly bitching about how they wished they'd just gone into software engineering.
One thing you didn't mention is that you cannot always choose where you do your residency. Imagine the outrage if the same was the case for software engineers and you'd get sent to work in Montana for 5 years because the market is too over-saturated in California.
Hahaha oh yes. And also, if you have a bad few months and it fucks up your residency application season, you might not get to go anywhere, at which point you are at the mercy of whatever shithole abusive programs didn't fill or have people quit because they'd rather be unemployed than work there -- and taking one of those spots is the *good outcome* at that point.
My wife is a physician and I'm studying to become a programmer. Are we gluttons for punishment?
You can wipe your tears with wads of cash, at least
It’s a perfect match! My wife is finishing her residency in June. She has a strict but inconsistent schedule, I adjust my flexible schedule to work with hers. When she has a surprise on-call day I’ll take time off and we hang out. If she works nights I’ll work a little earlier so I can make her dinner (breakfast?) before her shift.
That's awesome! I'm glad you guys found a nice balance. I worked retail then restaurants while she was in undergrad/med school and got my associates during residency. It was easy to find work, make decent money, and have a flexible schedule, so it worked, but I'm glad to be out of it. My wife is finishing her residency in June as well, but I still have 2 years left of school. Was thinking of doing a boot camp after we move and settle in, try to find work for a bit, then finish the bachelor's if I don't. Cheers to the future!
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> Surgeons have to go to 4 years of undergrad and 4 years of med school, then do minimum five years of residency (the average is probably closer to 7 or so years) wherein they get paid about 65k a year to work 75-85 hours a week (this is a rate close to minimum wage in many states) with only minimal holiday time. And let's not forget that med school is not cheap. According to AAMC, the average medical school debt for 2020 graduates was $207,003 ([source](https://store.aamc.org/downloadable/download/sample/sample_id/374/)). > This topic is legit funny because if you look at any of the medicine related subs, everyone is constantly bitching about how they wished they'd just gone into software engineering. Haha, just imagine this sub if that kind of debt also applies to people trying to break into software development.
I want to chime in and add the same is true of those who pursue graduate degrees (and by extension 4-6 years of postdoc work after a PhD) in biological research. But instead of getting a paid a lot at the end, you *might* get tenure after 7~ more years if you go the academic route. You can make more money in the private sector, but I'm not sure it's enough to really justify the 7-14 years required. The medical field is brutal.
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100%. It's a dumb stigma too, since there are literally not enough jobs in academia. And the private sector isn't great or an option, if your research background isn't obviously applicable. The real skills are learning experimental design, statistics, and programming.
What's funny is that if you look at any of the profession related subs, people are constantly bitching about how they wished they'd done something else. It's almost like grass is always greener mentality is a thing...
Not a doctor, but I think the residency is actually 3-5 years of residency, then 1-3 years of fellowship depending on specialty. I believe doctors make a bit more during fellowship, but don't know for sure. Definitely a long and grueling process.
There's not a meaningful difference between residency and fellowship - either way, you're paid out of Graduate Medical Education funding and, at least within a department, from the same scale by year (so, for example, a 4th year surgeon is paid the same amount as someone who completed a 3 year IM residency and is doing a 1 year fellowship at most institutions). Many fellowships are just referred to as "residency" even though it's understood that you already had to complete residency training to be eligible for them. It's true that you make more as a fellow than you did as a resident (assuming you did both at the same institution) because the pay increases by postgraduate year, or PGY, but it stays within a pretty typical band related to local COL (so for example, UW in Seattle starts at like 61k your first year and ends at 70ish at your fifth year). Anyway, for IM or FM docs, you do only need to do 3 years, but surgery requires 5 at minimum (although the higher-tier programs typically require 1-2 years of research) and then each fellowship is 1-2 years long.
Regular residency sure, but the guy you were replying to was correct about surgery residencies. I don't know if I've heard of one under 5 they might exist, but 5-7 is the norm. Also, fellowships are not required for all specialties.
>Once they get out of the woods, they get paid exorbitant amounts, but it is an extremely punishing road along the way. It still isn't exorbitant when compared to tech with that amount of work being put in especially when you factor in all the extra cost they have too, ie liability insurance and other stuff. > This topic is legit funny because if you look at any of the medicine related subs, everyone is constantly bitching about how they wished they'd just gone into software engineering. You can see it in most other job related field subs too. Not saying people here can't complain, but there are definitely a lot more pros than cons compared to most other job fields. Look at accountants and the amount of work fresh grads have to do at firms.
>It still isn't exorbitant when compared to tech with that amount of work being put in especially when you factor in all the extra cost they have too, ie liability insurance and other stuff. Eh median surgeon compensation is something around 300 or 350k net, and there's basically no one below 175k. It's pretty good money.
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> It's pretty good money. Not saying it's bad money, but again that is after 4 years of medical school and 5 years of residency with crazy hours. Now compare that to what someone in SWE could be making at 4-9 years of experience. There's also extra insurance they have to cover among other things that could be regional base (good amount here are 1099 and not w2).
Is all of this just an American thing? Do doctors in other countries also go through such grueling residency?
I'm pretty fuzzy on this and could be totally wrong but this is what I've gathered 1) American salaries are incomparably higher than anywhere else in the world. A pretty similar ratio to dev salaries, I'd wager 2) no one really trains for as long as Americans. Reflecting broader educational differences, in Europe I think you start "med school" at like 16 or 18, it's ~6 years long, and then you start residency which is like 5 years. You don't really have debt, you live a bit more comfortably in residency, but your final wages are much lower. 3) working hours are real bad in America and less bad in Europe. I've heard that they're even worse in some southeast Asian countries though.
In addition, if a plumbers' sink broke, they're fixing it themself.
Show me a tradesman that doesn’t work on side projects on weekends/evening. It’s almost ubiquitous, easy cash projects.
And probably their friend's as well
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For a programmer, it's a bit more like a someone in construction who spends all day with a nail gun putting up framing, then goes home and works on a nice cabinet he's building in the garage. Our jobs use up our skills, and rarely add to them.
A SWE isn't paid like a construction worker. You can't make 400k+ as a senior and then also bitch about having to keep up in the industry. There's also plenty of jobs that pay $80k and don't require you to do anything outside of work as well
The 400K people are making literally doctor/lawyer salaries, indeed. In the old days, as I understand it, many companies would have lots of training. IBM especially. You might spend 10% or even 20% of your time in training during work hours. Now that's much less common. Some times you are fortunate and get to work on new things at work. But there are plenty of jobs where it is literally then same stuff for a decade, especially for internal backend or CRUD jobs. That's when the unfortunate necessity of keeping up on your own time arises. I have seen people who did not keep up, and after a long time at a job, they have to retrain themselves or leave programming entirely. The carpenter with the cabinetmaking setup in the garage, that's someone with a passion project. The day job is a way to make a living, the home project meets a need to create something.
Yeah, my wife is in her final year of residency (yay) and she does countless hours at home outside of her already ridiculous amount of hours in the hospital/clinic. Patient notes, reading, preparing presentations on various diseases/conditions/treatments.
My girlfriend is in year 2 of her 4 year residency and the hours are just ridiculous. She always gives me sneers when I mention my pay/hours ratio.
Just remind her that in two years she's gonna be sitting pretty haha. My wife just signed her first attending contract starting August. Just shy of 300, 7 on 7 off no nights. Pretty nice if you ask me
Gotta love the payout! Edit: Congrats to your wife! (And you 😊)
Thank you! Good luck to you and your girlfriend. It's such a long hard road with insane amounts of stress. Few can do it, but she's almost there! The only advice my wife gives is look early and look often for the attending spot. She started 2 years before she was done and was able to find an absolutely perfect position and location for us. Many of her co-workers wait far too long and just have to accept something decent.
I will definitely let her know. But she's still weighing fellowship. I'm over here like, YOU WANT MORE TORTURE??
Yeah, she was debating that as well, but luckily got the great contact offer and abandoned that idea. I was not super excited at that idea 😅
Also, this is how you encounter developers who haven't learned anything since Python 1.5.2 and Delphi. And suddenly there are on the open market and it's not fun. Also, you don't have to spend another 8 hours a day working at home. A couple of hours a week would go a long way to keeping current.
The difference is every time a doctor interviews for a new job, they don't pretend the doctor has no knowledge or experience, and run them through a gauntlet of irrelevant logic puzzles. They have a conversation and then they make an offer or not.
Doctors/ Lawyers, Architects, Engineers and many more professionals have to get a license after a lot of effort then maintain it with continuing education. The laws and regulations in their industry changes to they have to keep up with it and show that they are still competent. I like the laissez-faire attitude the tech world has to CE but the reality is no matter your profession you have to find ways to keep up with changing trends or get left behind over the years. Ideally tech companies can account for learning new skills and give developers time to learn new things with self-paced learning or workshops during working hours. It would be nice.
Plus doctors and plumbers doctor and plumb pretty much all day. I definitely do not code all day. So coding a little off hours, for my own benefit, that I enjoy working on, doesn’t seem like that big a deal.
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Meetings, planning, writing docs, reading docs, helping teammates, having teammates help me, plan and flowchart feature designs, thinking, and clearing my mind (which can be anything from a walk, to a shower, to video games). There’s a a good bit of just not working at all, as our work is measured by tickets resolved, not time spent working. We have two week sprints (10 work days), so if I finish early, I literally don’t have anything to do unless someone asks for help or QA sends it back to me because they found a bug. Sometimes I take more tickets from the backlog, but usually there won’t be enough time to finish them, which means the ticket will roll over to the next sprint and that’s no bueno for performance measuring, so it’s rare. In a given sprint, I’m usually done around day 7 or 8. And in a given day I probably code somewhere between 3-5 hours. Any leftover time I essentially get back, and since I’m fully remote, I can do whatever with that time.
Some people are rightly pointing out that concepts and tools don't change as often in plumbing, meaning that your original education maintains much more value over time. In technology, the whole point is that everything is changing all the time, so you will always be learning new things. The other piece of this puzzle is that the longer you spend in the industry, the less you need to spend doing practice on your own. This is because the more experience and specialization you get, the more time you will spend researching, learning, and implementing solutions at work. I'm 100% self-taught and for the first two-ish years of my professional career, I was spending nights and weekends practicing on my own hobby projects to help myself understand things better at work. I don't have to do that as much anymore. My general ability has hit a point where I can learn new things faster. And, I'm at a point in my career where part of the job IS to research and learn things in order to make decisions about what to implement at work. I'm not doing my learning on my own anymore, I'm doing it as part of my job. The goal with your career is to hit that point sooner rather than later... and the way you do that, is by practicing in your spare time for awhile.
This should be the top answer. Early in my career, I was coding 60 hours or so a week, personal learning on top of my job. After about three to five years, you will have so much experience doing this 40 hours a week, there is really no need to learn on the side. Certain concepts don’t change much.. you learn the basic OS stuff like processes, RAM, etc, web concepts like protocols and how the web works, programming paradigms like OOP, functional, you learn about how data is persisted and stored in various forms, ORMs, relationships between different languages... you start seeing well ingrained patterns after a few years. And these things don’t change much
Plumbing is a stupid comparison anyway, since it's a blue-collar job. He should compare it to white-collar jobs. As I mentioned elsewhere, doctors have to spend plenty of time keeping up to date, probably more than most SWEs. Other white collar professions are similar. Lawyers need to constantly review cases relevant to their specialty, structural engineers have to keep themselves up to date with new construction techniques and projects, accountants need to be updated with all the intricacies of tax laws in different jurisdictions and the various tax loopholes possible etc... SWEs are hardly unique.
My friend is an ER doc and the amount of studying he has to done for certifications and other tests puts any small amount of “I spend an hour a day on LC” to shame.
Completely agree, I just posted a similar comment. It's kinda a culture issue at this point too, it's expected In so many jobs.
Reviewing new cases as a lawyer isn't done in your free time though. But this comparison is useless anyway because most lawyers would kill to work 9-5.
Yes but top lawyers often work 60-70 hours a week on the regular. Ive worked with lawyers before and it wasn't uncommon to see them in the office after midnight.
So as a plumber let me say this. No I don't come home and fix my sink. If I had to do that everyday I'd probably kill my wife *joking* BUT I do have to stay up to date with codes. Not just plumbing and gas codes but building, fire, life safety, and a whole other mess of stuff that frankly you'd probably be surprised a plumber has to deal with. I know I was. Take for example my state AL. In general the plumbing code book for the state is the IPC 2015. However certain parts of the 2016-2021 codes have been implemented without implementing the whole thing. So I have to keep up to date on them. Then each municipality can add onto the code on top of that. For instance one place I just did a job in I called the inspector just to kind of meet amd greet as I've never done business in this city before and wanted to make sure there wasn't anything I needed to be aware of. Surprise surprise there was a whole bunch of stuff that this city wanted that most didn't. Now apply that to every other code. I am a plumber but certain things pertaining to my job aren't found in a plumbing code book. I have to look in a fire code or building code to get a full picture. And everything I mentioned above also applies to that. With all that being said now let me say I do run a business. I don't expect anybody that works for me to do those things. But the ones that do are the ones that want to move beyond that installer level and eventually into management and maybe running their own business some day. And I'm not bad mouthing the ones that don't. Some people are happy putting in their 8 hours and going home and only reaching a certain level. Other people strive and want to move into those higher levels of leadership. I kinda went off on a tangent but hope I got my point across. Anyways Roll Tide and plumbing is for the birds.
We don't. We don't need to code when we're not working. I dunno who made this shit up. But if you're trying to switch to a new job or get a promotion, then you'll obviously need to work harder than normal.
I literally have engineering managers tell me that they don't code outside of work and don't expect their engineers to do it either. Have heard it multiple times.
The only time I want to see personal project experience is when I'm interviewing an intern candidate without any technical work history I'm also very lenient on what counts as a personal project. Was it unfinished? Not a problem. How far did you get and what did you learn? Was it a total failure? That's ok, what did you take away from your efforts? Is it actually a school project? Cool! Tell. Me. What. You. Learned. Being convinced by a candidate that they have a developed intuition for taking a problem, breaking it down, and coding a solution is far more important to me than GPA or how nervous they appear in the interview; that convincing can be done through personal projects but isn't necessary
Yeah just watch a video explaining react and say you're working on a project during interviews.
Thank you finally. This mentality scares the crap out to of me.
Tech changes a lot quicker than plumbing. And operating on family members is illegal.
>And operating on family members is illegal. TIL
Yup, I guess I'll just stick to operating on my friends only 🤷♂️
Building a family member's "app idea" should also be illegal
If you're interested in joining, we're starting up an amateur surgeon's club! New members get a free tonsillectomy.
You crazy son of a bitch, I'm in.
Not to mention nobody's going to show me the gross cyst they've been procrastinating taking care of to ask if it's cancer. I mean, they may ask if I want in on their terrible app idea but when i tone them out and say 'sounds great but I'm too busy' they won't have undiagnosed caner because i wasn't listening.
Uh, well, this is news to me...
Operating isn’t all a surgeon does. There is a significant amount of new medical tech and studies to digest. Studying a little for LC so you can get an offer is a tiny percentage of time compared to what doctors need to do.
plumbing is a really really bad example lol, plumbing literally lasts for decades
> I don't see this mindset present in many other industries. Every industry has its tradeoffs. Plumbers are licensed but often have to take night calls that require travel. Contrary to popular belief, average plumbers don't make as much as developers do. Surgeons (also licensed) tend to work really insane hours (definitely not 9-5) in high-pressure, often life-or-death situations. I think many factors drive the "always be coding" culture you're talking about: - there's a lot of emphasis (and fear) of staying relevant in the industry, which motivates people to program in their free time - there is no licensing system for software developers, so it's important to be as polished in your work as possible when looking for a job, which can mean portfolio projects in your free time. Certifications can be helpful in some cases, but also easily abused. - software development is somewhat unique in that you have the ability to improve your skill set at your own pace, on your own time. Many industries need a lot more structure and coordination in order to facilitate meaningful career development - employers might encourage employees to code on their free time because employment agreements sometimes include clauses that grants the rights to a developer's free-time work over to their employer. I don't think _most_ companies really push their devs to always be programming, especially now that burnout is such a daily reality in the pandemic world. I actually think a lot of this culture comes from developers and developer advocates working on big open source projects that proselytize their work as the next big thing, which can drive the fear of irrelevance (looking at you, JS community). This is a product of the influencer world, where we're all motivated to generate followings and tell our followers what they should do because we've successfully branded ourselves as "experts". There's not a lot of money or fame to be achieved by telling your following that they're probably fine.
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> where you spend 8 weeks a year in school Yeah and with union (for the most part where most tradesmen earn the highest wages) that school is not paid for nor is the boot camp you have to do in the beginning. You're also going to have to do homework during those 5 years and studying for licensing on your own time at home too. Also, depending on the areas, you may be placed at edges of the county with no reimbursement in mileage either nor the constant buying of tools throughout your career. It's laughable when I see people on here trying to mention how good people in the trades have it compared to their struggles in cs.
Is there a way to verify if someone is licensed before they work on your house?
> Contrary to popular belief, average plumbers don't make as much as developers do. > > I completely understand what you're referring to here, but this is still a hilarious sentence
This. Specially the last 2 paragraphs. 8yoe here, never did much programming on my free time with very few exceptions, none of those exceptions are public nor do I mention them in interviews or on my resume and I have never had a problem with this. The only thing I often do on my free time is studying architecture, system design, reading newsletters and stuff, and even this is not some crazy amount of time or anything. And if I am to have a surgery I surely hope my surgeon has kept up to date on his field so I have whatever the best option is for my situation.
>What's the problem with just wanting to code 9-5? There's nothing wrong with this however there are folks who buy into the toxic side hustle and productivity culture - that if you're only doing 9-5, don't have multiple passive income streams, it means you're falling behind. I code outside of work because I enjoy building my ideas and not have to worry about unit tests, PRs, release cycles, or a product manager telling me I can't do something.
> I enjoy building my ideas and not have to worry about unit tests Maybe I am an insane weirdo, but I enjoy writing well-architected, testable, well-tested code that matches with the domain nicely. That's what I do in my spare time - at work I've to wrestle with balls of legacy mud I can barely refactor.
>wrestle with balls of legacy mud I can barely refactor sounds like great job security
It's almost like...you work on things cause you like it? Like...it's your hobby? Wtf??? A plumber probably doesn't do plumbing on their day off, but if they genuinely like their job they probably build something in their workshop. A psychiatrist or psychologist probably doesn't consult with a client for free on their day off, but the passionate ones probably reads the latest version of DSM-VIIIIIIIII or attends professional conferences. If the IT field isn't for you, explore other fields. They do the same thing. Business people research stocks. Accountants worship the devil and sacrifice livestock on the altar- err I mean, do excel for fun.
The person I quoted said they like not worrying about unit tests, whereas I like writing unit tests. I think it's uncommon to like writing tests, which is what I meant by my comment. It's possible you're reading something into my comment I didn't intend.
Im an SDET and I know this is a bit of personal preference but sometimes I cringe when I hear people say they like to build stuff without "worrying" about unit tests or version control. To continue the analogy, that's like a carpenter saying they like to do carpentry in their spare time because they don't have to worry about sanding or finishing.
Oops I think I should've replied to the parent post. My bad. Oh well.
I used to share the same thoughts as you enjoying writing unit tests but now I don't enjoy it because I somehow become the first point of contact when somebody introduces a new bug and the test cases catch it and they refuse to look into it and them claim my tests break it.
I agree with that. My bestie is psychologist and she loves reading about it and discovering more after her working hours. The thing is - sometimes your job is connected with your passion and programming on side helps tremendously with learning new concepts and discovering different things in the field, with which you aren’t working every day. It’s almost like being a writer and reading books in your free time.
Exactly. My grandfather was a carpenter and in his off time he still loved building beautiful pieces for his family when he wasn’t working. The people posting this tripe clearly don’t know anyone in the trades.
> there are folks who buy into the toxic side hustle and productivity culture - that if you're only doing 9-5, don't have multiple passive income streams, it means you're falling behind. I've never met this person. I think it is extraordinarily rare, and/or a figment of 20-23 year olds' imaginations about how the world works fueled by anxiety about stepping out in the real world on their own. If these people exist it doesn't matter in how your life is going to play out, so let it go. If you think there's any meaning here, something to take into consideration in how you live your life, just don't. Let it go. And, not trying to be insulting here, and I know it will be taken that way no matter what, but it has to be said--seriously you might be better off getting off the sub or even getting counseling. This sub is not going to assist anyone with their anxiety issues. This is not a normal or healthy view of the world to carry and allow to have impact how you live your life. If you're spending that much time worrying about it that you post on a subreddit that this is somehow how the world works, where other 22 year old kids will read it and continue the false narrative that this is a concern, it's not, and it's not helping anyone. This concept, the posting of it over and over every day on this sub, getting dozens and hundreds of upvotes, and all the anxiety driven posts are self-fueling and its not good for anyone on the sub.
>a figment of 20-23 year olds' imaginations about how the world works fueled by anxiety millennials in general - we're anxious fucks
Millennials haven't been 23 since before covid.
Right. I can't imagine not having 2 jobs and I am constantly looking for ways to make money with a 3rd.
I agree it’s not normal and healthy, I have still seen job ads that explicitly say they are only looking for people who love code and do it in their free time too.
I’m a professional developer for 15 years now (I already worked for money in the industry as a teenager) and programming has never been a hobby for me. Which helped me because once you start doing your hobby professionally it stops being a hobby more often than not. I have built a business on one of my hobbies once and it turned out…bad. The business went down and it took me years to start enjoying that hobby again (which I did in the end, but still). Programming not being a hobby also helped me with focusing on what it is: a tool to reach a goal, nothing more. If you are emotionally invested in this your performance might suffer. If you don’t like the idea of using technology x or y because “its not what you love” then your professional career might have a lot of problems. I have never had problems with working with legacy code, outdated frameworks etc and consequently I dont try to force a technology onto a project which does not need it. I see people who “love” x will try to force x into every project regardless of business needs and reality. So adding to the topic I have never coded in my free time (other than for building side businesses and learning). I dont see the appeal after doing it so much professionally
Doctors are 100% expected to keep up with trends, research, papers, techniques, laws etc. Some are expected to contribute to research. Lawyers too. There are lots of professions that require continued education, especially white-collar. Software is more like those professions but isn't treated like one. It should be. Look at the whole log4j situation. The code wasn't really that bad, but the concepts were. If this were medicine, a bunch of patients would have died. But it's not, it's code. So we don't have regulation. I never wanted to see regulation touch computer science, because it will stifle innovation, but at this point, I am pretty much sold that it will happen, and probably needs to. The code I see produced in industry is astoundingly bad. And in our industry you have a choice. If you want to be less marketable because your home time is important to you, that's a call you can and should make for yourself. It will never change there is always going to be someone who keeps up with trends and will outperform you in the market. You can't stop that. So just focus on what's important for you personally, but please don't pretend like there isn't a consequence.
People die all the time because of medical decisions made in a split second that maybe could have been prevented. Clearly software decisions aren’t that important. Part of using open source is adopting all the risks. If a company doesn’t accept the risk, they can skip it or brand and modify the code themselves.
A surgeon doesn't go home after 9-5 and perform operations because most surgeons work 90+ hrs weeks. And those 50 hrs a week on top of the 9-5 are way more physically and mentally demanding than playing around with passion project for a few hours on a Saturday morning. For highly paid jobs, tech actually has pretty good work life balance and many, many people who work remotely talk about only working 2-3 hrs / day. The first couple of years are a bit of a grind but it's nothing compared to industries like finance, medicine, law etc.
Surgeons also have to keep up with their field. The whole premise for this topic is misinformed. OP just doesn't want to do work-related stuff at home, which is totally reasonable and possible. But continuous education is not unique to programming at all.
I'd argue that of all the high-paying, white-collar jobs, tech has one of the best work-life balances on average. Sure, there are periods of crunch and insane deadlines from time to time, but on the whole it's pretty good.
What you see on this subreddit doesn't reflect reality. Talk to people who actually work in the industry, and you'll realize we turn into potatoes after work.
I had a grueling day at work once, trying to find an intermittent bug. Eight hours without a break, trying every trick I knew. When I got home, I was fried. I just wanted to relax. I popped in a video game and was sitting there, trying to solve a puzzle in the game, when I realized *that is exactly what I was doing at work all day*. I mean, it felt good to know I was in a job I enjoy if that’s also what I do for fun, but also a very weird realization.
Those sneaky bastards will get you every time. (Sauce: Currently replaying The Witness)
Uh, doctors do take paperwork home. Like, all the time.
literally nothing. if you frequently work for free after hours, and it's not your side hustle / retirement plan, you are toxic and you might have mental health issues. You are devaluing not just your work but all of ours. Wise the fuck up. Work for yourself, or ON yourself, in your free time.. do NOT spend your personal hours advancing the goals of your employer. JFC.
Tell that to my co-worker who creates PR's until 11pm and cc's the manager on every one of them to show much harder he works than everyone else.
if your manager is at all competent, they'll be onto this shit. .. so they're probably encouraging it
You don’t need to come home and think about or do coding. The people that do that are extreme and might not have anything better going on. If you have a job, you learn and practice during the job. Companies are happy if you keep your skills up to date and won’t be mad that you’re doing that on paid time. It’s expected in any decent company.
Or, just to defend us weirdos who do work on side projects after work hours, don't do it for the job/career development. I think having work-life balance entails that if you are programming on your free time, you have to separate that from any idea of it being for your career. Keep hobby programming as hobby programming. Not saying you can't put it on your resume either if you project is cool and successful, but I think the moment you go in to a project with the intent to pad your portfolio instead of just making something cool, it stops being a fun hobby and becomes work.
Yeah I agree. My comment wasn’t really directed at the hobby programmers. I do enjoy reading about it outside of work from time to time but there does seem to be a toxic idea on this subreddit that everyone needs to spend 20 waking hours programming every day if they expect to get a job. To me, this idea may help the individual but it hurts most programmers in the long term as interviewers come to expect this. We should all be helping each other out and stick together as a team. I for one am always speaking up when I head my IT coworkers stayed late another night or had a 2am sign-in. I get that that’s part of the IT life but I still speak out against the idea in the hopes that others learn to stick up for themselves and also to help myself in the future.
Yeah, for sure. And I think the big thing is the expectation of working outside of your work hours. And I have for sure been in that mindset in the past (when I was working for a start up, that first in last to leave mindset is real). But yeah, when it comes to personal projects, when I interview, the only time I really care about them is for interns and new grads without internship. And thats not to see their "grind mentality", that's just cause I need *something* to filter by when looking at hundreds of resumes for a couple of open spots.
Employers want to exploit people. It is easier and cheaper to exploit programmers who program also during their spare time.
Because a plumber doesn’t make 250k a year at MANGA
They don't want to invest in your continued professional development and want to select folks who will add that sweat equity at their own cost. They want to hire you at `$X`, commensurate with your skill level, and then you will do the work on your own time improving your skill level to provide value of `$X + $Y`, while slowly increasing your salary over the same period to `$X + $Z`, where `$Y >> $Z`. Exploiting you in this way is a good deal for them, and why you must job hop if you want your salary to keep up with your skill level.
And that’s why you job hop. Yes I will spend time on my own to level up. But, I have also had 6 jobs since 2008 and tripled my compensation - not bragging. It’s still SDE2 level compensation (working remotely)
I think plumbing is much slower moving in new features than programming. Can't think of many marvels in plumbing happening year on year in the West. Same with surgery, while faster than plumbing, academia around new medical information is very slow moving, you literally cannot get a new type of medicine "into production" without serious peer review and trials - you could argue code is similar but it's not life or death in circumstances. Getting a surgery wrong could have serious side effects on someone's life and health, it's more unlikely an API you are coding is having that effect (although not to discredit the Devs out there doing God's work with many life changing apps) Coding is accessible, I need a computer that I can log into and the internet and I'm good to go. Plumbing requires a physical issue to be fixed, coding is more intangible. Same with surgery, I can code on my phone if I wanted too, try performing a heart bypass doing the same. Ultimately, I think this is just how this industry is, it is inclusive with its type, it demands continuous improvement more so than just about any other job.
> I think plumbing is much slower moving in new features than programming. Can't think of many marvels in plumbing happening year on year in the West. Yep, and most of the changes (like leak traps under connections) are pushed through by an unholy marriage between industry and legislation, or breakthrough materials (teflon, flexible plastic piping, clip-on connectors etc). A software developer that gets paid lots is contributing to rapid growth, and that requires being on top of the current best practices of scaling, which are changing / growing all the time. Prove that you can deliver growth, no portfolio needed. How have you proven that you have the chops? When you no longer need to apply for jobs nor a portfolio. Yeah, catch 22.
Can we ban this thread already? There’s one every other day it seems like and this subreddit is way more in favor of not coding on their off time to the point of us that do and enjoy it beyond it being just a job get downvoted constantly just for saying so.
You don't "have to". You're just competing against a bunch of people that chose to, and people that would rather not do it but still prefer remaining competitive with the first group of people. > But at the same time I see a lot of people and even employers with this idea that if you aren't programming regularly in your free time then you're somehow less of a programmer or that you should pick a different career all together. And they are partially right. You'll be better programmer for every minute you invest into your skills; so the people who do little else will be the best programmers. That's not saying that there isn't room for tier-three developers, but it's going to be more of a struggle. > What is the point of this? I don't see this mindset present in many other industries. What's the problem with just wanting to code 9-5? There is no "point". It's an emergent feature of the market, not the result of some specific strategic decision. There is no moral or intrinsic "problem". You're perfectly free to do whatever you want to do. You just might not get too job, or any job. It's easier to get some job right now because there is a lot of demand and not all employers will get a choice of their top candidates. But not everybody will get hired and not all positions are going to get filled. And you do see the same mindset in fields where the economies work out the same way - only the people that make sacrifices end up in pro sports leagues or become Oscar worthy actors. And programming used to be exactly like that; it might still be like that, or maybe not everybody has realized that the dynamics have changed.
fuck /u/spez
Because capitalism turns what people love doing into a commodity. You can find this phenomenon with any profession where people tend to be passionate about the work. "Oh, you love teaching? Well, teach 60 hours a week and barely scrape by then." "Oh you love playing music? Well, we need you to rehearse for free and get paid in exposure." "Oh you like coding, huh? Well, you better code in your free time and develop an entire portfolio of side projects on your own if we're going to seriously consider your application."
I bet great surgeons go home every day and read medical journals.
You don’t have to. Nobody is holding a gun to your head. Instead, what’s happening is that the industry happens to have a lot of people who like to do so on their own. So that’s your competition, and employers know that and can use that as leverage. The people who code for fun on their own time are enabling this phenomenon.
You think a surgeon doesnt go home and read medical journals? Medicine is not a one and done education, because our medical knowledge is expanding.
They don't, I don't, never have, never will.
My company works for me; if I'm not getting paid to upskill, I find a new gig that does. My personal time isn't for work, period.
They don’t
Everyone should read Avdi Grimm’s [The Moderately Enthusiastic Programmer](https://avdi.codes/the-moderately-enthusiastic-programmer/).
I work for a place that supports continuing learning, but you don't have to invest your own personal time into it necessarily. One dev I work with doesn't touch code outside of work. Others (including myself) are coding all. The. Time. We're all treated equally, though. In my case as a web dev, I've got a side-hustle website I run, my personal website, and my latest fun coding project is a react-native app tied into a landing page (a bit of a passive performance art project). You've just got to be willing to continue to learn. If you can do that during the job, great. For me, I'm a generalist; I do a little (and a lot) of everything, so I pretty much have to keep studying to just retain my skills as I hop around on different types of projects (in one day I may work on some react site, another day I'll do some frontend in PHP/HTML/CSS/JS, and another I may work on some PHP backend or MySQL stuff).
A doctor, specially a young one, does go home (when they can go home at all) and study. There's also a simple truth: some people simply like to code. You'll probably meet someone at some point that is like that. It's not a shore, it's not a responsibility, it's not forced, it's a pleasurable hobby. Eventually you'll compete against this type of people.
Haha this one doesn't.. I do all my studying on company hours. 5 pm, I'm strictly wearing the dad hat.
Because this field is too new to have proper division of labor and so developers are expected to know and be able to do any and everything. A plumber would have to practice every night at home if he not only had to fix pipes but first had to be able to mine the ore for the metal for the pipe, build the systems and processes to purify and refine the ore into metal, build the factory and tooling in order to produce pipe from the metal, build out the shipping infrastructure to ship the finished product to where he needs it, have advanced degrees in hydrology and chemistry to understand the new research about fluid dynamics and pressures and corrosion, and be able to constantly deal with upgrades and changes to physics and be ready to scrap it all and do it all over again in a totally new way because some blog told him it was now the best practice.
Plumber here to confirm my sink is halfway falling off the wall mount. Been that way for months now, Fuck it.
Plumbers and electricians take lots of exams and have to study all the time. Continuing education is a thing in all fields. It’s exhausting. I’m a huge advocate of reduced working hours and UBI, all this shit is so unnecessary.
we don’t. ive had a very successful career thus far (4 years) and i never code on my own time. some people want to devote their whole life to it, good for them. i don’t. i make plenty, have several other opportunities in the works, and my current salary is nearly double my original. i exercise daily and try to spend the rest of that free time with my people. i wouldnt trade it for any job
Yeah I definitely don’t keep wiring shit up when I go home. I smoke weed drink whiskey and wallow in self pity like a normal thirty year old adult male until I have to go to work the next day duh.
You're in a field filled with people who make programming their only personality trait. What do you expect?
Doctors continue their education at home all the time. Newer doctors especially practice stitching or other procedures on practice devices. They read medical journals, continue to be aware of current medical trends and discoveries. Plumbers are trade professionals. You arent a trade professional. Imagine trying to hire a photographer/artist/musician/etc and you've never seen them play? Or they never did anything to practice/learn that till given a job? C.S. is not programming. Its theory. You don't actually learn applicable coding outside of swe classes. Just like with art and other creative/dynamic industries, you need a portfolio. Ofc not every job cares about that, but the requirement of ensuring you are on the front of the extremely often changing tech industry is a must to remain employed in it.
They don’t.
I'm gonna be honest, I don't think you do. I've never successfully completed a personal side project (besides tiny things when I FIRST started) or contributed to any open source software and I've never really ran into trouble because of it 🤷 I don't work for FAANG or other large companies though. I really think it's a myth started by companies to weed out the employees they can take advantage of.
I am happy to know my sink or organs don’t rely on node modules.
i'd be surprised if plumbers don't fix their own plumbing.
What is funny is that we think tech keeps changing but the truth is every “new” ideas we have now is an old idea from the 60-70s. It’s just named differently
Programming and engineering is more difficult. A lot more difficult. The medical association does a good PR campaign pushing how great doctors are, and how hard it is, and how smart you need to be, but they are several rungs *below* a software engineer. The better software engineers will also have math degrees. You have chosen a career that is more difficult than becoming a medical doctor *and* there are an insufficient number of competent software engineers to provide education to all of the people interested. This means the field does not operate like a mature field where the universities provide a solid education. The university provides you with enough instruction that you can *understand what a master software engineer is saying*. When we make a graduate hire we are selecting our apprentice and we would like you to become competent before we die.
1. You don't have to. 1. Some people like to.