Honestly, if I were starting my career today, I'd choose a different career. I love being a developer, but the industry has changed significantly for the worse over the decades. Enough so that I don't recommend people enter it.
Same here. I didn’t even plan to go into the industry, but kinda just did it because it was the best (or only) option I could think of at the time. I had earlier plans, but they fell through and I was stuck. In retrospect, I could always shift over to doing software later on from something else if I wanted, but doing the opposite seems very limited.
Management. Chew up the grinders and spit them out when there is no flavor left. There's an endless supply; they extoll the virtues of the grind to the next generation, all the way until they've been spit out. But nobody listens to them once that's happened.
I hated how as a developer the requirements weren't understood, written down or changed weekly, completion was extremely hard to achieve, and I always ended up in crunch time redoing work (weekends and evenings). So I became a BA.
As a BA I hated how there was no communication regarding schedules or scope or active client management and everything ended up in crunch time. So I became a PM.
As a PM I got loaded down with too many projects to effectively manage and got no support from management. So I became a Development Manager.
As a development manager there was no support from senior management, good PM's were rare, developers were still getting abused (evening and weekends) and I had to pick up the slack. So I became a President.
As a president, I had to oversee ridiculous metrics and play financial games with shareholders that only cared for extracting as much money as possible from the company. And constantly try to straddle a line between looking out for myself or others, especially in terms of my own compensation (every dollar I take is 1 dollar less to retain talent or add to the team).
This sentiment gets expressed a lot on Hacker News, but I really wonder how many people saying this are actually familiar with these careers. I was the first person in my family to ever go to college. My dad, both grandfathers, all of my uncles, my brother-in-law, most of my cousins all worked or work in skilled trades. Aside from the physical demands which can and do tend to eventually beat you up (my dad's knees barely work at this point), sure, it's stable and reliable work, eventually, once you've become senior enough in your union. But it takes a while to get to that point, and it can be very hit or miss depending on where you live and local economic conditions. The GFC and Covid were both devastating. My brother-in-law got addicted to heroin and did a stint in prison, largely because his entire career field effectively disappeared in 2009 and 2010 when commercial construction just stopped happening everywhere in LA and Orange counties. Nothing to do that would pay him for two years.
And even at the senior end, unless you're a contractor owning your own business employing other skilled tradespeople, the money is still at best half what I earn to lay in bed all day typing on a laptop.
I've spent the last 20 years now in cushy, easy jobs giving away thousands of dollars at a time to the rest of my family because of the general unreliability of their income streams working in skilled trades.
Now imagine not even having a union. But yes, the level of delusion here, particularly around the pay for tradespeople, can be striking. I suspect they will encourage their own children to go to college and not pursue a trade (and I don't blame them for that).
Which works or doesn't work depending on where you are. You're not the son of that particular (local) biker gang's members or in favour with them? Sorry, no welding for you!
As a software person this sort of thing seldom comes to mind. What we also dismiss is all that professional association and certification stuff that we don't have to deal with. I don't know about you, but so far I still like the freedom and ability to move up and around we have better than being stuck working myself up from entry level through to a high paying job by waiting for someone else to retire or move up and out of the way first. Or you become a business owner, which in the plumbing and electrician business I guess is very common. But not everyone is cut out for that.
"You're not the son of that particular (local) biker gang's members or in favour with them? Sorry, no welding for you!"
That seems super local. I've got welder friends (and electrician friend, and plumber friends and my brother is a GC). I've lived in Texas, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Ontario.
I've never heard that biker gangs have a monopoly on welding jobs. And in my crazy 20s I dated a CC Riders ex-wife.
I'm not a welder so I can't tell you more. It's hearsay. I guess it's the same kind of super local / random thing as restaurant owners may have to deal with in order for their establishment to be "protected" :shrug:
Even if you’re in an area where $60k is decent, I’m not sure it’s as great as it sounds. I remember talking to an electrician turned Uber driver a couple years ago. He was making ok money, but with insane hours and in shitty environments. I don’t recall exactly what he said he wanted to do, but he was looking at getting out of the field. Anecdotally, I’ve heard similar stories from friends in nursing.
Maybe some individual plumbers are making hundreds of thousands of dollars, but they are an extreme outlier. The other question is how many hours are they working a week to make that much? I'm guessing you either have to work lots of overtime or be a business owner.
I have a lot of friends and family in the trade and the trucking industry. I made more than every single one of them and they all work more hours than me. The one friend I have that makes "almost $100k/year" works almost every weekend to make that.
I think a nationwide stat isn’t very useful because it ignores cost of living and the fact that most SWEs are concentrated in particular areas of the country. I think it’s very likely based on this data that software engineering just pays better in all or most regions, but this data is a bit skewed because of confounders.
The entire mindset of the industry has shifted to one of maximal monetary extraction rather than producing quality, useful products.
Everywhere I look, I see our industry engaging in practices that abuse others for profit. This applies to how we treat our customers, how we treat society, and even how we treat developers.
For a microcosm of the problem, look at how often comments here focus on being a developer in order to get rich rather than being a developer in order to do great things.
Maybe you are looking everywhere but the wrong places. There's never been a better time to work in software if you care about FOSS, accessibility, companies with purpose other than profit etc. If you surround yourself with money oriented peers, of course that's all you'll see.
With the exception of two companies I started myself, my whole career has been B2B companies, and there are many good ones (almost exclusively companies which use software, but aren't software companies).
But pure software companies? Even B2B ones are increasingly abusive -- they just tend to abuse their employees rather than customers.
Note that I'm certainly not saying that all companies are like this. But the trendline for it is clear to me: it's getting more common as time goes on. That's why I would avoid this industry if I were at the start of my career. I think things are going to get much worse before they get better.
