Sometimes I wonder if I picked the wrong career from just viewing how analyzed this field happens to be. Every year a blog post I see about how to make things better or what's wrong and needing to change things up.
I've never seen these constant blog posts on management & burn out for other high paying professions. I'm starting to wonder if programmers are just being psychologically manipulated every year to decrease the value of the skill and so companies can get more out of their money.
That is due I in part, perhaps largely, on the nature of software developers. We are problem solvers, analyzers, focused on finding more efficient/elegant/faster/etc solutions. We pick things apart, to understand them, so we can build systems that do those things and or do them better.
Its inevitable that we apply these qualities to ourselves and our industry.
I see similar in other technical creative industries. Some engineering and sciences.
HN is a software-heavy site, so you read a lot about software burnout here. If it were a medical-heavy site, I suspect you'd read a lot about doctor burnout (I still see that here sometimes, even though it's not really a medical site).
But doctors are the one counterexample that came to mind. Do architects burn out? Do civil engineers? Electrical engineers?
My understanding, although maybe this is just rumor, was that architecture had one of the highest suicide rates of any profession. My theory was that it was because it is a demanding job (comparable to engineering or medicine) but most buildings aren't really architectured. I mean how many sky-scrapers, museums, and city halls are there in the world compared to the number of mcmansions and nondescript office buildings.
> Do architects burn out? Do civil engineers? Electrical engineers?
In all of those fields projects eventually get finished and involve a lot of bureaucracy and waiting. There is much more breathing room, than in software and more time to recover.
I'm paid a lot and I work remotely from a beach. If I don't like my job, I can easily find another that I do like.
Not too many other professions can say that. None of the doctors in my family can. Though at least they are saving lives, something else most professions can't say they do. :)
We are lucky this field is so lucrative, especially in the US. Let's enjoy it while it lasts.
I wish those people who find they can easily find another job without any effort or worry would realise they are not normal.
For the majority of people finding a half-decent job takes a stupid amount of time (the number of jobs advertised which simply list a set of "technology words" and end in a black hole is not insignificant), and even if you do find a reasonable position being advertised then it's perfectly normal to never get any sort of response back.
> I'm paid a lot and I work remotely from a beach. If I don't like my job, I can easily find another that I do like.
> Not too many other professions can say that.
Software engineers can't say that, if that's what you are implying. I don't know who can actually, which profession is so lucrative and with so little supply of professionals, that finding a well payed remote job that you like is even a possibility?
Good software engineers in the United States absolutely can say that. Remote work typically pays less than work in high CoL areas but it still pays well. Additionally there are a lot of jobs out there. Personally I know that if I quit tomorrow I could easily have a job in less than a month.
This isn’t going to be true in every area but it is absolutely true in the Bay Area currently.
