[HN Gopher] Software engineering changed my life
___________________________________________________________________
Software engineering changed my life
Author : koinedad
Score : 71 points
Date : 2022-09-24 16:32 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (technicallychallenged.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (technicallychallenged.substack.com)
| dccoolgai wrote:
| I'm really happy to see this and that this field has a positive
| effect on people's life. That's really the top line takeaway for
| me: But as someone who's been through more than one of these
| "market cycles" in tech, I have a fear (based in
| reality/experience) that when people start viewing Software
| Engineering as a gateway to a "good life" it usually means we're
| at an inflection point where things (at least in the U.S.) are
| about to get a lot worse.
|
| We're already seeing this with FAANG layoffs. I'd like to believe
| "it's different this time" but I don't have anything I can point
| to as a logical basis for that belief. And it really scares me.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Remote work means that now you are competing with people from
| all around the world, some of them living in places with very
| permissive labor laws, which means that wages around where you
| live will go down.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Same arguments in the late 90s and early 2000s.
|
| After which software salaries continued to rise dramatically.
| frontman1988 wrote:
| Indians have already taken a lot of tech jobs.
| Amazon,Microsoft,Adobe, Atlassain, Salesforce,Goldman
| Sachs, Google all have dev centers in India. And not to
| forget people of Indian descent are literally everywhere
| there is tech.
| ravenstine wrote:
| We'll see. The idea that Indians will replace us all has yet
| to pan out. But the increasing prevalence of remote may be
| the tipping point.
| miscaccount wrote:
| Right now there is shortage of qualified software engineers
| in India and many companies are finding it harder to hire
| in India.
|
| Also the cost in India is also increasing and running your
| operations remote is not simple.
| samarthr1 wrote:
| And we have hopes of greater growth in domestic demand...
|
| I dream of the day when the student in cs for the money
| will reject the faangs of today during poor races, and
| instead join a home grown startup.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Decades ago when offshoring started, the best available
| technology were crappy VoIP phones and expensive
| videoconference technology.
|
| Now any low tier laptop with zoom will give you a proper
| videoconferencing experience, infrastructure is all cloud
| based, there are 10x more fiber cables connecting the
| planet, there are lots of well documented open source
| projects for almost everything, and for learning there is
| youtube and MOOCs.
|
| Also, foreign schools are getting better, and many alumni
| of offshored companies are now founders. The silicon valley
| model of financing is being replicated abroad too.
|
| Believe me when I tell you: the castle walls are falling
| apart and soon wages will go down.
|
| People that got comfortable writing average CRUD
| applications are about to be stomped by a massive stampede.
| GoOnThenDoTell wrote:
| Timezones really matter more than location. I think we'll see
| people move to low CoL areas before mass offshoring.
|
| So much organisational friction is from people who don't want
| to destroy work/life balance with early/late meetings.
| koinedad wrote:
| Definitely. Watching the tech layoffs this year has been rough.
| [deleted]
| jimbokun wrote:
| Software has been a good paying career for as long as it's
| existed.
|
| There may have been occasional downturns, but less than most
| other professions. And compensation has grown much faster than
| most other fields.
| zapataband1 wrote:
| What are you talking about most companies just experienced
| record-making profits!!! Are we not getting raises?!?! /sarcasm
|
| I've see things getting worse for a lot of people for a while.
| I think we just like to pretend it's all good in white-collar
| land because of the heavy stigma of being poor. We need to
| unionize. Many 'poorer' and 'less-skilled' workers have already
| realized this(e.g. nurses strike, teachers strike and recent
| vote by railroad union to strike).
|
| "The top 1% owned a record 32.3% of the nation's wealth as of
| the end of 2021, data show. The share of wealth held by the
| bottom 90% of Americans, likewise, has declined slightly since
| before the pandemic, from 30.5% to 30.2%.Apr 1, 2022"
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| There might be a downcycle but I don't see how it couldn't be
| very different than any previous cycle. The depth to which
| software has penetrated business processes seems much more deep
| than even 20 years ago.
| dccoolgai wrote:
| You can't eat software. You can't wear it or build a house
| with it. You could maybe make any of those things "more
| efficient" but you can't _replace_ them with software. So
| there's some "theoretical limit" to the value you can create
| with it. My fear is that we have overshot that line by a wide
| margin, and the market is getting wise to it.
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| Well I mean if society collapses it won't be worth much,
| but as long as that doesn't happen making things "more
| efficient" is critical to supporting a planet with 8
| billion people.
| dasil003 wrote:
| Sure software is not generally essential. But on the other
| hand, do we really need more stuff?
| chrisco255 wrote:
| You can't eat any kind of service. There's not really a
| theoretical limit to the value that can be created with
| software. You could even create software that powers
| robotics & machinery which generates food
| (https://www.deere.co.uk/en/agriculture/future-of-farming/)
| or housing (https://www.iconbuild.com/).
| dccoolgai wrote:
| That's exactly my point, though: software doesn't really
| "power" any if those things. They are powered by
| solar/gas/etc. And the robotics that do the actual
| agriculture tasks are created in a factory. The value
| software brings has a hard upper bound related to those
| things.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| They are created in a factory that itself is powered by
| automation and robotics, that enables teams of hundreds
| to do the work that would formerly take tens of
| thousands.
|
| As far as energy goes, software also helps to optimize
| oil exploration, and software is clearly involved in
| optimizing solar efficiency and production of solar
| cells. It's also involved in nuclear facilities, power
| distribution networks, charging stations, grid management
| systems, etc.
|
| The limits of software haven't even begun to be tapped
| yet.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Software was played a role in automating all those things,
| and will continue to do so.
| nelsondev wrote:
| You can listen to it (music), you can look at it (art), you
| can entertain people with it (video games), you can inform
| others with it (media).
|
| These aren't the base level on Maslow's pyramid of needs
| (food water shelter), but software can solve/facilitate the
| solving of higher level problems of human existence.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The biggest perk of software engineering is that you can
| literally create something from nothing, and that something can
| have enough value for someone to pay you. The barrier to entry is
| basically zero, assuming you already own a computer (and if you
| don't, you'll need that computer for other things anyway, so it
| won't be a waste even if you do not end up pursuing software
| engineering as a career).
|
| Beyond software engineering _jobs_ , having those skills means
| you can easily build all kinds of services and put them out there
| for prospective customers to buy. You can also automate your own
| repetitive, annoying and boring shit instead of spending time
| doing it manually or paying someone else (or a service) to do so.
|
| Besides making software products, software engineering expertise
| will also help you make other jobs more efficient, sometimes
| automating them away. If shit hits the fan and developers are no
| longer in demand and selling software products/services doesn't
| work out, you can just look for any kind of computer-based,
| repetitive job such as data entry and automate it away.
| j-bos wrote:
| Strongly agree with something from nothing. As a former
| carpenter I spent quite a bit of effort lugging tools around
| and on moves, today I just grab a laptop.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| While carpentry also creates value, a carpenter needs
| significant equipment & capital to create something. A
| carpenter down on their luck can't immediately start building
| houses from scratch. A programmer down on their luck just
| needs a laptop (which is easy enough to get) and can start
| churning out MVPs that could at least provide _some_ income.
| koinedad wrote:
| The idea of creating something from nothing is what got me into
| programming. Somewhat related to the idea that I can make a
| computer do what I want, presupposing I know what kind of
| limitless potential "telling a computer what to do" opens up
| thundergolfer wrote:
| 'Building sandcastles in the clouds' is a nice Fred Brooks
| aphorism that conveys this. Pure thought-stuff.
| spaniard89277 wrote:
| It's sad to see that fewer and fewer jobs provide enough to have
| a good life.
|
| If I have to point my finger to something it would be
| housing/land. Housing throghout the west is the instrument that
| extracts the most from poor and modal income brackets.
|
| Software development is above this misery line for now.
|
| If we want to live in places where all the employees that support
| your lifestyle can find meaning and means to a decent life, we
| have to take care about this.
|
| I remember when I was in my small northern Spain faculty,
| learning about the beginnings of industrialization and urban
| planning, it was pretty clear to me that there was a sentiment in
| the ruling class that, for them to have a decent place to live
| and not being forced to live inside their palaces and houses,
| social stability was needed. And such goal could only be achieved
| providing amenities for the common man.
|
| It was for the best interest of the ruling class.
|
| Nowadays it seems to me that one can move up the payscale and
| forget about it. But I don't want crime in my neighborhood, nor
| homeless. I don't want to hear that someone I know lost his job
| and it's on the verge of hitting the street.
|
| A cashier should be able to pay rent, transport, utilities and a
| decent life.
| UglyToad wrote:
| Unsolicited book recommendation but I saw someone mention
| "Rethinking the economics of land and housing" recently which
| serves as a good general primer of the history of and problems
| with housing. Mainly UK focused but I think it's increasingly
| the cause of immiseration globally.
| [deleted]
| jimbokun wrote:
| In the US I believe healthcare and education far outstrip
| housing as increasingly unaffordable costs.
| zapataband1 wrote:
| I so heavily agree. 'above this misery line for now' is the
| key. I came from a poor background like OP. I have friends that
| can't afford homes, constantly getting laid off, and not many
| members of my family have any retirement plans. And this is in
| 'the worlds richest country'
|
| We can all pretend we will earn enough money for our families
| to survive, but the reality is those richer than us will try
| and find away to extract it somewhere down the line. Whether
| it's inflation, medical bills, or a financial crash that brings
| your life savings down to zero.
|
| Without large-scale changes to society the hyper-concentration
| of wealth will continue and millions will continue to live
| butchered lives.
| spaniard89277 wrote:
| The thing about housing is that it happens everywhere in the
| west (I presume other places too, IDK).
|
| In Spain at least, it wasn't always the case that people with
| low skilled jobs couldn't afford basic stuff. My old brothern
| could afford an appartment and going out every weekend
| working in a pizza place when he was in his teens.
| kqr2 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noblesse_oblige
|
| Housing in the West due to insufficient development is
| effectively a zero-sum game. So once people have their share,
| they do everything they can to maintain it's value.
|
| Great HN comment on a recent thread with regards to land and
| rent-seeking: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32961554
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Housing and land as a store of value needs to be done away
| with.
|
| While Japan don't get everything right, I think this is one
| area in which their attitudes/policies are more aligned with
| the wellbeing of the masses. There, houses are more like cars
| in that they start deprecating the moment they're moved into
| and if anything are seen as a value subtract past a certain
| age, because it's expected that when you buy a plot of land
| the house on it will be demolished and a new one will be
| built in its place. Houses are more tied to families that
| live in them than they are the land they're built on.
|
| This might seem wasteful, but it's kept living costs in the
| residential outskirts of Japan's urban areas a lot more
| affordable than they would've been otherwise and also means
| that housing on average is more up to code, and it drives
| costs of building down since building is routine instead of
| something unusual.
|
| I would love to see this come to the US, and I say this
| despite standing to gain from the present system.
| folkhack wrote:
| Shelter as an investment vehicle leads to consolidation. And,
| no one in the capital class is going to address the scarcity
| as it's a conflict of their interests. Rent in my city has
| been going insane.
|
| At the end of the day this is all just capitalism and voting
| for your own interests. We optimize for this.
| isthisthingon99 wrote:
| I don't foresee software developers being useless, but I can
| tell you what I have seen... The big, smart companies are able
| to leverage highly paid developers better than ever. For
| example, about 10 years ago, I was working at a company that
| had 100 devs. They now have 10 highly paid (FAANG+) full time
| devs + subcontractors and make more money than ever.
| amelius wrote:
| > Software development is above this misery line for now.
|
| Yeah, the dream may be over when Asia gets a high quality
| development machine in every home.
| wiseowise wrote:
| Why would availability of high quality development machine of
| someone in China change anything for me, software engineer
| who works on-site, in Europe?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Is access to hardware actually the blocker?
|
| My observation is that skill, communication and cultural
| alignment are what puts the West ahead of common outsourcing
| destinations (at least for Western projects - I would
| definitely pick a local developer for a local project as
| their cultural alignment and domain knowledge would be much
| better than an outsiders').
|
| The problem I see is that access to hardware and educational
| resources is not enough. I don't believe software engineering
| as a whole can be taught, there are some things (including
| unwritten things nobody wants to admit) you only pick up from
| real-world experience, and some things that have less to do
| with software and more with culture and the local environment
| your software will be used in (since software in most cases
| is there to solve some kind of business problem that might be
| specific to a certain location or jurisdiction).
|
| Lack of real-world experience _in the target environment_ is
| what 's holding the common outsourcing destinations back.
| Giving free computers to everyone still won't magically make
| them competitive in our software engineering market.
| amelius wrote:
| Availability of better hardware in every home (from a young
| age) will improve all those things.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The other problem of "better hardware" is that "better"
| according to us isn't the same as according to the
| market.
|
| General-purpose computing devices are less and less
| popular and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of
| developing countries have better _smartphone_ penetration
| than _computers_ , partly because smartphones offer
| better opportunities for rent-seeking and the attention
| economy where as general-purpose computers hamper those
| things, so the former are being pushed more and
| potentially subsidized.
|
| This is even a problem in Western countries - a lot of
| kids/teenagers today feel at home on a phone yet don't
| even understand the concept of a file.
|
| A lot of people got into software engineering by learning
| it themselves because they had access to a general-
| purpose computer, since back in the day it was the only
| computer you could get. Nowadays, a lot of families might
| be satisfied with a phone, tablet and games console -
| those offer zero opportunities for learning programming.
| cercatrova wrote:
| > a lot of developing countries have better smartphone
| penetration than computers,
|
| They definitely do, such as in many African and Asian
| countries, although not for the reasons you state. Phones
| are simply cheaper in these countries than computers.
| They're getting devices for 200 dollars from Chinese
| manufacturers mainly, not the 1k iPhones that are popular
| in the West.
| zapataband1 wrote:
| Based on this data I found, it is an insanely large gap. US
| ~7/10 people have computers, in some parts of africa
| ~1/1000
|
| https://www.nationmaster.com/country-
| info/stats/Media/Person...
| Nextgrid wrote:
| But what about places like India? Computer penetration
| must be pretty good for there to be a sizeable software
| engineering and outsourcing market.
|
| The problem is the skills and communication, which stem
| from this situation being the status-quo and there being
| nowhere for new developers to learn anything better (or
| even know that their current skills aren't up to scratch,
| at least not for working on foreign, outsourced
| projects).
| bipop5000 wrote:
| You are underestimating the ratio of the country's poor
| vs the number of people in technology. India has an
| insane amount of people who are way poorer than what we
| in the west would call poverty.
| bipop5000 wrote:
| There are way too many people without personal computers
| in India.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Yes, but I'm not talking about those. I'm refuting the
| point that better access to computers in cheaper
| countries will put Western developers out of jobs by
| saying that those who already have computers still aren't
| taking our jobs (if anything, they create jobs as we then
| have to fix or rebuild the mess they created).
| frontman1988 wrote:
| Computer penetration in India is very less given even the
| upper middle class kids only get a personal laptop when
| they enter university. But this is slowly changing. You
| can expect India to dominate in IT in the coming decades.
| Afterall there's a reason Indian Americans are already
| the richest group of people in the richest country of the
| world. It's very difficult to stop hardworking people in
| the long run.
| euroderf wrote:
| The developer USP might become requirements extraction -
| language-dependent.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| _Language_ isn 't enough.
|
| Let's look at a purely western example - implementing a
| billing system for a company serving the US market. A
| developer from the UK will assume that every bank account
| holder can do free, easy and instant wire transfers, yet
| in the US that's (still!) not the case and most people
| use Zelle or Venmo or PayPal for those things instead,
| which now significantly increases complexity (both
| engineering and potentially regulatory).
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > a sentiment in the ruling class that, for them to have a
| decent place to live and not being forced to live inside their
| palaces and houses, social stability was needed.
|
| Unfortunately, that sentiment was created with a large and long
| lasting usage of violence by the people.
|
| It would be much better if we get some different way to create
| it.
| immigrantheart wrote:
| Sounds good, doesn't work. Never will. Life is cruel, brutal
| competition. Ideal utopia like that is a fragile, forced state.
| Violence, hardships, is like energy and complexity. Can't be
| eliminated. It can be suppressed only to find it pops out
| somewhere else.
|
| If a cashier finds out they can make a decent living more will
| want to be cashier and the cashiers will have less leverage,
| less salary because they are dime a dozen. This is the reality
| of this treacherous world.
|
| First worlders offload their less desirable work to poorer 2nd
| class immigrants, poorer countries. Like it or not, all well
| intentioned Tesla owning, apartment owning, software engineers
| are there because someone else in society do the dirty work for
| them with low pay, indirectly.
| folkhack wrote:
| > A cashier should be able to pay rent, transport, utilities
| and a decent life.
|
| Unfortunately there's a huge group of people who will
| vehemently oppose this as they don't see that job as deserving
| of basic human dignity (rent, transport, utilities, medical).
| Not just the ruling class, but normal every day folks poop on
| these people...?!
|
| The older I get the more I'm disgusted at how many people can
| selectively turn off their empathy for stuff like this. In an
| equitable society we should take care of each other... I don't
| understand why a Wally World cashier making a base living wage
| offends _so many people_.
| ciarcode wrote:
| It's a war among poor people, that the ruling class love to
| maintain power.
| bolt7469 wrote:
| Your opposition is often seeing things from a logic-based
| economic lens. You might not have much success making an
| emotional argument.
|
| I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you but you need to
| logically argue why "rent, transport, utilities, medical" are
| "basic human dignity" and what a "base living wage" is. The
| fact that you believe everyone should have housing,
| transport, utilities, or adequate medical care doesn't change
| the underlying realities of economic scarcity.
| deburo wrote:
| It is true, and I'd guess that most of those who put the
| economy front and center in their view of society have
| empathy, they just differ on the ways society should
| provide to its members. While socalism focuses on existing
| wealth and how best they can redistribute it, economic-
| minded folks are concerned about wealth creation and how
| not to be overburdened by bloated budgets, which is very
| risky.
| kiba wrote:
| I don't think 'socialism' and making economically
| efficient decision is necessarily opposed to each other.
|
| I would say that our current lifestyle is both
| inefficient and inequitable.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| A political figure was recently assassinated in a country
| known to be peaceful.
|
| There's your logic: at some point, people are done taking
| the bare minimum and will sow chaos, rebel, retaliate or
| even just lie flat and (legally) do anything to sour the
| lives of those they deem enemies. And confronting an ever
| increasing number of delinquents is far more expensive than
| preventing the root cause
| mwint wrote:
| Today, it seems cashiers mostly exist to fix the self
| checkout machine when it decides it doesn't like me anymore.
|
| Perhaps we're in a transition period between the legacy
| system - cashiers a handling one customer at a time, which is
| not providing much value to the company - and "cashiers" who
| are self-checkout-sitters handling 8+ customers at a time,
| which provides much more value and could bargain for a living
| wage.
| folkhack wrote:
| > could bargain for a living wage
|
| That's called collective bargaining and the only way we'll
| end up there is strong unions. Otherwise, I promise you -
| most companies will not altruistically ensure their
| employees are taken care of; exceptions exist like Costco.
| Someone's going to need to bend their arm, be it a union or
| the government through regulation.
|
| Also I'm not sure I understand your comment. The first
| sentence feels like you're devaluing the service employee
| that helps resolve your self-checkout issues? Then, the
| next paragraph you posit that we're in a transitionary
| period from a "legacy system" - this just isn't how I see
| it.
|
| From convenience stores, to grocery, etc. there will always
| be the need for traditional cashiers, along side of self-
| checkout folks. And, personally - I believe they both
| deserve a dignified wage that covers their base needs
| (rent, car, medical, etc) without necessarily having to
| "bargain for a living wage."
|
| IMO - even the most entry-level and lowly of jobs at
| 40hrs/week should be able to get someone by.
| mwint wrote:
| > devaluing the service employee that helps resolve your
| self-checkout issues?
|
| Certainly I don't devalue the employee, but I don't value
| the work they do. This is mostly irritation at not being
| allowed to just fix my own issues.
|
| > there will always be the need for traditional cashiers,
| along side of self-checkout folks.
|
| Counterexample, a large convenience store near me just
| last month tore out all (all!) of the legacy checkout
| systems and replaced them with about five bays of 4-8x
| self-checkouts, of different sizes. There's no option to
| have a human check you out anymore.
|
| I think it's glorious.
|
| > IMO - even the most entry-level and lowly of jobs at
| 40hrs/week should be able to get someone by.
|
| I agree, but I think we're moving into a world where
| cashiers (1-to-1) are like elevator operators of old...
| extinct.
|
| Seeing that local store go all-self, and a few others
| looking like they're following suit slowly, has really
| opened my eyes on how far companies will go to eliminate
| jobs if paying a true living wage isn't reflected in the
| value they provide.
|
| Traditional cashiers are basically automatons which drag
| items across a barcode scanner, and count change.
| Shouldn't come as much of a surprise that those things
| can be more cheaply performed by a machine, or foisted
| onto the customer.
|
| And maybe it's good that those jobs are going away? I'd
| rather society have to answer some hard questions about
| UBI than keep humans working in jobs that aren't
| necessary. (See: Oregon gas pumps)
| folkhack wrote:
| Gotcha. I just find the self-checkout/cashier bit moot to
| my original point. I could have easily said "retail
| employees," or "the guy who makes my subs." Swap out
| "cashier" with any entry-level/lower-skilled position and
| that's my core point.
|
| > And maybe it's good that those jobs are going away? I'd
| rather society have to answer some hard questions about
| UBI than keep humans working in jobs that aren't
| necessary.
|
| Seeing the backlash for just $10k worth of student debt
| forgiveness I do not think that we're even close to
| conversations like that. The notion of people's base
| needs being met regardless of working is even less
| palatable to the general riffraff because we've been sold
| such a zero-sum game here. We're crabs in a bucket.
| People go to _lengths_ to make sure someone they perceive
| as less-than doesn 't get a "handout."
|
| I have grown very, very pessimistic about people's
| empathy in regards to the ever-growing economic divide.
| What I've experienced in America is "I've got mine, f u"
| - I'm a millennial maybe that gives some context.
|
| ---
|
| > Certainly I don't devalue the employee, but I don't
| value the work they do.
|
| Also, I wasn't going to address this, but... to me that
| is 100% saying that you devalue the employee. If I
| devalue someone's labor output, I'm devaluing them as an
| employee - simple. I find this sentence to be a outright
| contradiction.
| mwint wrote:
| The disagreement on the "devalue" thing is probably one
| of semantics: I value the employee as a fellow human, but
| I don't think the job of cashier is providing any value
| to me.
|
| The existence of "cashier" as a job is an impediment to
| my goal: paying and walking out of a store with the goods
| I want. Any alternative system which involves fewer
| cashiers works quicker for me, observationally.
|
| I think people - including cashiers - are inherently
| valuable. But having someone _do_ a 1-1 cashier job is
| both wasting their time and costing the company (and me)
| unnecessary time and money. Their (valuable) labor would
| be better spent elsewhere.
| folkhack wrote:
| > as a fellow human
|
| That's not what we were discussing - we were discussing
| you valuing them as an _employee_. Which if you devalue
| their labor output then, yes, you certainly devalue them
| as an employee. Saying "I value them as a human" is an
| entirely different concern/conversation IMO.
|
| Sorry about the semantics, but I fully believe you
| devalue self-checkout cashiers as employees after this
| conversation.
|
| Regardless - we're off in the weeds. I don't think we're
| in a productive conversation. Respectfully, I'm bowing
| out.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| > > Certainly I don't devalue the employee, but I don't
| value the work they do.
|
| > Also, I wasn't going to address this, but... to me that
| is 100% saying that you devalue the employee. If I
| devalue someone's labor output, I'm devaluing them as an
| employee - simple. I find this sentence to be a outright
| contradiction.
|
| Not the person replied to (And I know you said it was a
| moot point), but in this case I would say I don't value
| most cashier positions then. I say most, because not all
| grocery stores are equal. Specifically, I've always had
| good experiences at Wegmans, but my local grocery store
| is now a Shoprite. At Wegmans, cashiers quickly and
| efficiently scanned and bagged the things I purchased.
| The Shoprite cashiers, on the hand, don't even bag my
| goods. All they do is take an item off the conveyer, scan
| it, and slide it down to the end so I can bag it myself.
| This is less efficient than just doing everything myself.
| melony wrote:
| If you want more confidence, try electronic engineering. It will
| make you question the value of your time.
| throwaway81348 wrote:
| Can you expand on " It will make you question the value of your
| time." ?
| [deleted]
| koinedad wrote:
| I would love to learn more in electronic engineering. But
| you're saying the time necessary to spend can quickly feel not
| worth the investment?
| electrondood wrote:
| Got into software engineering for the money, figuring it wouldn't
| be intolerable.
|
| Benefits I didn't expect: * Forced me to confront
| lifelong imposter syndrome. * Forced me to slow down and
| pay attention to details, step through a process sequentially
| during debugging, etc. * Forced me to take ownership of
| finding the answer when I didn't know the answer. * Forced
| me to convert theoretical "I solved it in my head" into practical
| application. * Forced me to overcome "math anxiety," the
| fear of not finding the "right" answer.
| koinedad wrote:
| I second these!
| wpietri wrote:
| Aww, this is great! I'm all for career-switchers joining in. As
| this describes, software is a very human pursuit. Outside
| experiences help bring different skills and perspectives to the
| work. And as he describes, that goes the other way too.
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