[HN Gopher] From a lorry driver to Ruby on rails developer at 38
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From a lorry driver to Ruby on rails developer at 38
Author : ksec
Score : 146 points
Date : 2024-04-21 13:48 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.writesoftwarewell.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.writesoftwarewell.com)
| game_the0ry wrote:
| > I decided to join Flatiron School. If you couldn't secure a job
| after completing their course, you didn't have to pay them
| anything.
|
| This is key.
|
| I went to a boot camp as well, one of the ones that required an
| admissions interview, which was legit difficult for a newbie.
|
| The boot camp model is actually very good if implemented well. Of
| course, there is corruption and grifting, and a lot of innocent
| people regrettebly lost money.
|
| So if you are considering a boot camp, do one that is difficult
| to get into and has an income share agreement.[1]
|
| [1] Income share agreements can be sketchy too. Sometimes, if you
| get a job that is not related to tech (retail job, for example),
| they will ask you to pay back.
| macintux wrote:
| The recent discussion around BloomTech/Lambda School makes me
| very wary about income share agreements.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40067939
| citizenpaul wrote:
| > Income share agreements can be sketchy too
|
| My exp with things like this is they tend to overwhelmingly be
| highly exploitive and target vulnerable people. The biggest
| clue is that almost none of these types of places will publicly
| provide whatever the arrangement is. You usually have to jump
| through hours of hoops to even find out the details because
| they don't want the information getting out due to what I just
| wrote.
|
| On the other side its a really quick filter. Can you send me
| the details now? Not until you come to our onsite 4hr
| (brainwashing)meeting, Nope! moving on.
| ornornor wrote:
| > On the other side its a really quick filter. Can you send
| me the details now? Not until you come to our onsite 4hr
| (brainwashing)meeting, Nope! moving on.
|
| Wait until the graduates discover what interviewing is like
| in tech...
| kgf1980 wrote:
| I went the opposite way (in the UK) and moved from development
| (mainly C#) to lorry driving (everything from 12T rigids to 44T
| artics) however in my free time I'm enjoying developing (some
| RoR, some Golang) more than when I was paid to do it.
|
| Although I'm working more hours (average 50-52 hours a week
| compared to 38-40), I'm also much better compensated doing HGV
| driving than I ever was as a developer (although that may reflect
| more on my skills/level as a developer than anything else)
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| I am consistently enjoying myself more when doing coding side
| projects, than anything at work. I think that's just ... sort
| of normal when your profession and your hobby are the same
| thing - when you don't have any boss except yourself.
| kgf1980 wrote:
| I think for me it's not having a time pressure - if it takes
| me 2 weeks spending 2 hours a day to implement something
| there's no issue when it's just projects for myself (I've
| basically written a PWA for tracking my pay, hours, rest time
| etc which I use every day, and implement a new feature I
| decide would be useful when it comes up, so kind of the
| ultimate dog-fooding)
| ipaddr wrote:
| I' m the opposite. I put myself under 2 week sprints at
| home. Imagine someone is working on the same idea and put
| pressure on myself to get done and release.
|
| At work I hold things an extra day or more so I have
| something easy to say at the standup. Stands ups at work
| force this slow pace because it sounds better and is easier
| for others to follow.
| Swizec wrote:
| To share an opposite anecdata: After many years of coding
| side projects and work projects, I no longer get a kick out
| of side projects. They just don't scratch the itch anymore.
| They just pale in interestingness/size/complexity compared to
| what I get to do at work and if I wanted a big enough side
| project to scratch the itch, then it would require a team to
| get done and wouldn't be a side project.
| pipes wrote:
| I've heard with lorry driving there are issues with
| vibrations causing physical harm eventually? Maybe that is
| nonsense?
|
| If you don't mind me asking how much were you earning as a
| developer and how much do you earn driving lorries?
| kgf1980 wrote:
| I've not had any issues with vibrations but I've not been
| driving perhaps long enough?
|
| That said, the newer generation of trucks are so smooth I
| don't think that's as much of an issue as it may have been
| in previous generations.
|
| Wage wise, working as a developer in the UK (working for
| small consultancies, not startups etc) my wage topped out
| at around 38k - last year driving I earnt 46k and this year
| with promotion (from rigid to articulated vehicles) and
| annual payrise, plus assuming I work a similar amount of
| hours I'm estimating 52-55k (all before tax)
| throwaway5959 wrote:
| I'll never understand why developers there make less than
| the US. It's not like they aren't providing similar
| scale/leverage to a business.
| badpun wrote:
| By some estimates, the US is home to 50% of world's
| globally reaching corporations. Software written at those
| companies has giant business implications (thanks to
| those companies' scale), and thus the devs can be better
| compensated for their work.
| 369548684892826 wrote:
| If this was the reason then UK developers working for US
| companies would be paid better
| kshacker wrote:
| I hear it is much harder to fire in Europe. One of my
| colleagues (based is US) is trying to fire an obvious
| underperformer; and I hear only tidbits; but it is quite
| difficult. Imagine your risk of being fired decreased
| 90%, would you be willing to take a slightly smaller
| salary? Of course when you (the employee) do not trust
| the company / government, you are also willing to be more
| mercenary and jump at smallest opportunities, so
| companies in US probably have to pay a bit more to keep
| the talent.
| throwaway5959 wrote:
| No I wouldn't because I'm good at what I do (at least
| reasonably so) and I have an emergency fund. There is no
| safety net in the US for those between 18-65 for the most
| part.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Worse than the physical harm caused from working at a desk?
|
| I've never driven a Lorry, but I did drive for a living,
| and also drive long distances regularly.
|
| But I find my car seat much more comfortable than my desk
| chair, and my posture much better in the car than one I can
| maintain while sitting at a desk and typing.
|
| Of course, if you're doing very long drives you may not get
| as many opportunities to stand up and stretch your legs,
| but I'd imagine lorry drivers would have this opportunity
| once every hour or so.
| jspash wrote:
| I've just returned from a 10 day trip across Europe. 5
| days to destination. 5 days there. 5 days back. I've been
| back for 2 weeks now and I think I've only just
| "recovered" from the drive. The cognitive load of the
| German autobahn. Trying to understand the road markings
| in different countries. Rain one day. Snow the next.
| Glaring sunshine the next.
|
| Now, sitting in my home office in a comfy chair with no
| vibrations, no continuous noise and no apparent imminent
| potential for death is most definitely my preferred way
| to spend 8 hours a day.
|
| Next year is going to be a stay-cation!
| jdietrich wrote:
| Modern trucks (at least European-style cab-over trucks)
| have extremely soft ride quality. The truck itself has
| airbag suspension, plus an additional suspension system
| built into the seat. You do get jostled about a bit, but
| the movement is very slow and floaty. I'm not aware of any
| reports of vibration-related harm.
| jmkni wrote:
| I've come to realise that actually _coding_ is the part of
| software development I enjoy the least, and in many staff
| software engineer positions, that is basically entirely what
| you are doing
|
| Other people are doing the fun/interesting stuff, project
| managers, product owners, scrum masters, etc etc are doing
| all of the fun interesting _figuring out /thinking_, and then
| it's just your job to code it.
|
| When you work on side projects, you get to wear all of those
| other hats and it's way more rewarding
| doctor_eval wrote:
| Not really related to your points but I feel that
| separating design and implementation is a mistake; the
| people designing and implementing should be, if not the
| same people, then certainly in the same room, and in
| constant contact.
|
| So it could be that, if you're in a world where you aren't
| getting to do any of the fun figuring-out stuff, perhaps
| that's a problem with the workplace structure rather than
| with programming generally.
|
| I enjoy a bit of everything, and am apparently lucky to
| have been able to do it for a long time.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Wild! Coding, for me, is the fun part - implementing the
| solution, once I've come up with one.
|
| I've never looked at a product owner or a scrum master and
| thought to myself, "man, those guys get to have all the
| fun." I've more often thought, "wow, they have to answer to
| three people, two of whom are assholes, who have four
| opinions on how things should be done between them."
| klondike_klive wrote:
| Interesting! Do you enjoy the lorry driving? I've thought about
| it but one of my concerns is having to manoeuvre around tiny
| village high streets (lived in a village where houses were
| regularly hit!) Is there much of that? Are you under a lot of
| pressure to deliver in super tight time frames? And how long
| did it take you to get your HGV licence? Cheers.
| kgf1980 wrote:
| It takes surprisingly little time to get used to the size -
| that said I'm more confident I the rigid vehicles than the
| artics in terms of tighter manoeuvring. Most of my work is
| trunking however so distribution centre to distribution
| centre, generally at most 5miles from a motorway, for
| customer deliveries I do have to take some smaller country
| roads, which are nerve-racking at first but now I'll take
| much more confidently.
|
| I enjoy being left alone with podcasts for the first 4-6hours
| of my shift and music for the rest, I tend to talk to the
| office 3 times a shift - once when I get my keys, once to
| find out what (if anything) is getting loaded for a second
| run and finally to hand my keys in - all in all 10mins
| interaction with "management" over a 10hr shift suits me
| fine.
|
| Time wise, taking my Thursday shift - I'm booked at Heathrow
| airport to deliver at 7pm, if I'm 30-45mins late there's no
| issues, but I generally leave to get there at 1840 so even if
| roads are bad I'm still "on-time" - after that I have a
| collection (anytime after 1900) which has to be at the
| customer (2hrs drive) by 0200 and I'm generally there by 2200
| - I am lucky in the company I work for leave plenty of time
| for everything including breaks, I know other places run you
| around and try to get 10hrs work done in 8.
|
| In terms of time for license, I had 4 days training for my
| rigid (anything over 7.5T with a trailer upto 750kg) with
| test on the last day which I passed first time, I then drove
| them for 6 months for my current employer and then again had
| 4 days training and test on the 5th for artics (anything over
| 7.5T with a trailer over 750kg) which I passed first time
| (thanks in part to driving rigids for 6months and being
| generally confident with the size etc of the vehicle)
| gcbirzan wrote:
| Ironically, in an industry that highly regulates working
| times...
| kgf1980 wrote:
| Yes, work is covered under both the Working Time Directive
| (which I've opted out of the night work limit and the 48hr
| working week) and the EU Drivers Hours rules - work are hot
| on infringements for exceeding working hours but more so on
| breaches of driving hours or insufficient rest hours.
| walthamstow wrote:
| Are you away from home much? Do you have a spouse and/or kids?
| kgf1980 wrote:
| I don't do nights out or away, so I'm home every night
| (morning as I work 3pm until I'm done, generally 1-2am,
| sometimes 5am)
|
| No spouse or kids which probably helps and is why I don't
| mind picking up overtime and extra shifts
| madaxe_again wrote:
| >> although that may reflect more on my skills/level as a
| developer than anything else
|
| Nah, that reflects on the U.K. - developers are generally
| miserably underpaid, and there's a massive shortage of freight
| drivers since Brexit for no apparent reason whatsoever.
| bmoxb wrote:
| > there's a massive shortage of freight drivers since Brexit
| for no apparent reason whatsoever.
|
| The main reason is that most drivers were Eastern European
| and since freedom of movement ended it has become
| significantly harder for them to come and work as freely as
| they could before. Covid is also a factor afaik.
|
| Though I otherwise agree with you that developers (or rather
| white collar careers in general with the exception of certain
| finance roles) are not particularly well paid in many
| instances in the UK.
| IntelMiner wrote:
| I believe the users comment was deeply sarcastic and they
| are in underlying agreement with your assertion
| bmoxb wrote:
| I think you're right - I'm embarassed to have not picked
| up on that.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| Worth pointing out that among non-US countries, the UK has
| among the highest developer pay. This isn't the UK under-
| paying, it's the US being a massive outlier.
| User23 wrote:
| Truck drivers in the USA can easily make well into the six
| figures as owner operators. It's not gonna compete with
| FAANG (except maybe on oilfields?), but it's a very good
| living.
|
| And of course if you're good at running yourself as a
| business you have the skills to run other drivers too if
| you choose to invest in a fleet.
|
| Heck, for a while Amazon was paying people to quit and
| start trucking.
| kgf1980 wrote:
| Surpringly the shortage of drivers is not actually a thing
| anymore (during Covid perhaps) but the large number of people
| who got their HGV license when the government changed the
| rules during Covid has actually caused pay rates to
| drastically fall due to their being more drivers looking for
| work than work available.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| OP salary at 38k is pretty low.
|
| From my experience that's in line with people doing "body
| rentals" for agencies under threat of being deported or
| because they couldn't find another job.
|
| I think he could have doubled that with a bit of work on
| resume / negotiation skills.
|
| Sure, still lower than US but life in the UK is way cheaper,
| so it works out unless your earning potential is mid-high 3
| digits.
| cloudripper wrote:
| I appreciate stories like this as a reminder that it is never
| too late to make a change in your life that is right for you.
| Some folks stick to their comforts and avoid such a big life
| change out of fear - but sometimes the temporary discomfort can
| lead to greater fulfillment in the long-run.
|
| Whether your coming from or going to lorry driving - or any
| other job role, keep telling your story and maybe your path
| will be an inspiration for someone going through their own
| jaded, burn-out experience.
| datascienced wrote:
| This is what rest of the world looks like USA people!
| Developers are generally paid enough to get by but not crazy
| salaries. There are exceptions but required you to get through
| tough interviews. No $200k TC interns out here.
|
| It means picking up a trade or just doing a scrum master job or
| traffic duties become viable alternatives.
|
| Developers are caught in stagflation. Buying a property in
| Sydney metro area (within 90m commute) for example would be
| challenging for most devs.
|
| Prices have tripled and over the frame of 15y while dev
| salaries or contract rates have not increased.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| But I was promised free healthcare and more vacation time
| makes it all even!
|
| (I've always loved that narrative for its optimism. In
| reality if you have a modicum of self-restraint you can save
| more money on a US salary than most people are making on a
| European salary, and tech tends to have excellent
| healthcare.)
| niemandhier wrote:
| It does, I did the math when I was offered a 100k+ position
| in the US.
|
| After computing what I would have to pay for: - Piano
| lessons for the kids - child care - sports clubs - golfing
| - private tutors - rent / mortgage
|
| I concluded that my quality of life would decrease. Europe
| is crazy cheep for families. The UK is particular, brexit
| did not do them any good.
| pedrosorio wrote:
| > It does, I did the math when I was offered a 100k+
| position in the US.
|
| 100k+ has been close to the floor for entry level for a
| while now. Did you do the math on how much you'd earn
| over 10 years?
| fooker wrote:
| Would you mind sharing your math?
|
| I had concluded the opposite if you compound over 5-ish
| years.
|
| With two tech incomes, you'll make approximately 4-5
| million in the US counting equity, versus about 1 mil
| everywhere else except maybe Zurich. US expenses over 5
| years would be about 800k-1mil excluding a home which you
| are likely going to sell for far more than you pay for.
| admissionsguy wrote:
| Few people realise that the EU countries and the US are no
| longer in the same wealth category. There is a 50%
| difference in GDP per capita between Germany and the USA,
| for example.
|
| It's not a matter of offering benefits in kind instead of
| money, but rather a fundamental difference in resources
| available.
| trey-jones wrote:
| Yeah, from my point of view we're going to need more 38 year-
| olds starting new careers as developers to replace those of us
| that started at 28 and are ready to move on. I'm about 13 years
| in, but have been burned out for at least 5 years and I'm
| finally ready to admit it. Get me out of here.
| RomanPushkin wrote:
| Shameless plug: my book about Ruby (free, but you need to
| register and CC-BY 4.0) https://leanpub.com/rubyisforfun/
| rekoros wrote:
| Sometimes I wonder what kind of a world we'd be living in if
| places like Flatiron School and the various bootcamps taught
| Elixir instead of Ruby.
|
| Also, "lorry" is such a great word, too bad there's no use for it
| in the US.
| sosodev wrote:
| My guess is that world would be indistinguishable from ours.
| There is nothing wrong with Ruby.
| rekoros wrote:
| Elixir wouldn't exist without Ruby, so I have nothing but
| gratitude.
|
| My question angles more toward learning functional
| programming first, and I doubt it'll ever happen at bootcamps
| (though - my understanding is that's exactly what happens at
| Berkeley/MIT with Lisp/Scheme in CS101 (I'd argue with decent
| results)) - so it's very much a hypothetical.
| adamtaylor_13 wrote:
| I'm genuinely curious what you mean. Elixir is a different
| paradigm but I've yet to understand how Elixir is inherently
| "better" than Ruby.
| rekoros wrote:
| Oh, I don't think there's a universal "better" when it comes
| to such things, and I'm not implying that one is universally
| better than the other.
|
| I discovered the Elixir runtime (BEAM) a few years before
| Elixir was created (we were using the Erlang language then),
| and for my specific use cases, when I understood the
| principles of concurrency, error handling, and introspection
| in BEAM, it caused quite an epiphany. It was also scary,
| because I had to unlearn pretty much everything I knew :)
|
| From a purely esthetic perspective, I find that pattern
| matching and tail recursion-enabled programming patterns are
| more concise, easier to comprehend, and are less error-prone
| than those offered by the more mainstream languages that
| don't have those features.
|
| In my experience - and I'm not a particularly great
| programmer, so it was welcome - I found that I produced code
| with signifcantly fewer dumb errors when I no longer had
| access to imperative programming paradigms and was forced to
| come up with more "functional" solutions.
|
| I don't believe that functional programming is inherently
| more complex than what we learn in school/college/work with
| conventional languages. My question really stems from the
| idea of learning functional first - and I do wonder what that
| would look like.
| sosodev wrote:
| That's a fine perspective but the way you worded your
| comment was evocative of the typical "X is objectively
| better than Y" tech comment. Are you aware that Ruby
| includes a lot of functional programming features
| (including pattern matching)?
| boguscoder wrote:
| You say Lorry and post a picture with left sided wheel, hmmm But
| seriously, great story, way too many people dont have
| courage/confidence/financial backup for such a large career shift
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| It's still a lorry.
| skort wrote:
| It's great to see people being able to pivot their careers later
| in life. That said,
|
| > folks overcoming challenges just to be on the same playground
| as everyone else
|
| This has the same energy as "Kids raise money to buy classmate a
| wheelchair" news articles, where sure it makes you feel good to
| see people doing good in the world, but completely ignores that
| the system we live in keeps certain people down on purpose.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > keeps certain people down on purpose.
|
| That's what makes it so pernicious. No one is being targeted
| and being kept down "on purpose." It's a failure to correctly
| orient priorities and to see that the balance of tax money is
| spent on improving individual citizens lives and outcomes.
|
| > It's great to see people being able to pivot their careers
| later in life.
|
| It'd be even better if we just paid them what they were worth
| so they didn't have to put a bunch of effort into moving
| sideways across the labor market like this.
| 77pt77 wrote:
| > the system we live in keeps certain people down on purpose.
|
| That's the main objective of the education system. To teach you
| that.
|
| If you are supposed to be "kept down" succeeding or god forbid
| excelling will be met with either resistance or extreme
| punishment.
|
| Sometimes covertly but many time overtly behind closed doors
| and with small groups of people.
| jmkni wrote:
| I strongly object to 38 being _later in life_
| downrightmike wrote:
| Over half the average lifespan for the USA average and male,
| slightly under if female.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| Unless you want to jump from "early" to "late", that puts
| 38 decidedly in the middle.
| highwayman47 wrote:
| me being almost 38 thinking it's not that old
| jarsin wrote:
| As you get older you begin to realize that age obsession is
| like gossip. It's for the low IQ folks.
|
| You're really not old until you reach 80's where stuff like
| cognitive decline and frailty are more likely to start showing
| up.
|
| I use to think 40's was old when i was younger, but if you
| think about it you have another 40 some odd years until your
| old. Thats way longer than most companies, marriages, careers
| etc last.
| koinedad wrote:
| Are Ruby on Rails positions still pretty popular?
| iimblack wrote:
| In my job search for remote USA roles it seems a little less
| popular than Django just bolstered by the GitHub and Shopify
| postings. Node, dotnet, go, and Java all seem more popular.
| Lio wrote:
| Yes, it's popular enough that you can find work pretty easily.
|
| There's less openings than for JS, Java or C# but then there
| are less Ruby developers. That's the same as it ever was.
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