You spent all those years down in the trenches implementing bullshit designs an architect came up with, positive you could do better if you just got the chance. Then you go to graduate school to get the qualifications companies say you need to be an architect. You receive a masters degree. You’re your companies leading expert on software design. You get promoted to architect.
That’s when you find out the truth. All those previous architects left for the same reason you someday will. It wasn’t the previous architects making the terrible decisions that frustrated you. It was the marketing team and the CEO telling the CTO that the software product must have certain buzzwords present in the design. Those buzzwords offer no value to what your software product is meant to accomplish. But if you don’t put them in the designs, they’ll fire you and hire someone who will play their games.
Eventually, you can’t take it anymore. Having interfaced with the upper levels of your company, and having the understanding of systems engineering you do, you realize that every software firm will be this. There is nowhere you can go that will be better. You start saving.
Your goal is to save enough money to purchase a small plot of land and put an organic farm on it. Your convictions for this farm are simple: it must be able to feed your family. This may not be exclusively what you envision for it, and you may not even intend for it to be the only source of food for your family, but it will help you be less reliant on the kinds of corporation you’ve come to know and come to see as irrevocably evil.
And then sometimes, you get people like this in the post. Who find enough success farming to focus their energy on it exclusively.
If you give a shit about your work and the product you’re working on, then don’t work in a big company. In big companies, people are there for the money and maybe for a good looking entry on their resume, so they’ll only do what they’re being told to do, after all they’ll be elsewhere in 2 years tops.
If you have ideals and don’t just work for money, don’t work in the corporate world. Small to mid-size employers come with a lot less bs and more engaged co-workers.
I’m a senior/principal engineer with 20+ years of experience and I can’t even think about retiring any time soon. All the posts in this thread are making me super sad. And the posted salary numbers are way higher than mine. :(
I was definitely pretty blown away by the brilliance of the 15 straight minutes of dialog on the ethics of sentient AI child soldiers between Reasonable Blackman and Hot Coldman in the Peace Walker DLC.
Death Stranding had me laughing when it revealed why each character with a goofy name had their goofy name. Deadman is actually a dead man. Mama had a baby. Die-Hardman wishes he could just die hard. Higgs… Just wanted pizza and was a bozo(n).
Just try being uneducated and working in a dead end factory job while having hated life all your life anyway!
Much fun! -46/10 would never recommend!
I wish I was forced into programming… I tried on my own and just don’t have the mind for it, I find it incredibly boring. All my friends are in the field and all work from home wherever the hell they want to live. I’m stuck in a VHCOL area with shit income and 0 potential to increase it :(
Yeah well I was „forced“ into it by an injury and one my parents working at the university. I never finished my degree so in that sense I’m also uneducated.
I didn’t have the mind for Uni stuff either esp. the maths stuff. There are so many areas. I just liked doing webdev stuff in my freetime and that landed me a few jobs.
I’m sorry you’ve had to suffer an injury! From what I understand, your experience now and your interest outside of work counts for more than the paper degree so if you do choose to continue that path I wouldn’t worry too much about being uneducated. Good luck, I hope you find happiness in whatever you do!
Thank you very much! Yess school has never been for me but I’ve only been diagnosed with adhd when I was 21. so I’ve always struggled. I don’t know if it’s the perfect place for me, I’m still struggling from time to time, but let’s be honest who doesn’t. I never thought I could work 8 hours when I was younger. But here we are. So hopefully you can also find something you enjoy doing. And I wish the best for you too. Thanks again!
Yeah that sounds way more enjoyable, but first you need the 250k and up salary that a principal engineer at MS makes for 20 years, then you have plenty of equity to focus on whatever your hobby is
I think MS like other big tech companies has started to run out of “senior” positions without paying more so many people just end up as “senior” principal engineers which is basically “this is as far as you can go if you don’t want to get involved in management”
“this is as far as you can go if you don’t want to get involved in management”
Yes. That exactly. This typically comes with a nice perk: Principals are supposed to have the same clout as lower-level managers. Which is to say they usually report to Directors or even the CTO in some organizations.
Another one is “Independent Contributor” which is similar but, as the name would suggest, is very self sufficient and does not work on (or for) a team. They’re basically one-man engineering shops and are expected to perform well everywhere in the company’s tech and talent stacks. As a result, ICs are very rare.
lemmyshitpost
Active
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.