Things Developers Want More Than Money (2006) | Hacker News Reader

Things Developers Want More Than Money (2006)

softwarebyrob.com

32 pointsjmonegro7 comments

This is a false choice.

There are more choices in your professional life than:

A) Being 9-5 daily grinder (for some reason this is always implied as being a bad programmer -- why?)

B) Working your ass off for some schmuck for terrible pay who gives you free snapple and a (perceived) enjoyable project.

In either case: THE FINANCIAL REWARDS ARE NOT GOING TO YOU - (Drinkers of the VC kool-aid this means you too).

To every passionate developer out there I challenge you to milk your 9-5. Then go home and make what YOU want, and live and die by that effort.

Take both of these perceived benefits for everything you can. The security and stability of the 9-5, and the sense of enjoyment/accomplishment/financial reward from your independant work.

Do not work for other people except as a means to a guaranteed paycheck.

Do not let others enslave your passion and creativity.

Ehhh, you know what? I've done both (and I actually did work on my own projects in my own time while doing A).

B is actually better.

There is an indescribable psychic toll that working at a megacorp takes on you. Daily I would wish for the sweet release of death rather than deal with another god damned conference call.

Now I just get a little cranky when I've been working for too long or someone's being an asshole.

I suppose I could try doing my own startup, but that's terrifying.

Maybe it's an opnion thing than.

I've done both and am currently working on my own startup while keeping a 9 to 5. While the startup work moves along at a slower pace than I'd like, I wouldn't change it for anything.

How big is the 9 to 5 you're working at? That might have something to do with it. I was at a 200,000+ employee firm.

I'm not actually doing it for the financial rewards. Well, I am, but only up to a point. I could earn more money elsewhere, in a job that was more stressful, or less reliable but I'm perfectly happy with my current job, which challenges me in interesting ways, has good people to work with, and allows me to go home at 5pm and do fun things that have little do to with programming in the evening.

As Herzberg noticed, this scenario leads to employees viewing the job as little more than a paycheck, which is probably all right for companies like Countrywide and IndyMac.

Ha ha, probably not.

Whenever I read articles like this, I wonder if there's some management conspiracy, especially amongst VC-backed firms, to keep tech salaries stagnant. A very successful conspiracy, seeing how programmers and systems administrators in San Francisco make roughly the same amount of money in 2010 that they did in 1999, without any inflationary adjustments (because they never got those adjustments).

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