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Comment by rjeli | Hacker News Reader

Why do I never read articles targeted at other high-stress jobs (lawyer, med student, etc etc)? Do software engineers have a unique culture that identifies this danger? Or are we the only ones that get burned out, maybe because of some self-selection into the field?

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Probably just confirmation bias given the fact that a) you mostly read articles/blogs targeted at SWE professionals, and b) software engineers are far more likely to blog about their career experience than any other profession.

I'm sure if you read some trade magazines targeted at lawyers, etc you'd find similar sentiments.

Another, slightly more cynical interpretation is that software engineers are "special snowflakes" who are much more likely than legal/financial/medical professionals to complain about long hours and/or burnout. Interestingly those three professions all have gruelingly long hours and require you to "pay your dues" early in you career. Yet those professionals seem to complain far less, perhaps because the long hours are an expected part of their culture. After all, in finance people typically brag about how long they stayed at the office. So there is clearly some difference in work culture between the professions.

I somewhat agree with your cynical interpretation, but I might tweak it a little bit to be more forgiving: It's a matter of expectations. SWE work, for the most part over the last 20-30 years, (until very recently, at least to my eyes) has been perceived as "creative", almost "artistic" work, whereas the day to day is much much more in line with some weird combination of banking (often high stress, shifting goals, high impact of externalities, one small cog in a giant machine) and blue collar production work. This not even counting the drastic shifts I've seen in the last 5-10 years to commoditize SWE work. (not a value judgement, just an observation)

Most of my friends and family who went into finance did so knowing what they were getting into, some even _wanting_ that. It definitely cultivates a different culture and set of expectations. (There are definitely some CSers I knew who love the grind, but I don't think I'm making a stretch to assert they were the minority, and often were within a specific slice of CS that requires that more similar culture)

I have often encountered coworkers bragging about how long they worked.

Been working as a programmer professionally since 2001.

It probably depends on what you read. Lawyers complain a lot about burn-out. At least the lawyers I know make much more money than the average software dev so it's a little easier to bear. They also have more job security and don't have to worry about age discrimination.

I think a cursory search of "finance suicide" will demonstrate that we are far from unique. We just express it in ways, and within bubbles, shared by our peers, so it's very visible to us.

It's a pretty big problem for healthcare workers:

http://journals.lww.com/co-criticalcare/Abstract/2007/10000/...

Also see Christina Maslach's books on burnout. She doesn't focus exclusively on health workers, but they are noted as a group which is particularly prone to burnout.

(Edit: I just read the article, and see that the author cited Maslach already.)

Yep - I mentioned Christina's book in my article as a great resource. My wife is a therapist, and she sees a lot of other people in the field struggling with the same issues, especially for those who work with high-risk groups.

Yes, Maslach is one of the experts/pioneers in burnout research. She created the Maslach Burnout Inventory, and is highly cited.

Interesting question. My take would be that software engineers may tend to be more publicly open about their mistakes and pitfalls in an effort to help those who come next avoid the same mistakes. This is especially true regarding technical mistakes and that mindset has permeated to personal/emotional difficulties as well.

Maybe they're too busy to write about it? ;)

I think your point about devs/designers/PMs/etc. having a unique culture is spot on. It's a field that tends to attract a lot of high achievers, and a field that people tend to tie themselves a lot to their work. That was one of my main problems - over a few years, I started to define myself based on the work I was doing. It's taken me a lot longer to dig out of it than I thought.

Interesting that you mention lawyers. I've heard multiple times that they are at super high risk of burnout. This quote, for example:

"Lawyers are at especially high risk for burnout, both because of the job and because of the personality traits we tend to have."

From this article: https://lawyerist.com/94605/recognize-prevent-lawyer-burnout...

Yes, I went looking for an article about lawyers and burnout, so it's not particularly telling, but it least it demonstrates existence.

I would say the alienation of the worker from their product is the most clear in programming jobs for companies. All these hours of code crafting, while having no control over the design-and-production protocol and getting only a part of exchange value and no recognition - while IT nowadays is one of the most important intellectual labour that keeps a business running. Meanwhile, the work of med students and lawyers still offer emotional connections with other people and are often seen as virtuous professions.

One difference that is relevant to the OP is that IT management is very difficult and very different to development. Also managing devs is often like herding cats. Turnover is often high, everyone wants to do their own thing, communication skills are often sub-optimal and external deadlines are often tight.

So Devs are promoted into a difficult job without having good management skills, or often even a desire to be the boss.

Well, I suspect part of the reason is that HN often shows articles targeted to software engineers.

I also think there is another reason that has been alluded to else where in the comments indirectly: ownership/autonomy. Compared to the other high-skill professions that you mention, software engineering in my opinion is bogged by a near-constant effort to belittle, control, and process-ify the work that we do. Some might enjoy the semblance of order it might bring to their day but it makes me retch. I always found it darkly amusing that a failure on the part of product or management to better predict the market or customer requirements somehow translated into more soul-sucking metrics and process for the development team, enforced by highly-unpleasant PMs who I wish would instead have followed their true calling in life and become serial killers.

I left significant RSUs and took a huge pay cut to get away from a large company that I felt was killing me slowly. I am not saying that I have arrived yet but I haven't had to go through a suck-filled daily standup in a few years and I am very grateful for that.

"If you're reading it, it's for you"

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