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Comment by godid | Hacker News Reader

I initially thought this article was satire - poking fun at how easy programmers really have it on balance. But no, it’s just a contentless, envy fuelled moan from a position of privilege.

Take a step out of the FAANG-SV-HN salary distortion field for a moment, and the London financial one too for the matter, you will clearly see that 55k is a great salary in the UK. Far more than the average.

If you picked a career that you don’t innately enjoy because you thought it would make you rich, and it’s not, then that’s on you.

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£55k is not a great salary in the UK for a middle class professional with a degree and >5 years of experience.

Lawyers, doctors, dentists, accountants, front line sales, and even some nurses earn comfortably more than that - never mind MPs, many of whom are both clueless and useless and still manage to earn more than £80k base before expenses.

Some blue collar workers - mostly trades - can also earn a lot more, especially for contract or high-availability work.

Of course it's not a great salary compared to someone who works a checkout, stocks shelves, or talks to customers on the phone.

But qualifications and experience should matter at least a little.

If every lawyer, doctors, dentists, etc... earn more than that， He might have a point, but I doubt it.

Every career has underdogs, even presidents.

It is possible for a programmer and a janitor to both not like their jobs and voice their opinions online about why.

Yeah but one of the two is in the position to easily change careers while the other isn't.

Which one?

I think that misses the OP’s point. They point to the lack on “innate” or intrinsic value in the job. In other words, the article seems to be selecting the wrong metric in determining a career choice that is meant to maximize happiness

Indeed; £55k is well over median UK income. I’m quite a senior software engineer in the UK and I don’t earn anything like that — forget about £70k! That’s because I don’t work in finance and I’m fine with that. The hedonistic treadmill is not worth getting on, imo.

Exactly, I'm currently at 56k and while I'm looking at getting paid more because there is room to do so it's fascinating to me that this person who is in top 10% in term of income think they are doing a job that pays badly...

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