Comment by vineyardmike | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vineyardmike | Hacker News Reader

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> The other thing to keep in mind is that tech has attracted a lot of people in it just for the crazy money that FAANGs pay, despite that not being representative of the industry as a whole.

I think a lot of the industry shake up will be to clear house of these people. At big tech companies it’s easier to hide, especially remotely, but slowly layoffs or PIP will come for some of them, and they will have a harder time getting a job than the rest. I just hope the layoffs can affect the management layer like the IC later, because I’ve seen the growth of pretty crappy management.

I was recently laid off, and I know a few other people laid off. I have years of doing projects and contributing to OSS and being a technically curious learner. I found a new job much faster than my peers who admittedly joined tech for the money and don’t care to learn or grow beyond their next pay raise.

I will echo the preparation thing though. I started saving an extra few months of salary across 2022, and tried to convince my partner to lower spending for a while.

I'm having trouble seeing what's wrong with doing a job for the money. That doesn't mean you do the job poorly. Plenty of people do it for the mythos or "company family" or whatever bullshit the company tries to sell and do a garbage job at it, and plenty of people clock in to do a good job, clock out, and not think about it again until the next day.

"Why do you want to work here?"

Because money rocks, my dude. I'll give a nice politic answer in an interview, but I'm there to do a job.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with doing it for the money.

However, for many people who are only in it for the money and do the minimum necessary additional exploration in the domain - if they find that they need to switch technologies or domains they may not have practiced enough to be able to make that switch in a timely manner.

On the other hand, people who continue to explore outside of the "this is what is needed to do my job" will be more likely able to adapt to a new stack or show to a interview panel that they are able to change to fit the needs of the organization.

There’s a difference between your career and your job. My career is all about CS/programming. I love it, I spend countless hours on it on my free time because I like it. But if I’m trading my skills in exchange for money, then money rules… The sooner I can retire and stop working for tech companies, the better (then I can dedicate my free time to keep programming cool things and not what a fancy CEO wants).

There's nothing wrong with doing it for the money.

I care about my income, pick good jobs and negotiate my salary. I also care about technology, and care about the quality of the product I work on. I don't care about "family" or whatever.

If you're in tech for the money, and the money dries up, you'll leave. That was my point. I personally work in tech because I enjoy technology and I enjoy software development (the money helps). I don't think ill of someone who is in it for the money, money is important. That said, if you're in it for the money, and you're not in-tune with the industry (or trying), I won't shed a tear if you have trouble staying in it during a down-cycle.

I do think ill of managers who are in it just for the money and don't care about anything beyond their middle-management fiefdom. I've worked with plenty of them, and I enjoyed working with none of them, and I think they've all had a bad affect on the success of the business (especially at scale).

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