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Comment by zcw100 | Hacker News Reader

I don't know what world you're living in but software development has always been a cut throat business. I've never seen true mentoring. Maybe a code review where some a-hole of a "senior" developer would come in having just read "clean code" and use some stupid stylistic preferences as a cudgel and go to town on the juniors. I'm cynical enough to believe that this, "AI is going to take your programming job!" is just a ploy to thin out the applicant pool.

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Wow, you must have worked in some REALLY toxic places. I had one toxic senior teammate when I first started out - he mocked me when I was having trouble with some of the dev environment he had created - but he got fired shortly thereafter for being bad at his job.

Everybody else through my 21-year career has almost universally either been helpful or neutral (mostly just busy). If you think code reviews are just for bikeshedding about style minutia, then you're really missing out. I personally have found it extremely rewarding to invest in junior SWEs and see them progress in their careers.

Sure have. Finance, research labs, government contracting. Can't wait for people to chime in with their horror stories. I've seen some of the most dysfunctional crap you can imagine.

Sorry you've worked for such nightmare places, but it's far from universal. There are LOTS of good companies and teams out there.

You seem to have chosen the most toxic (and famous for it workplaces) and now you're misleadingly claiming that's the whole industry.

It is not.

Toxicity is spread out and touching most of the industry. Is it fully toxic? Absolutely not. But I found some level of toxicity everywhere I worked for the past 20+ years in this industry.

People usually are not living good workplace, therefore there are many more open positions to the toxic teams than to the good ones.

Nice attitude. Thank you for proving my point. If someone works in a toxic environment it must be their fault for "choosing it".

In my experience the style bikeshedding comes about when PRs are not properly scoped. At least I have learned to just say TLDR.

Seriously. I guess I wouldn’t describe it as a “cut throat” thing, but absolutely nobody in 20 years of working has ever given a shit. The idea of being “mentored” is ridiculous. It doesn’t happen.

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