This is definitely not the main reason I’ll never have kids but it is absolutely on the list. Lmao
Imagine purposely bringing another being into this shit hole we live in. I could never.

?

On the other hand, Dr Who doesn’t have an engineering or SRE staff.

Exactly! That’s why TARDIS is full on fuel.

Is it easy? Tech salaries have crazy potential, I’m not sure I’d be willing to trade job security for the limitations on that potential that a collective agreement might impose. It’d still be a tough sell.

I trust my boss but his boss is the CEO and I think the CEO is a piece of garbage.

I would say it would be similar to Google from the early-ish 2000’s. Lots of offices worldwide to facilitate in-office working and immigration issues, while also having freedom to work remotely if desired. Also, a structure that leads with empathy, and managers judged on not just output but employee happiness.

There was a lot of freedom in big tech over the last few years. I could transfer pretty much worldwide within a month, I could work on several different moonshot industries with no worry of losing my job (because I’d just transfer to another team), and the market was good enough that if push came to shove I could take some time off and find a new role with minimal issues. I think an employee focused company would keep that freedom, while also keeping employees happy and without fearing for their job.

This hasn’t been my (anecdotal) experience, or that of anyone in my network.

The industry is unstable no doubt about that, but we’ve never had trouble finding better places to land.

IMO if you’ve been in tech building your skills for a few years, you really shouldn’t have trouble finding work. '01 was weird but there was still plenty of work, especially in defense. '08 was scary but turned out to be a great time to join a startup. Sometimes it’s a lateral move instead of up, sometimes it requires relocating , but if you’ve been doing good work and building your professional network you should never have to go back to driving forklifts (unless you choose to).

That’s why I went back to factory/infrastructure. The highs are not high and the lows are not low.

There are a lot of companies out there that need help with their technology. Even if AI could solve the problem, they still need someone to implement it. Keep your head up and keep working hard!

I don’t know what else to do, so I’m just going to keep trying and keep pushing myself to be a better dev. Maybe I’ll get there someday.

I mean worker unity and all, but it ain’t being better (if it ever was) that gets you ahead in this field. It’s who you know not what you know or what you’re capable of.

You can’t be if I already am! Lol

I think NASA does

Google has one, but it’s still very small at the moment.

Technology unions are common in public sector roles.

Probably because the culture is different in a few key ways:

1. Government workers rarely even get a cost of living adjustment, without a union, even when they’re critical. Politicians often have the final say, and often don’t care about retaining key staff. (Or actively try to lose key staff…) This leads to a situation where the Union has strong public support, because the Union’s motives are aligned with allowing basic government services to continue during political wind changes.
2. A government doing Union busting gets immediately called out as Fascism. The government telling you you can’t get together to talk about how the government should change - is not a good look.

wishful thinking

It’s an observation about what other SWEs are reporting elsewhere in this thread.

I would argue they are. My reasoning for this argument would be pointing at the history of the working class.

What is your reasoning for saying they are not?

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Ok whew I thought I was just doing something wrong. Glad to hear but also not glad to hear figuring what we’re having to go through

All the best to you, my dude.

That’s why it pays well. Garbage person jobs pay well too. Few people want to wake up early and smell like garbage all day.

Backups are the plan, if you’re a plumber.

I know a guy who was let go a year ago. Dude’s like 170 IQ - and while people say that, this guy’s dizzyingly smart. 3 degrees, he can teach, code to spec, rebuild your delivery pipeline so it fucking howls, manage nerds, and he’s been interviewing like it’s his job for a year without lasting results.

Some shitty company in Connecticut just flew him out for a project wrap-up, as he’s been helping save their ass since their completely out-of-his-depth manager reached out on a public forum for some clue. Like, without him they’d’ve been 4 kinds of fucked and he was looking for something to keep him sane for a few weeks.

Handshake and a free dinner and sent him packing. Because they could. They got what they needed, and they foolishly think they can get it again when this idiot fucks up again in a month.

I worry a lot of nerds are getting fish-hooked like that, when they just want to make things go and maybe also eat regularly.

I’m not disputing their experiences - I’ve replied otherwise on this thread - but I’m going to guess that a lot of those experienced devs didn’t go through the 2000-2002 ish dot com crash, or maybe even the 2008 recession.

Sometimes the money goes away for a while. The money has currently gone away. Eventually they drop the interest rates, people decide that real estate or EVs aren’t sexy anymore because they’re overbought, and the money floods back in. Then it gets too much, to the point that some kid gets $60M for the idea of selling barbecues and charcoal over the internet, and the cycle repeats.

We thought Keynes fixed this but then decided it was more fun for a handful of people to make shitloads of money and then crash the economy every decade or two.

It can also be a common occurrence and devastating to an individual at the same time. It sucks, and people vent.

I’ve been in this game a long time and been laid off from about half my gigs. It sucks every time. If it wasn’t for the fact that the pay is good and that I like doing it, I probably would’ve moved to something more stable already.

A certain subset of dev thought they were untouchable. Now they are finding out they’re the same level of peasant as the rest of us. Hard fall. :/

Good work life balance? Low stress? Well paid? Not soul crushing?

Nah fam. Pick one, hope to get your second pick, and if you’re lucky, skilled, and play your cards right you can get three. You might get none of them.

No one gets all four… Despite what it sounds like, it’s an inherently creative job where you rarely get to pick your project and are regularly put on an impossible timeline.

Wage suppression is well documented, and for some reason no one gives raises… Despite the fact even the best devs need half a year, bare minimum, to be fully up to speed with a mature system. If you’re lucky, when you jump after 18 months (the optimal time at a place to keep your salary growing, especially in the first decade) you’ll inherit a system in good condition with people who can explain it. If you’re very lucky.

That being said, it’s one of the only middle class industries left. I recommend it to everyone who has the aptitude - it’s one of the most useful skills to have, even if you rarely use it.

Yeah, or 3. Lol.