I couldn’t disagree more. I am thinking about hard problems in the back of my mind pretty much all the time, or am not making progress on them. Software engineering can be like pipe fitting, where there is a blueprint; but it can also be a much more creative search for solutions like looking for a math proof, writing a screenplay, or trying to phrase a legal argument that churns up your background cycles.
Without those periods I would never be able to do the best work I’ve done. There is a lot of pipe fitting in the business - and it’s fine to do only that. But it’s not some personality defect to have work thoughts kicking around in the back of your head, it’s a necessary trait in my experience for the more difficult software jobs.
Well said, totally agree. Thank you for explaining the more nuanced points here better than I could.
IC-level contracting or consulting gigs are often (not always) much more numb - you’re handed a design, a user spec, maybe some existing APIs or infrastructure, and you essentially color in the lines. Other roles require much more organic composition, aka, Zero to One.
Ignoring your last sentence (which doesn't merit response) to disagree with "the type of job has little to do with [the ability to leave work at work]".
Thought work is fundamentally different from physical labor. Work:life boundaries are so permeable. Any but the most ignorant, junior, "code-monkey" -type developer spends a large portion of their cognitive resources on solving problems (as opposed to strictly sitting at the keyboard writing code like a factory worker). Compartmentalization may well be a personality trait or learned skill, but setting down physical tools in the shop before commuting home is completely different from a software dev's home office and potentially round-the-clock work cycles.
> software development is not some exceptionally difficult thing that tortures and haunts developers.
There's definitely a difference between white collar/knowledge work and manual labor or highly people-focused work, though. I've worked retail and food service before and the mental overhead is absolutely different. It took me a long time (years) to learn how to turn off my brain at 5pm and stop programming when I got my first tech job. Not something I had a problem with in more manual industries: when you're not at the workplace, you can't work, even if you wanted to.
Agreed! Is it black and white? No of course not. You can and need to learn how to properly transition between work and home. It takes time. Totally agree with you.
It’s nearly impossible to do when your employer is not on that same page with you, or even worse is instead fighting against it.
> the ability to leave work at work is a personality trait. the job, or type of job, has little to do with it.
This is very ignorant.
There are many outside factors that go into if an employee needs to focus on work after hours, such as accessibility to the working environment, cultural practices at the company, etc.
Who said anything about haunting?
If my manager hits me up at 11pm asking for something, sure I can ignore him or her.
Then I come in the next day, they already did the thing they asked for themselves because [insert business reason], and says “never mind”.
Next time it happens, they go to the other dev who is happy to do it at 11pm.
With two comments quoting the same example, you seem really hell-bent on driving this point home. Ok, I'll bite. How often do you get those 11pm requests that will otherwise get rerouted to someone else unless you respond before 8am? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? A few times per year?
Context matters, because believe it or not, most professionals occasionally go the extra mile no matter what industry they are in. I recently dropped off a motorcycle for a repair, and the young guy working at that shop stayed an hour late to get my business. When something breaks in my house, I have hundreds of people jumping at the bit to come to fix it at any given time, before or after work, weekday or weekend.
Nothing is ever perfect in life, but your criticism of your experience as a software engineer would come across as a lot more empathetic if you started off by acknowledging that you made an excellent career choice to start with, and that this allows you unprecedented career mobility, including the option of easily quitting your job should you have the rare misfortune of having landed at any of the few bad apples that do not reward you for your stress with oodles of money that you wouldn't be able to make anywhere else with that amount of effort and work experience.
Not to mention that if stress and money are not your thing, go and work as a software engineer at an old school Fortune 500 company. I promise to you that nobody will ever ask you to do anything at 11pm there, and you'll still get paid well.
> How often do you get those 11pm requests that will otherwise get rerouted to someone else unless you respond before 8am? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? A few times per year?
Multiple times per month. 3/4 weekends per month. How’s that? Not uncommon in many small startups I’ve been a part of as an employee, founder, or advisor.
Your point is fine, except for the fact that it totally overlooks if an employee is actually already putting in that extra effort, and is just getting taken advantage of by their company.
What if I am already objectively going the extra mile? Who's to say I'm not? My boss. And they will say that. See: Tesla Skips 401k Match for Third Straight Year [1], while simultaneously investing over $1B into Bitcoin.
> and that this allows you unprecedented career mobility, including the option of easily quitting your job should you have the rare misfortune of having landed at any of the few bad apples that do not reward you for your stress with oodles of money that you wouldn't be able to make anywhere else with that amount of effort and work experience.
Ok, setting aside the fact that the money is relative to the value created for these companies (see: richest people on the planet and how they got there)...
You didn’t actually comment on the main point. You just said, oh if that happens, you are able to leave. Yeah - that’s the point. It happens. And if it does, you should leave. Not succumb to Stockholm syndrome and act like oh it’s part of “sacrificing for this awesome job”. Even you said it. Go find another job.
If you think this is just happening at "a few bad apples" then I'm inclined to assume you have not experienced a wide variety of startup and company cultures in multiple locales - not saying this is true of you but what it sounds like.
I only used the same comment because another person made a similar point which warranted an identical response.
> many small startups I’ve been a part of as an employee, founder, or advisor
As a significant equity holder in an early stage company, you cannot compare yourself to regular employees. We're no longer comparing professions, and instead are comparing approaches to wealth creation: salary vs equity. Again, if you're not a fan of risk, get a job at a bank.
To bring it back to your original post - you called someone ignorant for stating that leaving work at work is a choice. It is indeed a choice, as we both concluded by stating that this career gives you plenty of opportunity for career mobility.
EDIT: your post changed a couple of times and most recently added some bizarre criticism of capitalism ("setting aside the fact that the money is relative to the value created for these companies"). This is totally off-topic, and frankly I am having a hard time following your reasoning so I'll disengage and just hope you'll find peace and appreciation for the good things in life.
> To bring it back to your original post - you called someone ignorant for stating that leaving work at work is a choice.
It was tongue in cheek. I was literally quoting them calling me ignorant - it looks stupid and is not condusive to good discussion, I agree!
> As a significant equity holder in an early stage company, you cannot compare yourself to regular employees.
I was expressing the fact that I've seen this many times at several companies, as opposed to it being "a few bad apples" as you originally stated. Not that there is any similarity in the experiences of those roles.
The choice to leave work at work on the daily, vs the choice to switch jobs when you're unhappy, are not the same choice - just so we clear that up because I feel like there are two separate points being made here vs the original comment I was replying to.
It is a choice to leave, yes, definitely agree with you there and I appreciate your perspective here. We are definitely privileged to be in such a fruitful field.
It is also a choice to leave work at work, however, there can be ramifications at your expense and out of your control if you do so. That doesn't happen when you are unhappy and decide to start looking for another job, unless you tell your employer you're doing so...
EDIT: I added some hard data points to back up what I was saying. None of the points changed, only added, didn't delete. Apologies if that confused you.
Criticism of capitalism? Lol, you said we should be grateful for all this money we earn in comparison to other industries. I said no duh, we create a ton of wealth - look at the wealthiest people in the world, they come from software - Gates, Musk, Bezos. It makes sense that compensation is higher in an industry where more value is being created.
> so I'll disengage and just hope you'll find peace and appreciation for the good things in life.
Very much agreed. You have to do what is in your control as an employee. If it’s a cultural problem, that usually means your best bet is to simply find a team with better culture. Culture is a hard problem to solve if it’s not right.
Sounds like if you have the potential to be addressing business problems at 11pm you should have an on-call schedule. Your boss just calling people randomly in the night is not a great way to get things done reliably anyway.
Agreed! It's a business problem. It's not a problem of the employee to shift their mentality to suit the demands of their employer. People want to do a good job though. Hence why there is onus on the employer to provide work-life balance. It's not enough to just "not ask" for work on the weekends. You need to proactively discourage it.
this is very ignorant.
the ability to leave work at work is a personality trait. the job, or type of job, has little to do with it.
software development is not some exceptionally difficult thing that tortures and haunts developers.