<story><title>The Moderately Enthusiastic Programmer</title><url>http://devblog.avdi.org/2014/01/31/the-moderately-enthusiastic-programmer/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nilkn</author><text>A friend recently started a job programming for Enterprise Rent A Car. Did you know they even regularly hired programmers? I didn&amp;#x27;t, but he seems to like it. The company I&amp;#x27;m at once interviewed a programmer who was working for Home Depot.&lt;p&gt;The reality is there are actually plenty of programming positions that are perfectly suited for a career programmer who doesn&amp;#x27;t particularly love it and just wants a steady paycheck and a decent home life. But these positions aren&amp;#x27;t at Google or Facebook or the hottest Silicon Valley startup, and they&amp;#x27;re not going to ever pay $150k+ or even $100k+ (they might start at half that). You don&amp;#x27;t need to know what a suffix tree is. You don&amp;#x27;t need to have ever heard of bloom filters. These positions probably aren&amp;#x27;t at many of the companies posting in the 37signals job board, because that board is naturally going to attract job seekers who are more enthusiastic about programming as both a craft and a means to a paycheck.&lt;p&gt;I think a lot of posters here seem to be wanting too much in exchange for too little. In every industry, it&amp;#x27;s always been the case that the top companies have tried to hire the most &amp;quot;passionate&amp;quot; employees--and yes, that means employees who might work overtime while smiling about it. I don&amp;#x27;t think this is so evil when there are plenty of other choices.&lt;p&gt;I do think it&amp;#x27;s a bit disingenuous, though, to want to be part of the next explosively successful company while still putting in the minimum effort to get a steady paycheck. This forum is disproportionately full of people wanting to get at least somewhat wealthy off of software development, people who want the same compensation as big firm attorneys and doctors. Those lawyers probably work more than the average over-worked programmer at a top company, and the doctors almost certainly do. The attorneys and doctors also all necessarily went to graduate school and probably took on a lot of debt that the average programmer doesn&amp;#x27;t have. The fact is that, across &lt;i&gt;all industries&lt;/i&gt;, jobs with this level of compensation are rarely 30-40 hour a week lifestyle jobs.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ForHackernews</author><text>I think you&amp;#x27;re probably overstating the difference in software quality&amp;#x2F;challenge&amp;#x2F;interest factor between Flashy New Startup and Boring Megacorp.&lt;p&gt;Many of the really &amp;quot;hot&amp;quot; startups we see are actually quite boring from a technology standpoint. Snapchat? Uber? Airbnb? They&amp;#x27;re all variations on a dull web app that sends messages to [mobile] clients. Even at someplace like Square, I&amp;#x27;d bet most of the code is cumbersome kludges connecting legacy banking infrastructure with their slick API.&lt;p&gt;Conversely, someplace like Enterprise is probably trying to solve more interesting problems than you might think: How do you balance supply and demand for your fleet across hundreds of locations? How do you optimize maintenance costs? Can you use GPS and in-car diagnostics to monitor cars in the field?&lt;p&gt;I know everyone here likes to imagine that startups are filled with super-genius Stanford CS  grads implementing cutting-edge algorithms, but I think that&amp;#x27;s pretty far from reality. Whether it&amp;#x27;s a startup or a BigCorp, most of the work is going to be boring LOB applications.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Moderately Enthusiastic Programmer</title><url>http://devblog.avdi.org/2014/01/31/the-moderately-enthusiastic-programmer/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nilkn</author><text>A friend recently started a job programming for Enterprise Rent A Car. Did you know they even regularly hired programmers? I didn&amp;#x27;t, but he seems to like it. The company I&amp;#x27;m at once interviewed a programmer who was working for Home Depot.&lt;p&gt;The reality is there are actually plenty of programming positions that are perfectly suited for a career programmer who doesn&amp;#x27;t particularly love it and just wants a steady paycheck and a decent home life. But these positions aren&amp;#x27;t at Google or Facebook or the hottest Silicon Valley startup, and they&amp;#x27;re not going to ever pay $150k+ or even $100k+ (they might start at half that). You don&amp;#x27;t need to know what a suffix tree is. You don&amp;#x27;t need to have ever heard of bloom filters. These positions probably aren&amp;#x27;t at many of the companies posting in the 37signals job board, because that board is naturally going to attract job seekers who are more enthusiastic about programming as both a craft and a means to a paycheck.&lt;p&gt;I think a lot of posters here seem to be wanting too much in exchange for too little. In every industry, it&amp;#x27;s always been the case that the top companies have tried to hire the most &amp;quot;passionate&amp;quot; employees--and yes, that means employees who might work overtime while smiling about it. I don&amp;#x27;t think this is so evil when there are plenty of other choices.&lt;p&gt;I do think it&amp;#x27;s a bit disingenuous, though, to want to be part of the next explosively successful company while still putting in the minimum effort to get a steady paycheck. This forum is disproportionately full of people wanting to get at least somewhat wealthy off of software development, people who want the same compensation as big firm attorneys and doctors. Those lawyers probably work more than the average over-worked programmer at a top company, and the doctors almost certainly do. The attorneys and doctors also all necessarily went to graduate school and probably took on a lot of debt that the average programmer doesn&amp;#x27;t have. The fact is that, across &lt;i&gt;all industries&lt;/i&gt;, jobs with this level of compensation are rarely 30-40 hour a week lifestyle jobs.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bradleyjg</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s kind of funny that you mention ERAC. Now I don&amp;#x27;t know anything at all about thier programming department, maybe it is a laid back punch the clock kind of place. But in terms of the bulk of thier operations they are one of those HR driven companies that recruiting, through promotion, evaluation, and compensation cultivates a cult-like atmosphere of total dedication to the job and the company.&lt;p&gt;They recruit right out of college, targeting especially athletes and fraternity&amp;#x2F;sorority members. They almost exclusively promote from within. They tie compensation very strongly to unit performance, in a competitive zero sum way. From trainees through regional vice presidents everyone works long hours with no extra compensation. They use an up or out system for promotions. Then if you thrive and preserve in the system you might make six figures after a decade or so -- at least when and if your numbers are good.&lt;p&gt;While I certainly wouldn&amp;#x27;t tell anyone not to point out problematic employer actions in the development industries, but it can be instructive to see what it&amp;#x27;s like out there for some of your peers.</text></comment>