<story><title>Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?</title></story><parent_chain><item><author>marknutter</author><text>Any time I catch myself complaining about my career I do my best to jolt myself out of it. That&amp;#x27;s not to say I have nothing to complain about or that aspects of my career and my job can&amp;#x27;t be improved, but my god, is there really any other profession in the world that is as lucrative, open, and challenging as programming? There are no bullshit certifications to go through, the best tools and resources are free and open, and the more technology advances the more important it becomes. In no other field can someone start a company with basically zero capital and have a realistic shot at becoming profitable. I am absolutely addicted to programming and the only real downside is that there aren&amp;#x27;t enough hours in the day to do it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dota_fanatic</author><text>Indeed.&lt;p&gt;But what about everyone else? The longer I work in this field and the more I understand about optimization and physical processes, the worse I feel about the work I do and the work of most programmers. Not &amp;quot;but it&amp;#x27;s just a social app?!&amp;quot; people, but the people in medicine, law, education, small business, hardware, logistics, etc, all pushing business forward bit by bit, automating away the repetitive pieces and making it easier for those in monetarily advantageous positions to capture the flag.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s hard for me to be too happy when I see ubiquitous animal suffering in a system I&amp;#x27;m helping to persist, seemingly towards the end of life on earth altogether. Why do I do it? I need money, and I&amp;#x27;m only so strong for now. How can I cooperate when the biggest and greatest are of a world of defectors? Selfishness wins? It&amp;#x27;s all too easy to conclude, &amp;quot;I can&amp;#x27;t make a difference, not really&amp;quot;, and the probability of making a difference drops to 0, prophesy fulfilled. After all, rent is due, student loan is due.&lt;p&gt;Count me in as someone who, given the support of basic income, can and will live frugally and give my working self 100% towards ethical objectives, as I understand them. In the meantime, this whole &amp;quot;but we have it so great compared to everyone else!!&amp;quot; just makes me feel even worse, over-burdened. If I can&amp;#x27;t make a difference with all these advantages, without seemingly herculean efforts, then who?</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?</title></story><parent_chain><item><author>marknutter</author><text>Any time I catch myself complaining about my career I do my best to jolt myself out of it. That&amp;#x27;s not to say I have nothing to complain about or that aspects of my career and my job can&amp;#x27;t be improved, but my god, is there really any other profession in the world that is as lucrative, open, and challenging as programming? There are no bullshit certifications to go through, the best tools and resources are free and open, and the more technology advances the more important it becomes. In no other field can someone start a company with basically zero capital and have a realistic shot at becoming profitable. I am absolutely addicted to programming and the only real downside is that there aren&amp;#x27;t enough hours in the day to do it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ck425</author><text>I agree with this, except for the last line. Software Engineering is a great career in a lot of ways (interesting subject, smart people, flexible, relatively less bureaucratic, good pay etc) and sometimes I forget how damn good I have it compared to most folk. But at the same time there are lots of other things I enjoy and want to do in life beyond just software engineering.&lt;p&gt;I think as an industry we get a bit obsessed about wanting rockstar programmers who want to do nothing but make software. I enjoy my work, I&amp;#x27;m grateful for it and I want to get better at it, but there are also lots of other things I want to do, so personally I&amp;#x27;m not going to spend all my free time programming and I think that&amp;#x27;s ok.</text></comment>