If I could get paid a Bay Area software engineering salary to clean the bathroom instead, I think I would actually prefer to clean the bathroom. Software engineering requires me to actually use a large part of my mind. Cleaning the bathroom, on the other hand, would leave my mind largely free to think whatever I feel like. The physical movement is probably better for the body, too.
I think the secondary fear is that the big salaries and great working conditions are a result of a scarcity that may be on its way out.
Paying me $150k to do work that produces $1.5M for your business is great value - but getting the same work done for $15k is even better value.
Very off topic but I think you would highly enjoy watching the movie "Perfect Days (2023)" directed by Wim Wenders.
It had a profound effect on me in introspecting my long software career.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27503384
You got me curious. Could you say a bit more about the your reflections? I really enjoyed that movie.
> Cleaning the bathroom, on the other hand, would leave my mind largely free to think whatever I feel like.
I haven't calculated a cube root by hand since, what, sixth grade? (It's been so long I don't remember.) I'd hate to spend the mental cycles having to do that kind of task.
Huh, I like using my mind. The thing I despise about AI in software engineering is that it is much more difficult to engage my mind consistently and fully.
Most of us like to use our mind. Just some prefer not to on a boring and dull senseless corporate solutions. If they can.
I like using my mind too, just usually not on software engineering.
So was your motivation for being a software engineer just money?
I coded for fun before I ever coded for money. However, at this point I've been a professional software engineer for enough years that the interest in software that I once had has almost entirely drained out of me. I find professional software engineering to be very very different from, and much less fun than, coding passion projects. And at this point, the interest in coding passion projects has drained out of me as well. I just don't find coding to be that interesting any more. I feel like I've already spent more of my life coding than I should have, more than coding ever really deserved. I think that if I found a different way to make money, I could be perfectly happy going the rest of my life without ever looking at another piece of code.
I am considering trying to move to some kind of non-coding role in tech. Maybe some kind of management role.
you can do software engineering without the money just fine.
make an open source project without ai
come on man, back to reality please
There are offshore oil mining rig that needs workers. They pay big bucks too. You get some months off. The physical movement is better than cleaning the bathroom.
No need to thank me. You're welcome.
Interesting idea. Only problems for me are: it sounds dangerous and physically straining for someone like me who hasn't done manual labor in many years and has no experience relevant to oil rigs. And also, there are almost no women. I guess oil rig workers probably pack in their women time hardcore when they're on their months off.
You can stand outside the Marriott on Canal St in New Orleans at 2 am on a weekday night and observe this yourself.
I lived in the same building with a bloke who did dangerous construction type work in the Pacific NW. Sawing branches on high cliffs, that sort of thing. He'd make a grip on a job, come back home and spend it all on booze, weed, and women, go out and do it all again. I thought of him as my life's version of Lawrence from Office Space.