There was a part of me who dreamed of doing simple entry-level jobs instead of working in tech, so I got a part-time job cleaning hospital ER rooms on the weekends. Everything has been fine for the most part, but it has been made clear to me how easy it is to get fired at entry-level jobs. The pay is really pretty dismal and the stability really isn't there. Overall the experience has made me a lot more inclined to not leave money on the table. If there are things I can do to earn more and make my life more comfortable I just do them now.
From what I've observed, the big problem with working in tech is that you have all of the responsibility but none of the authority or autonomy. By comparison, in most service sector jobs you have no authority or autonomy but also little responsibility. In other engineering disciplines you have a lot of responsibility but also much more authority and autonomy.
In my experience, unless you are working with items which can kill people (medical, military) there is no responsibility. Developers can deploy any broken build with little consequences.
> the big problem with working in tech is that you have all of the responsibility but none of the authority or autonomy
Very apt description of "Big Tech". That's why I decided to leave as well. This combination just creates a lot of stress and it was negatively impacting my health.
That makes no sense. They didnt provide any specific reasons they dont like the tech industry. All of their reasons can be applied to just about any industry lmao. The core issue is and always will be capitalism
- Less families with kids the same age in suburban neighborhoods
- Less community between neighbors
- More on demand entertainment inside the house
Basically it's more that there is less to do outside and more to do inside. Parents just want their kids to busy themselves, and inside is easier than outside now.
It's interesting to imagine if there's some kind of middle ground where products could be launched without the pretense of them being permanent? I suspect at least some of people's frustration is that X or Y was pitched as something serious, which then grates some when it gets canceled.
But maybe you can't launch a product without pretending it's going to be real because it'll be dead on arrival?
We're definitely in the mess around phase of AI adoption.
I don't think it's super clear what we'll find out.
We've all built the moat of our careers out of our expertise.
It is also very possible that expertise will be rendered significantly less valuable as the models improve.
Nobody ever cared what the code looked like. They only ever cared if it solved their problem and it was bug free. Maybe everything falls apart, or maybe AI agents ship code that's good enough.
Given the state of the industry were clearly going to find out one way or the other, hah!
> I don't think it's super clear what we'll find out
I think some companies will find out that their senior engineers were providing more value and software stability than they gave them credit for!
Corporate feedback loops are very slow though, partly because management don't like to admit mistakes, and partly because of false success reporting up the chain. I'd not be surprised if it takes 5 years or more before there is any recognition of harm being done by AI, and quiet reversion to practices that worked better.
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