From disgruntled developer, to founder, to burnout

https://medium.com/lessons-learned/26d8e1c9b6ec

by zidar • 13 years ago

34 24 13 years ago

robodale• 13 years ago

replace disgruntled with whiny.

jtreminio• 13 years ago

Offices showered in natural light. Large windows overlooking a lush green park, playful decor, walls covered in old design projects, sofas in the lounge, shelves full of books on design and marketing. A relaxed culture.
Nobody had any real idea how programmers function. How we think, how we work, what we need to feel productive. For a long time I was the only programmer on the team.

This isn't pointed only at you (although you triggered it), but really, do we have to use words like "terrible" to describe our lives as developers?

We sit in a comfortable chair, hitting keys on a keyboard and get paid much more than the average American salary. Is that such a huge sacrifice? Unless you're going home with just barely enough to feed yourself, with a beat up body, then your job is not terrible. It may not perfectly fit your sensibilities, but talking like this makes you seem like nothing more than a pampered baby.

knieveltech2• 13 years ago

I worked in the trades (carpentry, roofing, ironwork) for years before I switched careers and became a programmer. The biggest adjustment for me was learning not to cringe whenever one of my coworkers goes on a hyper-entitled rant about working conditions or how our codebase and our company is archaic and shitty because we aren't using <insert latest flash in the pan technology here>.

buckbova• 13 years ago

At the end of the day after I built something with my hands or even dug a pit, I could sit back with a beer and truly let my mind go, content with what I'd done that day.

As a programmer/developer/architect, my mind is never really free from the work I'd done. I always think about how I need to refactor this or that and what is yet to be done tomorrow. Now I drink until I forget the day.

JanneVee2• 13 years ago

There are working conditions within software development we can complain about. Starting of with people thinking just because it is not physical labour we can work much longer hours. Yes up to a point we can work a little longer. But if people get sleep deprived then you might as well have free beer instead of sodas in the fridge. Just google "sleep deprivation drunk equivalent" and you will find a bunch research.

Swizec3• 13 years ago

At the time I was working for 5 euro an hour.

And different jobs have different standards for what constitutes as terrible working conditions. Sure the office was great, I was comfy, I had tea. But the working conditions were terrible.

Being interrupted every 5 minutes, requirements jumping around and not having a say in what you're working on at all can be really terrible when your job consists of long stretches of focusing and thinking.

It wasn't atrocious or even horrific. But it was terrible.

invalidOrTaken• 13 years ago

Downvoted when I meant to upvote, sorry.

badman_ting• 13 years ago

Indeed, a gigantic lack of perspective seems to be an occupational hazard.

timje12• 13 years ago

It's funny, the process this writer describes - you get frustrated with a company, go off and build your own, and then don't realise that what you've built is just as atrocious to work for..

I feel like many of the people that split off to start their own companies can't really build something better - all they do is reproduce the same bad work environment, but with them in the dictator seat instead of someone else.

jes5199• 13 years ago

This is what happens when you think that a programmer's job is to create code - you type and type and type and just get buried in the complexity and things get worse and worse.

A programmer's job is to understand problems. A programmer's job is to think clearly. The code is incidental. If you think clearly about the problems, you will need less code, and gradually things will get simpler - I've seen code-bases that actually shrink as they gain functionality.

The only good thing about programmers who spew code all day without thinking is that they create jobs for good programmers to come and clean up their messes later.

yardie• 13 years ago

There are still far too many companies that use LOC as the benchmark. It's similar to basing productivity based on the number of browser tabs you have open.

timje12• 13 years ago

I agree, I've never seen a maintenance nightmare that fits on a screen or two of text. Overly complex systems, in my mind, always create more long term problems than overly simple systems - even if the simple system requires a hack or two to work.

fro2• 13 years ago

In the description of the book the author is pushing, I find this sentence, "A popular trend is to get up at 4am and get some work done before the day’s craziness begins. Others like going to bed at 4am."

Do real, professional programmers work this way? It is romantic to think of hacking away in front of a glowing screen at 3am, but I believe most work gets done during the actual work day. Often hacking at night means you are writing code but not making progress, which seems to be the problem with this "disgruntled developer".

Set a schedule, start working in the morning and stop working in the evening, and your sessions will be much more productive and produce higher quality work than these late night, crazed, caffeine-fueled sessions.

Swizec3• 13 years ago

Yes, some do. It really depends, but a lot of the people I talked to were adamant their best work in terms of coding comes from off-peak hours at the office.

And why do you think a late-night bout of work has to be crazed and caffeine-fueled? You can only pack so much productive time in the day, you won't get more hours from working at night. But you might get better hours if you start working at 4pm instead of 9am.

At the end of the day, it depends.

fro2• 13 years ago

It's not so much about when you work, but that you have a set schedule and routine. If you have a job, usually this is during the day. Knowing when you wake up every day that you will be working at these exact times tremendously helps your focus and production.

Very often late night, sporadic sessions are a product of, "oh crap I have to get some work done! Time for coffee and pounding out as much code as I can."

Not saying you can't be productive at night, but real production comes from day in, day out routine and dedication to the work. It's not as sexy but it's the reality of the job.

jdowner• 13 years ago

I think you may be reading more into that sentence than it says. While I don't doubt that there are programmers working 'late night, crazed, caffeine-fueled session' you're extrapolating well beyond what the author said. Do professionals work earlier or later to avoid disruptive times? Yes. My least productive period (for coding) is in the middle of the day (between 10am - 2pm). So, that is when I plan to do things that are not coding. I tend to come into work early for two reasons: (1) it makes my commute easier, and (2) I get most of my coding done before the majority of the people in the office come in. I don't think it is a controversial idea that software engineers tend to find they do their best work in quiet or low-distraction environments.

I have to confess, I do have the unusual habit of starting my day with a cup of coffee so maybe I am one of those caffiene-fueled crazies after all :)

greenrice• 13 years ago

There seems to be a certain aspect of the night owl that is present in many programmers, I for one am far more productive in the late-afternoon and evening than I am in the morning. Setting a morning-to-evening schedule isn't going to work for a lot of us.

hackula12• 13 years ago

There seems to be a certain aspect of the night owl that is present in many programmers

This seems likely and could be attributed to the fact that we receive above average artificial light from staring at screens too late into the evening.

kingj• 13 years ago

It's one thing to, as the founder of a startup, pour in 50 - 60 hours a week into your baby -- but it's another thing to routinely expect your team to do the same. Additionally, crunch-weeks should start to become less frequent as the startup moves from early stages to later stages.

I would argue that the ideal case shouldn't even expect hired work to put in substantially more hours than a "normal" job with an established company (e.g., 40-50 hours) -- hired work should just be expected to be better than the average candidate at those companies, and able to contribute in the team sport of startup creation and growth. If you want to argue for a hidden catch, then yes -- maybe at startups there will be a higher incidence of crunch-weeks where the team will be required to pull longer hours to put out fires -- but this shouldn't be the "norm".

At the end of the week, you're going to need enough time to recuperate and rest. Routinely working 10, 11, 12 hour shifts is just a recipe for burning out yourself and, maybe just as importantly, your team. When you think about it, a ten hour shift is like going to work at 8AM, staying until 7PM (with an hour for lunch) -- then when you factor in getting to work and getting home, you're talking about getting 2 - 3 hours of "free time" each workday, which you can devote to breakfast, dinner, and getting ready for bed. Making that a twelve hour shift just makes it two hours worse.

And if you want to talk about incentives, expecting employees to pour in 60 hours a week is the equivalent of essentially paying them 33% less "per hour" than whatever they're already getting. And 80 means that they're working for half-price. Factoring that in with whatever [potentially] fraction of a percent of equity that the employee will have by the time of acquisition (or, if you're really lucky, IPO) -- and that employee may not even be coming out ahead financially -- and that's assuming that the startup doesn't fail beforehand.

Maybe this means that I'm a shitty startup employee because I don't consider forcing employees to spend 80 hours a week to be the right way to run a company, but I'd rather pass on that particular opportunity and keep my sanity.

Anyways, just my two cents.

From disgruntled developer, to founder, to burnout

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