The arbitrary 8.5-9 hour workday drives me nuts, because a lot of the time, I really only have 3 or 4 hours worth of work to do. I generally work quickly and I value my time. Can I make a decent living doing something that gives me this kind of flexibility?
As someone in the field. I assure you, you do not work just a few hours and then go home. Software development take infinite time and any well run shop will definitely notice if you work a half day by your output vs others. IT is even worse since problems are basically constant.
I guess you can work at badly run shops, but enjoy being laid off and then failing to get a job eventually from having a stale resume.
People have been saying this but I have yet to encounter such issues as a network engineer or sysadmin. I’m going to dodge this recruiting hell others are willing to go through until the day I die. More than 2 rounds of interviews are just HR buffoonery. Expecting expertise in every single branch of a field is nonsense and only accomplishes that applicants lie on their resumes. There are days when everything is running smoothly and all I have to do is sent 3 emails out of home office and there’s nothing wrong with that.
For software engineer resume rot is definitely a thing. Everything has a 5 year timer on it even thr stuff that doesn’t out right die. C# has been around for like 20 years something like that but try to only know about the ecosystem from more than 5 year ago and you’re gonna have a bad time.
I can’t speak on network or sysadmin stuff, but I do know from a coworker friend that they get paid way less are are considered more expendable, so you’re probably right that it’s work that doesn’t change much. Still I’m surprised to hear you say that you have a lot of downtime or maybe I have only worked at trashfires
I’ve been around for a while and there are plenty of IT Jobs that’ll burn you out but there are also super chill positions. My last job change was a downgrade money wise and my boss who I was supposed to replace soon made fun of me for that decision but he missed his daughter growing up because he was working 24/7. She’s an alcoholic now and doesn’t want anything to do with him but “if you want to succeed you have to make sacrifices” he always said. The guy next door to my office literally died in his sleep after being completely stressed out for a year. Heart just stopped. Mid fifties. I quit shortly after. I now only take jobs that are chill as fuck because I’ve learned from their mistakes.
Resume rot and working and to you drop are very different ideas. It’s not worth taking a chill job if it means that you’re unhireable for your next job. There are plenty of chill jobs that grow your resume.
Maybe if all you’re doing is turning a crank to shit out boilerplate all day
I literally don’t understand what you mean by this? Software development isn’t typing all day, but it is engagement all day. Coding, documentation, meetings about so much shit. So much more. There is always some kind of work to be done and that’s why if you’re not careful you can easily overwork yourself in this field. It never stops. You stop it, but at the same time deadlines exist and it takes effort to even make those sane.
Yeah, but someone who fixes 12 bugs a week doesn’t make any more money than someone who fixes 6 bugs a week.
This was a lesson that was hard for me to learn, but finally I figured out that working my ass off every week wasn’t actually getting me ahead. The stuff that actually got me attention only took a few hours every week.
So now I set reasonable expectations. Sure, if I worked every minute I could crank out 12 bug fixes, but I don’t want to have that much stress. I’m going to sign up for 4 I know I can fix with time to spare, giving myself lots of buffer in case one ends up being a lot harder.
In fact, sometimes signing up for just 1, but it’s the hardest one, is actually the most impactful but the least stressful.
Not taking on too much means I can take a break in the middle of the day, or finish a little early, knowing I’m meeting my expectations.
But more importantly, I can spend a few hours every week looking for opportunities to go above and beyond - something that’s annoying everybody but never seems to be prioritized by anyone. I also have more time to mentor others. And THAT sort of thing is what gets me recognized when it comes time for bonuses and promotions.
All of that without working overtime.
My general point in the context of this discussion is that you cannot just work 3 hours a day and think nobody is going to notice or that it’s not going to have an impact on your ability to get jobs in the software development space. You should also not come into it thinking it’s possible to run out of work. Neither of those things are true.
It’s also true that you can have a good work/life balance and not work more than your 40. That’s usually enough to keep everything on track and it’s what I do.
That a said, the people who solve 12 bugs over 6 most certainly do get paid more because they get promoted faster if they’re not a dick and don’t make the mistake of making themselves too irreplaceable at their current level. I literally got a 12% raise at one job for some above and beyond work I did and I continued to get more pay by basically holding the company hostage with my wealth of skills.
Solving 12 bugs a week over 6 gets you promoted to Senior and that’s it.
If you want to advance further in your career, it’s entirely about your impact, not the quantity of work. It’s about seeing the big picture - like recognizing a whole class of bugs all come from one poorly-designed interface, and taking the time and effort to create a better one and get everyone to migrate. It’s hard work but it doesn’t necessarily require a lot of hours. It’s about working smarter and not harder.
You got a 12% raise for some above and beyond work.
Getting promoted beyond Senior often means a 100% raise.