I agree about the second half, though. My current job is just a terrible meat grinder, hiring and churning like crazy, and they just keep pouring gas on the fire by trying to grow headcount without retaining people they already have. Everyone is sick of interviewing and the solution is to hire more people so the new people can start interviewing and take some pressure off the old people.
Stop right there.
I don't think this contradicts the statement "I think most people here can [relate]"
Yes, a million $/€/£ isn't what it once was, and being a millionaire isn't in itself an indicator of exceptional riches, but the term "multi-millionaire" still certainly implies a level of wealth that sets one apart from the average (even among ycombinator-readers).
And I would imagine you're proportionally much less likely to be a fan of the industry inversely to the measure of the safety net / impetus-to-participate-in-the-rat-race-of-9-to-5 you possess.
Stop right here. The parent comment was about multi-millionaires 5+ years ago.
Assuming everything hasn't been spent, riches becomes richer when you have capital.
For example, when I wasn't comfortable, I was always chasing the next language/framework so that I was marketable to someone else's company, and this was actually at the expense of the best solution for whatever company I was at. It was always like "lets make this new microservice, in this new language", "let's refactor this whole project but blame 100% of it on the prior developer and no other ulterior motive whatsoever", "what's the personal development budget again? sure, I'll tell you all about my goal of learning this new language you don't use". Most of the engineers are doing it. If you're drowning, save yourself first.
and now its fantasticaly liberating for me to simply not have to do that! It opens up other possibilities I couldn't understand, such as learning a super niche and new language even if the payoff wasn't clear, this allows me to contribute to projects that I would have ruled out and ironically become more marketable when the premium is highest. It allows me to dive deeper into more time-tested languages, and more.
I can only assume that it is because of stronger labor laws, more relaxed work/life balance, etc.
Some of my American (contractor) colleagues would work like dogs for 6 days a week, often from early in the morning to late in the night - depending on the status of the project. It was the first time I observed actual burnout in people, and how visibly it changes people and their personalities.
In any case - most of them, especially those over 40, would often discuss their big plans: Only work 5-10 more years, then retire, and live life.
If 50-60 hour weeks, all year round, is any good indicator of American SWE life - I can understand why devs. are daydreaming about retirement.
Then those sentences here in multiple posts about it being normal to put in extra weekend days, wtf?
Add to this they even completely had to return to office 5days a week..
..and this is for high skilled tech workers, how bad is it for the rest? While at the same time the world seems to even now discover 4day weeks... what's going on over there? It sounds like modern slavery and you may need more unions and less socialism-fear :D
> European workers seem much more content with their work-life
So content they actually are asked and want to be kept employed with halfed work hours or similar even after retirement age, because their experience brings value to juniors, not because of the money but they don't feel like retiring but want to be further useful... not for everyone sure.
That said, while I am reasonably well compensated I don't make enough to retire early. At my current trajectory I'm not sure I make enough to retire full stop ... so I might just be working until I die after all.
I can retire around 50, where I now live in Scandinavia/Norway. But that comes down to me currently living in a low cost of living area - my house is basically worth 10% of those in major cities. But I also don't have to think about stuff like healthcare, which is a big plus when it's time to retire.
Even though on paper the average tech worker might have 20+ days off, if the culture is not there, peer pressure will kind of force you to compromise in other ways.
I'm in a similar position (not remote though) and yeah... my boss told me during my first year that the guy who was hired before me said he'd only stay 2-3 years, and that was 6 years ago. It's almost 10 years later and we're both here, along with the rest.
We're a small company though, so like you say, we've just hired a few programmers since I started.
Part of what I realized in that 12 years was that I by the time I was ready to bail I was so frustrated and hated life so much that anything _but_ this current position looked good, which opened the door to taking something that was equally as horrible. I've long advocated in starting at the bottom and working your way up, but there is a limit as to how much abuse a person can take. If the climate goes south you have to bail. The long term consequences of not are higher than the immediate annoying ones (relocating, etc.).
We also see devs just flat out going into new fields altogether.
Somehow I just visualized the job market as analogous to the romantic dating pool for people past say 35. That complaint about all the good ones being taken, and those who get back into the scene have baggage by that point and several failures along the way. I've never conceived of the job market like that, puts a whole new spin on it when I conceptualize it as such.
> The job market is essentially a market for lemons, unfortunately.
Also, there are definitely better and worse companies. I'm currently in the best job of my life (well paying, fully remote, very little meetings, no micromanagement, using interesting and cutting edge technology), but it took me 15 years to get there. The catch is that such companies don't have to hire that often (because people don't tend to leave them), so most openings at the market in any given moment are from shit companies where average tenure is 18-24 months and half of the staff has low-grade depression. The job market is essentially a market for lemons, unfortunately.