I started programming at 5, making it do what I wanted it to provided dopamine. I never found a sport I enjoyed. I do like painting though. I doubt very many people get into sanitation because they love making toilets clean, but even there I'm sure a few do. Before 2000 I think it was pretty normal for people to select software as a career without considering the compensation as a factor. It wasn't excessively better than other similar choices for one.

> Before 2000

The salary expectations exploded when the VC/PE-bobos went into the space and started "build-and-sell-high".

Sure there were Billionairs made before tech & internet, but public was not aware of most such transactions.

And that never changed salaries nearly as much in games, embedded, or outside the us. I never worked in any software position adjacent to the online economy, so I never saw any of those wacky salaries.

> to the online economy, so I n

that term is great, thanks! because: Outside of the "online community", a SWE salary is just a normal salary, all these superhigh salaries only came around the corner when it started to be about "international!" and "global scale!" and "disruption!" (of course LOL) and other things like these.

In the 90s, a "SWE" was just a normal employee doing some IT dev stuf & co, but after DotCom-boom SWE et. al. became the heroes, esp. for scaling and selling companies quickly because they had their MBA-colleagues in mind :-D

Yeah, I work in dsp and embedded typically. If you hit principal or fellow you aren't leaving that much on the table vs anything but a faang, but there is a mid career point where you are making half what you could elsewhere. I don't fully understand the dynamics that resulted in those salaries.

And to add: Over here in Europe, salaries in gaming & entertainment are amongst the lowest in "software & IT & tech"; sure there are some/few developers who make really good money, but its far off from these crazy salaries in US & co: In EU, it will be very hard to make more than 150.000 EUR before tax in a game studio, unless you are the boss/founder.

I think they enjoy the money and prestige; not the work, itself.

I get a real joy out of developing software. I have, for all my adult life. The fact that it paid well, was gravy.

I do feel that I was incredibly fortunate to have landed into a field that I already loved. I guess that my loving it, made me much better at it.

Of course, there were lots of "friction points," along the way. Working for myself, in retirement, has removed all of them. The one thing that I miss, is working in a team.

Yeah, maybe a test could be: How much do you enjoy the time actually working on something vs the time going home and enjoying the things your wage enables you to have.

Or as the sibling comment said, do you enjoy the vocation or the vacation more?

(Everything in moderation of course: Even the most interesting and meaningful project will turn into drudgery to some degree, simply due to the amounts of time involved. Also we're in the attention economy, so there are lots of things specifically designed to feel more rewarding in the short term than to work on a long-term project. Maybe the difference is how much meaning and reward there still stays besides the day-to-day drudgery)

I don't think he meant that you should enjoy your vocation more than your vacation. But life is very different if you actually enjoy going to work each day, rather than dreading it.