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Comment by taway_1212 | Hacker News Reader

I agree about your assesment of programming jobs. We are mostly replaceable cogs and means to an end. We're only getting paid so much because this job is so unpleasant and most people would rather make 2-3x less than learn to program and spend most of their life sitting in front of a screen going through code bases.

My personal answer to that was to start learning to draw. Getting from zero art skills to professional artist is a super-long journey (at least 5-10 years from what I'm reading), but at least it gives me hope.

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I agree with the replaceable cog thing.

I really don't think that has to do with pay though.

It pays so well because everyone needs a technologist, in every industry, in every department, in every building. It's "in".

Now, if it's truly unpleasant - there's a major problem there. Usually somewhere else, another way, perhaps another industry (same line of work) can solve that problem.

Very true - we are treated like a replaceable cog. We all have a craving to feel important. But i think i personally dislike the language in the industry - resource. I am a human being for god's sake not a 'resource'. I have feelings and emotions and i wanna feel like a human,not a number. Also, i noticed non-tech people seem to be into management - they simply dont understand software. This causes part of the frustration. They seem to think, you can replace one person with another and the machinery would work fine - it wont. on top of it, they are the one planning unreasonable timelines too.

Resource/resourcing seems to be verbiage employed in corporate circles in general, and yeah, it makes me wince.

Practically every non-technologist that I know is baffled that I don't want to go into management. There are exceptions - as I work in finance, I get to talk to many analysts and portfolio managers. Everyone else though...it seems like if you view being a technologist as anything other than a means to an end - the end being some form of management - you lack ambition or are content to be a grunt.

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