My life with 12 programmers, 2 rooms and one 21st-century dream (2016)

Good story. Thanks for sharing.

It seems to me that the moral of the story is that the work is done by people, so taking care of your people actually matters. And it is basically contained in this line:

That dev team has consistently deployed great feature after another at an incredible rate.

I very much appreciate you leaving this comment.

Why can’t you go back? Did you move?

Oh no. I hope you find another time in your life where you’re treated as well as you were then.

I got two takeaways:

The early hires (especially engineer #1) can have a huge influence on the culture. I think that's important to note both for founders and for prospective early employees.

> devs have only worked longer than a 40 hour week maybe 5 times total.

> That dev team has consistently deployed great feature after another at an incredible rate.

This second takeaway, that being disciplined about working hours is a boon to productivity, is generally supported by what few studies [1] have been done on productivity versus working hours.

[1] I believe most of, especially the early ones, have specifically studied industrial/factory output, including an early-1900s experiment showing that reducing working days from 9 hours to 8 hours actually increased output.

This is a good way to work. I am hugely skeptical about places that have a culture of crazy long work weeks from a pure productivity standpoint.

When we 'rebooted' Sensory Networks (our regex company a while back) we held to a 'regular hours only' policy and I think we did pretty well with it. We did get to a decent acquisition (esp. for a niche product) and importantly we were able to keep progressing the product technically. I suspect that 60-70 hour work weeks lead to a lot of technical debt that will require more 60-70 hour work weeks to pay back.

If you want the 40 hours and treat like a human not a code producing robot I found the best way is to work as a techie for a none-tech company.

I handle the internal ERP and related software (android terminals, sandblast machines etc)

I get to work on varied problems in multiple languages where my contribution is immediately visible and then go home at 5pm.

It's glorious, I'll give up programming as a career rather than go back to 60hr+ weeks.

What is so hard about saying no to overtime? Just turn off the computer and go home.

Was that Silicon Valley? I learnt certain places have certain “culture” of work. I worked in Connecticut as a programmer for many years and it actually compares with your description. Only some people wanted to stay longer. We had CEO coming out of his office around 5:10 and yelling “router down in two” thats how much time it took him to get to closet next to front door to turn internet off. Nobody had right to turn it back on. Same in the am. You cam before boss that always showed up 9:05, you had no net to work on.

Then I moved on to New York city and noone came after 8am or left before 9pm. Was nightmare. CTO told me once: “if you have family to attend to, don’t work here”.

I got my break working for a startup that went big, but without any equity. The CEO asked me to work on his next startup, and I did so.

I worked every hour, of every day for over a year to try and make things successful. It was never enough, and I felt like a failure regularly. It destroyed my personal life, and I still feel like there are ramifications from it.

Finally they questioned the hours I was billing, from the minor level of pay + equity, they didn't feel the output was enough. I quit on that point, having given so much, and then to have to defend myself.

It was a disaster, that in some small part ruined my life. I mean, I'm fine. Life is great, but it took some measure of life out of me.

They ask me to come back regularly, and I always say no. They have twice said they'd give me more equity with no strings attached just because of the work I had done, and then never said anything about it again.

I have no idea if the equity will ever amount to anything, but I learned my lesson. It just isn't worth it, under any respect. Sacrificing for some dream that isn't in your hands is a fools errand.

They can talk about whatever millions they want to from your equity. It can never make up for the destructive aspects you do to yourself to obtain it.

What kind of software do you work on?

What part of the country do you work in? I think this is specific to the bay area. It could be different in Austin or Chicago or even NY. If you haven't experienced the startup life in the bay area you shouldn't knock his experience.

Agree with you. I work in bay area...normal hours 40-50 per week. May be avg pay but way higher quality life.

I also have a job, wife, kids, house, non-tech friends. However, at one point in my life I lived a very "closed" life, sitting in my room by myself and self-learning stuff (hacking Delphi/Pascal, then some Assembly x86, then C). It was definitely fun at the time.

This requires more upvotes. I can't believe so many people in this thread are agreeing with the view that is painted in this article as the majority.

I went to SF without money for a bootcamp, I did not experience this. The author seems to just have done it without preparing or thinking much.

First, if you are joining a bootcamp, there are other people in your cohort with whom you can find support, roommates, etc (that's what I did).

2nd, even if you end up in such a bad situation, you KNOW it's for only 12 weeks. And very intense 12 weeks anyway, so really, all you need your room for is sleeping.

3rd, you socialise with other students and teachers in that bootcamp. Can't you see that most of them are NOT like the nerdy roommates he describes?

4th I have a few friends who work at Pinterest... yes _that_ Pinterest. They can afford their own place in SF, thank you.

5th, the OP wanted to do a 12weeks bootcamp to then work remotely and be a ski bum? That's nice, but he obviously didn't really research what a bootcamp really offers. I've done a bootcamp - I'm now working for myself, but that's 5 years later. I would have NOT been able to work remotely my first year, I needed way too much mentoring and help to continue learning. Bootcamps don't promise to make your a senior engineer in 12 weeks, they promise to teach you how to learn, so can get a cheap entry level job and _continue_ learning on the job, with _mentoring_.

Sorry this sounds like a rant, but I've seen too many people giving a bad image of what bootcamps have to offer. I've had a great experience doing mine and this is true for most people I know who did one too. It just has to be taken how it is.

> This really is only one small segment of the programming population. I really hate superficial shit like this that paints tech workers in a bad light bc most have ordinary jobs and live ordinary lives and aren’t social recluses.

I don't think anyone here seriously thinks this is the norm for working in tech, although I can entirely understand that the author might have a warped perspective on it as a result of his experience.

With that said, this "superficial shit" does happen, particularly in startup culture. And even if this is out on the margins of the experience, one can imagine milder versions that are still a very long way from ideal for a lot of people. For example, I find the thought of living with people I also work with utterly horrifying even if we were living in a decent house with our own rooms, a good amount of space, and what have you. I've worked with people over the years who have house-shared with others at the same company and I've never understood how they could do it. That's no disrespect to my team, or to anyone one I've worked with previously: for the most part they've been great people, but you just HAVE to unplug from it and get some social interaction from outside of your professional milieu[1].

[1] Also, I did house sharing for 10 years and, even 12 years later, I am absolutely over it. Perhaps even more-so with the passage of time.

As someone else has said, this is specific to the SF bay area, and it's so similar to my experience that it's something I could have written.

I wouldn't say the takeaway is that working in tech is bad so much as it's a criticism of Silicon Valley hype and culture. I read HN a lot in college (2010-2015) and kept reading articles glorifying startups and the Bay Area; so when I graduated, instead of looking for a safe industry job I tried to get a job there (and decided to just move there when I was rejected by a company who said they'd prefer someone local). Even when I did get a job there, my monthly paycheck was lower than my rent--though with promise that I could earn more if I worked there longer.

Overall, SV felt like a very exploitative environment for people young and hopeful, and I'm happy people are calling it out.

The article was almost my experience, having (within the last two weeks!) relocated to SF for a promotion. The near-work coliving space I was originally considering wasn't quite this extreme, but with 14 people sharing 2.5 bathrooms - and 0 people having a private bathroom (contrary to what was advertised on their website) - it certainly felt a bit too dorm-room-ish for my tastes. I was going for a private room, but I do know there were bunk-bed rooms, too.

After the showing for that one, I was able to get a showing and eventual application acceptance for some tiny studios at a nearby converted hotel - no kitchen, but totally private bed and bath for only $100 or so more per month than what the coliving space offered. So far so good - not my ideal living space by any means (I miss having an actual kitchen), but it's a short-term lease, so it gives me time to find something better.

>Why do it if you don't like it?

Uhh, because it pays well, has good job security and benefits, doesn't require multiple degrees, is respected socially, isn't physically intensive, etc. etc.

Most all of my non-programmer friends don't really like their jobs all that much, so if you're not passionate about anything else, my question is why not go into software development?

There are people who loved programming and then made it a job, and there are people who got into programming because its widely considered to be a good career. Its easy to tell who has a passion for it and who doesn't. Both types have their strengths and weaknesses.

>>That guy in the closet was probably stashing way North of $60k annually, not counting equity. Do this for 7-10 years and you can retire silver else and are probably in your early 30s.

Retire with $750k (assuming stock market gains over that 10 years)? Man, I don’t know many people who can do that, at least not in the US.

Don’t get me wrong, it gets you out of the “work or starve” level, but it’s also not exactly “I don’t have to work a day the rest of my life” money.

Austin is a great place to do this type of homerun attempt without experience. There are some nice start up jobs there, and the costs are way lower. I went from Austin - > sf and while I'm still in the career-building phase here in sf, it's not so desperate that I am living in a closet. So I was lucky that I came from Austin first with some experience already. But this is a really bad city to build something out of nothing. The costs are stupid, even when you see a rent like "only $1,200 a month!" it's likely that the deposit is ridiculous too. The transportation is great, but it depends on where you are in the city. I luckily get on the bus at the start of its route so I always get a seat, but if I was a few blocks down when the bus was already packed like sardines, I'd hate it.

Train is the same. You have to go out so far to be comfortable that your commute goes into the hours mark. SV is just insane for someone that doesn't already have an established career. I know I would have burned out already if I didn't have the experience from Austin already.

Phoenix is a good option if you don't mind the summers. The salaries are very good for the cost of living (salaries seem to be increased because of the proximity to California, I even somewhat frequently see startup jobs in SV with lower salaries than an equivalent position in PHX with some negotiation). There is a good mix of startups, mid-sized companies, and juggernauts like Amazon, Amex, PayPal, GM, etc.

Importantly in my opinion, you can buy a nice house on middle class income in Phoenix still, or rent for very cheap, and the traffic is pretty good. You'll be car dependent in most cases but it is RADICALLY cheaper than Silicon Valley.

Boston isn't really cheaper than The Bay. Traffic is terrible, so commuting by car long distances is out, and living near your job is often just as expensive as The Bay.

The weather in Atlanta, Houston, Austin, and Phoenix is brutally hot and/or humid and shows no sign of getting a cooler average.

It's difficult to do stuff outside when it's that hot, especially as you get older.

There are $1k rooms in Berkeley?

Lol, your situation doesn't sound a whole lot better. I assume for $400 more he could have graduated to a full sized room.

I too call it bullshit.

12 or 13 "hackers" and noone thought to make a copy of the door key?

Come on ...

I agree. Seems like he didn’t research things well and basically got scammed. There’s no way 1200/month to live in a 13 person 2 bedroom is anything but the most expensive roommate:cost ratio that he could’ve found.

Yah, this makes no sense. You can get a private room in a house in Menlo Park for $1500-1800. Probably similar or cheaper in SF.

Yep, spotted the same thing. Just a few weeks, not years. Meh. A few weeks is nothing. You need years and decades to master something.

While one suspects that many of these coding bootcamp stories don't have happy endings, I'm not sure there's anything particularly extraordinary about enduring far less than ideal living conditions for some closed-ended period. Out of school I spent a fair bit of time in shipyards and on offshore drilling rigs which had minimal dorm-style accommodations. Which was fine at the time but certainly not something I would have wanted to do indefinitely.

>He states himself that programming was just "means to an end" for him. So why even bother?

Because you gotta pay the bills somehow. This is something you only ever hear from people in our profession and I think it sometimes leads to self-exploitation.

Nobody would ever say "He states himself that driving the garbage truck was just "means to an end" for him. So why even bother?"

This does not add up. At 100k pa in San Francisco you would get something like 67k after tax, minus 30k for rent, minus (let’s be generous) 15k for other expenses leaves 22k, not “north of 50k”

Have you lined this up already? Do you have examples of places paying London salaries to remote employees?

Why do you think "co-location" is bad? its proven to be the best way to work.

Folks doing bootcamps often are doing it on a shoestring budget. They can't scrape together significant deposits and proof of income needed to rent a more legit place.

> "Hackathons are technological Woodstock"

This sentence embodies what repulses me about current Silicon Valley culture: The self-satisfied claim to San Francisco 60's heritage, only, you know, with peace and love being replaced by greed and egotism.

I don't think so; it seems more of a San Francisco thing. If nothing else, it's more shared "house"ing than "apartment"ing.

The hours are long down here though too. But IMHO the companies are more interesting.

They have them in Seattle as well. They come up when looking for a place or Airbnb.

...I don't think so? Or at least, it's totally alien to me as someone who's spent ~6 years in SF tech.

1,200 $/mo is more than enough to get a room to yourself in the nice neighborhoods; admittedly, you'll need to put in the time on craigslist to find sublets, "interview" with potential roommates, etc. I can see if you're desperate to find a place in a hurry, an airBnB like this might make sense for a month, but more than that seems insane.

Getting scammed by false promises of equity riches is definitely a thing that happens to people, but it's far from the norm. Again, take a job like that if you need something right away, but spend your time hunting for something better, because the vast majority of programming jobs in SF are nothing like this.

There is no way this is common. I don't know anyone who knows anyone who lives in this situation.

It is not unusual.

Just to be clear, typically you will never own a home and you will be lucky to have an apartment to yourself. And you will likely be unemployable after 35 or 40 so you better get that mortgage quick and it better not be 30 years.

This site obviously has a survivor bias toward success stories. But of the 7 software people I know who are still in the bay area, only 1 still has work. The others live of the considerable income from renting their packed homes. In places like Alameda, Richmond, Oakland and Concord even. So the ratio of packed renters to home homeowners is obviously much higher than 1:1

And I think we can safely assume the housing cost to wage ratio will be even higher next.

From multiple recent cursory craigslist searches, it seems you can find a bedroom of your own in a shared apartment/house for $1200, but you would share a bathroom.

For around $2000, you would share an apartment, but have your own bedroom and your own bathroom.

For $3000 to $4000, you can have your own space and bathroom, but that would unlikely be more than 500sqft.

All seem to want a security deposit equivalent to one month's rent.

Agree on first, disagree on second. There’s a lot of reasons to work a well paying corporate job.

But here-here on the first point: never take stock at startups, kids. It’s never gonna work out well. Wanna work at a startup? Make one.