Help I don't want to be a programmer anymore

Then again, maybe not. I've gone through this with programming before and I usually swing back around to enjoying it.

It also helps that the pay is great for something that a lot of days I think I would do for free.

A computer science degree is the closest thing the tribe of programmers has to a professional certification. There are some organizations that have attempted to bring the tribe together but none have gained serious tracking. (asp-software.org, aitp.org, computer.org)

What's most interesting to me is that doctors and lawyers actually have legal protection. In most places it is illegal to perform medical services without a license or offer legal advice without a law degree. There is no equivalent protection for programmers. Imagine a world where an individual could be fined for writing a business app without being a certified developer. Suddenly the value of certified programmers would jump up quickly and those who couldn't meet the standards would be quickly drummed out of professional development.

The real problem is if one quits programming a bunch of new fresh minds will 'toil' the way you and I did. And the world moves on. It's all about the mind-set.

We work for dickheads and losers who can't ship. We need to build and ship for them. We are a defeated tribe.

As far as I've seen all industries suffer from this. You have a lot of people who if given control over their own work would make things a lot better. But good management is very hard and often the business need just isn't there. There's things to be done and experimentation is seen as a waste.

I also think we can be a bit dewey eyed about 'great' programming. But most of programming isn't great. It's nasty, it's boring, it's edge cases and testing over and over, dealing with formatting, slightly incompatible outputs, etc.

Much of programming boils down to simple looping and modifying data. Getting data out of some thing and putting it somewhere else slightly modified.

Programming's fun when we experiment, but a lot of the time experimentation's not the thing you need to be doing. It's boring repetitive but slightly different code, really ironing out the edge cases and a lot of attention to detail.

You see it in all startups, the product is built, something new, exciting then the product seems to crawl forward, tiny changes here and there even though they've got more programmers than they did before. I sometimes wonder what on earth all those programmers are actually doing at Microsoft or Google or Facebook as their products don't seem to change much. Because they're all just touching the details on the edges, the main picture's been painted.

People are slowly starting to realize that "oh crap, these guys can turn the switch off on my "thing" if they wanted to." So people are starting to wake up a little bit.

Okay, so maybe, despite a still ongoing shortage, it's not a good time to stand up and fight in the middle of a crisis, but before that, when people who could barely operate a keyboard got hired as programmers, very few did or said anything either. Except maybe quietly leave, only to find out things weren't much better elsewhere.

Also, I find that very few programmers (and HN is not particularly representative of this profession) are willing to take responsibility for the result. Because that's the price if you want to get rid of micromanagement, pick your own tools, work decent hours etc.: be 100% accountable for getting a result that ships and makes clients/users/investors happy.

If you want to take control of "this game", you have to take control of the entire product/service, not just the code.

You probably are one of those who are willing to do that, but the vast majority of those who also call themselves "programmers" aren't.

And all of that baggage too often outweighs the real joy I get from building things in the unlimited universe of the binary machine. I miss feeling like an inventor, like I've got infinite Lego blocks and a vast, empty dining room table (that Mom doesn't need for a couple days).

Instead, I get just the microjoys of building a new web page from scratch with nice messages and useful validation, or a really well-normalized set of tables, or gosh, if I'm lucky, a really reusable, self-documenting library which I've been allowed to write The Right Way.

I'd love to work at a Valve or a Github, where programmers work on whatever they want, but how many of those are there? And I'd love to work for myself, except for the overhead of busywork that goes along with it.

I have been thinking along these lines as well but I am unsure on what can be done.

The real problem here is that our profession contains many shy, socially-awkward types, and guys and girls that were bullied when they were school and haven't fully recovered. Many don't understand how status is conveyed or are in complete denial that it exists. If you are the only developer in the room that wishes to be treated with respect, to be autonomous and to (learn to) operate on many levels then it seems like you are really on your own in trying to get these things. Many will continue to eat from the hand that beats them, and won't take the necessary risk to get themselves a better position and to help each other even when one of their team mates decides to make a stand. (I read a lot of your articles and I have to say I have gone DFA before and I will do it again.)

What is really needed is some kind of professional association that fights for our rights. A forward-thinking organisation that has good principles and can't easily be co-opted. Perhaps also a way of accrediting organisations that have great working conditions and a culture of respect. Maybe the only two which hit the list are Valve and Github. But once every cool startup is run like this then larger corporations will have to compete on a cultural level for talent.

I would like for all of us to be able to apply ourselves on a strategic and creative level no matter what our role in a company is.

I wonder who decided that because we implement we should not be allowed to create, design, and think for ourselves? They don't have the right to take this from me, nor do they have the right to take it from you.

The other night I was speaking to a friend who has found herself in a sales position where she is allowed to pitch ideas to clients and see where she can take things. She was happy and felt like she had finally found real freedom. How many of us have been able to grow the network of contacts and future clients required to solve business problems?

We're being held back but we're also holding each other back.

And I now realise you can't solve tribe problems on an individual level.

There has to be a way that we can all work together on this.

Are others interested?

I've never had to endure any of those things because when they arose, I quit the job. And when they arose again in the next job, I quit employment, and contracted. And when (different) problems appeared with clients, I quit consulting forever and built a hugely revenue-positive product business where I am the reigning monarch and believe me, life is now very, very good.

Nobody can tell me what to do now except the govt and, outside taxes, they really don't give a crap.

If you want power, you have to make it for yourself -- build a business that generates money independent of clients or bosses. One to five big customers (bosses, clients) hold huge power over you -- a thousand small customers hold little power over you. You need to keep em happy, sure, but that's not so hard, because you get to pick your own customers, and you get to choose to keep them happy exactly how you want to. But if one of them's a jerk? Or five of them? Or 100? Tell them to fuck off.

The bottom line is that a person who wants to remain ignorant of the money-making side of business will never hold power. Employment is the opposite of freedom.

(PS — taking investment is just another kind of employment. A kind of debt, really, repaid with control instead of interest.)

a) It's increased my ability to communicate clearly in small and large groups. b) It's given me great context regarding where IT and programming stand in the overall business model c) I've met many professionals around the area in all industries

It's contributed very much to my personal and professional growth, and I haven't even finished yet.

But should you just go get it? Only if it's right for you. Know yourself first, and what you want to do with your life. If it fits in, then go for it and it'll be a great experience.

As a management consultant I was expected to grind out pointless "decks" (powerpoints) all day long. And all night long? Grind out RFP's for new business (which are usually more decks).

UX designers generally have a higher job satisfaction if they are with the right team. However, these jobs are difficult to get and easy to lose. Many of the UX designers I graduated with from HCI school are now looking into front-end dev, visual design and business strategy. Why? Because UX designers can easily become marginalized, and if all you can do is sketch and put together a few basic wireframes, you can quickly find yourself on the periphery of the team. You should see some of the bored/desperate emails I get from colleagues who either have 1) nothing to do or 2) don't get the respect they 'deserve'.