Programmers Are Under-Appreciated, Over-Worked and Manipulated

Sysadmins and system engineers/operation guys have it worse, at least in the software development companies were I worked up until now. Their role is not recognized at all up until data starts getting lost (and then people come crying and keep crying when you say that you don't have the data they want because they cut the budget and you just have the last 30 days), they are expected to be on call and fix or work around problems in 30 minutes (usually with no documentation at all), they have to implement "horizontally scalable cloud platforms" and mantain those with the software being completely unable to scale or relying on third party middleware that does not support even clustering (because developers did not want to admit those problems when the marketing pushed for that "implementation" so they could sell it). The list goes on and on. Ah, obviously those poor people can only dream some of the salary the programmers are making. They are just 'disk swappers', after all, as one of my old bosses said.

If the company you are working for is bad, and you feel like that, change it. Unfortunately there is no other choice.

>Despised by a good portion of end-users when systems change

Not really. Most of the changes I've made to apps started as a suggestion from end-users. The few changes that end-users gripe about are usually a result of government-compliance mandated changes.

>Predestined to failure. When we deliver a year-long project to production and it has a 99.9% success rate, we are scorned because there were a few minor problems.

Scorned by who? Your PM or your end-users? In my experience, most people politely email you with the problem description. Then, you identify the issue and solve the problem.

>Pushed to work on more projects, complete them faster, and more accurately. We are also expected to have high levels of availability and complete projects in minutes not hours or days.

This is an obvious over-exaggeration. But consider this: as you get better with any craft, you are expected to make fewer mistakes as well as perform the same task faster. You see this in sports all the time. Why would you pay a rookie athlete more money and promote them if they don't perform faster and more accurately? Why should programmers be treated any differently?

An additional note... It's not like you aren't being compensated for this. Senior-level programmers get paid much more because they can complete projects faster and more accurately.

>Under-Appreciated often using inferior equipment compared to our end-users that work in profit centers. We will be found working on a laptop, while our end-users are working on a powerful system, with more than one monitor, and comfortable offices. Developers often work with less than a cubicle.

Sounds like a company issue to me. Have you considered changing jobs?

>Necessitated to spend dozens of hours per week or more of their spare time learning new technologies to stay competitive.

Most companies will pay you to take training courses during your workday. However, you do raise a valid point. To stay competitive in the tech industry, we have to learn. But I don't think it's necessary to spend 14 hours a week to learn new things in tech. That's just me, though. Someone looking for a promotion or a different type of tech (dba's, for example) may need to learn more information faster to get where they want to be.