The life of an engineer is a life if sacrifice and 7 days a week work for five days pay. Often you never have a partner so you're the most highly taxed people in the country especially in California. While you often work triple time you're rarely if ever paid for overtime it's taken for granted that you're not ever compensated for 3/4 of the hours you work. Nothing can happen without you but sales people get a piece if the business they get normal business hours and can have a life and a family don't learn to code learn to sell this is terrific advice. At least you get commission and not worthless options in exchange for living off half the sleep a normal worker gets and continuous change and upheaval so you never get to have a life outside of work. Also continual layoffs and churn and then extra taxation when you are unemployed all told the life of an engineer is like the life of the slaves who row the cars on the Viking ship lol.
Your situation sounds shitty. It shouldn't be that way; I hope you're able to find time to step back over the holidays. A company shouldn't treat you like that, perhaps another one would be better.
Sales is no picnic though. I know it looks like a bunch of high-fiving frat boys talking sports metaphors and rarely coming to work, but the reality is very, very tough. Different challenges to engineering, for sure, but very real challenges and in some ways more acute.
In sales you're directly responsible for the money the company brings in. You have a number over your head. You are _gone_ the second you miss it. If you don't make your number, other people can lose their jobs too.
There are no breaks, no rest, no pause for enjoying the satisfaction in a job well done. If you think sales people don't work evenings and weekends you are out of your mind - when else do you get time to write proposals and draft contracts? When do you travel? You can't take a client, who you might not even like, for dinner during the 9-5 day.
You are on call all the time; the second an on-site engineer says something stupid to a client you are called, you have to deal with it, smooth it over, fix the damage to the relationship.
And turning the master build red doesn't even come close to a fraction of a hint of the stress that comes when you're close to losing a vital client and you've got the owners of the company breathing down your neck. Relationships aren't like code: once broken, you can't git reset and try again. And it takes so little to torpedo a major client.
> when else do you get time to write proposals and draft contracts?
Depending on the industry, sales people aren't the ones to do these tasks. There's other people that do this for them (nor should they, most of the time, based on stories I've heard from my girlfriend, who is a proposal manager. She constantly has to fix and unbreak and un-ugly whatever they do send her).
In fact for the companies she works it sounds like sales people live pretty cushy lives. Although the commissions the salespeople get for winning a single client's business can be as much as half a million dollars (and their bosses would treat them like ambassadors with diplomatic immunity that could do pretty much whatever the hell they wanted as long as they got a win every once in awhile. Meanwhile she had a large role in winning the business as well but only got a slightly better than a writer's salary for it.
In smaller companies I don't doubt sales people might have to handle proposals and contracts, but it's not really their core competency.
It's kind of like an engineer that also does graphic design. They exist, but it's not really something most engineers should be doing.
I agree it's industry by industry. Your girlfriend's experience is at another end of the scale from mine. Every enterprise software company I've ever worked at, sales has both written and presented proposals. There's very deep subject matter expertise required to do so and I can't think of any occasion when sales didn't own that entire aspect of work. These were 50-1,000 employee firms selling complex . More established companies had standardized contracts and larger legal teams so less for sales to do; smaller ones were more bespoke and in those cases sales was heavily involved.
(One particularly memorable job had me finding clients, pitching ideas, writing proposals, negotiating and closing the deal, drafting and negotiating contracts, and then managing the actual project itself for $1m+ fixed price bespoke software consulting engagements. I'd have sold organs to have someone like your girlfriend on the team.)
I'm fortunate to have done both engineering and sales in my career. I'd like to say it's given me sympathy for both sides; mostly I've always just wished I was doing the other role at any given time :)
It sounds like you live in California? If you're a decent software engineer in any major city in California, you are one of the luckiest people who has ever lived. You have your choice of employers paying you six figures to sit at a desk and push buttons 40 hours per week.
If you're overworked and underpaid to the point that what I just said sounds crazy, it sounds like you need a new job, immediately. There are better options out there, don't settle if you're miserable.
Some of the other points you mentioned sound like you might want to speak to a professional therapist. There's no shame in that (I've done it before and will again) and it can really help you work through some issues.
Despite my rebuttal to the GP stating single people in California are the most taxed in the country, Californians do have a downright oppressive tax structure for upper-middle class high income individuals. Couple that with high cost of living and federal taxes and it's hard to have the same quality of life in San Jose that you can have in Atlanta or Columbus or Minneapolis on half the income or less (and you'll make much more than half!).
Not to discount the benefits of living in Silicon Valley. If you love the atmosphere and everything then it's probably the right place, and that's worth a certain amount of money. But just looking at the numbers in a spreadsheet it's objectively better to live in a small-to-medium sized city (or even rural area if you can find the work!) if you're looking at take-home pay, savings rate, retirement savings, etc unless you're in a very well-compensated role in one of a few very select corporations.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of high taxes, and I completely agree on upper middle class levels of taxation. The percentage level that a coastal professional making $300k pays is ridiculous, especially in comparison with what some billionaire in Texas is paying. And it's about to get even worse. But I digress.
I lived in SF and NYC and eventually found my way to Nashville, partly for low taxes. However, I'll be moving back to NYC, because despite the ridiculous levels of taxation, I just can't help myself and I'm fortunate to be able to afford it. I'm always looking for ways to manage my tax burden though.
Why don't you leave then? There are jobs everywhere.
Even in the smallest town in middle on nowhere (say Montana) you can find a job. It might not be a perfect fit for your skills, but you can find one. There are thousands of small towns scattered across the US with some little company that makes something obscure but essential to society. Example: you probably never think about sewage pumps (not the treatment plant, just the pumps by the side of the road) - they are essential to society though and somebody needs to write the software that controls them. Why not you?
Of course moving implys a lot of changes. You can't go to a Broadway show (you live in California so you can't anyway - which is why I use this example), the community musical in the next town it pretty good though and the fact that they are not on the level of Broadway makes them fun in a different way. Or maybe you can find a different activity to fill your life with once you limit yourself to 9-5 plus the 15 minute walk each way to the other side of town to get home.
Of course there is nothing wrong with Montreal that the other poster mentioned. It is a nice city if you decide that a city life is for you. Of course it is in Canada which might be a negative for you, but you can still choose from any of several hundred cities scattered around the country. Nothing wrong with any of them either. All have specific advantages and disadvantages.
While most of what you say is true - that there really are jobs everywhere - Montana is actually tough. I really want to move to Montana and have seriously struggled finding something to fit my skills.
The alternative plan is to figure out a remote gig and then truly live wherever you want
This is truth. Common stock is worthless. Most engineers don't know how to say no. Often they are overworked and told to be grateful that they make 5-10x more than a low-skilled worker. They are often unattractive men, rarely popular in life, and told that they are privileged by the rest of society.
We are in an industry that is growing exponentially in value, yet pay seems to continue to grow linearly. Meanwhile extremely talented engineers often work for manipulative non-coding managers. I see it all the time.
The best part is though, you can do anything you want to once you figure out that you make the decisions in your life and get over your fear of failure. Stop asking for permission. You also have to be very strict about committing to anything. Make 'no' your default answer. You have the talent, you set the rules. Have a meeting you hate? Stop going. Don't like waking up in the morning? Stop doing it. Want to work from home but your company doesn't allow it? Do it anyway.
Additionally, my advice if you are single and feel this way - quit your job, live on savings, try to make products or otherwise hack your income in a way that serves you in 2-5 years and beyond. It's a simple maximization function that any engineer can figure out - and once you do you'll be shocked at how little any company pays.
Seinfeld didn't have to keep making tv shows. Software should be the same way. Follow your passions and create a hit. If you don't know what your passion is, spend a year or two discovering them. Life is only short if you never actually live it.
I've been/seen both sides of the coin. It's not quite that black and white in most of the organizations I've seen. Sales is pretty rough, it's a lot of slog through lead after lead. There's a fair bit of creative writing and targeting, generating social media buzz, networking at industry events and building product presence organically, as well as of course handling potential leads directly.
It can sometimes feel like you're chasing your tail and there can be many, many days or weeks even of drought where you've got little in actual sales to show for all your work. That's pretty demoralizing and whilst engineering can be similar (think failed or canned projects) the highs and lows of engineering don't even compare.
They're both very tough gigs and both involve long hours, but as some of the posters below are suggesting you might be in a poor job situation yourself. Engineering roles don't have to be like the life you're describing.
I don't know where you work, but here (Montreal) it is seen poorly to work outside of the 9 to 5 range. Even in California, there is no doubt you can find 9-5 jobs where you can chill in the weekends. Work/Life balance is important. Also, if you work for worthless options, nothing is stopping you from switching jobs/asking for a different comp
On the employer side: Pretty tight, hard to find talent.
On the employee side: It's good. Salary are OK considering the decent cost of living. The AI boom is helping bringing more options for smart and qualified people.
Feel free to email me if you have more questions, know some companies that are looking ;)
It sounds aweful but I'm talking advantage of the relatively awesome access to information we have today to slowly get myself into indie hacking and building my own products for a particular niche I have found. That means even more work but eventually that may pay off with real freedom. Know when you can launch your own product with so little overhead it behooves you to learn to sell even if it means no free time at all until you can launch that could lead to quite a lot more free time in the future.
Only if you let it. I can count on one hand the numbers of times I've worked on a weekend, and a small fraction of those were not worked into a flex/comp schedule. Maybe 2 in my entire life.
> Often you never have a partner so you're the most highly taxed people in the country especially in California
Most people get married, so "often" is just wrong. And my wife makes almost exactly what I make (has always been within 5% or so because she gets consistent raises and I job hop a lot). Our take-home went down after we got married. And California is #6[0] so there are 5 states with a total population of over 50 million people (2010 census)[1] with a higher average state+local tax burden. That's close to 1/6 of the country.
> While you often work triple time you're rarely if ever paid for overtime it's taken for granted that you're not ever compensated for 3/4 of the hours you work.
In what job are you "often" working 120 hours a week? Hyperbole aside, in what job (that isn't very well compensated) are you often working 70-80?
And software developers are by definition exempt from overtime. It's not some scam that we don't get paid OT. There are many, many, many software dev jobs that are 40.0 hours a week and not a minute more. There are many that aren't. It's a choice which one you have.
> extra taxation when you are unemployed
What is this referring to?
> the life of an engineer is like the life of the slaves who row the [oars] on the Viking ship
Not really.
In case it's not obvious I think the above post is a gross oversimplification and exaggeration of one person's extremely atypical shitty experience.
I hate this bullshit. What person ever has been helped by hearing someone tell them how it could be worse or about the "starving children in Africa"?
I'm assuming that your life is 100% awesome and rosy and you never experience any frustration or vent to anyone about your troubles, right? By your own standard, you really shouldn't, because literally billions have it worse than you.
EDIT: I also flagged you for the childish name-calling.
Boohoo, you're one of the most highly taxed people... aka you make a lot of money? You know how lucky we are to get to do what we love and get paid heaps for it?
Honestly there are plenty of software engineering jobs (in the Bay Area and out) that pay you six figures to work 9-5. Your experience isn't the norm. Go join a big company if you want comfortable. Then your equity will actually be worth something too, one less thing for you to complain about.
Nobody is "lucky" to be working long hours. No matter how much they love what they're doing.
An engineer making $150k working 60 hour weeks is making $5/hr less than an engineer earning $100k working 36 hour weeks. The latter is literally earning more _for their time_ working half as much for 2/3 the salary.
The hourly rate of an engineer earning $250k for 60 hour weeks is the same as an engineer earning $150k for 36 hour weeks.
The difference of 14 hours a week is 30 1/3 days/year. Some folks are willing to trade an extra month of their time per year from the prime years of their life for money, but not me. It should be a choice, not an expectation.
Maybe your perspective is different because you're a founder, but I get the feeling I wouldn't want to work for your company.
Yeah your math totally makes sense. I just disagree with the premise:
> The life of an engineer is a life if sacrifice and 7 days a week work for five days pay.
This just isn't true. Maybe at certain startups, but it's your choice to work there. As a (qualified) software engineer, you're blessed with thousands of options, many extremely comfortable. Flexible hours, free food, great pay, no dress code.
When so many people are struggling just to make ends meet, I have very, very little sympathy for someone in shams' situation. Just get a new job.
I'm not a founder but agree with a13n. Working long hours is not the norm for software development. I live in a city 99% of the people here have never heard of, working 40.0 hours a week (not 36, which seems like an odd number to pick), and I'd need to make $330k in San Francisco to have the same standard of living.
There are plenty of very well compensated 40-hour-a-week software development jobs available.
Usually the time you need to book is lower than the full 40 hour week, I have to book 37 even if I'm pulling 60 or 30.
I think you do have to acknowledge the point that engineers are sometimes thought of as commodities and the business often don't realize the effects of their requests on the engineering team. Management is always very quantitatively focused and its hard to justify a lot of the yak shaving that needs to be done . This leads to poorer quality code or engineers working extra hours so they don't end up swimming in shit every day.
Of course if you are in those situations, just leave, we're in high enough demand right now. Only in a recession should you worry about those qualms.
Any small city with computers, honestly. There are tens of thousands of senior developers, architects, programmer analysts etc that are making $100k or $125k or more in cities you've never heard of with a cost of living that is a small fraction of Silicon Valley. Yes, you're going to find a lot of .Net and Java work, but there's more cutting edge stuff as well (and plenty of the .Net and Java developers I know love talking about Vue or React or anything else tech).
But you need to be okay living in a city nobody's ever heard of, working for a company nobody's ever heard of, and not changing the world. But honestly 99.9% of the people working 80 hour weeks in VC funded start-ups writing the next big CRUD app aren't going to change the world either, and they're paying $3500/mo to rent a 1-bedroom while people in these small cities are paying $1k/mo for a 2-bedroom mortgage a 10 minute commute from their office.
