alt Hacker NewsI kind of envy people who need to clean up after others. At least you're puzzling.
My current job is genuinely just boring. It's tasks that are so simple, a junior could do it. But no, instead they needed a medior. I'm not saying I'm better than this, nor that no medior will pick it up. I just cannot push myself to care about the code this company makes. It's old, dusty and it serves no one of importance. These customers use it because they once bought the tool and do not care enough to switch, because the tool in question is not interesting.
I was promised work soon that aligned more with my experience, but I do not foresee these customers to come to a stale company like this.
It's not surprising that this company is losing customers, employees, etc. But I have a mortgage to pay. Today I had the conversation about how they might not extend my contract, basically threatening me to take more ownership, do more work, for the same pay. Sadly I have to make it last until I find a new position that is actually interesting. I don't even need a lot of money, I could give a rat's ass about "growing". I just need enough to survive.
This might be a very unrelated comment, in which I apologize. I just do not have another vent to post this to.
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> basically threatening me to take more ownership, do more work, for the same pay
I am a bit curious here. Does that simply mean to should to extra hours and do bullshit duties or is there actually more coding work opportunities? Or do they expect that you should prove more valuable out of nowhere?
I don't want to downplay your experience. In the latter cases, I wonder if you can actually do something.
At first I thought "medior" was a strange typo for "senior", but on seeing it twice I had to check - apparently it's used in some parts of Europe to mean "mid-level"
> I just cannot push myself to care about the code this company makes.
I can very much relate.
Garbage products, by garbage companies, feeding on the laziness and tastelessness of most, as it's being capitalized by marketers.
And now, to make the matter worse - it's all being 100x by the LLMinazation of the entire field. Making code unmaintainable. And worse, making us all dumber.
I really wish we never have stumbled upon it.
I love this kind of comment. It's so human. Good luck, friend.
For a boring codebase how is your company not trying to throw tokens at it? Not saying its the right choice but definitely the trend I am seeing.
You are not alone. I was in this exact same position at MSFT and I put in my resignation. I am an L63 but the work I was doing, was something an L60-L61 could do and I frequently felt I was in one of those Bullshit jobs (courtesy of David Graeber). I was paid handsomely but once the sign on stock ran out, I saw that I was staying in the job just for security. I felt like one of those Hooli engineers who were sunbathing at the Hooli office terrace waiting for their stocks to vest. I am only 9 years into my career and I didn’t see that as the optimal thing for my career rn.
I didn’t have any major financial obligations like you though, so it was a much simpler decision for me.
Hang in there buddy and also thanks for the deeply human comment.