Am I the only one that cringes when I see software developer consistently ranked as one of the best jobs to have? Are other jobs that horrible that this is as good as it gets? I’m probably too cynical I suppose.

I feel like I was seduced by the fun of programming only to have the corporate enterprise suck my soul dry.

Believe me, other jobs are really suck.

@miladiashe yeah, I suppose you are right. Some days, I’ll tell ya though - I feel like all logic and reason are gone from the business world.

I had to think of this long and hard, but it does indeed seem like most other jobs are just plain and simple more horrible than software development. Though I personally actually enjoy my job.. tho I see what you mean by enterpise sucking your soul.

I worked most of my life in arts, culture and security, holding various different positions. While you might think there could be some real nice jobs there, and you would be absolutely right, software development is hands down much better imo.

Then get another god damn job, it's the same everywhere in every field!

Not happy: change employer

Still not happy: consider changing employer again.

STILL not happy: change career path

@100110111 yeah, I think that my biggest issue is dealing with the system admin type work which seems to take up 99% of my day. The only time left for coding is in the evenings, which is hard now that I’m starting a family. I’m in 4-6 hours of meetings almost every day and it’s just soul crushing.

@devdiddydog You’re right, and I may be exploring the different career path soon. I enjoy coding, but that’s become 5% of my job lately. Big enterprise is all about meetings and system upgrades.

@fiftyhz Ahhmm.. if you enjoy coding why not get a job where you actually do that for 95% of the time instead of 5%?

@devdiddydog solid point. I’m going to be speaking to a recruiter soon if my efforts with my management to get out of this system admin work don’t work out. I don’t know if others have this experience, but I’ve found that if you do well coding, management sees your ability to solve problems and then puts you on the “shit work” - stuff that HAS to get done to keep the lights on, but nobody wants to do.

@fiftyhz Fortunately, that's not always true. Yes, you can get some pretty shitty work (currently working on something in that category right now), but if you are skilled you will also get greenfield projects, tech lead roles, freedom to prototype and come up with innovative solutions to problems and so on. The crappy legacy piece of shit I am working on now is actually a hidden compliment of sorts - because it is crucial to get this to work so they gave it to someone that they trusted would be able to sort it out.

It's all about putting things into perspective. Next week I am back on greenfield projects again.