Why Do Software Engineers Work So Little?

Have you ever noticed how little FAANG engineers work? Some of them have even admitted to working as little as 4 hours per week on a regular basis. But despite their lack luster input, they’re often paid $200,000 to $300,000 if not more. In fact, such employees are so common amongst tech that there’s actually a name for them: rest and vesters. But, why do managers and especially profit-hungry companies allow for such companies amongst their workforce? Well, for starters, both the engineer and the tech company have really friendly economics with high-profit margins and boatloads of revenue. So, they would rather focus on growing the company than trying to increase efficiency. Moreover, much of a software engineer’s job is based on results as opposed to work input, and many engineers are simply able to fulfill their duties with far fewer hours. But, most importantly, companies would rather just hire smart people and pay them not ensure that they don’t go to another company. This video explains the top reasons why FAANG engineers are able to get away with such few working hours.
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[@DavidHelloWorld]

Software engineering is a knowledge job, and a lot of the value in each engineer is not how many hours they spend coding, but the knowledge they have around products and processes. It takes a new engineer about 1 year to become proficient at knowing and developing for a specific project. If you lose an engineer who’s holding it all together, it could be a long time before someone fills that engineer’s role. Or worse, that project may suffer from that point on. But if you’re able to keep an engineer who knows how to keep things chugging along smoothly, everything just works. Who cares if that engineer isn’t coding straight from 9-5. The question is, do they have a quick solution for the serious problem that arises every few weeks. Because without that person and their knowledge, it might take other engineers weeks or months to solve the same problem.

[@RichardBaran]

Exsactly

[@itzhexen0]

Tell us what you have engineered that didn't already exist.

[@brodriguez11000]

Institutional knowledge.

[@abcnikhiltripathi]

It's indeed true.

[@orkhepaj]

thats bs

[@AoCabo]

As a project lead, if all your deliverables are on time, I don't care how you spend your time or how many hours you work. If there's no project available or if there's schedule gaps, that's not your fault. I expect the same when I work on other people's projects. No need to feel guilty if all is good and on time. This is the way work should be everywhere, not just tech, but we have some real micromanaging a-holes in the working world

[@themartinandersson]

Sounds like you are one of them A-holes. But maybe that's just me reading too much into your "I, me God, expect on time deliverables" verbiage. As a tech lead, I encourage the devs to take their time, keep a good spirit, learn every day, enjoy life, and deliver a robust solution when it is finished. Whenever the f**k that is. And my team's work never needs to roll back. But you take anyone of them cowboy programmers who says he's done after just one or two days and he's more often than not still sitting with the same task one month or two month later because in reality only 5% of the requirements were delivered, in a poor crappy undocumented state. Finally people just give up and scrap the task, getting tired of his shit code crashing the production every day. But at least he was on time, right? 😂

[@stevenkothenbeutel448]

No it isn’t your fault. It is management’s fault. It appears this is changing as management is finally realizing that glut isn’t helping the bottom line

[@Cyril29a]

Capitalism is voluntary for all involved. Companies are happy to pay for results, they don't care how the results happen

[@Lemmy4555]

This is something that happens only when the demand for the workforce is much bigger than the offer, the point is that good software engineer are a rarety and if your company has 1 good eng every 5 others, they are already in the top 60% and consider that just 1 of those can output as much as 3/4 avarage engineer while working less hours and being paid just 2/3 times more than the others, this is how expectations gets surpassed by the results. This is not replicable in other jobs that requires less skills and are just more generally available to anyone.

[@unfortunatewitnessX]

And here I was thinking I should have gotten a job in these types of companies just to expand my skills and make ends meet.

[@noviloba]

A software engineer's work is not just coding. We also do a lot of thinking and planning to be able to solve complex problems. So basically we may be working even when we look like we are asleep 😅. You can't say that an engineer only worked for 4 hours because that's how long there were typing on the keyboard...

[@shinqqing5161]

This tbh. Sometimes in your bed in the middle of the night or sitting in the toilet and you start thinking how to approach certain problems more efficiently

[@archmad]

well thats the thing, sprint points/hrs is skewed towards engineers.

[@smoothbraindetainer]

Goes for most fields of engineering. Thinking about it hourly doesn't make sense

[@RandomShowerThoughts]

Honestly, so much thought needs to be into different decisions

[@arizvisa]

exactly.

[@uwu_senpai]

When I was working in software I was definitely the 10X kind. My colleagues would spend hours in calls doing co-devellopements on the easy jira tickets whereas I would take all the hard ones that were actually the quickest to do because they were mostly the kind where you had to do algorithm and think. Because they were worth so much points I usually looked like the most busy person in my team and my manager was always like "Take example on him and try to make his workload lighter" while I was working full remote playing MMOs during my work hours. My colleagues would often call me to help them with their tickets, I would unstuck them in like half an hour and tell them I was busy and had to hop in another meeting now that they were able to continue by themselves. And I would be back playing MMOs. Anyone in my team would swear I was working my ass off if you asked them. Eventually I grew tired of that lifestyle and did restarted my studies doing a master in physics and now a PhD. My salary is shit but at least I am not bored as fuck playing games all day.

[@dunglvht]

Lol, I am a physicist and I wish I could enjoy being rich for once... But at least I can enjoy life while being poor.

[@uwu_senpai]

@@dunglvht I live in France so even my software engineering job didn't pay that much. I was having a good salary compared to the average but definitely not anything like GAFAM salaries in the US.

[@randomizer495]

How old are you now?🤣🤣

[@dunglvht]

@@uwu_senpai I am having my summee internship at Cern right now. And can say that France is a wonderful country, and prices here are much cheaper than Switzerland. I am from Vietnam, and I am doing my master in theoretical physics. I have not made any money (aside from this fortunate internship, there is not much chance of making money ), which sucks 😅

[@uwu_senpai]

@@randomizer495 I am 26 now.

[@BenjaminEmm]

Another point is the plumber analogy. You don't pay a plumber for the amount of time he takes to fix an issue, you pay him for the years of knowledge an experience to get your issue solved *quickly*. FAANG SWE's are very much like this. You pay them to hang around and do nothing because they bring value, and don't want them working at a competitor. Then, when a project does come along, you have the best of the best ready and waiting to solve it faster than anyone else in the industry, and with fewer people. SWE are very much like the rockstars of the white collar world, they get a good ride because they bring immense value. The code they write in one week, might bring value for 5 years. So the 10K you paid them for that week of work ends up bringing 100K every year - you don't care if it only took them 24 hours to code up and then they played ping pong for the rest of the week - it works and brings value, and that's business.

[@SirBrainChild]

Here you state what I am trying to say more concisely.

[@KoosWerkloos]

1960 is calling they whant you back lol, did you try lately to get a plumber.... this money burning doesnt make any sense at all. im not using any social media only YT with adblock so. keep burning those dollars i love it. and im even more on rumble lately.

[@imlg6560]

What are you even saying? @kooswerkloos

[@thehollyduckie9002]

you’re not a plumber

[@DrDiabolical000]

​@@KoosWerklooswho do u think wrote rumble?

[@r0b0coffee]

Let's be honest, these people aren't freeloaders, they're working as hard as the executive management. Don't deny it.

[@matrixace_8903]

For real, What is exactly wrong with this? They want their employees to work without getting burned out. Why are we criticizing companies that treat their employees well? There are plenty of companies that uses slaves, do unpaid overtime, zero workplace safety, dumping dangerous chemicals. Why don't we focus on that? Are the media trying to diverge from such issues?

[@akin242002]

For non-FAANG (now non-MAANG) companies, they do work very hard. Not true for most at these big tech companies past the tech interview. It's so bad, it's a meme on Reddit. 80% of them literally work 4 legit hours a day. I say this as someone married to one of these "Rest & Invest" engineers. Unfortunately, I work for a boomer tech company. No lazy perks for me 😥.

[@lachlanB323]

They become freeloaders though. They become entitled.

[@simonchristian160]

@@akin242002 get gud

[@Stealth86651]

It's also an incredibly volatile industry where most people are either burnt out, or discarded in only a few years. I much prefer making slightly less without having to sacrifice my best years buried in meaningless work only to end up incredibly behind and out of date in a handful of years. It's also only few hours of work if you don't consider learning entire new systems every few days/weeks and keeping up with every change in every service you use as work, which it is. There's a reason certain jobs pay high, and it's not because they're easy, or it's a fun job where you feel like you contribute to society.

[@akin242002]

Sounds like mid-tech, not big-tech. Mid-tech gets pushed to an eye twitch develops.

[@kevlems]

I am a Microsoft software eng and I work my ass off every day😢. Hopefully, I will transition to Vester soon, haha.

[@LogicallyAnswered]

One day :)

[@henryzx900ruly2]

One day bro

[@RichardBaran]

You're working your ass of, for what? More profit for Google? Lol

[@donbernie9346]

how many yoe?

[@akin242002]

Would you consider Microsoft a boomer tech company? I've heard horror stories about Microsoft in the 2000s.

[@WisdomWave25]

Fantastic video! As a software engineer who hates his meaningless job in a multinational, contemplating a shift to a startup or smaller company is a difficult choice. On one hand, the opportunity to make a significant impact and contribute meaningfully is alluring, but it may also mean working longer hours and receiving comparatively lower compensation. Thought-provoking content!"

[@jordixboy]

why would you give 100% to a soulles machine? they wont blink an eye to fire you... They wont even reward you, only way to get a noticeable reward is switching jobs...

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Thanks man! If you’re interested, we’re actually building a fintech startup and are gearing up for launch within the next couple months. Toss me an email at [e-mail] if you’re interested in potentially joining the team :)

[@abc_noob]

​@@LogicallyAnsweredhey man I wrote you an email hoping to get an internship (unpaid or paid both works) at your company if you find it worthwhile do let me know! It'll help me out a lot!!

[@yungifez]

​@@LogicallyAnsweredwhat tech stack

[@lord_of_love_and_thunder]

If you are not feeling challenged at your job, you should discuss it with your manager.

[@BenjaminCronce]

I don't work for "big tech", but I am a software engineer. And there's a lot more to a "10x engineer" than being "fast". It's about total value. Which includes making others more efficient through useful and proactive communications, improved tooling, and improved process. There's also identifying when there's a better way to do something, recognizing when something is no longer needed, and making lots of small decisions that add up to overall reduced effort. In my experience, the number one way a 10x engineer can be be more productive is by creating systems that have low support overhead and don't need major reworks every time some issue is found. I've had so many situations where it took hours of meetings and investigation to only result in less than 10 lines of code being changed. But that change resulted in a reduction of dozens of man-hours of support every day. Not because of a "flaw", but because there was a better way. And that's the point. There is a 10x difference between mediocre and "good". A 10x employee almost always produces good. While a normal employee produces "technically works" mvp and only makes something good after there's enough complaints to prioritize over other work.

[@chaya973]

You're not paying him for how long it takes him to get the job done but the years it took him to learn to get good enough to get the job done quickly.

[@chunkyMunky329]

Being a top tier programmer is not about working quickly. Its about delivering CODE that runs quickly, securely, scalably etc etc. Or finding ways to make the code deliver better business results. For example, if you work at Netflix they would rather you took ten times longer if at the end of that time you could make the system 1% better at predicting films that will satisfy the customer and leads to more profits.

[@engageintellect]

I thinks it’s both. Some weeks I work 60-80 hours. Some weeks it’s 6-8 hours. It all depends what my deliverables are. Sometimes it’s just making sure an app stays up and running, other times it’s working with customers, and sometimes it’s a balls to the wall fire drill.

[@Salle79]

As a software DevOps engineer of 20 years I've met maybe two or three developers in total that worked 50% or less, and it always felt like it was due to some working condition in the industry they were working in. Growth did not seem to be a factor which surprised me.

[@maple1650]

How did you get into it? Any tips? I'm stuck in helpdesk rn with 4 years experience. With just an a+ lol

[@ordinaryhuman5645]

For me, it began as the corporate overlord slowed down even further, with more red tape and time between releases. I used to actually work for most of the day, but when covid started and everything went remote, everything slowed down. And some of that was intentional, with more approval processes set up before work could begin, and more strict approval processes around getting things into production. With the extra red tape, there's just less for me to do on a given day. It got to the point where I was pretending to work more than I was actually working, and eventually I dropped down to working part time because pretending to work is not pleasant.

[@altrag]

I'd be willing to bet you'd met a lot more, but it just wasn't obvious that they weren't working 100% :D. Though a lot of it depends on what you consider "working". A lot of managers and outsiders think you're "working" in really only two scenarios: Fingers actively typing on keys, or sitting in a meeting they themselves called and demanded your participation in. The developer on the other hand considers themselves to be "working" in three scenarios: Fingers actively typing, participating in meetings that are explicitly related to the task they're working on right this minute (not "any random meeting that gets called by the manager"), or when they're _thinking_ about the problem. That last one is an obvious disconnect. Good managers (especially those who at one time were also good developers) understand that code does not magically appear and that typing without thinking does about as well for the computer as speaking without thinking does in social gatherings. But there's a lot of not-good managers out there who think programming is little different from a factory line where you mindlessly screw on nuts one after the other for 12 hours straight as the conveyor goes by and any minute you aren't actively moving your hands is a minute wasted. The meeting one is a constant struggle though, on both sides. Managers tend to _love_ meetings. Developers tend to hate them - or at least developers hate meetings they see as pointless (which is most of them, in my experience). So you often end up in a situation where developers either don't pay attention in the meeting at all (if you're lucky they're doing their work on the side but certainly not always) or they just refuse to show up at all. Leaving developers stuck between feeling like their work is suffer if they participate, while also worrying that they'll get flagged as "not a team player" if they don't. There's really no way to win on this one, aside from team hopping until you find a manager that doesn't insist on so many meetings.

[@ayo__ayo]

​@@maple1650Do you code at all? Usually people I know who are doing helpdesk tend to not want to code, but that would likely be your first step.

[@Alexander_choi]

This is definitely something that varies from job to job. My friends who work as engineers at Amazon may work less than 20 hours a week, but my friends who work as engineers at SK Hynix or Qualcomm work 40 hours a week, sometimes more. Like any job, this varies significantly from company-company

[@henryzx900ruly2]

being a software engineer is basically playing a AFK farming game. You come back in every 8 hours to do some tasks then do nothing for the next 20

[@LogicallyAnswered]

😂

[@someguycalledcerberus9805]

Everyone is obsessed with finding a good investment to get passive income. Well, being in IT has been the the most passive income I've ever had!

[@soulmata]

Principal SRE here. Mostly worked at startups. None of us could get away with that. Our teams are so small that could never happen. Your own teammates would ostracize you at a minimum. If I found out my tech lead was working 4 hours a week I would lose my shit on him.

[@captainkidd22]

Yup, I worked at a start up at the start of my career and the hours were insane, eventually got sick of working 10-12 hours a day and moved to a massive company, I maybe do 15-20 hours of work a week now 😅

[@LogicallyAnswered]

That makes sense. At a startup, each engineer fulfills a critical role :)

[@makarambles]

The idea of being a 10X worker interests me as a software engineer, because that's exactly what I do, just not to that level just yet. Take 40 hours to finish and deploy a task that it actually took me 10-15 hours to do, and apply those extra hours elsewhere. I learned the skills to do it in college, double majoring in CS and Japanese. Now, I clean, do laundry, take care of my sick cat, do grocery shopping, all within my normal work day. I have interests and hobbies outside of work because while I get a check every other week it isn't fulfulling whatsoever to me. I don't have that silicon valley lifestyle, still live with my parents and help them with their bills so we don't lose our home after we lost our family restaurant due to covid. Drive my trusty 2004 Saturn and skip meals just to save a few bucks because eating dairy free is expensive. Don't mistake lack of hours working directly as a lazy/uncaring attitude, because I'm the first one to drop everything to fix a production issue on a Saturday morning, or to monitor month end processing well into the night. (This may come off as aggressive because I'm not in the best mood today, but I want to let you know that I overall enjoy your videos and content! I just thought I'd give my feelings on the matter given my position.)

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Not aggressive at all bro, glad you were able to find something that works for you and your company :)

[@jordixboy]

its not just fang it all. TechLead made a mention about this - it also has todo to keep your employees and their knowledge at your company with golden cuffs instead of them going to competition

[@victorugo3875]

That's basically what he said in the last portion of the video.

[@gamesandlofimucic]

as a software engineer myself, i can say that this is really true, sometimes, in a day, i only work 4 hours, sometimes even less than that, i have tasks that i can finish within an hour or two and after that i don't have any task anymore, so i am free to do anything i want, and that's on top of a 6 digit monthly salary (i live in ASIA so that salary is not in $ but still way above the salary average of my country).

[@gamesandlofimucic]

@@ghost_mall we always have a rule in the company that if you're stuck on something for over 30mins, you have to reach out for help, and there are 75 programmers in my company, and more than a dozen senior programmers, and no one has ever ask me for help or anything coz they better ask those who are better than me which are the senior developers, also, there's hardly no backlog since there's hardly no task, sometimes we were told that if we're done, we are free to do whatever we want esp. on days where project schedules are not so tight, sometimes we get the chance to be off early if we perform better in that week, that's just how things work in this industry, besides, is it my fault if i were able to finish my task early?

[@shellymeia]

I want to know something and to ask for opinion from a SE, I need your Opinion really bad ….. so I wanted to be a SE I will take that course when I’m college, now I’m High School student and know nothing even a single thing about computer. Im about to take the STEM track, but I also think choosing IT track to study in Senior High School is good too if I will pursue SE in collaboration. Should I take STEM or IT? but I think choosing Stem will give me opportunities like scholarships for my college for my less expenses. Will I be able to learn and have great skill in programming or coding? Im afraid I can’t and my college will be useless

[@gamesandlofimucic]

@@shellymeia start with STEM so that you'll have an idea after you graduate and go to college and take up IT

[@ZephrymWOW]

As a software engineer at Microsoft it is the same way. About 15-30 minutes of work per day MAX. There are sprints that I finish in under 5 hours. Then get paid for the rest of the two weeks to play video games.

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Living the life hahaha :)

[@bwofficial1776]

The trick is pretending to be busy and drawing our your work so you don't get more heaped on you.

[@train_xc]

I second that

[@akin242002]

Same at Splunk.

[@netizentersesat8003]

​@@bwofficial1776can you do it remotly?

[@ichangemynameregularly]

I think this video is a bit biased towards really few people, like some 1000 engineers in the whole industry. This does not seem like a complete true reality

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Yeah, it’s definitely focused a portion of the Silicon Valley/VC backed startup people.

[@doublesushi5990]

@@LogicallyAnswered idk where you're from but u def are hip to culture and whatnot.

[@captainkidd22]

​@@doublesushi5990I don't know where you're from if you think people still say "hip to culture" in 2023

[@likeyou3317]

U'd be surprised how prevalent it is :)

[@maybeits1K]

Really cool to see your channel improving on each video! From typography templates in the past! You can see more effort! More power! 😊

[@zee4265]

This is why a lot of them were able to work multiple jobs during the pandemic

[@ryanw1902]

Im a software developer and a lot of the time it may seem like I’m not working. Like if I’m out for a walk or just sitting outside with my dog. But I am consistently thinking about the issue I am working on and possible solutions.

[@DevanConrad]

Some of this depends on the team or the seasonal load of quarters. Some teams are expected to grind other teams are waiting for work. Sometimes the job asking nothing of you for awhile wants you to jump into overtime when work finally gets assigned. Sometimes the hammer doesn't come down as managers will wait a quarter or more to punish underperformance with evidence to avoid lawsuit potential. Sometimes teams are carried by H1B visa holders fearful of getting depored. Sometimes 1 overachiever is covering for the underachievers. This is not just FAANG but most fortune 500+ imo

[@Bradikan]

SWE is knowledge based and certain jobs require much more brain power. Smart work gets the bread while hard work doesnt. Idk why people are mad you can condense and gets a days work done in 4 or 5 hours. Most software engineers average 90k to 120k depending on location, most dont even reach 200k

[@chudchadanstud]

Yh he's definitely the one percent. The burnout rates for SEs are insane and we usually do the job of multiple software engineers.

[@yungifez]

As someone who is a 1 man team in a company I envy and dont envy them If i had this time, I'd invest it into open siurce work. I will build a lot of open source projects and start a sort of consultancy if im not forced to sign an

[@chudchadanstud]

This. The company essentially steals my ideas. I stopped building frameworks and templates at work. It makes it difficult to shift jobs. I work on it on my spare time at home, publish it as open source and fix bugs/test it at work.

[@yungifez]

@@chudchadanstud my company is too bummed about me leaving Im going to school in canada Im still 19

[@AMAli-ct5df]

​@@yungifezgood luck

[@oloidhexasphericon5349]

You should rename this video to FAANG. At regular companies we have 100 hour weeks trying to keep up with deadlines!! I don't even know how bad it is at startups barely surviving

[@mecanuktutorials6476]

I work at a F500 that is also big tech but not one of the FAANG companies. And concur, the deadlines and demands are through the roof. At startups, there is high velocity and low standards but at large companies there are difficult environment setups followed by excessive rituals, peer pressure, meetings/attendance, layers to testing, and a million other things keeping you busy. There’s no such concept as “get your work done” without going through tons of hurdles in the company’s internal processes. My teammates are extreme in code reviews and don’t hesitate to be more pedantic than the worst Redditor. Things take weeks to merge but team leads have an obsession with making sure someone is always working on something because the delivery is on them. All that is to say. Software development isn’t a “programming” job where you get clear instructions and just churn out code. It’s a hectic nightmare where you’re juggling millions of things all the time. Almost as though you’re working on a startup even when your employer isn’t a startup.

[@colbr6733]

Very interesting, all true in my experience. To me this also shows how bigger companies have numerous disadvantages. Actually getting stuff done becomes a challenge as most people slot into ticking over mode where inertia, corporate orthodoxy and bureaucracy have set in. There is actually too little understanding of how your own team members create value and having a genuine means of measuring that.

[@RichardBaran]

Every job should be this way. Most jobs are robbing the hell out of people.

[@matrixace_8903]

For real, What is exactly wrong with this? They want their employees to work without getting burned out. Why are we criticizing companies that treat their employees well? There are plenty of companies that uses slaves, do unpaid overtime, zero workplace safety, dumping dangerous chemicals. Why don't we focus on that? Are the media trying to diverge from such issues?

[@danielvasquez3758]

Great video as always brother!! Thanks!!

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Thanks for watching as always brother!

[@walid6329]

it's easy no one is doing it because they love coding, they are doing it for the money I work in IT and I mostly miss lunches and working overtime without noticing since I absolutely love what I do

[@exapsy]

Okay, before watching the video I noticed your description. I dont know about FAANG, but FAANG is just a tiny portion of it. We're not all in "FAANG" (Facebook Amazon Apple Netflix Google) (edit: Although, I work on a Silicon Valley company anyways dedicated to renewable energy monetization, setup and telemetry for big and small companies) Secondly, there are some times I don't work at all because ... simply there are no tickets. But that doesn't mean that "I DONT WORK". I may be doing my setup, which is part of my work. I may be doing some relaxing from burnouts, which is part of work. I may be doing some refactorings on the code, which is part of work. Or I may be doing many meetings this month/days. Thirdly, there are some hell-days. Like now. I basically work over-time because .... I WANT TO. Nobody pays me for that overtime. I just want to finish this ticket my way because I want to be right and I will be the one maintaining it. And having managers 1-2 months from now giving me new tickets for the same project and it taking me more time because I didn't do properly tests or proper flexibility or structure on my project will burn me out big time later. So, I simply account the days "I didn't work" where I was just sitting, to these hell days where I work ... BIG overtime. Like, I sleep at 12 working all day overtime. Software Engineering is a unique job that requires both a lot of focus, a lot of engineering, a lot of passion, and dedication to get the job done properly. And if you have all these, you never "Work so little". You always work "just right". Some hell days, some relaxing days, some normal days.

[@vladislavkaras491]

Really great explanation! Thanks for the video!

[@2ru2pacFan]

Shall I tell you what's worse than working 4 hours per week and earning 341K per annum? A footballer who sometimes sits on the bench and comes on the pitch for 15 mins then leaves and earns 341K per week! Let that sink in...

[@reinoob]

I get paid 150k a year and my company gets paid more than that per month with my work, so i believe it's fine for me to be productive for just 1 hour per day while still delivering what's expected.

[@colbr6733]

If you are only productive for one hour a day and look to justify that. In my own experience that's a sign that I'm not enjoying what I'm doing. Life is too short go find something that you are really passionate about.

[@reinoob]

@@colbr6733 I'm 1 hour productive inside the company, my dude. I have personal projects and a life to enjoy.

[@RomvnlyPlays]

​@@reinoob bro is trying to gaslight you into leaving your comfy job 🤣

[@reinoob]

@@RomvnlyPlays lmao how am i even supposed to feel bad about earning 15k per month and working 1 hour?

[@RomvnlyPlays]

@@reinoob I have no idea, they're trying to do mind games

[@ssumit196]

Nice video with great explanation, I can agree to most. But still I would like to say that It has taken 4 years of rigorous computer science study, another 5 years of hard work (learning precious SKILLS) to get me where I am. Programming is hard, maintaining a software system is not a piece of cake. So you do need to pay good money to get things work in this field. Programming is not like medicine, Law where people need to work physically all through the day. A senior tech lead can sit at home or his desk all day, doing nothing on his computer, but still get things done.

[@adamschneider868]

Sometimes I am very productive and sometimes I am not. I 100% just call my boss and say "I'm not coming in" No questions asked. I am a knowledge worker, if I can't think effectively then I am worthless.

[@tj78492]

Its more that you work in bursts kinda like a firefighter. You can get away with that as long as when it's crunch time you get the job done.

[@bartech101]

It can be explained with one simple fact. At the end those engineers create way more value than they are paid. We talking about 10-100x. So until this is true working hours doesn't matter.

[@0ptic0p22]

once a code is coded, its coded

[@SethTraplifeGLO999]

Really regret partying and shi as a kid instead of focusing on learning skills like this

[@joefer5360]

Don't. This industry is going to be shipped off to the South East Asians and Indians in the near future. The costs are too high and upper management is going to cut salaries. LOGISTICS and INDUSTRIAL management and contracts under stressful conditions is where all of the money is going to be in the next few decades. Enjoy the fact you reviled and didn't end up with a drug addiction. Praying you at least saved some money. That's an amazing start over the tech graduate clowns deep in debt thinking Biden will bail them out.

[@joefer5360]

@@mammamiapizzeria4911 Google search terms such as "Logistics, supply chain management, where does XYZ commodity come from?", what is a durable good, a perishable good, a manufacturer good?" That's how I self-educated myself. Me personally I'm trying to specialize on the tail end of the supply chain - where the consumer tosses an item for donation. Western culture has created a MASSIVE surplus of near new items for pennies on the dollar. If you find a local market to move your merchandise you are officially in the game, whether the merch is new from the manufacturer or carefullied picked from a high income area's Goodwill Outlet. It's a big industry. It's like saying getting into computer science in the year 1999. Thanks in part to the Information Age the merchant can spread their wares a lot farther now. And this is just a decade recent. Remember the Internet was still somewhat slow in the early 2000s. It's a fcking Lambo now when it comes to spreading information which is half the job in the logistics industry. The world will always need the merchant and his wagon.

[@captainkidd22]

​@@joefer5360what a clown, Software Engineering is going nowhere any time soon, but by all means continue spreading your conspiracies while I collect my $200k salary every year lol

[@napalm5]

💯

[@Zed_Oud]

3:50 that sounds like an excellent mindset to be doing research and other demanding mental work under /s

[@izimsi]

never heard of 10x, but I've met some. 2-3x engineers, guys working 2-3 jobs full time while doing only 10 hours per day at max, usually 8 hours or less. I wish I could do the same, but I'm pretty burned out while doing only one job, even if it usually takes less than 8 hours per day.

[@henrytang2203]

It's about the value you derive rather than the time you work.

[@hotwings9382]

Ive always been a computer guy, but worked in mining as a heavy duty mechanic, went back to school fully online back in 2020 and quit my job. I am getting distincitions at my university, its so easy for me i have time to charge other students to write their assignments. I am graduating this year and looking for an internship in programming, i enjoy managing web servers and coding in php.

[@herp_derpingson]

You need to get off that PHP man. Its a bad habit.

[@nosam1998]

As a Software Engineer in FAANG with years of experience this is honestly crazy to watch. I knew people didn’t like our salaries but jeez! Honestly, I couldn’t disagree more with the video and majority of comments. The problem is the public image of what software engineers do is very inaccurate. We don’t blindly write code for 8 hours per day LOL. From reading the comments it seems like people think hours worked are equal to output/productivity. That’s not true. In fact, hours worked are exponential. An engineer isn’t paid based on how many lines of code they contribute, they’re paid for the knowledge and experience they bring. Ever wonder why more senior engineers don’t write as much code as juniors? Because of their experience and knowledge. They make a bigger impact by NOT writing code. I know people who are in FAANG (including co-workers) who sleep in the office and are working on the weekends. The sad thing is, even if a FAANG engineer posted a more realistic “day in the life” video I bet the glorified “free lunch and dinner and I’m headed home at 4pm hehe” video will still get more views because how could such as lazy person make that much money?! It’s appealing to people’s emotions and jealousy. I’m not trying to justify salaries because that’s something nobody will understand until they’ve lived it. Honestly, if it’s so easy and you think you can do it, I invite you to try. I worked my *** off to get to where I am just like everyone else did. I’m not gonna sit here and judge other peoples jobs because they’re making more/less than me. I actually appreciate the people in all lines of work and understand that everyone has a part to do and I won’t judge others without knowing firsthand what it’s like. I go to a mechanic for work on my car because they are experienced and I pay them for that. One more point, the big salaries you hear about aren’t actually that big. Couple that with the cost of living in those cities and you don’t have much left. I could make a whole video on this explaining it with hard facts/numbers but sadly it likely wouldn’t matter. People love their clickbait and emotionally driven content. Hence the phrase “if it’s too good to be true then it probably is”. TLDR: Emotionally driven content gets views “If it’s too good to be true then it probably is”.

[@bobSeigar]

If someone was to start coding right now, what language/database would be recommended?

[@DrDiabolical000]

He won't recommend you anything. His most sane idea might be to become a social media hater or a bigot like him. I am projecting here. I genuinely hope I am wrong.

[@davidb4020]

I've never worked in a place where people worked 4 hours a week. I'm working 30h a week (for familial reasons) and I'm the one working the 'least' of my team.

[@miname.1802]

tech career is so much to learn every year new tech stacks. updating them with new technologies unlike other jobs ....mental pressure, sitting long hours in a day......few people got lucky but most don't....if you are not update yourself, you are out on the game in next few years

[@lucaskp16]

talk for yourself i work for a real state company and I work around 8 hours a week to maintain an ancient data base from home.

[@doublesushi5990]

@@ghost_mall well that's good for you. JavaScript devs cannot relate and ML/DL nerds can't relate either. I never tried C# devving.. maybe I'll look into it.

[@arpanbag001]

At Amazn, most software engineers work for full 8 hours everyday. Idk which FAANG you are talking about, but most other FAANG companies aren't really that much different.

[@nosam1998]

Yep. The sad part is people don’t care about the real FAANG. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows. I work in FAANG and I know firsthand what it’s like, but people love emotionally charged content. The person who wrote this content likely did their research by watching “day in the life” videos on KZbin. I don’t even mean that as an insult. Honestly, if someone who never worked as a software engineer watched those “day in the life at FAANG” videos then they would come to the same conclusion.

[@herp_derpingson]

The only advice I can give is to find and learn rare knowledge. I dont mean some obscure programming language. Something that is in demand but very few want to learn e.g. devops. In one of the projects, after an initial push where I worked my ass off to get the software to a useable state then things got relaxed. I could finish all my work by just working 2 hours a day. Sometimes more but as long as things were done on time my manager was happy.

[@VibronicCow]

I’m a dev and work around 20/25 hours a week, not a 19x dev, but let’s just say targeted focus and gets results. Do you think every developer should aim for faang just based on remuneration potential?

[@rahulisgreat4911]

Thank you for this

[@pumirya]

Thanks for the video.

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Thanks for watching bro!

[@ipinhathaway]

at 3:23 i thought it's my idm extension but wondering why it appear at the middle of the video but it turned out it's not mine.

[@zcnaipowered7407]

They spent years learning about tech so they're paid for smarts 🧠

[@rakshitsingh2503]

i think this is extremely misleading. We actually mostly work on open source projects of Linux and kubernets like tech. for which faang pays us. because there servers and other important things run on them. and they fund our phd projects in the form of salaries.

[@michaeldobachesky915]

I work hard, all other software engineers I know work hard. I'm offended by this video and its discriminatory nature.

[@cloverlief]

This leaves out that many of these engineers are not simply workers/coders. They are idea engines, work to change things, drive design, process, and shipping. The main incentive are the RSUs, earnings based bonuses, options, etc. The better your projects do the more you make. You become a brand rather than a worker. These are deligated to the workers in general. However when push comes to shove they are able to roll up the sleeves and dig in when issues occur. The rest of the time is observing, learning and trying things, which keeps them up to date. This has been my observation at least

[@meganuke9091]

The truth is those who are actually vital to society maintance and stability is paid less than those who aren't.

[@JamesMcCloskey]

Software is pretty vital, for modern automation, trading, shipping, and even farming...

[@joefer5360]

@@JamesMcCloskey Most of it is shovel ware now and the software that actually helps out is robust as it is. Why do you think upper management is trying to offshore this industry to India and other South-East Asian countries? It's just fluff at this point to extract more money from the silly consumer and use S.Engis as a means to write off payroll expenses to the taxpayer. Don't forget the inflated salaries allowing the inflating of the housing market causing the merchants and the laborers to gtfo due to "gentrification" jacking their property taxes and commercial leases up through the roof. Software research development consulting companies make for great write off pass through companies that never make a single penny in profit. Even better if you can get an armada of fools to invest in your software company due to going public.

[@matrixace_8903]

@@joefer5360 "Why do you think upper management is trying to offshore this industry to India and other South-East Asian countries?" They tried that, didn't work well. Time difference, misunderstanding, bugs, and other issue riddled the program.

[@joefer5360]

@@matrixace_8903 And you really believe they just shelved that idea forever? The 300k difference with one engineer can be used to create infrastructure within the nations of one potential engineer. It's worth the gamble of reducing the kinks of the original execution. Tech Engineers of America will have to start contracting out their work to compete with an ever growing pool of foreigners who are hungry for those tech jobs and will take a 20 to 60 percent pay cut relative to the "normal" market salary. As long as that salary is 100k after the cut. This even considers the foreigners who get to study and job search while living within the borders of The United States America.

[@ryoukwjdbwopqmqpzl73819]

People don't say the usa is a heaven for techies for nothing

[@tauicsicsics]

The video is great, as always. But why is the code writing itself at 6:08? I wonder who made those silly videos with coding writing itself and everyone being happy at the office.😂

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Stock footage 😂

[@balpreetsingh6834]

Hari just revealed his gameplan.

[@LogicallyAnswered]

😂 nah

[@osobad1127]

It’s no how many hours you work, it’s what you can do in those hours.

[@10xSWE-ej5iw]

You also need to understand why they get paid so much. I am a SWE at one of the FAANG companies. The FAANG companies have huge scale and software although can be expensive to develop and optimize, unlike physical products can be produced once and used practically any number of times for almost free cost (fractions of pennies per customer request). Over a recent period of a couple of years, some of the efficiency and optimization work on just one of my many projects that I delivered saves the company over "multiple tens of millions of dollars" *every year* on an ongoing basis in perpetuity or at least until the product becomes obsolete, gets redone, gets replaced, or gets discontinued, which is unlikely to happen for a decade or more. So it would only make business sense to keep such Engineers.

[@brauliogarcia1836]

an eye-opener video!

[@alexmipego]

I think there's something you missed in this. Most people are choosing to do this… because there's no point doing more. If a guy working 4 hrs last week actually did 80 hours… his pay would remain the same. A promotion means more pay, sure, however it also means more responsibility and time… but that won't really progress your life either. Point here is that maybe the problem isn't the 4 hr/week guy… maybe it's the 80 hr/week guy that's the actual problem.

[@badbad_]

So I've been working for one of those companies (not FAANG but you probably use our OS) for almost a decade, it's my first job, I wish I knew what the heck this video and all comments were talking about (on hours worked and payment). It's just not my reality, it's very rare to have this kind of situation for more than a month (or a couple sprints), and since my projects usually need me for 6-12 months, I constantly need to learn a whole new skill tree in my free time to be able to perform. If anyone have some kind of job recommendations let me know

[@bdjeosjfjdskskkdjdnfbdj]

this was shockingly accurate is op a fang eng? good and msft are literally known as places to rest and vest

[@omararizona]

I just want to know how you able to connect the dots tell an incredible story ? Did you read about this or did you talk to someone?

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Honestly just a lot of practice making videos :)

[@stacklysm]

The lowest it will get in my country is 40 hours/week for about $800/mo. Then you throw in another 10 hours for extra shifts and being mandated to stay after working hours because of due dates and issues)

[@willg3220]

Sounds incredible

[@sforsheriff]

Most times you have to realize that these high paying jobs, no matter are flimsy or time compensated they are, they get paid based of how much that industry makes. So kids If you also want to work in a high paying job go into industries that generate a lot of money.

[@MrMajani]

Industries which generate a lot of money efficiently. This is mostly tech and pharma. In these industries a small team invents a product with relatively cheap inputs then sells it all across the world

[@joefer5360]

Logistics. What does a coding dork buy after all is said and done? Find that and charge them 10x. Lol, they can afford it right?

[@joefer5360]

@@MrMajani Effectiveness over efficiency. Efficiency creates Mal-investment and reduces humanity down to a set of numbers.

[@sforsheriff]

@@MrMajani exactly, that’s why they pay their core employees well to justify their massive profits. I mean look at what they pay athletes? Now compare it to what they pay Soldiers? They are both physical jobs, one is way more crucial and highly risky, why does the one that’s has the lower cruciality and lower risk earn light years from the other? The profit they make doesn’t compare. I get there’s a military industrial complex but we have to remember the military doesn’t make profits it’s runs on taxpayers money. Same can be said for researchers, teachers and government employees; they run on donations, grants and tax. My Advice is don’t spend money on useless degrees in college if you want to make money with your jobs.

[@nosam1998]

@@joefer5360judgement much? Plus, have you even looked at the cost of living and the cost of a house within a 30 minute commute time in those tech areas? I’m sure you’ll mention remote work. To that I’d say it’s a whole different beast and companies are changing their approach to remote work pay as well or doing RTO.

[@hellowill]

Well it's a knowledge based job. It doesn't take long to write some code, what takes long is understanding the problem properly and coming up with an appropriate solution. Once you have the solution writing the code (should be) easy for an experienced engineer. We're constantly thinking about these problems/solutions in the back of our head, even when we're sleeping. Staying at the computer constantly would hinder this! Sometimes the best solutions come to my head when I'm in the shower or out for a walk. It's not like a grocery store employee or warehouse worker that needs to be constantly doing something to remain productive. Also engineers need to see a lot of different problems (i.e. experience), that's why SWEs are often rewarded for moving companies, unlike other careers.

[@xijnin]

Here in brazil, we don't use the "." to separate the normal numbers and the decimal numbers, we use the "," to separate, so i was like: "wow, i really don't want be it" lol

[@conradgillard]

Interesting video, but there are no sources given to support how widespread this is, just a couple of anecdotes. I think the video should state at the outset that it is just speculation.

[@kh_trendy]

My best performing employees definitely don't work long hours.

[@RichardBaran]

Exsactly. Studies actually show this as a fact. A 8 hour, 5 day a week job makes people less productive.

[@train_xc]

My best employee work 2-3 days a day. I know that. But I also know whenever there’s a dirty job to be done, he’ll be there. And he’s the fastest to solve any prod issue. So I’m happy

[@davidyolchuyev2905]

It is the same for me as a data scientist. It is because of the output that we are able to generate. Also I need to rest my brain so I can function. It’s common for us to take naps in the middle of working.

[@aipackstudio]

Some parts are similar to the housing market, where rich people buy houses and keep the houses without utilizing them. Similarly, in this case, rich companies buy smart people just to retain them without fully utilizing their potential. The impact is that poor people are not getting homes, and developing startups are not getting the best talent.

[@nikhilkanojia1683]

Software engineer joins a company gets trained for few months, gets little work for next few months, when the actual work comes, they switch😂

[@nullcarry6893]

Writing good documentation is just as hard as the job itself. 🤷‍♂️

[@Jonteponte71]

That's why almost no-one does it. Even fewer do it well. Most "ninja coders" or "10x developers" do not touch documentation with a ten feet pole. Why would they? That would a) Slow them down b) Make it more likely that others understand their code, making themselves expendable.

[@lazar2949]

@@Jonteponte71 Can confirm, in many companies i worked i had a practice of not documenting large parts of code or documenting it as vaguely as possible to satisfy the management(who dont understand it anyway most of the times) so whenever there is something happening related to it, im almost the only one who can do anything quickly and therefore im putting myself in a advantageous position where i can fight for better pay. Its not good that this is happening, but people are just finding ways to survive in pretty competitive environments where bosses are usually dumb assholes and love to micromanage staff and have wrong way of determining on who deserves better pay and who doesnt. I had a colleague of mine, he was pretty straightforward, he always finished his job as he should and on time, always did more than most people, but management didnt see that value and his work because he is not showing it off or playing any games like i did, they rejected his payrise requests several time because he just "didnt do enough to deserve it", but i can guarantee you that he did lol. Basically, being honest and playing by the rules sucks, most of the times your work goes unnoticed.

[@train_xc]

@@Jonteponte71 in my company I fired people who don’t want to write code documents. I don’t want to write them manuals but at least doc strings.

[@train_xc]

@@lazar2949 I am a programmer myself, so I pretty much get the idea when a developer becomes selfish and want to increase his dependencies. I know there’ll always be dependencies, but some people tries to be cleaver , Like writing a variable as textarea_for_reply, they’ll just write ta_reply, and don’t document it anywhere

[@holdendewit7088]

​@@train_xcannotations and single line docs at the least should be used. Doc blocks and naming structures to me should be expected if there no formal requirements for proper documentation, but also like, part of software engineering is external documentation. Where is the UML, where's the class diagrams, sequence diagrams, etc. Why do companies let lazy senior engineers get away with making themselves essential just so they can pull those 4 hours weeks and demand higher pay but expect fresh grads to pull 60 hour weeks and perfect documentation and high results with a new code base for a fraction of the salary. It's such idiocy

[@philipmurphy2]

Always great to have a wonderful wage, Especially the boss.

[@LogicallyAnswered]

😂

[@stainlesssteellemming3885]

First, you need to define "work". For a truly good software engineer, it's not about how much time you are actively coding, and coding is a small part of being a good software engineer. I'm in my 5th decade "writing code". You have two approaches: produce lots of merge requests, taking 4 or 5 attempts to get the job done; or spend a few days thinking about the problem (seemingly not working), then nail it on your first and last (often small) merge request. So you are trading many days of basically unproductive thrashing for some careful planning and a precise surgical strike. The first approach is also much more likely to introduce bugs (tech debt) which come back to drag the entire team down later. As for "spinning their wheels" doing unimportant stuff like documentation? ROFLMAO. Really good docs are often worth more than the code itself, and actually much harder to write. Next, note what you said about people packages being "mostly stock". In a startup, you may need to work through 10 or more jobs before you get one where those stock options are actually worth something. I work with plenty of people still holding stocks from their early jobs and praying they are one day worth something. Equity only really works in a company which is already public and, sure, that's the FAANG companies, but even there it's easy to get to the end of an ESPP period and find your predicted windfall has dissipated because - say - some dictator has invaded a foreign country that week. Even in a non-equity job, 20% of the total is often in annual bonuses - and those are NEVER guaranteed. I 've had years where I got a stellar rating but the company didn't do well overall: up to a 20% pay cut that year. So you can't (or shouldn't) leverage them in applying for credit - you have to be sure you can live on the base. Kind of like hourly-paid workers who come to rely on picking up 10-20 hours of overtime at time-and-a-half each week .. until suddenly there's no overtime.

[@nezukovlogs1122]

Hours worked concept dosent work in "Sofware jobs" Domain. Its just responsiblity and result driven. Company dosent care how much time you took until you deliver perfect solution before time limit.

[@YannMetalhead]

Great video.

[@eternalharmony0]

Today, I literally had to quit my new software internship after 2 days. I was given no task to do and I had to beg them for tasks. They said there is nothing to do 😢😅

[@shashankpandey8298]

you also use IDM?

[@jeffGordon852]

If he works 4 hours a week and still keep his job, he's just super smart

[@dputra]

Meanwhile I'm working my ass off 120% every week with less than $1k/mo salary 😂 I really envy those who work in multinational companies especially FAANG, but I don't think I'm qualified to apply for that 5 let alone 6 figures salary 😢

[@t3st1221]

You might be surprised, if you work in the field you probably have little to lose to try to apply. If you are not qualified at all you would just waste the couple hours required to apply and never hear back from them, and if you might be qualified you would in the worst case lose a couple days training and interviewing (you would also gain valuable experience doing so). Unless you do something very unprofessional during interviews, it's not like they will only give you one shot and blacklist you for life if you try and fail, on the contrary if you reach the interviews stage but fail they will sometime keep you in their radar to help you to try again once you have acquired a bit more experience.

[@themartinandersson]

You have no idea how unqualified most engineers are. They truly don't really know what they are doing. I look at senseless, almost childishly stupid code every day, wondering if this is some kind of a joke and there's a hidden camera somewhere. Once I had a coworker that needed help because he said he couldn't get his code to compile. I go over there and I'm like, dude, you have to put the code you're writing inside a method 😂 Yes, yes you are qualified!

[@dputra]

Thanks for the kind words. I'm actually considering to apply to some big companies here when my current contract nearly finished next year. It's my first job as a dev, without a degree, and still learning so much stuffs! 🙂

[@tenhra]

I feel you man, I'm currently carrying a whole scrum team for just above minimum wage... They promise salary increases eventually, but nowhere near 6 figures... so idk if I should jump the ship and try to apply for one of these FAANG companies... The issue is that I really dislike interviewing... T_T

[@dputra]

@@tenhra Good luck with your future endeavors! 👍👍👍

[@nightking8490]

So it all boils down to rather have them on my side than on my emerging rivals'.

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Big part of it :)

[@GoogleHelpYou]

Sounds like an ideal life for me. I prefer spending the remaining half of my day living my life rather than sitting in the office working

[@SportsIncorporated]

I once ran into a programmer that could just type as fast as he could, and the code would work without fail. I could see him working 4 hours a day. Or working multiple jobs ('overemployed'). He was definitely the 'alpha' programmer at this company. My worry is going overseas where the foreign government specifies that the company be 51% owned by locals. The company could be DOA ("Dead on Arrival").

[@rishabh5610]

This is the situation everywhere, not just FAANG and I don't think its a problem as this occurs due to the nature of job, roles and responsibilities. Trying to think payment of engineers in terms of per hour payment is flawed.

[@bkraft]

Exactly. Software engineers are paid to be on standby - like a firefighter. I remember this when I started in my software engineering job... In 2000, after the big Y2K push, there was nothing for me to do. I wasn't assigned any work, and I went to my boss and said, I have nothing to do - please give me something. He told me he didn't have anything and that I'm paid to be on standby waiting to put out any fires that might pop up. And that's what I did - for an entire year. Eventually we got more work and now I have so much that I'm busy most of the day now. It ebbs and flows.

[@Deriv44]

Wow, I should 😢 have studied coding in college

[@coliv2]

The big problem with these jobs is that you simply don't have much freedom to do the things that you know how to do. You are asked to write some code to solve a very specific issue that they want to fix. But you're not allowed to change or even improve all the things that are already there. So you're very much constrained in what you can do, and the bigger the company the more constrained you are. The so-called 10x engineers are really people who spend a lot of time trying to sell their vision to managers in order to convince them that this is the correct way. And while this kind of activity looks interesting in a Hollywood movie, in fact it is very stressful and boring for most engineers. So, most people will soon figure out that it is really difficult to make changes and resign themselves to do the small things that managers want.

[@fbiofusa3986]

It’s not that we’re lazy, it’s that we do out work, and then we wait

[@gziKmdDFrg]

For years I've been wondering why software suck more and more year after year, now I know why

[@jimbojimbo6873]

Its not a process job, you pay for a result and knowledge. They create stuff, don’t process it.

[@nathanlieu6840]

Tbh, any white collar job. You can work not 8 hours day. Like you said ur paid based on ur knowledge vs blue collar it's more time you put it.