> Perhaps the Valley is so diseased, but it's not the only game in town.
Hear! Hear!
One of the things that bothers me a lot about HN is the near assumption that if you're a software engineer and not in SV (or have never been in an SE job in SV) - you don't count as much.
I'm biased, I will admit: I've never held a software engineering job in the Valley. That opportunity has never occurred, nor have I tried to pursue it. I live and work in Phoenix, Arizona; at my age and position in life, even if the opportunity did present itself, I'd have to think long and hard about it. It would likely be a situation of me leaving my family to go work there, as relocation would likely not be a realistic option unless the pay was over the top (I am not going to move back to an apartment; my next house better be at least as large as my current one, and include a larger yard and/or shop space before anything else).
Here, in my current position, I am not only the oldest developer on the entire team (and I am only a few years younger than the owner of the company), but I also am one of the few who doesn't have any children. My wife and I made the conscious choice not to have kids a long time ago, and we are constantly glad for it. In fact, she thanks me on a monthly basis for not "knocking her up".
Honestly, we'd probably make terrible parents, and we're pretty selfish as a couple. We know this, so why bring children into the mix, right?
That said - here in Phoenix (where it's actually difficult to find competent software engineers for any position), I've never seen or experienced there being an issue if you have kids; every employer I've worked for has been extremely flexible.
In fact, both at my current employer, and my previous one, they encouraged you to leave when your day was up. If the end of your day was at 5pm, they didn't want you stay a minute more if there wasn't a really good reason for it. Like things would have to be well and good on fire for that to happen; anything less was "go home, get some rest - it'll be here to fix tomorrow".
And now imagine you have 4 little kids like me and how that affects the equation! You want me to move out to Seattle, Amazon? Do you have any idea how much you'd have to pay me to have anything like the lifestyle we have in the Chicago suburbs?!
The attitude out west is "You want to earn enough to raise a family? You should have thought about that before you had kids".
It also seems to me that the people who have the most trouble with work/life balance in development jobs, at least out here, is that they are too afraid of saying "no".
> the people who have the most trouble with work/life balance in development jobs, at least out here, is that they are too afraid of saying "no"
absolutely true (at least in my case). I'd rather do that than end up on the other end, though. Without stronger protections for employees, I'll hold out for a stronger financial position on my own before I start negotiating hard about "work/life balance".
What I've noticed often with coworkers, and even myself at times, is that management often won't do anything to discourage your workaholic tendencies - but it was never actually an expectation in the first place - just a belief in the employee's head that it's what's required of them.
When I've been through such phases, once I realized that I could set reasonable expectations, it was never actually a big deal. Eventually I even started taking my vacation days, nervous that my job wouldn't be waiting for me when I got back, but that was really all in my head.
Hear! Hear!
One of the things that bothers me a lot about HN is the near assumption that if you're a software engineer and not in SV (or have never been in an SE job in SV) - you don't count as much.
I'm biased, I will admit: I've never held a software engineering job in the Valley. That opportunity has never occurred, nor have I tried to pursue it. I live and work in Phoenix, Arizona; at my age and position in life, even if the opportunity did present itself, I'd have to think long and hard about it. It would likely be a situation of me leaving my family to go work there, as relocation would likely not be a realistic option unless the pay was over the top (I am not going to move back to an apartment; my next house better be at least as large as my current one, and include a larger yard and/or shop space before anything else).
Here, in my current position, I am not only the oldest developer on the entire team (and I am only a few years younger than the owner of the company), but I also am one of the few who doesn't have any children. My wife and I made the conscious choice not to have kids a long time ago, and we are constantly glad for it. In fact, she thanks me on a monthly basis for not "knocking her up".
Honestly, we'd probably make terrible parents, and we're pretty selfish as a couple. We know this, so why bring children into the mix, right?
That said - here in Phoenix (where it's actually difficult to find competent software engineers for any position), I've never seen or experienced there being an issue if you have kids; every employer I've worked for has been extremely flexible.
In fact, both at my current employer, and my previous one, they encouraged you to leave when your day was up. If the end of your day was at 5pm, they didn't want you stay a minute more if there wasn't a really good reason for it. Like things would have to be well and good on fire for that to happen; anything less was "go home, get some rest - it'll be here to fix tomorrow".