The main reason I'll stick to development as a career for the rest of my life is the freedom.

I can have a 3 hour long lunch with my girlfriend, I can write code at 2am, and usually I can leave for short holidays with just a few days notice.

That freedom is saving the little bits of social life I have.

r/hmmmmmmmmmmmm

“The job doesn't need to exist in the same location that I exist in”
— @Bitwise

That's the perfect summary 😎

...unless you work for a very large technology company like Google, Facebook, Amazon, or the like. Then you're expected to be bodily at your desk in the office thirteen hours a day, six days a week.

@bahua At Microsoft that was still kind of true when I worked there, but I've recently been at both Oracle and Google (two of the seven layers of hell) and their current offers included reasonable amounts of self-management. At high profile companies the pressure to perform is indeed very intense though, so it's only suitable for people who gravitate towards chronic workaholism.

But they do allow you to work yourself to death from home, if you want.

It’s not only FAANG who give flexibility and freedom. Many smaller companies give high levels of flexibility these days.

However I have problems with the words “freedom”.

As free as you might think you are, if you really on a monthly income then you are not free. Most of will never be truly free.

@SSDD We enjoy so much freedom, it's almost sickening. We're free to choose which hand our sex-monitoring chip is implanted in. And if we don't want to pay our taxes, why, we're free to spend a weekend with the Pain Monster! — President Nixon.

freedom? social life? wait..you also have a girlfriend? in the dev world? seriously where is this job?

@bondman

Well, I'm still socially awkward as fuck, so my social life mostly consists of a single friend who insists on taking me on random mountain climbing trips, my somewhat alcoholic family in law, and my girlfriend.

She's a bit weird as well, woke me up last night to ask me "what do you think the ratio of open to closed doors is in the world?" — thanks, now I can't sleep anymore.

There are plenty of dev companies offering flexible work times / places, especially startups. I did sacrifice some income for it compared to my previous (more rigid) jobs, but it's worth it.

Actually, this is what I really love about our field. (Although I have a dev background I'm in the creative field). I love not being restricted by hours spent in the office, instead I can work from anywhere, I can also take a lot of vacation as long as the work is done.

I'm not sure if the 21 holidays rule still applies in other places, but in this field, I have already been able to take 70+ days off since the start of this year..

@bittersweet now you have me wondering about the ratio of open to close doors