Sorry for the burner account.
I have to figure out what to do with my life right now. I really enjoy programming, and honestly, of any kind. Haven't really found a kind of developing I dislike yet. I have been doing stuff for around 4-5 years by now, so I have confidence that I'm a good programmer, with the huge caveats that I've never finished any presentable project and I've never done anything with a team, I've only done solo stuff.
It seems like the logical thing to pick for a job. However, I've heard experiences of people with programming jobs and CS degrees that they're absolute hell to be in. Super long work days, absurd deadlines, crunch, and that doing a CS degree means you have absolutely zero time for anything else in your life.
Having a life like that really scares me. I'm not really a strong, disciplined person. I know I can't handle living like that. I'm scared I'll just realize I want to quit and end up having wasted years of money and work on a degree I don't want to use for anything - and that's even assuming CS college isn't that awful.
My biggest dream is doing indie game development, and it has always been that since I was a little kid, but I know that's not a safe prospect for a reliable living wage. At the same time, abandoning that dream completely would make me feel awful. So I NEED to have time to work on my own stuff.
I wouldn't go to a CS degree purely for more job opportunities, I'm sure there's a lot of things I'd be able to learn in one that I need. I just don't want to end up living just to work. I'm really only going off on rumours and experiences of other people I know though - and I don't have much of a chance of visiting a campus or talking to professors. Because of life reasons it'd have to be abroad and I'd have to do at least the first year online.
So... yeah. I'd appreciate hearing some experiences in CS degrees and in programming jobs. Is it really that bad time-wise? Is it something enjoyable?
These shitty teams exist, but they're not the norm.
They are the norm in certain sexy industries like game development. It's pretty easy to pick something unsexy like waste hauling logistics (which is secretly even more fun than game dev - but don't tell anyone, or everyone will want to do it.)
Ask "what does your typical workday look like?" and "what are your typical daily start and end times?" during the job interview. Only shithead bosses will be bothered by the question.
Many bosses will take every hour they can get until their staff tell them 'no'.
So learn to say "I have plans I can't cancel."
A perfectly good reason to be unable to cancel a weekend plan is "I don't want to cancel my weekend plan."
Beware that your desire to do weekend hobby coding will probably die out for a few years and then come back. That's pretty normal. In my opinion, it's worth it.
Source: I've been coding professionally for decades, and I hire top developer talent. The talent I hire make and keep weekend plans. Sometimes they very politely tell me where I can stick my request for more of their time or focus.
I'd counter this a little bit with "it depends on the industry." The overwhelming majority of games studios are going to operate in the way he's worried. So will most of fin-tech.
The average software job, I agree, though. Work/life balance has become a big buzzword in the industry, and it's still a decent market for new devs, though def on a downturn atm.
Great point! I agree on both of those.