Average 350k according to levels.fyi.

I was expecting higher for principal tbh

Just try being uneducated and working in a dead end factory job while having hated life all your life anyway!

Much fun! -46/10 would never recommend!

I wish I was forced into programming... I tried on my own and just don't have the mind for it, I find it incredibly boring. All my friends are in the field and all work from home wherever the hell they want to live. I'm stuck in a VHCOL area with shit income and 0 potential to increase it :(

Currently have 26 ducks and one goose on my farm so I get it.

You ever been around Microsoft management? It's an improvement.

Wtf does a goose farmer even produce

Peak performance. I love them.

Maybe if enough programmers become goose farmers they'll be able to reprogram geese.

Just know that complete self sufficiency is a pipe dream, whereas community sufficiency is much more achievable

The other pivot point is The Pragmatic Programmer, which is totally understandable.

That book does a good job of grounding the reader through examples and parables from everywhere else but IT. By the end, you realize that good software engineering makes the best of general problem-solving skills, rather than some magical skillset peculiar to computing. You wind up reaching a place where you can begin to solve nearly any problem through use of the same principles. So @codex here, perhaps effortlessly, went on to management instead.

Yes, those are the Game Engine Black Books (Doom|Wolfenstein) by Fabien Sanglard. Highly recommended for anyone interested in games, programming, and history. They are amazing time capsules of those games and the development environments that produced them. I think/hope he's working on GEBB: Quake and I'm so excited for him to eventually release it!

Judging by The Dawn of Everything sitting next to it, I'd guess that book is Debt: The First 5000 years by David Graeber!

I was in my first architecture review meeting this week.

The accuracy is infuriating and humbling.

If you give a shit about your work and the product you’re working on, then don’t work in a big company. In big companies, people are there for the money and maybe for a good looking entry on their resume, so they’ll only do what they’re being told to do, after all they’ll be elsewhere in 2 years tops.

If you have ideals and don’t just work for money, don’t work in the corporate world. Small to mid-size employers come with a lot less bs and more engaged co-workers.

And more cuddly.

Wait I thought you had 7 geese.

My grandfather is/was an electrician for over 60 years. Worked on very important projects in New York City. This rubbed off on me growing up. I spent much of my childhood taking things apart, figuring out how they worked, and putting them back together how I liked. I’ve been working on both hardware and software since I was 11. Had the privilege to study CS formally in high school, and Computer Engineering in university.

Good timing mostly got me into farming, especially since interest rates fell to the floor during the pandemic. Had enough to buy the acreage I wanted, and the wife was interested in helping out. We grow a variety of things now, and not just plants. For example we sell Honey, Soaps, Walnuts, and Mushrooms. It can be hard on the body to be so active all the time, but it is more satisfying than a monitor staring back at you at 3am because of some small incident.

I continue to tinker, and assist startups in my spare time, I can’t imagine I will ever stop programming.

Touch grass geese.

Yes and no. They are much cleaner than ducks and they can be exclusively fed on grass once they are feathered out. This makes them unbelievably awesome in addition to their guard dog ability. In the springtime you get giant goose eggs. Which is a big perk. Since we got our first two geese we have not lost a single chicken or duck to hawks. Which is why we got them. We were losing 1 to 3 a year just to hawks.

The downside is that like all birds they poop everywhere And their poops are more undigested grass than runny stuff. And in the spring when you get those giant eggs the geese can become extremely aggressive. This means separating them from the other birds to prevent injuries and it means learning how to wrestle geese in a safe manner. And it means always being on guard. You will not be safe on your own property.

But for me the benefits far exceed risks. They pay for themselves. They give giant eggs, they stop hawks, they mow the yard, they require no feed.

Oh no, the microbiology guy I’m talking about is beyond full time with his farm. He’s there 7 days a week when he’s not traveling to shows.

And that’s just taking care of the fish and growing them out, not breeding them. He imports from Japanese breeders.

As for breeding new babies and selling them, it’s certainly possible but there probably isn’t a ton of profit in it. Any time I’ve thought about it I’ve thought two things: I don’t want to deal with rando customers and I don’t want to turn my happy peaceful hobby into a job.

To avoid inbreeding issues you might want to start with a few more than that...