[wwwwwwwwww]

Profession: "Security" Engineer

[08:00] Wake up

[09:05] Arrive at work a little after 9 to fight the power

[09:15] Coffee. The daily pilgrimage to the Mr. Coffee is the highlight of my day.

[09:25] Go to meeting scheduled by demon. I don't need to be in the meeting and nod my head whenever they look at me.

[10:05] Check email to find a customer figured out my email and started emailing me on how to figure out their wifi password. This is their 5th time emailing me despite having forwarded them to customer support.

[10:45] Ask head of developer team if security issue XYZ is fixed yet. Dev team head says he doesn't think it's a real security issue and won't be dedicating resources to fixing it. Tells me to reopen the ticket as a "feature". Researcher plans on disclosing the security issue within the week.

[11:10] Check ticketing system to find 5 new emails from security researchers from India demanding bug bounty for a reflected XSS issue they found on one of our static promotional websites.

[11:15] Briefly consider a career change

[11:16] Remember how big dat paycheck is

[12:00] Lunch

[13:00] Meeting about long-standing architectural security issue that I want fixed. None of the PMs want to dedicate resources to fix it.

[14:00] CEO sends company wide email about how good our security is compared to our competition.

[15:00] By now I've read every reddit post on the first 20 pages.

[17:00] Go home while being too mentally exhausted to go out after work and make friends

Loving the wage slave life

[corobo]

> I don't need to be in the meeting and nod my head whenever they look at me.

Something I've noticed with a whole bunch of hindsight is that I used to say that a lot then I also used to complain nobody told me anything when I did get out of going to meetings.

Play the company's game or move to a different one. Switching up jobs is a great way to get out of a rut.

[Maven911]

not a security engineer, but working at a large financial company a lot of these points hit especially 11:15 & 11:16 and 17:00 :))))

[v3gas]

I don't get it - how can it matter that you make tons of money if you are not satisfied with your life? (legit question)

[fb03]

I can relate: In my experience, sometimes your work is light enough that you can still get home at 5pm and have hobbies, consulting gigs where you do what you really love to do (even though that does not give you much money) and et cetera.... and that would make you satisfied with your life, besides.

It's all a matter of balance, sometimes you work in a genuinely nice place but you have shitty working hours and/or wage, you can't properly study and update yourself, no energy to workout or take care of your body or do 'useless' stuff that keep you sane (any hobby will do, rc cars, music, woodworking)... so some people find (for example) a good paying and simple/undemanding job with great hours, so they get home and can still attend uni, workout, have proper hobbies etc.

Source: worked at a place where i felt accomplished and technically challenged all day long but I had no free time, was fat as fuck, had no time for the wife etc... am now at a much lighter dayjob, managed to find time to finish uni, lost weight, have hobbies etc...

[traviswingo]

It's easier to argue money doesn't matter when you're not making a sh*t ton. If you have a family to support and are making a crap ton of money it's more difficult to walk away from. But yeah, it's definitely not worth dying inside for.

[_ao789]

Completely agree with this point.

[TeMPOraL]

As one of my cow-orker says, "money doesn't give happiness, in the same way as cows don't give cheese".

It's easier to yearn for personal satisfaction when you have all your necessities (and those of your family) secured. Changing jobs to a less-paid one is difficult, because the gains can be quickly offset by the loss of financial stability, and let me tell you, if you don't have money for your (and your family's) basic needs, then you can be really unhappy.

[Maven911]

Some things to consider: -Options that aren't better (especially for non-developer role) or not entirely sure what area of tech you want to work for besides Google, Amazon but can't get in. -Work that you may like to do if you were in a better more supportive team. -It might not even be tons of money, but enough to pay bills and save a bit, and better paying then many other industries -Not ready to start all over again especially if you had a new job every 2 years (sometimes with the same company but still, the context switching is too much now) -Visa, not easy to move from company to company

But yes it does suck to question oneself all the time on whether to switch it up or not

[bodger250]

...This question seams strange to me - I did some contracting work for a while (not AMAZING rates but around the $110-$150/hr range ...working 12-14hr days) ...this translates to a nice $$$ pay day - but unless your really tied to material things - it doesn't really fulfill anything - ...I'm back to working a 9-5 ...and MUCH happier, if i was a single - douchebag type dev then... ya BIG $$$ money is important to them - they love to pose next to thier tesla or porsche ...

[rublev]

A life of constant hedonism isn't sustainable. Nothing wrong with sacrificing a few years to set yourself up for the next few decades.

[rattray]

Genuinely curious: why not implement the fixes you mentioned yourself? Would that count as "stepping on toes" and anger dev teams?

[wwwwwwwwww]

The dev team is very territorial about their code. They're virtually in a separate business unit - I don't even have read access to the source code.

To make things worse, the dev lead's boss always defers to his team's knowledge about the issues, so getting certain security issues fixed can require getting upper management involved.

[Arizhel]

The way I see it, as long as you do your job to notify them of security problems with their code, then the ball is in their court and it's out of your hands. If they choose to ignore it, and it ends up being a disaster, it's their fault as long as you can show you did your job in notifying them properly.

[toomuchtodo]

Enjoy dat paycheck. You're earning it.

[ungamed]

In my above original edit, I was going to put "Security" in quotes too, sometimes .. sometimes this aint worth it.

[mikmeh]

Not security either, did not realize how much I can relate to 10:45 and 13:00.