[diarrhea]

Not GP, but I understand soulless as without meaningful human interaction. Developers are generally and purposely shielded from end users. A lot of interaction is not in person, but in video calls, chats, email, internet forums like HN itself. It’s all very sterile.

I’ve never shaken a happy customer’s hand, (nor been yelled at in person for that matter), for example. It’s not a thing many developers experience regularly.

I like to think of health workers as a strongly contrasting occupation. Much higher highs, much lower lows. Certainly anything but sterile. Certainly not soulless!

[screwturner68]

Yep, I moved from Dev to ops many years ago simply because I wanted to talk to someone..anyone. I've been in consulting for the last 20 years and I talk to customers good or bad almost every day and I do get a kick out of it when they are stoked with my work. The funny thing is as I'm getting older and working with more complex and closer to alpha products I find myself writing code to make my life easier, funny how that works. As far as the industry as a whole, I wouldn't recommend it to my kid I think it's dying or at least dying in the US.