[danpalmer]

> joined the industry circa 2013, and discovered that most of the big tech jobs were essentially glorified plumbers

Most tech jobs are glorified plumbers. I've worked in big tech and in small startups, and most of the code everywhere is unglamorous, boring, just needs to be written.

Satisfaction with the job also depends on what you want out of it. I know people who love building big data pipelines, and people who love building fancy UIs. Those two groups would find the other's job incredibly tedious.

[mattgreenrocks]

The right job for a person depends on whether they can rise above the specific flavor of pain that the job dishes out. BigTech jobs strike me as having an inextricable political element to them: so you enjoy jockeying for titles and navigating constant reorgs?

The pay is nice but I find myself…remarkably unenvious as I get older.

[danpalmer]

Big companies are political and re-orgs lead to layoffs. Startups are a constant battle for funding and go out of business. Small companies mean a lot of exposure to bad management and budget issues. Charities are highly regulated and audited environments. Government jobs have no perks and entrenched middle management.

Every type of work has its idiosyncrasies, which people will either get on with or not. Mentioning one without the others is a bit disingenuous, or its whatever the opposite of the grass-is-greener bias is.

[strken]

Plumbing has certification and industry best practices, and its leaks generally affect a few blocks at most rather than spraying across the entire internet.