this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2025
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I'm an American software developer and the "broligarchs" don't speak for me - ratfactor (ratfactor.com)
submitted 15 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 117 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (12 children)

I'm also a software engineer and I can't stand most other people in this field. I got into this field because I love computers and was tweaking garry's mod scripts when I was 12. I read scifi books and enjoy reading about the lore of the tech industry.

I would estimate that AT LEAST 75% of people in this industry are ladder climbing yuppies who got into it for the money. The gym rat, tesla-driving podcaster types who have invented their own language about syncing up, achieving alignment, creating action items and eating dog food. And for some reason they're all into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Lex Fridman/Joe Rogan

I do not socialize with my coworkers because they are the most obnoxious fucking money-obsessed pieces of shit I've ever met

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 hours ago

Who also have absolutely ZERO moral compass. Like literally don’t give two shits if they’re coding a piece of software going into a baby killing machines.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

It's really fun when you become senior enough to be able to weed out the no-talent greasy-pole climbers.

Also, it's not even their own language. It's a degraded pidgin derived from MBA buzzwords and shitty management books sold in airports. You can get most of it here: https://www.bullshitgenerator.com/

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 hours ago

I'm the same way. I thought websites were cool and wanted to make one. So I did and taught myself. Then I took a class at my high school, then again at the local community college once I could do concurrent enrollment. In college, I worked on software projects to relax from my CS classes, and I still do that today.

Even if AI takes my job, I'll probably still hack on stuff. I'm in it because I love software dev. I probably could've climbed the ladder long ago, but that would've required sacrificing what I want to do.

So yeah, hopefully I can keep making money with my hobby, but I'm not interested in becoming a corporate hack just to make a buck.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I just wanna build cool shit and solve puzzles using the smallest amount of code possible that still makes sense to read. That’s fun to me. I’ve honestly gotten incredibly sick of renting by brain out to people for the majority of my waking hours mostly just to put a roof over my head.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago

This is me. We had a public holiday the other day and, since the weather wasn't great, I decided to start a new project to write code because I enjoy it. Also, Twitch's event/API documentation does not spark joy (weird grammar like "one of the following" what looks like a partially deleted line; response/requests that are in tables aligned by a number (only two, so good luck people like me) spaces to indicate level, and just plain wrong and missing info ("this API responds 202" -- LIAR!).

[–] [email protected] 52 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (2 children)

Bit of an unhinged and unreasonable nerd rant but here it goes:

The second dot com boom in the 2010s ruined us. Like holy shit. As someone younger looking down the line, living in tech bro culture, but exposed to the likes of the jargon file, y combinator and their venture capitalists literally ruined hacker culture.

We used to have a thriving culture that cherished freedom, real freedom, not freedom for the rich. What happened to the culture that spawned Windows buyback day? What of the dream that networked freedom would one day break the chains of economic heirarchy?

Like holy fucking shit. If you're not here for the love of the machine stop touching a compiler or better yet go loose your fucking hands.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

A total crash would scare the money away but leave all the hardware and software behind

[–] [email protected] 18 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Preach.

Information wants to be free.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Can't stop the signal.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Techbros killed me, Mal.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

They killed me with an IPO. How weird is that?

[–] [email protected] 30 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

Where are you? My experience has been that most developers are obsessed with programming and politically liberal. I'm in the midwest, though, so maybe things are not so rosy on the west coast. It could also just be one person's experience, but I have worked at a lot of different places in the last 35 years.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

FAANGlikes are the typical breeding ground. “Move fast and break stuff” industry disrupters whose plan is to corner a market and squeeze it. VC gooners. Crypto perverts. Technofeudalism pedos.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

Yep. They basically never recovered from that 3rd bong hit they took in their freshman year of college and think because they've read the likes of Bastiat, Friedman, von Mises, Rand, and Rothbard they know everything.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

Also from midwest. Same experience, with the exception of a few people who get really cranky when politics comes up and they realize they are working with a bunch of liberals.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

South east here and yeah same. The overwhelming majority of my coworkers couldn't be farther from the techbro stereotypes and most of them tend towards the progressive side of the spectrum.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Count yourself lucky. I've been in the business a shockingly long time and I'd say most of my peers leen towards the right, though more are libertarians than are MAGAts.

Yes, there are things even worse than libertarianism.

And some of the most radical lefties I've met in the business are very senior, some C-level. I'm not sure what to make of that.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Seems like most “tech bros” aren’t really developers. They’re moving up the ladder or founding a startup and talking to VCs. Or possibly devs in the gaming industry. Most regular developers I know aren’t “tech bros”

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 hours ago

Yeah, they trade on their family's money and connections, and don't really know how to do anything but what to kiss and when. Scum of the earth.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I have a similar experience, but even with people in southern Ohio and Kentucky (where a lot of my current co-workers are), there is the opposite of a conservative tech-bro trend.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

It's the Kroger kids isn't it?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago

No but you got the city right. 🙂

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I read scifi books and enjoy reading about the lore of the tech industry.

If it’s any consolation, we’re kinda heading into the futuristic dystopian tech hellscape portrayed by so much sci fi. So that’s fun.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago

One hell of a consolation prize

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

who have invented their own language about syncing up, achieving alignment, creating action items

My soul contracted in upon itself a little as I read that.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 hours ago

i wish there was a place where normies didn't want to work so we could all go there

[–] [email protected] 16 points 14 hours ago

I'm with you. I used to build maps, models, and textures for Battlefront 2 and share the files for free on Filefront. I got into programming for the joy of creating things that make people happy, or solve some little problems they have. I still make mods, the communities are out there and I'm glad I found them.

But tech evangelists and bro culture ruined the idea of programming as a career for me. The greed of late stage capitalism infected our industry the moment Facebook hit the scene, crypto accelerated it, and AI may as well be the final nail in the coffin. It's no longer a worthy or noble profession.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I have a couple friends that are software devs, and they echo the exact same sentiment. We've bonded over computers over the years, and they all wish they'd chosen a different career path at times because there are so many morons, and typically the morons are the worst devs out there.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

What career is better?

All well paid professions have this culture of striver bootlicker trying to get ahead by any means necesst expect doing the real work

Everyone knows being a work horse is a stupid proposition now... Working hard to get somebody else promoted haha

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

At this point I have no clue. I'm an electrician with my own shop, and we do well, but damn is it tough on the body. I've been beginning to think of what to do next, but nothing's really grabbing me, especially to keep my income where it's at. And yeah, that's a good reason to avoid those hyper corporate environments, no thanks haha.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Hey, I'm only money-obsessed because I'm trying to retire.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 hours ago

I saw my retirement fund .

I'll probably be in the ground and STILL working.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 hours ago

You’re seeing the end result of “boycott” problems right now though

They will simply take your money. They will pay you increasingly less, tax the little bit they pay you increasingly more, and use the money from the taxes they forcibly take from you to launder your money right back to the oligarchs. Why do you think musk is destroying shit? Why do you think they are pushing to privatize everything? That last little bit of power you have, to vote with your wallet, will become increasingly meaningless

[–] [email protected] 27 points 14 hours ago (4 children)

Actually, my distaste for Big Tech is nothing new. It’s been building for decades.

First, little stuff like the inkjet printer that you invited into your house that claims to need, "Just a little more cyan, bro. I’ll print your black and white page after I get my cyan. Come on, bro."

That's because it needs to print the tracking dots on every page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_tracking_dots

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 hours ago

We need to homebrew our own printers

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 hours ago

jokes on them, I print all my ransom notes using a Gutenberg press.

good luck tracking that shit down!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 14 hours ago

I am sure the end user really needs these dots bro...

Can't live without them !

[–] [email protected] 5 points 12 hours ago

God dammit! I'm going back to sending my ransom notes using cut up words from magazines!