Parenting and a Career in Coding? 534
el topher asks: "After 5+ years of being married, my wife and I have been blessed by her becoming pregnant. I've professionally been a programmer for a while now and am now concerned that commercial software development is not a good job for a dad to have. Thinking back on all the software development groups I've been in, it seems most of the coders were not parents, and the coders that were parents seemed to have trouble with things like dealing with unplanned death marches and not being there for their family. So my question to the programmers with kids out there: How does a programming career jive with family life? I'd especially like to hear about parents who have been coding for a while and the situations in this area they've faced."
Change the where, not the what. (Score:5, Informative)
I used to work at startups and I currently work at the in-house development department for a major HMO (it's a big department, like 3500 people). The work itself hasn't changed a whole lot, but the expectations about hours certainly have -- at my current job, we're not relying on the next release to stay alive so there isn't a constant scramble to push product out the door. I've found, incidently, that this suits me much better than high-pressure 90 hour work weeks.
You might expect that sort of job to pay less, but it actually doesn't. Sure, I'm not going to become suddenly rich off stock options, but who does these days?
My advice would be to look for a job like mine -- someplace stable and with reasonable expectations when it comes to the hours you work. That's going to be someplace big and probably someplace in a industry where software/hardware isn't the big money-maker. Be sure they know your priorities; an interviewer at the sort of company you're looking for will respect a commitment to family. After all, these sorts of people are looking for *you* to be stable, too...
Aside from that: Kudos to the author for realizing that his kids are more important than the software release. Bringing home the bacon is important, but it ain't everything -- When I was with the startups, all of the parents just dumped their kids into daycare and with babysitters a week after they were born -- our sales VP probably spent a week total of waking time with his new daughter over the course of a year. Bet he felt really good about that when the place went under...
Hrm... (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not a parent myself (yet), but the company I'm working for has a lot of coders who are parents. It doesn't seem to cause too much trouble for them, as long as management is reasonable on estimates (which is usually the case).
I'll see if I can draw their attention to this article, though.
"unplaned death marches"? (Score:5, Informative)
Just because it's possible to have "unplanned death marches." in the software world doesn't meant that you should have too. In fact, if you do it'll probably mean that the software you write won't be adequately tested before it's deployed.
Anyway, you shouldn't have to stand for that crap. If you're team is slipping behind deadlines, it's the managers fault, not yours. Asking you to sacrifice your social/family life because of someone else's fuckups is ridiculous.
It's easy (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Exactly (Score:3, Informative)
I do it (Score:3, Informative)
It's not easy, but it can be done. Plus, I am having the time of my life raising my son, who is now 15 months old. It is such a joy to watch him develop his own personality.
Best of luck to you. You will enjoy being a dad.
Telecommuting Helps (Score:3, Informative)
2. Telecommute. My wife works for HP, and she hasn't been to the office in...ummmm... two months? She works her butt off, but she's home, and so it makes things a lot easier to juggle. I work at home as well (she took over half the "dining room" and I built a small room off the garage for my video editing / sound design / graphic design biz) so even though we're both home, we're not in each other's face all the time, and either or both of us can care for the Wee Child when she's not in school.
3. Get the kid into a Really Good Pre-K. This is important for a number of reasons - he or she will have lots of friends, will learn to read faster, and have better social skills. Oh- and you can get lots of work done from your home office without a 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 year old destroying things.
This is ALL true, and I speak from experience.
by the by: congrats on reproducing, and I welcome your child to this little green planet of clocks.
Now: do the sensible thing and get your yarbles snipped before you do it again. The world needs fewer people, not more. And a gradual reduction in population is what is indicated.
best,
RS
Veteran programmer and parent (Score:5, Informative)
1. Tagteam the kids. Take turns keeping them distracted while the other one gets stuff done. This gets much easier after they start to walk, although you REALLY have to childproof your home if you're going to get any programming done while they're keeping themselves busy.
2. If your boss would fire you over putting your family over your job, you need to find a different boss. As long as it isn't a continual parade of parental interruptions, most employers are entirely understanding when family life interrupts.
3. Encourage your employer to use a better management technique (for instance Scrum), which doesn't encourage forced death marches to make up for bad planning. Programming is a demanding field, but if your employer expects you to wreck your health over a deadline, then they're doing something wrong, not you.
4. Don't expect to be a perfect parent. Perfect parents don't really exist because parenting is always a tradeoff between overmanaging your children (in which case they don't learn) and letting them run too freely (in which case they get hurt). If you have ANYTHING to do besides parenting then you will have to juggle that priority in with that balancing act. If you don't have anything to do besides parenting, then it isn't likely that you'll have the perspective necessary to make healthy decisions.
On the other hand, programming trains you for parenting pretty well. The long sleepless nights, the time spent explaining very simple things to really stoopid people, and the ability to tune out the rest of the world all really help when dealing with children.
Your wife's support is key (Score:2, Informative)
I know couples who have been at the brink of divorce because the wife just wouldn't have one of my developers work on a Saturday or whatever. Some of it is selfishness, but you also have to understand what they're going through. And if they work... well, that's another bowl of fish.
She has to see that you do what you do so that she and the kid(s) can have a better life. Just don't disappear at nights because you went drinking with your buddies - and whatever else, MAKE SURE YOU MAKE IT UP TO HER AS SOON AS YOU CAN. After a particularly difficult project for example, take her on romantic dinners or a good vacation. Let her go out with her friends while you watch the kids instead of firing up the XBox. And so on.
Life is a balance, and you need to find yours (and hers).
Orphans Preferred (Score:3, Informative)
Re:You make your choices. (Score:3, Informative)
What I found in my life was that I had to give up my geek projects outside of work, and let work suffice as my creative geek time. I couldn't do everything I need at home and work and make accellerometer-based blinky widgets after hours. My wife doesn't work outside the home, so she has the flexibility to do more at home when work requires travel or a weekend here or there. I appreciate the flexibility on her part, so I support her when she's doing something special. Partnership rocks. Since I'm not geeking out on my own in my office she doesn't feel that work is taking over. Conveniently I've know for quite some time what my vocation would be, and I've been lucky enough to align my job with my interests, and my home life with my job, so it is all working out.
-- Jack
ps. Congratulations! I hope the family stays healthy!
Just go home when you need to (Score:2, Informative)
My current boss maintains "A regular workday at is not eight hours, it's more like nine or ten hours." Right. And it's 5:40 on a Friday and how many people are here? I've also complained about Wednesday releases where 2/3 of our team are non-custodial parents who have the kids on Wednesdays, so we really can't stay Wednesday evening. (I don't wanna miss my time with the kids, and Mom makes plans/dates for when I'm taking the kids, so I can't just not pick them up.) In that case my boss responded, "Well, you know when releases are way in advance, so you can plan accordingly." I responded about how often our release dates changed, and he didn't respond. But again, I didn't get fired. I just leave on-time on the days where I have the kids.
I've also tried the whole work at home thing. It only works if someone else (i.e., Mom) is willing to be aggressive about keeping the kids from bugging me. Cuz the kids want to be close to me when I'm home, but I can't work with them in the room. It was also effective when we rented a house with a detached apartment, and that became my office.
Note that this works best when your spouse doesn't work outside the home. (I've said "Mom" above, but that's because my ex-SO is female, not because I'm making a discriminatory statement about how there aren't enough women programmers). I need someone watching the kids during the day so I can get work done, then when I get home I spend serious playtime with them. Especially when the kids are preschool. (But actually now that I think of it, it worked OK when Mom was working and the kids were in daycare. Except that we didn't spend as much time as the kids, and with Mom having a low-paying job, we ended up netting a loss of a couple hundred dollars over four months) Nowadays, Mom and I are divorced, and she watches them most of the time, so my visitation times are weekends and a weekday evening. That makes me more able to work late at other times, but makes my time with the kids sacrosanct.
Sometimes people fear that having a family and a programming job will get them divorced. I did get reprimanded once for taking three-hour lunches (oops) and subsequently laid off. But actually, my wife left me when I was unemployed for five months and about to run out of unemployment. She didn't leave while I was spending 40-50 hours a week working. Of course at that time I was also bringing home a lot of money for her to play with </spite>
So, basically, you can do it. And you will do it cuz you have to. And it'll work out and you'll find your particular way of balancing the kids, the job, and the wife.
Congrats and good for you! (Score:2, Informative)
My husband and I have two kids, and we both work for the same small software company (he's a programmer, I'm a tester.) I guess we got lucky, because it's a very family-friendly environment. *Most* of us have kids. The degree to which the engineers put the kids above the code varies from person to person, but it's not the company that's forcing us to make those choices. In fact we have a very lenient paid-time-off policy that allows us to go be parents with impunity, and not have things like sick kids and kindergarten graduations eat into our vacation and sick time. Those hours are assumed to be absorbed in the extra hour put in here and there. The kids are even welcome in the office when necessary, and our 10-year-old has spend more than a few hours here playing Neopets in our training room and playing with the other employees' kids.
My husband and I both leave on time every day, give or take half an hour, and when things do come up the IT department supports working from home via VPN.
So my point is... the posters above are right, IMO, and it's about where you do the job, not the job that you do. Find a company that supports your priorities, and then in return give them the best you've got during the hours that they have you.
I should add this, however: I don't expect anything in the way of promotion here if I'm not willing/able to go 'above and beyond the call of duty.' The ability to compete and 'climb the ladder' is something that we have sacrificed by setting our priorities the way that we have. As the kids get older, and we're able to put in more time, perhaps career ambitions will become a concern. But for now, our jobs are safe, we do them well, and we don't have to miss this time with our kids. Others may argue with this, but for me it's been a personal trade: family for ambition.
Final note: Those sleepless nights with a new baby can do interesting things to you. My husband woke up to the baby crying in the middle of the night, and in that half-asleep, still-kind-of-dreaming state, he stared at her for a few minutes trying to debug her...
Congratulations!
flextime!!! (Score:2, Informative)
Eight years ago when my kid was born, I would schedule my job around my life instead of the other way around. Worked great. Once went to work from midnight to 8am. No prob.
I NEVER EVER EVER work weekends tho.. Don't care if there is a deathmarch.
Other days no prob putting in 12 hours.
Since I don't believe in day care the deal I had with my wife was: she gets the mornings to go to college (she was studying at the time) while I stay and take care of our baby (who thankfully didn't get up till 9 or 10am.. we trained her). I head to work at noon (I'm not a morning person anyway).
I spent noon to 5pm talking, and going to meetings.. I did the real work from 5pm to 12 or sometimes 2am (ok.. sometimes I'd get carried away and get home just in time at 7am to get my wife late to school!!
Worked great!
Since then, my kid started school (mornings free!!), and I've moved to South America (that's another story).. I work freelance and teach.. I hate it
Re:priorities change (Score:2, Informative)
At that point, he basically became useless. He no longer had the passion for the job he once had. He slacked off and spent half his time researching things and creating goofy personal home pages chronicling the development of his child. I think having children is one of those fundamental things in life that creates a paradigm shift in peoples' motivation. As a result, I would always prefer an employee that doesn't have children over one that does, especially in a case where the family is about to have their first baby
[quote off]
wondering if you or your company have ever been on the defendant side of the courtroom as a result of discrimination case ??
I don't think any judge or in an extreme case, any jury would look warm to a company who prefers a childless employee over one which is a parent.
It is all in the finding the work-life balance. I do not have any kids but have 3 dogs and a cat which require attention almost as much as a child needs (some may disagree on this but this is my opinion) and I have been in the IT field for longer than 10 years with no employer of mine complaining about lack of performance so far.
But if one is working for a slavedriver organization who always demand unrealistic deliverables, having a child or not having one does not make much difference down the road. If you do not have a child, the rate that you are working to please your slavedriver will burn you off sooner rather than later.
my 2 cents
Re:easier said than done. (Score:2, Informative)
It may not be possible to get this respect and consideration from the managers where you work in which case you might need to look elsewhere.
On the other side of the coin more hours does not necessary mean more productivity. It may be fully possible to optimise your work time and priorities and manage to get all the work that needs to be done finished during normal hours and no need for extended periods of long hours.
Are you kidding? It's the perfect job if... (Score:3, Informative)
I've been working at home for the last 3.5 years starting shortly after my daughter was born (I now have a son as well). Though I miss aspects of the office environment, I love being close to the kids and seeing them more than many Dads get to. I does mean I spread my time out over the day a lot more, however, and it can be stressful to get the work actually done.
But, the only reason this works is because I'm a programmer with a lot of flexibility in what I do, very few on-this-hour deadlines and one of the best bosses ever. It's hard to find a boss that lets you put family first at all times, but there are some like that out there. And if you find one, hang on to them and don't let them down! That's the tricky part. Flexibility is only granted to those that have shown the ability to handle it well. I try to get everything I'm asked to do done on time if not earlier, and with exceptional quality. IE, the more you preform efficiently the better you'll be able to get the flexibility you need.
Effeciency is by far the most important benchmark in my mind. If you are not efficient, you won't do a good job. Concentrate on what you need to get done and try to eliminate as much waste and you'll be amazed how much you can get accomplished.
Now, having said all that, do put up a gate between you and the child(ren) and teach them early to understand what "working" means. But at least you can step back over that gate frequently.
As the son of a programmer... (Score:3, Informative)
My dad is currently a programmer for a large insurance firm. Prior to that he worked for National Gas Pipeline, and before I was born, he worked various other places (Bell Labs, in particular). He's not too aggressive about his job, and I'd even go so far as to say he's very passive. He doesn't go for the promotions, nor does he try to work his way up the chain. That's fine, because he likes what he does, but it also makes him a target for dickheads. Like making him work long hours. In fact, I bet he's doing more work right now, on his home machine. He worked long hours, and while most of the time he managed to be home for dinner, he wasn't really "there" for much of anything. In fact, the only things I can remember us doing were going to 2 major league baseball games, and playing catch. All the rest of the time, he was at work late for some new deadline, orreading more bullshit printouts from the IBM S/370.
Something you may not have thought of, I have a nice little anecdote for:
Now, this may be an atypical situation, but in his last job, during a massive round of layoffs, they gave him the choice of quitting, or moving to Houston. If he chose to stay, they would deny him his severance pay. He chose to stay. Well, unfortunately, that severance check was not a small one, and it REALLY damaged our ability to do simple things like replace the boiler, or fix the falling front wall. And now, at his current job, he's looking at being outsourced. It affects him as a person, and therefore affects the whole family. I realize that layoffs and underhanded corporate tactics are a part of any job, but as I mentioned before, he's so passive that he just sits there and takes it. Now, you have to decide on your own whether you are aggressive enough to not put up with shit like that and have your own life outside of work. His passive nature also keeps him from going for opportunities. Just last week, I managed to eventually talk him into applying for the city of Chicago as a Systems Engineer. He has over 20 years of experience, and a Masters degree. He would be a good candidate, plus being a steady government job and a nice pay raise it seemed good. Well, the amount of time it took me to convince him was one day too long and he missed his window. Don't be like that, because it'll get you roped into working long hours with no compensation and no family time.
Commercial largely sucks, government can be better (Score:1, Informative)
20 years a programmer, 13 years a parent. (Score:3, Informative)
Both my wife and I are very senior engineers, with over 20 years programming experience each. We have two kids, 13 and 9 (both girls).
It really helps to have understanding managers - ideally, managers who are parents themselves. I would not want to be at startup where the life of the company depends on deathmarch mode work - in fact I turned down several such jobs during the bubble specifically to avoid that.
One thing that helps a lot is that we're both pretty damn well paid (~$250k total). This means that we could buy very good day care when that was needed, and hire sitters/minders to stay with the kids during summer vacation.
Try looking for a situation where the boss doesnt care what your actual hours are, so long as the major milestones get hit each month. This works better when you are not in a big team - you can pretty well set your own hours.
In sum, it can be done, but not at a startup which expects to own you 24/7.
Consider Yourself Lucky (Score:2, Informative)
The truth is that software development is, by comparison to most professions, very low stress. I've been able to telecommute, help out in my kids' classrooms and coach their sports teams. When they were infants i was able to help with the midnight feedings and (with the help of caffeine) i still got in my hours.
Many real-world jobs have far less flexible hours, significant travel, early mornings or late nights for meetings, and they often don't pay as well. Being a coder is probably one of the better jobs you can have as a parent, IMO.
It's impossible to explain to somebody who doesn't have children, but the fact is that you will find a way to be a good parent if you are motivated to be a good parent (fortunately, this will be completely obvious to you as soon as your child is born). You'll just figure it out because it's the most important thing you can imagine. Really. I promise.
Re:easier said than done. (Score:5, Informative)
Ah, what corporation are you working at? As a consultant, I have seen many, many organizations, both large and small, with asinine deadlines and unrealistic schedules.
My present client (Fortune 500 company) doesn't just have asinine deadlines, they change the criteria of success to meet the missed deadlines.
I travel for a living. I only see my 10 month-old son on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays. But, I see him all day long each of those days. I would suggest that the soon-to-be Dad not focus on the size of the company he works for, but he focus on what kind of benefits they offer and what kind of balance they have between work and life.
Our company (Score:3, Informative)
I work for a failing software company. We missed our IPO by about 2 months when the bubble popped. Now we're down from 500-600 headcount to under 80. What's nice about all the cuts and slowdown of business is that the hours are back to roughly 40 a week instead of the insane pace we had back in the boom.
That said, we have a COO and CEO that fly in every week from their homes and a CIO that sacrificed her family life for her career. So they don't have a lot of sympathy for a developer that needs to stay home with a sick kid 2 days a month. Still, our whole development organization is made up of about 75% guys with kids under 6 years old. I wouldn't change careers or companies any time soon.