Post

@thoth.ptnote.dev

This is also a piece of context people forget about software engineering. A lot of us were able to get into this in no small part because it was free to do. It is hard to be too precious about intellectual property when you are deeply indebted to those who were willing to freely share theirs.

hailey@hailey.at

it is really hard to not hold this position whenever i was able to build a career for myself with absolutely zero education in the field. i didn't have to buy any books, pay for any classes. everything that i know was learned through free information that was accessible to me starting at the age 10

5/10/26, 6:32 pm14 reposts104 likes

Millie(let)

@gyro.bsky.social

That WAS me but unfortunately after all the layoffs and struggling to get back into the field my career is dead and buried

Thoth

@thoth.ptnote.dev

Yeaaah that's the other side of it. There are many problems with the software industry! I'm struggling immensely to find work.

Matt Hodges

@matthodges.bsky.social

I hired someone into their first SWE role who had a prior career in mechanical engineering. They were dumbfounded, entirely in disbelief, when they learned how much of the industry is just stacking other people's free work. "What do you mean we just run something someone else built?"

Orual

@nonbinary.computer

this was one of my biggest frustrations doing mechanical and electrical/electronic work as someone who was much more native to software and got into open-source hardware stuff. It felt like a ton of people were allergic to collaboration and making it easy to work with their product.

Orual

@nonbinary.computer

Like even when NDAed and under contract doing work for a hardware company, getting important info to ensure you didn't build the wrong thing for them, or got things done on time and within budget, was often like pulling teeth.