Being the engineer on-call when the website/service/app is down and the company is losing $xMM/minute while you debug the problem is the very definition of stress.
Some companies like Google cordon this responsibility off to SREs. While Amazon has started developing a similar job family, the burden of supporting critical services still largely falls to software engineers.
While software engineering is certainly not the worst job from a stress perspective, my experience (particularly with operations at Amazon) is far from the zen-like state the author describes. It can also be pretty exciting.
If you're experiencing any sort of pain, do not attempt to power through it. It's your body trying to tell you something's wrong. Step away from the keyboard and get some rest.
Especially when the author could actually do an apple-to-apples comparison. The shoe organizer that cost $18 at Google (with shipping) is $16 at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001M2D9D0
"If you live in Cambridge and neighboring communities, you can order online and get any book delivered the same day by an eco-friendly Metroped “pedal-truck,” or a bicycle, as I like to call them. Beat that Amazon."
Here's how: any book, ever published, in 60 seconds or less. Kindle.
"so Google set up a honeypot – some made up words like [hiybbprqag] linking to random unrelated sites."
That's not my understanding of what Google did at all. Google fed back search results for keywords that didn't exist on the Internet -- period, and they started eventually showing up in Bing.
Being the engineer on-call when the website/service/app is down and the company is losing $xMM/minute while you debug the problem is the very definition of stress.
Some companies like Google cordon this responsibility off to SREs. While Amazon has started developing a similar job family, the burden of supporting critical services still largely falls to software engineers.
While software engineering is certainly not the worst job from a stress perspective, my experience (particularly with operations at Amazon) is far from the zen-like state the author describes. It can also be pretty exciting.