Being a programmer has become the cool job that everyone wants. It pays well, and if you’re good at using a computer, then you’re already on the right path to start learning a thing or two about programming yourself.

But not everyone has the patience for it. It can be tedious; you need to pay attention to detail, and even though you might think you’re finally done with the code, when you run it: bam. It’s not working. Yeah, super fun. But these are such common experiences that there are so many memes online about life as a programmer, so here are our picks for the funniest ones .

While programming may seem like a modern job that everyone is after, many might be surprised to learn that it was already a popular hobby back in the 80s. For a long time, computers weren’t accessible in most homes because, well, they took up entire rooms. But in the 1980s, they finally became widely available to the public with the Commodore 64, Apple II, and IBM PC.

This is when the first programmers emerged. At first, hobbyists, teens, and tech lovers learned BASIC at home and created games , applications, and even blogs. For the first time, programming became a hobby, but it wasn’t quite a job title for most people just yet. It wasn’t until the 1990’s that it decidedly became a high-demand career path, with tech startups drawing millions of people into software engineering.

Initially, these programming jobs were only available to those with the means to study at university. So, you’d have to have a degree in web development, computer science, or something similar to actually make it into the large startups that were getting attention. But the big boom didn’t happen overnight.

In the 2010s, big brands like Google, Apple, Meta, and Amazon became dominant forces in the global economy. This is when normal candidates became more acceptable , while coding bootcamps, online e-learning platforms, and even public policy helped transform coding into a skill that was believed to be beneficial for people of all age groups.

While there was initially room for excitement and growth, and it was a new world completely yours to develop, it's no longer nearly as much of a hobby for most people. Instead, it becomes a day-to-day hurdle just to pay the bills. In fact, a study conducted by Haystack Analytics found that 83% of software developers reported experiencing workplace burnout.

This stems directly from what programming is all about: problem-solving. Legacy codebases and brittle systems can actually turn into hours of frustrating troubleshooting, making technical debt one of the biggest sources of daily issues for engineers. They need uninterrupted blocks of time to tackle these problems, but urgent deadlines often prevent that, adding to frustration, stress, and overwork .