What do you do to counter stigma with working in tech?

Perhaps look for social settings in which 'what do you do for a living' is not the beginning and end of the conversation.

> What do you do to counter this?

I don't say what I do for a living except when it's important to reveal that (which it rarely is). If pressed, I'll just say "I'm a programmer", make sure to mention that I don't work for a SV-style company, and leave it at that.

Fortunately, at least in my part of the US, "what do you do for a living" is a question that is rarely casually asked.

First, consider that the culture of the city you're in can play a role https://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html But more than that, the neighborhood or whatever natural social circle you've found yourself in is that way, but it need not be that way with some extra digging into other subgroups of people around you.

Second, consider your own behavior and whether it's not tech itself but another aspect that you're confusing with being in tech, simply because people are (annoyingly) too polite to tell you.

In "tech" I find almost as much diversity of personalities and quirks than in the general population. I haven't personally experience what you're talking about, but that doesn't mean you're wrong. Perhaps the nearest neighbors that are lowest friction to socialize with aren't the best choice?

I generally hang out with people who don’t give a crap about my occupation. They wouldn’t care if I was a janitor or a physician. Some of them are friends from middle school, some are newer friends. We generally don’t talk about work, we bond over other things.

I don’t know NYC but I hope that out of 20 million people, not all are obsessed with work.

Data point: it is not at all my experience that there is a stigma to working in tech in Chicagoland. For one thing, everybody has friends already working in tech or IT in some capacity (and normal people don't care about the distinction).

I try my best not to talk about my job when I'm not at my job

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

If you're picking your profession based on "social status", you're in a loser's game. You can't win at status; you can only lose. So don't play. Instead, pick a profession that you're good at, that you like doing, and that pays well enough.

Is there a stigma? Sure, probably deservedly so. FAANG hasn't exactly been a benevolent force for social good, and tech has greatly worsened livability for everyday people across much of the urban U.S..

That said, I've worked in some form as a web dev for 20+ years and this has never been a problem. My friends have been farmers, trailworkers, solar people, museum people, scientists, yogis, veterinarians, service industry folks, climbers, hikers, animal lovers, and yes, a few coders too. They're mostly blue-collar, and they don't judge me by my profession but by the quality of the time we spend together, our shared interests and values, etc..

I think it's more a matter of picking social situations (and circles) that expose you to more diverse swaths of society. If you spend all your time among strongly capitalist hoity-toities, then yeah, maybe you're gonna get judged for being a tech person (and makes sense too, with most white-collar+ jobs requiring years and years of education and hard work and ladder-climbing and sucking up, meanwhile some techie out of boot camp makes 2x the money and thinks they know it all while contributing net negatively to society... why wouldn't they judge us?).

But that's not all of society. When I was younger, I spent a lot of time volunteering, doing different jobs, going outdoors, etc. and met a lot of people that way. I was always the "techie guy" who could make their websites or fix their machines. I often earned more than them, but I never lorded it over them... it never really even came up. I didn't let my profession define me or my relationships. It was just something I did for a paycheck, the same way they did their thing for a paycheck. Never once been accused of being autistic, an incel, or anything like that; in fact many of my friends were women from completely different fields.

I'm probably more extroverted than most techies, but so what? It still requires active development of other interests and active participation in local communities: volunteering, civics, community events, outdoors, neighbors, etc. None of it came naturally or automatically, but only through sustained active effort. That's just a people & networking thing, and maybe techies are less inclined to do them, but they work for us just as they work for anyone else. It's a developed skillset & social network.