joshcsimmons

Show HN: Autism Simulator

Hey all, I built this. It’s not trying to capture every autistic experience (that’d be impossible). It’s based on my own lived experience as well as that of friends on the spectrum.

I'm trying to give people a feel for what masking, decision fatigue, and burnout can look like day-to-day. That’s hard to explain in words, but easier to show through choices and stats. I'm not trying to "define autism".

I’ve gotten good feedback here about resilience, meds, and difficulty tuning. I’ll keep tweaking it. If even a few people walk away thinking, "ah, maybe that’s why my coworker struggles in those situations," then it’s worth it.

Appreciate everyone who’s tried it and shared thoughts.

https://autism-simulator.vercel.app/

Autism Simulator - Workplace Experience Simulation

Experience the workplace through the lens of a high-masking autistic professional. An educational simulation exploring sensory overload, social navigation, and burnout in corporate environments.

Autism Simulator
Oct 1, 2025 at 2:48pmWeb
Show threadgiantg2Oct 1, 2025

"Since you've decided to not disclose your autism at work, you'll be raw dogging it today and every other day. This seems marginally better than the alternative of being potentially passed over for promtotions or raises."

I was passed over without disclosure. When I did disclose, they tried to fire me. It would be great if they add a feature where you're told for a decade by peers, leads, and managers that you're at the next level, but never actually get there. Then they try firing you while the internal interviews give feedback about how you're likely overqualified for roles at your level. How's your mental health doing after that? The game should add a part about wanting to get hit by a bus during your commute so you cana avoid the torture.

Show threadimmibisOct 1, 2025
Non-autistic people also get this. It's in your salarypayer's best interest to keep you thinking you're on the precipice of getting a raise (so you work harder), but without actually giving you one (so they don't have to pay up). This is just ordinary capitalist paperclip-maximization, and we need way more people to realize their employers are not their friends, and it's a simple exchange of money for work where at least one party employs people whose entire job is to shift the exchange rate in their favour while convincing you they aren't.
Show threadtptacekOct 1, 2025

That's a Manichean perspective that probably applies in a lot of workplaces, but definitely doesn't uniformly apply to competitive software jobs. In a competitive software shop, your employer is probably motivated more by retention, churn, and motivation concerns than they are over whether they can hold on to the extra comp money it would cost to raise your level. Losing a performing developer is very expensive.

I don't doubt at all that a lot of software developers have had the experience you describe, but when you describe it as intrinsic to the economics of commercial software development, I think you're bound to end up in some weird places.

Show threadbradlysOct 1, 2025
But practically every "competitive" software job uses stack ranking that's mostly centered on an individual team or a few teams where 20% of the people have to be given a bad rating regardless of objective performance.
Show threadtptacekOct 1, 2025
I think stack ranking sucks ass and I agree that it's prevalent but even stack ranking isn't well-modeled by an executive team looking to squeeze every penny out of each employee. Some of the most notorious stack rankers also have some of the most notoriously generous comp packages.
Show threadbradlysOct 1, 2025
I'm not seeing TC having gone up over the last 7-8 years with those "notoriously generous comp packages" places. Your typical senior eng at FAANG is still getting $350-450k/yr TC. Yet, inflation has changed a lot and the stocks at these companies have skyrocketed. They're only raising the bar in terms of competition for employees to stick with the company and not with their compensation.
Show threadtptacekOct 1, 2025
I lose interest in salary equity discussions when the entire range we're discussing is more than I currently make. :)