Ask HN: Is it normal to fall out of love with coding?

I've shifted my perception of myself from being an engineer/programmer to seeing myself as a product person that happens to use code to express my goals.

I still obviously expect and demand a high standard of code quality from myself, but I'd much rather do one thing every day to improve the life of a customer than wrap myself up in the more esoteric solutions to coding issues. I don't constantly chase new libraries and frameworks and build tools and I don't spend time discussing semantics while pair programming. I value pragmatism above all.

I feel like coding is now 40% ish of my overall skillset and am much better off for it, which seems to bear out in terms of opportunities that have opened up since I've made this change.

IMHO your situation is actually quite positive because you notice the domain you enjoy more, which is communicating with people rather than interacting with computers. Why not just keep moving toward that direction?

I wonder if you have played any games that lack of tactics and don't require you to learn techniques to master, and you can just farm and farm and farm before your level or whatever is enough to conquer the final boss. Monotonous, boring, just like that. If the only reward you get from coding is salary and nothing else, then you should really consider leaving the comfort zone, which is actually what you are trying now, and that's good.

It started with me just getting my job done, but not really finding a lot of joy in it anymore and I'm sure the quality of what I did went down as well.

A bit later, I stopped doing side-projects and didn't want to read anything related to it anymore for some time. It was around that time that I realised it's not my job, but the problem was me burning out (I just ended a stressful period in my personal life as well due to a family member passing away).

My solution was to just 'allow' myself to _not_ do anything at home for some time and look for other things to keep myself busy. At first, if I wasn't doing something for side-projects I'd feel guilty, which was an unhealthy attitude.

I started reading fiction (instead of non-fiction all the time) and bought a console for gaming - something I hadn't owned for a decade. Just so I wouldn't be in front of my computer after work, I also took a holiday for a few weeks.

Eventually I started to miss my side-projects, though it actually took a few months before I'd really get into them again. Now I'm only really just getting out of it to be honest, but I'm did rediscover the fun of coding. I'm reading about it again, but alternate between fiction and non-fiction after each book, and I'm having fun programming both at home and at work [most days ;)]

So maybe, as other posters said, you are suffering from (the beginning of) a burn-out. It sucks, but it's not forever.

I have a couple of friends that found they basically hated coding and switched, one to technical marketing and the other fixes machine tools.

It is likely the case that you've come so far and a lot has changed in your life in just a relatively short amount of time. Now, move forward 5 or 10 years and imagine the same amount of change.

What I'm trying to say is... it is perfectly normal to change your interests.