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Ask HN: How do I get over constant failure?

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Re: Ask HN: How do I get over constant failure?

#11

Post by burnoutgal »

pezzana wrote: post #2

> ... It's been a couple months and I have achieved nothing. Not a single PR merged. ... There's a lot to be said for getting into a rhythm of picking an issue, solving it, and merging it. Doing it a few times can be a real confidence booster. What's the reason behind having no PRs merged? Did you create them, only to have them rejected? Have you not completed the work for any? Is there nobody to review them? Also, j…

I've teed up maybe 6 PRs, but it is hard to find who's actually responsible to review things and get sign-off one way or the other. The iteration speed is also very slow and deploys are pretty high risk, so it's hard to throw things at the wall and see what sticks.

Re: Ask HN: How do I get over constant failure?

#13

Post by contrucked »

Most companies are dysfunctional. If you find a company that is able to take full advantage of you excitement, passion, enthusiasm and drive... you're lucky. Don't take this as a reflection on yourself, don't feel any obligation to suffer at a job you don't love, just keep looking for the right company. You might get lucky and find it quickly, you might get unlucky and spend years, but each time you get a job you'll hopefully learn more about what you need to look to avoid. A great privilege of technology is that job hopping isn't punished because technologists are in such high demand.

Re: Ask HN: How do I get over constant failure?

#14

Post by atmartins »

It sounds like you're a holistic or big picture type. I struggle with this too. I don't have all the answers but my advice would be to try and focus on a smaller thing and get a win with that. Don't propose several projects, propose one and give it enough attention and proof that it's hard to refuse. Are your proposals measurable? Are they valuable? Are they framed in business context?

If more is thrown at you, push back using phrases like "adding this initiative may put effort #1 at risk. I think we should concentrate on effort #1 a bit longer while #2 takes more shape"

Why are your PRs not being approved? Do you need more time pair programming so what you submit is more aligned with reviewer expectations? Have you asked for that pairing time?

Overall I hear two disconnects, one at a business/product level and one at the engineering level. Your expectations sound out of alignment with your peers. You might try and work on relationships, build trust, find the fun puzzle and try and enjoy any little bits you can.

Re: Ask HN: How do I get over constant failure?

#15

Post by yololol »

After a couple of decades in the field I have concluded that the hardest part in this job is not the technical one, but the dealing with yourself. Yet, through the process you get to develop virtues that eventually make you a better person. Don't give up :)

Re: Ask HN: How do I get over constant failure?

#16

Post by burnoutgal »

peanut_worm wrote: post #8

that doesn’t really sound like constant failure to me, it just sounds like you changed jobs a few times. startups are inherently turbulent, a job at a bigger company might be less stressful.

A few of my jobs have been at companies with >1000 engineers, which feels like they should be mature, but sometimes they just feel stagnant. They make lots of money but it's harder and harder to make progress and they still don't have good structure.

Re: Ask HN: How do I get over constant failure?

#17

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

burnoutgal wrote: post #7
baskethead wrote: post #3

Where is this “constant failure” you talk about? I’m seeing a normal engineer who keeps joining startups, and is living the startup life. In fact it sounds like you’ve even cashed out. I don’t see constant failure at all. Startups are naturally chaotic. Most fail. Until they mature it’s complete chaos. If you don’t like this life and it’s causing you stress, you should join a bigger, more mature company. It’s hard to…

I've done ok financially, but in retrospect if I had held on to my stock instead of selling when it vested I could be set for life. A lot of my old coworkers only ever worked in one job for 5 years, got rich and retired on their stock at 30. When I was searching for my new job I knew I didn't wan small start-up chaos - my current role and the other big startup both have > 1000 engineers. "Startup" is kind of a loose…

> A lot of my old coworkers only ever worked in one job for 5 years, got rich and retired on their stock at 30.

Is this normal? It doesn't seem so normal to me.

Re: Ask HN: How do I get over constant failure?

#18

Post by javajosh »

You could take a risk, and tell the truth to a coworker, ideally someone who sees themselves as a potential mentor. It's an act of trust, being vulnerable like that. But it doesn't sound like you have much to lose, and it's a risk that could actually put you in a much better position, personally and professionally. 2 months without a PR merge isn't the worst thing in the world, but yeah, it's time to do something.

Someone else gave some good practical advice, about getting into a rhythm of merging smaller PRs. That can be a good confidence booster. However, that's not without its risks either, as coworkers are sometimes not terribly fond of trivial PRs.

Re: Ask HN: How do I get over constant failure?

#19

Post by rexreed »

burnoutgal wrote: post #10
vijucat wrote: post #6

Possibly unpopular advice on HN, but stop joining startups. Idiosyncratic-Culture Risk is off the charts for startups. Join more stable firms with a more "boring" but predictable culture where things get delivered every Sprint, everyone gets paid well, there is no Mountain Dew being guzzled at 8 pm in the office to meet some deadline, weekends are truly off, and your mental health actually recovers. Your dream jobs a…

My current job has > 1000 employees, it seemed from the outside like it would be sufficiently stable. It's not actually the culture you describe, it's pretty mature, good work-life balance. They don't have a great planning process but it seems insane that it is just impossible for me to onboard successfully as a result.

The number of employees does not correlate to positive management function. In fact, it's usually the inverse. The faster and larger the company grows, the more dysfunctional it becomes by hiring into the organization culture mismatch, internal promotion of incompetent managers. The sheer number of decision makers causes indecision (ironic). The lack of direction comes from going too many directions at the same time.

Meanwhile, investors reward the company for "traction" and regardless investors both private and in the public markets reward growth at whatever expense and first-mover / big-mover advantages.

The sweet spot are those financially stable, slowth growth companies with enough employees so that people aren't worn too thin but not too many that the wheels are coming off. Often that's around 100-300 or so, could be less a bit more.

Re: Ask HN: How do I get over constant failure?

#20

Post by lloeki »

burnoutgal wrote: post #7
baskethead wrote: post #3

Where is this “constant failure” you talk about? I’m seeing a normal engineer who keeps joining startups, and is living the startup life. In fact it sounds like you’ve even cashed out. I don’t see constant failure at all. Startups are naturally chaotic. Most fail. Until they mature it’s complete chaos. If you don’t like this life and it’s causing you stress, you should join a bigger, more mature company. It’s hard to…

I've done ok financially, but in retrospect if I had held on to my stock instead of selling when it vested I could be set for life. A lot of my old coworkers only ever worked in one job for 5 years, got rich and retired on their stock at 30. When I was searching for my new job I knew I didn't wan small start-up chaos - my current role and the other big startup both have > 1000 engineers. "Startup" is kind of a loose…

> in retrospect if I had held on to my stock instead of selling when it vested I could be set for life.

Or maybe not: the stock could have tanked for a zillion reasons. But hindsight is 20/20. If I had held to the BTC I mined back when it was still a toy I'd be bathing in money. Let it go.

> "Startup" is kind of a loose term

Lots of big co aren't strictly startups anymore but have some startup mentality, either carried over from their past or downright imported. The most nefarious ones do it purposely, pressing all the juice out of employees as if they were lemons, managing to entice them to do so voluntarily, and gaslighting them when they start to fail to produce the expected volume of lemonade.

But not all are like that, and in fact I did not really find a correlation with size.

Find and define both what you want and what you find unacceptable, and watch for red flags during interviews. Don't dismiss the red flags because something else looks rosy.

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