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Some development jobs are more interesting, I've worked in a startup which was very fast pace and plenty of tech to learn and challenging projects, but the renumeration wasn't great so switched to an enterprise style company. Pace is slower which is fine because it allows a lot of time for enjoyable side projects and self directed learning. If your day to day tasks aren't challenging enough you can carve out some tim…
One thing to consider is the particular context. I've seen software shops where there's a great deal of creativity and fun, so it's possible that the problem is that the bank's core business isn't software it's money. Sure, all businesses are out to make money but what they value beyond that is radically different between industries and even between companies in the same industry.
I bet the people at your bank who get the most respect dress very well, concerning themselves with finance. You might find an environment that's better or a role that's better. Or both.
Hell, you have time to make a bunch of mistakes, too.
I had many jobs on my 10-year long career. I disliked all of them. I settled into a job that doesn't make me work that much, so I can just do other stuff and be less sad.
Look, you're the equivilent of a fry cook. You want a good job, be a chef. How do you get to be a chef, you ask? You stick around, and get on burger duty, and eventually, someone has you cook a steak.
The point is: you're super new to this. Eventually, you will have enough experience that you can CHOOSE your jobs. Sure, 99% of the programming jobs may be boring tedium, but if you are good, you'll be able to choose the 1% that aren't.
But when you're starting out you just have to be a sponge and keep an open mind. Either find a niche or be great at everything, but dont just get by, because that's how the 99% does it.
Source: 17 years in SW - I'm an enterprise architect.
I'm 31, and I dislike my job as a software engineer. I had many jobs on my 10-year long career. I disliked all of them. I settled into a job that doesn't make me work that much, so I can just do other stuff and be less sad.
Is there something that DOES excite you? Management? Databases? Switching Stack (lamp for ms, or .NET for full stack, cloud stuff?)
I would think if you've been doing it for 10 years, you probably can start shifting around and picking up new things and make a pseudo career change
Try to work for a startup. There you might encounter more challenges, both in diversity of work you will have to do (in smaller startups), and in the technology and sophistication of the programming required. Another alternative would be to switch to being smartphone developper, eventually to an independent smartphone developper, where you'll be able to find more interesting and technically-challenging projects.
Money? https://80000hours.org/2015/10/startup-salaries-and-equity-c...
Translation: "Passionately" - we will underpay you "Fast paced" - 7 days a week "Change the world" - we won't ipo but sell out to a company for a few hundred million which you won't see a dime of.
GL!
(Source: too much time interviewing in silicon valley)
First, is to see the value in every job along the way. I started out as a hardware engineer, but had this nagging voice telling me I wasn't in the right job. It took a while to realize that my heart was in software. At first I felt like I had wasted career time as a hardware engineer, but then I realized I was much better at certain software problems because of my hardware background than others. If I take inventory of all of my jobs, even from high school, I realize that I have skills to this day that can be traced back to them. Even the ones I absolutely hated.
Second, while finding your niche is important, also find the right boss. Bosses have almost as much to do with liking your job than the work itself. I actually think it is harder to find a boss worth working for than finding work I want to do.
How you feel right now it's completely normal and expected because you are young and you want to learn and gain knowledge. I have changed 4 companies because I was searching for the job where everyone is writing clean code and where best practices, code review, and learning are on the high level. You can forget about that because managers don't care how your code looks like, or if you are using best practices to achi…
Such a fantastic answer! Kudos, I share similar views. To add to what you say, I also believe that while we easily start hating our jobs most of the times, we often fail to realize we were never excelling at them. When I come to realize that I am currently not enjoying my current role, I think of only two possibilities. I either put in my time and efforts to make myself better at what I am doing or simply do somethin…
Your saying at the end of the comment described everything.
Maybe you haven't been reading http://thedailywtf.com . Most programming jobs are as you have experienced. Maybe 1% of 1% work for startups on exciting projects. The rest just do maintenance on Java EE or worse COBOL.
COBOL is actually very good money nowadays. There are more legacy systems than programmers left. Learn COBOL and #StayAflotForAWhile
Maybe you haven't been reading http://thedailywtf.com . Most programming jobs are as you have experienced. Maybe 1% of 1% work for startups on exciting projects. The rest just do maintenance on Java EE or worse COBOL.
COBOL is actually very good money nowadays. There are more legacy systems than programmers left. Learn COBOL and #StayAflotForAWhile