Quit and use some me-time to write an application from scratch.
Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around
241–250 of 521 posts
Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around
#242First things first: You're not a loser. You matter. You matter to at least someone even if that someone is yourself. I think it's super brave of you to post here and that is the first step to feeling more connected, fulfilled.
Coding/working/etc is all just a construct we have to do to pay for shit to live. What about things outside of that? What else makes you happy? Do you like being outside? Have you tried traveling? Seeing the world?
How are your connections with friends or family? Sometimes serving others, helping out at a food kitchen, a shelter, etc., helps put things in perspective and helps you both appreciate what you have but also helps you see what role a job has -- that it's not everything.
I wanted to also add my +1 to not working more than 40 hours.
Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around
#243A lot of stuff going on here. 1. You're clearly NOT incompetent. If you were, you couldn't possibly hold the web and mobile platform together entirely on your own for that long AND handle every on call incident. 2. The thing that surprised me most about burnout was the physical symptoms. You've got them. It only gets worse from here if you keep doing what you're doing. 3. It makes perfect sense to me that you don't f…
> 2. Hit up recruiters, hit up whatever network you have (including old acquaintances). Your story is incredibly straightforward: you held the line on these systems by yourself for years on end, including all their on-call needs, it's enough work for a 4-person team, and no help is coming. You're looking to work on an actual team where people actually learn from each other.
OP said they weren't good at networking, but I just want to echo this. I might be better than average at networking for the field (at least traditionally), but when I started freelancing I mainly go through recruiters (who do take a cut, but worth it for me).
There are plenty of recruiters for employed work too, and hopefully some will recognize both the value in your resume and your humility.
Tech meetups have also started up again after covid, try to go to one of those if you're in any kind of metropolitan area. It might not be the specific topic you're interested in, but there are going to be other people who also want to network, and hey, free pizza (usually).
Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around
#244You're probably better than you think. Something that tripped me up for a long time (depending on your background, in my case I attribute it to being self taught but could be wrong), theres a huge difference between the academic side of things and the practical side.
You see people on here talking like "oh, you could implement a forward-signed dash dot this that array etc..." and I have no idea what they mean. Theres probably even a lot of more basic stuff which I don't understand. Maybe I should work on that more, but point is if you asked me to add a new feature into a codebase, I'd feel pretty confident doing that. From the sound of things, you could be in a very similar boat. Afterall, you're already doing the work.
Also, stop doing the overtime. Occasionally its fine, if it takes less effort to do it than fight it your usually alright, but that isn't your case at all.
Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
> No-one will care about a month or two gap on your resume. On a related note, this "gap in resume" thing needs to stop being a thing at all. I don't know when it became a thing, but it feels distinctively like forcing a wage slave class to keep their head down and continue wageslaving. Why would an employer care whether I took time off to pursue other things otherwise?
trust me they care. especially in a fast moving technology space like cloud, k8s, ML. if you are hired for COBOL yes sure a gap wont matter
>especially in a fast moving technology space like cloud, k8s, ML
You are kidding yourself.
Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
> No-one will care about a month or two gap on your resume. On a related note, this "gap in resume" thing needs to stop being a thing at all. I don't know when it became a thing, but it feels distinctively like forcing a wage slave class to keep their head down and continue wageslaving. Why would an employer care whether I took time off to pursue other things otherwise?
I would agree for small gaps. But I think it's at least somewhat understandable why a significant gap would be a concern. With the pace technology moves at, if you have not been working for an extended period of time, it's reasonable that you might have fallen behind. Certainly this shouldn't be reason in itself to reject a candidate and it at least somewhat depends on what you were doing during that time, but I find…
I worked a corporate job for several years where I pretty much learned nothing. As far as my skills go, the end result was almost no different to not working at all.
Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around
#247I've placed 1000s of developers at startups over many years. My advice is forget about the money at 28, it doesn't matter if you earn peanuts or peanuts++
What matters is who you work for and that they develop you/manage you right. Different people need different kinds of teams/incentives/cultures. A great manager at a shit company will be better for you long term.
Also, learn how to hustle. Start sending cold emails to companies you admire. When you don't get a reply or a reply you like, send emails to the employees. In most successful companies there's so much going on that being persistent and annoying is the only way in.
Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
trust me they care. especially in a fast moving technology space like cloud, k8s, ML. if you are hired for COBOL yes sure a gap wont matter
Trust me they don't. I've had all sorts of gaps in my career. 6 months, 1 year and more, to explore different domains. I'm in computer graphics/front end, pretty fast paced. Nobody ever asked. Please, never feel guilty about taking a single month off. If your body needs rest, you need to listen to it.
Yeah, all you have to do is say "I took a year off to tend to personal family matters," and they should hear "none of your damn business" loud and clear or they don't understand boundaries, in which case they're disqualified from employing you.
Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around
#249Don’t be afraid of changing direction if you have systematic skills and feel unhappy. Other jobs that pay well with these skills are electrical engineering, plumbing etc
Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around
#250Plenty of other good advice being commented here (particularly around working fewer hours) but one I'd like to emphasise: you're absolutely not a loser.