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

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

#31

Post by krig »

ganadiniakshay wrote: post #26
krig wrote: post #25

First of all, I would say it is absolutely normal to fall out of love with coding, and I wouldn't worry about it! If you're enjoying what you are doing, that's a good thing. Unlike the top comment, I don't think this has to be a sign of burning out (although it can be) - humans are complex beings. The world changes, and we change as well. What was enjoyable to you 15 years ago may not be as enjoyable now, and what yo…

How easy would you say it is to move back into a developer role if I say switch into product management role? I am scared I will be asked a lot about why I am switching back into coding and why I left it in the first place? I am scared of coming across as indecisive

If you switch and then quickly switch back because you realised that it was a mistake - that's no big deal.

If you switch roles and after a couple of years switch back again - no problem!

If you start to have a history of every six months to a year switching roles or moving companies, that can start to look bad, yes. But even that isn't a disaster that can't be overcome.

I wouldn't worry about it.

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

#32

Post by nadam »

I am programming since my childhood and I am now 44 years old. For a long time I thought that I enjoy programming. Later I realized that what I enjoy cannot be categorized that way. I cannot even easily put it into words, but largely I enjoy solving hard problems, understanding or modeling things sucessfully. It happens sometimes during coding. But in a business scenario unfortunatelly it happens more during designing UX, finding out the business strategy, etc... and coding itself becomes just a boring means to an end. And I think this attitude is quite healthy when I work on a product alone. Because even with this attitude I sometimes geek out and care too much about tech perfection instead of releasing an MVP sooner. For example now I work on a VR 3D modeler side project. I have my own engine instead of using something like Unity, and I care too much about the performance and elegance of my half-edge mesh representation instead of releasing an MVP extremely early and iterating on UX as someone who is entirely not obsessed with coding would do...

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

#33

Post by xyproto »

ganadiniakshay wrote: post #26
krig wrote: post #25

First of all, I would say it is absolutely normal to fall out of love with coding, and I wouldn't worry about it! If you're enjoying what you are doing, that's a good thing. Unlike the top comment, I don't think this has to be a sign of burning out (although it can be) - humans are complex beings. The world changes, and we change as well. What was enjoyable to you 15 years ago may not be as enjoyable now, and what yo…

How easy would you say it is to move back into a developer role if I say switch into product management role? I am scared I will be asked a lot about why I am switching back into coding and why I left it in the first place? I am scared of coming across as indecisive

Developers trying a management role and then returning to development is relatively common. You shouldn't worry if you wish to try it out for a year or two.

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

#34

Post by glaberficken »

keviv wrote: post #3

It's a sign of burning out. I've felt the same way many times during my career. I started making websites when I was 15 (I'm 33 now) and moved to a management role. When I wasn't coding for the last few months, I realized I missed building stuff. I just quit my job this month and now looking for contract/freelance work. One thing I realized very late was I needed some kind of hobby outside writing code and spending t…

Cooking is a great suggestion. Especially if you live with someone else (family, spouse, housemates). Making something delicious for other people to eat brings a great sense of accomplishment. If you have kids and you can make food that they love (that is still healthy), then this feeling of accomplishment will put you in the clouds.

You will also be able to set yourself challenges in the kitchen that are not unlike some "itches scratched" by programming. i.e.

- How can I make this dish in a simpler way and still have it taste great?

- What delicious thing can I make using only the ingredients I happen to have laying around?

- What is the most delicious thing i can make with the fewest ingredients?

=)

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

#35

Post by mapcars »

So you changed, is that normal? Normal or not normal it does not matter, it's just that life is happening and do you want to explore it or just pass through? If you want to explore changes are inevitable. If you see changes it's a good sign, it means something is happening :)

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

#36

Post by FBT »

ganadiniakshay wrote: post #26
krig wrote: post #25

First of all, I would say it is absolutely normal to fall out of love with coding, and I wouldn't worry about it! If you're enjoying what you are doing, that's a good thing. Unlike the top comment, I don't think this has to be a sign of burning out (although it can be) - humans are complex beings. The world changes, and we change as well. What was enjoyable to you 15 years ago may not be as enjoyable now, and what yo…

How easy would you say it is to move back into a developer role if I say switch into product management role? I am scared I will be asked a lot about why I am switching back into coding and why I left it in the first place? I am scared of coming across as indecisive

If you are asked that question this is the sort of answer you give:

"I was given an opportunity to lead a product I was very excited about, and I took it. It was a great experience, and I learned a lot, but ultimately now I'm glad to be moving back into a developer role."

If you can truthfully say that, you're conveying not indecision, but rather showing the flow of your career path. That is something that is expected to take a few twists like this, and that's even a sign that you're someone with flexibility and a variety of skills, as opposed to being inflexible and unwilling to do things that are "outside the box".

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

#37

Post by gabrielblack »

Blacksmith. If it was possible to go back in time, I would be a blacksmith. This is my conclusion after working several years as consultant. The last project was horrible, hundreds of thousands of lines in C++ wrote by monkeys in ten years, layers of layers of crap. When I say layers I'm not speaking about architectural layers, but geological layers, like the sedimentation that trap the skeletons of dinosaurs. They introduced control version systems 3 years ago: before they preserved all the revision as comments, into the source files ! Every ten lines of source code, twenty lines of commented old code with the description of who, when and why the code was disabled. That was the time I really desired to die. Honestly, I enjoy myself only with my stuff, rarely at work.

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

#38

Post by johan_larson »

I've been coding for 37 years now, counting what I did in childhood. I can remember getting a real charge out of doing it. It was a real thrill to be able to tell the machine what to do and see things happen on the screen.

But I don't feel that thrill any more. I know I can build things; I've done so many times before. And frankly, figuring out how to fit new functionality into messy legacy systems isn't much fun. Occasionally, when I manage something very clever, I feel a glimmer of the old thrill of creation, but that's a rare thing.

These days, I'd prefer to do higher-level design and leadership work.

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

#39

Post by amelius »

Maybe you should try:

- switching from back-end to front-end coding or vice versa?

- switching from plumbing/glueing libraries to applied algorithms research?

- switching from basic administrative software to numerical/scientific computing?

- trying out a new field like machine learning?

- try embedded programming or robotics?

- switch languages, and try something completely different like Haskell?

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

#40

Post by jon-wood »

ganadiniakshay wrote: post #26
krig wrote: post #25

First of all, I would say it is absolutely normal to fall out of love with coding, and I wouldn't worry about it! If you're enjoying what you are doing, that's a good thing. Unlike the top comment, I don't think this has to be a sign of burning out (although it can be) - humans are complex beings. The world changes, and we change as well. What was enjoyable to you 15 years ago may not be as enjoyable now, and what yo…

How easy would you say it is to move back into a developer role if I say switch into product management role? I am scared I will be asked a lot about why I am switching back into coding and why I left it in the first place? I am scared of coming across as indecisive

If it were me hiring I would probably see this as a positive thing - not only are you an experienced developer but now you also have some experience of doing product management as well. That gives you a different perspective to most developers, and means that you'll likely be better at working with the product team to define what you can/should be doing.
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