Hear me out. Find a back end job in a stable non-startup. The rate of tech change is so much more reasonable.
Ask HN: Tired of software career. What now?
31–40 of 112 posts
Re: Ask HN: Tired of software career. What now?
#32The traditional career progressions for software developers are management, entrepreneurship, and carpentry.
Followed by farming
Re: Ask HN: Tired of software career. What now?
#33Not every software job is awful though. There's nothing about software itself that make it have to be awful. Why not just find a different seat and see if that improves your mood? Not every place is organized the same way, not every codebase is spaghetti.
This.
When a job starts to make you feel this way, it's time for a new job.
Go work at a startup if you want to do green field stuff with latest tooling that doesn't suck yet.
When you interview at a place, make sure it doesn't suck like your current place. Interview them.
Re: Ask HN: Tired of software career. What now?
#34Nice rant. Go watch “Office Space” that will tell you what to do, and no it’s not burn it all down.
> Go watch “Office Space” that will tell you what to do, and no it’s not burn it all down.
Last thing the poor fella wants to consider at this point is "burn-down charts".
Re: Ask HN: Tired of software career. What now?
#35Not every software job is awful though. There's nothing about software itself that make it have to be awful. Why not just find a different seat and see if that improves your mood? Not every place is organized the same way, not every codebase is spaghetti.
Accurate but it can be really tough to find the good places. My experience is that most huge companies are not great. Too much bureaucracy. Startups can be a lot of fun, but the relentless pressure to grow, and grow fast can cause problems. My favorite places have been small, steadily growing companies working on things that are not "winner take all" markets, where you can do things right, move quickly, and know most of the people you work with.
Re: Ask HN: Tired of software career. What now?
#36Ya, I'm in a similar situation. I burn out every 1-2 years. This time I'm finding that I may be autistic/neurodivergent. The equation is very different for me and I have to start approaching it a bit differently what I look for in a (dev) job. The advice I've read in these sort of threads don't always resonate with me; we are all different kinds of people. Some people are much more tolerant of the vast sea of grindy dev jobs. There's gotta be something more interesting out there, the harder "more interesting" problems that are worth spending 30+hrs a week on. Leave the basic stuff for the basic people and everybody can be happy.
Joining a neurodivergent support group has been great; meet some similar minds.
Re: Ask HN: Tired of software career. What now?
#37> I don’t care about what we are building I don't switch jobs much, but this is when I do. If I don't care about it, and I'm tired of the org and its practices, and the system is stuck in some way, I have to bounce. I'll just drag myself and the team/project/org down because my paycheck will only buy so much caring from me. We'll all be better off if I'm somewhere more satisfying and they fill my slot with someone wh…
> I'll just drag myself and the team/project/org down
I wish everyone had this much self awareness. Some people just hold on for dear life to collect a paycheck. I get it, people have a family and bills to pay, but at least use the slack time to find another job.
Re: Ask HN: Tired of software career. What now?
#38This is the talk you must watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bxZuzDKoI0
"Pushing through friction" by Dan Na.
Re: Ask HN: Tired of software career. What now?
#39Some options:
* Move to a frontend job that is less chaotic. RoR jobs are relatively easy to find and some codebases are quite tidy. Plus, the framework moves slowly and there is little JS.
* Move to a backend job that uses an interesting technology, like Erlang, OCaml or Haskell. These technologies will provide some stimulation due to elegance and novelty.
* Pivot to a job in a different domain. Consider academic, industrial and national laboratories where you can leverage your coding experience.
Re: Ask HN: Tired of software career. What now?
#40I was in your position with web development and went back to uni to get a mechanical engineering degree. Started at 38 and graduated at 42. I’ve been working at it for 10 years now and specialise in designing data centres funnily enough. There’s much less ageism in “physical” engineering work which is positive but I also took a very large hit in seniority and compensation to switch. In hindsight, moving sideways into non-web development may have been a good option too but in the end it all comes down to what you find fulfilling. I’m more proud that I’ve helped build things that last like children’s hospitals and geothermal heating for local swimming pools. Sounds like taking a break first may be a good idea. Good luck!