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Why not go into startups? Your skills will be most valued and you’ll have a say over what you build.
You’re energy for challenge is a classic problem for intelligent people. After it all, deciding what is worth building is a greater challenge than how to build it. IMO.
Which none of us can answer for you.
Elzbardico's comment is harsh, your response to it is totally fair, but I did want to highlight something in your response to them: "it seems the kind of dream team I want to be on is very rare."
I do think folks in this thread have a point that you are externalizing the source of fulfillment throughout your original post. Even now you have this idea that there is some perfect team of colleagues that will make you fulfilled. Another harsh way of saying it is: if you were good enough to be on that dream team, they would have pursued you at some point in your lengthy career.
You probably have enough money to have some freedom now. So... what next? Options:
1. Go volunteer, long term, committed, somewhere that truly needs help 2. Go full on hedonism for three months: travel, drugs, alcohol, sex 3. Go on short- to mid-length silent meditation retreats 4. Rent a car and drive around the country for a month with no plan
Eject yourself from the SE identity and see what's left. In that space, see either what brings you joy or piques your interest.
A year from now you might end up back as an SE, but it'll be with more intention .
Another way of looking at this is, skip town, hibernate while the job market sucks, come back in 2024 and maybe that dream job will exist anyway.
I humbly propose that you start planning your exit from your software development career. Not forever, but at least long enough to rack up one or two alternative careers.
OR! I propose that the explosion of your marriage (and everything wrapped up in that) is the real gravitational black hole in your life (in a good way and bad way) around which everything else revolves.
My marriage recently blew up catastrophically, and it devastated me. I'm still not even sure what 'back to baseline' would look like, but I feel (disappointingly) fundamentally altered as a person. I generally believe we're all malleable enough, but I've got a lot of work to do, to recover a version of myself where I generally enjoy my own company.
Save money, reduce expenses dramatically, once you're at a 15-month runway pull the plug and leave.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who needs meaning when you can have fun?
I believe everyone ultimately does .. it’s like asking why people “settle”? Meaning IMHO ends up being more rewarding than fun
You need to figure out what’s inside of you that’s making you miserable — it’s not all of these jobs and all of these people, it’s you.
Therapy might help. Not being snarky.
Who chases their career to fulfill their dreams? "My dad growing up told me that you know work hard, get a good job, you know, make money. Nobody has fun working and then you can have fun with the money you make." -Jimmy Yang But to your last point, yes, just not in the private sector. Join the dark side and work government contracts, the pay is decent and you get exactly what you're asking for. You get to be technic…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe everyone ultimately does .. it’s like asking why people “settle”? Meaning IMHO ends up being more rewarding than fun
I don't know, people who say similar things imho haven't confronted death too much. When you keep examining "rewarding" things like that critically, I always end up realizing how temporary it is and how much I don't care about being remembered by people who would also be forgotten. I say you do you, whatever improves your experience of life without causing harm.
After a certain time I realised that I would never be hired to work with what I really love doing and focused on working to pay the bills and use my spare time to pursue my real interests on my own. Some of the apps I wrote got to see the light of day and some not. Did it bring me money or recognition, no, but I certainly felt realised knowing what I can achieve or even for the fun part of it. I currently work with more managerial tasks related to cybersecurity, with no coding skills required, but it never stopped me from coding at all. I expect no recognition for the work I do there (but someone will sure want our heads at the next breach). There is too much politics at the office out of our control and to me that's where most BS comes from.
I've had my M.S. some years ago and it may be great to improve the code you write, but I would recommend it more for the networking, meeting and discussing with new people and raising new ideas. Currently I'm in the middle of a new undergrad course in architecture (building's architecture, not software architecture), a newly found passion discovered almost by accident. And I'm even considering another M.S. in this area. What can I say, I love the academic environment just didn't get to be a professor (yet).
So this is what I'd give as advice: No, matter how much they try to sell it to you you're not family. You give them your knowledge and time and they pay your bills (extra hours are not free), that's the exchange you're in for. Your work is not worth your real family so be there for them, spend quality time with them, do family stuff together. Find out what you like doing. Pursue your passions away from the office and get in touch with real people whenever you can, be it in an academic environment or a local group (you can even try and start one if there is none in your area but even community work does it).
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> the kinds of people who tend to become researchers are also jerks Blanket statements like this are ridiculous. > Just expect to be treated as an brainless execution monkey at those places Each lab has a different vibe - some will suck, some will be awesome. Totally depends on where you end up just like a startup. > I have done it in the past and quit after 4 months Sounds like you got unlucky.
Agree with your rebuttal. I worked for 17 years in the university environment as a Sr. Faculty Research Assistant. Loved it for the most part. Yes, there are assholes (that's DOCTOR asshole to you buddy), but you can choose them as much as they choose you.
The last part is key, and many people don't realize it. Don't accept abuse or poor treatment. It is very very hard to hire competent computational people in bioinformatics because of the low salaries, and PIs know this. No matter how junior you are, or how big of a mistake you may have made once in a while- you need to enforce hard boundaries about being treated with dignity and respect, and leave if they can't be met. I got stuck in this trap for years, being abused by jerks and thinking I deserved it (low self esteem)... not realizing that they were lucky to find me, and would be very hard pressed to find someone else that could do what they needed.
It's also important to have an open mind, and work to understand the subject matter at hand you are working with. If you make an effort to understand what you are working on in more depth, even if it's not your main area of expertise, your work will be much higher quality, and you will get a lot more respect.
Personally, I started out as a SWE in academia, and slowly learned the subject matter I had been working with until I started to have as much understanding and new ideas as the PIs I was working with. I then eventually got a PhD and became a PI myself.
- your job can'not satisfy you always. There are good jobs and bad jobs. But good job can become a bad one in overnight. Nothig is permanent. So don't get attached to it, instead love your craft.
- the software domain is the easiest one to experiment. Having a computer and internet is enough to build whatever you want. If you wanna have kick by writing good code, just get it from your own project.