I've been a software engineer for over 12 years. I went to school for CS. I hate writing code now. It shows too, my work is not great. I'm stressed because I don't know what to do. How do I move on from here successfully?
Ask HN: I hate coding, but it's all that's on my resume. What do I do?
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Re: Ask HN: I hate coding, but it's all that's on my resume. What do I do?
#2What do you want to do other than coding?
Different careers have different paths and ins and outs.
Re: Ask HN: I hate coding, but it's all that's on my resume. What do I do?
#3What do you want to do other than coding? Different careers have different paths and ins and outs.
I don't know. I am also depressed and so, unfortunately, nothing at all actually sounds good.
The path I know people talk about out of coding is Product Management. Are there others? It always seems like a pay cut and I'm already always so strapped for cash. Moving cities seems equally as overwhelming as changing careers.
Re: Ask HN: I hate coding, but it's all that's on my resume. What do I do?
#4Get your TEFL certificate. Teach english online to Chinese kids or move to foreign country and teach english.
Re: Ask HN: I hate coding, but it's all that's on my resume. What do I do?
#5Coding is a virus, a meme. What you've got is 12 years of experience breaking down problems, abstraction, functional analysis, debugging.
You have skills which other parts of the business cycle need.
If you aren't a "people person" then look to problem solving in logistics: the routing and scheduling behind everyday delivery is a heinous problem. Or, in the construction, mining and related sector. "for the want of a nail" problems abound.
(hint: root cause analysis? duck typing in a process debug?)
Operations Research: linear programming to derive the maximally efficient solution to a problem. Its everywhere.
Epidemiology: Go be a gun-for-hire in stats or data analytics for somebody with smarts in another space, drowning in data. Yea, you have to code. So what! the code will be fascinating and totally different
If you are a "people person" then non-product spaces like health are full of middle manager roles. And.. gues what: its logistics, scheduling, process analysis, root cause analysis. Supply chain behind masks and gowns has become pretty topical...
Re: Ask HN: I hate coding, but it's all that's on my resume. What do I do?
#6What do you want to do other than coding? Different careers have different paths and ins and outs.
I don't know. I am also depressed and so, unfortunately, nothing at all actually sounds good. The path I know people talk about out of coding is Product Management. Are there others? It always seems like a pay cut and I'm already always so strapped for cash. Moving cities seems equally as overwhelming as changing careers.
Product Management is my gig now. Its fun, but its bound up in Dale Carnegie "seven habits of highly effective shysters" lingo. But that said, the UX people are really nice. You could do a lot worse, but you have to be a "people person" do to PM, because the primary issue is fit-for-purpose in badly thought out hypotheses on a product or feature, which means people...
Re: Ask HN: I hate coding, but it's all that's on my resume. What do I do?
#7Do you know what you want to do? Do that. Don't know what you want to do? Sit around and be bored for a while. Your natural curiosity will kick in. Follow where it leads.
Re: Ask HN: I hate coding, but it's all that's on my resume. What do I do?
#8What do you want to do other than coding? Different careers have different paths and ins and outs.
I don't know. I am also depressed and so, unfortunately, nothing at all actually sounds good. The path I know people talk about out of coding is Product Management. Are there others? It always seems like a pay cut and I'm already always so strapped for cash. Moving cities seems equally as overwhelming as changing careers.
Also: seek professional help for the depression. CBT works remarkably well. Many of us (me) have been there, or on the edges, and its easy to find somebody to work through the issues with. I can't promise you will get your mojo back, but there is a fundamental truth to "a problem shared is a problem halved" if you pick the right professional person to share it with.
Good luck and don't give up.
Re: Ask HN: I hate coding, but it's all that's on my resume. What do I do?
#9What do you want to do other than coding? Different careers have different paths and ins and outs.
I don't know. I am also depressed and so, unfortunately, nothing at all actually sounds good. The path I know people talk about out of coding is Product Management. Are there others? It always seems like a pay cut and I'm already always so strapped for cash. Moving cities seems equally as overwhelming as changing careers.
Consider QA as a pivot. Manual QA pays about 50-80% of coding, but is a lot less stressful.
Re: Ask HN: I hate coding, but it's all that's on my resume. What do I do?
#10MBA