Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

> In my last job I'd advocate tirelessly for unit tests, code reviews, all that. And it was always denied.

My approach to that is to not ask, just write the unit tests anyways, ask a peer to code review without management permission, etc.

We are professionals. Part of that responsibility is to know the best practices for our craft and put them into practice.

We also need to be good at getting the requirements from the technical and non-technical people we work with, and being able to show consistent, incremental progress, and a willingness to quickly change direction when the requirements change.

But we do not need to get input or permission for the process we use to produce those results.

That kind of bureaucracy predates agile, but it may have increased in some places as people try to grapple with the chaos of endless sprint cycles and continuous change. i.e. trying to figure how to manage the madness. But, I don't see how your shop can be agile with that level of bureaucracy?

Anyway, I think my comments on CI/CD, Git, etc are being misconstrued. I'm not saying they don't have value. I'm saying they are frequently part of an ethos that leads to developer burnout.

For instance, your CI/CID process is one you must "appease", along with the rest of the bureaucracy. It may not feel as odious (and may even seem a relief, relatively speaking), but it contributes to your total load.

And, Git is fine. In fact, perhaps even perfect for the current culture (in philosophy, if not always in execution). Each developer has his/her own repo, you can work offline, you merge instead of locking check-outs, etc. But, that's the trick: it feels perfect because it allows you to work in the always-on philosophy of agile. Its popularity sprang up because this world of high burn-out, constant productivity demands it.

So, we can see the utility of these things and even appreciate them. But, the model they enable and expectations they create can still ultimately lead devs to burnout.

You missed the "their whole lives" part and confuse "keep track of" to "know someone".

You are right, I am confused. How would I keep track of someone if I don't know them? This includes not just people but all of the animals that I interact with. My mom used to have a bird feeder and I spent countless hours watching the birds. I got to know several dozen as individuals, I was aware of their injuries and their style of eating (timid, brave, quick, slow). How might I keep track of them without knowing them? Perhaps you might consider that your ideas on this subject are a bit muddy?

Also, you misread the original comment when they wrote "their whole lives" -- they are asserting people never know more than that 30 to 100 people, an assertion which is absurd.

This isn't going to be a popular response, but I read your entire article and I have the following advice.

First, what toy wrote tells me you started your business because you consider yourself to be highly intelligent and capable and you believed that you should be in charge. What you've said about how your business failed and how few people still want anything to do with you afterwards tells me you were not prepared, you do not understand how to run a business and you lack even a minimal competency when it comes to leadership. I do not want you to think I am being harsh and unfeeling, I am being critical because it's what you need to know if you ever intended to work in the tech industry again.

Almost everyone wants to be in charge and believes they could succeed in such a role given the chance. Of those who attempt to start their own businesses only about 10% have what it takes to merely stay in business. Fewer than 3% of business leaders have sufficient ability in the field they already work in to create a genuinely profitable business, and less than 0.3% have what it takes to found an industry disrupting company.

Investors will always behave the way you described because they're basically playing roulette and they've bet on a bunch of things in the hope that 10% of their investments will pay off because they know the statistics I just told you. Your friends abandoned you however, because as a boss you make them promises and promising things to your friends which you probably cannot deliver always damages the relationship.

Finally, it's time for my advice. One, you need to remove your ego and emotions from your work as this will always eventually damage working relationships and burn you out. Two, work is always a marathon, never a sprint. A lot of startup guys will tell you that you have to work 70 hour weeks, but this is not maintainable and will just result in failure later on as opposed to delayed sustainable success. Third, if it wasn't clear from my initial statements, you are not well suited to being high level management and changing that about yourself would likely take so long as to waste the rest of your career in pursuit of a highly stressful goal that is unlikely ever to feel worth the effort. I suggest you take an engineering position or stick to no higher than mid-level project management at an established company. Finding somewhere relaxing where you can limit your work hours to 40 or less per week is the only real chance you have at reversing the burnout, but only if you can remove your ego and emotions from your past and future professional work. I strongly recommend mindfulness meditation to help with getting past your former business failings and MO e forward into a career that you can find fulfilling.