Have you considered transitioning to DevOps? Assuming you like operations, of course.
Ask HN: I hate coding, but it's all that's on my resume. What do I do?
31–40 of 48 posts
Re: Ask HN: I hate coding, but it's all that's on my resume. What do I do?
#32Have someone help you update your resume to make it sell you for something else. Pick two or three job adverts that appeal to you, do a brain dump of pertinent info, have someone help you turn that into a resume that says "I'm qualified to do this other job."
Re: Ask HN: I hate coding, but it's all that's on my resume. What do I do?
#33I've felt similarly, on and off, my whole career (7 years since my first SWE internship). Unfortunately I've not got the answers but I do have a thought I want feedback on. Maybe it's ok not to love it but to be satisfied regardless. It's an in demand, well paid, flexible, reasonably interesting (even if I would never miss it) career that allows me to lead a great life in other aspects without giving up too much. Can…
Personally I think it depends on how you view your job with respect to the remainder of your daily life.
To some, their job is the main source of fulfilment + a good proportion of their social circle. For others it's a means to an end so that they can fulfill their needs elsewhere in their own time.
The pros you listed are fantastic if you sit on the latter side of the spectrum, but if you really view your work as part of your identity then just being satisfied won't be enough
Re: Ask HN: I hate coding, but it's all that's on my resume. What do I do?
#34I've felt similarly, on and off, my whole career (7 years since my first SWE internship). Unfortunately I've not got the answers but I do have a thought I want feedback on. Maybe it's ok not to love it but to be satisfied regardless. It's an in demand, well paid, flexible, reasonably interesting (even if I would never miss it) career that allows me to lead a great life in other aspects without giving up too much. Can…
Personally I think it depends on how you view your job with respect to the remainder of your daily life. To some, their job is the main source of fulfilment + a good proportion of their social circle. For others it's a means to an end so that they can fulfill their needs elsewhere in their own time. The pros you listed are fantastic if you sit on the latter side of the spectrum, but if you really view your work as pa…
Are we fundamentally set on that spectrum though? Is it possible to make yourself someone who views their career as a means to an end and is thus more satisfied. My worry is that the more towards the 'job is the main source of fulfilment' side I am the less happy I'll be;
Re: Ask HN: I hate coding, but it's all that's on my resume. What do I do?
#35I worked as a software developer part-time throughout school but never enjoyed software development. Although I did enjoy other parts of CS such as cryptography. After school finished, I was attending local meetups to find out different opportunities in IT industry. At a local security meetup, I met a security consultant (pentester)and ended up chatting with him. As his work was interesting, I applied to a few security consulting companies. Since then, I have been working as a pentester for 3 years now and I am pretty happy with it. Maybe you could think about a similar change.
Re: Ask HN: I hate coding, but it's all that's on my resume. What do I do?
#36In general, you can't get a job in X without experience in X. The irony has been recognized for generations. But if you have experience in X, what you can do is get a job doing X but do some Y at the same company as sort of a volunteer. People will often share some of their grunt work with you if you don't insist on getting any credit or money for it.
But then, you get experience in Y. If you're good enough (sometimes just meaning hard-working enough), you might get recognized for it and offered an opening doing more Y if they decide they need someone. If not, you'll still have genuine "professional experience" in Y to put on your resume.
Re: Ask HN: I hate coding, but it's all that's on my resume. What do I do?
#37What 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.
Do you have any idea of what it is that you hate about writing code?
I'm asking just to figure out what kinds of things to perhaps avoid when thinking of what else to do.
Also, it sounds like a difficult situation you are in if the depression makes changing things in your life more difficult (as it may often do). If you don't have professional help already, try and see if you can find some. The best thing might be someone who personally feel like they could understand you and your issues (especially if you don't have friends like that). It's not a silver bullet but it might help get started.
If money is the problem, try and see if there are some kinds of small-ish changes you could make to remedy that. I know from experience that just making those changes can be difficult if you're depressed enough, but I noticed I could save noticeably by eating out a bit less and making simple meals at home instead. It takes a bit of effort to get started and that may seem overwhelming at first but you may be able to save surprising sums for something else.
Of course all of that depends on your living situation, housing costs etc.
Either way, getting out of a job that's draining you can be important to your mental health and well-being, but other aspects of that are equally important, and making some changes where it's easier first might be helpful.
I've experienced something kind of similar (and, to be fair, I'm not nearly out of the woods yet, but I've seen some of the things that don't work), so I can see how it could be a difficult situation.
(Using a throwaway because I don't really talk about my own mental health in public.)
Re: Ask HN: I hate coding, but it's all that's on my resume. What do I do?
#38I've been there. My personal take is that the day in and day out life of a coder sucks, big time. Humans weren't designed for it. If you are inventing something novel and new and actually 'engineering' then that's different, but pulling the next React feature from some PM's backlog, that's hell. Look at your cohort, I would venture it's mostly 20 somethings men. Maybe the odd older guy but certainly not a diverse set…
> pulling the next React feature from some PM's backlog, that's hell.
Why?
The coding I don't like is when there is no requirements or path (architecturally, devops-wise) or when you need approval from too many stakeholders (compliance, managers, release coordinators, etc, etc)
Re: Ask HN: I hate coding, but it's all that's on my resume. What do I do?
#39I've felt similarly, on and off, my whole career (7 years since my first SWE internship). Unfortunately I've not got the answers but I do have a thought I want feedback on. Maybe it's ok not to love it but to be satisfied regardless. It's an in demand, well paid, flexible, reasonably interesting (even if I would never miss it) career that allows me to lead a great life in other aspects without giving up too much. Can…
Well, you always need to like your job and have atleast a little to be happy while doing it.
I don't love my job, but I do like what I do which helps me a lot going through the day.
Re: Ask HN: I hate coding, but it's all that's on my resume. What do I do?
#40I've been there. My personal take is that the day in and day out life of a coder sucks, big time. Humans weren't designed for it. If you are inventing something novel and new and actually 'engineering' then that's different, but pulling the next React feature from some PM's backlog, that's hell. Look at your cohort, I would venture it's mostly 20 somethings men. Maybe the odd older guy but certainly not a diverse set…
i hated working as a programmer until i understood what i really hated was the 9-5 office environment. without that suddenly coding was fun. since then i am trying to control for that, and life is much better. i can even tolerate 9-5 for long enough because i find other ways to compensate.