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Ask HN: I've lost faith in myself as a developer, how do I get it back?

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Re: Ask HN: I've lost faith in myself as a developer, how do I get it back?

#171

Post by vmception »

sam0x17 wrote: post #167
vmception wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of emergency alert was the main factor, not the cell phone policy just because cell phones have an alert system built in.

I accept all of your premises but disagree with your argument -- yes the lack of an emergency alert system is a factor, yes cell phones have a built-in alert system that could have handled this, and yes Amazon chose to suppress this alert system from working by denying employees access to their devices. They took away the only existing alert system and didn't replace it with anything. Garden variety negligent behavio…

Its not an argument and we came to the same conclusion. The case needs to focus on the lack of emergency system instead of getting thrown out unceremoniously by a judge who says "whats this got to do with cell phones"

Re: Ask HN: I've lost faith in myself as a developer, how do I get it back?

#172

Post by rocqua »

Get help. Someone to talk to. Maybe a therapist but probably a coach.

I'd suggest looking up a local independent coach. Maybe ask around for references. If you can get the company to pay for it, great (should be worth it to them). Otherwise pay for it yourself.

You have thought about this a lot, and come to a big realization. You need an outside sounding board to help you think through the implications and figure out next steps. A coach seems like a great fit because they are aimed at personal development, whereas a therapist is for fixibg things. It doesn't sound like you need fixing.

(Saying this because of personal experience with coaches)

Re: Ask HN: I've lost faith in myself as a developer, how do I get it back?

#174

Post by agumonkey »

anyonecancode wrote: post #11

It does sound like burnout, and also like not being in the right environment (which contributes to burn out). I had one job where there was a lot of technical debt, but my manager did not respect me and my colleagues had what was basically a "learned helplessness" attitude. So I'd go around trying really hard to make things better, but everyone responded to me like I was just crazy or naive or didn't know what I was…

> I left. My new job has lots of tech debt, lots of processes that are broken, but when I propose changes people listen

I'm in a non IT position right now and everybody is so stuck in the swamp everything is a 'no'. It now devolved into neverending politics. Mail fights and delays. A weird kind of bore and burn out.

Re: Ask HN: I've lost faith in myself as a developer, how do I get it back?

#175

Post by sjg007 »

Does the company have product market fit?

If not, don't worry. If you do, don't worry. Perfection is the enemy of good enough.

You want to hire developers who will take your vision and turn it into good code even if that means rewriting your code. And every developer will rewrite your code to make it their own. They will also always complain about your code.

Re: Ask HN: I've lost faith in myself as a developer, how do I get it back?

#176

Post by cloverich »

Lots of great answers so far. Consider also that a CTO of a 5 person, 15 person, 30 person, and 100+ person (etc) company is not the same role, despite having the same title. So I think if you start at 5 and stay CTO as it grows, it is pretty natural to feel like you are always fighting to adapt -- you are. And likewise if the role begins to outgrow you, that's par for the course. In general when I think of CTO I don't think of them as programmers really, but more as leaders who play a role in recruiting, landing deals, setting (broad) technical direction and thinking years out. E.g. "Should we build or buy this thing that will take 2 years to do, based on the market, our competition, and who we have at the company." I think its natural to lose your core development skills. You can always get them back if you want. But that will be a different job of course :)

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: I've lost faith in myself as a developer, how do I get it back?

#177

Post by hutzlibu »

gcmac wrote: post #159
bgroat wrote: post #56

Is it possible that you're not making the "right" moves because you're the CTO? Leadership is hard and it's hard because you're making bayesian calculations on suboptimal choices. Almost by definition. Say a Jr. dev has a problem that they can't solve. They kick it to an intermediate. The intermediate can't solve it so they kick it up to a senior. The senior can see a couple of solutions, but want's to run it past th…

Reminds me of this excerpt from an Obama interview: > When problems reached him in the White House, he said, it was because they were unsolvable. He generally was being asked to choose between two bad options. “By definition, if it was an easily solvable problem, or even a modestly difficult but solvable problem, it would not reach me, because, by definition, somebody else would have solved it,” he said. “So the only…

"So the only decisions that came were the ones that were horrible and that didn’t have a good solution."

This should probably be a must read for any wanna be presidents and leaders who are only after the power and glory.

Re: Ask HN: I've lost faith in myself as a developer, how do I get it back?

#178

Post by belowmedian »

I'm going through something similar at a much smaller scale (startup CTO of 2 years, not much growth). It's been enough to make me want to quit software engineering altogether. It sucks.

At least your company is growing and you know that you are a decent developer.

Maybe you can take a sabbatical. Talk to your partner if you are on good terms. Make sure to explore your options.

Hope you find a way to move forward and regain your confidence.

Re: Ask HN: I've lost faith in myself as a developer, how do I get it back?

#180

Post by jpmoral »

gcmac wrote: post #159
bgroat wrote: post #56

Is it possible that you're not making the "right" moves because you're the CTO? Leadership is hard and it's hard because you're making bayesian calculations on suboptimal choices. Almost by definition. Say a Jr. dev has a problem that they can't solve. They kick it to an intermediate. The intermediate can't solve it so they kick it up to a senior. The senior can see a couple of solutions, but want's to run it past th…

Reminds me of this excerpt from an Obama interview: > When problems reached him in the White House, he said, it was because they were unsolvable. He generally was being asked to choose between two bad options. “By definition, if it was an easily solvable problem, or even a modestly difficult but solvable problem, it would not reach me, because, by definition, somebody else would have solved it,” he said. “So the only…

This is only true where the system at least somewhat works. In other places you get police press conferences where they say "The president/governor has already given us orders to investigate the crime".
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