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Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer

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Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer

#21

Post by ziddoap »

“If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.”

I know saying this is easier than doing it, but; seek upward movement until you no longer feel like you're the smartest person in the room.

I would also add, although it's purely personal opinion, that seeking a solution to loneliness through work is a surefire way to feel more lonely. You say you're big on self-improvement, but are you only focused on improving your work-related skills? All areas of life need attention, and it sounds like you've only been focusing on the work part of work/life balance (work/life balance is so much more than just what hours you work).

Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer

#22

Post by 100011_100001 »

t43562 wrote: post #7

Well, you're good at making the rest of us feel inferior - perhaps that's the problem? Why not move into a domain where you're a beginner again and feel what it's like to struggle to learn from scratch?

Sorry. I honestly think almost anyone can do what I do. I'm not the smartest developer by far. I think I have good systems in place that allow me to write code well.

In terms of moving to a different domain I did about 4 years ago. It was a challenge in the beginning, but I have enough life experience to know how to handle adverse situations.

Kind of like if you know 3 programming languages well, the 4th one is not very hard. It becomes a "what keyword do I use" to do the thing.

Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer

#23

Post by hellohowareu »

As a 35 year old developer who started at about age 32, just want to say: I am glad to see folks in their 40s doing well as a developer.

sometimes i get burned out on it. but, ultimately i am still interested in programming and the creativity that comes with creating products.

so, just glad that I can keep being one for at least 10, maybe 20 more years.

Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer

#24

Post by phphphphp »

I’ve worked with people who could have written this post with the stats and how they consider themselves, but they were awful to work with. People didn’t challenge them because it was exhausting, because they knew best, despite their constant churning out of garbage code that the business didn’t have the guts to address.

That’s not to say you’re bad or your code is bad, but it’s definitely worth considering whether the way you’re measuring yourself is a true reflection of your value: have you talked to your co-workers about what it’s like to work with you? What value you provide to them? How you can contribute to their careers, their work? The greatest value you can deliver to a business is rarely code: if you can improve every other developer by 1x, the business will be much better off than you being on an island all by yourself.

My measure of myself always starts with whether or not people enjoy working with me, whether I’m providing value to the people around me: I could write 10x as much code as I do now, but I don’t believe it would have better results for the company overall.

Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer

#26

Post by Jensson »

Most developers pivot to harder things until they are reach the level where they are barely able to stay productive since the tasks are too hard for them. This means it is really easy to be much faster than everyone else just by not pivoting to new things, just continue mastering the same thing. Many people never master anything and just stall though, but the way other developers handle your problem is to move on to something harder, that is what everyone else did who didn't struggle with the tasks you currently work on.

Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer

#28

Post by goldenchrome »

It sounds like you’re contributing too much. If you’re the backbone of your company’s technical org and you’re not the CTO or at least a director, you’re being undervalued which causes a lot of psychological distress over time.

I recommend you figure out how to get to that position, which will probably involve training other developers to take over for you.

If you don’t want to get into management, you could join a large company >3000 employees where there will be dozens of people like you.

Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer

#29

Post by molyss »

The beginning of your post did sound like a lot of bragging. Once I got to the end, I felt that I could have written a large part of it...

Feeling of being rarely challenged, loneliness, frustration with slowness, and urge to go and fix "it" have been very present for me over the past 2-3 years. It's been pretty harmful to my mental health. But it's also forced me to look at the bigger picture. So while I feel like I've lost a few years of my career, it's not all lost.

Some things I would suggest :

Don't express your frustration. You care, that's a good thing ! But you can't let the frustration overshadow your knowledge and your message. Seen it in some uber-smart people, and it just makes everyone feel bad.

Act as a teacher? I'm not sure if that's something that interests you, but it's something that'll take some of your time, improve the team around you, make you feel less lonely and make you seem more approachable for everyone. I also find it very rewarding.

Change jobs ? New team, new company, new role ?

If you're interested by CS in general, find people outside of work in the industry that you think are "10x" devs as well (god, I hate that term...)? Simply people you respect that have similar interest. I haven't solved the "how" myself, so if you're open to having some off-HN conversations about this, just let me know and we'll figure something out :)

Re: Tell HN: The loneliness of a pretty good developer

#30

Post by mattnewton »

Not to be flippant, but I have often felt if I look around and feel that I am the most capable or smartest person in the room, I am probably in the wrong room. Have you thought about applying to work at a company known for engineering excellence? With remote work becoming more mainstream, why not try it at a big Fang-type shop? I know I felt I was a 100x type engineer until I joined Google for example - a ton of people to learn from in a company like that :D

Another option is to embrace the role and lean into mentorship at your current company. But it sounds like that is not something you are interested in at this point, so I would start applying to companies.

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