31–40 of 52 posts
Burn out at which age? I'm 30 and I already feel like quasi-burnout sometimes.
I think my burnout started at 30. I'm getting close to saving enough to get out, though, and it can't come soon enough.
These two sentences seem contradictory.
Wish I could do something meaningful. Right now, I'm just a cog in the machine, iterating on the same boring products for consoomers and to maximise shareholder value and increase executive salaries and bonuses whilst earning just enough money to keep me motivated for another day. When I think about my work and life it's incredibly depressing, but I have no idea how to create monetary value doing something meaningful…
Don't the consumers enjoy the products? You're giving them that enjoyment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think my burnout started at 30. I'm getting close to saving enough to get out, though, and it can't come soon enough.
I thought so too around your age but I’m 39, still working in tech and am feeling better than ever about my career! For me starting my own startup was the best thing I ever did (so far…)
And TBH I'm kind of tired of tech. There's a lot of busy work and "automation" that requires more upfront time than you save in a year or maybe even years. It's exhausting keeping up with the young'uns and their new-fangled software that they don't fully understand. (It's incredibly uncommon for them to consider failure modes).
I've considered my own startup. I have ideas. I'm not a salesperson though. Raising funds would be a challenge, as would hiring.
Sorry for the brain dump here. I've got a lot built up. And unfortunately I have a lot of "but"s and excuses. It would have been better if I intervened in my life a decade ago.
I am now, apparently, a retired person. It came as a surprise, and relief. (The fine line between retired and homeless cuts through every human heart)
I intend to write a lot of code, make a lot of 3d printed stuff, and enjoy my time with my friends and family.
For the next month or two, I can't do much due to eye surgery.
I've picked up (with a lot of help from HN) a Forth variant from the 1970s previously known as STOIC, to work on. It's written in C, which I've avoided since the 1980s. (I hate case sensitivity, and the shenanigans that happen with Macros, and the insanity that is \x00 terminated strings)
If possible, I intend to write a C library that does Reference Counted, Count Prefixed Strings, to route around the standard *char grief.
I'm also working on a set of tools to deconstruct HTML and recast it as an Actual Markup language that you can apply to HyperText, in a sane manner. (Throwing all the layers together with a blender in "HTML" was a tragedy)
Oh... and I forgot earlier... I want to at some point use an OS as a daily driver that implements the principle of least privilege. WASM might be a work around for this.
I'm doing small projects for fun. My favourite is helping people get unstuck in 15 minutes with 3 questions. A few coaches have expressed interest in offering a similar service so it's accidentally turning into a micro-coaching business where people who don't normally have access to executive coaches and get help with something specific in a defined period of time.
My advice to people in tech who want to stay in tech, build stuff for yourself. If you're not sure how or don't have ideas, there are people who can teach you myself included
I am not a fan of programming or software anymore, and while the moneys nice I don’t want to spend many more decades sitting on my ass, working on stuff o could care less about. Money is nice, but it’s certainly not keeping my content.