I feel you... Web development is geared towards the "next hot thing" and can be very exhausting. Could it be an option to change your career path into a more management type role? Are you good with people? You might be a great mentor for junior devs?
Ask HN: Depressed, need to leave web development, what can I do?
21–30 of 192 posts
Re: Ask HN: Depressed, need to leave web development, what can I do?
#22You could try looking into small companies. They might be paying less, but there might be 0 interviews, low stress and fun. I don’t know which country you are from but here in Lithuania there are many options and we are country of less than 3 millions.
If they're suffering from some form of burn-out or are in a bad way mentally right now, going to a smaller company can make it a lot worse. Smaller companies tend to expect you to wear multiple hats, lots of context switching. It can worsen the situation for them.
Re: Ask HN: Depressed, need to leave web development, what can I do?
#23Web development as practiced by the majority of the industry is truly insane and depressing. No one has any idea what they are doing. Here's what I'm aiming to do: learn systems programming on the side, accumulate enough savings to live off of for nearly a year, then go independent and continue learning systems programming "as I go". Build software products on my own and start selling them.
Why not leverage what you know and build web-based products/services?
Re: Ask HN: Depressed, need to leave web development, what can I do?
#24Get your depression treated, then you will be able to figure it out, how to progress.
It may make sense to take a break from work, but it could also be destabilizing, and create the fear of ending up broke. So try to find a way to reduce stress and things that cause you anxiety, whatever it may be. A therapist can help with that too.
Re: Ask HN: Depressed, need to leave web development, what can I do?
#251. Try to take 6m to a year off 2. Think of way to leverage your skillset to your advantage in a non 9-5 capacity 3. If its still repulsive, go on indeed and just start browsing with very little criteria to see what interests you and just start applying, you would be surprised how advantageous being a tech worker can be in other seemingly non-related industries. I know a guy who use to be a nurse, he is now a charter…
I really hate the advice "Take six months to a year off"
Not everyone is in such a financially advantageous situation that they are able to do so at a minimum we should preface such advice with "Ideally" or "If you are able to"
In fact, when I've faced burn out in the past, one of the major reasons for it was BECAUSE I wasn't in a situation to take such time off and my gosh do I wish it was advice I was able to action!
Re: Ask HN: Depressed, need to leave web development, what can I do?
#26I think you have to take a break. Step back for a bit. When you come back, find out what really interested you in tech in the first place and follow that. The fact you think 300+ people are applying to the same jobs means the market might be saturated with those skills. Do you think you might have let your own skill set stagnate?
> Do you think you might have let your own skill set stagnate? yes, definitely. although i worked a lot with node and react, building electron apps, cli tools, browsers extensions - but i just don't enjoy it anymore. and i don't have experience building large scale production apps with the latest trendy stacks. > The fact you think 300+ people are applying to the same jobs means the market might be saturated with tho…
> but its usually some typescript challenge or something like that - which i refused to learn, since i already know javascript. once static type checking became a requirement in front end is like the intersection for when i became a dinosaur
Why? Static type checking is a good thing to reduce errors.
Re: Ask HN: Depressed, need to leave web development, what can I do?
#27Quoted post unavailable.
wtf...why can't i flag these comments maybe better for the mod to delete this thread @dang
The user seems to have deleted most of their junk comments themselves now. The best way to contact dang is email, see the Contact link at the bottom of the page (I already emailed about this one). I was able to flag the comments - you have to click on the comment's time time to get the comment page with those extra options.
Re: Ask HN: Depressed, need to leave web development, what can I do?
#28There are 300+ applicants, but I imagine most of them aren't near 15 years of experience. I also have 15 years on experience and recently got a contract position immediately after just one interview and one take-home exercise. I was the only viable [1] candidate the company had, despite paying top market rates, so the decision to hire was a no-brainer for them.
[1] They use niche and difficult technology (Scala HP Haskel-style approach) and reject people who are not at least already ok at it.
Re: Ask HN: Depressed, need to leave web development, what can I do?
#29Web development as practiced by the majority of the industry is truly insane and depressing. No one has any idea what they are doing. Here's what I'm aiming to do: learn systems programming on the side, accumulate enough savings to live off of for nearly a year, then go independent and continue learning systems programming "as I go". Build software products on my own and start selling them.
Why not leverage what you know and build web-based products/services?
For a lot of people with technology taste, the web is offensive. Not to say that interfacing with say ugly Windows APIs is that much better, but at least you have way more control over the machine and your program, so (in systems programming) interfacing with ugly abstraction is only a minor part of your experience.
Re: Ask HN: Depressed, need to leave web development, what can I do?
#30Seems like you’re experiencing burn-out and from what I’ve read and experienced, burn out is a function of emotional investment vs the emotional return. So I see that you have two options both of which shouldn’t happen before first taking a small break: 1. Continue to work in the industry and reduce your emotional investment. Hint: great places for that are big corporates. 2. Continue to work while upskilling in anot…
This is all excellent advice.
I'd just like to emphasize your point about being prepared to hear their answers. But really hear it. Don't let the brain demons (depression warps perception) get to the words before you do!
Also, people often don't know how to have difficulty conversations, so this is another thing that can just make hearing the message harder. Eg, they often try to encourage as a way of showing compassion, instead of just showing compassion. They're stills being supportive, but it might not be the support you need. And just encouragement, without a good framework and a healthy mindset—which could have has been compromised by burnout—won't be enough.
I wholeheartedly also recommend going to therapy (and people often think this takes years, but it can just be a couple of sessions).