11–20 of 112 posts
I've never understood why you should do the same things in your free time as you do at work. I personally don't and know a ton of programmers and non-programmers who don't as well. Find other hobbys, they are worthwhile too!
Perhaps .. (I've done this several times) Look for a job not at an IT FANG company. Look at jobs on offer in machining, in mining, in agriculture, in energy, in surveying, geophysical data aquisition, drill logging, etc. There are quasi unskilled jobs galore for field technicians to assist with all manner of things you've likely never done before. If you've got the time, freedom and cash then maybe take a vacation on…
Have kids or get a hobby. I'm in the same boat tbh, I don't find interesting things with programming anymore, maybe when I did it was just that I had less other stuff to do. I'd rather learn something new now e.g. last year I started doing some home music recording/production. What is your goal - if you want to upskill for your career or to start a business, fine, if not find something else to do.
Getting a hobby is orders of magnitute easier.
I'd recommend joining some kind of club where you get to spend your time with other people. In my experience, anything social is much more rewarding than even the most heureka moments achieved by myself in some room.
Make a video game.
Honestly not worth forcing yourself to do what you don't truly love. I don't hate programming but there's so much more to do out there, even learning foreign languages or picking up some art stuff and make something with your hands sounds better than fighting with python/node and dependencies in my free time
most of programming languages and tooling are open-source these days, even the more enterprisey stuff. Or, at least, they have Open Source alternatives.
The other thing to do is to find a girlfriend, marry her and have kids. THAT will take a LOT of your time.