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I'm done with coding

neelc.org

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Re: I'm done with coding

#81

Post by throwaway314155 »

mgfist wrote: post #40

Neel, based on your linkedin, you're 27 or 28. You're a grown adult. Stop following your mom's orders. Quit your job, take some time off to decompress and recover from your clear burnout, then figure out what you want to do. Life isn't Microsoft or flipping burgers. There's a lot of things in between. You have one life, don't waste it trying to please others. But simultaneously, don't assume that your burnout is perm…

You could remove these few sentences:

> Neel, based on your linkedin, you're 27 or 28. You're a grown adult. Stop following your mom's orders.

And be a lot less patronizing, more convincing.

(It appears you mean well though, and I do understand the point you're making in spirit).

Re: I'm done with coding

#82

Post by [deleted] »

keyle wrote: post #41
hahajk wrote: post #9

His mom telling him he's "neurodivergent and won’t survive at a smaller company"... unfortunately I am familiar with this type of mother.

I don't understand this type of parenting, and I'm sorry you had this. I'm fairly certain I'm not the smartest guy around, never was, but my mother never put anything in my path to make me believe I wasn't.

[deleted]

Re: I'm done with coding

#83

Post by SoftTalker »

julianeon wrote: post #75

I've got this sentiment reading a few such goodbye letters like this. They often end by saying something like, "I quit software engineering. Because I can't make money at it, under these conditions." As if the options were work for Big Tech; work for a YC company (aka embryonic Big Tech); or be poor. So I'm gonna say it like this, to get the vibe across: It's pretty easy to run some Internet businesses and equal your…

Care to post any YouTube links that you find helpful?

Re: I'm done with coding

#84

Post by JKCalhoun »

tombert wrote: post #61
ivewonyoung wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain why you hated working there

Oh my, how long you got? There were a ton of things, but I can really boil down to a few instances. First: The thing that really made me disenchanted with the company came down to an incident where I replied back to a previous email chain with (one of the higher-ups at Apple) with a topic that wasn't directly relevant to the subject of the previous emails, and then that asshole thought it was best to complain to ever…

There are absolutely good teams at Apple. I left a toxic one (Photos) to follow an co-worker I liked a lot who had become a manager (and his team had an opening).

Honestly, it was a back-water project with just a handful of engineers on it. But my manager was awesome, my team was cool.

My favorite stint at Apple was when I was working on MacOS frameworks. It was chill, you got no significant bonuses to speak of, no special attention during WWDC Keynote presentation. You just did your job and the developers were grateful for the fixes and features you enabled.

Re: I'm done with coding

#85

Post by flakiness »

tombert wrote: post #61
ivewonyoung wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain why you hated working there

Oh my, how long you got? There were a ton of things, but I can really boil down to a few instances. First: The thing that really made me disenchanted with the company came down to an incident where I replied back to a previous email chain with (one of the higher-ups at Apple) with a topic that wasn't directly relevant to the subject of the previous emails, and then that asshole thought it was best to complain to ever…

I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm kind of glad that "indexing and caching" is not the worst part of it, apparently ;-)

Re: I'm done with coding

#86

Post by latentsea »

nvader wrote: post #54
sodapopcan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said they worked on indexing and caching.

Along with naming things, the two hardest problems in computer science.

Actual two hardest problems appear to be

1. Tolerating working at FAANG. 2. Watching others who work at FAANG collect FAANG level salary while you don't.

Re: I'm done with coding

#87

Post by bix6 »

Coding is one of my favorite things when I get to do it on my own terms which I’ve achieved while growing up and learning/playing as well as working for a few small startups. I would die if I had to write API frameworks all day and I struggled as a sysadmin when I was expected to be on 24/7 (but loved some aspects of it like ansible and pentesting). I’m currently a businessman and miss coding so I’ve just started using cursor for personal projects while on vacation and am having an absolute blast.

Re: I'm done with coding

#88

Post by anothertroll123 »

colesantiago wrote: post #66
dingnuts wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually worse than that. By holding his stocks he remains invested in the company in every meaning of the word. The dividends he's living on are the literal fruit of the proverbial sin that caused him to quit. In order to be morally honest about divesting himself of this line of business he needs to sell his stock. He should invest it in something else, that he believes in, so that any dividends are thus just.

I agree with this. He must rid himself of any remnants of Microsoft he helped build, therefore he still has a stake in MS through stock, which means he is still supporting surveillance capitalism.

[dead]

Re: I'm done with coding

#89

Post by JKCalhoun »

tombert wrote: post #13

> I’ve tried to discuss this with my mom, and she kept telling me how “lucky” I am for working at Microsoft... I don't think I worked on any unethical part of Apple, I just worked on the indexing and caching for iTunes, but I really hated working there, and it was frustrating that whenever I complained about it, people would remind me how lucky I was to have a job at Apple. I survived 2.5 years there, but eventually…

I survived 26 years at Apple but I can tell you it was much more fun to work there pre-iPhone than it was after.

Re: I'm done with coding

#90

Post by SoftTalker »

bix6 wrote: post #78
julianeon wrote: post #75

I've got this sentiment reading a few such goodbye letters like this. They often end by saying something like, "I quit software engineering. Because I can't make money at it, under these conditions." As if the options were work for Big Tech; work for a YC company (aka embryonic Big Tech); or be poor. So I'm gonna say it like this, to get the vibe across: It's pretty easy to run some Internet businesses and equal your…

What sort of businesses do you recommend? I’m hesitant to take on someone else’s codebase.

I know of a company and their business is basically: identify software products that have customers but aren’t really being developed any more. Buy them and reimplement the software in a more modern way. Sell it again to the existing users, who are generally happy to buy because now they’re getting updates and support and don’t need to keep that old Windows 98 box around because it’s the only thing that ran the old version.
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