Ask HN: New engineer, already burnt out, what now?
14 comments
A big part of me wants to just quit and get a job where I can turn my brain off for 9 hours and then spend my free time dedicating my brain power to personal projects and actually build things. I've stopped all personal projects because after 9 hours at work, the last thing I want to do is sit in that chair for another second.
I, for one, wholeheartedly endorse this plan. I think it's a mistake to expect to derive significant joy / self-actualization / gratification / whatever from your "job". A "job" is just a means to pay the bills - put food on the table, buy gas, pay rent, pay electric bill, etc., to enable you to do the things that you actually enjoy doing. I mean, sure, if you happen to enjoy your job, then that's a nice bonus. My problem is with the idea that your job should the primary focus of your life.
Likewise, if by happenstance the "thing" you do outside of work happens to be very similar to what you do at the job (eg, "programming", just in a different domain) then so be it. That's fine. It's fine to say "I love coding for AI research I'm doing at home, but hate coding the same boring CRUD app at $BIGBANK for 9 hours a day." The big thing to watch for here is IP conflicts, especially if you intend to commercialize what you do at home (or think there's even a chance you might).
If anything, count yourself lucky for coming to this (apparently) fairly soon in your career. It took me a long time to figure that out.
I, for one, wholeheartedly endorse this plan. I think it's a mistake to expect to derive significant joy / self-actualization / gratification / whatever from your "job". A "job" is just a means to pay the bills - put food on the table, buy gas, pay rent, pay electric bill, etc., to enable you to do the things that you actually enjoy doing. I mean, sure, if you happen to enjoy your job, then that's a nice bonus. My problem is with the idea that your job should the primary focus of your life.
Likewise, if by happenstance the "thing" you do outside of work happens to be very similar to what you do at the job (eg, "programming", just in a different domain) then so be it. That's fine. It's fine to say "I love coding for AI research I'm doing at home, but hate coding the same boring CRUD app at $BIGBANK for 9 hours a day." The big thing to watch for here is IP conflicts, especially if you intend to commercialize what you do at home (or think there's even a chance you might).
If anything, count yourself lucky for coming to this (apparently) fairly soon in your career. It took me a long time to figure that out.
> it's a mistake to expect to derive significant joy / self-actualization / gratification / whatever from your "job"
I couldn't agree more. Over the course of the last few years, I have put in the work to separate my work and my life. I now notice a difference in how I interact with my work. I am a solid "bare minimum" worker, and I've been able to get away with it. Does it have an effect on my earnings and reputation? Probably. I know I'm not going above and beyond and qualifying for some of the perks & programs that my coworkers do. I happen to not give a shit about that corporate reward atmosphere. I make $101k/yr and I'm comfortable and my work days are short and manageable.
Do I enjoy my work at this current moment? Not really, but it's easy and it pays my bills and I have capacity for other shit that I enjoy - hiking, photography, games, etc. Plus, I have had enough time to evaluate what I truly value in my work and want to do year over year (I am interviewing later this week for a better-fit job I know I have in the bag if I can ace this technical).
As I've been interviewing, I've gotten the question over and over: how much coding/programming do you do outside of work. My interview answer includes a spiel about a few side projects I've got on my roster. My honest answer is "almost none".
I couldn't agree more. Over the course of the last few years, I have put in the work to separate my work and my life. I now notice a difference in how I interact with my work. I am a solid "bare minimum" worker, and I've been able to get away with it. Does it have an effect on my earnings and reputation? Probably. I know I'm not going above and beyond and qualifying for some of the perks & programs that my coworkers do. I happen to not give a shit about that corporate reward atmosphere. I make $101k/yr and I'm comfortable and my work days are short and manageable.
Do I enjoy my work at this current moment? Not really, but it's easy and it pays my bills and I have capacity for other shit that I enjoy - hiking, photography, games, etc. Plus, I have had enough time to evaluate what I truly value in my work and want to do year over year (I am interviewing later this week for a better-fit job I know I have in the bag if I can ace this technical).
As I've been interviewing, I've gotten the question over and over: how much coding/programming do you do outside of work. My interview answer includes a spiel about a few side projects I've got on my roster. My honest answer is "almost none".
Don't forget this bit "I mean, sure, if you happen to enjoy your job, then that's a nice bonus."
It's great and important to be able to separate your day job and home life, now more than ever. At the same time, there's no requirement that you half-ass your job. To me, a job well done is always a more interesting way to pass time than with lack of care. It's 8 hours either way and can seem like less.
It's great and important to be able to separate your day job and home life, now more than ever. At the same time, there's no requirement that you half-ass your job. To me, a job well done is always a more interesting way to pass time than with lack of care. It's 8 hours either way and can seem like less.
The only thing that makes the decision to quit difficult is there's no other job I could get that would pay me enough to even be comfortable.
All I see that I'd qualify for (aside from programming) would be at least a 50% pay cut, most around 60-70%. And I'm currently not even making 6 figures.
All I see that I'd qualify for (aside from programming) would be at least a 50% pay cut, most around 60-70%. And I'm currently not even making 6 figures.
You may be able to find a programming job that's less mentally demanding, to the point that it allows you to reserve most of your mental / creative energy for your own projects. Might take a few tries, but there's probably something out there that would accommodate your interests (depending on where you live, etc).
Best of luck in either case. I can definitely relate to what you're talking about, so no, you're not "just crazy" FWIW.
Best of luck in either case. I can definitely relate to what you're talking about, so no, you're not "just crazy" FWIW.
Well good to hear it's not just me. Thanks for the input.
Programming really is about digging through categorically petty issues. You can make a game of it and even join a group in a shared game with a paradigm that treats certain petty things as extremely important.
Personally, I think the amount of energy it takes to play these petty games in any given employer/code-base wanes over time. I would recommend putting away all other coding for a bit and see if you start to get enough energy for doing truly different things in your free time.
Personally, I think the amount of energy it takes to play these petty games in any given employer/code-base wanes over time. I would recommend putting away all other coding for a bit and see if you start to get enough energy for doing truly different things in your free time.
> one day I'd be able to leverage that skill to advance my economic position. And so I did. I'm good at it. I don't have any specific complaints about my job or my team.
Don't think that this job is the same as any other job you could be doing. Try some other ones. It took me a while to get around to working at small startups, then a large company that runs smoothly with minimal BS, etc.
I suspect that a significant amount of your day energy is lost to the perception that your job is a chore. If you can run your day without emotional judgement perhaps you would have more energy at the end of your day for personal projects. Maybe you could try "going through the motions" that get the job done without the emotional energy expenditure. Or maybe I'm way off base. In any case, it seems that the goal you attained has led to disillusionment. For me the best thing would be working with sharp co-workers where I feel like any day I could be learning something new and interesting that might be useful elsewhere.
Don't think that this job is the same as any other job you could be doing. Try some other ones. It took me a while to get around to working at small startups, then a large company that runs smoothly with minimal BS, etc.
I suspect that a significant amount of your day energy is lost to the perception that your job is a chore. If you can run your day without emotional judgement perhaps you would have more energy at the end of your day for personal projects. Maybe you could try "going through the motions" that get the job done without the emotional energy expenditure. Or maybe I'm way off base. In any case, it seems that the goal you attained has led to disillusionment. For me the best thing would be working with sharp co-workers where I feel like any day I could be learning something new and interesting that might be useful elsewhere.
Hmm you may be right. I'll have to re-evaluate my perspective. Thanks for mentioning that.
Funny you should say. I had a 6 month contract position that kept getting renewed. The last renewal or two had very little work--it was mind numbing, for 8 hours a day, every day for months and months.
When faced with a mundane task that offers no learning opportunities, try and get creative within some time budget. When porting some Java source to C++ that included a test suite, I parsed it into ASTs, transformed the AST and unparsed the C++. Of course it wasn't complete as it was a total hack, but it was complete enough that tidying up the output was interesting because it would let me see if the process worked when I got through with it. The best part was not having to write the test suite from scratch.
When faced with a mundane task that offers no learning opportunities, try and get creative within some time budget. When porting some Java source to C++ that included a test suite, I parsed it into ASTs, transformed the AST and unparsed the C++. Of course it wasn't complete as it was a total hack, but it was complete enough that tidying up the output was interesting because it would let me see if the process worked when I got through with it. The best part was not having to write the test suite from scratch.
I do enjoy looking at a screen and coding 8+ hours per day.
Your current job, that's why they call it work.
Legacy code is rough for everyone regardless of their level of experience.
You might want to ask if you can start rebuilding the legacy code so take an area and rewrite it. Maybe split your time 50/50 between legacy fixes and new code.
Or even better is there a junior developer you could feed these legacy issues to and mentor him while you're working on greenfield or rewrite projects.
1. I haven't really burned out yet. I love being a developer, solving hard problems and learning new things.
2. If I start feeling tired of the grind I usually take a vacation or reduce my hours for a week, do more family stuff, meet up with friends, get outside. Then the next week I'm ready to go after it again.
3. Developer salaries have increased a lot even over the past 2 years. So it would be hard to leave and find something comparable. Right now is a good time to change jobs, demand is super high.
Developer happiness is dependent on lots of things, codebase, project/company mission, culture, team, CTO/Manager.
It's probably easier to change jobs than change most of these.
Every place is going to be different. It sounds like you would be happier building new stuff so maybe try to either get on a greenfield project at your current company or stay gainfully employed and seek out your dream job/project at a new place and probably get a nice raise in the transition.
One last thing, if you're self taught and worked as a consultant you might be working at a pace that's not expected in a company environment. This is an issue for me, I'm usually working/thinking at a really fast pace from when I worked as a consultant developer. In the company environment you can work at a more balanced pace and still exceed expectations.
Side projects are about passion, if you're making more now than you used to and you don't want to code in the evenings, don't. You've worked hard to level up. Relax and enjoy.
Good luck, keep on coding.
Your current job, that's why they call it work.
Legacy code is rough for everyone regardless of their level of experience.
You might want to ask if you can start rebuilding the legacy code so take an area and rewrite it. Maybe split your time 50/50 between legacy fixes and new code.
Or even better is there a junior developer you could feed these legacy issues to and mentor him while you're working on greenfield or rewrite projects.
1. I haven't really burned out yet. I love being a developer, solving hard problems and learning new things.
2. If I start feeling tired of the grind I usually take a vacation or reduce my hours for a week, do more family stuff, meet up with friends, get outside. Then the next week I'm ready to go after it again.
3. Developer salaries have increased a lot even over the past 2 years. So it would be hard to leave and find something comparable. Right now is a good time to change jobs, demand is super high.
Developer happiness is dependent on lots of things, codebase, project/company mission, culture, team, CTO/Manager.
It's probably easier to change jobs than change most of these.
Every place is going to be different. It sounds like you would be happier building new stuff so maybe try to either get on a greenfield project at your current company or stay gainfully employed and seek out your dream job/project at a new place and probably get a nice raise in the transition.
One last thing, if you're self taught and worked as a consultant you might be working at a pace that's not expected in a company environment. This is an issue for me, I'm usually working/thinking at a really fast pace from when I worked as a consultant developer. In the company environment you can work at a more balanced pace and still exceed expectations.
Side projects are about passion, if you're making more now than you used to and you don't want to code in the evenings, don't. You've worked hard to level up. Relax and enjoy.
Good luck, keep on coding.
You could join a startup. It won't solve the always-on problem but it will certainly solve the bits with legacy code and not creating new things. You can also look for a place that is in-person which could give you some highs of working with a designer, working with senior engineers, and in general feeling part of a problem solving team.
Some of these might be good - https://www.workatastartup.com/. I also think Turing is placing engineers well. Not sure about TripleByte.
Some of these might be good - https://www.workatastartup.com/. I also think Turing is placing engineers well. Not sure about TripleByte.
I thought about it but I feel like applying after ~3 months at my first job in the industry would look horrible and I'd be wasting my time sending applications. I also applied to a few startups prior to this job and it seems most want more Sr. developers.
not at all. it’s called “fit”.
if you hadn’t taken this first job, you wouldn’t know you’re a bad fit for large organizations, slow pace, and maintenance heavy work. now you know.
apply to interesting posts from hn who’s hiring every month. you’ll eventually find one that fits.
if you hadn’t taken this first job, you wouldn’t know you’re a bad fit for large organizations, slow pace, and maintenance heavy work. now you know.
apply to interesting posts from hn who’s hiring every month. you’ll eventually find one that fits.
I think it's pretty normal. Most people endure coding jobs because they pay a lot, so, if you don't blow money on luxuries, you can save up and buy yourself a lot of freedom later (be it a multi-year gap between jobs, or just early retirement). Also, if you stay within one tech stack and, ideally, one employer/project, the tediousness of chasing petty things will get easier, as they'll literally get imprinted on your brain after a while.
> I don't like sitting and looking at a screen for 9 hours a day. I work from home and while I love that, I'm constantly getting up from my desk because I just feel so restless. I go to the gym but it isn't enough.
Neither do I. I also take breaks a lot. If you were in an office you would too. You’d BS a lot with your coworkers, sometimes for long stretches of time. It’s just not fun to sit at a computer 9 hours without breaks.
Neither do I. I also take breaks a lot. If you were in an office you would too. You’d BS a lot with your coworkers, sometimes for long stretches of time. It’s just not fun to sit at a computer 9 hours without breaks.
A large percentage of high earners decide to sacrifice X number of decades - despite not loving their work - to save enough to accomplish some financial goal (buy a house? build a retirement fund? pay for a family) and then quit to do more rewarding work.
Up to you to decide if your limit is a month, a year, a decade, or a career before you want to cash your chips and clock out.
Up to you to decide if your limit is a month, a year, a decade, or a career before you want to cash your chips and clock out.
Do you think being the one building the bones instead of working on a legacy pasta bowl made "in startup mode" — would that bring you joy?
I'd imagine so. The act of creating something new is what I enjoy most when I worked on side projects.
You have to see for yourself, but my experience is that, it won't feel like creating. You'll be closely managed by the startup founder/CTO and will execute his vision. It will be basically him creating something, with your brain and hands. Working in an super early stage startup felt nothing like a fun side project for me.
This is common. 1) switch to a more creative environment, 2) get good enough that you can make even a boring environment creative.
Consider management or software sales.
> 3. Are there any fields that are programming-adjacent where I could leverage what I've taught myself the past several years?
Have you ever considered applying your skills at non-tech companies, in some other industry or area that you're interested in? I've been coding for a few decades, but only my very first job was in pure tech. That got boring pretty quickly because the problems were so abstract and removed from real needs, and a lot of it was driven by abstract algorithms and boring business needs rather than making something useful or meaningfully better. Furthermore, there was usually a bunch of interchangeable devs so the work was piecemealed out and everybody worked on some tiny boring part instead of designing cool systems holistically.
Then I started doing the same kind of work (mostly web dev + some DB and sys admin stuff) for other sorts of organizations... worked for renewables, nonprofits, museums, legal advocacy groups, yoga studios, random individuals and small businesses, blah blah, and each one had interesting problems they were trying to solve, using a diverse mix of technologies, for relatable users. I felt like I went from a cog in an uncaring machine to a miracle worker making things happen for people who really needed it and valued my input.
Just as an example, in my current field (renewables), you can do hardware engineering, production and supply chain management, system design, marketing, graphics, mapping & GIS (geographic information systems), analytics, user experience, support engineering, and so much more. Tech isn't really the mainstay of the business (making and selling solar panels and other devices is), but programming touches everything we do in some capacity.
Other random fields that need programming: data science in any data-driven field (climate science, biology, pharmacology, academia), movies, games, robotics, drones, escape rooms, automobiles, airplanes and aeronautics, defense, agriculture, astronomy, spaceflight, architecture and building modeling... there are so many interesting problems in the world that you can work on, don't limit yourself to pure tech. Unless you really like computer science, tech is IMHO the boringest field where coding IS the focus. In other fields, coding is just a means to a much more interesting end. We're very lucky (as coders) to be able to switch verticals like that basically just by submitting a resume, without needing extensive re-schooling!
Field/vertical aside, the exact type of work/specialization that you choose to pursue also makes a HUGE difference in your day to day work life. I used to be a full-stack developer and spent way too much of my time doing boring (to me) things like managing Docker or optimizing SQL queries... turns out I vastly more enjoy UX and design, and so I learned Figma and basic UX skills and eventually became a front-end dev and love it sooooooo much more now that I never have to touch the backend again. If your tech experience is primarily limited to working within a programming language and JSON, maybe you can explore other tech-y things like UX, design, analytics, marketing, SEO, graphics (2D or 3D), music/audio, photography, game development, GIS/web maps, machine vision, whatever.
Really, you have a great foundation to branch out and go down a different path if you want to stay tech-adjacent. Or if you find a better career along the way, at least you'll get your foot in the door in that industry and maybe gradually transition from tech-adjacent to tech-rarely to tech-not-at-all and find your happiness that way. Just keep looking :)
Have you ever considered applying your skills at non-tech companies, in some other industry or area that you're interested in? I've been coding for a few decades, but only my very first job was in pure tech. That got boring pretty quickly because the problems were so abstract and removed from real needs, and a lot of it was driven by abstract algorithms and boring business needs rather than making something useful or meaningfully better. Furthermore, there was usually a bunch of interchangeable devs so the work was piecemealed out and everybody worked on some tiny boring part instead of designing cool systems holistically.
Then I started doing the same kind of work (mostly web dev + some DB and sys admin stuff) for other sorts of organizations... worked for renewables, nonprofits, museums, legal advocacy groups, yoga studios, random individuals and small businesses, blah blah, and each one had interesting problems they were trying to solve, using a diverse mix of technologies, for relatable users. I felt like I went from a cog in an uncaring machine to a miracle worker making things happen for people who really needed it and valued my input.
Just as an example, in my current field (renewables), you can do hardware engineering, production and supply chain management, system design, marketing, graphics, mapping & GIS (geographic information systems), analytics, user experience, support engineering, and so much more. Tech isn't really the mainstay of the business (making and selling solar panels and other devices is), but programming touches everything we do in some capacity.
Other random fields that need programming: data science in any data-driven field (climate science, biology, pharmacology, academia), movies, games, robotics, drones, escape rooms, automobiles, airplanes and aeronautics, defense, agriculture, astronomy, spaceflight, architecture and building modeling... there are so many interesting problems in the world that you can work on, don't limit yourself to pure tech. Unless you really like computer science, tech is IMHO the boringest field where coding IS the focus. In other fields, coding is just a means to a much more interesting end. We're very lucky (as coders) to be able to switch verticals like that basically just by submitting a resume, without needing extensive re-schooling!
Field/vertical aside, the exact type of work/specialization that you choose to pursue also makes a HUGE difference in your day to day work life. I used to be a full-stack developer and spent way too much of my time doing boring (to me) things like managing Docker or optimizing SQL queries... turns out I vastly more enjoy UX and design, and so I learned Figma and basic UX skills and eventually became a front-end dev and love it sooooooo much more now that I never have to touch the backend again. If your tech experience is primarily limited to working within a programming language and JSON, maybe you can explore other tech-y things like UX, design, analytics, marketing, SEO, graphics (2D or 3D), music/audio, photography, game development, GIS/web maps, machine vision, whatever.
Really, you have a great foundation to branch out and go down a different path if you want to stay tech-adjacent. Or if you find a better career along the way, at least you'll get your foot in the door in that industry and maybe gradually transition from tech-adjacent to tech-rarely to tech-not-at-all and find your happiness that way. Just keep looking :)
Hmm interesting, I appreciate your response. I'll do some exploring and maybe find another way to apply my skills that'd be more fulfilling.
I think I've been gaslighting myself for years, telling myself I enjoy coding, forcing myself to spend my weekends and evenings doing it in the hopes that one day I'd be able to leverage that skill to advance my economic position. And so I did. I'm good at it. I don't have any specific complaints about my job or my team. But now that I'm finally here I don't feel happy like I thought I would. I've learned that I don't enjoy the process of software development. I don't enjoy writing code. I enjoy creating things, with writing the code being an essential but miserable part of that, and I'm not doing any creating now.
I don't like sitting and looking at a screen for 9 hours a day. I work from home and while I love that, I'm constantly getting up from my desk because I just feel so restless. I go to the gym but it isn't enough.
Moreover, and I hate to even admit this, I hate having to always be "on". I miss having an easy job where I could be essentially brain-dead. Every day I come and have to solve problems, but not the fun puzzles I was promised, not the execution of novel ideas or the creation or real value. Instead I dig through legacy code that was written in "start up" mode and have to figure out what Bob's function does that's abstracted 20 layers deep. I have to dig through an api's docs only to learn that a JSON key had the wrong capitalization in my request body. Ad infinitum. I could deal with constantly being "on" if it meant really solving interesting problems or creating something new and valuable. Instead I'm pouring my time and energy into what feels like categorically petty issues.
A big part of me wants to just quit and get a job where I can turn my brain off for 9 hours and then spend my free time dedicating my brain power to personal projects and actually build things. I've stopped all personal projects because after 9 hours at work, the last thing I want to do is sit in that chair for another second.
I'm making this post hoping to get answers to a few questions:
1. Has anyone else experienced anything like this? Am I crazy?
2. What can I do to fix it? Has anyone experienced this, and then overcome it?
3. Are there any fields that are programming-adjacent where I could leverage what I've taught myself the past several years?