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How did I get so unhappy working in tech?

155 points by linuxbo 4y ago

alephnan 4y ago
> you’ve already been thoroughly trained that quitting leads to trouble. How so? Covering expenses ? I.e. Moving on to the next job? It’s not trouble if you don’t need to. Tech pays quite well, especially in terms of ROI of academic expenditures. If you lived / live modestly, you’re better positioned for financial freedom than classic pinnacles of success such as medical school. I quit, and there’s been zero trouble. Quite the opposite. I’m healthier than ever. I didn’t accumulate tens of millions, but I did walk away with several in less than a decade of FANG. Once you do, you don’t have to live in high cost of living places like NYC or SF. At 4% annual returns on investment, it’s still more than the average American. Enough to even travel a bit, and save money in the long run ( by having the mental bandwidth to optimize a healthier life).
- stuven 4y ago
  I'm happy to read something from someone who has achieved my goal. I just joined a FAANG for the first time after 5-8 years as an engineer ... and I'm counting the years until this is me.
jwmoz 4y ago
Quit more. Travel more.
chiefalchemist 4y ago
Leadership and management too fond of dehumanizing makers. Maybe it's from "we pay you well so we want to get our money's worth? IDK. But too often I've heard someone say "team" in an environment that's anything but.
linuxbo 4y ago
Trying to be like paul graham. Heavy inspiration from : http://paulgraham.com/selfindulgence.html http://paulgraham.com/selfindulgence.html
- magneticnorth 4y ago
  Wow they really do read similarly. I thought this article read kind of oddly, maybe because of forcing to another writer's format? It seems to lose coherency toward the end.
throwaway6532 4y ago
I feel ya man. This is exactly where I'm at. Left one job because the company burnt me out, but I was still a passionate engineer. Eight months in to my current company I feel the flame I once had for engineering is all but extinguished. Starting to interview for a new job now and every option I evaluate I feel like I already know the BS that's waiting for me there and I just don't want to go through it. I'm trying to construct some sort of framework for myself at the moment, but I don't really know what, if anything, will work.
- DarkCrusader2 4y ago
  I have been having similar thoughts recently. With just 4 years into my career (working at a FAANG for last 2), I too am looking around for a job. But it all looks the same corporate BS, providing "business value", grinding for promotion, being a small cog in a enormous machine, dealing with middle managers and their egos and endless insecurity, estimations and deadline chasing, I feel so done and tired. Add the bullshit interview process on top of all this and it is enough for me to never want to change jobs again. I feel like I am in hell.
  - 5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
    same, i'm in a job where i can sort of coast, it's stressful, the people mostly, but the work is easy. i lost interest in dealing with all the bs and whenever i try to look at the job market i just feel too demoralised to go through all the hoops just to get another job where i will be dealing with the same or new kind of bs. i feel like this may be my last coding job after 15 years, maybe i can do another 2-3 more.
    - cableshaft 4y ago
      What do you think you might do after coding? Management or a different field entirely? I've considered management but I also don't really want to deal with people bullshit, and I'm having a harder and harder time listening to bullshit business meetings in general, and I imagine there'd be a lot more of those.
GianFabien 4y ago
Perhaps the root of the problem is that by trying to avoid the "external crap from other people", the writer reveals his concern for what others might think. There is nothing wrong with you just because you aren't motivated by tech work. There are lots of other forms of work, career, etc. For me working in an air conditioned office under fluorescent lighting sucks the life out of me. So I rearranged my life to avoid what I sense to be bad for my soul.
stephentmcm 4y ago
GPT-3 post? This rabbles with no direction and feels like something AI would write. There's also an odd jump at the end like it's trying to talk about gaming/MtG but doesn't at the same time.
- darau1 4y ago
  Or maybe English isn't the writers first language? It does seem to contain an odd amount of things that seems completely random.
  - deltaonefour 4y ago
    Naw. He has links to a podcast where you can hear him speak. The "Asian Hour" lol. His english is legit. The man Linus is real... the post, however, could be GPT-3. Definitely doesn't match up with his talking.
    - formerkrogemp 4y ago
      Good research. Is this going to become common from now on? What do we do when AI content and human content are indistinguishable?
      - smackeyacky 4y ago
        We'll do what we always did: ignore the drivel and the disjointed garbage and sift out the information. In this case, it doesn't matter whether it's GP-3 or not, it is a no-content blog post of which you can find hundreds of thousands of other examples, none of which have any new information in them. We get it: the way some people have built up tech careers as being something exciting can prove to be very disappointing when you're on your 3rd CRUD page of the day. It's still better than being a soul-less HR monkey or a Jira happy middle manager.
        gavinray 4y ago
        Yet this can sit on the first page and novel + interesting technical content disappears with ~2-3 votes, never to be seen again frequently. Oh whale.
draw_down 4y ago
> Quitting your job and getting a new one seems to just be a stop-gap. Yeah, well, as it turns out you can construct a career of “stop-gaps”. I don’t think this is a problem to be solved. It’s a siren screaming in your ear telling you to focus on other matters. There’s more to life than our dumb tech jobs, it’s ok to recognize that and act accordingly. The stop-gaps help with the fact that you won’t/don’t/can’t really care. When you can’t appropriately keep up the charade, they artificially inflate your interest once again.
- brailsafe 4y ago
  This has actually been very true for me so far. Whoever killed it probably has never burnt out badly. I mainly feign enthusiasm for the various new tooling things that come out. It largely doesn't matter if ya ain't gettin $$, and sometimes that's all you should care about.
jayski 4y ago
you should work for a month in a 3rd world country call center for minimum wage. you have it way too good, be grateful
- Aeolun 4y ago
  What if you do that and find that it makes you happier?
  - dirtball_ 4y ago
    Then the problem is solved. Be happy, friends!
- devoutsalsa 4y ago
  Gratitude is a good thing, but it’s not constructive to minimize someone’s happiness by comparing their situation to that of others. A shit sandwich with amazing bread still tastes like crap.
- corndoge 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill
- seattle_spring 4y ago
  This comment demonstrates the fallacy of relative privation [1], is unhelpful, and generally detracts from having a meaningful conversation. All problems can be compared to some other worse problem. It does not almost ever mean the original problem at hand is not worth giving attention. [1] https://academy4sc.org/video/fallacy-of-relative-privation-all-problems-are-relative/ https://academy4sc.org/video/fallacy-of-relative-privation-a...
  - jayski 4y ago
    I understand your point, but I still defend mine. I wasnt trying to say you can always find a worse situation than yours. My point was more, that being an engineer who works in a comfortable chair for a great salary, is an amazing situation, if you're not happy with it, maybe switching situations will help, but consider that maybe you need to be more aware of how good you have it and find happiness within yourself
unclekev 4y ago
> The solution seems to be setting a framework that fits with yourself. I think this is true. I tried time off and it only made things worse. It was only when i started putting a structured framework in place that I started enjoying tech again. Although, I still struggle after a big burnout incident. I'm one of those people who got burnt out, took 1.5 years off work "for myself" thinking it would help, and then when I went back to work, I hated technology even more than I did before I'd taken the time off. > I knew nothing about the bitterness that seeps into your soul when you’re working in tech. Now, in order to avoid it, I had to learn what made me lose so much of my enthusiasm for the thing I’ve pursued. I'm still searching for this answer, I think it was just accumulated bitterness over time and giving %150 of my self to jobs and not taking time for my self. Thats where my 'structured framework' comes in now, holds me accountable to ensure that I'm taking the time for my self.
- wdutch 4y ago
  Serious question: could someone explain what "framework" means in this context? From context I'm guessing something like a daily routine?
  - sonabinu 4y ago
    Exactly my question! I would guess the same, but choice of the word 'framework' makes it feel like an AI bot generated article
- jerglingu 4y ago
  Can you expand on this structured framework? I also went through a severe bitterness (and cynical) phase, on top of blindly throwing myself into everything without regard for my sanity. So I fear myself walking down the same path you were on. I quit a few months back and have done zero tech-related work with no intention to come back anytime soon. But I wonder that when I do, nothing will have changed and I'm going to not even want to open and read the text in any arbitrary email, let alone "deliver" anything.
creakingstairs 4y ago
I _know_ I have it really good. But I still feel unhappy and unfulfilled. I'm planning to have a sabbatical next year to see how that pans out for me. I honestly don't know how my parents worked until retirement.
- throwawayboise 4y ago
  Cognative dissonance because we know we are obscenely overpaid to build stuff that nobody really needs, while others work themselves into disability for a order of magnitude less pay doing things that are essential for civilized life.
  - sidlls 4y ago
    We are not obscenely overpaid. We're relatively more well paid than other workers in our class, but we're still generally getting the short end of the stick. Even people in my boat. I recently won a decent IPO jackpot at the company I have worked for a few years--have $3MM or so in investments as a result. The CEO has well over 100x that, and well over 10x any IC who's been at the company from day 1. There's no good reason for the CEO of this company to have benefitted to the tune of over $3Bn when ICs who've been at it as long and hard as he has might have cracked a few $10s of millions at best. Are these ICs disgustingly rich? Am I? Of course. But, relatively, we got shafted in comparison to the people who benefitted much more.
    - TapWaterBandit 4y ago
      The greed and envy in this comment reminded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xcYLVdfFro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xcYLVdfFro
    - BLKNSLVR 4y ago
      > We are not obscenely overpaid. Everything following this line seems to point in the other direction. Just because a smaller percentage of higher-ups received more doesn't mean you / we are not obscenely overpaid, it just means "they" are phenomenally obscenely overpaid and at the top of the exponential scale of "what's wrong with shit these days". Teachers and nurses, as the pandemic demonstrated, are essential to the daily functioning of society. I couldn't do what they do day-to-day, dealing with the full range of the bell curve - and their children - and their ailments and inability to see / relate to the world. Holy hell. The annual inspection of the foundations of the ivory tower have been sub-sub-contracted to the lowest bidder, which is a company at the end of a series of shell corporations for whose ownership can only be determined with the cooperation of a string of people that have no legal obligation to cooperate.
twomoonsbysurf 4y ago
Have intentional gratitude. In the morning, say 5 things you are grateful for. Imagine how you can be grateful and happy with what you currently have. Rather than wanting something else. Try to do away with your wants: stop wanting more. Take notice of what you have.
at_a_remove 4y ago
One or more of the following factors: 1) What you are working on. Is it yet another CRUD application? Alternatively: a project you are not getting to work on. 2) Who you are working for and with. Perhaps you have a bad manager or you just don't gel with them. Maybe you are not getting along with your co-workers, or vice versa. 3) How you are working. This is really very broad, from in-office to work-from-home, frameworks you don't want to work with, maybe you're not an Agile person, or the fluorescent lights keep flickering, or the push to microservices is obviously a bad idea or they were cheap with your computer. A lot to explore here. Some crossover with where. 4) When you are working. Always in a rush? Never stop "sprinting" only to find that the deadline you met meant nothing, and your project would not be looked at by stakeholders for another eight months? Too many hours, or the wrong hours? Or perhaps your time subdivided so finely that any progress bleeds to death from the finely-sliced task-switching that passes for the "multitasking" some manager thinks will lead to a free FTE? 5) Why you are working: for money, and you're not getting enough of it? Because you believe in the cause and you see the organization headed the wrong way? So many possibilities ...
motohagiography 4y ago
Let's say this is the work of a persons mind - and not a GPT-3 writing prompt generator with a sentimentalizing filter to get social media to talk about brands, (and one which is learning to generate viral propaganda) - what must it be like to have dozens of people sincerely speculate as to whether you are a robot or not? It would be like being invited to participate in a Turing test but as it progresses, you find out you are the computer. Catchpas keep getting harder and harder, but it's probably nothing etc. If there is a real person who wrote the OP reading this, these comments are evidence you have written provocatively, (don't read your press - weigh it) and that itself is a gift worth refining. However, if I'm offering sympathy to a robot, meh, I've felt it wasted more on better people. :)
ipaddr 4y ago
As someone who has been in the industry for 20+ years I've noticed changes that may have lead to this point. Daily standups, meetings, gluing frameworks Daily standups are is a one size solution to a communication problem. Daily standups shouldn't be necessary with a team constantly communicating. Daily standups leads to cutting projects into small daily tasks. This leads to a system of micromanagement and it doesn't provide an opportunity of non-verbal self reflection and focuses you into threadmill small task thinking never connecting with the project as a whole. Developers are expected to attend meetings more than ever. The focus required to deep dive into complex issues get's broken with meetings that developers shouldn't be attending. You can attend meetings or you program rarely can you do both effectively on the same day and rarely can you get the focus you once had. No one wants to reinvent the wheel so gluing together packages is considered best practice. The work has become more about making decisions around the packages you choose rather than being given time to make the package. Top pay with top companies seem to lead to burnout, lost purpose and this unhappiness. There is something unhealthy when companies get too large, force employees into promotions or unemployment, have an avg employment of under a year or designs interview processes around finding people who optimize for a high paycheck over those with a long history of experience.
- galoisscobi 4y ago
  > Developers are expected to attend meetings more than ever. How do people deal with this? I'm expected to take on more and more meetings and my time to do deep work diminishes as I go on. I'm curious to learn more from people who are handling this well.
  - csande17 4y ago
    Sometimes, I've just kept on coding through the meeting. It's like listening to a podcast as you code. You do have to keep one ear out in case someone asks you a question directly, but listening for your name Alexa-wake-word-style isn't that hard.
  - DoingIsLearning 4y ago
    > I'm curious to learn more from people who are handling this well. Working as an IC I just don't accept invites and don't attend. With the following exceptions: - Weekly review/Agile flavour meetings with my team - Meeting with a team member to solve a specific issue - A manager/VP/CTO _explicitly_ makes it clear _my_ presence is required Perhaps I've been luck with my managers or perhaps it comes with seniority but I've never got any negative feedback on this. Most people invite you in for stuff just as a passive listener. When I'm doing contract work I make it clear I am available for milestone review meetings and everything else is surcharged billable hours.
sircastor 4y ago
> If you asked me as a kid how someone burned out from their career, I’d have said by video games or drugs. Interestingly, these can be the _result_ of creeping burnout. Video games, consuming something (drugs, food, etc) to distract or find a sense of fulfillment.
gumby 4y ago
> I knew nothing about the bitterness that seeps into your soul when you’re working in tech. I wonder if the author got into “tech” because it seemed like a lucrative career and, as they say elsewhere, it looks to the outside world like they are doing something useful. I’ve only been working “in tech” about 40 years and pretty much every day feels exciting to me. That the author feels differently doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with them! It could be burn out or depression.
- kookamamie 4y ago
  Agreed. I took notice of OP's narrow view of "tech" and somehow binding web-dev to (assumed here) everything else. Not everything in tech is about gluing frameworks.
- cableshaft 4y ago
  I've been working in tech pretty much my entire career (about 20 years at this point) and I haven't had an 'every day is exciting to me' situation in at least 10 years. There's so much bullshit everywhere nowadays, and despite a red hot tech market I'm having difficulty getting decent job offers outside of healthcare, insurance, b2b, and fintech, which I'm guessing are probably the worst fields for that bullshit (part of that is probably where I live, admittedly, those are the biggest industries here). Finding some fun again playing around with VR development in my spare time, though. Maybe I'll make the shift to that in a year or so after I build up more experience at it, make a small game or two, and start feeling excitement again.
user_named 4y ago
I am a product manager and in my new job I also have to take on the role of product owner in agile, meaning that I manage delivery of epics, sprint planning etc. I feel like a caged animal. I have no freedom whatsoever and I have to fit a schedule of grooming epics that someone else has defined. I am really unhappy and will leave asap. I have never felt like this at any other job and if OP is also part of an agile process then I would guess that is the issue.
tomerbd 4y ago
Developers of the world! Unite against the scrum lords!
EnKopVand 4y ago
One of the best things I ever did in my career was to quit. I had gone a route I thought was “the” route for a career in tech. First developer, then architect/developer then project manager/developer then into actual management leaving development more and more behind without being fully able to because no one could do what I did at the organisation. It all went very well, I got involved with national task forces and was part of defining the national enterprise architecture for public software in Denmark. A long the road I also started doing conference/network/whatever talks and felt hugely important. Then I had a daughter, went down with stress that turned into depression and eventually found myself with an ADHD diagnosis at almost 40. Turned out my parents hadn’t wanted me to get one when I was a kid and had to see doctors because, well, I had ADHD. Not because my parents sucked or anything, but at the time it wasn’t called ADHD but DAMP (Danish word for steam, as in a thundering steam engine), and they believed such a diagnosis would be a bad stigma. I don’t blame them, but they probably “saved” me into changing my university major 9 times and eventually having to get a lower academy degree while working two jobs (not common in Denmark where we are paid to study for 6 years and have free (as in beer) access to most education). Anyway, there I was with not enough energy to do the two full time jobs I now had, parenting and work. My former places of work was amazing in all of this, not only did they send and pay for a lot of the help they also let me work part time while being part time sick (in Denmark this gives you full pay, but the sick part of it is paid for by the government). Despite this, and despite being lucky enough to get appointed to one my countries leading psychiatrists for adults with a late ADHD diagnosis, I found myself wondering if I would ever work full time again. Then I quit, and I don’t be back to developing software at a company that lets you actually build cool things. I started at 30 hours a week, but here half a year later, I’m going back to full time. If you have the ability to pick and chose, as many of us in tech are fortunate enough to have, then I can only encourage that you use it if your current job makes you unhappy. Of course you’ll probably need it o do some work to figure out what makes you happy, or even if you are currently unhappy or happy.
qwertox 4y ago
What's frustrating me the most is frameworks promising simplification, and then, after investing a considerable amount of time building things with these, they evolve into complex platform incompatible to your old code. Where "old" means 3-5 years. That's what's burning me out. Now I'd love to move to Svelte for some minimalism, but in 4 years Svelte2 will probably come out, being incompatible and unnecessarily complex.
henrymosley 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
stevage 4y ago
I had a lot of trouble understanding what was meant here: > The world has gotten more complicated: it seems that most dangerous traps now are picking up frameworks that bypass mimic the current meta. And the worst thing is, they're not even fun. What does he mean by "traps"? And "mimicking the current meta"? I feel like there are some references here I don't have?
- lloeki 4y ago
  > mimicking the current meta Probably "Most Effective Tactic Available. It's basically what works in a game regardless of what you wish would work.", a gaming term. Imagine a PvP game, there are rock-paper-scissors rules and devs try to balance the game, but inevitably mistakes are made and the game has an imbalance leading to a rock-paper-scissoss-well situation (the well always wins or ties), so people end up mimicking that, gaming the game, otherwise they don't stand a chance, which ruins the game itself. Then devs adjust that by cheesing the weapon or whatever, but may introduce another imbalance. So there's a game atop the game (a meta-game), which is "how to game the game" by finding meta-strategies that are almost guaranteed to work.
mostertoaster 4y ago
Is he just unhappy with tech, or just unhappy? If you’re unhappy, tech probably won’t make you happy, if unhappy with tech, it’s just do something you’d be happier with or just use it for the money.
tabtab 4y ago
I've concluded the web is F'd up for regular CRUD. https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/r59nzr/i_regret_going_into_web_programming_should_have/ https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/r59nzr/i_regret_goi...
ohiovr 4y ago
I too became highly dissatisfied with technology and the pursuits therein. I knew this was not what God wanted for me so I gave it up and now working a factory job. I never quite made it in tech. But there is more reason for this than simple incompetence. It was never something I was supposed to do.

155 points by linuxbo 4y ago

> you’ve already been thoroughly trained that quitting leads to trouble. How so? Covering expenses ? I.e. Moving on to the next job? It’s not trouble if you don’t need to. Tech pays quite well, especially in terms of ROI of academic expenditures. If you lived / live modestly, you’re better positioned for financial freedom than classic pinnacles of success such as medical school. I quit, and there’s been zero trouble. Quite the opposite. I’m healthier than ever. I didn’t accumulate tens of millions, but I did walk away with several in less than a decade of FANG. Once you do, you don’t have to live in high cost of living places like NYC or SF. At 4% annual returns on investment, it’s still more than the average American. Enough to even travel a bit, and save money in the long run ( by having the mental bandwidth to optimize a healthier life).

stuven 4y ago
I'm happy to read something from someone who has achieved my goal. I just joined a FAANG for the first time after 5-8 years as an engineer ... and I'm counting the years until this is me.

jwmoz 4y ago

Quit more. Travel more.

chiefalchemist 4y ago

Leadership and management too fond of dehumanizing makers. Maybe it's from "we pay you well so we want to get our money's worth? IDK. But too often I've heard someone say "team" in an environment that's anything but.

linuxbo 4y ago

Trying to be like paul graham. Heavy inspiration from : http://paulgraham.com/selfindulgence.html http://paulgraham.com/selfindulgence.html

magneticnorth 4y ago
Wow they really do read similarly. I thought this article read kind of oddly, maybe because of forcing to another writer's format? It seems to lose coherency toward the end.

throwaway6532 4y ago

I feel ya man. This is exactly where I'm at. Left one job because the company burnt me out, but I was still a passionate engineer. Eight months in to my current company I feel the flame I once had for engineering is all but extinguished. Starting to interview for a new job now and every option I evaluate I feel like I already know the BS that's waiting for me there and I just don't want to go through it. I'm trying to construct some sort of framework for myself at the moment, but I don't really know what, if anything, will work.

DarkCrusader2 4y ago
I have been having similar thoughts recently. With just 4 years into my career (working at a FAANG for last 2), I too am looking around for a job. But it all looks the same corporate BS, providing "business value", grinding for promotion, being a small cog in a enormous machine, dealing with middle managers and their egos and endless insecurity, estimations and deadline chasing, I feel so done and tired. Add the bullshit interview process on top of all this and it is enough for me to never want to change jobs again. I feel like I am in hell.
- 5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
  same, i'm in a job where i can sort of coast, it's stressful, the people mostly, but the work is easy. i lost interest in dealing with all the bs and whenever i try to look at the job market i just feel too demoralised to go through all the hoops just to get another job where i will be dealing with the same or new kind of bs. i feel like this may be my last coding job after 15 years, maybe i can do another 2-3 more.
  - cableshaft 4y ago
    What do you think you might do after coding? Management or a different field entirely? I've considered management but I also don't really want to deal with people bullshit, and I'm having a harder and harder time listening to bullshit business meetings in general, and I imagine there'd be a lot more of those.

GianFabien 4y ago

Perhaps the root of the problem is that by trying to avoid the "external crap from other people", the writer reveals his concern for what others might think. There is nothing wrong with you just because you aren't motivated by tech work. There are lots of other forms of work, career, etc. For me working in an air conditioned office under fluorescent lighting sucks the life out of me. So I rearranged my life to avoid what I sense to be bad for my soul.

stephentmcm 4y ago

GPT-3 post? This rabbles with no direction and feels like something AI would write. There's also an odd jump at the end like it's trying to talk about gaming/MtG but doesn't at the same time.

darau1 4y ago
Or maybe English isn't the writers first language? It does seem to contain an odd amount of things that seems completely random.
- deltaonefour 4y ago
  Naw. He has links to a podcast where you can hear him speak. The "Asian Hour" lol. His english is legit. The man Linus is real... the post, however, could be GPT-3. Definitely doesn't match up with his talking.
  - formerkrogemp 4y ago
    Good research. Is this going to become common from now on? What do we do when AI content and human content are indistinguishable?
    - smackeyacky 4y ago
      We'll do what we always did: ignore the drivel and the disjointed garbage and sift out the information. In this case, it doesn't matter whether it's GP-3 or not, it is a no-content blog post of which you can find hundreds of thousands of other examples, none of which have any new information in them. We get it: the way some people have built up tech careers as being something exciting can prove to be very disappointing when you're on your 3rd CRUD page of the day. It's still better than being a soul-less HR monkey or a Jira happy middle manager.
      - gavinray 4y ago
        Yet this can sit on the first page and novel + interesting technical content disappears with ~2-3 votes, never to be seen again frequently. Oh whale.

draw_down 4y ago

> Quitting your job and getting a new one seems to just be a stop-gap. Yeah, well, as it turns out you can construct a career of “stop-gaps”. I don’t think this is a problem to be solved. It’s a siren screaming in your ear telling you to focus on other matters. There’s more to life than our dumb tech jobs, it’s ok to recognize that and act accordingly. The stop-gaps help with the fact that you won’t/don’t/can’t really care. When you can’t appropriately keep up the charade, they artificially inflate your interest once again.

brailsafe 4y ago
This has actually been very true for me so far. Whoever killed it probably has never burnt out badly. I mainly feign enthusiasm for the various new tooling things that come out. It largely doesn't matter if ya ain't gettin $$, and sometimes that's all you should care about.

jayski 4y ago

you should work for a month in a 3rd world country call center for minimum wage. you have it way too good, be grateful

Aeolun 4y ago
What if you do that and find that it makes you happier?
- dirtball_ 4y ago
  Then the problem is solved. Be happy, friends!
devoutsalsa 4y ago
Gratitude is a good thing, but it’s not constructive to minimize someone’s happiness by comparing their situation to that of others. A shit sandwich with amazing bread still tastes like crap.
corndoge 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill
seattle_spring 4y ago
This comment demonstrates the fallacy of relative privation [1], is unhelpful, and generally detracts from having a meaningful conversation. All problems can be compared to some other worse problem. It does not almost ever mean the original problem at hand is not worth giving attention. [1] https://academy4sc.org/video/fallacy-of-relative-privation-all-problems-are-relative/ https://academy4sc.org/video/fallacy-of-relative-privation-a...
- jayski 4y ago
  I understand your point, but I still defend mine. I wasnt trying to say you can always find a worse situation than yours. My point was more, that being an engineer who works in a comfortable chair for a great salary, is an amazing situation, if you're not happy with it, maybe switching situations will help, but consider that maybe you need to be more aware of how good you have it and find happiness within yourself

unclekev 4y ago

> The solution seems to be setting a framework that fits with yourself. I think this is true. I tried time off and it only made things worse. It was only when i started putting a structured framework in place that I started enjoying tech again. Although, I still struggle after a big burnout incident. I'm one of those people who got burnt out, took 1.5 years off work "for myself" thinking it would help, and then when I went back to work, I hated technology even more than I did before I'd taken the time off. > I knew nothing about the bitterness that seeps into your soul when you’re working in tech. Now, in order to avoid it, I had to learn what made me lose so much of my enthusiasm for the thing I’ve pursued. I'm still searching for this answer, I think it was just accumulated bitterness over time and giving %150 of my self to jobs and not taking time for my self. Thats where my 'structured framework' comes in now, holds me accountable to ensure that I'm taking the time for my self.

wdutch 4y ago
Serious question: could someone explain what "framework" means in this context? From context I'm guessing something like a daily routine?
- sonabinu 4y ago
  Exactly my question! I would guess the same, but choice of the word 'framework' makes it feel like an AI bot generated article
jerglingu 4y ago
Can you expand on this structured framework? I also went through a severe bitterness (and cynical) phase, on top of blindly throwing myself into everything without regard for my sanity. So I fear myself walking down the same path you were on. I quit a few months back and have done zero tech-related work with no intention to come back anytime soon. But I wonder that when I do, nothing will have changed and I'm going to not even want to open and read the text in any arbitrary email, let alone "deliver" anything.

creakingstairs 4y ago

I _know_ I have it really good. But I still feel unhappy and unfulfilled. I'm planning to have a sabbatical next year to see how that pans out for me. I honestly don't know how my parents worked until retirement.

throwawayboise 4y ago
Cognative dissonance because we know we are obscenely overpaid to build stuff that nobody really needs, while others work themselves into disability for a order of magnitude less pay doing things that are essential for civilized life.
- sidlls 4y ago
  We are not obscenely overpaid. We're relatively more well paid than other workers in our class, but we're still generally getting the short end of the stick. Even people in my boat. I recently won a decent IPO jackpot at the company I have worked for a few years--have $3MM or so in investments as a result. The CEO has well over 100x that, and well over 10x any IC who's been at the company from day 1. There's no good reason for the CEO of this company to have benefitted to the tune of over $3Bn when ICs who've been at it as long and hard as he has might have cracked a few $10s of millions at best. Are these ICs disgustingly rich? Am I? Of course. But, relatively, we got shafted in comparison to the people who benefitted much more.
  - TapWaterBandit 4y ago
    The greed and envy in this comment reminded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xcYLVdfFro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xcYLVdfFro
  - BLKNSLVR 4y ago
    > We are not obscenely overpaid. Everything following this line seems to point in the other direction. Just because a smaller percentage of higher-ups received more doesn't mean you / we are not obscenely overpaid, it just means "they" are phenomenally obscenely overpaid and at the top of the exponential scale of "what's wrong with shit these days". Teachers and nurses, as the pandemic demonstrated, are essential to the daily functioning of society. I couldn't do what they do day-to-day, dealing with the full range of the bell curve - and their children - and their ailments and inability to see / relate to the world. Holy hell. The annual inspection of the foundations of the ivory tower have been sub-sub-contracted to the lowest bidder, which is a company at the end of a series of shell corporations for whose ownership can only be determined with the cooperation of a string of people that have no legal obligation to cooperate.

twomoonsbysurf 4y ago

Have intentional gratitude. In the morning, say 5 things you are grateful for. Imagine how you can be grateful and happy with what you currently have. Rather than wanting something else. Try to do away with your wants: stop wanting more. Take notice of what you have.

at_a_remove 4y ago

One or more of the following factors: 1) What you are working on. Is it yet another CRUD application? Alternatively: a project you are not getting to work on. 2) Who you are working for and with. Perhaps you have a bad manager or you just don't gel with them. Maybe you are not getting along with your co-workers, or vice versa. 3) How you are working. This is really very broad, from in-office to work-from-home, frameworks you don't want to work with, maybe you're not an Agile person, or the fluorescent lights keep flickering, or the push to microservices is obviously a bad idea or they were cheap with your computer. A lot to explore here. Some crossover with where. 4) When you are working. Always in a rush? Never stop "sprinting" only to find that the deadline you met meant nothing, and your project would not be looked at by stakeholders for another eight months? Too many hours, or the wrong hours? Or perhaps your time subdivided so finely that any progress bleeds to death from the finely-sliced task-switching that passes for the "multitasking" some manager thinks will lead to a free FTE? 5) Why you are working: for money, and you're not getting enough of it? Because you believe in the cause and you see the organization headed the wrong way? So many possibilities ...

motohagiography 4y ago

Let's say this is the work of a persons mind - and not a GPT-3 writing prompt generator with a sentimentalizing filter to get social media to talk about brands, (and one which is learning to generate viral propaganda) - what must it be like to have dozens of people sincerely speculate as to whether you are a robot or not? It would be like being invited to participate in a Turing test but as it progresses, you find out you are the computer. Catchpas keep getting harder and harder, but it's probably nothing etc. If there is a real person who wrote the OP reading this, these comments are evidence you have written provocatively, (don't read your press - weigh it) and that itself is a gift worth refining. However, if I'm offering sympathy to a robot, meh, I've felt it wasted more on better people. :)

ipaddr 4y ago

As someone who has been in the industry for 20+ years I've noticed changes that may have lead to this point. Daily standups, meetings, gluing frameworks Daily standups are is a one size solution to a communication problem. Daily standups shouldn't be necessary with a team constantly communicating. Daily standups leads to cutting projects into small daily tasks. This leads to a system of micromanagement and it doesn't provide an opportunity of non-verbal self reflection and focuses you into threadmill small task thinking never connecting with the project as a whole. Developers are expected to attend meetings more than ever. The focus required to deep dive into complex issues get's broken with meetings that developers shouldn't be attending. You can attend meetings or you program rarely can you do both effectively on the same day and rarely can you get the focus you once had. No one wants to reinvent the wheel so gluing together packages is considered best practice. The work has become more about making decisions around the packages you choose rather than being given time to make the package. Top pay with top companies seem to lead to burnout, lost purpose and this unhappiness. There is something unhealthy when companies get too large, force employees into promotions or unemployment, have an avg employment of under a year or designs interview processes around finding people who optimize for a high paycheck over those with a long history of experience.

galoisscobi 4y ago
> Developers are expected to attend meetings more than ever. How do people deal with this? I'm expected to take on more and more meetings and my time to do deep work diminishes as I go on. I'm curious to learn more from people who are handling this well.
- csande17 4y ago
  Sometimes, I've just kept on coding through the meeting. It's like listening to a podcast as you code. You do have to keep one ear out in case someone asks you a question directly, but listening for your name Alexa-wake-word-style isn't that hard.
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  > I'm curious to learn more from people who are handling this well. Working as an IC I just don't accept invites and don't attend. With the following exceptions: - Weekly review/Agile flavour meetings with my team - Meeting with a team member to solve a specific issue - A manager/VP/CTO _explicitly_ makes it clear _my_ presence is required Perhaps I've been luck with my managers or perhaps it comes with seniority but I've never got any negative feedback on this. Most people invite you in for stuff just as a passive listener. When I'm doing contract work I make it clear I am available for milestone review meetings and everything else is surcharged billable hours.

sircastor 4y ago

> If you asked me as a kid how someone burned out from their career, I’d have said by video games or drugs. Interestingly, these can be the _result_ of creeping burnout. Video games, consuming something (drugs, food, etc) to distract or find a sense of fulfillment.

gumby 4y ago

> I knew nothing about the bitterness that seeps into your soul when you’re working in tech. I wonder if the author got into “tech” because it seemed like a lucrative career and, as they say elsewhere, it looks to the outside world like they are doing something useful. I’ve only been working “in tech” about 40 years and pretty much every day feels exciting to me. That the author feels differently doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with them! It could be burn out or depression.

kookamamie 4y ago
Agreed. I took notice of OP's narrow view of "tech" and somehow binding web-dev to (assumed here) everything else. Not everything in tech is about gluing frameworks.
cableshaft 4y ago
I've been working in tech pretty much my entire career (about 20 years at this point) and I haven't had an 'every day is exciting to me' situation in at least 10 years. There's so much bullshit everywhere nowadays, and despite a red hot tech market I'm having difficulty getting decent job offers outside of healthcare, insurance, b2b, and fintech, which I'm guessing are probably the worst fields for that bullshit (part of that is probably where I live, admittedly, those are the biggest industries here). Finding some fun again playing around with VR development in my spare time, though. Maybe I'll make the shift to that in a year or so after I build up more experience at it, make a small game or two, and start feeling excitement again.

user_named 4y ago

I am a product manager and in my new job I also have to take on the role of product owner in agile, meaning that I manage delivery of epics, sprint planning etc. I feel like a caged animal. I have no freedom whatsoever and I have to fit a schedule of grooming epics that someone else has defined. I am really unhappy and will leave asap. I have never felt like this at any other job and if OP is also part of an agile process then I would guess that is the issue.

tomerbd 4y ago

Developers of the world! Unite against the scrum lords!

EnKopVand 4y ago

One of the best things I ever did in my career was to quit. I had gone a route I thought was “the” route for a career in tech. First developer, then architect/developer then project manager/developer then into actual management leaving development more and more behind without being fully able to because no one could do what I did at the organisation. It all went very well, I got involved with national task forces and was part of defining the national enterprise architecture for public software in Denmark. A long the road I also started doing conference/network/whatever talks and felt hugely important. Then I had a daughter, went down with stress that turned into depression and eventually found myself with an ADHD diagnosis at almost 40. Turned out my parents hadn’t wanted me to get one when I was a kid and had to see doctors because, well, I had ADHD. Not because my parents sucked or anything, but at the time it wasn’t called ADHD but DAMP (Danish word for steam, as in a thundering steam engine), and they believed such a diagnosis would be a bad stigma. I don’t blame them, but they probably “saved” me into changing my university major 9 times and eventually having to get a lower academy degree while working two jobs (not common in Denmark where we are paid to study for 6 years and have free (as in beer) access to most education). Anyway, there I was with not enough energy to do the two full time jobs I now had, parenting and work. My former places of work was amazing in all of this, not only did they send and pay for a lot of the help they also let me work part time while being part time sick (in Denmark this gives you full pay, but the sick part of it is paid for by the government). Despite this, and despite being lucky enough to get appointed to one my countries leading psychiatrists for adults with a late ADHD diagnosis, I found myself wondering if I would ever work full time again. Then I quit, and I don’t be back to developing software at a company that lets you actually build cool things. I started at 30 hours a week, but here half a year later, I’m going back to full time. If you have the ability to pick and chose, as many of us in tech are fortunate enough to have, then I can only encourage that you use it if your current job makes you unhappy. Of course you’ll probably need it o do some work to figure out what makes you happy, or even if you are currently unhappy or happy.

qwertox 4y ago

What's frustrating me the most is frameworks promising simplification, and then, after investing a considerable amount of time building things with these, they evolve into complex platform incompatible to your old code. Where "old" means 3-5 years. That's what's burning me out. Now I'd love to move to Svelte for some minimalism, but in 4 years Svelte2 will probably come out, being incompatible and unnecessarily complex.

henrymosley 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

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stevage 4y ago

I had a lot of trouble understanding what was meant here: > The world has gotten more complicated: it seems that most dangerous traps now are picking up frameworks that bypass mimic the current meta. And the worst thing is, they're not even fun. What does he mean by "traps"? And "mimicking the current meta"? I feel like there are some references here I don't have?

lloeki 4y ago
> mimicking the current meta Probably "Most Effective Tactic Available. It's basically what works in a game regardless of what you wish would work.", a gaming term. Imagine a PvP game, there are rock-paper-scissors rules and devs try to balance the game, but inevitably mistakes are made and the game has an imbalance leading to a rock-paper-scissoss-well situation (the well always wins or ties), so people end up mimicking that, gaming the game, otherwise they don't stand a chance, which ruins the game itself. Then devs adjust that by cheesing the weapon or whatever, but may introduce another imbalance. So there's a game atop the game (a meta-game), which is "how to game the game" by finding meta-strategies that are almost guaranteed to work.

mostertoaster 4y ago

Is he just unhappy with tech, or just unhappy? If you’re unhappy, tech probably won’t make you happy, if unhappy with tech, it’s just do something you’d be happier with or just use it for the money.

tabtab 4y ago

I've concluded the web is F'd up for regular CRUD. https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/r59nzr/i_regret_going_into_web_programming_should_have/ https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/r59nzr/i_regret_goi...

ohiovr 4y ago

I too became highly dissatisfied with technology and the pursuits therein. I knew this was not what God wanted for me so I gave it up and now working a factory job. I never quite made it in tech. But there is more reason for this than simple incompetence. It was never something I was supposed to do.