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> "I feel so old to be trying something completely new."

Dude. You're 30. I'm not going to post the cliche list of people who've done amazing, impactful things after age 30, but please understand that that list easily runs to the hundreds of millions. You have a lot of time to do whatever you want. Take a break. If you still want to get out of tech, then jump into another field. If not, just take a normal tech job and be one of us drones for a bit. It won't kill you, and it might reenergize your desire to make your own thing.

You're been working on your own thing for six years, which means you started it before you had even reached the age where you could rent a car. You have never experienced a normal life. Give it a shot. It's not as terrible as it's sometimes made out to be. I'm not making a billion dollars, but I get paid well and I go home to a nice place; I live with a beautiful girlfriend and I exercise at a nice gym and take fun vacations and eat at nice restaurants and drink fancy scotches. It's not jetting to Malta on the weekends, but it's better than what the vast majority of people on this earth who are around our age can hope for.

And doing that doesn't mean you've given up and sold out or whatever. You can work on side projects when they make you happy. The cult of the entrepreneur hasn't done right by you. Try another path, and see if it works better. It might fit you better, or it might reenergize you to get back into the startup space, or it might make you realize you need to live in a hippie commune. (If that's the case, I know a place.)

My husband had the same problem when I met him. He was 27 and just decided to never ever make a living from programming again because he felt sick of it.

So, he decided he would organize bicycle rides in Transylvania. And he looked really cool doing that so I fell in love with him, but he wasn't making any money while working his ass off. I didn't care ( -I had a job), but after a while, he did. I'm used to not afford basic stuff, but he got sick of scarcity then.

We only started doing little websites for friends in the afternoon. But they asked for more, so what could we do, right?

And here we are after 7 years, having a small software company... in Transylvania. Many times it does feel like "eating glass and staring into the abyss...". Maybe it's a grownup thing to feel that way and stand up to it. It's the overcoming of all the winning is what gives you dignity, in the end, I think.

I don't think you should quit.

Great story, thanks for sharing it.

Do you still organize bike rides?

First, taking a break is probably the most important. If you're burned out, don't underestimate the need for healing by just relaxing. If you can't afford to take a long break (no savings, etc), find a really easy job where you don't need to think much.

Honestly, the most relaxing job of my life was when I was lifting and restacking wood in a shipping warehouse. The lumber would come in on these big trucks, but they'd be stacked in a way where they couldn't fit optimally into shipping containers. So we were responsible for literally manually restacking the wood into stacks that would fit. I got to joke around with my co-workers, and the work was great exercise too. Heck, I even poohed better due to all the heavy lifting in that job. Every day, I'd go home exhausted, but happy, and have a really great night's sleep. I felt like I did an honest day's hard work and there was no debate about whether or not I was succeeding at my job too.

Don't think that you're going to get away from tech forever yet. You might find later that you really actually still like it, but you just aren't in a good place right now, so it's hard to distinguish what your emotions really mean. Or maybe you are completely done with tech. Take some time to heal and rest first for a few months, and then ask the question again.

I like jacquesm's blog posts on this subject, in the first one listed, he actually personally experiences and deals with similar questions: http://jacquesmattheij.com/categories/health

edit: Thought. If you can afford it, something like Habitat for Humanity is a great way to get that type of physical exercise, and also give back and feel like you're contributing to a worthy cause. I think it gives us warm fuzzy feelings when we're doing something for the greater good, and that helps. Heck, you might become good at it and discover that you'd rather be in construction, who knows? Again, if you can't afford it, I recommend finding a simple job where you can turn your brain off and just do stuff, preferably with a physical component.

If you're going to make an irrational decision, do it out of love, not hate.

When was the last time you fell in love? Maybe it was a girlfriend, perhaps it was a language? Perhaps it was with an apple product?

I realize your questioning why I'm asking this. But here's the thing. If you're going to make an irrational decision, do it out of love, not out of hate.

My love is photography, I fell in love with it while taking a camera to a juggling convention, and shooting a friend on stage. Nowadays, I can take a camera in my hand, and what ever is bothering me starts to disappear when the camera clicks. The how or why doesn't matter to me -- what matters is that I feel better after.

So, what makes you feel better?

"If you're going to make an irrational decision, do it out of love, not hate." :) This is awesome advice, specially for seemingly crucial decision points.

I'm 53 and have been working as a programmer since I was 17. I still love what I do but I've been where you are at several times. I'll tell you something you probably already know - it's impossible to make a good decision where you are at right now. For what it's worth I'd suggest taking a break and then deciding what to do once you have some distance and have shaken some of this off.

Quit. But quit with a caveat:

> I haven't had any success and all I've done was get taken advantaged of by crappy customers, worked for free for years, and yeah. [...] > And it was all for shit.

This part is bullshit.

You can't see it, but all of those petty, trivial, and fragile moments have influenced who you are now.

It might take months, maybe years, for that investment to come back with dividends. The seeds of what you have learned are just now taking root for tomorrow.

Contrary to all of the late-era Capitalist rhetoric, life is not a narrative. You aren't something destined. You aren't an arc.

You are a human fucking being living an accident of delicate and frail circumstances.

Let life lead you. In due time, the act of quitting may well be the turning point that led down a tremendous path you would never have previously seen...

You are a hero, and what I consider to be the definition of a real man. You did the hardest thing on earth for 6 years - you tried to build something new and useful to this planet.

I guarantee you learned a great deal about business, about technical topics, it was probably like getting an MBA and a PhD all rolled up in one.

It was a lonely path, and it still will be if you continue. It is the nature of the task. Perhaps it is time to go out among the "just started this path" types for just a little bit. After talking with you for 5 minutes, they will probably think you are a God for surviving this long, and because they sense your 6 years of vast experience.

Take a week or two off in some small town without high speed internet. You probably need a good solid vacation.

We live in a very strange world...

It takes these odd postings (like this one) to bring out scores of people who say "I've been there too, I got burnt out and I started to give zero fucks"

While many HN users enjoy the articulate nature of programming and have a great enthusiasm for it as a hobby, the truth is that we are all different, in very strong ways.

To the OP, before you quit, try to find another gig, perhaps not in software, but any gig to get you by. Remember that most of the world works in jobs they are not passionate about and money is a means to sustenance. Once you have a decent income stream, even if it means working as a coffee-barrista, start to find your life outside of work.

To everyone else suffering from HN, programmer-speak, x-libraries, x-languages, x-ideas, x-dreams, x-future, x-80-hour-workweeks:

Take a step back from your job and find yourself. See your job as nothing but a job. No amount of perks, free lunches, free gym-membership is going to change the fact that you are just a cog in the chain. Keep your job to keep your sustenance, but start living outside your work. Love your wife, love your children, or try to find a wife and have children. Hold on to your dear ones and build relationships beyond your tech circles. Explore ~ global travel is expensive, but chilling in a forest or sitting by a lake only costs you a little driving time and nothing else. Live outside your career, because your code will not matter and will not be remembered when you die. You, as a person, will be remembered; only by those you've built relationships with (and not your employer who gave you free lunches in 2016)

Above all else, value your time. If you never get to HN/reddit frontpage with 1246 upvotes to your legendary docker-esque github repo, breath in, look outside the window and repeat: who gives a fuck (and then move on with your life)

I worked too hard on developing software and got stressed out and developed a mental illness and became disabled.

I went back to college to take a business management degree and earned one. Thinking that I might do better as a manager. But since I have no experience as a manager, no luck in getting a job.

It is very hard to work on your own, and earn money. You need a team of people, you need investors, you need social and people skills. You need to market your product and SEO your website to get clients and customers.

I've worked on software projects that went nowhere because I couldn't get anyone interested in them.

I'm 47 now and figure my career is basically over. I could try Freelance after updating my skills to modern languages, build new projects and a portfolio, but I don't see the point when everyone else is doing that and there is a lot of competition.

> everyone else is doing that and there is a lot of competition.

You're assuming that there are more programmers than jobs, but at least for now there appear to be many more jobs than programmers.

Why not get a normal 9-5 job?

I tried and could not find any and ended up on disability as a result of my mental illness.

I went back to college to study business management to get a job with any business and combine it with my computer skills. I could do Excel or MS-Access work and VBA programming if I had to, but no company wants to hire me for a 9 to 5 job because I am mentally ill.

I was diagnosed with a serious mental illness 6 years ago, but I have no problem finding jobs. I just never tell anyone that I have it. I was diagnosed with bipolar 1, was in a psychiatric hospital for 2 weeks, and on short term disability for about 2 months.

It's possible it was a misdiagnosis though. I think a lot of it was from anxiety and stress. I stopped taking medication in 2011 (against the advice of my doctor).

You might have had a temporary mental illness. Mine is so severe that it stops me from working. Just getting up in the morning is hard, and I can't even drive a car anymore.

Stuff that used to be easy for me, got very hard to do. Everything changed when I became so mentally ill that I was disabled. Hard to understand.

Being 47 (I'm older!) gives you a perspective that younger folks simply don't have. How many SV startups are targeting people a few decades beyond their teens?

I do have a perspective on how things work better. How to better debug programs. How to make ADO recordsets work faster. How to make Crystal Reports generate reports faster. How to cache an ASP website using a text file and using the system time to update it every day at midnight to update the data and load the HTML from a text file.

I'm sure these things can work in modern languages as well in theory. I might be able to mentor other programmers as well and manage them.

I am 28 and feel exactly like you: one difference, I have never gone on my own, I have always been an employee at a huge corporation.

Right now, I look up to you a lot, you had the balls to go on your own.

I don't have a solution to this, I can only let you know that you are not alone and I relate 100%. I would get a 9to5 job, save some money, and quit and travel for a while, find your passion. This is what I hope to do, hopefully soon

This is good advice - I did this when I turned 30 - spent my 30th on a beach in Chile having the time of my life - then spent the next 7 months backpacking around south america - and it was the best time of my life. After I came back I worked for a few months to save some $ then moved to the other side of the world - that gave me enough interesting stuff to keep doing something I wasnt so interested in anymore - but I found unusual work opportunities that never would have happened if id stayed in the same place

Programming for a career does appear to affect the soul. I mean soul in the sense of self and relation to the world around self and general sense of happiness. I thought it was just me but I'm noticing it in others. Don't get me wrong... the excitement of solving problems and making things is addictive. It's a really nice high. But it definitely take a toll as certainly as laying bricks or driving semis day after day does. I don't have any actionable advice. I try to take time to do other things.. projects in the physical world. It helps some. Maybe you should get a job and change environments. Maybe you should do something else for a while. IDK... but I do feel for you.

I may be reading between the lines, but it sounds like it's the business side of things that is becoming miserable. If you still enjoy writing software, it might be worth worth exploring opportunities outside of self-employment. Working for a manager comes with its own set of problems, but it can be a whole lot less stressful financially and emotionally.

This is a long shot because I don't know where you live, and only have HN as my source of widespread info on tech careers. But if you're in SV or somewhere like that, maybe you'd be happier in a more provincial setting. You might be able to find an employer with a more laid back environment, and a slower paced lifestyle, more access to the great outdoors, etc.

I did something similar, a couple decades ago: Pulled up stakes and moved to a town that was listed as a "best place to live," with a similar climate to where I grew up, etc. Best decision I ever made.

I am in a very similar place right now.

Similarly horrified that my only valuable skillset makes me effectively chained to the computer screen, forever.

Been self-employed so long that full-time employers see the experience as a disqualifier from hiring. Let a string of bad business deals put me in so much debt I have no hope of putting together the financial cushion or runway towards taking an extended break or re-skilling into another industry. Been taken advantage of so many times by tech industry titans that I trust no one. Turns out the root cause was partly a mental illness working against me my entire career that I only recently was diagnosed for, well into adulthood.

Completely deflated in confidence or ability. Burned out to the point where I can no longer even effectively fake enthusiasm for selling my abilities. Jaded hostility I can no longer control towards clients, peers. Hide away from socializing with anyone else with ties to the tech business because of social anxiety fears they'll judge me for my failure, or worse, I'll get drunk and lash out.

Therapists suggest a major career change but I have no skills in anything else that could pay my bills. All the attempts at shifting away to management, associated non-code skills tend to backfire.

When my checkbook is drained, it only refills with a half-hearted sales pitch to an old client, a grudging all-night session with a text editor.

Obligations to wife, sick elderly parents that keep me bound to where I live. Got somehow stuck in an absurdly expensive soul-crushing city with absurdly hight rents for absurdly tiny living spaces, that also happens to be critical for my wife's career. She's at the top of her game here. Leaving means she gives up her career.

I've been dreaming of living in the woods making furniture or something, being a tugboat captain, construction worker, a sanitation worker even. Welding, cutting bushes, mopping floors. It took 15 years to really truly drive home how badly I misjudged my ability to succeed in this business, what the consequences were for a career of being self-employed in something that didn't really motivate me to begin with. I need a paradigm shift in how I see my life, but it just won't seem to come.

Such a bleak comment. Ugh. Sorry. Anyhow, yea you're not alone.

Don't worry man, lots of us (me too! I'm 33!) started companies while young. Shutting them down is liberating, not every effort comes to monumental financial success. Some say that the true measure of a person is how they respond to challenges. Knowing that there is no set direction in life, it's really healthy to embrace moments of reconsideration. Don't worry about deviating from some social obligation of fervently chasing dollars. Changing physical and social environments can be very powerful. If you have some money in the bank then I would highly recommend going to travel on the cheap to some different countries. Learn about where you go, explore. Try to limit the time while you are away spent with people from your own culture. It will help you relax, and stimulate you in new directions. You might even try something new that pops up on the way, and find new directions you might like to consider: Diving. Studying. Teaching. Writing. Art. Picking up a new language. Running a hospitality business. Maybe even someone who gives you a shared direction in life?

Personally I shut my first company in 2009 after getting some recognition from VCs and support from angels, found success working for others for awhile, did a few years of remote, and now - some 7 years later - I'm starting businesses for myself again. It took that long to re-energise. We don't even have our website complete yet, but yesterday just signed our first client for enough money to buy a nice shiny new mountain bike. I plan to let it grow slowly and organically, not stress and to ride that mountain bike at least as much time as I spent in the office coding. Wiser these days.

You probably can't really tell whether you want to leave tech forever, or just leave being extremely poorly paid and appreciated for your work in tech forever.

To tell the difference, you might have to take a Normal Tech Job, when you're ready for it.

Take a six month break from computers and the Internet. If you absolutely must, you can check your e-mail once a week, but no further tech than that. During those six months you can vacation (if you saved up some money during your years of coding), or, if you need money to get by, you could work some menial job. After six months, if you feel up to it, you could decide to return to the field of software development. However, I hope you'll resolve to never again work as a software developer for peanuts. It's mentally taxing work that ought to provide you with plenty of money.

Spend a year or two getting as strong as you can physically. It is just as important as exercising your mind.

I am 28 and two years ago had similar feelings. I burned out after 6 years working in IT corporate environment in shift mode.

Moving to different area helped me a lot. But same mind-set reoccurred after 3 years and i burnt out again, another moving to different area.

Now I have kids, house with my own workshop where I have environment for creative hobby - woodworking. I can see real result of my job. Beside this I work in IT corporate and have company with on-demand programming services.

I feel it's stable period, with work-relax balance, at least for now.

Don't quit yet, because your judgment is clouded. You sure to regret quitting based on emotion.

  Here is what helping me:

1. Take a break off in the different country. At least for 1 month. I recommend backpacking.

Why?

Everyday task will shock your brain out. Making it hard to think negative thoughts.

And never underappreciate the power of like minded people. They are escaping cubicle nation, too.

2. Try new things, extreme things while you are on holiday.

Why?

You are still shooting for shocking your brain. That's will help.

And here is the other takeaway: your burnout based on missing out on things. Do it now, everything that your old self wanted to try out.

3. Go back to work with different condition in mind.

But, this the big BUT. Write down when you will be quitting before starting again. Think SMART goals here. And I emphasize on writing it down. Clue: Seth Godin: The Dip

4. Are you still in bad mood?

The primary culprit will be one of the following:

- Flexible schedule

- sleep

- your own imagination

- diet

- exercise.

Work to achieve the missing one(s). At this point the diet, exercise and sleep is good because you have been on a holiday. So you might need flexible schedule for the last part.

5. Tweak this. Read books. Meet people, listen to them. Have notes.

6. Repeat.

Your own imagination will take care of itself in no time. Try not to think and go on holiday.

Also, one year from now I would like to read your takeaway, here on HN.

Take care.

I feel the same, but I am trying to dedicate my hard-earned skills and experience to healthcare so that I can focus my week days on doing something which will someday help saving lives. Otherwise, I think most Tech is a gamble with VC's money (they do have a lot) and at the end we will end up corrupting human generations with information/consumption overload and decent skills to talk to people and enjoy life as it comes. At some point when I was working for a advertising startup, I burnt myself out and it was a good first step at realizing how not to work and inculcated lot of good habits (like frequent breaks, making sure I don't work beyond a certain time everyday, planning for the day {velocity > speed} etc) which re-energized me. And at the end I know, health will win over wealth so it's important I exercise and enjoy each day and worry less about work when I am not working.

The burnout symptoms may be a form of resistance.

The more important an activity is to the evolution of our souls, the more resistance we'll feel toward it.

On this subject, Steve Pressfield is masterful> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdVhG7YUs1w

You aren't too old to do something new.

People working in this industry are often required to display unfelt enthusiasm for things that really aren't terribly exciting. One can be forgiven for being through with this nonsense by the age of 30.

I would never consider working as a software developer but for my sincere interest in the value that my software provides and my enjoyment of the craft. Otherwise I think it would be comparable to accounting, the quintessential boring yet rewarding career.

Do what you truly wish to do. To be concerned about being too old at the age of 30 is just silly.

If isolation is an issue, perhaps there is a co-working space or public space at which you can work. If you don't want to work in public, maybe you just need to go to some meetups, professional organization, makerspace, or some other type of group where people come to socialize. You may want to try a mix of tech and non-tech type groups. I found when I was running my own business in my early 20s that a local user group provided a good way to meet new customers and interact with people. I also tried things like board game meetups, "young professional" groups, etc. even if I didn't like the people or never went back, I found it a good to break up my routine. I would also make sure to spend time outside, at the public library, just leave the apartment for lunch, etc.

I have often thought about leaving tech or going to a different area within tech, I can empathize that its scary to think you are a specialized cog that can't really do anything else. It may be helpful to reach out to a career professional for some advice - for example if you went to a college/university, they usually provide career counseling for alumni, local libraries also often have resources or people who may help. If you are thinking of staying in your own business, you may want to try your local Small Business Association chapter (or equivalent if you are outside of the US).

Remember, your greatest asset is often not what you know, but that you know how to think and make critical decisions. I am sure you have learned a new programming language or figured out how to deal with a bad customer. Those are skills which can be generalized and applied in other areas. It may be hard or scary to take the step on how to apply these skills in a different area, but you may be able to think of low risk ways of trying it out. Maybe there is some type of freelancing gig outside your realm or even outside of tech you could try. Some of the networking ideas about may help you bump into someone who needs your skills - even if its not paid work, they may buy you a coffee just to pick you mind.

I would also second some of the other comments on getting a mindless or corporate job for a while, taking a vacation, tech detox, etc.

In sum, the first step is to break out of your routine and try something. You may have heard of paralysis by analysis... sometime you have to just take that first step and not worry about having the perfect optimal, zero risk plan in place.

Working alone is extra exhausting. Why don't you just find a new job, where you actually have coworkers, instead of quitting tech?

Stop reading HN and other such. It's giving you a horribly distorted view that seems to have wormed its way inside your head and is damaging you. To paraphrase Mary Schmich, "Do not read SV news websites, they will only make you feel like a failure."

i've been there. I also tried to think of new ideas to work on but I couldn't put any energy into it. I used to think I was a very creative person but even that I started to have serious doubt about. That's when I decided to take a break. I think you ran out of energy NOT because you're working in tech, but because you're working for yourself (This is pretty natural). Take a break and mindlessly work for someone else. After 6 months to a year you'll have recovered completely and probably be overflowing with ideas and energy.

You're not gonna quit, you're just going to take a break. Pretty soon you'll be ready to go again. Just take a breather.

lel

yup.

back at it.

I'm considerably older than you (47, still a software developer because I like it) and I think you're being too harsh on yourself. You also need do do something about that burn out - that's a different point

Let's look at the "too harsh on yourself" part. So you're not the founder of a Unicorn startup that you started in your dorm room at an ivy league college. You know what that makes you? It makes you a perfectly normal person who has decided to follow your entrepreneurial instincts instead of getting the development version of a McJob. That's highly commendable.

It also may have not worked out in the way you wanted it to work out because you're not filthy rich and cruising around on a Megayacht (or whatever else your dream is). That is the case for most entrepreneurs - my first endeavour bombed so badly I ended up paying for it until about six years ago (ie, for over 10 years) after the lawsuits and and the other not fun stuff. But I also gained something extremely valuable called experience. I've since had a couple of other companies that made money, and it actually made me more valuable as an employee because I learned entrepreneurial skills that I wouldn't have otherwise.

Not being an overnight success is actually an advantage in my book - the lessons you learned are important and will massively increase your chances to succeed in the future.

One thing I've learned over time is that you need balance in your life, and you can only achieve that if you do more than one thing. To me it sounds like you've poured everything you have into a single vessel (work) and now that work didn't provide the results you expected, you're staring at emptiness because there isn't anything else.

So, first advice is to find something else you're interested in and give it some time in your life. Don't try to make it another business, but something you expressly do to counter your 100% concentration on building software. That'll help you with the burnout for the simple reason that it allows you to switch of the "tech" part of your brain.

In my case, I work on cars, I build track cars for myself and I do use them as intended. I'll never make a decent race car driver but that's not the point - it helps me balance my life, and it scratches the itch of creation and gets me away from computers. Same goes for the other things I do away from development like gardening and reading non-computing books.

BTW, you're not too old. Nobody ever is.

That said, I am toying with the idea of doing something non-software for the next 20 years or so simply because it's getting to the point for me where very few companies are willing to pay for the sort of experience and craftsmanship I can bring to the table. So I'm developing some other interests that may or may not turn into a second and third career.

> Ask HN: When should you quit?

You should quit when you write up a post like this and submit it to HN.

Go take a well deserved break to find yourself. Meditate, or do activities that you feel are meditative.

If you need a place to stay and rest, look to your friends/family.

If you have a business that needs to be taken care of, either sell it or hire someone to take over things like customer support, etc.

If you're feeling burnt out it means you need to take several months off because you haven't been taking care of yourself or doing the things that energize you.

I wish you the best of luck.

— Speaking as someone who went through this type of thing.