Comment by ensiferum | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ensiferum | Hacker News Reader

Heh, and I don't have a problem to say that I'm looking for a career switch. In fact I've been doing software engineering professionally for +15 years now and quite honestly I'm sick of it. Have been for years now.

I still enjoy programming but only that and when I get to program my own hobby programs and focus on the parts and problems that I find worth solving and doing. I don't enjoy the SW dev work at work, doing stuff that I don't care (or the world doesn't care about), solving problems like fixing build files, or having a shitty tool that crashes or having all these stupid useless (meta) problems and the general nonsense prevalent in the IT/tech industry. Just as an example of what I mean the other day I was having a problem with automake (WARNING: 'aclocal-1.14' is missing on your system.) when building protobuf (not going to get into details, it's very obscure). My motivation for this kind of (nearly daily) crap is about absolute 0. I'm sick and tired of it all.

The only reason why I'm still doing this is because I haven't realized what would be a feasible alternate job for me to do and which direction to go to.

Overall I feel like this job has changed me as a person as well. I'm extremely cynical these days about anything related to tech/IT. But hey at least I have a great taste for cynical and sarcastic humor now (for example Dilbert)!

Replying to my own reply,

furthemore I guess the most painful aspect about is the realization of own's limitations and understanding that despite the effort to self improve, study and actively try to learn I'm never going to be a top tear developer with a fancy career that would take me to places. I mean I'm a solid developer but still I'm just a "SW dev" and lacking a massive fluke in this industry thats probably all I'm ever going to be. Partially it's also about me not being very career orietented (at least when I was younger) but now when you realize that you've hit middle age, your friends have moved up in the world to bigger companies, bigger jobs/positions and salaries and after 15 years you're beating the same dead horse (hey, look what cmake just vomited out!!) it feels... well it feels like you got deceived.

Basically same thing in a blog format: https://giantfublog.wordpress.com/2016/10/05/the-difference-...

This resonates with me, BUT - I think looking up to peers because of their tangible accomplishments is a kind of self deception. If you were the best earning person at high school reunion - would that make you happier on the whole, or would you just enjoy boasting at the reunion, and that's about it? Who are you really envious of? The rich people, or the dream-come-true people with an average or even low income? I'd rather strive to be in the second group. I'm deeply envious of my guitar teacher. I certainly make more than him, and giving lessons can be boring - but making music makes him deeply happy.

Well large paycheck would be a nice thing, but more than I guess it'd be about accomplishment, making something worthwhile and recognition and/or making something that'd actually make the world a better place and obviously getting to do what you actually enjoy doing.

>>I'm deeply envious of my guitar teacher. I certainly make more than him, and giving lessons can be boring - but making music makes him deeply happy.

I'm envious of guys like that too. It's great if you can spend your time doing what you enjoy. My first 5 years in the tech were like that. But the luster is definately gone now.

Have you tried contracting?

I think from there it is easier to go into different directions: Want to gradually transition from service to product? Want to create a company and manage other people doing your work? Want to gradually switch to different kinds of projects?

And after you got used to a senior engineer salary, finding something comparable in another industry where you have no experience can prove to be quite a challenge.

Yup.

Then try this point of view:

Imagine you get the same amount of money you get know ("basic income" just for you). How much money are you willing to spend monthly on projects you enjoy and that make you feel useful?

Subtract that amount from your current pay check and see if you can find something in the new lower range :-)

Yeah, if only accomodation wasn't so so expensive. Also considering my options for going back to university to study something else. But lets face it it's going to take some massive will power and financial juggling to make a career switch happen at middle age.

Albert Schweitzer is my favorite career-switch example. Unfortunately I find large parts of studying to become a doctor rather dull - I've actually taken a couple hundred hours of courses. Also, thanks to the Internet and all the information on it I would not feel as good about myself as Schweitzer did because I would be only too aware of global forces beyond anyone's control that let any individual efforts seem completely useless.

For example, the recent headlines about the outburst of violence in Ethiopia. Imagine you were one of the people who spent a decade or more building a business there to help the people - only to see it all go up in smoke in the course of an hour of rioting because larger issues in the country remained unaddressed. It feels to me like I'm waiting for larger issues to result in a "signal", and that until then individual efforts are actually pretty useless because greater forces are at work pointing into another direction. So what I do now is work on my skills and on my continued education.

By the way, speaking of studying, I started a math study (I already did CS and half of "business administration"), but during the first year I found out that while it was extremely interesting it was way, way too narrow. I had too much of a desire to try something completely different. That's why I ended up studying a lot of medical topics. I think edX and Coursera and the course websites from Stanford, MIT and many others are a very good option these days. After all, you only really need one degree to say "I studied", actually getting another one has greatly diminished returns. I'm not talking about the knowledge you gain but about the piece of paper. As for the knowledge, I would find studying anything too narrow and limiting. Picking up whatever I want from the available (university) courses has been much more satisfying. 70 courses thus far and counting :-) Added benefit: No time pressure. Learn whatever whenever and wherever.

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