Ask HN: Did you have early career doubts? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Did you have early career doubts?

11 pointsthrow-away-ec17 comments

I'm not a bad developer, but to be honest, programming was never my passion. I took CS after high-school for pragmatic reasons.

I spent 5 years in school, got several degrees including an MSc in Computer Science. And I have been working professionally as a developer / "software engineer" (big air-quotes) for the past 5 years.

I'm in my (very) late 20s and I can't imagine doing this for the rest of my life. But the only other path seems to be management right now. And that sounds even worse.

I feel like I'm stuck on this path, and stepping out would mean financial ruin. I'm based in Europe, so my salary has been pretty modest.

Is this a regular 30s-life-crises? Did you have similar doubts at this point of your career/life? What did you do?

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I specialized to get over a similar hump in my career.

The good thing is software development is now a skill underpinning many other fields. There are deeper tech specializations beyond just “software development”

Around my 30s I knew I wanted to stay technical and not go into management. I ended up specializing in search engines (like site search using Elasticsearch). I intentionally pushed hard into a personal brand and skills around the niche. It’s a very in demand space. It’s very hard. I still write lots of code. But it’s combinddd with domain knowledge, data science, nlp, and lots of other cool fields.

I have other friends that have specialized based on other opportunities their careers have presented them, including:

- legacy software refactoring and management

- native C development

- wireless protocols

- operating system internals and drivers

- A/B testing

- MySQL performance

- JavaScript front end performance

- Various scientific fields where coding is useful

There’s so many niches in demand that it’s really hard to think of software development as “one thing”. It really behooves you if you want to stay technical to build a brand around a consistent focus area that interests you. You’ll have more fun AND make more money.

How do you do it though. Most of these niche’s want experts, particularly people with many years of professional experience. Every time I’ve tried to investigate a niche I’m interested in I’ve fallen flat. Others, such as scientific fields as you mention seem to fall back on heavy credentialism.

You do it by some combination of:

- finding something in your job history that speaks to you. Some kind of thru line of experience or areas that really grabbed you

- professional development opportunities and/or team transfers you can do at existing jobs. At many places it’s possible to switch to adjacent teams. In many ways easier than getting hired outside the company.

- build a personal brand. Blog. Speak. Etc. Don’t be afraid you’re a newb. There’s a bigger audience for intro material than high end advanced stuff.

Decide on a path that’s a reasonable pivot from where you are now and use the above to try to navigate there.

I never doubted that I enjoyed programming, because I kinda fell into it while avoiding homework and only after much resistance decided to make it a career.

I did have a lot of doubts about whether I was good enough at it to make it as a career. And that continues, basically every time I'm faced with a hard problem, even though I'm now a mid-level Area TL at Google responsible for software that hundreds of millions of people use. That's the nature of software (and innovation in general): before you've done something, other than the most trivial problems, you wonder whether you can do it, and then once you've done it, it's done and you move on to bigger challenges.

I would basically stop thinking in "rest of your life" terms and start thinking 2-3 years down the road. Are you happy doing what you're doing? Is there something else you'd rather be doing? Are there any particular developments that make you excited? Answer those questions first and that'll give guidance to shape the rest of your life.

I have no idea what the world will look like at the end of my life in hopefully ~40-50 years (who knows, I could get COVID and die next month). I suspect that demand for software engineers will be a lot less than it is now. But there's also a whole bunch of tail risks we're certainly underestimating - the U.S. might break up into lots of tiny little states, Russia could roll through all of Europe, we might all be underwater from rising sea levels, whatever. It's not worth worrying too much about them. Worry about the risks you're going to face in the next couple of years and trust in your ability to adapt beyond that.

I feel part of the problem is that I'm not working on hard problems. Most of my day-to-day is just busy work. And lacks that sense of purpose.

Same here.

Yes. I always loved computers and dual majored with a liberal arts degree. Programming was something I enjoyed as a creative endeavor but hated professionally.

I ended up transitioning into a DBA/sysadmin and eventually into a solution architect and service owner role. I learned that I like solving problems, and really enjoyed programming as a means to that end vs what it had become to me.

Don’t lose hope — everything you do prepares you for what’s ahead.

I like solving problems too. Sadly, at my company one needs to be an exceptional developer to become an architect. I suspect it may be similar at other companies. So that switch might not be so easy.

What do you do in your solution architect role?

Worked as a dev past six years(in sweden) in various positions, couldnt stand it anymore. To much time wasted infront a screen, days passing, not feeling alive. I was a decent dev but as the time went by, my passion just blew away and i didnt care anymore. I had to make a change because this trade made me unhappy. So I decided to go with something more practical. Im currently back in school doing HVAC/electrical stuff and it feels good. It was a hard decision leaving a good salary/security/status and be back at zero. But I feel better and its fun to learn something new/doing stuff in the real world. Life is short and fragile, spend it doing somehing worthwhile, for you!

Right now you're at school though (i.e. not working in the field?). I wonder how much better it will end up being after a couple years of practicing it. When I look at HVAC techs, I see guys with supreme health and stamina - for example, one that came to my house worked sweating for a long time in front of a AC fan blowing coldish air straight on his forehead (he was trying to diagnose some malfunction in the fan). I know I would be sick in bed for a couple of weeks after an hour of that...

Haha yepp, I dont have any experience at all so I dont know much about how it will be in the end, working with it. I just felt for a long time I have to do something practical, not beeing stuck in an office. Im a outdoor guy and I like physical tasks, so I think it will be good for me. I have to try atleast, code/IT, i never want to touch that again. Maybe it will open doors to other technician type of jobs aswell, not only HVAC.

I've always loved programming and never had any doubts, though I don't particularly enjoy management. Maybe find the bits about programming or the biz in general that you love the most, and sorta blow that up into a full time gig in the next 2-3 years?

Eh same here, same age and years experience.

Toughest part is the salary/time demand ratio is pretty great, I doubt there's many normal jobs that come close. Maybe sales, once you get the ball rolling.

I think the key is to compartmentalize it as a source of income (my coworker says "whelp, back to the salt mines"), find a niche that people want you for, and get other things you're interested in.

I assume this job will be valuable for at least 10 more years.

if I were to guess, I think that we have shared similar minds at some point. if you don't like software development for software developments sake, then I would suggest branching into other fields for at least a little while. people need programmers for medical analysis and hardware development, analyzing telescope data, ocean eddies and currents, migratory patterns of species, robotics, citizen science projects, social justice projects, human trafficking...

there are a bunch of topics that are not software development for the sake of software development. there are a bunch of topics that aren't browsers speed optimization and advertising. you won't make a bunch of money if you leave to these other topics, and often you will not be treated like the most valuable person in the room, but there's a lot of value in adopting these other roles

I have doubts about the rat race, but this is true in any field. Eventually you develop your hardened coat. So ya, trust the process and you’ll see the evolution of confidence.

I hate my job and have become disillusioned and cynical about the industry (and really any power structures like managers at companies and the individuals in government). I'm 8 years in.

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