I can work on coding projects in a hyperfocus state for hours if I find it interesting. That is one of my strengths I would say.
Doing Leetcode religiously though, not so much.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20293259
Alan Carter described ADHD as a power for programming in 2000 for me.
https://www.datapacrat.com/Opinion/Reciprocality/add.html
My opinion is that ADHD is a tangle of questions that a person needs to understand. It may take half of his life, but the second half of his life will be excellent. Some people do not see those problems and inconsistencies in themselves that are visible to others and manifest as ADHD.
I’ve been on basically the same dose for 15 years now and while it’s hard to say what my life would have been like without it I’m not sure I would have held a job for very long.
The best glimpses I get are like right now when I’m preparing for bed my thoughts are everywhere. I remember vaguely how easily distracted I was and how I self medicated a bit with alcohol.
Anyway, it works for me! I’m sure others have strategies that work for them.
But also I can't hold it together for more than a couple months of full time work without it. So I diminish myself in these ways, and those I care about most don't get the best of me as much as they could, and my health suffers in serious, concrete ways.
I'm not young, and have done many kinds of work and had several careers, and am not looking for advice about this right now. I've established an adequate balance given the constraints, but god damn do I hate the constraints.
Look, I don’t want to be disrespectful but maybe you don’t have ADHD. From the accounts I have read online, adults with ADHD have a _reaaaaaally_ hard time focusing on anything. Like stopping sentences midway to chase butterflies. I find it utterly incompatible with being an engineer. So it’s not like you can’t focus (you said yourself), it’s that you don’t want to focus.
Truth is everybody has a much harder time focusing on shitty half-baked non-testable legacy software than on greenfield interesting stuff.
My former boss used to say: “remember, if you enjoy it, it’s not work”. It’s a bit effed up to be honest, but if you aspire to go to FAANG and be paid $250k+, you may have to agree to sweat a little.
I'm a software engineer with ADHD. I've been diagnosed by doctors, psychologists, and even imagery (SPECT scans). I work at a big tech company, and I'm very senior and well paid.
They're totally compatible. It's not easy, but by adulthood most of us have a lot of skills to compensate, and sometimes medication.
I'd liken focus with my ADHD to holding a firehouse - it's actually incredibly powerful, but difficult to control.
> I'd liken focus with my ADHD to holding a firehouse - it's actually incredibly powerful, but difficult to control.
Controlling the hyper focus can be hard. I liken my experience of adhd to learning horse riding and being given an unruly stallion for a brain while everyone else got well trained if slower horses. Except no one told you and blame you for not "wanting to work hard enough".
“Like stopping sentences midway to chase butterflies.”
It can be like that for some people with ADHD. But every person with an ADHD diagnose is not cast in the exact same mold.
When speaking about ADHD, it’s crucial to be aware that there are three subtypes: predominantly inattentive (ADHD-PI or ADHD-I), predominantly hyperactive-impulsive (ADHD-PH or ADHD-HI), and combined type (ADHD-C).[0]
Please keep in mind that different people can have vastly different coping strategies and vastly different support from their partner, family, etc.
And then there is medication, which can make an enormous difference for some people.
”I find it utterly incompatible with being an engineer.”
Nope. That’s just incorrect. ADHD can make someone’s life very challenging, but those challenges are not necessarily unsurmountable.
[0] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_deficit_hyperactivit...