Another burnout post
gushogg-blake.com
gushogg-blake.com
I like solving problems using programming languages, and like designing large systems with computers, but I don't actually enjoy the programming itself. Programming without the designing part just feels like data entry to me. There's nothing clever, or creative, or interesting about it.
For years I've dealt with severe burnout because I had been lying to myself and taking jobs that where I didn't really have to "think", and I had no fun doing it, leading to me feeling like I had really chosen the wrong career path and that I was stuck feeling bored for the rest of my life.
Once I realized that programming for the sake of programming isn't fun, I started putting my attention to jobs where I made it clear that I'm going to be involved in the design and decision-making process, and almost immediately I actually enjoyed working again, after many years of not.
I'm not saying this is universal, if you like writing Java for the sake of writing Java, don't let me take that away from you, it's just not something I enjoy. Figuring out what you actually enjoy doing is deceptively hard, but a worthwhile goal.
It's probably not universal, but I bet it's more common than most people want to admit.
It's embarrassing how long it took me to realize that; for years I wondered why I enjoyed working on my personal projects but not my paid work, despite them being nominally the same thing, and eventually I realized it was because I made the decisions on my personal projects.
Not to deride things too much. I'm trying to get better about it, surrounded by good suggestions... I'm just categorically exhausted
I was an idealist, following best practices, learning the language to the dot until I stumbled upon a different enjoyment in work: mentoring, guiding, helping, cheering co-workers to be on the same page, same direction, and to eventually deliver the software/feature/product.
Once the clock hits 5.30PM, I checked out and ride my bike.
I write code as a hobby now, and am much more satisfied with that because I make all the decisions on my own personal projects.
I think I'd be a pretty bad manager, I'm flaky in a way that doesn't lend itself to that, but I think I'm ok at the more "architectey" roles.
So with lots of free time due to medical leave I got got back into coding. Picking it up after having not done it for some time was not too bad. After a while I was ready to start learning new stuff. As I got better at coding a lot of my PTSD symptoms started to subside. I had an easier time organizing my thoughts.
Eventually my PTSD symptoms subsided and I knew enough code to get a job writing code. So while yes, I have burned out on coding it was also the old friend that dug me out of the hole.
I like programming, but hate most things around it.
Under-documented code with odd patterns, no comments and bad discoverability, like the code doesn't want you to explore it and work with it, but you instead have to dig in a whole bunch to understand what you're looking at, while you're already juggling the problem domain in your head.
Same extends to working with projects themselves, like having a placeholder README, no ADRs, no information about why certain choices have been made, no investment into tooling or automated linting etc., especially if some things are expected to be done manually by the developers ("order the variables this way", "format the code this way", "you must manually create these N layers of abstraction to make the code consistent"), also things like having no examples of how to use some of the abstractions and if it's a front end project, no examples of the components in isolation, separate from where they're used in the main codebase, no gallery of sorts. Maybe things like manual deploys, or environments with no monitoring/APM/uptime alerting and other bits of tooling that are pretty much essential, no clear information about how things are run on the servers etc., where working feels like some form of archaeology and detective work.
Also things like bike shedding, yak shaving, cargo culting, taking practices as gospel (DRY/SOLID come to mind, though they have their place), infrastructure aspects like not having your local DB that's safe to break, slow compilation, flaky tests, bad tooling, outdated packages and dependencies. Throw in conflicts of interest and opinion that aren't managed well and you have a recipe for burnout, the kinds of situation where people are pretty much "against" you and what you're trying to do, e.g. holding up a release over unrelated, non-blocking concerns, or having drawn out discussions about how to write code, when it doesn't feel like you're working "together" to make things better for everyone. Even when there are disagreements, it's possible to get to that better place, but often time egos go unchecked, instead I actively try to be kind to others in code review etc. nowadays.
Although humorous, posts like this still ring true in many respects: https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks
But honestly, a lot of working in the industry also sucks due to technical concerns. This might be a more personal example, but I was trying to write some load tests in K6 for a web API. The API uses STOMP on top of SockJS (using WebSockets when available). K6 has support for WebSockets, except there's two packages, one of which is experimental. I quickly realized that SockJS wouldn't work, so I had to get rid of it in the project (since IE doesn't need to be supported anyways), but even then I realized that STOMP isn't supported out of the box, in part due to the protocol never really taking off: https://stomp.github.io/ I could find an extension, but getting it working also proved to be a bit of work: https://github.com/walterwanderley/xk6-stomp What sucked in particular was not only not having that much documentation about how to manage multiple subscriptions at the same time, but also the fact that reads were blocking instead of Promise based, though that might be due to how everything integrates with K6, it's not like I can shoot off a background thread. Eventually I got some jank implementation working that's based on blocking until a short timeout (like 2 seconds) after which the next subscription is done and data from it read, but it feels like if the industry was a bit more coherent we'd have like 2-3 solutions for similar use cases all of which would work well, instead of the current disjointed mess. This also applies to everything from OSes, to back end languages, front end libraries/frameworks etc., though I guess the variety is needed even if painful, so the better ideas survive the test of time. Until someone does some CV driven development and adopts a technology that's not ready.
That said, a lot of those things can be made better, as long as you care enough (and hopefully are rewarded for making the work not miserable).
Just in case you haven't tried it - perhaps it might ignite the love to programming (if you want that). Python made the programming fun to me again. Especially without the boilerplate code.
Try to ignore the community strong push to use typing everywhere and just write some clean small code and it feels amazing. Designs and ideas in simple implementations.
A better way to put it would be find a language you like and are productive in, and get very good at it. Then it almost becomes second nature, you can almost forget about the programming itself and focus on the problem solving.
I think I'm the same.
I like programming when it's "free form" and I'm doing something creative, but dislike fighting with: obscure build system/dependency crap, under-documented APIs, complexity that makes something as simple as "append an element to a list" an entire exercise in understanding some obscure Design Pattern, and the general realization that most software written today is putting strings in databases* and finding "new" ways to do so.
I used to find new languages/framworks/libraries interesting and occasionally still do, but a lot feels like going in circles with dubious benefits.
Maybe I'm just tired, dunno.
*At least those jobs I'm "qualified" for
Definitely you are tired my friend; I know exactly what you are talking about!
I find it extremely amusing and energy draining at the same time, when I see some projects that are unnecessarily over-engineered, when I could write a simple shell script that produces the __exact__ output, but it's deemed un-enterprise-y!
I like working in a language that I enjoy, that is expressive (I can think in it), and on projects that I started.
If it is a bad language, if I am fumbling through it, and I'm plowing through some one else's bad code, life is a slog.
There is possibly some middle ground, where a new language or environment is fun and educational. Just so you're on an acceptable learning curve, not burning out.
the cost of constantly shifting attention to multitask made everything seem frantic and you never got the sense to appreciate that a thing was 'done' because there was always ten other things cooking in the background.
you'll be surprised how much this doesn't kill your overall productivity while also preserving mental health. slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
Who cares? At this stage in my life (and a distant second my career too), if that's the kind of attitude your work demands of you, there's plenty of other validating things to do that also provide a living. And I always hear that people don't quit their jobs, they quit their bosses. But yeah, I would never fire someone for setting appropriate life/work boundaries and sticking to them.
I realize not everyone is so fortunate. I had to start at some not so great companies in my career, but over time if you’re picky enough, you can find a great employer. I encourage everyone to know their worth. Don’t settle.
The difference between a Grind and Hopeless.
I do think there are different types of "work" though, and the worse programming jobs have some of the worst combinations of attributes - inherently pointless but require intense mental effort.
Not only will they not make it for long, but they're actually devaluing their own work. You're paid a salary for a standard work week. If you're working nights and weekends, you're giving away that portion of your work for free. I learned and appreciated this fact too late in my career.
IMO a business that can only function/succeed if employees give away their time for free is not a viable business and probably just shouldn't exist. Don't Do Crunch Time.
I've been coding for 25 years in many jobs & many industries (although banking featured a bit tooooo much). Our industry is volatile, and right now it feels like a 'micro' repeat of the dotcom bust, where even the very good devs are increasingly under an unreasonable amount of pressure (financially, finding work, or otherwise).
Agree - life outside work is v. important, but I think it's equally important to work in an industry which aligns with one's values, rather than just for the money etc. At the end of the day, every role will be difficult at times, but if you're behind the potential impact of the company, then that makes the challenge more tolerable
(*cough* ~Don't be evil~ *cough* sigh)
I've been a developer for more than a decade. Body-shops. Founding engineer. Chief Technology Officer. After every job in my life I took 6 - 12 months off.
Usually my desire for programming comes back somewhere around the 5th month mark. I'm in such a 'holiday' now, and just passed the 12 month mark. I don't feel that desire coming back anymore.
I've been blessed to have a friend that had a gig where I can do some ETL and cover my monthly expenses, but whenever I start looking for new jobs, reading the ads, all those keywords, all those bullshit descriptions of what they expect, I'm starting to develop a physical repulsion.
I've done a couple of interviews, and the HR discussions and then the technical interviews have left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. I'm afraid I'll hiss in the next zoom call. And it's not even for not getting accepted, as I got an offer from all the talks. But the whole industry gives me a bad taste right now. Everything just feels futile and fluffed up. My last interview was for a hair & beauty appointment app start-up where they acted like they cure cancer.
I'd like to be my old self, but I'm afraid I might not get that part back. I took a look at 'regular' jobs and the idea of being a truck driver lit up something in me that programming hasn't in a very long time. Even being a shop clerk makes me dream more than wrangling code.
I realize this is childish, and that the grass is always greener on the other side. I know that there are challenges in every profession and that I have a comfortable home office and get paid a shit ton of money for what I do and this is better than 99% of the planet.
I just hope to be able to get back on track mentally and not feel like this.
But no. Nothing. Reading a job req still induces a wince. Reading the fluff from and about companies sends me recoiling. These things were never pleasant but they were tolerable. Now, the limbo bar has been set too low and it’s getting harder to compel my body to contort enough to slip under.
I’m pretty sure there is an eventual return somewhere ahead and the scariest thought is that I’ll get back and swirl back down to life as it was before. The past year+ becomes a puff of a memory. The good news (!) is that knowing you feel this way is critical knowledge. With that understanding we can rearrange our values and tackle the feeling constructively.
What infuriates me about this process is this experience.
For a time, I worked as a consultant doing cloud-related development, with many F500 companies (non-FAANG ones)
Generally, the staff on these projects were ok to mediocre in terms of skill. I KNOW I'm more competent than the median in those orgs at those companies, and yet if I apply for those exact jobs, my resume disappears into a black hole.
This isn't a testament to my skill, rather how poorly staffed major companies are. I don't mean "they don't know some nerd sniped trivia" either, I mean don't use version control, codebases full of dead commented code, hardcoded credentials, individuals with 0 troubleshooting ability or initiative, etc etc
I think this post comes across as unpleasant because it is so dismissive of other peoples struggles. If you just said, yeah software engineering isn't for me, that's one thing. But you're saying software engineering is objectively the most difficult, soul-destroying, draining job, and other people have it easier in this respect. Im sorry but that's just objectively not true.
I would push you to consider that, maybe, something else is going on for you individually, rather than write off the entire endeavor due to an objective analysis. I worked for years at a cancer center and while there were many times that the work was dry, lonely, alienating, at the end of the day I still felt I was doing something good for the world and that felt really good.
There's a lot of ways to apply software, and, maybe more to the point, a lot of ways to integrate it into your life with balance. What about part-time work, so you have more space for other parts of your life you find satisfying? You may find that, with more balance, you enjoy what the work does have to offer, such as being part of a team, being needed, being well-compensated, using your whole intellect, etc.
Best wishes
The difference being that the majority of software jobs are not doing anything remotely good for the world, or if you are, you are a infinitesimally small part of it to where you couldn't possibly derive this same rewarding feeling. I would push you to consider that maybe, your situation is one of privilege that people in the OP's spot are not often in.
> There's a lot of ways to apply software, and, maybe more to the point, a lot of ways to integrate it into your life with balance. What about part-time work, so you have more space for other parts of your life you find satisfying? You may find that, with more balance, you enjoy what the work does have to offer, such as being part of a team, being needed, being well-compensated, using your whole intellect, etc.
Again, not everyone is afforded an extraordinary privilege of just arbitrarily deciding to work part time. I certainly couldn't. If I could, burnout would be less of an existential risk. It's like telling someone with clinical depression "have you tried cheering up?"
Firstly, this isn't true except in the narrowest sense where only people working on cancer are doing anything good for the world. Contributing to the economy in a non-destructive non-evil way is still good, people need goods and services to live a good life and almost every part of the economy plays some positive role in that.
Secondly, my point is that one could find a non-sexy job in tech at a hospital, or in an academic institution, that don't necessarily pay top FAANG salary but, if fulfillment is more important (as it seems to be for the OP), this would be a good option.
> Not everyone is afforded an extraordinary privilege of just arbitrarily deciding to work part time.
Of course that's true, but I was directing my comment at OP, who said in the blog post that "I quit my last contracting gig in August with £40k in debt, no other income, and only a business idea (it failed). It was still the right decision."
If you look at the impacts of consumption on the third world particularly, and the environment, this is demonstrably false, almost hilariously so. if this lets you sleep better at night, so be it, but I don't pretend I'm doing anything good for the world because I'm not.
I don’t really buy this. When I was in kitchens, I used to agonize over the injustices done by the more psychopathic coworkers/bosses, not to mention the nightmares like you see in some episodes of The Bear. I would also often think about how to improve some situation going on, like kitchen/station layout, workflows, inventory, etc.
My wife works in psych and often ruminates on her patients, trying to figure out some thing about them long after she’s done seeing them for the day. And also the same story as me with psychopathic bosses.
I’m sure there are just people who genuinely care and then people that don’t give a fuck in any given field. I know I’ve run into plenty of both all across society.
I will agree that there is a unique aspect to the mental distress caused by industry software work though, although I don’t want to spill the ink required to elaborate on that here.
I'm self taught[0]. I was drawn to computers at an early age, and I was hacking little projects together in a couple of different languages by the time I was in middle school. This was a very solitary activity for a very introverted boy, and I loved it. I still love it. Nothing compares to sitting down at a computer and just letting the logic flow through me unimpeded and onto the screen.
My job is not like that. I have 2 - 5 meetings a day. I am constantly coordinating and brainstorming and just plain dealing with other people. That is more draining than the coding. Sometimes I have a decent chunk of time at the end of the day, but I can't even bring myself to code because I am so drained by all of the non-coding stuff I had to do earlier in the day.
I love my job. I do impactful work for an impactful company that I think is doing actual good in the world. I work on an interesting project, and they pay and treat me well. But in my heart of hearts what I really want to be is not a software engineer but instead some kind of self-directed code hermit.
[0] By which I mean I learned from books and examples and experimentation. I did eventually get a computer science degree also, but I had been coding for years before I took my first class in it.
A lot of us are just drawn to computers and couldn't imagine not tinkering with them constantly, but for some people this is just, like, an office job. No different from being an accountant or an insurance claims adjuster or something.
It was one of the most fun hobbies I had earlier in life, now after 20+ years of career, and even longer from starting to program, it's just not that fun anymore.
I still tinker with it in fun ways I could never try as a career, like electronics projects with microcontrollers, but since my free time and energy dwindled with age I allocate my hobbies' time to other more personally fulfilling endeavours than keeping up with languages' updates, compsci problems, etc. It's just not that interesting anymore.
I stumbled upon this career, at the time I never even considered or had known it was a very well paid one so I've been extremely lucky for that but I don't hold that much more interest in it as a hobby, for that I believe the time has passed. It's now, to me, a very well paid office job.
Yeah this is my path.
I'd guess 50% of the code I've ever written was from when I was a hobbyist for many years, and a large portion of the "general" software skills I've gained are from that as well.
The shame is because I know others would love to be in my position and there is an almost endless list of jobs that are worse than this, but it's brutal sometimes. I workout daily and spend the vast majority of my time away from the keyboard, outside.
The worst part is, it's not just a matter of embrace the suck and push on. In a physical labor job, you can just command the body to move and push through it. In this line of work, you don't really have that option. You can't just command the brain to solve difficult problems and design complex systems.
I burnt out hard last year and earlier this year (frontend dev). Mental exhaustion, dissatisfaction with work and colleagues, and especially the boss at the time.
I made several major changes to fix this.
- Dropped to 32 hours in my contract (with pay cut)
- Requested to move teams (request fulfilled)
- Deep dived into my weak areas that were causing work stress
- A short holiday
Now I’m happy as can be. Sure I earn 20% less now, but it’s just money. I now have a 50% longer weekend (2 days -> 3 days) AND a 20% shorter work week (5 days -> 4 days)
This is the best move I have ever made.
Working 5 days a week is a grind, no matter which way you slice the pie. It’s a marathon that never ends. I think it’s okay for most jobs, but in dev jobs you can’t be on autopilot. So often I’m solving bugs that haven’t been seen before.
A 4 day week doesn’t seem much different on the surface, but it’s a major change. It no longer feels like a marathon. I actually get more work done comparatively, as I’m more focused and less stressed.
Furthermore, I’ve stopped doing projects that relate to my normal stack in my spare time.
In my ample spare time, I deep dive C programming and graphics.
Noice. Join the Handmade Network [0] and/or Handmade Cities [1]. You'll be in great company.
Quit your job and start doing something meaningful. Start a company or join one that makes a difference.
Take risks, it’s really rewarding.
1) taking instructions from someone else on exactly what to build, and how (choice of framework etc)
2) working backwards from someone else's code to figure out what they were thinking and how to modify it to the requirements/add a new feature/whatever
I got into programming because it was a great form of self-expression. I've had some great jobs that related to my interests, e.g. adding variants to Chess.com, but at the end of the day that was still someone else's project and I was just the guy they were getting to build it for them. The inherent satisfaction wasn't there. YMMV though obviously, but I like to use an art analogy: if you're a painter, you'll always be frustrated and demotivated painting portraits of people's pets -- even if it's for charity, or you like the person, or whatever.
I'm working on a large breaking change to a personal codebase right now, and its taken almost 3 years of procrastination, lazy research when I feel like it, and the API changing and changing again due to rewrites. I'd like to finish by 2025, but if I don't, nothing happens!
The whole thing has felt fun due to the lack of pressure and just... not working on it when I feel like doing something else.
Very different from work projects, even the interesting ones with great bosses and teammates.
2/ that can be rewarding. I have found nuggets of genius in other people's code. Being able to think like someone else is a valuable intellectual exercise.
On self-expression: the most highly trained musicians at the best orchestras spend their time refining the interpretation of music they didn't write. The more constraints are written into the sheet music, the more creative you have to get.
I'm not saying your perspective is wrong. I'm just saying someone could have your job and come to completely different conclusions.
Maybe you have to change your perspective or find an occupation which matches your perspective on life and work. Or you could keep your job and rant on your blog from time to time if that's what you need. Ranting is sometimes necessary for mental hygiene.
Out of curiosity: What exactly kept you from working on a pet project instead of adding variants to Chess.com? Fear of failure? Fear of rejection from your audience? Something else entirely? Sometimes a little courage is all it takes to bring more happiness into your life.
That's an interesting point, but if you got into programming via working on your own projects, the musical analogy is "I loved play jazz saxophone with my cool cats, but every paid gig I get just wants me to play note-for-note Duke Ellington transcriptions." The essence of jazz is improv, but playing classical music is more about playing/experiencing beautiful music which I am probably lack the capacity to write myself. (Not saying classical is better than jazz or vice-versa, you just go into them for very different reasons.)
But the analogy is kind of interesting, since there might be jobs for which the outcome (e.g. beautiful music) is so compelling that I will happily take their directions. I got in software to do jazz, and would be willing to do pre-scripted beauty, but unfortunately, most software jobs are not either of those.
I think when people say that they forgive that unless you are calling the shots over the direction of the work of a bunch of people, then you are not really moving anything, even at the microlevel you need to be at the helm of a group of 5-6 people to move things at a speed that is not as depresingly slow as watching paint dry.
It's not that easy because quitting your job might mean less burnout but also mean that you'll find yourslef alone without any team and most importantly renouncing your ability to call the shots or influencing the direction of the work in which the team is heading, very quickly you can go from burnout to irrelevance.
At that point the only things you can do in order not to feel like a suck are the things that everybody else is doing alone and hence kinda everybody is doing at the same speed such as learning a new language or becoming stronger at the gym or learning to surf but nobody would be paying you to do that.
The reason I regretted dealing with programming from a professional standpoint is that I have realized I like it more as a hobby, not as a profession!
When it's your hobby, no one is telling you what to do, whether you are doing something wrong or not, nor to follow the latest trend with <X> framework or this new <Z> programming language; quite frankly, you simply don't care what others say to you, because you have found your rhythm, your pace if you will, with the tech stack of your choice; you know, the one that clicked with you immediately!
This is my personal experience up until I switch my hobby to professional career; that's when it went downhill and have stopped loving it ever since...I feel trapped, like millions of others than cannot escape this category.
When your boss would like you to be a DevOps and a full-stack developer, while following all the latest trends, their ins and outs, the countless JS / TS frameworks out there, we can have a chat on who's having it worse or easier than the other.
The grass always looks greener on the other side.
Most other mental jobs change at a much slower rate than in tech.
Burnout is real and if I get a whiff for it I immediately seek other options. Having experienced it before, it took about 6 months to recover. There are a lot of warning signs I had ignored when it happened.
Unlike the author, I don't find any particular joy in programming for the sake of it. It is difficult though, sometimes you can have an extraordinarily complex task that requires a flash of inspiration to solve. The kind of rumination that leads to these flashes typically comes to me in non-working hours, so I feel like I am never "off." You can't just force that kind of thing. If you're burnt out, that dynamic is even worse.
That meant that going in to work every day was a choice, not an obligation. More than once, I quit a job and took a break.
These days, with mortgage, kids etc, I still maintain the escape hatch.
> That is what professional programming is like. You don’t care about the goal to begin with, it doesn’t have any noticeable effect on the world once each Jira ticket moves over to the Done column, and you don’t have any ownership over the finished product. You just wait for the next Jira ticket.
Sure, there are jobs like this, but it's super weird to claim that all programming jobs are like this.
Just.. don't work those jobs! Find real jobs at real companies making real products for real people. Don't stay at a job where all your work ends up in a black hole of nothingness until you burn out. The burnout means you quit too late.
I'm not saying it's easy to find programming jobs that cure cancer, fix climate change or cause world peace, but it's really not that hard to find programming jobs where what you make is used by real people and if you make the thing you make better, these real people will tell you that they're happy that it's now better (and, immediately after, what else needs fixing). This can be all the way from super challenging computer sciency shit to line-of-business CRUD app coding at a small shop in a mid size provincial town for regional customers. It exists everywhere.
ps. Personal context: Articles like these mildly offend me because I run a company and we try very hard to make everybody's time at the company worth their while. The suggestion that business owners like me do not exist hits hard. In fact, we are many. There's plenty bosses and entrepreneurs and managers out there who realize that the more motivated and involved and happy team members are, the better their work will be. Also being the boss of stressed out burned-out programmers sounds like hell to me. I'd much rather run a team of enthusiastic self-starters! Incentives are, actually, pretty aligned (happy people = great results) and companies where they're not are just, in my humble opinion, badly run companies. Don't work there.
If this here is really how you feel then IMO your article is misrepresenting things. Feeling like you want to work on something that is your own makes a lot more sense to me than suggesting that every programming job out there doesn't affect anybody anywhere ever. I mean, I recognize this one completely - it's why I started my own business in the first place!
For me, about a decade ago, it was going from working on a Winforms app to rewriting it to a web app. We went from about 4 layers to about 6 layers including a .net web api and javascript. Instead of creating business logic classes, most of the work went into plumbing the layers. Instead of being fairly simple, the UI became a slog to get right, and there were constant distractions of code design that looked sloppy in the new layers. Also I think the ASD (or is it ADHD) made it harder to overlook those messy layers. I've never had much patience for the boring stuff and those mental distractions made it harder to persevere through rewriting it.
These days I enjoy hobby coding in python and go, but I find it hard to imagine going back to it as a job.
Over my career, I had jobs that were interesting and I looked forward to each day (well...most days). I also had some that were soul crushing and I dreaded.
Looking back, I realized that the ones where I felt I was in control of my work product were the most fulfilling. I got to decide what to work on and how much effort and time to spend on each task. I wanted the product to succeed in the marketplace and I gave it my best effort.
The jobs where it didn't feel like my ideas were valued or my work appreciated were the worst. Burnout happened very quickly and I moved on.
Interestingly, the ones that I controlled turned out to also be the most profitable for the companies.
Anecdote... I function as a product manager, and I have a lot of fun with the developers I work with (and have a lot of respect for), and they enjoy working with me. I come to them with complex, interesting problems and my framework for potential solutions, and we talk through whether they think it's the right direction and, if so, what I've missed... or they propose alternatives. It's like a chess game where we can both win.
I hope the OP and anyone feeling this way tries working with other projects and people.
Maybe if we could go right to the bottom and start getting everyone to be a bit more computer literate, so the software didn't have to be so complicated, or something... I don't know.
I have worked as a developer for someone else's company since college, for 15 years now, and I don't know how else to describe it other than I like what I do and find it fun and stimulating.
I don't think it's strictly the profession. I think either the person doesn't really like it as much as they think they do, or they work for a company that pushes them too hard and doesn't treat them well.
I guess that's obvious, but in my experience at least it doesn't have to be that way.
It's hard for me to understand this _as a programmer_. I've been through burnouts and every single time it's been a matter of me pushing myself too hard, the external pressure was never actually real.
From your blog post it sounds as if realistically you're 40k in debt due to jaw surgery which really has nothing to do with programming at all?
I dunno man, with the greatest of respect (I appreciate that this is a serious health issue for you) the blog comes across as if you like mushrooms a bit too much.
> My sense is that the constricting effect of modern narrow footwear inhibits proper tongue posture via this connection.
Seriously? 99% of people wear shoes, have a mouth and have no issues at all with... tongue posture? I don't even know what my tongue posture is.
If you've ever tried walking long distances with even a slightly ill-fitting shoe, or carrying something of an awkward shape, you'll know the kind of thing I'm talking about - in order to function under load for long periods without incurring damage, everything kind of has to be coordinating perfectly. Maybe over months to years, especially in early development, confining the feet to an unnaturally-shaped space could have a measurable effect on oral posture.
I know (distantly) some folks in the medical profession and it sounds way worse than what we go through. Not trying to diminish the real stress that we go through in this industry. Wondering if we can learn something from other industries in a similar (or indeed more difficult) position.
There are absolutely more meaningful jobs for programmers, where they have more impact on the product, get to actually influence lives, or work with challenging and fulfilling technical problems. But most of them aren't doing that.
When someone says they are experiencing burnout, my first question is, what type of burnout is it? Have they broken down the problem yet?
Is it Overload? Their pace of work could be more sustainable, work/live commitments are imbalanced, or there is a mismatch in where they spend time vs. where they wish they were spending time?
Is it Under Challenged? Do they not feel stimulated by the work, are their abilities not being developed, or are they wasted in their current role? Are they more interested in what comes next?
Is it Neglect? They don't feel recognized for their efforts, they don't have a good mentor or sponsor, they give up on themselves when faced with challenges, or they abuse themselves through unhealthy habits (neglect can be self-neglect)?
Especially if you make them a consistent thing and start upping the distance over time and varying the routes.
It becomes incredibly enjoyable to just get out and fucking walk around, look at things, listen to music maybe, and explore a bit.
Something I’ve been looking to write for a while is some kind of thing that I can input a distance, my location, and have it plot unique and somewhat random loop routes. Ideally optimising for exploring novel areas of where I live, with some kind of “route tracking”.
The point is largely the journey.
This seems key. Are there options in your area for work with goals you do care about?
>It’s hard to explain to people who aren’t programmers just how soul-destroying it is to work for someone else in this industry. Maddeningly hard, in fact. Your profession involves hard mental work. You work at the limit of your creative, analytical and problem-solving abilities. You think and read outside of sessions to improve your craft. You bring your entire self to the task of healing someone’s trauma, figuring out what’s holding them back, or whatever. Now imagine it was all completely pointless.
What part of this doesn't apply to every other discipline? Plenty of people feel that everything they do is pointless. Plenty of people spend their entire mental effort at work.
The Hacker News crowd has a higher than average fraction of people who think they have to never turn off and always be doing computer science work even when not at work. That correlates strongly with burnout, but that's not a programming thing, that's a personality type. Go outside and get some fresh air. Every day. Stop staring at screens 24/7. That can't entirely prevent burnout but it helps a lot.
But I think the biggest thing is that programming is a craft, and many programmers think of themselves as artists. As an artist it is heartbreaking to see your creations tainted and then discarded by corporate politics.
In my experience, devs who take more pride in closing tickets than coming up with elegant solutions are less susceptible to burn out. I don’t know exactly how they do it, but they do tend to have many hobbies. They don’t lose sleep over shipping some spaghetti code they copied from stack overflow without understanding. They just treat it as something to get out of their way so they can get to the things they actually enjoy.
On the other hand this spaghetti stuff usually comes back to them in form of new (bug) tickets or even worse on-call alerts. Then they (or some other poor soul) has to deal with it again.
If a product is successful, eventually the tech debt price will have to be paid, but that tech debt is just as often (more often, in my experience) generated by "rockstars" burning the midnight oil to ship a prototype than "bad coders".
Meetings can suck. Design by committee. Scope creap. Crunch time. Lack of respect. Constant distractions. All this sucks but is part of many jobs, many workplaces. Expecting work to feel like a hobby is admirable but sets you up for some disappointments.
I see my job not as the programming part, but the part of making myself and my team experience the hobby project state as much as possible, against all odds. The job is the struggle.
Edit: I realize I might come off as insensitive. Burnout is a real thing. However at most jobs that sweet hobby project feeling is basically unattainable. I try to manage my energy so that I have some left after work to do stuff purely for my own enjoyment. I still enjoy my office job more than a I would a similar job outside tech
My first real job while living away from my parents was being a performer at Disneyland. It was actually fun as fuck, but they scaled back the entertainment department after 9/11, laid off a bunch of people, and that included me. In a relatively low-paying job with no savings, I couldn't make rent and had to live out of my car for a month and rely completely on the kindness and generosity of others to get back on my feet.
Right after college, I managed a bar for a while. Again, very fun, but it's hard not to drink too much, especially when very young and very stupid. I woke up one morning blacked out with a dent in my car and still have no idea what happened. I got to witness women I hired being pressured into shooting for a swimsuit calendar I could tell they didn't want to do. Rich kid assholes utterly ruin people's lives out of pure spite. The owner made me fire a woman for theft when I knew she was innocent.
I eventually joined the Army. Again, quite a bit of fun charging around on top of tanks, firing a .50 caliber machine gun and standing on top of a cannon, in a vehicle that can go right through 6-foot diameter trees like they aren't even there. But my buddy's gunner got hit by a rocket and he had to spend two days cleaning barely differentiated guts off of everything in the conex. Guy in my platoon shot himself on the last day of deployment because his wife was leaving him and he didn't want to go home. I was in the last unit to leave Iraq, and seeing what happened after, and then adding Afghanistan on top of that. Man, if you feel like you suffered for nothing, this was just next level 'what the fuck did we do all this for?' 20-hour shifts with 30 minutes of sleep a night if you got lucky. Zero days off for months on end. Marriages ruined left and right. I even got my own thankfully amicable, no kids at least divorce out of it.
I ended up with pretty horrible chronic spine problems that led to multiple interbody fusions, a whole lot of titanium hardware, and years being barely able to walk, often in enough pain that my entire personality palpably changed and I felt powerless to stop it. When the Army tried to treat me, they put me in traction to the point that it herniated worse, I passed out on the machine, and fell so hard onto the hospital floor that I got a TBI bad enough that I wasn't allowed to drive for two months until I could prove I was able to stand straight and touch my hand to a moving pencil. I went back to my hometown and totally forgot entire people existed who had apparently been huge parts of my life. I have no idea how many memory holes I have as I continually discover them talking to my family. Got 0% from the VA for that one.
I'm not here for the pain Olympics or anything and don't want to downplay the struggles of others, but being in software is the cushiest, easiest shit I could ever have imagined. I'm paid more than I ever would have thought possible without running my own business or being a surgeon when I was a kid. I work from home with all the free time in the world but still travel enough that I'm not just sitting in the same room every day forever. I very rarely work more than a 40 hour week or 8 hour day. The vast majority of what I work on goes nowhere and ends up abandoned or canceled, but every now and then, something makes it to fruition and I get to see it used and feel legitimate pride knowing I made it happen. People nominally above me in an org chart are deferent, polite, constantly asking if they can do anything for me. People just believe me when I say something.
Contrast this with the Army where it's legal, in-line with normal culture, and all but expected that bosses will publicly humiliate you, yell at you in front of your coworkers, you're constantly under a spotlight, stack ranked annually against your entire battalion by people who don't even know you. You'll get fired if you can't run fast enough or get fat. I got yelled at and censured once for not returning a call from my commander within five minutes when I was mowing my damn lawn and didn't hear the phone ring. You have literally no time off, whether or not you're home or out of town. Continuous mandatory recall. I was called in to bail guys out of prison at 3 AM on a Sunday morning. You rotate through 24-hour shifts called "staff duty" once a month because someone has to always be present in the headquarters. You don't get a day off the next day.
Software developers have absolutely no appreciation of how good they have it.