Ask HN: Is This Burnout?

I’ve been working in the industry for over a decade. I used to love writing code and designing systems on my free time and at work with other colleagues. Nowadays I still love doing side projects and reading tech stuff (books, documentation, open source), but I don’t like, and in most cases I hate, dealing with software engineering topics at work.

Main reason being I don’t feel engaged with any company, I think most of the topics discussed with other engineers are not important (who cares if we use Java or Go? This company is not even profitable!), and because management usually doesn’t help much.

So, I’m not sure. When I hear about developers burning out, it seems they don’t want to touch code at all. But that’s not my case.

I don’t think I’m depressed but I see myself as a cynic at work: thinking we all are doing useless stuff but no one but myself can see it. I can carry out, but I would love to believe I’m not the only one who thinks this way.