Ask HN: Anyone Else Burnt Out?
There’s a lot of change occurring in the industry and am curious if it’s burning others out
I feel burnt out in spoken conversations because I find it very difficult to process sentences at speed. But I don't feel that at all when reading, writing or listening to podcasts because I can go at my own pace.
Similarly I love maths and it doesn't give burnt out when I do it myself, but in school I remember it being agonising trying to get my brain to keep up with everyone around me.
I think this is why AI burns out engineers. Agents can do things do much faster than us so we're no longer comprehending things at our own pace, but trying to keep pace with the AI.
I feel that useless thing too. It hurts me more than anything. I've poured my heart into so many blog posts, tutorials and open source projects over the years. They were genuinely hard at the time. Each tutorial or code project might have been weeks of effort – and it showed. Today an AI could do the same in 10 mins from a single prompt. What was a source of pride for me, now just feels like a major waste of the last 2 decades of my life.
Maybe that's for the best though. I think in hindsight I over index on the value of knowledge. Maybe there are more important things in life.
You're not the only one.
The WHO has a very specific definition of it but it seems like everyone has their own personal definition which leads to a lot of unproductive conversations which are just complaining about work.
* Software, isn’t a profession. A profession is more than just employment. It’s a set of minimal agreed ethical standards that governs conduct, output, and relationships. Education, medicine, the law, the military, and most every industry has this. Software does not have this, so other developers critical of your anti-populist approaches to better performance and lower costs can go fuck themselves.
* The primary goal of software is hiring and employment. If you are an experienced developer who ships completed products then build for yourself first. All be your first client/customer and realize other potential clients/customers are likely not shitty developers whose only concern fear of writing original code.
* Jobs will come and go. Always have a back up plan, both financially and professionally. I have been doing this long enough that my retirement accounts are worth more than I am in every other regard, which is safety net. I also have back up employment with a part time job that is worth as much as being an experienced software team lead.
* I love sharing and writing open source, but many people who write software just expect you to give them all the answers. It feels like there are now people who can build anything and there are people who barely open a code editor without crying. People who cannot receive guidance without first crying about why you didn’t do all the work for them or simply give them all the answers should just be ignored.
* There are great leaders in software, but they seem exceedingly rare. Don’t be hurt when insecure people intentionally destroy your employment. Consider it the expectation of doing this work for a living.