cwitty88

It’s not my writing. I just am aggregating articles that I find around the web. I’m not a professional investor or anything like that. Very transparent about that.

Check out render.com, it is pretty similar but cheaper and supports more stuff like HTTP/2.

Thank you for the very thoughtful reply. Generally I like writing and am good at it when I'm in the right mindset. I feel like there's politics to everything but I hear that PMing it is extra prevalent so that is something I need to consider. Most of the PMs I work with now are in meeting hell, so I wonder if they need better processes. Anyways, thanks again for the thoughtful answer. It sounds overall like a net positive career change for you.

Yea I really appreciate that candor. I am quite worried that I would end up the same way. I think that is what is worrying me and has me asking this question.

Have you tried any courses or read books on how to discover initiatives from the company's strategy and goals? It sounds like maybe the company doesn't have those clearly defined if it is hard to figure out what to do next, granted I know nothing about your company and product team makeup. Best of luck!

Idk about significantly less. Based on some research I've done, they make less, but nothing that I can't live comfortably with. Also just because something is in demand doesn't mean that I enjoy doing it still.

Yea that's helpful thanks. It sounds like overall that you're happy you made the transition?

Where do you find these jobs? Everything I see seems to require sales experience, which being a dev I do not have.

That sounds incredible, honestly I am quite jealous as it sounds like a grind to get to where you are. I will have to look into this more. I have always enjoyed real estate related stuff so maybe this could be a good calling.

What kind of role did you have when you switched to real estate? I have actually been thinking about becoming an agent since you can make decent money and the licensing process seems rather simple for what it is.

I have been interested in software sales as well but that seems like it could be hard to break into as an engineer.

This is by far the longest I have ever been with a company. I am rolling on 7 years at the moment. Part of me thinks that time off and a new company could be the answer but it's hard to know.

DevOps doesn't really interest me. It seems to be messier than software development with all of the craziness like K8s and stuff like that nowadays.

I've thought about this. I wasn't quite sure about the salary bands for QA. Do you happen to know what remote QA pay ranges are?

Sorry for deleting, after I posted I couldn't decide if it is good to put that out there or not so I decided to pull it back, but it looks like you got the info needed out of it.

I really appreciate the kind words. I was thinking similar things about the people from the grocery store - when I worked menial jobs I would get stressed over silly things. I think that is just my personality type. I think I need to quit taking the job and myself so seriously.

I really need to start working out, I'm sure that would make a huge difference in my mental health. I'm sure going cold-turkey off prOn would also help with some mental health healing as well.

I'm bipolar to boot which makes these decisions harder to make since I can't decide if I am being rational or over-reacting to something. I think trying somewhere new could be beneficial. I've been at this company for nearly 7 years which is a damn long time in the software industry.

Thanks again, cheers!

Most definitely. It feels selfish in some ways to make my family change their lifestyle just because I'm whining that I hate my job. On the other hand my wife tells me this exact thing all the time.

I feel stuck. I am a C-level executive but dread every day of my job. I want to change careers at this point but have a family that depends on my income to get by. However, the company I work for is actually really great, I just happen to be burnt out.

I definitely have decision fatigue. I decided to step down to get it off of my plate.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Lots to digest, but that's a good thing.

The thing that jumped out the most to me that you said is dedicating myself service. I have been thinking that I should spend time helping others rather than focusing on myself so much. Not only does it help them it helps you appreciate what you have I would imagine.

I've also been considering a sabbatical to get myself back into a good mental state. I'm lucky enough where that could be an option so maybe I need to consider that more as I transition out of the CTO role.

Thanks again!

Yea we definitely discuss tech decisions as a group. We didn't in the past though and so some of them are poor decisions that have deep implications in the codebase. We're trying to unwind them now. Maybe that is leading to the feelings I have been having.

Yea that is about right. Given the knowledge and requests I had at the time I solved it the best way I knew how. No one opts for worse it just happens from time-to-time given business constraints.

I all too frequently wonder who wrote this and see that it was me. You're right that it's a good sign of growth :).

I've been super interested in trying Psilocybin as an long term anti-depressant. Looking forward to more research coming out on this topic.

I do miss hacking away at stuff just for the joy of it. I'm a little OCD so I have to be mindful about not attempting perfection as I go.

Maybe I need to mess around with some personal projects.

I kinda figured I might be going through some burnout. I have thought about taking a sabbatical to try and recoup from it a bit.

The company itself is great. All of the feedback I receive is very respectful and understanding, it still just eats at me though. We're even working on a plan to address some of the tech debt/complexity in 2022.

I think my self-doubt is just being on a podium at work teamed up with being burnt out. Maybe an extended vacation is really what I need to do.

I miss hackathons, those are fun because the entire purpose is that you're just slamming shit together to make something work in a short amount of time. In the early days that is basically how our entire codebase was.

The company is growing in all facets. We added 17 engineers this year when we previously had a total team of like 10.

You hit the nail on the head though, I got the role because I was the first engineer and employee at the company. In no way am I a great CTO, just lucky timing.

I'm actually stepping down as CTO and becoming a developer again because I am not a good manager, that I know for sure.

I think I need to be better about getting over perfectionism. I think I let it haunt me that everyone looks up to me with my title as if I should be the best when I am very much not. Thanks for the thoughts here, I really need to reflect on this some more.

Sometimes coding just sounds like the worst thing I could possibly do. I do enjoy thinking about writing some code but when I sit down all enthusiasm goes out the door. Maybe I need to tinker with something in the real world tangentially related to code and that will help.

I've been CTO since the beginning but it was almost all coding in the early days. Now it is much more of a management role. I actually just started the process of stepping down and going back to being a developer because I dislike the management side of things a lot.

I think I am questioning my abilities because we built things in questionable ways and now everything that I have done is being scrutinized by all new team members. It's really hard to deal with that constant barrage of "why did you do it this way" all the time.

Decent write-up. I agree that most things should start as a monolith and only move to microservices if no other solution will solve the problem. You can scale a monolith quite effectively with a little planning.

I wondered about that myself. I’m hoping that I can keep myself from doing that but if worse came to worse I may have to transition out to achieve happiness. I think that’s the point I’m at though. Appreciate the perspective!

I was at a developer conference and one of the original Apple guys was there (name evades me at the moment). He mentioned that after they built webkit and wanted to move into the book space with the iPad launch that Steve Jobs wanted to reuse all of the webkit work. They did that and made epub.

Like most people do I seem to start a million and finish none. I have been having trouble tracking my options trading cost basis lately and am thinking about writing something for that. I want to integration Plaid, but the version that supports Brokerage accounts starts at $500/mo :|.