Ask HN: Lost my appetite for software development, any recommendations?

14 points by mallowing 6 years ago | 12 comments

So I am in my mid 30s and started a new and interesting job about a year ago. A company I wouldn't have dreamed working for even a few years ago.

Now I am in a team with about 10 super eager software developers who constantly try to improve the code base and know the ins and outs of the libraries they are using. Some are very highly respected in their fields.

That's generally great, however I can't connect emotionally and mentally with them. I mean I wanted to work there, bought books and was so excited to dig deeper into this new topic.

Now I am one of two in the team who has a wife and kids. I chip away my tasks, do them fairly well, but everyone around me brings out new solutions and general improvements to the code base. This is a) intimating, b) I wouldn't even know how to start to catch up on them and c) I feel like I lost the lust to constantly keep up with new tools other bored developers wrote.

I feel like I lost this special "I am unstoppable" gene and don't actually want to tinker and hack in my free time anymore. Every time I want to help out with a project of a friend, and something is not working, I am thinking "why should I fix this stupid problem when I could read a book or just chill".

I feel generally less excited about programming and actually don't know what to do. I tried to apply for engineering manager positions, since this is what I did in the past year (although not on my resume) but I made people do the work for me somehow because I just couldn't bring my hands to write that piece of code needed.

Did this ever happen to some of you? What direction should I take?

mnault000 6 years ago |

Thanks for sharing, and it's quite refreshing to hear your situation because.. you are not alone. I often feel that way.. dead end jobs, useless projects, lost of energy, lost of ambitions, I can go on all day. My remedy to this is just to realize that this is a wave, a phase in which you're at the bottom of that wave, a sort of "life recession" where you get forced to question a few things. Ten years ago, I was so fed up of foking programming that I never thought I'd get the buzz back. Today, I'm still buried in projects, but my outlook changed somehow, I find this interesting again. It's funny, because it kind of coincided with my kids outgrowing the diaper years :)

kugelblitz 6 years ago |

I think this is possibly partially burnout, it could also be part of "growing up", or perhaps you shifted priorities. I used to work 50-60 or even 80 hours a week, people praised me that I would respond within minutes on a Sunday evening - and I would be proud of it, too.

But that was 10 years ago. Now I don't have work email on my phone, I work freelance, so I get to decide on what I want to do next; and work in general just doesn't take up that high a priority anymore (being a freelance contractor has helped me develop this trait of "I'm here to do work for your company, and you pay me").

I enjoy working on side projects and learning new stuff, and one side project I started 8 years ago is still profitable to this day, but I wouldn't have started it anymore today, the motivation and naivite just don't exist anymore, plus since I have a family to support, it would be too risky to start that big of a side project.

Maybe it's time to just take a step back and assess what your long term goals are and in general what you want to achieve in life.

And it also reminded me of this: http://www.paulgraham.com/kids.html

"I hate to say this, because being ambitious has always been a part of my identity, but having kids may make one less ambitious. It hurts to see that sentence written down. I squirm to avoid it. But if there weren't something real there, why would I squirm? The fact is, once you have kids, you're probably going to care more about them than you do about yourself. And attention is a zero-sum game. Only one idea at a time can be the top idea in your mind. Once you have kids, it will often be your kids, and that means it will less often be some project you're working on."

amerkhalid 6 years ago | |

> "I hate to say this, because being ambitious has always been a part of my identity, but having kids may make one less ambitious. It hurts to see that sentence written down. I squirm to avoid it. But if there weren't something real there, why would I squirm? The fact is, once you have kids, you're probably going to care more about them than you do about yourself. And attention is a zero-sum game. Only one idea at a time can be the top idea in your mind. Once you have kids, it will often be your kids, and that means it will less often be some project you're working on."

To some extend cutting back on work to spend more time with kids is result of stable and wealthy society. Growing up back home, I had heard so many people worked harder and longer hours after their first child was born. Many people even left their families to work overseas so that they can create better future for their kids.

So depending where you are from or on your current circumstances, kids may make you less ambitious or more.

EDIT: to OP, as father in late 30s, I also question if I want to do programming long-term or something else. I used to think how I want to be remembered, but now I ask myself how I want my son to remember me. I don't know the answer yet, but this question help me refocus when I feel lost.

kugelblitz 6 years ago | | |

Yes, it depends on the circumstances, of course. But I've seen myself make different (maybe perhaps smarter?) choices as well and so to have both a successful career and be with my family.

Yes, I could've taken a contract in a different city and earn a bit more. I used to take longer periods of time off to work on my own personal projects.

But nowadays, instead of working many late nights for 8 months, so I can take 4 months off to work on my personal projects, I usually work 10-11 months, but less hours per week. So I'm home earlier every day and I'm not exhausted every night.

I ask recruiters and colleagues 1-2 months before the end of the project (sometimes I take a few weeks off between projects) and plan for the next project early - so I have more choices and am less under pressure. And in the past years I've been able to work only in local projects that don't require travel outside my city.

Instead of learning niche-y tech because it looks cool on my resume (e.g. Svelte, Elixir / Phoenix or Clojure) I use my time to learn Python or React instead. Why? Because it increases my general market value as a freelancer better. My employed colleagues with no spouse and kids will use their free evenings to program in Golang to create a game that has not launched after a year. They're doing it just for fun. Me? Should I have a some spare time for side projects, I will try to learn something like Python with Flask or Django to create a side-project that will hopefully launch within a few weeks and perhaps I can even make some money off of it a few months down the road. "Worst case" I learnt Python and have a portfolio project to show off.

mattbrewsbytes 6 years ago |

Talk to your manager and see how they think you are doing. You might be too hard on yourself and/or in awe of co-workers.

It sounds like you are in a good spot to soak up knowledge from people that are highly respected in their fields. Try to understand what these improvements and new solutions offer to the product. It is possible that the eager devs are just spinning their wheels and/or reinventing wheels because of new shiny libraries. If they truly are very advanced in their fields, I can't imagine your manager has the same expectations of you and them. Maybe your role is to bang out awesome work that helps them keep their brains engaged in the very advanced work they do (you didn't describe what it was but it sounds more than CRUD apps).

Another approach is to recognize you are a professional and that there are times where you simply aren't motivated. I'm sure this happens in other professions. There are days/weeks I just am bored doing what we do. Software development of business applications just isn't terribly exciting. Figuring out problems and creating things in code is fun though. Think about what brought you into software development, maybe there is an ember still there you can slowly get burning again.

jones1618 6 years ago |

Family and maturity change your perspective. While younger developers are chasing the next "shiny new thing", you just want to put your time in and go home. That's nothing to be ashamed of. To satisfy "getting home faster", I suggest you concentrate your effort and attention on improving the development process. What rote work or common functionality can you make easier to build/deploy? Ask yourself what the last coding project that you were enthusiastic about was and try to work on something similar. Or, pick something completely different so that the process of learning reminds of why you used to think coding was worthwhile.

htanirs 6 years ago |

Yes, it has happened to me. For some reason, I totally lost interest and people who knew me were surprised I moved away from technology.

This phase is generally difficult to deal with. Somehow we have a strong identity with our career and leaving that feels bad for whatever reason. And when people are surprised, it almost makes you feel guilty. But when I got over that I realised if we take these temporary emotions out of equation it makes sense to move on and start over. Our analytical mind would always come handy in whatever we do.

In my case what helped me was while I was clear I lost interest in technology I had to do some soul searching to find out on what I wanted to do instead. This took some time for me to figure out. And some more time to figure out on how to monetise it. But the effort is worth it.

But I think it would be difficult for anybody to tell you what direction you need to take. It depends on what actually you want to do.It could be managing, consulting on domain, freelancing, taking up a different route, anything else you always liked but were not thinking as a career choice.It also depends on the compromises you can make.

Some deep introspection helps. Maybe this phase goes away as well. Give it sometime and watch what you think about often. That might give a clue. If it is a new journey, talk to people who have done that, chart out a plan before taking a plunge. All the best.

burntoutfire 6 years ago |

They say coding is a young man's game for a reason - many, many people burn out after 5-10 years. Normally when they do, they either plod along at decreased speed or move into business and managerial roles.

codegeek 6 years ago |

Career wise, it comes down to 2 things: Your own expectations of how you are doing AND your manager/team's expectations of how you are doing. It seems like you are struggling with your own expectations of how you THINK you should be doing. I suggest you look at how your team thinks you are doing. If they are happy with you, that's great. You definitely want that first.

downerending 6 years ago |

Maybe look for related tasks that no one else wants to do? I enjoy polishing, hardening, fixing, and optimizing existing code. Turns out a lot of "great" programmers can't be bothered to check error statuses, document their stuff, handle unusual cases, etc.

Just an idea. But yeah, can relate.

sesuximo 6 years ago |

it sounds like you could be a really good manager because you wouldn't assign stupid tasks that don't really need to be done

freediver 6 years ago |

Check biohacking or biofabrication.