Ask HN: Itchy Feet - Problem Worth Solving?

7 points by temp8675309 13 years ago | 1 comment

Hi, all - I have had 4 jobs in different fields and tech stacks (enterprise - J2EE, web startup - RoR, health care - Java and web scrapers, and technology - Groovy with Swing), all of them lasting about 2 years before I get itchy feet and decide to move on. At first, I figured it was just a matter of outgrowing the positions I was hired for, and as I kept getting increasing levels of responsibility at each new position, that seemed to make sense. However, I'm starting to see a pattern where I take a new job, dig in and learn everything I can about a new tech stack and problem set, get bored and then move on, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it.

I started my current job 15 months ago, and yet again, I'm starting to get itchy feet. What started out as a challenging job has become routine - it's just a matter of banging out features as quickly as I can. There's always the option of overcomplicating features to steal a chance to do more challenging work, but that's a temptation I do my best to resist. I've mentioned this to my boss and asked for a chance to do something new for a few months (mobile development, devops, even some design work), and she's been less than receptive. Hence, I'm starting to look around, and I'm wondering if I'm going to wind up in the same cycle. I'd like to find a place I can stick for a while, if possible, without winding up in the same rut.

Is anyone else familiar with this sort of pattern? Anyone have any tips?

mooreds 13 years ago |

I had this exact same pattern for a while!

It sounds to me like contracting is worth exploring. When I contracted (for about 7 years), I was exposed to new technologies and business domains every couple of months. I fondly remember about 2 weeks into every contract there was an 'oh sh*t' moment where I realized I was in over my head and running to keep ahead of what the client needed. Of course, that was nicely counterbalanced by the 'aaah' moment about 6 weeks in when things were finally jelling.

(I mostly worked on custom web applications and ecommerce and made a decent living working 30 hours a week.)

If you pursue this path, you might want to consider going out on your own as a single person consulting company, rather than going through a contracting company. You'll have more control, though less security, and will have a wider scope of project domains. That said, if you are interested in certain types of projects (J2EE, big data) you might find it hard to contract as a one person show.

Of course, I don't know what your financial situation is, but if you pursue this, I'd start going to meetups, have about a year of expenses saved in the bank, and read a couple of good books like this one: http://www.amazon.com/The-Secrets-Consulting-Getting-Success... and this one: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/027363707X/002...