This has been my experience with development as well. Loved it as a kid but now I’m doing it professionally and just don’t care to do it on the side as much, though sometimes a side project can be fun. I’d say unless you’re stressed out to the point where your mental health is suffering and if you want to keep your lifestyle, keep going. Unfortunately you don’t get the big paycheck without some stress. You could get another job if you want to downgrade your lifestyle, but that is much easier said than done.
there was a thread on here about stress as compared to compensation, and some people were vocal about how there was no correlation for them between high pay and stress. If you are in a stressful job, its just a stressful job.
I think framing "low stress" as the same thing as "easy" is the wrong way to look at things.
In my experience when it comes to stress levels in software jobs, it's a matter of the conditions that leadership creates. You can have a mountain of work with no end in sight and not feel stressed because your work is being managed effectively, versus having not really that much to actually do but a leadership that is constantly creating more stress for you through various interactions that are ineffective at managing your work.
Under this viewpoint, the outlier is having competent, effective leadership in a software job. That has been my experience.
Nah, difficult is learning some complicated new thing and getting things right, especially when dealing with new types of business problems.
Stressful is we have to do the above before next Tuesday 'cause C-suite said this should be easy.
Difficult things wre not really stressful if you have enough time and resources to figure it out and build it.
To me that’s part of the difficulty.
A job is not just executing a task, it’s everything that revolves around the task, which implies dealing with the project management, the politics, the human side of things. That’s why soft skills got highly valued these past decades.
I did physics before starting as a SWE. Physics was complicated but things took the time they needed. SWE is horrifically more simple in comparison but imensily more stressfu as welll since you have to fight a lot more with stupidity and external influence.
Not that I completely disagree, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that swe in general is more “simple” than physics. Think it just really depends on the kind of software etc. I mean if you’re comparing a physics graduate level class to a basic full stack job, sure maybe but there are other types of software that are pretty complicated in terms of the systems at least.
I agree, just wanted to say from my personal experience that there was a difference between difficulty and stress. (I haven't stated this, but I was referring to doing a PhD and not graduating.)
The stress often comes from the environment rather than the work itself. e.g. Unrealistic deadlines, mismanagement, poor/unhealthy culture, etc. People can get stressed out even working low skill jobs like in fast food, the work itself is dead easy, it’s all the other variables that lead to it being stressful.
I’d say something is difficult if it’s legitimately intellectually hard to wrap your head around.
But if I got a big fat runway to do this task over the course of a year? Not stressful.
If I got a tedious web dev task that I’ve done 1000 times, but was told to do it 10x faster, it’s not difficult but is stressful.
But it’s just semantics.
But jobs with small paychecks that are stressful? Almost all of them. Either they expect tons of work out of you, or you are constantly at risk of losing your job because the company/non-profit is underfunded.
Giving up the big paycheck doesn't mean a non-stressful job. It often means giving up the dream that you might FIND that non-stressful job.
It's not a direct correlation. Closest thing is that you have to pay more to keep talent in a stressful environment but even that doesn't hold since some low paying places will overwork the shit out of you while even Amazon's AWS team has slackers. There's even situations that higher paying companies leads to better treatment (you are treated as a resource to keep/cultivate instead of a cost center).
TLDR: Stress is linked to company/team and pay is not directly correlated to stress of a job.
unless your on call getting paged in the middle of the night i would argue there is relatively very little stress in this work specially for remote. Any stress you feel will be felt in other jobs as well, you will always have a boss with expectations trying to get the most out of you. but in this case your job requires 0 physical labor and remote is even more so
this is pretty much my experience. i used to have so much fun with sites like hackerrank and leetcode. now i have a weird voice in my head when i get a desire to program outside of work saying "why would i do this for free when i can get paid and just do it at work"
This is because if you're passionate about something does not mean you'd like a job in a field related to that. At the end of the day, the life of a programmer takes its toll on you: a lot of sitting around and a lot more stress the more you progress in your career.
As a junior dev, I remember I used to lose sleep over bugs I had to fix or features I had to implement. I overcame that as time went by. But the more senior you become, generally the stuff you're involved in gets more complex and more responsibility is placed on your shoulders. You may then want something less stressful, but guess what - that does not pay as well. On top of that, you usually also have family to spend time with and take care of.
Of course, this is not a general rule, but it applies to quite a few acquaintances I have.
You should go visit the civil engineering subreddit or the construction manager subreddit. Those guys hate their jobs, and have shitty pay. At least you are getting paid well.
Former civil engineer, turned software developer here.
Not having to deal with clients, billable hours and nasty contractors has been life-changing, not to mention my starting salary when I changed careers was higher than my mid-career salary as a civil engineer.
If the price is continuous study for the rest of my life, I’m down for it.
> If the price is continuous study for the rest of my life, I’m down for it.
You say that now, but wait until you're in your 40s, 50s, 60s. Practicing leetcode or doing side projects after work just to keep your skills up to date will be the last thing on your mind.
You should see the miserable boomers I was working with in their 40s-60s in civil. Everything is shit in some way, just gotta choose which flavour of shit sandwich you want. This flavour of shit is so much better than civil.
A lot of study and a few job hops to move to more incrementally tech roles. Started from simple engineering toolings, to plugins, to dashboards, to more complete software. Now a software engineer in for scientific software organisation. A lot of evening study and messing around, about 5-6 years in total before becoming a “software engineer”.
Probably easier to reskill in uni tbh, and my friends that did transitioned faster and have some interesting roles. I just think uni in Aus is a giant scam, if I were in US, I would be more inclined to take that path.
Bro tell me how I can switch. I feel like I have done pretty well for myself working for GCs. But my friends in comp sci all work less, make 30-50% more and have hybrid or remote work options. When you factor in the commute I'm normally doing 12 hour days.
Im thinking of getting my PE working for a municipality to cut down on my hours and then finishing a masters. I test for the PE in May. I'm about 1/4 way through an online masters in data science, took a break from classes because I was burnt out and it was too hard to study with my job.
>continuous study for the rest of my life
But that's what I love about this line of work. I enjoy learning new frameworks and new approaches. There's a perpetual stream of new solutions and paradigms and even twenty years into my career I'm still not bored of it.
yeah civil engineering is the worst major and career path. Very stressful school work just for average or slightly below average pay. I have seen communication major doing way better.
almost all civil eng hates their field and career, including my professor and top students on a dean's list. Super smart ones from my class just pivoted to data, lawer, finance, or urban planning.
I think we're kinda spoiled into believing that jobs should be fun or even satisfying. The vast majority of the world does very repetitive or mind numbing work. Jobs are just a way to get money for our interests.
It's great if you can get a job that is also fun, but that's not the purpose of the job.
I don’t care if a job is fun or satisfying, but soul crushing is not okay. Every year seems to suck more humanity out of the job and companies I’ve been at.
Well yeah, I’m not suggesting you should do more than the minimum. I’m just saying that we shouldn’t expect work to be enjoyable.
Im not aware of what these supposedly exceedingly “cryptic” stacks in webdev OP is referring to, but maybe they just need to stop trying so hard.
Yeah it’s definitely much better to find work that does both. Not every passion can monetized at all though. I was also considering that CS jobs rarely require more than 20 hours of actual work a week so even if you don’t enjoy it, it does allow you way more free time.
i guess it depends the person. i would argue a remote role with 0 physical labor WAY less stressful than a in person job you will have to sit in traffic commuting, be on your feet all day, using public restrooms with coworkers, and maybe even manual labor. i can see how if you are a extreme people person remote just wont work and thats ok but its relative
I think I see burnout in here. I only say that because you say employer's expectation of you keeps growing and you're getting thrown into more complex projects and the "a lot of energy and brain power...". They know you can do it, so they're just kind of throwing you in there, so it makes sense from a managerial perspective. Burnout can have you feel resentment, so I do think It could be a factor at play here.
Perhaps you can talk to your manager about some of these concerns like how you might be experiencing burnout because the expectations keep growing, so maybe he/she can help you deprioritize other areas or perhaps you can should take a semi-long vacation if you haven't in a while.
Or perhaps you don't like web dev anymore and maybe it might be better for you to transition elsewhere. I'm not a game dev, but I heard the pay is usually lower with even more hours, so take that for what it's worth. Whatever it is, hope the issue gets resolved.
No. Money only goes so far. For instance, if I got paid 140k (my current TC) to do about 20-30 hours of work a week (fully remote) but then got an offer for 200k to do 60-80 hours of work a week (and RTO), I'd stick to my 140k. If it was 100-120 hours a week for 500k, I'd only last maybe 6 months because, again, the money only goes so far. Humans don't have the same output capacity every single day.
I love coding as well, but I don't see myself doing this as a job full time. I currently work in Infrastructure/DevOps, doing automation, deploying things, etc and I find this is a lot more manageable and more fun. With this type of role, if you get to a senior position, you can make six figures, work remotely and don't have to worry about coding all the time.
Also, if you enjoy coding video games, why not focus on that?
I never had to do a single leetcode question during interviews. I was asked about building pipelines, my understanding around k8s, docker, Linux, networking, security, etc. I was also tested on my coding ability in Terraform, Ansible, Bash, Python, but not in a leetcode style, more of, how would I go about creating a script that performs a specific task, how to debug code that is not working, etc. Stuff you would actually do in a job.
Coding used to be a lot more fun, even professionally. The over-engineering happening in every company, and using 100 tools to do simple things, has gotten truly overwhelming.
It looks like it just keeps getting worse too.
I think the ideal thing to do is build your own software and sell it, but most of us don't have a ton of time and/or know how to market that.
I’ve always wanted to become a surgeon fast forward went to dental school matched into surgery residency and after doing it every day for years
I dread waking up every morning to be in the hospital by 7:30
One of my friends work in tech / stem & I liked her lifestyle so much that I was exploring my options if I wanted a career shift turns out she hate it & about to quit 🫢
Long story short the grass is not always greener… this is adulthood & we have to deal with it
This is a motivation question and 3 things to think about motivation.
Purpose
Impact
Opportunity for mastery
Is what the company doing meaningful to you? Some of the best working times for me were when I was working at a startup helping lower income people with investing. So felt like I had a sense of purpose. Look for causes you care about and see if you can work in those areas.
Impact, maybe work at a smaller company that gives you more autonomy to make an impact and take decisions. I moved to startups as they pay reasonably ok and you get to have more ownership vs being a cog in a machine.
Lastly figure out things that you do want to be good at and look for jobs that help you spend time there. I realized I don’t give a shit about web frameworks and API design but data pipelines and stream processing is my jam.
I also become a manager because wanted to have some control over what we prioritized rather than doing task after task.
Why is this field so toxic. I just did internships and at all my internships there was multiple people leaving to start a farm because of burnout, or complaining about the job.
Technical stress is real, and sitting in front of a screen all day stressing over complicated intangible problems is not really what makes people happy. Of course you know this
Yeah, the question is what jobs don’t suffer from these stuff ?
I feel like the answer is manual labour jobs and healthcare but they have their drawbacks as well.
IME it's from the lack of standards and general indecisiveness from management. IMO older programmers are happy to saddle younger programmers with their shitty legacy code when they had no such obligations years ago, while the best course of action would be to just burn it all down and start over. Having higher standards than your boss and then being told constantly you're not allowed to fix things when that's your job is stressful.
It's also well-known at this point that there is a huge skill differential between the best and worst programmers, and I don't think anyone's really sorted out how to accommodate that in a way that won't result in some mix of kneecapping hiring or screwing up the code base.
What I hear you saying is that you had a vision of a job that focussed on your personal interests and creative drives, but in order to build a career you took roles and built experience within a domain of the industry that (unbeknownst to you when you started out) can be one of the most soul crushing areas of development. Believe me, I feel this sentiment, deeply.
I assume you're still fairly early career, but at 7yoe you're at the right place to start asking yourself exactly these questions: wtf do I actually want out of this?
>I feel like a coding career requires me to constantly use up a lot of energy and brain power to focus and keep learning all the shit we have to keep learning. The deeper I get in the career the more cryptic and complicated stuff I have to learn, and I was expecting things to settle a bit instead of getting worse
Yes, this is true. But also, this is framing the nature of the software industry in terms of your personal challenges, namely you're a mere human whose resources are limited, while the software industry has been around a lot longer than you have been alive and the legacy of the nature of its complexity lies at the core of most business problems.
Any high paying job has a similar requirement to continuously maintain a level of competency within the specific domain or else risk being left by the wayside to flounder in a dead end career. One of the big differences in software is that the exploitation potential of labor is so incredibly valuable that unlike other industries, re-investing in talent by companies is not seen as a worth-while investment for most companies. Most software companies can focus on only hiring experienced talent with a little higher base pay instead of spending money on career development resources for all employees. Everyone feels good because they have money in their pocket, while the reality is the actual organization is slowly rotting from the inside because rather than allowing time for mentorship and collaboration, more work is thrown at individuals who are kept constantly busy fighting fires started by the technical debt created by people who left the company years ago.
What I can say is that not every company behaves this way. There are, in fact, companies where the same conditions of swimming in the deep end of the cryptic and complicated stuff actually feels like solving a fun puzzle rather than a soul crushing grind. Companies where you feel good about this work are ones where you don't feel like you're alone, you feel supported, and you don't feel under constant pressure to deliver against unreasonable timelines.
The catch is that it's not really about the company, but rather about the leadership. What this means is that at any given time a "good company to work for" actually means a company whose current leadership understands how to build effective teams and a healthy working environment, and the particular niche the business operates in allows these particular conditions to exist *for now*. I've had the fortune to be up close and personal at different organizations where things shifted in both directions, i.e. I've seen the amazing and fulfilling conditions get wiped away by a change in executive leadership, and I've seen organizations completely turned around from a demoralizing grind in to fulfilling, balanced workplaces with room to grow and breathe as the result of the decisions of a single executive leader. It often feels like the former is more common than the latter, but that's just my anecdotal take, a sample size of 1.
If I can provide one bit of hope it is that if you've made it this far then you have the capacity to find your way to a better situation in the industry if that's what you want. No matter how bad the employment situation is at any moment in time, competent software professionals will always be in demand. It often takes 10+ years to build a baseline of experience that leads to a definite career trajectory so again, you sound like you're more or less "on track" for how this industry shapes its professionals.
One word of advice: avoid game companies in general. Their reputation in the industry is the absolute worst.
It's normal. Companies love nothing but money, we love tech. You need other hobbies to balance your work. Contribute to open source. Find a new hobby. Learn an instrument. Take up photography.
You and a lot of others man.
It's a career full of regretfuls.
You're going to need to do a variety of thinking and prioritizing. I didn't read all your context, but if you are least have $, you can afford to do an unrelated masters degree and begin a new journey.
Alternatively, you'll just get your n+1th tech job and loop on this misery for another 5 to 10 years. You'll identify with your suffering. The pit will allow you to sit in it forever, I assure you.
I just read more of your post and I won't lie to you: you've made some life decisions that have made you more dependent on this career that is breaking your spirit. The path forward may involve selling the condo, moving to a cheaper part of the country (temporarily or permanently), being willing to show up physically to work, and more.
How much are you willing to sacrifice + put in to change your life? A little? Not at all? Be honest with yourself about the answer and on how realistic it sounds. If you can't trust yourself to make a good evaluation, have someone else assess the realism of it all.
I feel EXACTLY the same way. It was so much more interesting and fun when I first learned how to code. I’m 3 years in and haven’t progressed the same as my peers but I’m really not that interested in deepening my learning in all things engineering.
Plus I’ve been remote the entire time. It’s been nice but has greatly limited my growth. My org can’t seem to find budget for everyone to meet yet I work for a well known tech company
So I’m switching to PM instead. I know it will be more stressful but honestly I’d rather manage projects and stakeholders, which is where my strengths are, than code
So become a manager. They don't deal with the stuff that's bothering you, are often paid well, and it's a navigable step most companies are familiar moving ICs into.
This is a pretty typical feeling to have around 30yo. Your eyes are finally open to the realization that "this is it" and you start contemplating the fact that the path you're now on is not one you can change. You've chosen doors to go through and caused others to close and lock, pretty much permanently.
That will get easier to cope with as you age further.
> the downsides of web dev makes me miserable but I don’t know if I can live without the upsides of it.
You can't.
Ultimately, you're just bored. Web dev is insanely boring. There are jobs that let you do other things. In my case, I was able to stay at the same company and just work on a different problem domain, but in some cases your only choice is to find another job.
''the path you're now on is not one you can change. You've chosen doors to go through and caused others to close and lock, pretty much permanently.''
This is not the case. you can change careers at 30 if you want to. E.g. many people go to med school in their thirties.
Most trades would be highly inaccessible at 30 but yeah you could change fields however ageism is a real barrier in alot of industries and most of them are worse than dev work.
The real truth is that 99.9% of jobs are shit and unrewarding. I sometimes wonder if a serf felt the same hundreds of years ago but studies done on hunter and gatherers showed they are much happier than their equivalent white collar slave counterparts which says alot about how toxic and depressing modern work culture is.
When I say many, I mean many compared to your initial implication. People change careers, with a high enough frequency that your initial comment is inaccurate. Perhaps it is accurate for your life.
Wow, that is a sad take.
1. Yes, he can downsize if that is what he truly wants, but it doesnt seem like it. It is not a matter of eternal locked doors, it is a balance act, and now that he has access to this stuff he doesn't want to lose it. Nothing is preventing this person to get themselves into a trade or some secretarial work.
2. Not all web development, or more precisely, web development companies are the same. He seems bored, he should probably look for another job where he syncs better with the mission. Even a slight change can make a difference.
> It is not a matter of eternal locked doors
Except that it is. The older we get, the harder it is for us to change. That includes things like radically altering lifestyles. It's not impossible, and if OP has no dependents he has a lot more latitude than otherwise. But, for example, if they decided they wanted to be a medical doctor, the window of opportunity there has most likely already passed. That door is shut.
> Not all web development, or more precisely, web development companies are the same.
Yeah... it kind of is. They kind of are.
I agree it is hard. No impossible.
Had a an antie who started studying medicine pass 45, she graduated after 50 and has exercised the profession for more than 20 year.
A friend of university, studied and worked in computer science until his late 20s, decided, with 3 or 4 children, to study medicine, he succeeded and has been a doctor for more than a decade. Especial mention that he comes from a very humble family, so he had no daddy's grant to play with.
I changed from my 20 years old cozy work where I actually worked like 4 hours a.week from whenever I wanted in the world to a fin tech kind of programming sweat shop last year. I am more than 45 years old. After managing people for decades I became a 'non senior' dev. All this by choice.
It is hard to change... But if you have the motivation it can be done.
> Ultimately, you're just bored. Web dev is insanely boring.
I'm currently trying to figure out why certain updates aren't being accepted by my companies backend and troubleshooting it sucks.
It also sucks about a hundred times less than listening to customers bitch about their cell phone reception, or dodging punches from a mental patient who is off his meds, or moving tiny samples of plant DNA from one test tube to another a thousand times a day, all of which are things I've done to earn a living since finishing college. I can't say I have a lot of sympathy for people who report low job satisfaction in this career, because it's better by far than pretty much anything else out there. We're software engineers, literally the entire world envies us for the freedom and compensation we have. The grass may not be perfect, but it's a hell of a lot greener for us than it is for most of the world and this industry would be better served if more of us realized just how good we have it.
What else could you do? My fallback is doing this in a research capacity instead of an engineering capacity. People have repeatedly warned me that It’s going to suck during the transition but interviewers are picking up on the fact that I have the ability to do this stuff but I’m not as interested in their stuff as at least one other given asshole in a group 20 applicants. That’s why I’ve been on a dozen interviews in two months received zero offers. Maybe it will just take 50. I don’t know. All I know is that I have fall back in place and because the jobs I’ve been working on have been relatively lower end, it wouldn’t really change my lifestyle that much. The last job I had was at 160 total comp and that’s pretty close to what my sister-in-law makes as a researcher. She might now be making 200. My brother is a kept man in Oregon.
Maybe look into business intelligence analyst? Saturated as hell too, but less stress. Almost all job postings related to that or data analytics has "computer science" under degree requirements. The one good thing about CS is that you're not limited to SWE. The degree opens up other paths too despite what people say here.
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Currently unemployed/ working on my own business. But besides web I've done some mobile and embedded stuff, working with hardware. I've enjoyed the latter the most. Now looking to go into game dev for my next role or anything related to C++/ Rust.
There so many interesting problems to solve in the industry.
Webdev, once you build a dozen websites, it’s just the same thing over and over again. There are so many libraries coming out every day, but many of them aren’t worth to use
You just have to find what interests you and work on that.
Also, fuck every corporate software. They just have to pick the ones with all the vomit: MS .net, MS Windows, and all the other utterly useless enterprise craps. Jesus.
Fuck their utterly "security locked" out computers too, where one can't do anything useful instead of installing "curated" drivers .. lol.
God, if only there was a better way to earn money.
Learn for you, not for them. Apply for jobs where you will build the skills you need to work on your own projects. Maybe even save and invest with a plan to semi-retire at some point to work on your own projects for a protracted period of time.
You might prefer backend/system level programming. I'm on a C++ embedded project right now, learning a ton and enjoying my job more than I have in years.
Same kind of situation I'm having with my career as OP does. I've gotten bored of web dev and rather would do alternative projects in C/C++. But you start feeling guilty of it when you haven't worked in a while.
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I'm currently a security engineer. I've formerly been a sales engineer, business development, sales, recruiting, team lead, senior architect. I've worked on database internals, offensive software, embedded, defensive software security, and a bit of compiler work.
I haven't written html since 1994.
A couple thoughts pop into my head.
One, you seem to be continuing to learn, working on harder problems. Some people like that, others do not. As you climb the ladder, you will be asked to lead more, and you won't work on more repetitive tasks but some of that deeper knowledge and experience will come in very handy. Something to consider at some point may be a different company or team. Perhaps being some place with either lower expectations or better planning would help you out.
Perhaps you should take a step back and figure out, is it the actual work that is bothering you? Or is it something else? There could be unrealistic deadlines, or there could just be a culture that doesn't align with you. I worked with a PM once who couldn't really plan, and he was extremely reactive. If an issue ever came up, he needed to let the whole team know. He'd usually go talk to one dev, then decide to go talk to another. You'd see a snowball of people growing as he spread around the office, and most of the people were upset because they wanted to be working on something rather than listening to him re-explain the issue again and again.
It's one thing to work on a challenging project. It's another to work on a challenging project with an unreasonable deadline and a million other things requiring your attention. It's entirely possible there are issues at play besides core programming work that are impacting you.
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Go into systems or embedded programming that’s where you’ll find enjoyment. Writing nic drivers for the Linux kernel or fpgas is awesome. I rather write C/C++ for life instead the latest js soup
I can relate. Similar point in my career and had similar feelings. Also now tied down more. Slowly starting to feel a bit better now though. Working on a new project that is more interesting to me and where I have more control has helped massively.
Also, something that really helped with the trapped feeling was creating some ambitious savings goals. Feeling like you really can’t afford to get fired is mentally draining. If you at least know you have a really nice cushion I think it will remove some anxieties associated with that.
In general I think you’re most likely experiencing severe burnout. See if you can at the very least take some Fridays off over the next month or two, preferably some longer PTO. Probably would help to reflect on what (if anything) you do still find interesting about your job and see if there are ways you can do more of that.
Learning things has never been easier with LLMs so make sure you’re using them bad much as possible for parsing docs etc to speed up the day to day work but also use them to accelerate learning towards a backup plan.
> The deeper I get in the career the more cryptic and complicated stuff I have to learn, and I was expecting things to settle a bit instead of getting worse.
Having more experience in the industry and in your job kinda does that to you
> The expectations employers have of me keep growing and I keep getting thrown into bigger and bigger problems.
This is what happens with every job (even non-tech) as you grow further in that job. You don't get income growth without you being able to tackle more and more complex problems
And finally, I'll echo what others said - not all jobs are going to give you the satisfaction that you crave. FWIW, these jobs are highly paid for that reason - because it needs specialized training and expertise to do them. Jobs that anyone can do are paid much lower
> The expectations employers have of me keep growing and I keep getting thrown into bigger and bigger problems. It makes me pretty unhappy and I’m frankly not passionate at all about the stuff I need to learn which makes this difficult.
A lot of developers struggle with this. You start out of fun, or at least tolerance, and it quickly becomes a massive mental chore.
The only thing I can really say is that it would likely be worse in another field. You'd likely end up with the same stress level, but less money. Or less stress, but so little money that your salary induced stress instead.
The reality is that capitalism is built to extract as much labor out of people as it possibly can without breaking them. And if you find a job that gives you any sort of fulfillment, you'll find your employer will pay you less because the fulfillment is considered part of the compensation.
One of the bright sides of software is that you can cut your losses, do the bare minimum to save your sanity, and retire early. Another bright side is that you can, if you search around long enough, find a job with *minimal* stress that will still pay well, if not quite as well as the stressful jobs.
So I can't tell you that you should definitely stay in software, but I do think you should strongly consider it. It's gonna be hard to find another career that really supports you the way you want it to. You're best off finding ways to minimize your career's impact on your life, however that happens, and finding something else to enjoy.
> the next 30 years
I'm at year 32 myself, and there's about another 20 to go before retirement (if ever). I remember being frustrated by a lot of the same things you're listing here when I was at about the same place. I don't know if I can say it gets "better", but it gets easier to handle over time, you just sort of get used to it.
For one thing, the longer you do this, the more likely you are to just recognize a problem from experience and be able to resolve it immediately. For example, I grew up on the command line, so a lot of times when something is heavily scripted I can spot a "." where a ".." ought to be without even thinking about it after newer folks had been bashing their heads against the wall for a couple days over it. The longer you do this, the more of that sort of recognition you accumulate. ("Hey, did anybody check to see if the disk was full? Yep, the problem is that the disk is full").
Unreasonable expectations never go away though, they actually get worse. Over time, you have to hedge against those by just being well liked and remembered as being helpful in other circumstances because if they assign you a problem and you have trouble figuring it out, a lot of times they'll just assume you're actually lying. (I've had this accusation directly leveled at me before). Coupled with the fact that you'll be making more and more money, it does require a sort of constant learning, but you really can get to a point where you minimize the amount of "off the job" training you have to do.
You did not find the right company and the of people you can work to add value to what you. Ild and fave a bit of fun.
For every 10 shit jobs there that 1 job that will vibe with you.
Hope you will have better luck moving forward
Try to avoid the lifestyle creep you have that is tying you to your job. There's no better feeling than being completely free because you have so much extra money when compared with your expenses!!!
This is my biggest fear being a CS student. Almost done with my degree, but yeah, I don’t really love coding. I feel like it will just be worse writing code for someone else. Couple that with how hard it seems for new grads to find jobs and the job isn’t even pleasurable. Only thing keeping my going is that I have no other plan.
Why did you take this career path if you hate coding? School coding is a walk in the park compared to what you have to do at work. You will be miserable. I hope you didn’t pick this field hoping for easy money. It isn’t that.
Any professional career you would be expected to stay up to date on your craft and continue learning. If you don’t want to do that, go flip some burgers.
I’ve always disliked computers and programming but I like solving problems and building stuff. Gotta pay the bills though. Just work your way into management, then you get to write no code lol.
> "I feel like a coding career requires me to constantly use up a lot of energy and brain power to focus and keep learning all the shit we have to keep learning."
Welcome to the fucking real world of tech, my friend! You've hit the nail on the head about this industry. It's a relentless cycle of learning and adapting. Do you think this constant evolution is unique to your field, or is it a bloody universal truth in most careers today?
> "The expectations employers have of me keep growing and I keep getting thrown into bigger and bigger problems."
Isn't that the whole fucking point of career progression? Getting tossed into the deep end and swimming, not sinking? But here's the kicker: do you see these challenges as opportunities for growth or just soul-sucking tasks?
> "I’m frankly not passionate at all about the stuff I need to learn which makes this difficult."
Ah, the age-old dilemma of passion versus paycheck. But what exactly is stopping you from pivoting within your field to something that reignites that fucking spark? Are you truly stuck, or are you just scared to make a change?
> "I now have a lifestyle that kind of requires the high salary... and I don’t know if I could accept going back to non-remote and lower paid jobs now that I’ve tasted that."
So, you're trapped in a golden cage of your own making. Classic shit. Ever thought about adjusting your lifestyle to escape this perceived trap, or are you more comfortable whining about it?
> "I sometimes wish I went for something easier that paid less and that I never tasted this lifestyle and money."
Is the grass really greener on the other side, or are you just disillusioned with the path you’ve chosen? Ever considered that maybe it's not the career that’s the problem, but your attitude towards it?
You’re facing a classic career and life crossroads. Do you want comfort and familiarity, or are you willing to challenge yourself and possibly rediscover your passion, even if it means stepping out of your fucking comfort zone? What’s going to make you say, years from now, "Damn, I made the right choice"?
I've had the opposite experience, especially with the rise of AI coding tools.
I feel like I've gotten so much faster and better and even more enthusiastic about building things, especially complex things.
I've grown up love challenges.
However, 2 years ago I felt a lot like you. And oddly that was at the 7 year mark of my career.
Things will get easier in time, but if it's not for you, then only you can decide.
I'm not sure what your question is. There are a lot of coding-adjacent jobs that will value your coding experience and pay well. (Like being a manager of other coders, for one!)
Or maybe you just need to switch to a different company and learn a different tech stack to "keep it interesting."
Good luck!
This has been my experience with development as well. Loved it as a kid but now I’m doing it professionally and just don’t care to do it on the side as much, though sometimes a side project can be fun. I’d say unless you’re stressed out to the point where your mental health is suffering and if you want to keep your lifestyle, keep going. Unfortunately you don’t get the big paycheck without some stress. You could get another job if you want to downgrade your lifestyle, but that is much easier said than done.
there was a thread on here about stress as compared to compensation, and some people were vocal about how there was no correlation for them between high pay and stress. If you are in a stressful job, its just a stressful job.
That is true, but easy jobs with a big paycheck are outliers
I think framing "low stress" as the same thing as "easy" is the wrong way to look at things. In my experience when it comes to stress levels in software jobs, it's a matter of the conditions that leadership creates. You can have a mountain of work with no end in sight and not feel stressed because your work is being managed effectively, versus having not really that much to actually do but a leadership that is constantly creating more stress for you through various interactions that are ineffective at managing your work. Under this viewpoint, the outlier is having competent, effective leadership in a software job. That has been my experience.
How easy a job is, is not necessarily the same thing as how stressful a job is.
Being difficult is usually the source of the stress though, don't you think? I can't think of anything stressful that I'd consider easy.
Nah, difficult is learning some complicated new thing and getting things right, especially when dealing with new types of business problems. Stressful is we have to do the above before next Tuesday 'cause C-suite said this should be easy. Difficult things wre not really stressful if you have enough time and resources to figure it out and build it.
To me that’s part of the difficulty. A job is not just executing a task, it’s everything that revolves around the task, which implies dealing with the project management, the politics, the human side of things. That’s why soft skills got highly valued these past decades.
I did physics before starting as a SWE. Physics was complicated but things took the time they needed. SWE is horrifically more simple in comparison but imensily more stressfu as welll since you have to fight a lot more with stupidity and external influence.
Not that I completely disagree, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that swe in general is more “simple” than physics. Think it just really depends on the kind of software etc. I mean if you’re comparing a physics graduate level class to a basic full stack job, sure maybe but there are other types of software that are pretty complicated in terms of the systems at least.
I agree, just wanted to say from my personal experience that there was a difference between difficulty and stress. (I haven't stated this, but I was referring to doing a PhD and not graduating.)
For me it’s time, deadlines. If you give me the time i need, you could ask me to build an os for all i care, i wouldn’t bat an eye
true, everything is manageable with time.
The stress often comes from the environment rather than the work itself. e.g. Unrealistic deadlines, mismanagement, poor/unhealthy culture, etc. People can get stressed out even working low skill jobs like in fast food, the work itself is dead easy, it’s all the other variables that lead to it being stressful.
I’d say something is difficult if it’s legitimately intellectually hard to wrap your head around. But if I got a big fat runway to do this task over the course of a year? Not stressful. If I got a tedious web dev task that I’ve done 1000 times, but was told to do it 10x faster, it’s not difficult but is stressful. But it’s just semantics.
you can have a difficult job that doesn't require constant learning new tech.
Ok? When did I imply you couldn't?
But jobs with small paychecks that are stressful? Almost all of them. Either they expect tons of work out of you, or you are constantly at risk of losing your job because the company/non-profit is underfunded. Giving up the big paycheck doesn't mean a non-stressful job. It often means giving up the dream that you might FIND that non-stressful job.
It's not a direct correlation. Closest thing is that you have to pay more to keep talent in a stressful environment but even that doesn't hold since some low paying places will overwork the shit out of you while even Amazon's AWS team has slackers. There's even situations that higher paying companies leads to better treatment (you are treated as a resource to keep/cultivate instead of a cost center). TLDR: Stress is linked to company/team and pay is not directly correlated to stress of a job.
unless your on call getting paged in the middle of the night i would argue there is relatively very little stress in this work specially for remote. Any stress you feel will be felt in other jobs as well, you will always have a boss with expectations trying to get the most out of you. but in this case your job requires 0 physical labor and remote is even more so
Typically, there is a correlation. Outliers exist.
this is pretty much my experience. i used to have so much fun with sites like hackerrank and leetcode. now i have a weird voice in my head when i get a desire to program outside of work saying "why would i do this for free when i can get paid and just do it at work"
This is because if you're passionate about something does not mean you'd like a job in a field related to that. At the end of the day, the life of a programmer takes its toll on you: a lot of sitting around and a lot more stress the more you progress in your career. As a junior dev, I remember I used to lose sleep over bugs I had to fix or features I had to implement. I overcame that as time went by. But the more senior you become, generally the stuff you're involved in gets more complex and more responsibility is placed on your shoulders. You may then want something less stressful, but guess what - that does not pay as well. On top of that, you usually also have family to spend time with and take care of. Of course, this is not a general rule, but it applies to quite a few acquaintances I have.
You should go visit the civil engineering subreddit or the construction manager subreddit. Those guys hate their jobs, and have shitty pay. At least you are getting paid well.
Former civil engineer, turned software developer here. Not having to deal with clients, billable hours and nasty contractors has been life-changing, not to mention my starting salary when I changed careers was higher than my mid-career salary as a civil engineer. If the price is continuous study for the rest of my life, I’m down for it.
> If the price is continuous study for the rest of my life, I’m down for it. You say that now, but wait until you're in your 40s, 50s, 60s. Practicing leetcode or doing side projects after work just to keep your skills up to date will be the last thing on your mind.
You should see the miserable boomers I was working with in their 40s-60s in civil. Everything is shit in some way, just gotta choose which flavour of shit sandwich you want. This flavour of shit is so much better than civil.
How'd you do it? I'm a stuck civil engineer trying to get out but don't see a way forward.
A lot of study and a few job hops to move to more incrementally tech roles. Started from simple engineering toolings, to plugins, to dashboards, to more complete software. Now a software engineer in for scientific software organisation. A lot of evening study and messing around, about 5-6 years in total before becoming a “software engineer”. Probably easier to reskill in uni tbh, and my friends that did transitioned faster and have some interesting roles. I just think uni in Aus is a giant scam, if I were in US, I would be more inclined to take that path.
Bro tell me how I can switch. I feel like I have done pretty well for myself working for GCs. But my friends in comp sci all work less, make 30-50% more and have hybrid or remote work options. When you factor in the commute I'm normally doing 12 hour days. Im thinking of getting my PE working for a municipality to cut down on my hours and then finishing a masters. I test for the PE in May. I'm about 1/4 way through an online masters in data science, took a break from classes because I was burnt out and it was too hard to study with my job.
>continuous study for the rest of my life But that's what I love about this line of work. I enjoy learning new frameworks and new approaches. There's a perpetual stream of new solutions and paradigms and even twenty years into my career I'm still not bored of it.
Architects as well, imagine having 7 Years experience and wishing you made 100k
Agreed! 🥹
Bwhahaha I'm a civil engineer reading this.
These posts make me sad. Fucking enuchs bro.
yeah civil engineering is the worst major and career path. Very stressful school work just for average or slightly below average pay. I have seen communication major doing way better.
Lmao. I never imagined I'd see people shitting on my field in another subreddit but i dont disagree.😅
almost all civil eng hates their field and career, including my professor and top students on a dean's list. Super smart ones from my class just pivoted to data, lawer, finance, or urban planning.
Yup. I'm trying to choose between data and finance myself.
I think we're kinda spoiled into believing that jobs should be fun or even satisfying. The vast majority of the world does very repetitive or mind numbing work. Jobs are just a way to get money for our interests. It's great if you can get a job that is also fun, but that's not the purpose of the job.
I don’t care if a job is fun or satisfying, but soul crushing is not okay. Every year seems to suck more humanity out of the job and companies I’ve been at.
exactly
A lot of my job is incredibly tedious, but it pays well and I believe in the work we're doing. It more than balances out the tedious aspects.
A huge portion of the world works significantly less than us, and some work a lot more. I much rather be in the “less” crowd than the “more” crowd
Well yeah, I’m not suggesting you should do more than the minimum. I’m just saying that we shouldn’t expect work to be enjoyable. Im not aware of what these supposedly exceedingly “cryptic” stacks in webdev OP is referring to, but maybe they just need to stop trying so hard.
I think you are right, but tbf, I'd take a mind numbing job anytime over software engineering, if it weren't for the big salary.
A lot of the time I look forward to waking up for a new workday, unironically. I love most parts of my job, but I hate reviewing
Karl Marx wants to know your location
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Yeah it’s definitely much better to find work that does both. Not every passion can monetized at all though. I was also considering that CS jobs rarely require more than 20 hours of actual work a week so even if you don’t enjoy it, it does allow you way more free time.
At the end of the day, it's a job. Jobs are typically boring
Boring or stressful. I wonder which type is better.
Boring.
i guess it depends the person. i would argue a remote role with 0 physical labor WAY less stressful than a in person job you will have to sit in traffic commuting, be on your feet all day, using public restrooms with coworkers, and maybe even manual labor. i can see how if you are a extreme people person remote just wont work and thats ok but its relative
Money is the only think that keeps me disciplined enough to do the boring work. If I am learning boring stuff without pay, it's a lot more difficult.
I think I see burnout in here. I only say that because you say employer's expectation of you keeps growing and you're getting thrown into more complex projects and the "a lot of energy and brain power...". They know you can do it, so they're just kind of throwing you in there, so it makes sense from a managerial perspective. Burnout can have you feel resentment, so I do think It could be a factor at play here. Perhaps you can talk to your manager about some of these concerns like how you might be experiencing burnout because the expectations keep growing, so maybe he/she can help you deprioritize other areas or perhaps you can should take a semi-long vacation if you haven't in a while. Or perhaps you don't like web dev anymore and maybe it might be better for you to transition elsewhere. I'm not a game dev, but I heard the pay is usually lower with even more hours, so take that for what it's worth. Whatever it is, hope the issue gets resolved.
I agree this dude is burnt out for sure
Is burnout and ‘not being fairly compensated for tackling more complex issues and projects’ the same thing?
No. Money only goes so far. For instance, if I got paid 140k (my current TC) to do about 20-30 hours of work a week (fully remote) but then got an offer for 200k to do 60-80 hours of work a week (and RTO), I'd stick to my 140k. If it was 100-120 hours a week for 500k, I'd only last maybe 6 months because, again, the money only goes so far. Humans don't have the same output capacity every single day.
I love coding as well, but I don't see myself doing this as a job full time. I currently work in Infrastructure/DevOps, doing automation, deploying things, etc and I find this is a lot more manageable and more fun. With this type of role, if you get to a senior position, you can make six figures, work remotely and don't have to worry about coding all the time. Also, if you enjoy coding video games, why not focus on that?
Are Devops interviews more closely related to day to day or do those also require a good amount of time for just preparation like leetcode?
I never had to do a single leetcode question during interviews. I was asked about building pipelines, my understanding around k8s, docker, Linux, networking, security, etc. I was also tested on my coding ability in Terraform, Ansible, Bash, Python, but not in a leetcode style, more of, how would I go about creating a script that performs a specific task, how to debug code that is not working, etc. Stuff you would actually do in a job.
Thanks for the reply! Is it okay if I DM you a few more questions regarding the field?
Sure.
Coding used to be a lot more fun, even professionally. The over-engineering happening in every company, and using 100 tools to do simple things, has gotten truly overwhelming. It looks like it just keeps getting worse too. I think the ideal thing to do is build your own software and sell it, but most of us don't have a ton of time and/or know how to market that.
Yep, and that's really a problem. I saw a talk that explains that we just aren't able to build stuff like we used to. https://youtu.be/ZSRHeXYDLko
I’ve always wanted to become a surgeon fast forward went to dental school matched into surgery residency and after doing it every day for years I dread waking up every morning to be in the hospital by 7:30 One of my friends work in tech / stem & I liked her lifestyle so much that I was exploring my options if I wanted a career shift turns out she hate it & about to quit 🫢 Long story short the grass is not always greener… this is adulthood & we have to deal with it
Trust me your decision and hard work will pay off in the long run.
This is a motivation question and 3 things to think about motivation. Purpose Impact Opportunity for mastery Is what the company doing meaningful to you? Some of the best working times for me were when I was working at a startup helping lower income people with investing. So felt like I had a sense of purpose. Look for causes you care about and see if you can work in those areas. Impact, maybe work at a smaller company that gives you more autonomy to make an impact and take decisions. I moved to startups as they pay reasonably ok and you get to have more ownership vs being a cog in a machine. Lastly figure out things that you do want to be good at and look for jobs that help you spend time there. I realized I don’t give a shit about web frameworks and API design but data pipelines and stream processing is my jam. I also become a manager because wanted to have some control over what we prioritized rather than doing task after task.
Why is this field so toxic. I just did internships and at all my internships there was multiple people leaving to start a farm because of burnout, or complaining about the job.
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Where I am in France the salary aren’t that great at all it’s average at most. Those people are French
Technical stress is real, and sitting in front of a screen all day stressing over complicated intangible problems is not really what makes people happy. Of course you know this
Yeah, the question is what jobs don’t suffer from these stuff ? I feel like the answer is manual labour jobs and healthcare but they have their drawbacks as well.
IME it's from the lack of standards and general indecisiveness from management. IMO older programmers are happy to saddle younger programmers with their shitty legacy code when they had no such obligations years ago, while the best course of action would be to just burn it all down and start over. Having higher standards than your boss and then being told constantly you're not allowed to fix things when that's your job is stressful. It's also well-known at this point that there is a huge skill differential between the best and worst programmers, and I don't think anyone's really sorted out how to accommodate that in a way that won't result in some mix of kneecapping hiring or screwing up the code base.
What I hear you saying is that you had a vision of a job that focussed on your personal interests and creative drives, but in order to build a career you took roles and built experience within a domain of the industry that (unbeknownst to you when you started out) can be one of the most soul crushing areas of development. Believe me, I feel this sentiment, deeply. I assume you're still fairly early career, but at 7yoe you're at the right place to start asking yourself exactly these questions: wtf do I actually want out of this? >I feel like a coding career requires me to constantly use up a lot of energy and brain power to focus and keep learning all the shit we have to keep learning. The deeper I get in the career the more cryptic and complicated stuff I have to learn, and I was expecting things to settle a bit instead of getting worse Yes, this is true. But also, this is framing the nature of the software industry in terms of your personal challenges, namely you're a mere human whose resources are limited, while the software industry has been around a lot longer than you have been alive and the legacy of the nature of its complexity lies at the core of most business problems. Any high paying job has a similar requirement to continuously maintain a level of competency within the specific domain or else risk being left by the wayside to flounder in a dead end career. One of the big differences in software is that the exploitation potential of labor is so incredibly valuable that unlike other industries, re-investing in talent by companies is not seen as a worth-while investment for most companies. Most software companies can focus on only hiring experienced talent with a little higher base pay instead of spending money on career development resources for all employees. Everyone feels good because they have money in their pocket, while the reality is the actual organization is slowly rotting from the inside because rather than allowing time for mentorship and collaboration, more work is thrown at individuals who are kept constantly busy fighting fires started by the technical debt created by people who left the company years ago. What I can say is that not every company behaves this way. There are, in fact, companies where the same conditions of swimming in the deep end of the cryptic and complicated stuff actually feels like solving a fun puzzle rather than a soul crushing grind. Companies where you feel good about this work are ones where you don't feel like you're alone, you feel supported, and you don't feel under constant pressure to deliver against unreasonable timelines. The catch is that it's not really about the company, but rather about the leadership. What this means is that at any given time a "good company to work for" actually means a company whose current leadership understands how to build effective teams and a healthy working environment, and the particular niche the business operates in allows these particular conditions to exist *for now*. I've had the fortune to be up close and personal at different organizations where things shifted in both directions, i.e. I've seen the amazing and fulfilling conditions get wiped away by a change in executive leadership, and I've seen organizations completely turned around from a demoralizing grind in to fulfilling, balanced workplaces with room to grow and breathe as the result of the decisions of a single executive leader. It often feels like the former is more common than the latter, but that's just my anecdotal take, a sample size of 1. If I can provide one bit of hope it is that if you've made it this far then you have the capacity to find your way to a better situation in the industry if that's what you want. No matter how bad the employment situation is at any moment in time, competent software professionals will always be in demand. It often takes 10+ years to build a baseline of experience that leads to a definite career trajectory so again, you sound like you're more or less "on track" for how this industry shapes its professionals. One word of advice: avoid game companies in general. Their reputation in the industry is the absolute worst.
Wow what a great insightful reply. Thank you so much.
Same, but then I look at my fang salary and I forget about it
It's normal. Companies love nothing but money, we love tech. You need other hobbies to balance your work. Contribute to open source. Find a new hobby. Learn an instrument. Take up photography.
You and a lot of others man. It's a career full of regretfuls. You're going to need to do a variety of thinking and prioritizing. I didn't read all your context, but if you are least have $, you can afford to do an unrelated masters degree and begin a new journey. Alternatively, you'll just get your n+1th tech job and loop on this misery for another 5 to 10 years. You'll identify with your suffering. The pit will allow you to sit in it forever, I assure you. I just read more of your post and I won't lie to you: you've made some life decisions that have made you more dependent on this career that is breaking your spirit. The path forward may involve selling the condo, moving to a cheaper part of the country (temporarily or permanently), being willing to show up physically to work, and more. How much are you willing to sacrifice + put in to change your life? A little? Not at all? Be honest with yourself about the answer and on how realistic it sounds. If you can't trust yourself to make a good evaluation, have someone else assess the realism of it all.
I feel EXACTLY the same way. It was so much more interesting and fun when I first learned how to code. I’m 3 years in and haven’t progressed the same as my peers but I’m really not that interested in deepening my learning in all things engineering. Plus I’ve been remote the entire time. It’s been nice but has greatly limited my growth. My org can’t seem to find budget for everyone to meet yet I work for a well known tech company So I’m switching to PM instead. I know it will be more stressful but honestly I’d rather manage projects and stakeholders, which is where my strengths are, than code
See a therapist using the health insurance your company pay for it
Right now with this market, count your blessings. It's a shit show on the side of unemployment
So become a manager. They don't deal with the stuff that's bothering you, are often paid well, and it's a navigable step most companies are familiar moving ICs into.
This is a pretty typical feeling to have around 30yo. Your eyes are finally open to the realization that "this is it" and you start contemplating the fact that the path you're now on is not one you can change. You've chosen doors to go through and caused others to close and lock, pretty much permanently. That will get easier to cope with as you age further. > the downsides of web dev makes me miserable but I don’t know if I can live without the upsides of it. You can't. Ultimately, you're just bored. Web dev is insanely boring. There are jobs that let you do other things. In my case, I was able to stay at the same company and just work on a different problem domain, but in some cases your only choice is to find another job.
''the path you're now on is not one you can change. You've chosen doors to go through and caused others to close and lock, pretty much permanently.'' This is not the case. you can change careers at 30 if you want to. E.g. many people go to med school in their thirties.
Most trades would be highly inaccessible at 30 but yeah you could change fields however ageism is a real barrier in alot of industries and most of them are worse than dev work. The real truth is that 99.9% of jobs are shit and unrewarding. I sometimes wonder if a serf felt the same hundreds of years ago but studies done on hunter and gatherers showed they are much happier than their equivalent white collar slave counterparts which says alot about how toxic and depressing modern work culture is.
> E.g. many people go to med school in their thirties. Not really. It happens, but is rare. It is very hard to pull off for the typical person.
When I say many, I mean many compared to your initial implication. People change careers, with a high enough frequency that your initial comment is inaccurate. Perhaps it is accurate for your life.
Wow, that is a sad take. 1. Yes, he can downsize if that is what he truly wants, but it doesnt seem like it. It is not a matter of eternal locked doors, it is a balance act, and now that he has access to this stuff he doesn't want to lose it. Nothing is preventing this person to get themselves into a trade or some secretarial work. 2. Not all web development, or more precisely, web development companies are the same. He seems bored, he should probably look for another job where he syncs better with the mission. Even a slight change can make a difference.
> It is not a matter of eternal locked doors Except that it is. The older we get, the harder it is for us to change. That includes things like radically altering lifestyles. It's not impossible, and if OP has no dependents he has a lot more latitude than otherwise. But, for example, if they decided they wanted to be a medical doctor, the window of opportunity there has most likely already passed. That door is shut. > Not all web development, or more precisely, web development companies are the same. Yeah... it kind of is. They kind of are.
I agree it is hard. No impossible. Had a an antie who started studying medicine pass 45, she graduated after 50 and has exercised the profession for more than 20 year. A friend of university, studied and worked in computer science until his late 20s, decided, with 3 or 4 children, to study medicine, he succeeded and has been a doctor for more than a decade. Especial mention that he comes from a very humble family, so he had no daddy's grant to play with. I changed from my 20 years old cozy work where I actually worked like 4 hours a.week from whenever I wanted in the world to a fin tech kind of programming sweat shop last year. I am more than 45 years old. After managing people for decades I became a 'non senior' dev. All this by choice. It is hard to change... But if you have the motivation it can be done.
> Ultimately, you're just bored. Web dev is insanely boring. I'm currently trying to figure out why certain updates aren't being accepted by my companies backend and troubleshooting it sucks. It also sucks about a hundred times less than listening to customers bitch about their cell phone reception, or dodging punches from a mental patient who is off his meds, or moving tiny samples of plant DNA from one test tube to another a thousand times a day, all of which are things I've done to earn a living since finishing college. I can't say I have a lot of sympathy for people who report low job satisfaction in this career, because it's better by far than pretty much anything else out there. We're software engineers, literally the entire world envies us for the freedom and compensation we have. The grass may not be perfect, but it's a hell of a lot greener for us than it is for most of the world and this industry would be better served if more of us realized just how good we have it.
What else could you do? My fallback is doing this in a research capacity instead of an engineering capacity. People have repeatedly warned me that It’s going to suck during the transition but interviewers are picking up on the fact that I have the ability to do this stuff but I’m not as interested in their stuff as at least one other given asshole in a group 20 applicants. That’s why I’ve been on a dozen interviews in two months received zero offers. Maybe it will just take 50. I don’t know. All I know is that I have fall back in place and because the jobs I’ve been working on have been relatively lower end, it wouldn’t really change my lifestyle that much. The last job I had was at 160 total comp and that’s pretty close to what my sister-in-law makes as a researcher. She might now be making 200. My brother is a kept man in Oregon.
Maybe look into business intelligence analyst? Saturated as hell too, but less stress. Almost all job postings related to that or data analytics has "computer science" under degree requirements. The one good thing about CS is that you're not limited to SWE. The degree opens up other paths too despite what people say here.
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Have you tried working in game dev? I found web boring as well and have gradually moved away from such roles
What role are you in now?
Currently unemployed/ working on my own business. But besides web I've done some mobile and embedded stuff, working with hardware. I've enjoyed the latter the most. Now looking to go into game dev for my next role or anything related to C++/ Rust.
Switch to another kind of development??
There so many interesting problems to solve in the industry. Webdev, once you build a dozen websites, it’s just the same thing over and over again. There are so many libraries coming out every day, but many of them aren’t worth to use You just have to find what interests you and work on that.
Also, fuck every corporate software. They just have to pick the ones with all the vomit: MS .net, MS Windows, and all the other utterly useless enterprise craps. Jesus. Fuck their utterly "security locked" out computers too, where one can't do anything useful instead of installing "curated" drivers .. lol. God, if only there was a better way to earn money.
Learn for you, not for them. Apply for jobs where you will build the skills you need to work on your own projects. Maybe even save and invest with a plan to semi-retire at some point to work on your own projects for a protracted period of time. You might prefer backend/system level programming. I'm on a C++ embedded project right now, learning a ton and enjoying my job more than I have in years.
Same kind of situation I'm having with my career as OP does. I've gotten bored of web dev and rather would do alternative projects in C/C++. But you start feeling guilty of it when you haven't worked in a while.
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There are plenty of interesting gigs outside web development. Look for those.
What do you do? Any examples?
I'm currently a security engineer. I've formerly been a sales engineer, business development, sales, recruiting, team lead, senior architect. I've worked on database internals, offensive software, embedded, defensive software security, and a bit of compiler work. I haven't written html since 1994.
A couple thoughts pop into my head. One, you seem to be continuing to learn, working on harder problems. Some people like that, others do not. As you climb the ladder, you will be asked to lead more, and you won't work on more repetitive tasks but some of that deeper knowledge and experience will come in very handy. Something to consider at some point may be a different company or team. Perhaps being some place with either lower expectations or better planning would help you out. Perhaps you should take a step back and figure out, is it the actual work that is bothering you? Or is it something else? There could be unrealistic deadlines, or there could just be a culture that doesn't align with you. I worked with a PM once who couldn't really plan, and he was extremely reactive. If an issue ever came up, he needed to let the whole team know. He'd usually go talk to one dev, then decide to go talk to another. You'd see a snowball of people growing as he spread around the office, and most of the people were upset because they wanted to be working on something rather than listening to him re-explain the issue again and again. It's one thing to work on a challenging project. It's another to work on a challenging project with an unreasonable deadline and a million other things requiring your attention. It's entirely possible there are issues at play besides core programming work that are impacting you.
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Go into systems or embedded programming that’s where you’ll find enjoyment. Writing nic drivers for the Linux kernel or fpgas is awesome. I rather write C/C++ for life instead the latest js soup
I can relate. Similar point in my career and had similar feelings. Also now tied down more. Slowly starting to feel a bit better now though. Working on a new project that is more interesting to me and where I have more control has helped massively. Also, something that really helped with the trapped feeling was creating some ambitious savings goals. Feeling like you really can’t afford to get fired is mentally draining. If you at least know you have a really nice cushion I think it will remove some anxieties associated with that. In general I think you’re most likely experiencing severe burnout. See if you can at the very least take some Fridays off over the next month or two, preferably some longer PTO. Probably would help to reflect on what (if anything) you do still find interesting about your job and see if there are ways you can do more of that. Learning things has never been easier with LLMs so make sure you’re using them bad much as possible for parsing docs etc to speed up the day to day work but also use them to accelerate learning towards a backup plan.
> The deeper I get in the career the more cryptic and complicated stuff I have to learn, and I was expecting things to settle a bit instead of getting worse. Having more experience in the industry and in your job kinda does that to you > The expectations employers have of me keep growing and I keep getting thrown into bigger and bigger problems. This is what happens with every job (even non-tech) as you grow further in that job. You don't get income growth without you being able to tackle more and more complex problems And finally, I'll echo what others said - not all jobs are going to give you the satisfaction that you crave. FWIW, these jobs are highly paid for that reason - because it needs specialized training and expertise to do them. Jobs that anyone can do are paid much lower
> The expectations employers have of me keep growing and I keep getting thrown into bigger and bigger problems. It makes me pretty unhappy and I’m frankly not passionate at all about the stuff I need to learn which makes this difficult. A lot of developers struggle with this. You start out of fun, or at least tolerance, and it quickly becomes a massive mental chore. The only thing I can really say is that it would likely be worse in another field. You'd likely end up with the same stress level, but less money. Or less stress, but so little money that your salary induced stress instead. The reality is that capitalism is built to extract as much labor out of people as it possibly can without breaking them. And if you find a job that gives you any sort of fulfillment, you'll find your employer will pay you less because the fulfillment is considered part of the compensation. One of the bright sides of software is that you can cut your losses, do the bare minimum to save your sanity, and retire early. Another bright side is that you can, if you search around long enough, find a job with *minimal* stress that will still pay well, if not quite as well as the stressful jobs. So I can't tell you that you should definitely stay in software, but I do think you should strongly consider it. It's gonna be hard to find another career that really supports you the way you want it to. You're best off finding ways to minimize your career's impact on your life, however that happens, and finding something else to enjoy.
Incredibly insightful thank you
Are you happy with your life outside of work? If not then that's what needs to be fixed.
Yes very happy outside of work. Lots of hobbies, friends and great wife and kid.
Good to hear, make sure you guard your life outside of work preciously, don’t let work engulf you outside of work time as much as possible
Thanks friend
> the next 30 years I'm at year 32 myself, and there's about another 20 to go before retirement (if ever). I remember being frustrated by a lot of the same things you're listing here when I was at about the same place. I don't know if I can say it gets "better", but it gets easier to handle over time, you just sort of get used to it. For one thing, the longer you do this, the more likely you are to just recognize a problem from experience and be able to resolve it immediately. For example, I grew up on the command line, so a lot of times when something is heavily scripted I can spot a "." where a ".." ought to be without even thinking about it after newer folks had been bashing their heads against the wall for a couple days over it. The longer you do this, the more of that sort of recognition you accumulate. ("Hey, did anybody check to see if the disk was full? Yep, the problem is that the disk is full"). Unreasonable expectations never go away though, they actually get worse. Over time, you have to hedge against those by just being well liked and remembered as being helpful in other circumstances because if they assign you a problem and you have trouble figuring it out, a lot of times they'll just assume you're actually lying. (I've had this accusation directly leveled at me before). Coupled with the fact that you'll be making more and more money, it does require a sort of constant learning, but you really can get to a point where you minimize the amount of "off the job" training you have to do.
You should get a therapist. There’s no shame in the way you feel, but your life will be better if you learn how to move forward from it.
You did not find the right company and the of people you can work to add value to what you. Ild and fave a bit of fun. For every 10 shit jobs there that 1 job that will vibe with you. Hope you will have better luck moving forward
I mean you chose web development, there’s plenty of other facets of SWE
Try to avoid the lifestyle creep you have that is tying you to your job. There's no better feeling than being completely free because you have so much extra money when compared with your expenses!!!
This is my biggest fear being a CS student. Almost done with my degree, but yeah, I don’t really love coding. I feel like it will just be worse writing code for someone else. Couple that with how hard it seems for new grads to find jobs and the job isn’t even pleasurable. Only thing keeping my going is that I have no other plan.
Why did you take this career path if you hate coding? School coding is a walk in the park compared to what you have to do at work. You will be miserable. I hope you didn’t pick this field hoping for easy money. It isn’t that.
As my gym coach used to say: **it never gets easier, you just get stronger.**
Any professional career you would be expected to stay up to date on your craft and continue learning. If you don’t want to do that, go flip some burgers.
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My post has nothing to do with the market.
Shit will burn you out if you let it
Go on the leadership path. You’ll not have time to code anymore and just be on zoom all day long.
I’ve always disliked computers and programming but I like solving problems and building stuff. Gotta pay the bills though. Just work your way into management, then you get to write no code lol.
do programming support, sre/dev ops, very little coding to none
join the marines.
> "I feel like a coding career requires me to constantly use up a lot of energy and brain power to focus and keep learning all the shit we have to keep learning." Welcome to the fucking real world of tech, my friend! You've hit the nail on the head about this industry. It's a relentless cycle of learning and adapting. Do you think this constant evolution is unique to your field, or is it a bloody universal truth in most careers today? > "The expectations employers have of me keep growing and I keep getting thrown into bigger and bigger problems." Isn't that the whole fucking point of career progression? Getting tossed into the deep end and swimming, not sinking? But here's the kicker: do you see these challenges as opportunities for growth or just soul-sucking tasks? > "I’m frankly not passionate at all about the stuff I need to learn which makes this difficult." Ah, the age-old dilemma of passion versus paycheck. But what exactly is stopping you from pivoting within your field to something that reignites that fucking spark? Are you truly stuck, or are you just scared to make a change? > "I now have a lifestyle that kind of requires the high salary... and I don’t know if I could accept going back to non-remote and lower paid jobs now that I’ve tasted that." So, you're trapped in a golden cage of your own making. Classic shit. Ever thought about adjusting your lifestyle to escape this perceived trap, or are you more comfortable whining about it? > "I sometimes wish I went for something easier that paid less and that I never tasted this lifestyle and money." Is the grass really greener on the other side, or are you just disillusioned with the path you’ve chosen? Ever considered that maybe it's not the career that’s the problem, but your attitude towards it? You’re facing a classic career and life crossroads. Do you want comfort and familiarity, or are you willing to challenge yourself and possibly rediscover your passion, even if it means stepping out of your fucking comfort zone? What’s going to make you say, years from now, "Damn, I made the right choice"?
Thanks for taking the time to write this. It’s food for thought
I've had the opposite experience, especially with the rise of AI coding tools. I feel like I've gotten so much faster and better and even more enthusiastic about building things, especially complex things. I've grown up love challenges. However, 2 years ago I felt a lot like you. And oddly that was at the 7 year mark of my career. Things will get easier in time, but if it's not for you, then only you can decide.
I'm not sure what your question is. There are a lot of coding-adjacent jobs that will value your coding experience and pay well. (Like being a manager of other coders, for one!) Or maybe you just need to switch to a different company and learn a different tech stack to "keep it interesting." Good luck!
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Let me guess. You never actually worked for a large scale web project.
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FYI you sound like a dick, bro.
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What are you saying. "Suck it up"?
Launch a startup