9 ms·

Not with the job in particular, just want to take a break from tech especially from being a programmer. Tired of staring at a screen for 80% of my awake time a

Not with the job in particular, just want to take a break from tech especially from being a programmer. Tired of staring at a screen for 80% of my awake time and constant puzzle solving. Sick of people in this industry making you feel you're not smart enough, that you're not enough no matter how many times you prove yourself in past work.

throwaway76576 7y ago
Same. Have been thinking about taking a 6-month sabbatical from all things tech, but then worried I might just become so obsolete and out of touch that I'd rather suck it up.
- throwaway29488 7y ago
  yup I have the exact same worry, I have a little side business unrelated to tech that is profitting about 500-1k depending on the month. Considering taking a leave to work on that fulltime but also worried when I come back I'd just become completely out of touch.
- ScottFree 7y ago
  Don't worry too much about becoming obsolete. Frontend web development is my field and it moves faster than any other single area of programming. I took 5 years off due to burnout and it only took me a month or two to get back up to speed from a technical perspective. Putting up with the bullshit interviews is another story. I freelance now.
  - drinchev 7y ago
    +1 for freelancing. I never had to deal with any of the bullshit 2 days on-site interview with whiteboard challenge. I don't get the full interview routine because I'm considered "external" and "temporary workforce" ( 6-12 months ). Funny story that I've seen lots of "internals" moving to other gigs in about the same amount of time. Freelancing gives you the opportunity to do your job, get your money and don't get involved in company policies. As a side-effect you pass interviews and have flexible working hours.
    - wil421 7y ago
      How do you start finding clients for freelancing? How do you figure out a competitive rate without going too high or low? I have about 10-15 hours of real work to do each week at MegaCorp. The rest is idle time at my desk/couch. Thought about moonlighting and doing 2 jobs but freelance sounds better.
- throwawatwo2222 7y ago
  As someone who experienced the same thing and started their sabbatical 3 months ago, I highly recommend/encourage it. I regret not having started my sabbatical earlier.
  - toop43 7y ago
    The elephant in the room whenever anyone talks about taking a sabbatical is MONEY... What are you guys doing for money? Just burning savings?
jlangemeier 7y ago
Actually talked with my therapist about this exact thing; apparently we're in a weird industry where your side projects matter more than your actual work that you're paid to produce. The look on their face as I'm explaining how if I ever quit my job I'll need to put twice as much work into side projects to stay relevant was... enlightening.
toop43 7y ago
> Sick of people in this industry making you feel you're not smart enough, that you're not enough no matter how many times you prove yourself in past work. Dealing with this in the heavy right now. I've built a lot in my 10 years as a programmer. Infinitely, and automatically scaled application server based on load. Hasn't crashed or had a single downtime ever since release. I've built mobile applications 100% myself being used by thousands still today. I've learned 7 different programming languages. I've done web, mobile, server, and even bare metal firmware. The only 'domain' I haven't touched yet is ML. Yet.... I truly feel DUMB. I feel like I'm nothing in this industry when one phone screen call puts you into an 'online assessment' where I can't solve the problem in better than O(N^2) time. These fucking algorithms are killing me, and making me have a hard realization that maybe I'm just not cut out for this. Yea, I've built shit... but you know what... anyone could. I've plugged together a bunch of work other people did, and wallah, working server. Working app. Working whatever. But I can't write the libraries. I can't code a hyper scalable function that could handle petabytes of data. The only reason my fucking amazing server hasn't crashed is because it doesn't handle anything close to the scale that many companies need. Hence why these algorithms are so important. But I can't fucking get better at them.
- stevewodil 7y ago
  Outsource things you aren't good at. You think Tim Cook knows how to write the code required for iPhone hardware to communicate? No.
  - toop43 7y ago
    Well, I'll be sure to tell that to the next guy who sends me an 'online assessment'.
    - stevewodil 7y ago
      Maybe it's time to build something for yourself then. You have the necessary skills, basically a full stack dev + devOps. That's the route I'm taking - also have never studied algorithms or data structures and am mostly self taught.
abakker 7y ago
To you and any other developers that feel this way, there are plenty of companies out there, big and small that need your skills. FWIW, developers that know how to buckle down and do work are so important to a lot of un-sexy businesses, but especially on a project basis. Ever thought of working as a consultant? Or just doing part time technology work/advisory for several small businesses? It's riskier than a salary, but the work is much more deterministic than it is novel. edit: clarity
JohnFen 7y ago
> Sick of people in this industry making you feel you're not smart enough I just want to mention that this isn't an industry-wide problem. It is a cultural problem that tends to be concentrated in a few geographic areas and a few specific sectors of the industry. You might benefit from taking a step back and considering a substantial change without leaving the industry entirely -- to a new geographic area, or a new sector of the industry. Also, there is quite a lot of very interesting and well-paying dev work in businesses that aren't IT-related. They often have difficulty finding top notch talent, and as a result will pay well and be thrilled to have you.
- abledon 7y ago
  name these industries please!
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    That would be a rather lengthy list, as devs are needed in most industries. But here are a handful (not an exhaustive list) that exist in my area: trucking, railroads, banking, major retailers and wholesalers, hospitals. I'm not talking about bean-counting software here, either. The single best software dev job I ever had was not working for a software house. It was working in a neurscience lab on applications ranging from software that ran custom experimental equipment all the way through writing software that emulated biological neural networks.

throwaway76576 7y ago

Same. Have been thinking about taking a 6-month sabbatical from all things tech, but then worried I might just become so obsolete and out of touch that I'd rather suck it up.

throwaway29488 7y ago
yup I have the exact same worry, I have a little side business unrelated to tech that is profitting about 500-1k depending on the month. Considering taking a leave to work on that fulltime but also worried when I come back I'd just become completely out of touch.
ScottFree 7y ago
Don't worry too much about becoming obsolete. Frontend web development is my field and it moves faster than any other single area of programming. I took 5 years off due to burnout and it only took me a month or two to get back up to speed from a technical perspective. Putting up with the bullshit interviews is another story. I freelance now.
- drinchev 7y ago
  +1 for freelancing. I never had to deal with any of the bullshit 2 days on-site interview with whiteboard challenge. I don't get the full interview routine because I'm considered "external" and "temporary workforce" ( 6-12 months ). Funny story that I've seen lots of "internals" moving to other gigs in about the same amount of time. Freelancing gives you the opportunity to do your job, get your money and don't get involved in company policies. As a side-effect you pass interviews and have flexible working hours.
  - wil421 7y ago
    How do you start finding clients for freelancing? How do you figure out a competitive rate without going too high or low? I have about 10-15 hours of real work to do each week at MegaCorp. The rest is idle time at my desk/couch. Thought about moonlighting and doing 2 jobs but freelance sounds better.
throwawatwo2222 7y ago
As someone who experienced the same thing and started their sabbatical 3 months ago, I highly recommend/encourage it. I regret not having started my sabbatical earlier.
- toop43 7y ago
  The elephant in the room whenever anyone talks about taking a sabbatical is MONEY... What are you guys doing for money? Just burning savings?

jlangemeier 7y ago

Actually talked with my therapist about this exact thing; apparently we're in a weird industry where your side projects matter more than your actual work that you're paid to produce. The look on their face as I'm explaining how if I ever quit my job I'll need to put twice as much work into side projects to stay relevant was... enlightening.

toop43 7y ago

> Sick of people in this industry making you feel you're not smart enough, that you're not enough no matter how many times you prove yourself in past work. Dealing with this in the heavy right now. I've built a lot in my 10 years as a programmer. Infinitely, and automatically scaled application server based on load. Hasn't crashed or had a single downtime ever since release. I've built mobile applications 100% myself being used by thousands still today. I've learned 7 different programming languages. I've done web, mobile, server, and even bare metal firmware. The only 'domain' I haven't touched yet is ML. Yet.... I truly feel DUMB. I feel like I'm nothing in this industry when one phone screen call puts you into an 'online assessment' where I can't solve the problem in better than O(N^2) time. These fucking algorithms are killing me, and making me have a hard realization that maybe I'm just not cut out for this. Yea, I've built shit... but you know what... anyone could. I've plugged together a bunch of work other people did, and wallah, working server. Working app. Working whatever. But I can't write the libraries. I can't code a hyper scalable function that could handle petabytes of data. The only reason my fucking amazing server hasn't crashed is because it doesn't handle anything close to the scale that many companies need. Hence why these algorithms are so important. But I can't fucking get better at them.

stevewodil 7y ago
Outsource things you aren't good at. You think Tim Cook knows how to write the code required for iPhone hardware to communicate? No.
- toop43 7y ago
  Well, I'll be sure to tell that to the next guy who sends me an 'online assessment'.
  - stevewodil 7y ago
    Maybe it's time to build something for yourself then. You have the necessary skills, basically a full stack dev + devOps. That's the route I'm taking - also have never studied algorithms or data structures and am mostly self taught.

abakker 7y ago

To you and any other developers that feel this way, there are plenty of companies out there, big and small that need your skills. FWIW, developers that know how to buckle down and do work are so important to a lot of un-sexy businesses, but especially on a project basis. Ever thought of working as a consultant? Or just doing part time technology work/advisory for several small businesses? It's riskier than a salary, but the work is much more deterministic than it is novel. edit: clarity

JohnFen 7y ago

> Sick of people in this industry making you feel you're not smart enough I just want to mention that this isn't an industry-wide problem. It is a cultural problem that tends to be concentrated in a few geographic areas and a few specific sectors of the industry. You might benefit from taking a step back and considering a substantial change without leaving the industry entirely -- to a new geographic area, or a new sector of the industry. Also, there is quite a lot of very interesting and well-paying dev work in businesses that aren't IT-related. They often have difficulty finding top notch talent, and as a result will pay well and be thrilled to have you.

abledon 7y ago
name these industries please!
- JohnFen 7y ago
  That would be a rather lengthy list, as devs are needed in most industries. But here are a handful (not an exhaustive list) that exist in my area: trucking, railroads, banking, major retailers and wholesalers, hospitals. I'm not talking about bean-counting software here, either. The single best software dev job I ever had was not working for a software house. It was working in a neurscience lab on applications ranging from software that ran custom experimental equipment all the way through writing software that emulated biological neural networks.