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I'm only at around 13 years of professional programming, but I went through a period of 4-5 years where I stopped enjoying it (actually, I hated it). What reso

I'm only at around 13 years of professional programming, but I went through a period of 4-5 years where I stopped enjoying it (actually, I hated it). What resolved it for me was pretty simple in the end: I joined a company where I really believe in the mission, and I'm surrounded by like-minded people. This has given me a great amount of motivation and reminded me that programming is a superpower. I was simply lost on where to apply this superpower. Solving important (to me) problems has re-ignited my love of programming, and now even writing yet another piece of CRUD is fun because I believe it will make a difference in the world. I'm looking beyond just the code I'm writing down and thinking about how it helps our users, effective communication, how growth will be affected, how malleable it is, how quickly I can achieve the goal, and so on. Another thing that helped me was researching other careers. I found a couple of things I think I would get a great deal of satisfaction from. I felt very trapped in a career I hated, and looking at another 30+ years of this was like a dark cloud over me. Giving myself an escape route gave me a lot of clarity and lifted that cloud. I can walk away at any time, if I want to.

non-entity 6y ago
> Another thing that helped me was researching other careers. I found a couple of things I think I would get a great deal of satisfaction from. I felt very trapped in a career I hated, and looking at another 30+ years of this was like a dark cloud over me. I sometimes wish I had gone to school, but for something other than CS. I got into software development with no career at all, there arent a ton of other interesting fields open to uneducated people. If I had gone to school for some other subject I was interested in, i could still have the option of a well-padi software career, but also in something else that fascinates me, as well as opening up a new class of "hybrid jobs" using programming in specialized domains
- mhotchen 6y ago
  I am in the same position. I also wish I'd gone to university, taken my education seriously, and done something other than CS (all easy to say in retrospect). There's still time :) There are plenty of careers out there that are open to smart but unqualified people though. Once I looked around I realised my options aren't so bad (and some of the options I found may tempt me yet).

non-entity 6y ago

> Another thing that helped me was researching other careers. I found a couple of things I think I would get a great deal of satisfaction from. I felt very trapped in a career I hated, and looking at another 30+ years of this was like a dark cloud over me. I sometimes wish I had gone to school, but for something other than CS. I got into software development with no career at all, there arent a ton of other interesting fields open to uneducated people. If I had gone to school for some other subject I was interested in, i could still have the option of a well-padi software career, but also in something else that fascinates me, as well as opening up a new class of "hybrid jobs" using programming in specialized domains

mhotchen 6y ago
I am in the same position. I also wish I'd gone to university, taken my education seriously, and done something other than CS (all easy to say in retrospect). There's still time :) There are plenty of careers out there that are open to smart but unqualified people though. Once I looked around I realised my options aren't so bad (and some of the options I found may tempt me yet).