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Absolutely. These days this tends to happen to me most often if I don't keep the programming limited in scope. For example if it's a work project and I go, "hey

Absolutely. These days this tends to happen to me most often if I don't keep the programming limited in scope. For example if it's a work project and I go, "hey I'll do that" and dive in. Yeah no. To me, this model absolutely applies: Writing code is little-picture, detail work. So is typing, so is debugging, so is deployment. So you can bury yourself in detail work as a coder. And, I'm not a little-picture person. If I'm doing detail work, it's generally got to be really interesting to me, or otherwise highly relevant to my personal values, or I'm going to burn out pretty fast. In that way, it's a very good fit as a hobby. Nothing super-important, but also really fun? Sure, I'll dive into those details for a while, and then get back to work. In my work-coding then, the risk is that I overkill on detail that's not interesting to me. So I keep things as high-level and reasonably scope-defined as possible in order to avoid the downsides of this. For example, I use big-picture plan to build the rationale for the work, then I schedule the work to happen in comfortable phases that jive with my overall schedule (avoiding a detail-crunch), I framework my entire coding practice from beginning to end, I reuse code when applicable, and so on. I always watch for ways to make it easier next time. But going beyond that: I have something fun or interesting planned for afterward, I have interesting things going on during (music, movies I like, snacks I like, etc.) and I package my work for later in case I need to do the same thing again in some way. I had to discover this pretty early on in my career but it's been helpful since that time. As a subjective hobby, I find that programming is metaphorically the same as scheduling for objectivity (get with the program, theatre programs, object-oriented programming, and so on). So at those times, programming as an interest that "strikes me in the moment" helps me to remember to carefully, patiently stay on track and accountable on objective passion projects that I suck at, and that I want to do anyway. Bravo on the career reflection btw. If you're not enjoying your career, changes have just got to be made.

djellybeans 4y ago
That's an interesting perspective to me, since I'm the complete opposite with detail work. I feel like I am very much a little-picture person. Most of my career I tend to strike out billable line items, close tickets, and became very comfortable with it. I found it easier to get in the groove of things with feature work coming in and chugging through it at a predictable pace. It's true that you bury yourself in the details that way, but I didn't mind it. However, this little-picture focus turned out to be bad for me in the long run. I avoided small talk with co-workers, there was little to no casual socializing, after work I just want to shut my brain off and turn on Netflix or a video game when I'm back home. Because of my focus of tallying down complete items being more important, I saw writing code as the only important thing there is to my job and career. I stopped noticing my coworker's needs around me, the company's greater needs, and the industry trends around me. It included not caring about network building, company meets or other "extracurriculars" that will get you noticed and have a peer put in a good word for you. I didn't want to manage big things, whether it's my network or my skillset. I just wanted to live in the moment and meet my boss's demands each day without worrying. Consequently I would have to change focus now that I know how important the big picture is and not to ignore it. If I had to choose an alternative I might go for a ECE career or perhaps aerospace. Both will however require a full degree- you can't easily self-teach your way into those types of careers.

djellybeans 4y ago

That's an interesting perspective to me, since I'm the complete opposite with detail work. I feel like I am very much a little-picture person. Most of my career I tend to strike out billable line items, close tickets, and became very comfortable with it. I found it easier to get in the groove of things with feature work coming in and chugging through it at a predictable pace. It's true that you bury yourself in the details that way, but I didn't mind it. However, this little-picture focus turned out to be bad for me in the long run. I avoided small talk with co-workers, there was little to no casual socializing, after work I just want to shut my brain off and turn on Netflix or a video game when I'm back home. Because of my focus of tallying down complete items being more important, I saw writing code as the only important thing there is to my job and career. I stopped noticing my coworker's needs around me, the company's greater needs, and the industry trends around me. It included not caring about network building, company meets or other "extracurriculars" that will get you noticed and have a peer put in a good word for you. I didn't want to manage big things, whether it's my network or my skillset. I just wanted to live in the moment and meet my boss's demands each day without worrying. Consequently I would have to change focus now that I know how important the big picture is and not to ignore it. If I had to choose an alternative I might go for a ECE career or perhaps aerospace. Both will however require a full degree- you can't easily self-teach your way into those types of careers.