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I suspect a lot of ADHD people become programmers because software can compliment the countless fleeting interests we have. That said, programming as a career

I suspect a lot of ADHD people become programmers because software can compliment the countless fleeting interests we have. That said, programming as a career is still more challenging to us because non-ADHD programmers are more likely to succeed with numerous responsibilities and more complex and boring tasks. The more an ADHD programmer advances, the fewer of his immediate peers will have ADHD. This is one of the reasons why I will refuse a job title that is greater than senior engineer. I know in my heart of hearts that being a staff or lead engineer will be bad for everyone. I'm not even particularly stellar as a senior engineer, but I can at least sustain it. Reaching this point can be astonishing to the undiagnosed ADHD programmer. For the first handful of years into their career, their shortcomings were either dismissed as inexperience or covered for by coping mechanisms. In my experience, the coping mechanisms start to buckle once you're a senior level programmer. Get a diagnosis ASAP if you suspect you have ADHD. Medication and other things can definitely help. I also think there's nothing wrong in figuring out just how much mental capacity you have to give to your job and not exceeding it, even if that means rejecting prestige.

k__ 4y ago
Thanks. Yes, I'm rejecting well paying jobs constantly because I couldn't bear to be employed and working 40h a week again.
swozey 4y ago
My problem with programming (of which I've been trying to really do decent at for years but failing) + ADHD is my memory is absolutely trash. I'll spend a week or two working on an app and then put it down for a month and it takes me a day just to get rolling with it again because I basically learn/work by brute forcing things to work as opposed to remembering concepts that would make it work without having to do so. It's frustrating and makes me often give up. I work in Ops, so it's not a day to day thing for me to write any code. Thankfully with all of the fires and different things to work on in Ops I think it's a very good fit for an ADHD person.
- k__ 4y ago
  Tooling helped a bit. Debuggers or things like Sentry and Honeycomb. Basically everything that gives me runtime insights to the software. Using static types and tests to ensure every dumb change I make gets caught somewhere.
- phil21 4y ago
  Ha, this is basically me. I've written a few (small) apps/tools over the course of my career, but every time they have been extreme focus events where I had to re-learn the language from the ground up. I remember concepts (e.g. I know I need a for loop here), but not the exact syntax of how to write them, for example. I cannot force myself to do this - I have to have a direct immediate interest in getting that specific tool done and it typically happens on accident. Ops I think can be great for this personality type. But it really depends on the exact ops job, and the person in question. Some ops jobs are more flexible than others, and I think flexibility is really what matters the most. I was an extremely productive sysadmin when I did that as my dayjob, but if you asked me to show up during any block of 8 contiguous hours we were going to have a bad time. If I could randomly show up at 3am to hack out that task I just remembered it was a great fit, since you'd get far more work out of me overall.
curioussavage 4y ago
Mostly agree. I really floundered when I got promoted to senior. Then got diagnosed. Meds and exercise help. Or at least I think they do. Hard to gauge progress without a job.

k__ 4y ago

Thanks. Yes, I'm rejecting well paying jobs constantly because I couldn't bear to be employed and working 40h a week again.

swozey 4y ago

My problem with programming (of which I've been trying to really do decent at for years but failing) + ADHD is my memory is absolutely trash. I'll spend a week or two working on an app and then put it down for a month and it takes me a day just to get rolling with it again because I basically learn/work by brute forcing things to work as opposed to remembering concepts that would make it work without having to do so. It's frustrating and makes me often give up. I work in Ops, so it's not a day to day thing for me to write any code. Thankfully with all of the fires and different things to work on in Ops I think it's a very good fit for an ADHD person.

k__ 4y ago
Tooling helped a bit. Debuggers or things like Sentry and Honeycomb. Basically everything that gives me runtime insights to the software. Using static types and tests to ensure every dumb change I make gets caught somewhere.
phil21 4y ago
Ha, this is basically me. I've written a few (small) apps/tools over the course of my career, but every time they have been extreme focus events where I had to re-learn the language from the ground up. I remember concepts (e.g. I know I need a for loop here), but not the exact syntax of how to write them, for example. I cannot force myself to do this - I have to have a direct immediate interest in getting that specific tool done and it typically happens on accident. Ops I think can be great for this personality type. But it really depends on the exact ops job, and the person in question. Some ops jobs are more flexible than others, and I think flexibility is really what matters the most. I was an extremely productive sysadmin when I did that as my dayjob, but if you asked me to show up during any block of 8 contiguous hours we were going to have a bad time. If I could randomly show up at 3am to hack out that task I just remembered it was a great fit, since you'd get far more work out of me overall.

curioussavage 4y ago

Mostly agree. I really floundered when I got promoted to senior. Then got diagnosed. Meds and exercise help. Or at least I think they do. Hard to gauge progress without a job.