6 ms·

I see more and more engineers that wish they had another job. Some are actively trying to get out.

by panic101 2y ago

vlan0 2y ago
Yeah. I'm done. My five year plan is to open a bakery. If I'm gonna slave away, might as well be for my own sake.
- lannisterstark 2y ago
  Well at least it's not farming this time. People have no idea how hard some of these careers they want to switch to are. (Note: not a dig at you per se, more the "I'm going to become a farmer" people because they can keep a monsterra alive)
  - travisgriggs 2y ago
    And even funnier for those of us that work in ag tech and know that the money in farming these days is in big business farming, run at scales far larger than traditional single family operations.
  - doubled112 2y ago
    I often joke about building a cabin in the woods where I don't even have an address, I'd have to send you coordinates. I always hope the story is just far fetched enough nobody thinks it's an actual plan, but I'm not sure. I have no intention of spending the rest of my life chopping firewood and hunting whatever I can find in these woods. It's an amazing fantasy (because it's short term) after dealing with a bunch of BS all week though.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      That fantasy is really fun for about 2 weeks a year. After that you realize how bad it is. I used volunteer to run the food stand at a local annual event for a charity to get my going into the restaurant fix out of my system (I quit only because I moved for other reasons)
- retrobox 2y ago
  I envy those with a solid plan to get out. I feel age is going to start to count against me and my passion for programming is dead. But I can’t deny the compensation in this career is great, which makes me not want to move on, for now
  - bluGill 2y ago
    I'm just glad I started contributing to my retirement plan before that happened. I can't afford to retire yet - but it looks like I'm well on my way to retiring early. Which is the ultimate out: If I don't like what I'm doing I can find a new hobby, then when that one gets boring either another or go back to a previous. (note that sitting around and doing nothing isn't in my plan)
- doug_durham 2y ago
  I truly hope you succeed. However I program because I can't stand to do the same thing over and over again. I want to automate away the monotony. Running a bakery seems like it's everything I don't want to do. You have to make the same products the same way every day. It's good work and I know a lot of people for who that's their dream. It's interesting that you went into programming first and then go into something that I perceive to be the opposite. Best of luck.
  - sungho_ 2y ago
    I agree. But this is just out of curiosity, what about jobs that don't have repetitive tasks and don't feel like coding, after you've spent enough time on coding. For example, business manager.
silverquiet 2y ago
I don't think it's a particularly new phenomenon. It's probably just as you age your cohort suffers from more burnout.
- bluGill 2y ago
  It is called a mid-life crisis. Around 40-45 many people get sick of their job and do a major job shift. Others buy an expensive sports car. It is very common at that age and has been noted for a long time. That is age cohort doesn't refer to your generation, other than "millennials" are entering those years now. Generation X is mostly done with it.
- space_oddity 2y ago
  burnout is such a horrible thing that happened to me quite recently
lylejantzi3rd 2y ago
This was always the case. Anybody remember the old Kuro5hin thread about the programmer who quit to become a bike messenger? I think that was back in the early 00s. Jamie Zawinski quit programming to sell beer in 1998. What is it about programming that makes so many people want to quit and do something else?
- BadHumans 2y ago
  I am working towards quitting programming. Everyone in programming is insane. Managers, stakeholders, other programmers. I'd rather do construction and program on my off time.
  - runjake 2y ago
    So then you’re quitting a software engineer job, you’re not quitting programming. The problem isn’t the programming part.
  - rqtwteye 2y ago
    When you talk about insanity in programming, it’s probably not the best escape to go into construction :-).
    - BadHumans 2y ago
      You're right but it's a different brand of crazy.
  - wizzwizz4 2y ago
    Margaret Hamilton coined the term "software engineering" circa 1965, because she recognised that she and her fellow Apollo programmers were doing engineering, and had to be doing engineering, because otherwise people would die. Engineering involves requirements analysis, specification, and the mathematical analysis of families of components to demonstrate – according to the known laws of reality – that the proposed solution meets the requirements and won't kill people. E.W.Dijkstra advocated, repeatedly, from the 1970s onwards (EWD340 – and probably earlier than that also), that software should be formally-analysed and -verified as a matter of course. He called this humility. We call him arrogant, and insane.
liquidpele 2y ago
I think it’s usually people that allow themselves to get burnt out though… Far too many programmers treat it like a hobby, and are severely taken advantage of by employers. 9-5, go home and don’t touch a computer, It’s just like any other job then.
- gr4vityWall 2y ago
  While I agree with you, in the sense that your suggestion is a viable solution for burn out, the outcome of that for these people is that they would lose their favorite hobby.
- kayodelycaon 2y ago
  I had to change my relationship with programming. To see it as a tool, a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. For me, this helped me put what I was doing into perspective. It's easier to accept imperfection when the goal does not require perfection.
  - from-nibly 2y ago
    Lets hope the rest of the industry can follow your example. Lets make software boring again.
close04 2y ago
Several of my friends left the IT sector to pursue some work related to farming and food production (farm, bakery, cake shop, bio foods, etc. are for some reason very popular choices). Anecdotally almost without exception the new job turned out to be just as much of a slog after some time, except with much lower financial reward, if any. I think sometimes it's just easier to think the grass is greener elsewhere. Hobbies are often not as fun when they become a job, a necessity. You can burn out just as easily with a hobby-turned-job if you're overdoing it. IT was probably a hobby before it became a job for many of today's engineers. The solution is to avoid overdoing it rather than to jump from one hobby-job to the next, maybe ruining them all in the process.
- silverquiet 2y ago
  Yes, I grew up in a blue collar home and understood the reality of that type of work enough to know to stay away from it. At the same time, a lot of knowledge work is very unsatisfying because it's often so abstract and even if meaningful (and there's plenty of bullshit software work out there) is such a small part of a larger system that it's hard to see your contribution. (I believe Marx would call it alienation of labor). Growing plants or building buildings or baking bread is the opposite; you can immediately see the product and get satisfaction from that. But given the economic realities, it's probably better if you can keep those as hobbies and slog through the day job.
  - spencerflem 2y ago
    I struggle with this too, and to some degree at least with my specific job and lots of the ones I see posted, it feels like its not the illusion of alienation, but that its actually correct and that the work is actually useless. At least for me personally I find it so very hard to be motivated to do something that doesn't matter for 40 hours a week. Which is easier than something that directly harms the world I guess..

I see more and more engineers that wish they had another job. Some are actively trying to get out.

vlan0 2y ago

Yeah. I'm done. My five year plan is to open a bakery. If I'm gonna slave away, might as well be for my own sake.

lannisterstark 2y ago
Well at least it's not farming this time. People have no idea how hard some of these careers they want to switch to are. (Note: not a dig at you per se, more the "I'm going to become a farmer" people because they can keep a monsterra alive)
- travisgriggs 2y ago
  And even funnier for those of us that work in ag tech and know that the money in farming these days is in big business farming, run at scales far larger than traditional single family operations.
- doubled112 2y ago
  I often joke about building a cabin in the woods where I don't even have an address, I'd have to send you coordinates. I always hope the story is just far fetched enough nobody thinks it's an actual plan, but I'm not sure. I have no intention of spending the rest of my life chopping firewood and hunting whatever I can find in these woods. It's an amazing fantasy (because it's short term) after dealing with a bunch of BS all week though.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    That fantasy is really fun for about 2 weeks a year. After that you realize how bad it is. I used volunteer to run the food stand at a local annual event for a charity to get my going into the restaurant fix out of my system (I quit only because I moved for other reasons)
retrobox 2y ago
I envy those with a solid plan to get out. I feel age is going to start to count against me and my passion for programming is dead. But I can’t deny the compensation in this career is great, which makes me not want to move on, for now
- bluGill 2y ago
  I'm just glad I started contributing to my retirement plan before that happened. I can't afford to retire yet - but it looks like I'm well on my way to retiring early. Which is the ultimate out: If I don't like what I'm doing I can find a new hobby, then when that one gets boring either another or go back to a previous. (note that sitting around and doing nothing isn't in my plan)
doug_durham 2y ago
I truly hope you succeed. However I program because I can't stand to do the same thing over and over again. I want to automate away the monotony. Running a bakery seems like it's everything I don't want to do. You have to make the same products the same way every day. It's good work and I know a lot of people for who that's their dream. It's interesting that you went into programming first and then go into something that I perceive to be the opposite. Best of luck.
- sungho_ 2y ago
  I agree. But this is just out of curiosity, what about jobs that don't have repetitive tasks and don't feel like coding, after you've spent enough time on coding. For example, business manager.

silverquiet 2y ago

I don't think it's a particularly new phenomenon. It's probably just as you age your cohort suffers from more burnout.

bluGill 2y ago
It is called a mid-life crisis. Around 40-45 many people get sick of their job and do a major job shift. Others buy an expensive sports car. It is very common at that age and has been noted for a long time. That is age cohort doesn't refer to your generation, other than "millennials" are entering those years now. Generation X is mostly done with it.
space_oddity 2y ago
burnout is such a horrible thing that happened to me quite recently

lylejantzi3rd 2y ago

This was always the case. Anybody remember the old Kuro5hin thread about the programmer who quit to become a bike messenger? I think that was back in the early 00s. Jamie Zawinski quit programming to sell beer in 1998. What is it about programming that makes so many people want to quit and do something else?

BadHumans 2y ago
I am working towards quitting programming. Everyone in programming is insane. Managers, stakeholders, other programmers. I'd rather do construction and program on my off time.
- runjake 2y ago
  So then you’re quitting a software engineer job, you’re not quitting programming. The problem isn’t the programming part.
- rqtwteye 2y ago
  When you talk about insanity in programming, it’s probably not the best escape to go into construction :-).
  - BadHumans 2y ago
    You're right but it's a different brand of crazy.
- wizzwizz4 2y ago
  Margaret Hamilton coined the term "software engineering" circa 1965, because she recognised that she and her fellow Apollo programmers were doing engineering, and had to be doing engineering, because otherwise people would die. Engineering involves requirements analysis, specification, and the mathematical analysis of families of components to demonstrate – according to the known laws of reality – that the proposed solution meets the requirements and won't kill people. E.W.Dijkstra advocated, repeatedly, from the 1970s onwards (EWD340 – and probably earlier than that also), that software should be formally-analysed and -verified as a matter of course. He called this humility. We call him arrogant, and insane.

liquidpele 2y ago

I think it’s usually people that allow themselves to get burnt out though… Far too many programmers treat it like a hobby, and are severely taken advantage of by employers. 9-5, go home and don’t touch a computer, It’s just like any other job then.

gr4vityWall 2y ago
While I agree with you, in the sense that your suggestion is a viable solution for burn out, the outcome of that for these people is that they would lose their favorite hobby.
kayodelycaon 2y ago
I had to change my relationship with programming. To see it as a tool, a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. For me, this helped me put what I was doing into perspective. It's easier to accept imperfection when the goal does not require perfection.
- from-nibly 2y ago
  Lets hope the rest of the industry can follow your example. Lets make software boring again.

close04 2y ago

Several of my friends left the IT sector to pursue some work related to farming and food production (farm, bakery, cake shop, bio foods, etc. are for some reason very popular choices). Anecdotally almost without exception the new job turned out to be just as much of a slog after some time, except with much lower financial reward, if any. I think sometimes it's just easier to think the grass is greener elsewhere. Hobbies are often not as fun when they become a job, a necessity. You can burn out just as easily with a hobby-turned-job if you're overdoing it. IT was probably a hobby before it became a job for many of today's engineers. The solution is to avoid overdoing it rather than to jump from one hobby-job to the next, maybe ruining them all in the process.

silverquiet 2y ago
Yes, I grew up in a blue collar home and understood the reality of that type of work enough to know to stay away from it. At the same time, a lot of knowledge work is very unsatisfying because it's often so abstract and even if meaningful (and there's plenty of bullshit software work out there) is such a small part of a larger system that it's hard to see your contribution. (I believe Marx would call it alienation of labor). Growing plants or building buildings or baking bread is the opposite; you can immediately see the product and get satisfaction from that. But given the economic realities, it's probably better if you can keep those as hobbies and slog through the day job.
- spencerflem 2y ago
  I struggle with this too, and to some degree at least with my specific job and lots of the ones I see posted, it feels like its not the illusion of alienation, but that its actually correct and that the work is actually useless. At least for me personally I find it so very hard to be motivated to do something that doesn't matter for 40 hours a week. Which is easier than something that directly harms the world I guess..