4 ms·

Sometimes I wonder if I made the wrong choice with software development. Even after getting to a senior role, according to this article, you're still expected t

Sometimes I wonder if I made the wrong choice with software development. Even after getting to a senior role, according to this article, you're still expected to get more education and work on side projects outside of work. Am I supposed to want to code all the time? When can I pursue hobbies, a social life, etc.

jedberg 9mo ago
It's funny you should ask this. When I started out, 30 years ago, here were the answers you'd get from most people: > Am I supposed to want to code all the time? Yes. > When can I pursue hobbies, Your hobby should be coding fun apps for yourself > a social life, etc. You social life should be hanging out with other engineers talking about engineering things. And the most successful people I know basically did exactly that. I'm not saying y'all should be doing that now, I'm just saying, that is in fact how it used to be.
- KaiserPro 9mo ago
  > You social life should be hanging out with other engineers talking about engineering things. Fuck. That. I worked at a faang, successful people weren't people that did engineering, it was people who did politics. The most successful people were the ones that joined at the same time as the current VP. Your hobbies need to be fun, to you. Not support your career. If its just there to support your career, its unpaid career development, not a hobby. Should people not code in their free time? thats not for me to decide. If they enjoy it, and its not hurting anyone, then be my guest. Engineers are generally useless at understanding whats going on in the real world, they are also quite bad at communicating. do. fun. things.
  - izacus 9mo ago
    You just sound very angry your career isn't fun to you. I'm sorry.
    - raw_anon_1111 9mo ago
      I never worked “for fun”. My job for 30 years is just a means to support my addiction to food and shelter. I don’t hate my job especially my last 3 since 2020 when I started working remotely. But it is just something I do.
      - izacus 9mo ago
        Yes, that's the answer that sounds utterly miserable. Spending 30 years toiling for a third of your day at something you don't like. I'm sorry for you as well.
        raw_anon_1111 9mo ago
        Out of all the things I consider “toiling” waking up, rolling out of bed, and walking over to the room next door is not one of them. I’m more concerned that it is the highlight of someone’s life being in front of a computer all day.
    - KaiserPro 9mo ago
      Thats an odd assertion. My career has been fun, thats why I still do the thing I'm doing. I've worked with the very best in their respective fields for ~20 years. I have done many and varied fun things through work, and continue to do so. But. Work stops at contracted time. After that it's me time.
  - hncoder12345 9mo ago
    I love your last point. I asked this question because I used to be the person that would spend 4+ hours after work every day trying to keep up with new tech and working on side projects. But now, I've gotten into art and it's really changed my perspective on things like this. I've spent many hours doing, as you call it, unpaid career development instead of pursuing hobbies, building up my friendships, and in general just having fun. It feels like I've taken life so seriously and I don't have much to show for it.
- gofreddygo 9mo ago
  Not my experience at all. The very notable engineers I know didn't do their most notable work because of engineering or coding skills. Instead it was finding interesting problems and making a start or thinking a bit differently about something and doing something about it and being approachable and available all along that made a difference. If all they did was code all the time, write code for fun and interacted mostly with other similar people, they probably wouldn't be the first choice for these projects.
- MyFirstSass 9mo ago
  That's not true at all. The ones who ace their careers are for the most people that are fun, driven, or psychos, all social traits that make you good in a political game. Spending lots of time with other socially awkward types talking about hard math problems or whatever will get you nowhere outside of some SF fantasy startup movie. I'd say it's especially important for the more nerdy (myself included) to be more outgoing, and do other stuff like sales or presentations, design/marketing og workshops - that will make you exceptional because you then got the "whole package" and undestand the process and other people.
- misja111 9mo ago
  > And the most successful people I know basically did exactly that. Well that depends heavily on how you define successful. Successful in life? I would tend to disagree, unless you believe that career is the only thing that counts. But even when career is concerned: the most successful people I know went on from being developer to some high end management role. The skills that brought them there definitely did not come from hanging out with other engineers talking about engineering things.
- raw_anon_1111 9mo ago
  I also started 30 years ago - mid 1996. I did not do side projects. I really enjoyed most of my 20s as a single person. I was a part time fitness instructor, I dated, hung out with friends, did some traveling. The other developers at my job also had plenty of outside hobbies.
johnfn 9mo ago
To put it very directly - if you are OK with being good but not exceptional at your job, this is totally fine. If you want to be exceptional you will probably need to put in the extra work. Not everyone is OK with this tradeoff and it's totally fine to "just" be good and care more about having outside hobbies and a social life and etc.
- hncoder12345 9mo ago
  I had a period of time where I really wanted to be exceptional. I spent many hours studying and working on side projects but it just never really clicked. I think I'm decent at what I do for work but more complicated topics (graphics programming, low level memory management, etc.) just seem to not stick, no matter how many hours I put into studying. Sometimes it feels like I'm forcing this career but after this many years it's hard to give it up. I do still enjoy it but I don't think I'll ever really get it.
  - stephendause 9mo ago
    Your story sounds similar to mine. There are some parts of programming at which I know I will never excel. I also don't have time in my life to spends lots of hours outside of work developing my skills. I think it's important to realize that the median software engineer is probably not doing these things either. Maybe the top 10% are? Something like that would be my guess. It's okay to not be in the top 10%!
    - hncoder12345 9mo ago
      This is refreshing to read. Sometimes when I come here and look at the posts and comments it seems like lots of people are doing lots of things that are confusing to me. I'm recently coming to terms with being okay about not being able to learn everything that I don't understand and outside of work I've started pursuing non-programming related hobbies which led me to make the comment I did.
qsera 9mo ago
>I made the wrong choice with software development. If you didn't like working with computers, then you (and another gazillion people who choose it for the $$$) probably made the wrong choice. But totally depends on what you wanted to get out of it. If you wanted to make $$$ and you are making it, what is the problem? That is assuming you have fun outside of work. But if you wanted to be the best at what you do, then you gotta love what you are doing. May be there are people who have super human discipline. But for normal people, loving what they goes a long way towards that end.
- menaerus 9mo ago
  > If you didn't like working with <insert anything>, then you ... This type of argument can hold for any profession and yet we aren't seeing this pattern much in other white-collar professions. Professors, doctors, economists, mechanical engineers, ... it seems like pretty much everybody made the wrong choice then? I think this is a wrong way to look at it. OP says that he invested a lot of time into becoming proficient in something that today appears to be very close to part extinction. I think that the question is legit, and he's likely not the only person asking oneself this question. My take on the question is ability to adapt and learn new skills. Some will succeed some will fail but staying in status-quo position will certainly more likely lead to a failure rather than the success.
  - hncoder12345 9mo ago
    Your first point hits the nail on the head. We are expected to have side projects and to keep up with new things (outside of work) but most other jobs don't have that. I would be okay with my work sending me off for additional training, on company time, but I don't want it to consume the time I have left after work.
    - menaerus 9mo ago
      I don't know why but our profession for some reason is different than the others in this respect and people often like to think that this is a norm and if you're not doing it you're not worthwhile. I think it has to do with some interesting psychological effects of people who are generally attracted to this profession but also due to the companies who implemented those mental hacks as a means to attract people who are 100% for it. Leetcode style interviews where you virtually have to spend months to prepare oneself for the interview, even as a senior, is one example of that but I also do remember the age, which was not too long ago, where your resume wouldn't even get a look if you didn't have several open-source repositories/contributions to show. This is in some part even valid as of today. There are plenty of such examples but both of these imply that you're ready to devote a lot of your extra time, before or after the job, only that you can show you're relevant in the eyes of those who are the decision makers. This normally means that you're single, that you have no kids, family, no other hobbies but programming etc. This works when you're in your 20's and only up to the certain point unless you become a weirdo in your 30's and 40's etc. without any of these. However, in the age where we are met with the uncertainty, it may become a new normal to devote extra effort in order to be able to remain not competitive but a mere candidate for the job. Some will find the incentive for this extra pain, some will not but I think it won't be easy. Perhaps in 5 years time we will only have "AI applied" engineers developing or specializing their own models for given domains. Writing code as we have it today I think it's already a thing of a past.
tumetab1 9mo ago
Since you're getting into a senior role, learn the mantra, it depends :D The usual trade-off of a well paid software development job is lack of job security and always learning - the skill set is always changing in contrast with other jobs. My suggestion, stop chase trends and start to hear from mature software developers to get better perspective on what's best to invest on. And why the mantra is always true? You can find stable job (slow moving company) doing basic software development and just learn something new every 4 years and then change companies. Or never change company and be the default expert, because everyone else is changing jobs, get job security, work less hours and have time within your job to uplift your skills. Keep chasing latest high paid jobs/trends by sacrificing off time. What's the best option for you? Only you know, it's depends on your own goals.
francisofascii 9mo ago
>I made the wrong choice with software development. I wonder what the best decision would have been. What job is AI immune and has a stable 40 hour week, no overtime, with decent pay. Teacher? Nursing?
- Kilenaitor 9mo ago
  Neither teachers nor nurses only work 40 hours and no overtime. :') Definitely something that requires social/interpersonal skills though will be the thing that winds up being AI immune. Humans are social creatures so I assume there will always be some need for it.
  - bdangubic 9mo ago
    humans have stopped being social creatures when social media took off
- hncoder12345 9mo ago
  I wasn't thinking AI immune in my comment but it's fair to include it. I wouldn't even mind overtime because that implies pay (in my mind). I'm more so talking about the unpaid time we are expected to put into further education or into side projects.
  - bdangubic 9mo ago
    SWE job always required education. Few made a career knowing one thing (e.g. COBOL) but those days are long gone. I have been SWE for 3 decades and have always had to further my education (including now)
raw_anon_1111 9mo ago
I have been programming professionally since 1996. I have never once spent one minute on “side projects”.
encyclopedism 9mo ago
> Am I supposed to want to code all the time? When can I pursue hobbies, a social life, etc. I feel you. It's a societal question you're posing. Your employer (most employers) deal in dollars. A business is evaluated by its ability to generate revenue. That is the purpose of a business and the fiduciary duty of the CEO's in charge.
burningChrome 9mo ago
This also dovetails with his other point: Given how quickly models, tools and frameworks rise and fall, betting your career on a single technology stack is risky. This was something I dealt with a lot when JS frameworks became the newest shiny thing and suddenly the entire industry shifted in a few years from being a front-end developer to being a full stack developer. This happened to a lot of my friends who went all in on Angular. Then everybody switched to React. The issue then became, "What should I learn?" because at my company (a large fortune 200 company) they were all in on Angular, and weren't looking for React developers, but I knew companies were moving away from Angular. So do I work to get better and more indispensable with Angular, and risk not knowing React? Or do I learn the new shiny framework betting at some point my company will adopt it or I will be laid off and need to know it? It feels like half my life as a dev was spent being a degenerate gambler, always trying to hedge my bets in one way or another, constantly thinking about where everything was going. It was the same thing with dozens of other tools as well. It just became so exhausting trying to figure out where to put your effort into to make sure you always knew enough to get that next job.
- ikrenji 9mo ago
  frameworks are irrelevant. if someone can work in angular they can pick up react as they go and vice versa, especially if assisted by AI. the problem is hiring practices where resumes are discarded if the keywords don't much...
gofreddygo 9mo ago
No. As junior you feel the pressure to make senior. You can't be junior for too long. As senior, if you choose, you can coast. By coast I mean you do justice to your job and the salary you are paid. Its a perfectly acceptable choice for someone to be senior for as long as they want. The biggest bottleneck is going to be what other seniors and higher think of you.

jedberg 9mo ago

It's funny you should ask this. When I started out, 30 years ago, here were the answers you'd get from most people: > Am I supposed to want to code all the time? Yes. > When can I pursue hobbies, Your hobby should be coding fun apps for yourself > a social life, etc. You social life should be hanging out with other engineers talking about engineering things. And the most successful people I know basically did exactly that. I'm not saying y'all should be doing that now, I'm just saying, that is in fact how it used to be.

KaiserPro 9mo ago
> You social life should be hanging out with other engineers talking about engineering things. Fuck. That. I worked at a faang, successful people weren't people that did engineering, it was people who did politics. The most successful people were the ones that joined at the same time as the current VP. Your hobbies need to be fun, to you. Not support your career. If its just there to support your career, its unpaid career development, not a hobby. Should people not code in their free time? thats not for me to decide. If they enjoy it, and its not hurting anyone, then be my guest. Engineers are generally useless at understanding whats going on in the real world, they are also quite bad at communicating. do. fun. things.
- izacus 9mo ago
  You just sound very angry your career isn't fun to you. I'm sorry.
  - raw_anon_1111 9mo ago
    I never worked “for fun”. My job for 30 years is just a means to support my addiction to food and shelter. I don’t hate my job especially my last 3 since 2020 when I started working remotely. But it is just something I do.
    - izacus 9mo ago
      Yes, that's the answer that sounds utterly miserable. Spending 30 years toiling for a third of your day at something you don't like. I'm sorry for you as well.
      - raw_anon_1111 9mo ago
        Out of all the things I consider “toiling” waking up, rolling out of bed, and walking over to the room next door is not one of them. I’m more concerned that it is the highlight of someone’s life being in front of a computer all day.
  - KaiserPro 9mo ago
    Thats an odd assertion. My career has been fun, thats why I still do the thing I'm doing. I've worked with the very best in their respective fields for ~20 years. I have done many and varied fun things through work, and continue to do so. But. Work stops at contracted time. After that it's me time.
- hncoder12345 9mo ago
  I love your last point. I asked this question because I used to be the person that would spend 4+ hours after work every day trying to keep up with new tech and working on side projects. But now, I've gotten into art and it's really changed my perspective on things like this. I've spent many hours doing, as you call it, unpaid career development instead of pursuing hobbies, building up my friendships, and in general just having fun. It feels like I've taken life so seriously and I don't have much to show for it.
gofreddygo 9mo ago
Not my experience at all. The very notable engineers I know didn't do their most notable work because of engineering or coding skills. Instead it was finding interesting problems and making a start or thinking a bit differently about something and doing something about it and being approachable and available all along that made a difference. If all they did was code all the time, write code for fun and interacted mostly with other similar people, they probably wouldn't be the first choice for these projects.
MyFirstSass 9mo ago
That's not true at all. The ones who ace their careers are for the most people that are fun, driven, or psychos, all social traits that make you good in a political game. Spending lots of time with other socially awkward types talking about hard math problems or whatever will get you nowhere outside of some SF fantasy startup movie. I'd say it's especially important for the more nerdy (myself included) to be more outgoing, and do other stuff like sales or presentations, design/marketing og workshops - that will make you exceptional because you then got the "whole package" and undestand the process and other people.
misja111 9mo ago
> And the most successful people I know basically did exactly that. Well that depends heavily on how you define successful. Successful in life? I would tend to disagree, unless you believe that career is the only thing that counts. But even when career is concerned: the most successful people I know went on from being developer to some high end management role. The skills that brought them there definitely did not come from hanging out with other engineers talking about engineering things.
raw_anon_1111 9mo ago
I also started 30 years ago - mid 1996. I did not do side projects. I really enjoyed most of my 20s as a single person. I was a part time fitness instructor, I dated, hung out with friends, did some traveling. The other developers at my job also had plenty of outside hobbies.

johnfn 9mo ago

To put it very directly - if you are OK with being good but not exceptional at your job, this is totally fine. If you want to be exceptional you will probably need to put in the extra work. Not everyone is OK with this tradeoff and it's totally fine to "just" be good and care more about having outside hobbies and a social life and etc.

hncoder12345 9mo ago
I had a period of time where I really wanted to be exceptional. I spent many hours studying and working on side projects but it just never really clicked. I think I'm decent at what I do for work but more complicated topics (graphics programming, low level memory management, etc.) just seem to not stick, no matter how many hours I put into studying. Sometimes it feels like I'm forcing this career but after this many years it's hard to give it up. I do still enjoy it but I don't think I'll ever really get it.
- stephendause 9mo ago
  Your story sounds similar to mine. There are some parts of programming at which I know I will never excel. I also don't have time in my life to spends lots of hours outside of work developing my skills. I think it's important to realize that the median software engineer is probably not doing these things either. Maybe the top 10% are? Something like that would be my guess. It's okay to not be in the top 10%!
  - hncoder12345 9mo ago
    This is refreshing to read. Sometimes when I come here and look at the posts and comments it seems like lots of people are doing lots of things that are confusing to me. I'm recently coming to terms with being okay about not being able to learn everything that I don't understand and outside of work I've started pursuing non-programming related hobbies which led me to make the comment I did.

qsera 9mo ago

>I made the wrong choice with software development. If you didn't like working with computers, then you (and another gazillion people who choose it for the $$$) probably made the wrong choice. But totally depends on what you wanted to get out of it. If you wanted to make $$$ and you are making it, what is the problem? That is assuming you have fun outside of work. But if you wanted to be the best at what you do, then you gotta love what you are doing. May be there are people who have super human discipline. But for normal people, loving what they goes a long way towards that end.

menaerus 9mo ago
> If you didn't like working with <insert anything>, then you ... This type of argument can hold for any profession and yet we aren't seeing this pattern much in other white-collar professions. Professors, doctors, economists, mechanical engineers, ... it seems like pretty much everybody made the wrong choice then? I think this is a wrong way to look at it. OP says that he invested a lot of time into becoming proficient in something that today appears to be very close to part extinction. I think that the question is legit, and he's likely not the only person asking oneself this question. My take on the question is ability to adapt and learn new skills. Some will succeed some will fail but staying in status-quo position will certainly more likely lead to a failure rather than the success.
- hncoder12345 9mo ago
  Your first point hits the nail on the head. We are expected to have side projects and to keep up with new things (outside of work) but most other jobs don't have that. I would be okay with my work sending me off for additional training, on company time, but I don't want it to consume the time I have left after work.
  - menaerus 9mo ago
    I don't know why but our profession for some reason is different than the others in this respect and people often like to think that this is a norm and if you're not doing it you're not worthwhile. I think it has to do with some interesting psychological effects of people who are generally attracted to this profession but also due to the companies who implemented those mental hacks as a means to attract people who are 100% for it. Leetcode style interviews where you virtually have to spend months to prepare oneself for the interview, even as a senior, is one example of that but I also do remember the age, which was not too long ago, where your resume wouldn't even get a look if you didn't have several open-source repositories/contributions to show. This is in some part even valid as of today. There are plenty of such examples but both of these imply that you're ready to devote a lot of your extra time, before or after the job, only that you can show you're relevant in the eyes of those who are the decision makers. This normally means that you're single, that you have no kids, family, no other hobbies but programming etc. This works when you're in your 20's and only up to the certain point unless you become a weirdo in your 30's and 40's etc. without any of these. However, in the age where we are met with the uncertainty, it may become a new normal to devote extra effort in order to be able to remain not competitive but a mere candidate for the job. Some will find the incentive for this extra pain, some will not but I think it won't be easy. Perhaps in 5 years time we will only have "AI applied" engineers developing or specializing their own models for given domains. Writing code as we have it today I think it's already a thing of a past.

tumetab1 9mo ago

Since you're getting into a senior role, learn the mantra, it depends :D The usual trade-off of a well paid software development job is lack of job security and always learning - the skill set is always changing in contrast with other jobs. My suggestion, stop chase trends and start to hear from mature software developers to get better perspective on what's best to invest on. And why the mantra is always true? You can find stable job (slow moving company) doing basic software development and just learn something new every 4 years and then change companies. Or never change company and be the default expert, because everyone else is changing jobs, get job security, work less hours and have time within your job to uplift your skills. Keep chasing latest high paid jobs/trends by sacrificing off time. What's the best option for you? Only you know, it's depends on your own goals.

francisofascii 9mo ago

>I made the wrong choice with software development. I wonder what the best decision would have been. What job is AI immune and has a stable 40 hour week, no overtime, with decent pay. Teacher? Nursing?

Kilenaitor 9mo ago
Neither teachers nor nurses only work 40 hours and no overtime. :') Definitely something that requires social/interpersonal skills though will be the thing that winds up being AI immune. Humans are social creatures so I assume there will always be some need for it.
- bdangubic 9mo ago
  humans have stopped being social creatures when social media took off
hncoder12345 9mo ago
I wasn't thinking AI immune in my comment but it's fair to include it. I wouldn't even mind overtime because that implies pay (in my mind). I'm more so talking about the unpaid time we are expected to put into further education or into side projects.
- bdangubic 9mo ago
  SWE job always required education. Few made a career knowing one thing (e.g. COBOL) but those days are long gone. I have been SWE for 3 decades and have always had to further my education (including now)

raw_anon_1111 9mo ago

I have been programming professionally since 1996. I have never once spent one minute on “side projects”.

encyclopedism 9mo ago

> Am I supposed to want to code all the time? When can I pursue hobbies, a social life, etc. I feel you. It's a societal question you're posing. Your employer (most employers) deal in dollars. A business is evaluated by its ability to generate revenue. That is the purpose of a business and the fiduciary duty of the CEO's in charge.

burningChrome 9mo ago

This also dovetails with his other point: Given how quickly models, tools and frameworks rise and fall, betting your career on a single technology stack is risky. This was something I dealt with a lot when JS frameworks became the newest shiny thing and suddenly the entire industry shifted in a few years from being a front-end developer to being a full stack developer. This happened to a lot of my friends who went all in on Angular. Then everybody switched to React. The issue then became, "What should I learn?" because at my company (a large fortune 200 company) they were all in on Angular, and weren't looking for React developers, but I knew companies were moving away from Angular. So do I work to get better and more indispensable with Angular, and risk not knowing React? Or do I learn the new shiny framework betting at some point my company will adopt it or I will be laid off and need to know it? It feels like half my life as a dev was spent being a degenerate gambler, always trying to hedge my bets in one way or another, constantly thinking about where everything was going. It was the same thing with dozens of other tools as well. It just became so exhausting trying to figure out where to put your effort into to make sure you always knew enough to get that next job.

ikrenji 9mo ago
frameworks are irrelevant. if someone can work in angular they can pick up react as they go and vice versa, especially if assisted by AI. the problem is hiring practices where resumes are discarded if the keywords don't much...

gofreddygo 9mo ago

No. As junior you feel the pressure to make senior. You can't be junior for too long. As senior, if you choose, you can coast. By coast I mean you do justice to your job and the salary you are paid. Its a perfectly acceptable choice for someone to be senior for as long as they want. The biggest bottleneck is going to be what other seniors and higher think of you.