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Perhaps you could re-focus? It's hard (but far from impossible) for a single dev to make a major impact by building something ... what about considering some o

Perhaps you could re-focus? It's hard (but far from impossible) for a single dev to make a major impact by building something ... what about considering some of the unsolved problems in the field? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_computer_science http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_co... Working on these problems could be done in parallel with a traditional coding job, and would give you no end of intellectual exercise, even if you didn't get very far with any of them. Another option would be to pursue teaching. Introducing other people to coding & building things is incredibly rewarding, and will also possibly help your career.

tonteldoos 12y ago
The OP didn't mention what the rest of his life circumstance is tho. Married? Kids? Mortgage? All those things tend to drain time and energy away from doing meaningful side project work. And depending on where he resides, I've found that barriers to entry into teaching jobs can actually be substantial (assuming you're doing more than teaching older people how to use a mouse).
- duncan_bayne 12y ago
  I didn't necessarily mean teaching jobs. I'm currently a full-time dev with wife and children, and I'm (slowly) organising a free day course on Ruby. Also, you can teach as part of many day jobs. Everything from mentoring new devs to running Rails Girls tutorials on company hack days.
  - tonteldoos 12y ago
    Valid points, all of them. I volunteered for many years (up to reasonably high levels of responsibility) for a major technical society. The issue that became apparent though, is that your day job still consumes most of your time, and it takes a LOT of satisfaction elsewhere to make up for lack of motivation/passion/interest/recognition in it (especially if your employer has less than no interest in/support for your volunteer work. If you're in a position where you can apply your skills to help others in your work environment (or at least with their blessing outside that environment), that is gold! Sadly, such opportunities do tend to be few and far between, from what I've seen :-/

tonteldoos 12y ago

The OP didn't mention what the rest of his life circumstance is tho. Married? Kids? Mortgage? All those things tend to drain time and energy away from doing meaningful side project work. And depending on where he resides, I've found that barriers to entry into teaching jobs can actually be substantial (assuming you're doing more than teaching older people how to use a mouse).

duncan_bayne 12y ago
I didn't necessarily mean teaching jobs. I'm currently a full-time dev with wife and children, and I'm (slowly) organising a free day course on Ruby. Also, you can teach as part of many day jobs. Everything from mentoring new devs to running Rails Girls tutorials on company hack days.
- tonteldoos 12y ago
  Valid points, all of them. I volunteered for many years (up to reasonably high levels of responsibility) for a major technical society. The issue that became apparent though, is that your day job still consumes most of your time, and it takes a LOT of satisfaction elsewhere to make up for lack of motivation/passion/interest/recognition in it (especially if your employer has less than no interest in/support for your volunteer work. If you're in a position where you can apply your skills to help others in your work environment (or at least with their blessing outside that environment), that is gold! Sadly, such opportunities do tend to be few and far between, from what I've seen :-/