burnoutgal

6 ms·

31.
by burnoutgal 5y ago
I think the problem for me with finishing projects is that they need to actually get used. I like iterating on prototypes and getting feedback from users, and if people are using the product I'm happy to maintain it. I've maintain
32.
by burnoutgal 5y ago
I've done field engineering and customer success in the past and enjoyed it. Going full sales is not very appealing to me.
33.
by burnoutgal 5y ago
In my mind the ideal role is on a team that clearly owns codebase, has users giving them feedback, and works with product and management to set a roadmap and then deliver on it. Being able to work with new and interesting technologies would
34.
by burnoutgal 5y ago
Having a mortgage isn't an accomplishment, it's a liability. It would be expensive and stressful to downsize our biggest expense, and unexpected repairs blew a huge hole in our household budget. I'm well-compensated for now,
35.
by burnoutgal 5y ago
Unfortunately under capitalism I also need to buy food and shelter and not just survive on vibes
36.
by burnoutgal 5y ago
The suggestion of going to Google seems so laughable - I really wanted this role and ground out a bunch of leetcode problems to pass their screening, and barely made it. I'm not really into memorizing algorithms and data structures, I
37.
by burnoutgal 5y ago
When I joined my manager had a few onboarding tasks, I did all of those, and started protoyping my first PR. It was actually a pretty meaty open-ended project and in retrospect it was sort of high-effort, low-reward. I iterated on that seve
38.
by burnoutgal 5y ago
I wasn't a director or anything, I've hovered around senior/staff engineer depending on the company. Still an IC role where I expected some help onboarding and picking a first project.
39.
by burnoutgal 5y ago
I tried this - I taught myself Rust and Scala, built several prototypes, it was all kind of satisfying for a while until I came back to the fact that none of it translates to job security. I can sit in a corner by myself and build things no
40.
by burnoutgal 5y ago
I've tried opening up to a couple peers, there's definitely a culture gap where they're successful bay area dev guys who aren't used to hearing about people failing (like really failing, not "my startup ran out of m
41.
by burnoutgal 5y ago
I think the "constant failure" comes from comparing myself to all my peers who have been successful, gotten rich, been promoted, written books, etc. I don't expect to be the best of the best, but obviously some people are thr
42.
by burnoutgal 5y ago
I'm definitely struggling with finding the one big thing I should focus on. My team has a few objectives for the coming year, but it's unclear who actually owns them or how to get involved. We have a new manager coming in to repla
43.
by burnoutgal 5y ago
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback. I definitely think part of it is above-average background stress - queer woman, sole breadwinner for my household, grew up poor, we've had a lot of emergency expenses and unexpected health problems t
44.
by burnoutgal 5y ago
Partially because it's very well compensated, and my partner has a disability so I'm the sole income for our household. Taking a pay cut to do something else would be a big life change. More importantly, I can't imagine doing
45.
by burnoutgal 5y ago
A few of my jobs have been at companies with >1000 engineers, which feels like they should be mature, but sometimes they just feel stagnant. They make lots of money but it's harder and harder to make progress and they still don&#x27
46.
by burnoutgal 5y ago
I've teed up maybe 6 PRs, but it is hard to find who's actually responsible to review things and get sign-off one way or the other. The iteration speed is also very slow and deploys are pretty high risk, so it's hard to throw
47.
by burnoutgal 5y ago
My current job has > 1000 employees, it seemed from the outside like it would be sufficiently stable. It's not actually the culture you describe, it's pretty mature, good work-life balance. They don't have a great planning
48.
by burnoutgal 5y ago
I've done ok financially, but in retrospect if I had held on to my stock instead of selling when it vested I could be set for life. A lot of my old coworkers only ever worked in one job for 5 years, got rich and retired on their stock
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Ask HN: How do I get over constant failure?
86 points by burnoutgal 5y ago|122 comments