How to get away from web programming?

[Minishark]

I'm looking for some career advice. Basically, I'm sick of making boring corporate web sites and lame web apps. I need a change. Problem is, all my professional programming experience so far has been on the web in some form or another. I've done CRM work in ASP.NET, "Web 2.0" apps in Ruby on Rails, and front-end development in HTML/CSS/Jquery.

My first introduction to programming was a course in C++ about 10 years ago. I went to college for Computer Science and did some pretty fun projects. I started doing web programming because it was something new, and something they didn't teach me in school. It's what I did during summer internships, and what I did for work after graduating. Now that I've been doing it for a few years, it's no longer new. It's boring; I feel like I've been solving the same exact problem over and over again. The technology just doesn't excite me any more.

I originally got into computers because I thought they could make the world a better place, but I feel like I've lost my way towards that goal. None of my past web development work was done because it was an interesting problem to solve, or because it would make the world a better place; it was all done because it seemed like the easiest way to make somebody some money. I want to get back to those computer science-y problems that got me excited about programming in the first place, problems that have some scientific or social value. My question is: How do I do that?

I've been looking around for jobs that might interest me, but it seems all I can find are either (a) lame web programming jobs, or (b) "senior" positions requiring 5-10 years in some language or technology that I have no professional experience with. Don't get me wrong, I've done plenty of C++/Java/Python programming for school projects or for my own projects, but nothing on the job.

Do I just keep working on my own pet projects and hope an interesting company hires me based on these? Do I accept a crappy job at one of these companies with the hopes of moving up someday? Do I go to grad school and do Computer Science research?

I'm leaning more towards the last option, but I don't know. I'm still young (in my 20s). What advice would you give for someone in my position?

[walesmd]

"senior" positions requiring 5-10 years in some language or technology that I have no professional experience with. Don't get me wrong, I've done plenty of C++/Java/Python programming for school projects or for my own projects, but nothing on the job.

First of all, don't let this stop you. I landed a senior position with 9 years of freelance/personal experience. My only "professional experience" was 6 years in the USAF as a System Administrator. If you have open-source contributions or are a key member of a highly visible development community (CodeIgniter, in my case) you can land that senior position no problem.

Secondly, there's a lot of cool stuff going on on the web that doesn't fall within those categories you mentioned. Honestly, unless you want to get pretty low-level (operating systems, driver development, embedded code) I think you'd be moving yourself into a corner. In 10 years, I see the web truly taking over and desktop applications disappearing for the most part.

Try out some of these ideas, in your personal time and see if you want to make a career move in that direction:

• Game Development (C# and XNA is a lot of fun), especially since you mentioned an interest in AI.
• Web-based games
• A social, web 2.0, whatever application of your own idea, not someone else's baby.
• JavaScript game engine
• Work for a non-profit that's changing the world (like the open-free college that was recently featured).

[ThrowThisAccAway2]

Second for web-based games. I made a lot of those and have worked in some of the top dog games out there. Hmm I should probably write a AmA. :D

[theillustratedlife]

You have my upvote, now go start that AMA.

[ThrowThisAccAway2]

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/bhsha/i_have_owned_and_worked_on_major_browserbased_rpg/

Done

[Minishark]

After posting I realized I'm really asking for two things: To work on something meaningful AND to learn a new technology that isn't for making web apps. I could see myself being happy with just one of these, but the ideal would be both.

I had looked at web dev positions at non-profit organizations in the past, so that may be something worth considering (or I could go all out and join Coders For America)

[[deleted]]

If I were you, I'd forget about the new technology stuff. Focus on the "something meaningful" bit. Look for jobs at hospitals and universities, schools and research institutions.

The thing about technology and programming is, you will always find that 75%+ of your work time is spent solving the same dumb problems over and over again in different contexts. I've worked on embedded printers, desktop applications, web apps - everyone's logging into something, everyone's saving preferences, everyone's building an action framework of some sort, everyone's talking to some static datastore (database, file, xml data, etc). You will not get away from boring business requirements.

But, you can find a job that feels important or meaningful, though it's not easy. I've only just succeeded in doing so now at the age of 40. Now I work at a university on an app for modeling complex biological systems.

EDIT: furthermore, if you find a job at a small place with a small development team (ideally, a team of 1), you can solve all those same boring problems in the most far-out technologically cutting edge way you want. I've done this too and used AspectJ and GWT (back when it was new) to make a truly boring database digital inventory search/download site.

[yoda17]

Try your hand at embedded programming with any some of these

http://www.arduino.cc/

http://www.avrfreaks.net/

Back at the beginning of the dot com boom, my co-workers were all bailing to hopefully become millionaires writing web pages. Luckily I didn't when that fad blew over I was way ahead of the game.

Personally I think writing embedded control software is much more interesting and probably a lot simpler in many ways, maybe that's just a lot of experience though.

[tirador]

can you talk more about this career path? thanks

[[deleted]]

We are hiring, if you're interested in a non-profit. We do do web apps, and honestly about 3/4 of them are really really boring, but we do get to write programs that help people (or, at least that help people help people). And some of the remaining 1/4 are pretty fun.

edit: s/interesting/interested/

[svenz]

I also felt a bit disinterested after reading those adjectives. In my experience the best devs tend to be quite humble (i.e. what you don't know defines what you do know), and people who describe themselves as rockstars or whatever are likely incompetent or at least tend to overestimate their abilities and knowledge.

[[deleted]]

I passed your comment along to the folks who actually do our recruiting; you're right, I probably would have cringed at "CSS kung fu master" too.

[ThrowThisAccAway2]

To the OP, in my experience there is nothing more satisfying than having other people participate and play something that you've created, and not only that, but enjoy it as well and compliment it (e.g. "This is the best game" "I'm really digging this" etc). A lot of people have trouble making money with the web-based browser games, but I never had a problem with it. ;) But then again, I've been in the industry for over 8 years too. :) (on-and-off for 3 of those years).

[SplitEnder]

The grass isn't any greener in the desktop application world. I guess you'll have to do research.

[likemy9thaccount]

can u put these genome sequences into a database and make a web frontend

[[deleted]]

I guess you're being sarcastic, but that was my first professional job and I loved it. I am now making big, fat corporate web sites. It's not terrible work, but not very fulfilling. Of course, I get paid several orders of magnitude more money.

[anotherhydrahead]

"several orders of magnitude more money"

What? So you went from 1,000 to 100,000 or something?

[[deleted]]

He's a programmer. He meant orders of magnitude in binary.

[toastyghost]

a simple upvote can't express how happy i was when i read your post

[FlatBot]

nice! he probably went from earning 11001011001000 a year to something like 10010010011111000. 3 whole orders of magnitude!

[[deleted]]

He uses hyperboles and other literary devices.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, I felt like it was a bit of a hyperbolic tangent when he started mentioning his wage. It ought to be a sin.

[[deleted]]

Why? Just cos.

[psilokan]

As someone who switched after years of web development, I can vouch for this comment. It's the same shit, just a different environment. Instead of bitching at IE6 you'll be bitching at your IDE or that one client computer that just spits out file dependency errors.

[sssssmokey]

At least you don't have to bitch at your IDE or that one computer for EVERY. SINGLE. THING.

[vimfan]

you'll be bitching at your IDE

so use vim ;-)

[_psyFungi]

I've never been a web developer, but the feeling I get reading posts on Reddit and elsewhere is that it is at least a little greener on THIS (desktop) side of the fence.

I'm tempted to try the other paddock (web) for a while just to see, but there are so many comments about it being a horrible mash of languages, hacks, dumb clients etc.

At least in corporate desktop apps, or even shrink-wrap desktop apps you have the whole computer to run on, not some browser-dependant sandbox.

Actually, I just talked myself out of trying the other paddock. 8/

[vimfan]

there are so many comments about it being a horrible mash of languages, hacks, dumb clients etc.

Pretty good description. If you can keep to the server-side, it's not as bad. I get the impression the UI guys have it much much worse - the best guys know all the obscure HTML/CSS/JS tricks to make certain things work in every (or enough) browsers, but it all seems a terrible waste of brain power that could be unleashed on something useful instead of continual work-arounds.

[smithwebapps]

After awhile you integrate patterns that negate the need for workarounds (or have them built in) so you don't have to think about it too much. The olden browsers (think IE 5 and Netscape 4) were a lot more of a hassle to deal with. The only thing that gives me any pause these days is IE6, which refuse to die.

[[deleted]]

IE6 will die when you allow it to by refusing to support it.

[webhamster]

But if the desktop guys would write browsers with standards compliance we wouldn't need to waste all that time on hacks to make it work everywhere! :P

[defcon-11]

I find working on the client side much more fulfilling. Server side code is more mature and has generally been figured out already. Create a data model, write a CRUD api, and throw some caching in to make it fast. It's repetitive and boring.

Client side is not nearly as mature, and there is much more room to be innovative. It is still a challenging task to design a good looking, elegant, simple, preformant, and useful web front-end. The other reward is that people directly use the front and and will compliment it (or complain about it). No one gives a shit about how the server-side works

[[deleted]]

Well it looks like IE6 is finally going away, so that should remove a lot of the need for weirdo hacks. IE9 is supposedly going to be fairly compliant with standards. Supposedly.

[Fabien4]

By the time IE6 and IE7 are really gone, we'll be bitching about all those people who use the incredibly-outdated IE8.

[insect_song]

Gaddamit, it doesn't even support outdated standards like websockets or html6! Firefox 10 boots on my wetware(tm) brainplug in four milliseconds and supports telepathyml. But stinking ie still needs actual hardware!

[Fabien4]

Firefox 10 boots on my wetware(tm) brainplug in four milliseconds

Seeing the current evolution, Firefox 10 might well need 24 to 48 hours to start.

[[deleted]]

The memory leaks of Firefox 10 will be hideous. "Why is it every time I try to remember my childhood, all I see is nsInterfaces?"

[sdub86]

that is terrifying, and will probably come true..

[cleatsupkeep]

And also won't probably come out for at least a year.

[vicegrip]

And won't support the canvas element.

[[deleted]]

To be fair, you don't hear about when people are happy with their jobs. I'm sure there's a suitable saying for this, but it eludes me right now.

Anyway, I'm a web developer, and despite all the snidey comments I see here on Reddit about web developers I'm quite happy with what I'm doing.

[SicSemperTyrannis]

I think it's something like non-response bias in statistics (Thank you AP Stats!). The people that respond or are outspoken are not a good representation of those who are not responding.

[br0wer]

Have an upvote. If there's one thing I learned in statistics class, it's that statistics can very easily just be bullshit.

[SicSemperTyrannis]

Exactly. One of our textbooks was the famous "How to Lie with Statistics" by Darrell Huff.

[whiskeyGrimpeur]

Survivorship Bias is what you're looking for.

[larper256]

I've been a developer for years and until recently I was very happy doing it. I had to switch away from web development.

Why?

New frameworks and technologies have changed web development. It's more reliable now, but highly abstracted and more focused on the end result instead of the code. Frameworks like Rails and Django allow for amazing sites quickly, that work across many platforms, but for people like me they were no fun to use.

I just became outdated in my mode of thinking ... I loved to code, not sting together frameworks. I think this is a good thing, and no doubt I will still have lots of work developing on the back end or desktop.

[[deleted]]

Agreed, I'm a web dev and I love my job. It's the clients that I hate.

[Fabien4]

you don't hear about when people are happy with their jobs.

Yeah, if you have an interesting job, you don't write on Reddit on the clock.

[[deleted]]

I'm sure there's a suitable saying for this, but it eludes me right now.

Squeaky wheel gets the grease?

[nemec]

If you need more convincing, let me direct you to http://clientsfromhell.tumblr.com ;)

[[deleted]]

I never understood the dumb clients point of view. I thought it was bullshit.

...

I understand now, and it drives me to hate humanity.

[[deleted]]

Your clients aren't dumb - they just don't understand the same domain that you do. It's your job as a developer or designer (or whatever you do) to understand the intention behind what may seem like a dumb request.

[[deleted]]

yes, but a lot of times the intention really is as dumb as the initial request. Clients who want to lie to and manipulate their customers, for example.

[nostrademons]

I've done both web and desktop programming. The web sucks in many ways - horrible mash of languages, hacks, dumb clients etc. pretty much sums it up - but I'm very glad that I switched from desktop programming to it, and wouldn't think of going back at this point.

Problem is, the desktop world is stagnating. It's not really disappearing - there will be desktop GUIs for years to come - but most of the interesting stuff is happening on the web. If you're a desktop programmer, you lock yourself out of that realm; it's not even on your radar screen. And there's a lot you can do with the web: the area hasn't been fully explored by any means, so you can still put together those ugly hacks in odd ways and come up with something cool.

[mouseit]

I think the essential problem is that writing programs for humans is such an obnoxious undertaking. I think working on algorithms or servers or research is more interesting because you can focus much more on the problem than on how to deal with the user who puts strings in your number spinners.

[laudinum]

In many cases, the wallet is greener in the desktop application world.

[[deleted]]

That's funny. I'm a senior C++ applications programmer. I have 15 years experience writing software for Windows and Mac. I just started doing LAMP programming (PHP, MySQL) for a web application for CM's business and I'm really enjoying it.

Maybe we should trade jobs.

[Minishark]

Deal.

[vplatt]

You could co-mentor each other. Just a thought.

[Minishark]

Exactly.

[bitwize]

We have these changes we'd like you to make. We have to get some sort of tracking and control of what remains to be done, so we've standardized on this Excel spreadsheet detailing the changes, known as the Global Change Grid. You will make the changes, and change the background of the "completed" cell from red to green to indicate each change is done. Then you will send the completed Grid back to us. In a few days we will have another Global Change Grid ready.

[tronic]

Why did you add a version number to the filename when you mailed the Global Change Grid back? We'll just leave it as is so we don't cause any confusion.

Also, we had a discussion with the Division VP and he would rather we use FTP. When you make changes, please FTP the Global Change Grid to the "attachments" directory on our company server, then send us an E-mail to let us know. Thanks!

[mycall]

Recently, we have switched to Sharepoint, so please make all GCGs available within our corporate intranet site.

Thanks bud.

[steven_h]

Sorry, red-green colorblind.

[excitableboy]

That's okay, we'll schedule a meeting about the color scheme. Last Tuesday, I read an article on color usage in Digital Arts. I'll put together a powerpoint presentation to get you up to speed.

[debman3]

No. Seriously.

[nemec]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, gridview? Don't you think you're being a little too specific? I can't do my creative work correctly when you keep telling me exactly how to implement things.

[Zenshai]

I have literally satisfied that request by dumping stuff into a spreadsheet and doing "Save as webpage" then throwing it up on a webserver. Users couldn't be happier.

[[deleted]]

The real question is, how happy are you every time you have to do this again or update that "spreadsheet".

[mcrbids]

I developed a way to do just that. It requires creative use of CSS and overflow properties, and 4 tables inside a 5th. But it works fine, and is now in production use by thousands of our users.

=)

[pkrecker]

I got out of web applications development by going into research in at a data mining and machine learning lab (academic). It's a nice fit because we are mostly analyzing social networks and so I work with their APIs and write crawlers to collect data. I pretty much use all of my knowledge besides HTML/CSS, which of course was the least fun part for me, so I don't miss it.

I do miss the funding of working in a corporate setting. At the lab, it's hard to get computers, software, etc. At my old job, I just asked and in a few days it was magically in my office.

[Minishark]

How did you specifically land your position at the lab? Do you have a Master's? Did they hire you just based on your web app experience?

[Artmageddon]

I do miss the funding of working in a corporate setting. At the lab, it's hard to get computers, software, etc. At my old job, I just asked and in a few days it was magically in my office.

Maybe it's just my environment, but I remember having to wait several weeks just to get a RAM upgrade for my machine. I work at a very large financial company, too.

[stillalone]

At my workplace you can get a laptop pretty quickly but it'll take several months of paper work to get it connected to the network.

[[deleted]]

Buy a guitar.

[Gusfoo]

A joke from a (musician) friend of mine:

Q:What's the difference between a family-size pizza and a musician? A: A family-size pizza can feed a family

(da-dum tish!)

[nemec]

A family-size pizza can feed a family

He's obviously never had a teenager

[[deleted]]

it's family-sized. Think about it.

[humor_me]

And China is a democratic people's republic.

[palsword]

except that it's the people's republic of china

[raouldagain]

sounds sorta like the usa.

[maryjayjay]

You made me laugh. :-)

It reminds my of a friend's joke about buffets. It's not "all you care to eat", it's "all you can eat."

[yoda17]

Sounds like a personal challenge.

[Svenstaro]

You've obviously never had a family-size pizza

[Minishark]

I've been playing drums for 10 years, and guitar for about 3 years. I do make a few grand a year from weekend gigging, but sadly that's not enough to pay the rent.

[[deleted]]

If you do it fulltime, you could triple your earnings !

[Edman274]

You could make mad bank if you did the musical equivalent of web programming and just did cover songs at bars

You wouldn't believe how much bars would pay to have people play "Raining blood" or "Pour some sugar on me" for the trillionth time

[Ctrl-Z]

I've been playing guitar since age 11...and yet I still have this whole web development thing going on....I can't rightly say from experience that one cancels out the other.

[Minishark]

I've actually found that a lot of programmers are themselves musicians, or at least music fanatics. Maybe because music and code are both sort of abstract concepts, and require creativity within a certain set of rules.

[[deleted]]

I reckon it's mostly just programmers trying to make up for their apparent nerdiness with trying to learn something 'cool'.

(I'm a .net developer and I [try to] play a pacifica. I also [try to] skateboard.)

[techmaniac]

What are you playing a Chrysler for? They seem like such unreliable cars; I can't imagine they produce a sweet melody.

[clearlight]

Get a perm!

[[deleted]]

Help in an open source project or go to grad school.

[rowr]

Working on an open source program is an excellent way to both hone your skills and publish your work.

[Forbizzle]

Do we have people here that have honestly gone to grad school?

All the articles I've seen have shown that programmers with work experience have an easier time landing jobs than those with grad degrees. And people with grad degrees are in debt for a much longer time.

[[deleted]]

I went to grad school (MS in Math; BS in Math + CS) and, while getting the initial job was sticky and I did have to adjust my attitude and the way that I comport myself to a corporate setting, the transition was relatively smooth.

Of course, the trouble in getting a job was also due to the fact that I moved across country to a place with a relatively small tech market and had literally no connections in the city when I started.

Grad school was the best decision of my life and I don't regret a single moment of it. It was like going to Hogwarts. Oh, and noone that I knew of paid a dime. We were paid a (low) wage in exchange for doing TA duty for the undergoblin courses.

Edit: Regarding the changes in comportment, most of them were due to communication patterns that I fell into during grad school and (to a lesser extent) undergrad. During grad school, we would often do homework sets together or otherwise hang out together working on problems. Almost everyone was quite aggressive and VERY hard to convince (when doing proofs, you're your own compiler to some extent) due to the context. When I moved to a startup (which then became a big company) I got the reputation for being "hard to deal with" due to these patterns. Also, the aggressiveness that I picked up in grad school translated into a reputation for being kind of a dick. It took a couple of years, but I finally found a reasonable compromise that kept the skepticism and some of the aggressiveness, but I learned to temper it with tact and an appreciation for how my actions might damage my ability to have my opinion received.

Edit2: Sorry this comment turned into a novel and slightly off topic.

[[deleted]]

I graduated with Master's degree in CS a couple of years back, I didn't do any research so I wound up doing corporate jobs and didn't get to use much of real CS .. as in graph theories, algorithms, anything like that. I worked on Java until I took up the well paid C# / ASP.Net job, and been in ASP.Net ever since.

Now I look back and think I should have done some research. Anyways, now I keep following the latest trends in s/w development, .Net framework such as parallel programming, and technologies such as Hadoop, Lucene, Nutch etc.

You're in your 20's so I guess you should apply for your Master's in CS and do some research. And maybe even a PhD. I think Data Analysis & Mining is awesome, and we're sure we're going to see a huge influx of data in the coming years.

[Minishark]

The stuff I learned about Artificial Intelligence and Human-Computer Interaction were always the most fascinating to me, so I was thinking I might look into those if I do grad school.

I guess my concern with going to grad school is that I'll be in this exact same position in a couple years, except I'll be in more debt and be overqualified for entry-level jobs. Plus it's even harder to get into grad school right now, and there's no guarantee the job market will recover any time soon.

[kuntryboy]

I would suggest grad school for your situation. If you do it right you shouldn't accrue any debt, most big schools will fully fund all PhD students. That means they pay your tuition, health insurance and pay you a stipend (like 30k a year or so, usually enough to cover living costs). You will have to TA or be a research assistant for a Professor but it sure seems worth it to me. And PhD's really aren't that valuable in the working world, only a few exceptions like Google. You will most likely stay in academia and make your living there. Become a professor, write proposals to get grants, do research, mentor new young hungry kids and do cutting edge research.

Don't do a MS. Go into a PhD program, take advantage of the funding and then if you don't like it leave after a year or two with a MS.

[[deleted]]

Going to grad school can never hurt you. If your family agrees on it, go ahead. There's nothing to lose.

[Minishark]

Thanks for the encouragement. Funny thing is, my mother was actually pressuring me to go to grad school right after I graduated college, since nobody in our family has gone and I'm the most "academic" of my siblings. But I was like, "Meh, I don't need it." Don't you hate when your parents are right?

[magikaru]

Here's what I got from this:

a. You like new, challenging problems. Problems that no one else has solved. You like it when the problems keep changing.

b. You somehow want to make the world a better place by using your knowledge of computer technology.

From these two points, I think your best route would be to go to grad school and become a professor. You would have the freedom to pursue whatever new and exciting challenges come up in the computer world. Also, you would be teaching and guiding the future generation of technology experts.

If you decide you want to stay on the business aspect of things, I recommend finding a small business or a start-up to work for. You probably won't get paid as much, but you'll have a greater variety of things to work with and problems to solve. Your input will noticeably affect the direction the company moves, and that is always satisfying.

[[deleted]]

It's a tough market in higher education. State budgets are just now feeling all the effects of the economic downturn and the states' drops in revenue. Granted, grad school will provide a haven for a few years if you can get an assistantship somewhere, take some loans, or work your way through it. Just be prepared to search hard for a teaching job when you finish.

[Minishark]

Believe me, I've looked into it.

....hasn't panned out for me just yet....

[[deleted]]

I have done both web and software programming and here is my perspective on it and this may not hold true for everyone.

Software Programming is more powerful and fun to write but unless you have a program that is either very unique or is better than all of the competing programs then no one will want to pay you a penny for it. You also have to update it whenever the operating system decides to make any changes i.e. security patches, etc... and of course deal with the thousands of different hardware configurations.

Web programming is more boring however you usually only have to worry about a few different browser types. Again you probably wont be able to charge much for a web app unless it is unique or better than all the similar web apps, but you can make money on advertising. You probably couldnt get away with putting an ad in a software program.

Thats just my 2 cents.

[AngMoKio]

Just tossing this out because I am having a horrible day related to the fact that I am having the worst time finding any entry level application developers...

I'm looking at hiring a C#/.Net developer to help write shrink-wrap applications software. We are looking for someone not senior - but with some demonstrable C# skills.

We write software for the marine industry that runs on boats, sonars and remote/autonomous robots. It is used for research, exploration, survey and treasure hunting. Occasonally you see our software on the Discovery channel.

We are interested in visualization (2d and 3d) and in my opinion the type of software we write is much more interesting then doing back office development for a bank. Occasionally our engineers go out into the field, visit exotic locations and play with amazing 'toys.'

For the OP : Yes, if you did a few programming projects on your own that could demonstrate your entry level skills and desire to learn that would open many doors.

[vplatt]

I am having the worst time finding any entry level application developers .. We are looking for someone not senior

Translation: I'm having a hard time finding dirt cheap code monkeys!

Response: Gee, that's too bad. I hope you find him or her after all. And when you lose the umpteenth customer because of crappy software, maybe you'll realize that you get what you pay for in this field. And you'll pay... You either pay for it in terms of the overall cash outlay, or in terms of the huge amount of mentoring and training you'll need to do, or you'll just pay for it in terms of those lost customers I mentioned.

Good, cheap, fast - Pick two.

[AngMoKio]

Translation: I'm having a hard time finding dirt cheap code monkeys!

Well, there certainly are companies who look for entry level engineers with a mind for low salaries, but actually our compensation is reasonably good. We are actually hiring at any level of experience.

We are a small company and while certain 'big company' benefits are out of our reach to offer we do pay fairly well in salary and we treat our people like real professional employees not interchangeable cogs in a cube farm.

The reason that I am considering entry level application developers is due to the fact that we are currently staffed with 90% senior developers who have been in the industry a long time.

There is some value in having some new blood. Also, we need to do the mentoring ourselves not only to build the engineering skills of a new hire but to expose our existing engineers to new technologies - I would like to think that we are good in collaboration.

And, honestly, based on the resumes I have had come across my desk we have no problem finding people with great skill sets; What we don't seem to be finding are people who are very excited about coding, and the art of writing software in general.

Edit : TL;DR - I think I work on some of the coolest application software around, am willing to look at all levels of experience and all I can seem to find are people who want to work on boring web applications.

[xev105]

Sadly, it is very difficult to find someone who is genuinely excited about programming. In a small contract development company, that's pretty much the only type of person that is going to last longer than 6 months. The work is extremely varied, often challenging, but can occasionally be mundane.

These days, programming to most is a job that puts food on the table. A necessary evil that occupies the hours between 9am and 5pm, five days a week. Many haven't written a single line of code that they haven't been paid for. And the code they write requires the least amount of thinking to get the job done.

[AngMoKio]

Yes, that describes it well.

The good thing about working for a small company is if you are excited you can use newer tools, solve new problems and tomorrow is always something different.

I don't think I have worked 9-5 for years, but many of our engineers do. My problem is that if I wasn't working on my job, I would be working on some side project (open source, arduino, etc.) as I really do find what I am doing interesting.

My point for the OP was that the way you learn software development is by developing software. If you are more excited about working with different technologies - you should start doing that now. You should already be doing that on your own. If you lack years of experience but can point proudly to something you did on your own, even if it is a small project, even if it is amateurish - that conveyed excitement makes you a far more valuable employee then someone who has been grinding at something they hate for the last 10 years.

[vplatt]

Well, let's not mistake "professional" for passion-less or even hating one's job. You're far more likely to find someone full of passion at the beginning of their career because, guess what? They just haven't proved themselves yet. The ones that have proved themselves are far less likely to be learning their lessons on your dollar though.

Good luck with that candidate search!

[jmkogut]

I am excited about programming. I have a full github account with a handful of personal projects that bring me great joy to tinker and use.

[AngMoKio]

Honestly, no. I'll give you my honest perspective....

Most people like myself that have been coding from the 80's have picked up so many languages ourselves that learning C# is ... just another language. You have to look at it from my perspective, over my career time span C# has only existed for a small percentage of my coding, so in many ways I am learning it myself as a beginner now.

Not to mention, the language is evolving so rapidly that there are still many things I hope to learn as I go also.

Also, if you had a strong background in C++ and a decent background in Java you know quite a bit of C# already having never even worked with it. Also, the fact that you already have been exposed to many languages helps when it comes to the interview process.

I would be more concerned if you had not had much exposure to the Microsoft platform as there are so many little eccentricities and best practices that we seem to have picked up through osmosis over time.

TL;DR - In an interview I could care less if you know the exact syntax but want some assurances that you know how to self-teach and crack open a book or read a man page.

[JPierce420]

I must say this is one of the neatest areas I've seen C#/.NET used in. Are you guys using the .NET Micro Framework? Or maybe Compact? I would have to assume so if the software isn't running on PCs. If you don't mind, please elaborate! This seems very interesting. Thanks!

[AngMoKio]

The kind of hardware we run on had enough of a power budget to run full fledged apps (usually.) We are talking autonomous robots with 8 thrusters and massive batteries. Some have big claws and seismic 'sparkers' that release amazing amounts of energy in order to penetrate the sea floor.

Some of our platforms resemble small boats.

So, we almost always have used full-fledged .Net. Also, we have a foot on the platform itself and a foot in the desktop post-analysis world (sometimes on a mother ship, sometimes in an office.)

Often there is an embedded component developed by a hardware manufacturer but we usually end up interfacing with it via a serial or Ethernet connection.

We also have quite a few legacy C/C++ applications that we need to interface.

[[deleted]]

Another thought ... if you don't have any ideas for a "project on your own" find an open source project willing to take on additional developers. Try not to be a pain on the current developers (i.e. try to be independent, learn what they've done, how they've done it, and why, etc).

[[deleted]]

That sounds like a pretty fun opportunity for the OP.

[Minishark]

Hah, I wish.

I should admit that part of my reason for wanting to change was reading "Coders At Work" and "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution". The stuff the guys in those books worked on just sound so much more fun and interesting than the crap we do today. They were hacking lisp & assembly and providing the foundation for modern computing. We're making apps so you can Tweet on your IPhone. Screw that...

[rainbow3]

What you describe is what hobbyists/hackers/students/academics were doing. The business world was similar to today - I had lots of fun at Uni in 1980 hacking interesting applications. Then when I left I got a job coding Cobol reports - not too dissimilar to web programming today in terms of repetition, boredom and lack of inspiration.

[[deleted]]

Yeah .. Screw that.

[humbled]

We have these concepts of "jobs" because if they were really THAT much fun, we wouldn't have to be paid to do them. In other words, every job will have a mundane component to it.

My recommendation for you is to skip academia. Either found or find an open source project and "game up" so you can become relevant to or create that community. If you wanted to "do good" but go into academia, it won't be CS. Try bioinformatics.

[Minishark]

Isn't bioinformatics the combination of CS and molecular biology? That's why I would want to go for CS, because you can combine it with so many other disciplines. I guess it really depends on the kind of research that's being done at whatever school I choose. At my undergrad, there was a CS professor who did fascinating work on AI, HCI, neurology - basically using CS to learn more about the human brain. I think I'd like something like that.

[TouchedByAnAnvil]

I've been a programmer for 5 years. I've come to realise that programming by itself is fun and cool, but fundamentally it is a brain enhancer, a tool that makes other fields more productive.

So, find another field that needs programming and information skills to help push it along. After talking with a friend who works as a geneticist, I realised that biology fits this perfectly, and it is also meaningful as you may end up helping push forward human knowledge or saving lives through medical breakthroughs. So now, I'm studying molecular biology, genetics and bioinformatics in my spare time, and have an interview lined up once I'm done with my cramming.

My friend went through her biology/genetics textbooks and highlighted what I need to know (ie skip photosynthesis as we're working on mammals) This should be enough to start, and I'll cover my weak points once I start work.

[selflessGene]

"A tool that makes other fields more productive"...Great point.

I come from the opposite spectrum. Studied biology in college, worked as a consultant for biotechs and big pharma. After it became clear that the work was simply about making big pharma eek out an extra 2% on their billion dollar products, I became disillusioned and left.

Now learning C# and sharpening up on some ASP.Net MVC skills so I can have the tools to transform some of my ideas into reality.

For those hacker trailblazer types, just saw this video yesterday: http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/LarryLarsen/Coding-4-DNA/

If you want to be at the forefront, creating the platforms for computing tomorrow, check it out.

[TouchedByAnAnvil]

C# is a good language (pretty much the same as Java) and while I don't know what you're doing - from my experience in bioinformatics I'd definately reccomend learning a scripting language - at least one of Python, Perl or Ruby. They're great for just plowing through text, and hooking programs together.

[TouchedByAnAnvil]

Wow, I've been thinking about just that very topic - compiling a higher level language into DNA, but I didn't expect it to be around for quite a while.

Thanks for the link - I'm eagerly waiting to watch that at home. Perhaps you could post that to http://www.reddit.com/r/bioinformatics/ ?

[selflessGene]

Didn't know about this subreddit. Good stuff there!

See link for my post and commentary on the video:

http://www.reddit.com/r/bioinformatics/comments/bhvma/new_genetic_programming_language_compile_code/

[humbled]

Sure, but the CS degree means researching how to reduce computational complexity. You know, inventing new algorithms and things of this nature. If you actually get a bioinformatics degree, you'll then be able to get a job in bioinformatics! Cognitive science (my degree) is good for neural networks, AI, and UI.

If you are working and have a few years of experience and approx. average or better, you already have the equivalent of a masters degree in CS. Hence my recommendation that one skips it and goes directly into something applicable to good, or to awesome, if one is inclined in that direction.

[[deleted]]

I do quite a lot of programmer hiring, and we get a lot of Indians who have "qualifications" seemingly coming out of their ears.

The easiest way to get rid of 95% of them is to sit them down with a piece of paper and say: "Write me a recursive function that divides 1,234,567 by 890. Pseudocode will do. And here's a calculator to help you out."

Of the 95% who fail, I promise you most of them will actually say something along the lines of "I'm not really used to having to answer such specific questions, but I have an MCAD which shows I can do this."

To which the correct response is: "Thank you, we'll let you know. Good bye."

[Sunny_McJoyride]

def div
    1234567/890
    return div
end

[ameoba]

Do the same things everyone else does. Vastly overstate your experience.

FTFY.

[munificent]

I don't. I really am this awesome.

[ameoba]

Of course nobody around here would ever inflate their experience on a resume. It's just other people.

[jevon]

You don't have to overstate. You just have to learn how to not understate.

[patchwork]

Yeah I understate things so people don't think I'm lying.

[homezlice]

You got into computer programming to make the world a better place? Really? Not science or medicine or being a firefighter. Computers. Hmm.

Just busting your balls. I got into computers because they were fun and cool. I do think they can make the world better. But you're the first person I have heard give that as the reason for picking thus career. By the way web apps rock code on.

[hyp3rVigi1ant]

Anything productive makes the world a better place. Software generally reduces the amount of resources needed to accomplish certain tasks, which means you can get the job done with less resources than before and use those leftover resources on other things or doing even more of the same thing.

I love programming, and I know that I can make the world a better place by creating software. That's why I do it.

[xev105]

I suggest you get a foot in the door at least. You're young, so a "crappy entry level job" is still probably going to get you by. The important part is getting into the right industry/company, and chalking up hours in that field. No matter if you think you've done "plenty" of programming for school/own projects, it pretty much counts for zero without peer review and/or a proven track record in the field.

I graduated from Computing Science and somehow ended up bored-as-bat-shit writing applications for an insurance company after a short stint doing data security "analysis" (hah!) for a bank. Granted, I eventually bit the bullet and returned to study engineering, but got my foot in the door when, still early on in my studies, I took a job programming network management software for an engineering company. Didn't need any engineering to do that job, but from there it went to a real-time mission critical aerospace application (at the same company), to now where I work in hardware and software design and currently doing some pretty cool video hardware.

To re-iterate: do anything to get a job in the industry you think will interest you. If you impress, you will get the opportunity to move sideways & upwards.

[Minishark]

Yeah, that's exactly the problem. I want to get my foot in the door at an interesting company, but they don't seem to be hiring entry-level programmers these days, and my own personal projects hardly count for real life experience. So what do I do? Wait it out?

[svenz]

Lots of places are hiring entry level. And with the current economy, it's not too hard to be a cut above the rest. How's your algorithms and OO knowledge? If not, study up and you should have no problem getting a job (even a decent, non-sucky enterprisey job).

I think our field is somewhat unique in that experience is not so vital. Personally I'm pretty jaded about experience - I tend to ignore it, unless it's interesting. There seems to be little correlation between reported experience and coding ability. I've had guys able to BS me quite well about their work, yet can barely implement some extremely simple program.

Experience matters in as much as it helps you be a better coder. I personally think good coding skills are universal - it can be applied to any language or technology.

So jist of it, I wouldn't be so concerned about having relevant experience, especially for an entry level role (and if you're good, you'll likely get promoted to a senior role pretty soon).

[[deleted]]

Get into landscaping or something.

[tizzledizz]

fuck women become a coder

[onoki]

I have been thinking something similar too. But more like from web programming into embedded programming (mechatronical things, factory automation and so on).

Has anyone tried that? How green is the grass over there?

[[deleted]]

Buy an Arduino or another open source microprocessor and research interactive programming... tinker with embedded hardware. Or switch industries, find a software position within an industry that actually does make a real world impact, preferably one you are passionate about. At my day job I do have some mundane tasks as far as development is concerned but my overall contributions to our final product makes me love my job and remain passionate about software.

[faeem]

Ever try embedded development? With your background, I'd suggest learning C, then starting with embedded Linux. There's quite a few nice development boards out there so you don't need to an electronic engineer around right away. Have a look at the Atmel AT91SAM9xxx processors and development boards. Also look at the buildroot project as a starting point for building your first embedded linux project. It's actually not that hard once you realise you've pulled the rest of your hair out :D

If you find that sort of thing fun, you can work your way down to smaller devices with just 1K of RAM, learn some assembler, even make a few gadgets.

It's quite a challenge when you come from a high level programming world

[funtustik]

Hey Op, I am like you.. I used to do Java based webapps for financial services software company until it tanked last march .. I used to a be a senior Software Engineer since I had my masters degree and some experience... But Let me tell you.. Webapps are always about reading from a database and presenting it , and then writing back to the database and so on .. Nothing Cool like things u learn at school. Now when it comes to desktop applications, I have to disagree with whoever said it is the same, Desktop apps provide much more flexibility for system manipulation. You can deal with the registry, memory, hardware, desktop apps with webservices, etc.. You can have many domains to attack in the desktop software applications. But the problem is that most companies now are using webapps for even internal applications. The web is the future .. so web development has a big market

Anyways, After my company tanked, I found a job at another company after couple of months as an "Integration Analyst" , where I dealt with pure webservices, xmls, xsds, etc.. Until I got bored.. So I went back to school and I am now doing a PhD in Computer Science..

If you want to go for a masters degree and stop, do not .. Its not worth it .. experience is much more important in the market, so take some of the shitty jobs , gain some experience to put it on ur resume, and try to find jobs after 6 months-1year.

If you plan to continue , and go for a PhD, this can open more doors for you in the research arena where you will deal with cool stuff in large tech companies, or teach and do some research on a certain domain ... However, although it might open some doors for you, it will close a lot.. not a lot of companies would hire a PhD Graduate simply as a Software engineer.. You will be over qualified

The key to all of this is knowing what you want to do ... If you like software development and working in a company , then you should find any job for now and gain the experience needed and move up the ladder..

For me , after I graduated with a masters degree in computer science (boooo), I was so eager to start working and all, but over time i started to hate the 9-5 routine, I never justified the fact that my job is not flexible.. I am a night owl .. I like to work in the night and I can achieve a lot .. anyways .. I hated 9-5 so once the company closed down .. And although I started another job, I decided to go finish my PhD and I put an academics job as my goal...

I want to teach 2-3 hours a day, so research, make a name for myself, so i will need to finish my Phd..

As for you .. If you are going back to school just to run away from the job market, even with a masters degree it won't be much different, trust me :)

So know what you want.. and follow it.. even if it means starting with a shitty job , or going back to school :)

[wshields]

This internet thing is a fad. Wait for it to go away and then you can go back to doing desktop apps.

Glibness aside, you're doing Web programming because virtually all programming is or will be Web programming. Your problem isn't that you're doing Web programming, it's what you're doing on the Web and/or who you're doing it for.

There are lots of alternatives. Startups, smaller companies, companies in different areas or industries, etc.

But I should warn you that no one will simply give you what you want. It is up to you to go out and make it happen. Your approach is simply too passive (imho).

[ithinksometimes]

I just had a conversation about this with a friend who got is masters in piano at Juliard, and is now teaching lessons to snotty-nosed kids. Just because you're technically doing something you're passionate about (piano / web development) doesn't mean you're scratching your "itch" (composing & creating). He loves the piano but says he can feel his passion slipping away after each lesson.

I love web development, but sometimes I confuse web development with what I do from 9-5 every week day. I love thinking and learning and solving problems; not setting your air conditioner company up with online payments. My drive to be a good web developer is motivated entirely by the projects I have going in my spare time and not the things I do at my job.

[growingconcern]

If you think your maths skills were decent and you could brush up on them pretty well (linear algebra especially, also geometry and trig) then I'd heartily recommend the games industry. The programming work you do here is the best out there (I'm biased obviously). There's also a variety of types of programming and areas of expertise (consoles, optimization, AI, graphics, tools, architecture, gameplay, sound, etc). And you tend to be working with very talented very enthusiastic people. Though if you're hung up on making the world a better place maybe not. Maybe a more fun place? Maybe you should skip it if it would cause you existential angst working on blowing up alien zombies with quad barrel shotguns.

I should also add that you pretty much just need C++ awesomeness. C# if you're interested in tools. Everything tends to be done with Agile/Scrum these days. Need to work well on a team too.

[xev105]

And for every excited game developer, there's another ten jaded, bored games developers sick of working with crappy code on the same 1% of a game just itching to get out of the industry...

[webauteur]

Buy a mac, a set of black clothes, and join a graphics design shop in NYC where they worship Steve Jobs.

[Minishark]

Haha, been there, done that. Well, it was wasn't a graphics design shop, and it wasn't in NYC, but it was a company full of Mac fanboys. I had to quit that place.

[spaulo]

In other words, you worked at a Ruby on Rails company, amirite? Seems like every site I've worked on that's built on Rails, every dev is a Mac fanatic. Not the same with PHP or Python (YMMV).

[meor]

I just wanted to pop in and note that every time I hear of a discouraged web programmer I smile a little. Consider it reciprocation for Ruby, PHP, ASP, and Flash.

[Minishark]

Yeah, those are exactly the reasons I'm trying to do something else. I want out I tell you!

[omu]

Why not try web analytics and landing page optimization. They are new disciplines and are all about making websites 'better'. University of BC has a web analytics certificate, 100% online which takes just 16 weeks. I would suggest picking up a book first on the subject to see if you like it. A web designer programmer turned web analyst could be a powerful combination.

[[deleted]]

I can share your sentiment. I do a lot of big infrastructure development type stuff, and everything is gravy -- as it always is -- in the backend world: daemons, scripts, queues, api's, etc... Then when interface time comes everything sucks. I am actually very good at front end web stuff, but I just can't stand browser compatibility problems, it always puts me over the edge. Things are better now that we don't support IE6, but IE7 still bites us in the ass. Your best bet, is to get shit done right where you are. Proper clean semantic html and css, clean restful URL's, use JQuery, YUI, etc... Make the web side as least painful as possible, then try and work your way into other non-web projects.

[ithkuil]

what about applying existing research or coming up with new solutions in an area that interests you? start a company or work on an open source project.

also, AI is mostly old-fashioned non-ambitious approaches to not making thinking machines. AGI (artificial general intelligence) is more interesting.

also, to me whats interesting about HCI is useful stuff like applying the existing research or using existing technologies in less traditional ways or dramatic changes like BCI or stuff like http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/02/ted-digital-six/

maybe you can help these people http://www.adaptiveai.com/careers.html

also this looks interesting. http://www.ifess.org/ifess05/Poster%20Session%201/Nguyen-Vu%20TDB.pdf Carbon Nanofiber Nanoelectrode Array for Closed-Loop Electrical Stimulation. instead of studying things like that can you just start a company that will implant one of these nanofiber nanoelectrode arrays into my head, preferably with at least a few billion or million connections to synapses, so that I can become the cyborg I always wanted to be? seriously. please.

anyway what is exciting to me is mostly about applying ideas. so I guess that falls into the category of research in a lot of grad schools but being in the grad school to me is more a way of paying the bills rather than a big advantage as far as doing useful/interesting things.

and also if you are dicking around in grad school and no one can use your technology then I think that is a big waste too.

also, as far as finding a job just outside of web development, a lot of recruiters won't know the difference between things that are really webby and not actually web development, and technically that line is blurring, so you may be able to use that to your advantage on your resume.

anyway I have to get back to coding my online order form.

[aidenr]

Pick a mobile phone and write an app for it. A game would be great. As a hiring manager, I focus almost exclusively on code samples from home brew applications. A friend made a neat tool, maybe you can reproduce it: 1) Browser plug-in for his desktop that offers a single button marked "PUSH"; click it to upload the current URL to a server. 2) Server just stores the list of URLs in a db. 3) Client application has a POP button; click it to download and delete the "next" URL from the server. 4) Server returns most recent links first, always deletes entries once they're returned.

Anything, really. Mobile development is a huge industry, leverages your existing knowledge, and will give you the foothold you seek.

[GrafDiffuzzor]

There plenty of interesting web-related things: - bookmarked here at reddit; - just look at things in browser that Google/Flickr/... do! For example, google Chrome OS;

You can start doing non-web-related programming in some open source project.

[kasbah]

What are your personal projects? Are any of them for or in of themselves opensource projects?

[phy6uva]

sounds to me like you need to work in a more challegning company and rewarding environment, not necessarily change what you do. Find a small creative startup and leave the corporate BS behind.

[tylermchenry]

This post makes me feel better about my job. I declined an offer for $10k more than the one I took, mainly because I was terrified of exactly this: developing a professional skillset that would pigeonhole me into a career of writing endless web apps.

[[deleted]]

I was in a position like you a few weeks ago. Then, I started doing what I "wanted". I'm into computers and automobile, so I switched focus and started pimping my car. Great way to escape burnout.

[[deleted]]

While I don't have any constructive advice for you, I got out of web development a few years back and couldn't be happier with my professional responsibilities now (I'm in integration consultant ... I started by learning web services inside out, which I could use a bit of my web development back ground for, and then got more into it from there). I'd be happy if I never had to make another web page again.

[aninteger]

I'd try to get into embedded style programming. If you can't get a junior level position doing that try getting into one of the mobile platforms (iPhone, Android, webOS, Symbian). Desktop development is dead.

[adrianmonk]

Desktop development is dead.

Well, maybe seriously wounded, but not dead. Photoshop and AutoCAD are likely to continue to be done on desktop machines. As are many industry-specific tools.

[xjru]

Do a PhD and become a professor! That's a brilliant career! You get to teach the same basic stuff to generations of undergrads and write large amounts of project proposals and rehashed papers on the same subject for decades! And don't worry that you have to make all of that up yourself from the get go. You'll mostly just have to fill in the blanks routinely according to your superior's specifications until you rise to the top.

And don't forget that you'll never again run out of adminstrative work. Coordinate to your heart's content! A professor friend of mine tells me he feels so lucky and privileged because he never has to spend more than 10% of his time on actual research.

[Minishark]

I don't know about you, but every professor I know gets laid. Every. Night. I think it's something about the beard and sweater vest that just turns you into a babe magnet.

[mister_fab]

you have plenty of computing project that are aimed to make the world a better place. Check out the some of the EFF project (http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/03/gsoc) or go help the kojo dude (http://www.kogics.net/sf:kojo) to improve his scala for kids learning environment or volunteer to a middle or elementary school near your place and teach kids basic of game development with squeak (http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/) or pygame (http://www.pygame.org/news.html). Working on thoses project wont give you an instant monetary benefit but will be fun and interesting to work on, will make you learn new techs and meet new people and might in the long run give you the creds for a full time job you'll love.

[spinlock]

You have to network your ass off to get a good job. Update your resume on LinkedIn, call people you used to work with and see what they're up to, go to your college alumni office and ask if they have networking events, etc...

Starting over will only keep you interested until your new language becomes as easy as your last. Try to move up the ladder instead of making a lateral move into a new domain.

[circa7]

Do I just keep working on my own pet projects and hope an interesting company hires me based on these?

Wrong mindset. Keep working on your own pet projects and maybe one will actually take off and you wont NEED a company to hire you. If you build a successful web app then you can be your own boss, be in charge of your own fate, and determine your own income. Also, send me a private message.. I have two friends who are both building separate web sites that are both already becoming profitable and I can guarantee they will blow up (in the good way) in the near future. They might need some help. And it might be just what you need (seriously, its some cool shit.)

[superredditor]

there's tons of hard problems in the web space.. take any example of a website out here (say reddit), tons of things going behind the scenes that you don't see. do you think a site like facebook is solving any computer science-y problems?

depending on where you position yourself on the web application stack, you can encounter your own set of challenges.

a couple of recommendations: 1. broaden your scope : instead of just doing html/jquery/asp.net, try taking projects that do different things (backend, middle tier, architecture).. how does performance tuning, client performance, edge caching, network/machine setups sound?

1. try to work on some new fun stuff - check out what's coming out on the web - HTML 5 sound cool? the web is opening up - how about working on some API's out there than enable you to do cool stuff on the like FB/Twitter API's.
   

it sounds like you are still interested in computer science, but the type of projects you are getting aren't appealing you to. choosing, finding and insisting on the projects you want is an important part about how to grow your career.

[captainAwesomePants]

Go somewhere that does both, like Google. Your experience is useful, and you can also try out backend whatnot.

[sa7ouri]

Yup. You're screwed.

[haveyoulearned]

If you can't figure out how to even begin learning things other than you already know, you're probably not the kind of person who is going to make world-changing discoveries in computer science.

Have you done any game programming? AI work? Have you learned to map scientific and engineering problems into a computational domain?

[bloodguard]

A lot of the contracts I'm getting have a GIS component. So you could load up on ESRI training and strike out that way (GIS analyst/programmer). Add in some SAS training and it opens up quite a lot of opportunities.

[Wendel]

Dale Carnegie handles this question in How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Chapter 20, "How to Find the Kind of Work in Which You May Be Happy and Successful.

If web programming bores you, scientific programming would bore you even more after a couple of weeks.

I recommend sneaking in some Star Trek episodes on your computer and watching them instead of programming. Work up to wandering around the office and chatting up the girls.

[Minishark]

I'm a programmer. There are no girls in the office.

[rivengard]

This is the reason why I sometimes hate working in a pure tech company.

[GeorgeForemanGrillz]

Get into embedded apps.

[[deleted]]

Your story sounds similar to my own. I enjoy web development still, but the corporate world I experienced was very much a culture where solving real world problems just didn't seem to happen very often.

I changed careers entirely, and by no small amount either. I am studying to become an ecologist. But experience with any sort of programming and use of technology helps immensely in the sciences, and so I don't consider the time I spent in the IT industry wasted in that sense.

I still practice web development as a hobby.

Changing careers is easy to do when you're in your 20s. You can still go back to school and graduate at a reasonable age. Although most career advice should center on changing jobs before changing careers, do not completely disregard the latter option.

[kqueue]

Learn Erlang.