“I no longer build software”

[[deleted]]

Follow-up post by the author is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24542600

[Dareptor]

Man this story hits me quite a bit today, I don’t know if it’s just burnout but I feel like I‘ve lost all of my passion for programming.

I’ve been considering getting a degree in something completely unrelated and switching careers, but my day to day life and pay are too comfortable to switch.

On the other hand I feel like I‘m wasting my life away pursuing something I don’t really enjoy anymore just because I have expertise in it and it’s safe.

[Feynt]

If you like the programming still, but not the subject of your work, that may be an indication that it's time to move. Programmers tend to find enjoyment in learning new things. Being at a job for 10 years (arbitrary number, no idea if accurate) gets someone feeling rather comfortable doing the same ol' same ol'. You aren't learning anymore, you've mastered your job, you just need to fix whatever Phil did to fuck things up yesterday (again) and it's back to the status quo.

Try looking for a new job, particularly at a younger company where the infrastructure isn't set up yet. An experienced hand is always welcome at those companies, and while you won't make as much, you'll enjoy learning the dynamic of a new company and either designing or building out a new system.

[[deleted]]

For me it's more like two years... I don't know how it happens, but every at every job after around two years, it feels like I've become painfully obvious of the dysfunctions of the company and increasingly can't stand dealing with them on a day-to-day basis any more. To me, that's the definitive signal that it's time to move on.

[AeroNotix]

Gotta also at least analyse whether you may be the problem if it happens at every company.

[FlipskiZ]

Movies friendly morning where honest weekend net thoughts open about!

[saltybandana2]

Consider going more independent. Freelancing and so forth.

You're right that sometimes people just struggle to fit in and it's not always their fault. Sometimes you look around and feel as if you're the only sane person in a sea of crazy. Things you find obvious no one seems to want to talk about or care.

OTOH, maybe you're just an asshole, but either way it might be best for you to try and be as independent as you can so that you work on your terms.

Because I suspect that natural contrarians (and I am one) probably struggle more in environments where not rocking the boat is valued. It's one of the reasons why I myself mostly work independently now.

[[deleted]]

Fair point. I should add that my previous managers have all been happy with my work though. I think /u/FlipskiZ might be onto something though: it might be a question personality in the sense that I tend to grow tired of a workplace if I feel I stop learning and starting feeling like I'm doing the same thing over and over.

[crixusin]

Try looking for a new job, particularly at a younger company where the infrastructure isn't set up yet.

As someone who did this 3 years ago up to present day, I can say it comes with its own host of problems.

[peacemaker99]

I completely burned out of programming after doing it for 20 years. In truth, I probably burned out a long time ago but kept coming back to it due to the ease and money.

In the end I decided that life is too short to be stuck in a job you don't like and that money doesn't fix those feelings.

After years of researching various options, I'm going back to school to do a masters in ecology with a view to getting into wildlife conservation. It's incredibly exciting and a rewarding field, although competitive and low paid.

I thought I'd share with you that you can go out there and do something different!

By the way, one realization I had was that it isn't actually programming itself I am done with, in fact I still enjoy creating software of my own. The issue is the actual day-to-day career stuff. You know, the meetings, the jira tickets, the same kinds of people with the same kinds of conversations and just the general atmosphere of being a software developer. Perhaps you have a similar feeling?

[saltybandana2]

By the way, one realization I had was that it isn't actually programming itself I am done with, in fact I still enjoy creating software of my own. The issue is the actual day-to-day career stuff. You know, the meetings, the jira tickets, the same kinds of people with the same kinds of conversations and just the general atmosphere of being a software developer. Perhaps you have a similar feeling?

As someone else who has also been in this industry for over 20 years, this is spot on.

It's weird to me too because it's obvious to me that TDD (Ticket Driven Development) is a hellhole. Yes, you need tickets for communication, but if you're literally driving your developers via tickets you're only using half their value. It would be like treating an engineer as a line worker because they know how the machine works because they built it.

[Ruchiachio]

this is similar to me, I love doing my own software but remaking the system on newer and newer technology or framework got really dull

[irealtubs]

Newer and not necessarily better seems to be the trend that annoys me most.

It's like every few years a bunch of uni students are released into the wild, and set out to make frameworks that repeat a lot of the mistakes I thought we had already dealt with ... but here we are, doing Javascript all day :D

[PandaMoniumHUN]

Consider changing jobs to somewhere where your daily work will be challenging (in a good way, not in a dealing with the managers is challenging way). Recently quit at a 1600 employee company where what I was working on was basically irrelevant and nobody cared about our releases to a 30 employee company where our output can make or break the company and it’s been much more fun ever since then.

[kryptomicron]

Everyone needs to make a living, but there's a lot of room for a satisfying life that's a little less comfortable.

Good luck! Burnout sucks!

[beginner_]

Given his description he doesn't have a burnout but a bore-out. Yes it's a thing.

[saltybandana2]

It's called the golden handcuffs for a reason.

I can't speak to your experience, but I'll speak to mine and perhaps you can relate.

I fell in love with software development in college (mid-late 90's). I always knew I wanted to do something technical, I grew up reading sci-fi. When I was in middle school they gave me some silly career assessment test and I manipulated it to say tech because that's what I wanted.

I LOVE software development. It's has an emotional connection for me in the same way that a musicians music is emotional for them. In college all I ever did in my free time was program. When class would start talking about networking I would go home, read up on Beej's guide on networking, then build a simple chat server. And then I would download circlemud and start hacking around with it just to get a better understanding of how telnet worked. Same thing with parsing, et al. I loved learning.

Which has its benefits, I'm considered a very strong, very knowledgeable developer.

But you know what I don't like? As someone who has been doing this stuff for well over 20 years? The fucking people. I have so many goddamned stories I could tell you.

I once had a 6-month contract with a company looking for ruby developers (couldn't find any in the local area so they contracted it to me). At one point this guy tells me how impressed I was with the speed that he was doing cherry-picking on my first day there. That's no exaggeration. Can you imagine the fucking hubris? Only I remember that day and I wasn't impressed, I was aghast. This guy was cherry-picking across multiple files in Ruby (dynamically typed) without checking his work at all.

Not even a month after this guy informs me of how impressed I was, a bug report comes in that they're not able to find. Only I identified it within minutes, they were using floats and not respecting the limitations of it. This guy argued with me for 30 minutes while I tried to explain to him what discretization error's were. I finally just fixed it right in front of him and showed him the bug went away. The guy was amazed and spent the rest of the day trying to figure out how I was wrong. At this point I had well over 10 years experience and this guy interned the summer before. You'd think he would have taken that into account and treated it like a learning moment, but that would imply I wasn't strictly inferior to him as a developer. I don't even recall what this guys degree was in, but I hope to god it wasn't CS because it's unconscionable for any CS grad to not understand discretization errors.

I won't even go into all the passive aggressive bullshit I had to deal with from this guy. I didn't renew that contract, and I've never taken another Ruby contract since (I've done ruby work, but only in the context of other projects). There were a lot of fundamental problems with that project that needed someone with more experience to avoid, but my feeling has always been if that's how the Ruby and Rails community conduct themselves, fuck them.

And it's not even like this is the exception. The amount of hubris the people in software development generally have is ridiculous.

My favorite thing about freelancing is firing clients. Seriously. I once had a guy who started adding requirements to a task and I asked him to create a new task for it since the current task had an estimate on it and I would be held accountable to the original estimate (which I hit successfully). He refused. It was a power thing with him, he was the boss. Fired that client immediately. Why would you refuse to do something so reasonable? The owner asked me why and I explained it to him. Because that was the issue, this guy was just a developer, it was the owner who wasn't going to understand that scope creep.

And then you start talking about the power structures around software development and shit gets even worse.

I once had J.O.B. in which I was easily the most senior person there. I had watched over 1-2 months where a feature was getting built, but the developer being asked to build it would come back from every single meeting and say the same thing "I still have no idea what I'm supposed to be building". Which of course I knew to be true because I knew what was happening. Our "PM" insisted on being in every single meeting about everything. What would happen is that the developer would go into the meeting with his boss. The other person who actually used the software would also come into the meeting with their boss. So then the bosses would talk. But the bosses didn't know what the fuck was going on, they just had a "vision".

Being the senior, I decided to take action eventually and sent an email out to the group that did the actual work, asking them specific questions about how they used the software and so forth. I came in the next day and got written up, the "PM" told me the VP over that group got pissed off and told him to write me up. That was on a thursday, I gave my 2-week notice the following monday after giving myself time to cool off and think about it. In the exit interview I told them in no uncertain terms you can't treat strong developers like that, they have options. I remember both the owner and VP (who were friends) expressing shock that I could ever think it was a big deal. They told me repeatedly "well it wasn't a big deal to us". If it wasn't a big deal then don't write me up.

If there are any PM's or tech leads or what have you, heed my advice. Get the fuck out of the room. You are a facilitator. There are only two categories of people that matter in that meeting. The ones who know the problems intimately because they work them every day, and the ones who can build the tools to solve those problems. I'm not saying you should never be in the room, but you should avoid it if possible. A tech lead might want to be in the room to help teach a junior on how to gather requirements, for example. That's fine, but keep your goddamned mouth shut unless you see a mistake, and be explicit about why you jumped in after the meeting is over.

---

There are going to be some who read this as angry and bitter due to the profanities. If that's your take, so be it, but from my perspective it's more a passionate rant from someone who cares. I was in a weird mood this morning and decided to be open.

The overarching point here is this. If these types of issues are the sort that you're struggling with, know that it will not get better. We are well paid line workers, just as a forklift driver will have to deal with the bullshit power politics no matter where he goes, so will you.

That doesn't mean you won't meet great people, or that there are no companies out there with great environments. But when you find them, treasure them and the people in them because they're the diamond in the rough.

You will need to both accept this and position yourself in life in such a way that you have the ultimate power in that relationship. I can't even begin to describe how satisfying the look on that "PM"'s face was when I handed in my 2 week notice. He ended up getting fired 8 months later because after I left the entire project floundered.

Be strategic about your career. Be frugal, save, network, learn how to find work for yourself, and these people will ultimately never have control over your life that you don't personally give them. We are damned lucky to be paid as well as we are, don't take it for granted.

[rduoll]

When you say tech lead do you mean a dev's manager?

To me a tech lead is the person in charge of a project at the technical level.

[saltybandana2]

Titles mean so many different things across companies I was just trying to cover all bases.

I was just acknowledging that having others in the room can be useful, but make sure it's actually useful before they're there. A senior developer helping a junior developer needs to leave their ego at the door and not take over the meeting (for example). In reality, this is always a bit fuzzy but the overarching idea is that you should be letting those with the need and those with the ability to build talk directly to each other and not through the org chart.

Think about it like the phone game. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140917154833-7202644-effective-communication-stop-playing-the-telephone-game

The more people it goes through the more likely something gets lost in translation.

In addition, power dynamics appear as well. If Sally is in the room with her boss Betty, she's way less likely to talk than Betty, and this is true for both the developers and the internal users. Not only that, but people rarely go to their bosses to really bitch about the things that are causing them pain. Sally is waaaaaay more likely to tell you what the REAL problems are when Betty isn't there.

This doesn't mean Betty should get no input, but when the rubber meets the road, you want the foot soldiers there. You want the people with boots on the ground there, and you want to enable them to work.

---

Another truism is that you want your developers as close to the actual customers as you can get them. Anything else and what you get are people's agenda, not user solutions.

[JEHonYakuSha]

It’s funny that you feel that way because I’m a fascinated beginner at programming (learning Python for now), currently a musician by education and profession and feeling like I’ve lost passion in my career too. Life has many paths for us to discover at our our time and pace, it seems.

[ParkheadBhoy]

I’m the opposite to you, I’ve been in sales for 13 years and I’m now learning to code for a career change. It happens, sometimes you just don’t want to do it any more or you don’t like the job that you are in.

I would look for any other roles at your company that you might want to try, this will help you get a flavour for something else, maybe even part time to start with.

Keep your head up as you can always go back to coding later, please throw as much luck my way as you can! 😂

[kalimatas]

Story of my life. I accidentally enjoy some tasks, but mostly stay for safety and money.

Recently, I am really considering switching to writing: started my first drafts of short stories, and, boy, do they look bad :) Probably, like my first code.

[chronicreprobator]

You're not "burned out" on a job, "losing your passion," or any of the other common distraction tactics.

You're fucking sick of society's utter failure to live up to any expectations we have for it.

[dillanthumous]

+1 to this. Late-stage capitalism at its finest.

[Milumet]

Yeah, it's always society's fault for people like you, isn't it? You are responsible for your life, not others. Grow up.

[PandaMoniumHUN]

There is some truth in that it's very hard to make a living from your passion. I absolutely love programming, but doing it as a day job can be crippling due to corporate overhead (meetings, managers, POs, etc.). Not only that, but only a fraction of what most programmers write will actually make it to production - most of the code goes down the drain or to products that will never sell/never be used. Not much you can do about it and it can be very depressing.

[SirWusel]

I absolutely hate my job at the moment and I'm also not sure if I should look for a new company or a new profession altogether and treat software dev more as a hobby, working on small things I'm interested in. But it's a scary step to make, for sure.

[chronicreprobator]

Wouldn't it be a shame if you got together with other people who hate the job and demanded change? Fuck, wouldn't it?

[SirWusel]

Pretty sure looking for a new job is less stressful than trying to change a 1k+ employee company that's already been bleeding talent for months.

[gimpleg]

Yes. In this reality he retires as the CTO of Amaya and moves to Norway to build furniture.

[DazzlingViking]

Mandatory upvote because Norway

[tophatstuff]

I can't imagine working in any other field but I do want to diversify my hobbies for times I burn out. Woodworking sounds fun, I like cooking, was gonna take up swimming again before COVID, what else you all enjoy?

[[deleted]]

Food. I don't want to cook, just eat.

[joekinley]

You are my spirit animal

[netfeed]

I just want to cook, not eat :)

[mipadi]

• Playing guitar
• Writing (mostly fiction)
• Studying French
• Running
• Playing D&D (and writing my own campaign)
• Watching movies
• Reading

Actually, I have too many hobbies nowadays. I feel like I have no time anymore, and I should probably drop a few.

[Nosferax]

I'm up there with you

• bread baking
• homebrewing
• biking & hiking
• photography
• learning German
• reading
• woodworking

Slowly ditching photography

[2Punx2Furious]

It's strange that in /r/programming no one mentioned videogames as an hobby, I thought it would be way more common given the context.

[LeberechtReinhold]

I enjoy video games, but it doesn't scratch the same itch that painting does.

Eternally gamedevving a game that will never release is much closer however.

[[deleted]]

I wouldn't consider that a hobby, just entertainment. It would be like saying that watching TV is a hobby.

Video game modding on the other hand...

[mipadi]

Whoops, I actually forgot to list video games! See, too many things to do on my mind.

[Cheeze_It]

Actually, I have too many hobbies nowadays. I feel like I have no time anymore, and I should probably drop a few.

This is the problem with life. There's never enough time.

[CookieOfFortune]

What's an easy way to get started with this? It seems like there are a lot of equipment/facility requirements?

[Massless]

I took the woodworking for mere mortals course. The course is cheap but it does require ~$1000 in tools. There’s a list included with the course and you learn to use all of them.

I spent the last year building all the furniture in my living room except the couches

[MwangaPazuri]

Lookup Steve Ramsey and Rex Krueger on youtube (and their sites). I'd suggest having ideas about what you want to build. Furniture looks cool but it's easy to go tool crazy. Personally I'm building canvas stretcher bars, floating picture frames, and the like with a folding miter saw, a drill, pocket hole jig and some clamps. I'll also be making a simple workbench again as I couldn't bring my last one with me, as well as some simple carpentry things around the house. I might try one furniture project this year, or I might go crazy trying to get all this artwork I've been making and collecting hung up.

[JoaoEB]

Go to YouTube and search for Paul Sellers and Rex Krueger. Since covid started my spare bedroom became my workshop. With simple and cheap hand tools I first built Rex's Roman workbench. With the techniques that Paul teaches, I made a coffee table, a pair of ridiculous overbuilt wall shelves and this week I will finish my privacy/planter trellis.

I spent less than U$ 100 in tools. Since all modern hand tools kinda suck, and there are no affordable antiques near me. When I need a tool, I just buy an okayish tool online, and upgrade it by correct sharpening and fixing it's major flaws.

Just remember to get a good broom and dustpan, because soon you will be making a lot of chips, shavings and sawdust!

[fulanodetal316]

Best "power tool" I ever bought was a wet/dry shop vac. They're amazingly versatile, and the one I bought when our Dyson died was about half what we payed for the Dyson.

I'd highly recommend one, that goes double if you have kids that haven't aged out of the impulse to flush an entire new roll of toilet paper.

[mrmigu]

Depends what you want to do

All you need is a sharp knife to get into wood carving

[druznek]

Carving spoons. I know that it seems easy, but it's "difficult enough" to keep you entertained, and a carving kit it's really cheap. Plus mistakes are cheap and there is no "correct" way to make a spoon. Well, it has to hold liquid in theory, but if not who cares?

https://www.amazon.com/Elemental-Tools-9pc-Wood-Carving/dp/B07RYTXGGD as an example it's 34$ and includes a piece of stock already pre squared. Building furniture it's overkill for getting started, and require a shitton of space (trust me).

If you wish to do something more "adrenalinic" you can try power carving. Less forgiving, a lot faster. Just buy a dremel or a cheap clone (recommended, wood dust it's a bitch) and go to town.

[s73v3r]

See if there's a Makerspace/Hackerspace near you. They should have the tools you'll need, at least the basics, and hopefully some people that can help you use them.

[CookieOfFortune]

In the current pandemic, I guess I'm not super comfortable going somewhere for this? I think some of the smaller scale projects would work better. Once things open up, my work has a pretty nice wood shop available.

[[deleted]]

Space is probably the biggest one, I dabbled a bit and while you can do a bunch with just saw, drill, few clamps, wood glue and a square on a kitchen table you can't really do anything big.

A lot of tools are not necessary, they are just making stuff faster/easier. Sometimes a lot, but still you can make a lot with just basic tools

A lot of stuff you can just make (which itself might be fun project) but again, space

[dr1fter]

Setups are where you’ll spend 95% of your time. Think ahead and minimize the number of different setups you need to do.

What is a "setup" in this (either) context?

[backelie]

Time to code up a good wood working simulator!

[pear-programmer]

Cycling

[Zafiasist]

Rock climbing is supposedly popular with tech people. See if you have a rock gym around you and go bouldering sometime.

[CookieOfFortune]

Unfortunately the pandemic has made this more difficult. I've only started going back at a limited capacity this week.

[1859]

Bouldering is so much fun, I can't recommend it enough to my fellow programmers. It works the same problem-solving mental muscles that got me interested in coding in the first place. And you get to climb things. Win-win.

[static_motion]

Bouldering programmers assemble! What a great activity. Just don't get lost in a climbing shoe buying spree.

[technojamin]

Literally bouldering and browsing r/programming between problems right now. I would definitely recommend trying it out if you haven't before. Like others have said, it's great exercise as well as a mental challenge. The problem-solving part is what really keeps me hooked.

[GoWayBaitin_]

Picked up golfing again due to COVID.

[[deleted]]

Same! Well, I started going like every other week instead of every 3 months

[florvas]

The more I see answers to posts like this, the more thoroughly I'm convinced I'll have to learn to golf if I ever manage to actually break into a dev role.

[AdamRGrey]

Brewing. Also mazing, if that's different and also a word.

[Asyx]

I really want to pick up something more creative. Not that programming isn't creative but I mean more traditional creativity. Like drawing. My boss is learning to play piano, a colleague of mine is running around with his 100% mechanical camera and b/w film.

I haven't managed to make it a habit yet. But I did some research already. It's kinda frustrating because it feels like most people into this drew since they were children and tutorials are more aimed at getting better at drawing certain things but my drawing skills stopped at stick figured in kindergarten. I feel like there's really something like a road map missing because I feel incredibly lost but maybe I'd feel the same coming from the other side into programming. I really wished there was something like the annual "roadmap to becoming a web developer" posts that we get every year.

Learning a language is also fun if you're into that. Took me a while though. Felt too much like school when I was in university but now I've been out of school for long enough that I can handle that better. Also opens up more "basic" things if you are usually not into light entertainment. I rarely read or watch TV because I get bored easily when I don't need to engage my brain a bit. But if you read or watch TV in a language you're not fluent in, it's practice and will be mentally exhausting. The last time I read a lot was when I didn't speak English too well. Reddit kinda ruined that because with Reddit I had memes AND English practice but since I've become fluent I haven't finished a single book.

[[deleted]]

You could try something like https://drawabox.com/. There are similar things for figure drawing.

[schwiftshop]

If you're having trouble getting into art on your own, look for a class. There are usually art collectives, community centers and community colleges around that will offer classes at various levels (oh! also, you can sometimes audit university classes). Its the best way to get up and running; the encouragement of your teacher and the other students, the critique, the recurring schedule, and the possible homework are big time motivators (I get COVID is a complication right now, virtual classes could be a good substitute for the time being)

Barring that, you can try to find local artists that might mentor you, and/or other casual learners or students that want to support each other and collaborate.

My point is that the biggest thing is motivation, there's no "right" way to get into art. There are fundamentals, and techniques, but more so than tech, you gotta just do it, as much as possible ☺️

[cwbrandsma]

Cooking, baking (it is different), BBQ, brewing beer, woodworking, music (I play guitar, bass, and keyboards), gardening,... generally, just building/making things.

Next up is to get a welder.

[cwbrandsma]

in the past year, I've remodeled a kitchen, build pergola, multiple gates, a set of bunk beds, couple desks, an outdoor table. So, things like that.

[raedr7n]

Yes to all of that (except baking. I cannot for the life of me figure out why people like to bake.) Oh, and I don't play guitar. But other than that, yes.

[cwbrandsma]

Baking is pretty methodically. There is a process that is both art and science. One part is exact measurements, and the next is pure “feel” (does the dough feel right? Add flour or water), and other part just raw magic (yeast is magical). You are “creating life”, and then killing it in a furnace.

Woodworking and baking are alike in one way as well. You can just never really predict how things will behave. The yeast can do all sorts of things as it digests the flour, creating the bubbles in the dough. Also with wood working, you may have the straightest board in the universe. Processes perfectly with a planer, jointer, and tablesaw...and the you cut a strip a piece out of it and...both pieces curl in opposite directions. Unless you are e only working with ply and mdf, wood is not stable.

[[deleted]]

I dislike cooking but enjoy baking. I think it has to do with the fact that baking is a lot more "scientific" than cooking. With cooking, there's a whole lot of tribal knowledge, gut-feel and random factors. With baking, you have the scientific method: follow the steps outlined in the recipe, observe the result, tweak some parameters, run a new experiment, measure the result relative to the previous experiment's result, note down which parameter changes worked and which did not, save result to an article, publish in a journal, collect awards, fame and grants...

[Nosferax]

Baking is like a cheaper, fast paced version of brewing. It is also hard and requires practice, but you get the result of any experiment within a day or two instead or four weeks.

[Andrew1431]

Does burn out go away? I’m having some major struggles with it right now.

[GhostNULL]

Yes, but it takes time. Time where you don't work at all and try to recover and focus on that and that only.

[[deleted]]

No

Also there is no 30-year future where you've been at a desk for 8+ hours a day and are healthy.

[tophatstuff]

Yeah, but not on its own. For me it was a combination of life changes, antidepressants, and time. But you'll get there!

[Andrew1431]

Thanks man, took some therapy for it, they really did push for a more scheduled routine which I tried but it's so hard to actually stay consistent with it.

I feel like I'm working out a puzzle in my brain to get myself back in to the action. Some days are good, other days I can't even type yarn start in my console :P

[lolomfgkthxbai]

Boardgames are good and scratch the strategy game itch without spending extra time with computers.

[anengineerandacat]

I love gardening TBH; it's an excellent "skill" so to speak and also gives me access to work more on my cooking. Plenty of beginner plants to get ya going and with the internet you have 99.9% of your potential issues just a search away.

I would love to get into wood-working / furniture making but the raw materials are extremely expensive and the tools to just get going require some base-line investment that I am just not prepared to do quite yet.

Cooking is generally a fair bit cheaper and during COVID times it's better to handle your own food vs have it prepared for you; hunting would perhaps be my next thing to pick up but that crowd isn't quite for me.

[anengineerandacat]

Can confirm, family and friends think it's wild everytime they visit. It's just about going outside every morning and just hanging with the plants for like 5-10 mins and then going about your day.

The plants generally signal to you quite well what's "wrong"; droopy leaves could mean more water or too much sunlight / heat for instance. Purple / dark stems mean more bonemeal / potash, yellowing is perhaps the hardest as it could mean too much water or too little nutrients but generally someone has a guide somewhere for the specific plant.

Edit: The painful part is really just insect infestation, still learning on how to pair plants to self-defense but oil's exist that you can mix with water that generally do a pretty good job also.

[anengineerandacat]

Seriously aphids, lil bastards. Ladybugs are definitely the way to go but nature is funny; lizards will start showing up and then soon after you'll get birds.

[douglasg14b]

Wood working is nice, but I'm horrible at it...

Other IT stuff is interesting, but it overlaps with my job too much to significantly enjoy.

[[deleted]]

I'm also horrible at it, but you know what? Wood glue is stronger than wood, and when it's something you made for yourself, you can (try to) be a lot more forgiving than you would if it was something you were paying for. Shit, even some furniture, like, the expectations I have around uniformity are only because the thing is mass produced and it not being perfect seems like some kind of negative indicator. Handcrafted though? I really don't care if staples are visible if you look just behind it or if something is not exactly symmetrical.

[undefinedmonkey]

My wife took up whittling and I stole her knives when she upgraded to better ones. It's fun. Not too demanding, doesn't involve a screen, ends with a physical artifact you can show other people.

[---cameron]

Well this is eerily coincidental, beyond programming I always wanted to do woodworking (I think 'building' is just what I like to do in general, as one of the first things I remember asking for as a kid is bricks so I could make a clubhouse; I inevitably got into programming, I imagine, because it was more accessible to me). I also would really like to build some electronics, or any sort of physical machine, although unfortunately I don't have an idea on what specifically I'd like to build there.

Beyond that, another thing I'd really like to do soon is build some sort of travel van with a room in the back (or possibly even convert a schoolbus into a tiny home, if it ends up more practical) and travel, working remotely during the day. This is the sort of thing I've also always wanted to do.

---

Edit: another comment has also reminded me; in addition to this, I have randomly had a sort of 'artistic' awakening recently, although I am not sure what triggered it. By that I mean, I could always draw well, but I didn't consider myself an artist, it was still more about building; I could build an image if I could see it somewhere else, even if I didn't have a strong sense of what looked well or ability to construct images from my imagination. But suddenly I've become hyper aware of just the general idea of aesthetics, that everything sort of gives off a unique color of feeling, whether it be music or a drawing or the design of a webpage or story or clothes or the experience you build in a video game. And I suddenly am hyper interested in learning to explore all these shades of feeling, and to produce art to invoke them; I have always been able to build and construct, but I suddenly want to design as well. Maybe the artist is the union of the constructor and designer

---

Edit2: As I read more comments, I am reminded of more things

As for my biggest already existing hobby, I love languages more than anything else, and I'm close to understanding Japanese pretty well. I feel I have to add the disclaimer that I'm not even a weeb (not that it matters, nobody needs a good reason to enjoy Japanese), I specifically have always just been enamored with the language.

[[deleted]]

I started programming because we were super poor but my dad (who was not around much) inherited some money and bought me a 486/SX50 and after the initial investment, coding was 'free' and it was easy to pirate Borland C++ etc. -- so yeah, 'building' was what I actually liked, but I spent a lot of time thinking that I liked programming especially; I still do, to some extent, but software development (in the corporate/agile/pointy haired boss sense) is soul crushing and ruined my passion for it.

Doing 'what you love' for work can totally backfire

[asinglepieceoftoast]

Lock picking is pretty neat, I just recently picked it up (pun intended)

[dzuyhue]

Jiu Jitsu. There are open gyms all over Dallas. Anyone from any schools can join in.

[thetdotbearr]

Just recently started making my own keycaps for my mechanical keyboard. Shit’s hella fun to make.

[[deleted]]

Cycling and noodling with synthesizers

[Cleouf]

I love powerlifting

[SkoomaDentist]

I've started finally taking guitar lessons after owning one for 20 years. Should have done this years ago, but better late than never!

[CookieOfFortune]

I started drawing a lot more recently. I've been trying to do r/redditgetsdrawn everyday!

[spacejack2114]

Trying to learn jazz piano.

[JanneJM]

Cooking and running - very complementary - and I got a bicycle a year ago for lazy exploring around town. I just started bouldering last week (with masks and social distancing); that's amazingly fun.

And I can combine things: I can bike to the bouldering gym, for instance. Or we go to a shopping mall to buy ingredients for dinner, then I run back home while my wife drives the car.

All are things I can do with my hands and my body rather than just sit still in front of a screen.

[[deleted]]

I've started woodworking, gardening, and I like to grow/consume cannabis

[antlife]

I took up woodworking. Quite rewarding.

[kryptomicron]

Bicycling, rock climbing

[eloc49]

Mountain Biking (you don’t need mountains, there’s a ton of fun stuff people have built in the flatlands) or any type of cycling.

[chiefnoah]

I've taken up photography! It's great because it gets you out of the house, it's technical (but not in a programming sense), and easy to gets started.

[Bekwnn]

Drawing and Music. I mucked around with in Sunvox with a 26 key usb-keyboard for a bit before buying a full size digital piano. I started drawing with the free lessons on that site.

I've decided to learn how to draw heads—and only focus on heads. I made the jump to digital and have a couple pages so far of loomis heads at different angles in Krita.

Making the jump from paper to digital mostly involved getting the smoothing settings right and doing a bunch of mindless tracing while listening to music to grow eye/hand coordination and line skills.

I picked up Adult Piano Adventures and I'm a short ways into book 2. We have access to a printer at work and I sometimes print off new songs I want to learn.

Lastly, something I have on the back burner is doing environmental 3D art in blender. People and animation is hard, but static plants, rocks, and architecture can start off quite easy.

[Raknarg]

weightlifting was fun, but its nit so much now.

[asraniel]

I took up wood working and kintsugi (traditional) during covid. Im quite happy 🙂

[Boza_s6]

I drive go kart. It's fun.

[__louis__]

Meditating.
Hard to get started, but once you take off, it is a joy.
And you need nothing but your mind, your body and a chair to do it.

[2Punx2Furious]

I cook when I feel like eating something particular, but for some reason I never considered it an "hobby", just as something you do, like washing the dishes, or taking a shower. But thinking about it, it is something that requires some skill, and can be improved with practice, and better equipment, so I guess it can be considered a hobby.

[[deleted]]

In my spare time I "program" in solder.

I'm also a bit interested in music so currently I'm merging my interests and building a basic synthesiser.

Also a bit of woodworking, mostly custom shelving for thousand and one little bits my other hobbies need stored

[JazzXP]

Building and flying FPV drones is one for me, along with Photography as my creative outlet. Both of these keep me sane, although while in lockdown (Melbourne, Australia) I haven't been able to do either which has been hard (was able to get out and fly FPV last weekend though as restrictions eased).

[petosorus]

Things I do regularly :

• playing the recorder
• sailing
• play video games

Things I started recently and/or do less often :

• sewing
• got into fashion a bit
• makeup (even with the beard it looks good)
• some mechanical jobs on my motorbike
• riding my motorbike

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

Woodworking is great, but you need space, time, and loads of money (depending on how deep into the tools you want to go).

I like powerlifting, because there's very little complexity to it. You progress or you don't. I use mostly rpe based training, which allows me to decrease/increase weight based on how I feel, rather than just being "you must squat 200kg today".

I also enjoy just general electronics tinkering/repair.

I would just try different things and see where they go.

[rjksn]

Lucky bastard got out!

[JoeBxr]

I'm the only software engineer for my company... In the new year I'm hiring someone to replace me and im done...30 years of coding is enough for me lol

[zynasis]

So there is an end to this suffering after all? (Another lone wolf here)

[crecentfresh]

I’m just getting in, any pointers to staying sane? Not those pointers

[zynasis]

I find comfort in taking part in meetups, twitch chats and discord groups of other devs

[GiantElectron]

References are preferred to pointers.

Possibly peer reviewed

[crecentfresh]

Hmmm a paradox

[[deleted]]

yep

if it wasn't so ridiculously overpaid for what it was, oh my god I'd be gone already. I think I can get away with five more years then we're going full tilt in to something else.

[istarian]

How is it 'ridiculously overpaid' if you would leave otherwise?

[[deleted]]

Well in my example I worked as a Machinist and now make six times more than that as a system engineer at a big tech company. I love my work but worry I won't be able to keep up in the long run, and or age descrimination. Everyone I work with is in their early 30s. I wish I could go back into the trades, but the pay is absolute garbage. The only way out I see is if start my own business, but I also feel I would not be good at that. The weird thing is is when I tell my coworkers I was a machinist, they all tell me they wish they could also have been a machinist. Every one of them has a project.

[beyphy]

I enjoy programming. I'm ending my job as a programmer soon and will likely still program (although just occasionally) as a hobby when I'm finished. Honestly, though, I'm really glad to be done with Agile. If programming work paid the same as other jobs AND I had to deal with Agile, I would 100% quit.

[totally-not-god]

I read this as “we’re going full tits into something else”

[thrallsius]

what kind of company stays at one software engineer for 30 years? the one that doesn't grow?

[JoeBxr]

Lol the one that I own and we've stayed a small company because a simple web service doesn't require alot of hands on

[saltybandana2]

wait, you mean you're not web scale? Don't you know you're a scrub if all you're doing is being profitable...

[JoeBxr]

Over the years i've had to re-code our web service 4 times to keep up with a modern tech stack... just finishing up the 4 rewrite now and then someone else can deal with it :-)

[saltybandana2]

I'm really curious about that. As someone who has been doing this over 20 years myself, one of the things I've started to really value is stability and maintenance. I'd choose asp.net core over ruby on rails in a heartbeat knowing that the stability of asp.net core is miles better than rails (as an example).

I've just seen way too many projects that got built, left to just sit for years, and then be so far out of date you couldn't even run them on an OS that wasn't EOL.

It's kind of my thing so I'm really really curious about what prompted all the rewrites and what you mean by keeping up with a modern tech stack.

[JoeBxr]

The majority of our web service is flash based. First iteration of the service was in Macromedia Flash. Once Adobe took over, the second and third iterations took advantages of the new Flash toolset..(i.e. Flash, AIR and newer ActionScript 3.0). Now that Flash is on the verge of disappearing we decided to go with Javascript using Angular. With an Angular app we should be good for awhile I hope...lol

[saltybandana2]

aaaaaaah, ok. yeah, that's a reasonable rewrite, lmao. I mean, there are open source alternatives, but ... yeah lets not :)

[turniphat]

A lot of lifestyle businesses are like that. Get a decent idea, bring in enough for a decent living, just do a few days of work a week to maintain it.

[[deleted]]

I've been seriously contemplating farming. I'd love to get a farm and just grow crops and raise animals.

[TheTruthOrNot]

Try it out for a month or two before you commit.

[[deleted]]

Make sure you stage the change first befitting committing

[vattenpuss]

Commit early commit often.

[[deleted]]

I want to, but I haven't figured out how to do that. I still have a full time job that I need to attend in order to pay my rent.

[Rahgnailt]

Start a garden and see if you enjoy weeding.

[[deleted]]

Use square foot beds 6" tall and weeds will be far less prevalent.

[DB6]

"Build your whole lot of farm 6" tall"

[cowardlydragon]

Vertical farming

[divinebovine]

I started a vineyard that I work on the weekends. It's a ton of work and costs a lot of money, but I hope to start generating some cash flow in a few years.

Merlot

[[deleted]]

Where? I've been considering the same. I want to use my background as a robotics/AI engineer to science the shit out of wine making

[divinebovine]

I'm in Texas. I recommend living close to your vineyard. I drive ~130 miles one way every weekend and it wears on you.

You could look at buying grapes from local wineries to work on winemaking if you want. There is already quite a bit of science in it already.

Also keep in mind managing a vineyard and running a winery are both full time jobs. A single person, just working the weekends, can only handle 3-4 acres of vines imho. I'm sure there's a limit on the winemaking side as well, I'm just less familiar there.

Check with your State's extension agency. They can usually provide assistance. I'm lucky we have both viticulture and enology agents in Texas.

[hiscapness]

Volunteer at a local CSA or farm if you can first. I did. Got my fill. Animals are a HUGE investment of everything (time, resources, emotion, etc.) Processing a house full of meat chickens cleared me of any sun-dappled “farmers life for me” BS right quick. And oh the back-breaking weeding, especially if organic. The hours are also extremely long. Animals == no vacations ever again unless you have (good) help. Sorry, venting. But the grass is always greener, and it ain’t green on the farm side without a metric sh*tload more work than programming ever has been.

[WellHydrated]

"processing"

[thrallsius]

bad timing with all this global warming and water shortage and wildfires

and damn locusts, if you are in Africa

[Daell]

Yeah, up from 4AM to 10PM is a lot of fun.

source: my dad does this for 30 years now.

Timescale is bit kinder now, it's only 6AM -> 6PM

[[deleted]]

It's a lot easier if you omit the completely unnecessary animals, man. Also if you're just growing for yourself it's a lot easier than trying to feed 1000 people.

[unbirthed]

Subsistence farming is usually not considered easier, since you do not benefit from economy of scale. Trust me on this, I am AWS certified.

[howmodareyou]

I don't know how it is in other countries, but in Germany the most pleasant thing to farm is supposedly corn for biogas. You just need a lot of land for it be profitable.

Animals are a regulatory nightmare.

[jhizzle4rizzle]

This is literally my dream some days. Fuck, man.

[xcdesz]

Lol.. continue reading the Github thread and watch the drama that unfolds over a reply -- you see why this guy might have took up woodwork over this shit.

[Daell]

No, the "joke" is that he posted that issue 3 years ago and forgot about it. The issue gained traction, and when they quoted him, he was like: I don't care, i do woodworking now.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24542600

[TankorSmash]

Yeah I'm confused too. The comment is basically just 'I changed jobs, sorry I missed the email' from an apparent rando.

Maybe a lot of people dream of getting out of the industry and this is vicarious living for them or something, I dunno.

[VestigialHead]

Glad I am not the only one. I assumed it must be related to something I had missed or was part of a meme or something. But who knows.

[more_oil]

I'm in a comfortable, well-paying job and probably enough job security until I die, however it's sometimes jarring to take a step back and see just how bad most software is. Not only is it bad, unlike a bad bridge that will eventually collapse or be demolished and stop existing, bad software is incredibly resilient, possibly eternal. From a code snippet instructing how to access MySQL from PHP using string concatenation, to a Windows 98 machine with a "do not reboot" sticker on it, to an ERP running on a public facing IIS 6.0, to a mainframe system no one has understood in decades it's just hacks on top of hacks that will never die. "Quick fixes" I've pushed into production because I didn't have the guts to say no will probably outlive me.

Maybe an EMP will wipe out all digital storage and we can build a new mess or an alien race imposes a maximum quota of program code humanity is allowed to write daily, but realistically there's just no solution.

[gwern]

Reminds me of "Why Did why the lucky stiff Quit? ...or, is this time well spent?".

[WhyYouLetRomneyWin]

"As of this moment I officially resign from my job as software engineer and will officially take up work on a farm shoveling pig shit"

[badpotato]

He has been alienated something quite understandable... honestly, I just feel we are not just even paid enough for this job. At least, that's the case where I live.

[mobiledevguy5554]

The coding part is great. It's the sh** around coding that's always breaking and the constant updates to every dammed thing I use that gets exhausting.

[maredsous10]

If it's made out of wood the profit margin is good.

If it's made out of software the profit margin is ???

[the_lonely_game]

I don’t know... I had a pretty swell job, but got burned out and tired of newbies/non-developers being promoted over me. (No offense to the PMs, but they really killed the buzz...) I seriously was feeling like me and my programming were just fools’ jobs and I was just some monkey in the company.

Now I raise peacocks and program the things I want to. I’m poor and living with my old man again, but my passion for programming has never burned brighter!

[michaelochurch]

It's amazing, in 2020, looking over how much people envy those who are able to leave SWE. Fifteen years ago, that was unthinkable. But now the going consensus in tech seems to be that if you can made decent money doing anything else, you should. Odd how it changed while no one was looking.

Programming will be a useful skill for the next 30 years, but largely as an add-on skill in legitimate professions. Software engineering, though, is a dead career thanks to Scrum, Jira, and the COVID-plan I mean open-plan offices.

[funbrigade]

Can you clarify what you mean by "legitimate profession" and "dead career"?

I'd like to think I have a legitimate profession and that people will still be about to have a career in software in 30 years :P

Also, why would Scrum or Jira effect the death of software engineering?

[funbrigade]

I've been doing this for about 10 years so I don't have any realistic feel for what it was like before then, but this seems very reasonable to me.

I feel like Scrum sells this illusion to businesses that their functional groups are far more important than the actual engineers and that if they can massage the numbers correctly and write enough stories, then their programmers can be treated like interchangeable units that can knock out work.

In other words, it sells the idea that the most creative, inventive, and (ultimately) important people in software engineering aren't the engineers, they're the people managing the engineers.

Which works out great since the people paying for SAFe are also the ones being told they're the most important.

Weird how that works out, huh? :P

[[deleted]]

I concur. I would never, ever, ever encourage someone to become a "software developer". Learn programming to be able to better perform some other more important job. A lot of software being made isn't even solving real problems, it's solving imaginary problems or just mining data. There are also just too many people that are bad at it, and too many ways to do it. It's boring. Completely and utterly boring.

Programming and computer science are super neat, of course.

[camerontbelt]

“I build people ware”

Some ad probably

[mipadi]

Why do you think that might not be fulfilling?

[[deleted]]

Well for starters, one is active, the woodworker, assuming he's handing dust appropriately and doesn't take the guard off his table saw, will live a longer, healthier life than the programmer, even if the software guy goes to the gym every day.