In 2017 I wrote I just don't want to be a software developer anymore. The post went viral and continues to get traffic. Some people have asked wher...
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This is such an amazing post and my heart goes out to you for everything you went through before landing at Glitch.
As someone who has felt like bad fits derailed their career I can truly relate to any emotional anguish you may have felt during your journey. Tech hiring is broken and many companies are ill equipped to address this issue.
I have known of Anil for decades and have heard such good things about Glitch’s leadership and transparency policies so maybe there is some hope for tech moving forward.
Thanks for this. I've too been a part of some really intense interviews. I get that you want to vet people really well. I've seen what happens when you don't vet people well. But... it's tough.
I've had situations where we agreed to terms up-front (salary, travel expectations, etc.) End-up going through 6 interviews at 1.5-2 hrs each. And then, at the end, they said "Well, because you live in a low-cost living area we can't pay you anywhere near what we already agreed upon 🤔. And, we're mandating more travel so you have to travel even though we already agreed that you wouldn't have to travel this year 🤔. I understand that its business and things change. But it's unfortunate this happens.
I've also been in one process where I spend over 10 hours on a coding exercise that was "supposed" to take like 2 hours...but when you want the job, you want the job.
Anyways, experiences like that can really affect you emotionally afterwards! Def. can "bring you down" for a while.
Glad that you found somewhere that is treating you well! 👏
First of all, thanks for the shout-out, both for the book and for Hit Subscribe :D
And, by the way, the Glitch position sounds really cool. I love the idea of engineers in product marketing (especially as a fellow engineer that also likes to write and showcase cool projects).
And I think you're touching on something here that I'd never really considered before: the idea that the path away from what I'll bluntly call stupidity in the enterprise for developers isn't only leaving the enterprise. It might also lie in fusing software engineering with other disciplines to create hybrid roles that are naturally less subject to tech workers' maddening propensity to collectively devalue our own work (e.g. by agreeing to degrading interview processes).
Anyway, good to hear from you, and glad things are going well!
I am feeling the whole of "I don't want to be a developer anymore" more and more over the past few years. I too am only in it for the money, and trapped here by having bills to pay. You really are not wrong and this industry is hugely biased against anyone who wants to keep their work and life activities entirely separate.
I find coding exhausting, and as a "jack of all trades, master of none", I have many skills on and off the computer and I do not want to spend any time outside work coding. However, this consistently leaves me falling behind my colleagues who live and breath coding and who spend every waking minute on it.
The only advice we're ever given is "hone your skills on your own, get good", but that effectively, to my mind at least, leaves me doing what should be work in my own time, which I have much better uses for. Coding is just a job for me, I don't enjoy it, I enjoy what it enables me to do outside work, not that I could ever say that in an interview or I'd never get a job.
Do you have any advice on other options for coders and how to transition?
I've definitely been in the "I don't want to be a software engineer anymore" mindset. So many times. Still don't have an answer, but constantly searching...
Thanks for sharing your story, and update.
This and the previous post have been helpful experiences to read. I resonate with the doubts, demoralising interviews, point of views and the eager to leave the software path but like you, I don't see myself leaving it soon. I'm glad that you found a way to keep working as a software developer with better conditions for yourself, that gave me some kind of hope that it is possible because I do think that this career could be better. Also thank you for being brave enough to talk about something not everybody talk.
Thank you for writing this. I read this and your original post and I have a lot of similar feelings. It's really hard working in any industry that has an unsustainable work culture, and bad business practices in general.
Much of what you say resonates with me and reminds of some seemingly related beliefs I have. I think there is a bias against programmers that don't want to work long hours. People assume that if you don't want to work long hours, you are not passionate about programming and therefore don't truly get it. But I know this is not true because in terms of hobbies, programming is my highest passion. Nobody can tell me I don't love and obsess over programming because knowing myself, this is exactly how I am. Yet I don't want to work long hours and do have other priorities in my life, so these are not mutually exclusive things. I also work with a couple other progrmmers that are the same way. I only work 30 hours per week on average, and they work even less than that. One guy on our team has like prodigy level skills, and he works the least hours of us all because he is dedicated to pursuing other priorities in his life. How many hours can one work in one day and be truly productive and fully engaged the whole time? I think if you are working 5 days per week this is somewhere around 6 hours per day for most people. We all work remotely and only work if and when it fits into our life and we know we can actually be productive and not just put in hours. We also consider 30 hours to be full time, thus qualifying for benefits. The company does not pay as well as other places though, since they cannot afford to. But it is steadily growing.
Oh my lord.
I had never heard of hypersomnia. I think I might have it. I always thought it was just depression.
Thank you so much, I am going to look into this.
Thank you.
I am in a funk right now and reading your two posts about this were good for me.
^^^ this astute wisdom could have saved me from my last burn out...