Ask HN: quitting programming?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1890299

by throwaway31337 • 16 years ago

35 47 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I graduated from university about a year ago, MSc. in CS. I think I don't like programming anymore. For the last couple of years, I've done some freelancing on the side, and since I gruadated I did full-time freelancing. I landed some decent jobs but they're not a lot of fun. In the last two months I had plenty of time to work on my own projects, but it's not a lot of fun. I used to be very enthusiastic, I've been programming since I was about 12 years old, and always loved it. I had a hunger to learn more and more. I'm a good programmer: I know a lot more than most of my peers, invested a lot of time and have always been praised by bosses / clients. I don't really feel a challenged anymore: once I think of a problem I know the solution. Of course, it's never quite as simple as that, but I still don't really feel challenged.

At this point, programming just isn't fun anymore. I see two possible solutions. The first is to go work at a company, maybe having peers and interesting problems can make programming fun. However, I'm not really looking forward to giving up my freedom (I travel a lot). Also, I really want to start a startup, and taking a job feels like failing.

The second solution would be to switch to a completely different job. However, I have no idea where to start. I'm good at organizing events, people and am quite social. This is the option that I'm currently leaning towards.

On one hand I think I should listen to my heart, on the other I think I should just shut up, use my talent, go to work and try to be successful. What do you guys think?

BTW: There's another relevant Ask HN topic, if you're interested: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1521190

jhferris3• 16 years ago

What made you do CS in college? What made you stay longer and get a MSc. ? Was there a specific subfield that really grabbed you? If the problems you're facing are too easy, consider going somewhere that would make you solve hard problems (more grad school, maybe?) ? I think answering those questions would be helpful in you eventually re-find your passion for coding.

But right now, you sound burnt out. Forcing yourself to code more probably won't help. Get out and do something different for a while. I bet you'd find the programming itch coming back after not too long.

throwaway313374• 16 years ago

It was just a lot of fun. I couldn't help myself. I started my first year of college doing something related to CS, but after I started taking some CS courses I switched almost immediately. My MSc. was even more fun, I really liked the problems. However, I didn't want to go to grad school, I just don't see myself working on one specific problem for 4 years or more.

I guess I'm burnt out indeed. A while ago, I asked my doctor about this, but she said that I should just make a list of things I like to do, and not worry too much: it's natural at my age (the infamous quarter-life crisis).

adovenmuehle• 16 years ago

I've always thought it's a fools errand to try and go against what you feel. If you "go to work and _try_ to be successful" you'll end up burning out.

My advice would be to find problems that you can't instantly think of the solution to. Whether that be a startup or whatever, you need more challenge.

MrMan• 16 years ago

What kind of work have you been doing? Find work that is much harder.

Retric• 16 years ago

Most people don't actually like their job. If you can find something you enjoy doing and it pays reasonably well stick with it. If not, consider your tradeoffs in time, money, and boredom.

PS: Just don’t stick with a job you hate it’s rarely worth it.

realmojo• 16 years ago

Been there, decided to join a student exchange program for half a year without touching a computer. I still have my doubts, but I also know that I want to create with my own team, not for somebody else.

patorjk• 16 years ago

It sounds like you've already made the decision. Never do anything that feels like failing. If your heart's into trying something new, try something new. I spent a year thinking programming was no longer for me, and when I came out of that phase I was more refreshed than ever.

redfloatplane• 16 years ago

Think about teaching, perhaps. Certainly for me, if I know something well enough to teach it, I've gotten bored with what I can do with it. However, if I actually then _teach_ someone, there's a constant barrage of questions, from a completely new perspective. Plus, there's always the feel-good initiative, and the money in teaching or grinds isn't bad either. Just my €0.02. :)

tjarratt2• 16 years ago

Great advice. I've long suspected that great programmers like Knuth and Wozniak moved into a teaching role to help themselves continue to learn, and question the world around them, as well as to give back to the community and help new generations of programmers.

Not to imply that only "great" programmers should teach - if you know something, anything, about programming, it's helpful to start blogging or writing about it. At some point your content will be indexed by search engines and you might help someone who has been hitting their head against a brick wall (we've all been there).

wccrawford• 16 years ago

Find something else to do and just go do it. Then you'll either realize that you really did like Programming, and come back, or that you made the right move.

Sitting there and wondering will never bring about a resolution to this.

The sooner you do this, the sooner you'll know and the sooner you can get on with the rest of your life. Delaying it means you delay the pain. It's got to happen sometime.

edw519• 16 years ago

You may want to consider a third option, one that has worked well for me: Solve a hard problem.

This requires 3 steps:

1. Find a hard problem, with the emphasis on "Find". It must be someone else's problem, not yours. It also needs to be big enough to be important, hard enough that the elegant solution hasn't been found yet, but not so hard that you'll waste the rest of your life on it. Examples:

  Bad: Invent a time machine.
  Good: We need a better e-commerce website
  Better: We need software to build better e-commerce websites.
  Best: We need software to attack this problem differently.

2. Figure out your approach (how) and learn what you need to learn.

3. Build it, get feedback, iterate.

Your problem is that you're not challenged enough on something important enough. Do this and you won't be bored. You will also know once and for all if this is really for you.

csomar• 16 years ago

Just to add: Make it Fun!

That is travel, go to the nightclub, talk to people... all of that in relation to your problem solving (try to make even the smallest benefit/relation). Don't just put yourself in a tiny room coding 24/7. This should break routine, gets you new idea and keep you enthusiastic. (which seems to be your problem at the moment).

throwaway313374• 16 years ago

Yes, this is indeed what I originally planned to do. Although I keep a book with the problems / ideas I have, none of them really motivates me (and I think there are about a hundred ideas in there). Given that there are enough ideas, I don't think the ideas are the problem...

I guess this is the perfect solution, but I don't feel like doing that now. I have the time, some money, lots of contacts and no car, expensive house or girlfriend. I have the ambition to become wildly successful. I've spend the last 5 years reading a lot on startups, but I don't see myself putting in long hours of software development at this moment.

3am• 16 years ago

You didn't give a lot of hard details to work with, but based on this post, I would say find work outside of software. It's clear that you're not well suited to founding a startup - you don't have the a vision and lack motivation - and you probably are right that you wouldn't do well at a larger company.

A number of people I know outside of software have great ideas for startups because they run into hard problems in their fields that they recognize could be automated, but they lack the technical talent to solve the problem. Maybe you'll be in a position to find one of these problems and be motivated to solve it if you find something you're passionate about.

bluekite20003• 16 years ago

have u considered living abroad? I spent 3 years in silicon valley and got burnt out. So i just moved to vietnam, opened a bookstore and outsourced most of the work. Then I just went out a lot and traveled a lot since Vietnam is close to everything (thailand,singapore,indo, hongkong,etc). Best years of my life by far:)

wallflower• 16 years ago

It sounds like you have excess creative energy. The nice thing about life is that success in one niche is not always easily translatable to success in another niche. Programming is easy for you. Why not push yourself and diversify out of technology? There are many things you could push yourself into, especially related to your love of travel. Assuming you are not already, please consider learning and studying another language other than your mother tongue. As you surely know, when you travel, you will always be a tourist until you speak the local language.

throwaway313374• 16 years ago

I've been thinking about living in a different country for a while. Done it a couple of times for short periods (up to three months), but maybe I should spend a year or so doing something entirely different in a foreign country. Thanks for the advice! I speak a couple of languages, though only 3 fluently, which means that there's a lot more to learn, thanks!

maxklein• 16 years ago

Go into management and outsourcing all your programming jobs.

akozlik• 16 years ago

If you really want to start a startup you should just go out and do it. Don't settle for just another job if it's not what you really want to do. Figure out what's keeping you from doing a startup and attack that problem.

tgrass• 16 years ago

The wise advice, that my own father gave me yesterday, unsolicited, as I mentioned leaving civil engineering for a different field, was not to do it. I've invested so much, he remarked. It's secure.

But the wise advice is not so wise: those years already invested are sunk costs. Ignore them.

Compare the potential job satisfaction of switching with the possibility of falling behind your peers a year in programming.

fiveo• 16 years ago

I'm on a similar boat.

I decided to quit pursuing technical excellence and heavily thinking to switch career to either DBA (I've been taking database courses at a local polytechnic college) or Sys/Net-Admin. More of the "Ops" kind of career for many good reasons.

I realized that what I like is to build software from a non-programming perspective (architect, designer, owner). So I decided to look for a lucrative yet stable career, save my money for the long run, and outsource programming jobs.

I know people have distaste with the word "outsource". But outsource doesn't necessarily mean to India. It could also mean to contract out part of the programming jobs to a local talent. I also have the advantage of being born on the other side of the world (somewhere in SE Asia) so I have 2 talent pools to choose from.

I viewed my moves as a series of problem solving steps. Perhaps you should too.

eof• 16 years ago

I quit programming for like six years and fell backward into it again.

Being able to program is in too-high demand for you to really do anything else with the intention of getting money.

That being said, you should absolutely follow your heart. My guess is you will come back to it naturally eventually; even if it's just little bits here and there. I see a million times a week how a few hours coding here or a couple dozen hours there could automate the shit out of boring repetitive tasks people do every day; you can at least automate those things out of your own life.

Sitting in front of a computer all day really isn't a good way to live. It's a good way to make a living; but you should definitely follow your heart.

k7d• 16 years ago

To be honest this sounds like first signs of depression - stuff that used to be fun is not anymore. Maybe I'm wrong but my guess would be that it's not directly related to programming, rather to lack of inspiration...

ujal• 16 years ago

I could be wrong but it seems the problem is not what you are doing, but what you are doing it for. We all know solving problems is fun, but at some point we wonder what is it good for? Dont forget programming is a tool, use it with a purpose. For me the satisfaction comes from making people happy by helping i.e. solving problems for them. So identify 'unhappy' people with problems, try to solve them and build a startup around the solution.

tocomment• 16 years ago

If you're social, you might want to consider being a recruiter. You'd be a god among men, since most recruiters don't know anything about programming.

paydro• 16 years ago

It sounds like you might be burnt out. Why don't you just take a break? I was burnt out for a few years and didn't realize it until August this year. I decided to step away from programming. Instead, I traveled. I told myself I'd stay away from programming while traveling, but I couldn't. After a few weeks, I was hacking away at things on my computer again. It's incredibly fun, even if I know how to solve most of the problems in my domain.

gallamine• 16 years ago

Have you tried programming hardware? I'm talking about microcontrollers or embedded processors. Make some LEDs flash, do some bluetooth, control some motors. I dislike programming, but I love making things move. I'd suggest checking out the Arduino project (http://arduino.cc). Also (shameless plug), I run a robotics site that you might find some inspiration - http://robotbox.net

poink• 16 years ago

Personally, I think you should come up with what exactly you plan to do if you stop programming. I realize you may have a lot of things in mind, but eventually you'd have to pick one and try it. Try picking one now.

Does that job seem particularly appealing to you? Why? If you can come up with good reasons, by all means go for it. If you can't, why go do something you're worse at (and presumably will be paid less for) if you're going to be similarly unfulfilled?

Your feelings are totally understandable. I just think you're giving your current occupation short shrift if you're weighing it against the abstract concept of "doing something else", even if you have a general field in mind. Every job has its downsides, and you need to be able to weigh those against the ones you're painfully aware of with programming. Until you have a concrete idea for another job, you can't do that.

S_A_P• 16 years ago

Sounds to me like burnout. If you have been freelancing or doing some enterprise/LOB apps you are probably solving the same problem over and over again. That gets old fast. IMO, there is no way you have seen it all yet if you are just a year out of school.

One way I try to stay interested is finding a segment in which I have no business knowledge. My most recent change was commodities trading software. Using the same tools and language that I have for the last 7 years or so(C#, winforms/ASP, sql) with much more complex problems, so I stay interested.

That may or may not help, but it sounds like you are still young-ish, so maybe you just need a change of scene? vacation? time to experience life? recharging your batteries may do you some good.

throwaway313374• 16 years ago

Thanks. Indeed, it does get old fast. I don't have the idea that I've seen everything: there's so much more for me to learn in software development.

This weekend I'll leave on a month-long vacation with no laptop, iPad and wireless internet, so let's see if that helps a bit.

Thanks (and also, thanks to everybody else in this thread, I've already learned a lot).

mike_esspe• 16 years ago

I had a similar situation. Got a break from programming for several years and now I like programming even more :)

During my break i tried to manage other programmers to program my ideas, but it didn't work very well (only one project, that paid my expenses, was launched).

Orca• 16 years ago

I had similar feelings a couple of years ago. I was a .net programmer for 10 years and seriously considered going to dental school.

Instead I bought a MacBook last thanksgiving and built an iPhone app that Apple featured and subsequently sold very well. The Mac world was a completely new area as well as mobile (was doing enterprise software). It has made programming fun because I also run a small business with it. In addition, running a small business I'm using open source software to build my new website and learning python on django has been a pleasure.

At least for me programming is fun again, but also because it's helping towards my goal starting a company.

tjarratt2• 16 years ago

If you don't mind my asking, what was the app?

Blend• 16 years ago

The fun is never "out there", it's inside you. The only reason things don't seem fun anymore is because you've made a decision that they're not.

The lack of "challenging problems" is not the problem. Many people complain that things are too challenging to be enjoyable.

Take a vacation away from your daily routines. Just don't think about your problems for that time. When you come back again, you'll then have a bigger picture of things.

The real fun is not in solving "hard" problems. The solutions to many "complex" looking stuff is rather simple. However, we all decide that we need to have a "complex" solution for things to be fun. Don't complicate stuff.

Just try getting a different viewpoint on things. Since you're a good programmer already, it's better to use your natural talent for the better. There are a lot of problems out there which might require your expertise.

Good luck!

cadr• 16 years ago

One thing that stuck out for me was the "I know a lot more than most of my peers" bit. You might see if you can find a company where you don't. I find the times where I worked with people that knew more than I did were a lot of fun, as I learned a lot from them.

twymer• 16 years ago

As others have mentioned, your post sounds like it could be minor depression. You mention being social and liking people. Perhaps your problem is that you're keeping yourself cooped up inside while programming so when you think about new ideas, it's bringing you down because of that.

If you live in/near an urban area perhaps you could try finding a co-working space to work out of. You might get lucky depending on where you live and find one with mostly developers. Changing your work environment might change how you feel about the work you're doing.

Finding a job and deciding you really don't like programming even with the work structure and peers also would not be the end of the world. If this is the last job you have doing development, it's not likely that it will have a negative impact on you as you move to a new field.

philwelch• 16 years ago

Not only does it sound like depression, but it's curiously timed depression--we're approaching the winter months and daylight saving time just ended. Which suggests seasonal affective disorder.

throwaway4242• 16 years ago

I feel like I've been in the exact same position as the author for the past couple years. Ever since graduating with a CS degree.

I've tried a few different things to break the rut (chronological listing): - full time 9-5er for a year - 3 month internship working at a cool start-up - freelancing from home as an independent contractor

Every time I start a new programming job I feel excited, but that feeling quickly disappears and I fall back into the same rut.

By taking breaks from programming I've only been feeding this cycle.

I've had thoughts of pursuing a career where programming is only 50% or less of the job.

Have any HNers been successful doing something like that? By starting a modest start-up perhaps?

Focusing on developing a physical product to sell online could be really fun and would seemingly entail doing lots of different things, most importantly using programming as the means to sell online and not the core work.

lobo_tuerto• 16 years ago

This describes the feelings I had a couple of years ago.

I didn't want to know about programming anymore, I was almost completely burnt out and needed a new direction to save my love for programming.

I took some time to think and reflect upon what I wanted to do next. Then it hit me, what I really needed was a new goal for my programming skills. That's when I knew what I needed was to programming in a different light: now that I have mastered the skills to program basically anything I want I could focus on the "creating, make it happen" part of programming.

So, I think what you need is to find something worth doing with your mastered skills. Center your focus on finding that thing, the masterpiece you will make now with your new found conscience.

known• 16 years ago

In a corporate environment, you'll have the following options

      (1) Elicit Business Requirements
      (2) Design Technical Solutions
      (3) Coordinate Project Activities

hasenj• 16 years ago

Get a hobby or something.

Learn to play guitar or piano.

Ask HN: quitting programming?

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