Do you ever get the developer blues?
Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around.
That’s the title of a recent post on Hacker News that had quite a lot of traction recently.
And I want to share it today because I think it exemplifies an extreme that can happen to developers.
Let’s brake some of the posters comments down:
I’ve already wasted my entire teens and 20s, current 28 years old, working as a software engineer (Full-Stack) at a startup for ~4 years.
I’ve been feeling like a loser and not good enough for this career even though I am a sole developer for Mobile and Web platforms at this startup in a very small team.
I’ve put in countless hours of work every day (70–90 hrs), being on-call almost 24/7, sometimes for straight 7 days for months despite only getting paid on a salary basis on 40 hr work weeks; being a loner helps with working long hours. My salary also hasn’t increased much, and feel like I’m severely underpaid based on the # of years of experience but I struggle with evaluating my value in the market to determine my worth.
I truly believe I’ve been doing the opposite of “Work Smart, Not Hard”. I’ve been trying to get back to learning DS and Algos so I can apply to places but I struggle with LeetCode, which is making me feel like even a bigger loser for not being able to solve problems.
I’m stuck in a rut, wanting to better my skills and earn a good amount of money but unable to concentrate, riddled with brain fog, and unsure of my future. My self-confidence and self-esteem are taking a hit. I am terrible at networking, so I don’t have others to reach out to for tips and advice, hence I’m turning to HN. I apologize if this isn’t the place for a post like this. How can I turn my directionless life around and find satisfaction with my career?
I think this post hit home for a lot of developers because it’s easy for us to get lost in the job and also forget to put boundaries.
This is also an extreme example of burnout. This is how bad it can get if you don’t take brakes away from the computer and put in boundaries for yourself and your work.
We know where all the problems in the code bases we work are. And there aren’t enough hours in the day. And we always check slack to see if customer support comes through with problems.
To all the devs out there, take it easy on yourself. Running yourself down like this poster won’t help anyone — especially you.
Take care of yourself too so that you can take care of others and also take care of the code.
When was the last time you took some time off and let the burnout gauge get to zero?
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