I’m not great at being an engineer either, I’m good enough to do my work but it’s not fulfilling and it leaves me feeling drained at the end of the day. I’m technically a senior engineer so along with doing my mind numbing programming work for the day, I’m also supposed to be actively and passionately discussing hot topics like micro frontends, micro services, graphQL, and other things that I could not care less about. The more complicated we can make the solution, the better because there will be more work for us all to do.
All of this despite actually liking programming on personal projects makes me think this isn’t the right career choice for me, but I’m not sure what else to do. I have tried to do something less involved in engineering but still close enough that I can use my technical skills and not really enjoyed it because it turned into me making google slides explaining how to integrate x customer system with y API over and over again, then presenting that.
I would like to do more creative things like make video games or something but I also need to pay rent and I’m worried that if I make something I enjoy doing my career again I will end up in the same spot of not enjoying it anymore.
cableshaft•2h ago
Even before I got into the industry I was making video games on the side. The only time I wasn't making games on the side was when I was in the industry itself, as it seemed like a conflict of interest (and the contracts I signed reinforced that).