Ask HN: Time to Pivot Out of Engineering?

3•bdnsj•6mo ago

I’m looking for a new job and I’m not sure if I should even keep applying to SWE roles or not. Looking back on the 6 years I’ve been working as a SWE, I’ve always ended up in a position where I was pretty miserable after a couple years no matter what company I was working for at the time. I’m annoyed at all the process, I’m annoyed with the people, I’m not interested in what the company is doing, and it just feels like such a grind.

Earlier on, I thought that this was just a symptom of not liking the product, culture, or just getting bored of what I was working on at the time and could be fixed by going to a different company. But now after working at 3 different companies of slightly different sizes, I’m starting to think that maybe I just don’t enjoy this field as much as I thought I would.

I’m definitely not a 10x engineer who is constantly cranking out code, and if I’m being honest with myself I am just a slightly above average engineer. I’m good enough to do the tasks that are needed of me but that’s about it. I’m not going above and beyond frankly because I don’t have the mental bandwidth to give 150% at my job and still be able to live a normal life outside of work.

I’m still interested in writing software on my own time, but I keep waiting for something to click where I feel confident and good at what I do that never really comes, and a change of environment has not helped either. All of the companies I talk to are only “hiring the best” and I always think to myself “that’s not me” so I’m wondering if it’s time to just pursue other options. Any advice would be appreciated.

Comments

mmarian•6mo ago

Hard to say unless you know what you like doing, and what you're willing to sacrifice in order to do something different.

rubicon33•6mo ago

> I’ve always ended up in a position where I was pretty miserable after a couple years no matter what company I was working for at the time. I’m annoyed at all the process, I’m annoyed with the people, I’m not interested in what the company is doing, and it just feels like such a grind.

This should absolutely be your red flag, your canary in the Coal Mine, your alarm bell.

If you are CONSISTENTLY not enjoying the process then that tells me you don't actually like software development enough to overcome the negatives. There will be negatives at every company, and certainly software as an industry has its share of downsides, but your enjoyment of the craft should easily make day-to-day worth it, even fun.

> Earlier on, I thought that this was just a symptom of not liking the product, culture, or just getting bored of what I was working on at the time and could be fixed by going to a different company. But now after working at 3 different companies of slightly different sizes, I’m starting to think that maybe I just don’t enjoy this field as much as I thought I would.

Sounds like you get it. Smart to work at different companies, products, sizes... Since you've given it a shot, I think you've done your due diligence here.

> All of the companies I talk to are only “hiring the best” and I always think to myself “that’s not me” so I’m wondering if it’s time to just pursue other options.

Toxic aspect of the software industry. I work at a company doing exactly this. We're instructed to only hire people we would "die on a hill" with.

It's SUCH a software / engineer minded thing to do. You're either GODLIKE PROGRAMMER or you're GARBAGE. It's either a 1 or 0. You're either going to take us to the moon, or you're burning our cash and a waste of time.

The reality is so much more nuanced and colorful. People have a wide range of skills and what they don't bring to the table in engineering prowess, they might bring in other ways like product creativity, or passion for design, etc. Moving a company forward can happen in more ways than 1 but this industry has a toxic fascination with developers.

And that's coming from someone who is a developer, loves coding, and has been quite successful at it. I wish we (the industry) had more willingness to train, more willingness to tutor, and less obsession with the 10x autistic kid.

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