Programmer Burnout

leahcim

Hi Guys,

I am out of college approximately 10 years. I have been working for the same company since leaving college. At the start I was highly motivated and full of enthusiasm for the job I regularly worked 80 hour weeks even though the company did not pay overtime. I did it for the love of the job.

All that has changed in the last two or three years. I am becoming more and more
disillusioned with software development as times goes on. I should probably be moving up into a management role soon, but this doesn’t really interest me either. The only thing that might get me out of this situation is starting my own company.

Have any other software developers here experience anything like this? And if so what did you do?

BTW: I am paid very well but that does not help.

Thanks

deadl0ck

Get a new job - a change is as good as a rest.....

BTW, what languages/technologies do you use ?

leahcim

Yea, I've thought about a change of job. That may be the solution, the only reason why I am a little bit reluctent is that the people in my current place are extremely nice and the work is normally challenging. From listening to friends talking about how crap their manager is and how boring and tedious their work is I dont want to end up jumping from the frying pan into the fire in terms of work environment.

I personally thing most programmers can only spend 10 to 15 years doing hands on development after that they need a new challenge. I know alot of my college grad class are doing MBA's and other management type postgrad courses to move on from software development. My problem is that I am getting a little bit bored of software development but I dont really have much of an interest in moving up the management chain.

My main work would involve C++ development (borland C++ Builder), MS SQL Server and a little bit of J2EE work ever so often. I am also a team leader of 5 staff.

Leachim.

Typedef

Jezz.

It's difficult to say. I'm not quite at the 10 year mark myself, more the three year mark and this is my second company.

I think management is something every coder wants to avoid like the plague, the definite preference being, starting your own company, and populating it with mostly coders, such that the usual moronic office crap, does not phase you of what you want to do... namely, coding.

Usually when I get pissed off with writing code, it's because I'm not being challenged, or the working environment is crap.

Generally management types say things like "going forward" and can't understand why software doesn't just magically write itself.

That, I guess is par for the course, when dealing with non-coders.

But, from where I sit it sounds like you've been doing what you're doing too long.

Most coders who are paid professionals are lucky, because they're getting paid to do, something that they'd be doing 'anyway'.

For example, if I had a ructous argument with management tomorrow and told them to stick their job and was out of a coding job, possibly having to do (whatever) other job, I'd probably just stick all my coding urges into an Open Source project.

With your experience, if you have an idea for a business, go for it (not forgetting to rob as many of your current company's clients as possible[1]) else, go, do something open source, maybe find the enjoyment of writing code, for coding's sake, that you seem to be missing now.

[1] Obviously.

dazberry

leahcim - 9 1/2 years and I've felt the same for the last few years too. The only enjoyment I get is what coding I do myself as a hobby - but that doesn't pay. What I get paid for doesn't offer enjoyment anymore. 10 years ago I could have never imagined myself saying that.

Maybe it is just an age thing, or maybe we've just worked in this industry so long that we know all too well the crap that goes on. We're too old to be code monkeys and we know better than the monkeys telling us what they think they want.

As for what to do, I really don't know anymore.

D.

/edit: Being a nosy bugger I looked at your profile - how are ya doin' me old friend!

Evil Phil

Just coming up to 7 years myself, VB has been my bread and butter and I am bored bored bored. Happily I've started working with C# lately and have regained my interest. This C# work has come about from starting my own company which I think is a great idea. I have spent a year working with Java (but not purely java) which I enjoyed.

Currently working with vb6 again *yawn* on a contract but the money is good so I can't complain. It is very hard to motivate myself somedays though. My last project was outsourced to my company so I worked in my own office (at home) with c# which was fantastic. I was in the driving seat the whole way and loved it.

Hobbes

Originally posted by Typedef
Usually when I get pissed off with writing code, it's because I'm not being challenged, or the working environment is crap.

I can relate to this. Burnout tends to be being put on mundane crap which a chimp with "Learn C++ in 21 days book" could probably do. Oddly enough when it gets to this I tend to look for stuff outside of work to do/study on as pet projects (So if work doesn't satisfy for me in work then it has to let me satisfy myself out of work).

You need to force yourself to find new tech or solutions for your company, and plan something intresting or new. If you are in the company that long they should. As Typedef says try an open source project (Remember to check with your companys legal dept beforehand) failing that work on some new in house stuff to improve work and maybe throw a few patents under your belt too.

bambam

would you not think of becoming a Technical Architect - different set of concerns and peers.

gerryk

yup... I managed to stick with my last job for about 5 years before the whole profit vs. quality thing pissed me off so much that I quit.
I headed off for a year and when I got back was lucky to get a job where I have enough control to do what I want (which included migrating a network of ~100 machines from Win2K to Linux )

leahcim

bambam: I think the technical architect role could be interesting. To do this I would probably have to move to a different company as we do not have a technical architect position.

In my current place individual teams work out the architure, usually the process involves a member of the team working on the problem and then presenting it to the team who then spend a few days brainstorming (usually arguing) over its merits.

Going down the technical architect road is definitely something I am strongly considering.

bonkey

Yeah - I was squarely headed down the TechArch role before I left Ireland, and since coming over here I've been involved from design through to pos-delivery support. The design stages and good problem-solving (i.e. finding an elegant restructure rather than implementing a hack) are the only really interesting parts of the cycle for me now. Given the opportunity I'd go that route. Or perhaps a combination of Project Manager / Architect, so I could keep an eye on the code too.

What I did to regain some interest in the more mundane "donkey-coding" recently was to read up on some new stuff (i.e. new for me) like Patterns and Extreme Programming, and had a think about how I could incorporate parts of those into my coding to improve what I turn out.

Its been somewhat successful as it pushes back the limit of where I have to stop thinking about the code I'm writing and start writing the easy stuff a bit further.

No matter how much coding you know, there are always other approaches which you can probably learn from, even if you are tied to some fairly tight constraints (i.e. I can't implement the full XP approach to design and documentation when my customer requires otherwise).

jc

mr_angry

Personally, I'd talk to your boss, and let him know what your fears are. If he has any sense, he'll try to find something for you, or possibly even create a TechArch role for you. I suppose it depends on your management, but one of their functions is to keep staff happy. Try letting them do their job!

Failing that, go on the dole for about 6 months, and then you'll realise just how desperate you are to program anything at all!