Ask HN: I got my dream job and now I'm depressed

Hi HN,

I recently got a new job. It's my dream job and at a company I've wanted to work at for a very long time.

I applied once straight out of college but didn't make it through the interviews - so I worked somewhere else, building up my skills and eventually re-applying a couple of years later. They accepted me! I could not have been more excited, this company was everything I had wanted.

Except now I'm here. A lot of stuff is a mess. There is technical debt everywhere. Undocumented code bases that haven't been touched in years and maddening internal processes. I'm absolutely depressed as a result because I held this company on such a pedalstool only to find the inside rotting away. I have no sense of ownership of my work and I'm struggling with motivation.

I don't know what to do and so I am looking for advice. Is this just life and I should just man up and get on with it or should I accept my mistake and look for something else?

1 comment

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 15.1 ms ] thread

fredsted 8y ago ↗

I know the feeling - working on (undocumented) legacy systems is a nightmare for so many reasons.

But not all companies are like this.

It sounds like you need to a) quit and find work some place with less legacy/debt (ideally a startup), or b) ask to be moved to another department that has less of that kind of work (if possible.)

Continuing with work like this will, as you've found out, burn you out sooner or later.