Ask HN: Is it too much to work AND play with tech?

I know people who do both, and I know people who do one or the other.

A lot of whether this can work depends on your work environment. If it's one that fits you well, and one where what they require of you isn't totally draining, it's likely you will find yourself willing to follow your passions.

Should it be draining, or a tough environment, the cost may be those passions.

Why do you want a job in tech?

That's as important as the potential risks to your current passions.

Are you able to follow those passions without a tech job?

Could you potentially find one with more synergy? It's always good to find work that resonates in this way. Many of us have.

There is also the fact that any burnout could put your passions at risk. Are you at risk in your current job?

Factoring all that down, you are most concerned about burnout, and you are not entirely sure where your burnout level is.

Physically, you've got some warning signs. Regardless of how you proceed, it's advisable to address those right now.

Do you have access to health care? (I have to ask in the US, because large numbers of us find that expensive, inaccessible) Bring this up. Make a plan.

You seem young. Deal with the very basics no matter what.

That's all I got.

It can be. Certainly for me, the joy I got from experimenting with tech pretty much declined in the decade or so since I started working full time with computers. Now, after the working day, I try to avoid computers, preferring instead things like cooking, walking outside, or playing piano.

So I can’t give you any advice, other than to say your fears are well-founded.

Consider trying an ortholinear split keyboard like the Ergodox EZ for your RSI.

I was starting to experience wrist pain after several 12-hour days of vim. Ergodox solved the problem for me.

The learning process is annoying and you'll probably be tempted to give up during the first couple weeks, but the benefits are worth the learning curve.

I made a very conscious decision to refocus my creative energy from hobby projects (I was busy with making music/bands/production) into my "tech" career 10+ years ago. This was one of the most dramatic multiplier decisions of my life. Everything is still revolving around tech in some way, but in fantastic manifestations … community building, non-profit founding, teaching at a college level, co-working, art/design residencies/exhibitions/publications, and a handful of companies … it’s been very enriching, and easily one of the top 5 good decisions I've made.

You only have so much energy in a day. You will just have to be cognisant about how you feel during the day so you don't go home tired all the time.

I have been in tech for eight years now and I still go home and code on my side projects every night.

I say go for it. I was starting school for mechanical engineering because I thought I was done with software. That was after doing consulting for a couple years (first job).

I think that was about seven years ago. I only did one semester before things happened, I moved and ended up at my first office job. No regrets.

I write software as both a career and also a hobby. I’ve been doing this for many years and I still love it.

My advice to you is to go for it.

About your RSI — I have suffered with this for many years. I found that switching my keyboard to a new one would bring instant relief. The only problem is that the new keyboards were lasting me shorter and shorter times. I remember I was getting down to switching my keyboard every 11-13 days!

And then I found a permanent solution. I now go for a massage every 3-4 weeks with the focus being on my arms, neck, hands. Since I started this, I haven’t replaced my keyboard in 2 years!

Don't fuck around with your RSI. Get a proper adjustable desk / chair / ergo everything (I like the Rollermouse Red / Kinesis Advantage 2 but you need to find what works for you). See the doc. Go to massage/chiropractor/PT/acupuncture/whatever works for you. Do not work through pain. That should be your number one priority. If you fuck around it's a good possibility you won't be working or having as a hobby anything to do with computers. That's no exaggeration. For a long time I had to stop all non-work computing and cut down severely on work computing. I have optimized the hell out of my workflow. If you're a native English speaker, you may be able to use voice to code, but I wouldn't count on it (I have an accent, so voice recognition is useless). As far as whether you can do both work and hobby coding without losing passion for your coding hobby, that really depends on you. I can't really. Nothing to do with RSI. That's just the nature of work. For me. Others happily do it. That's a question only you can answer and likely only after trying. Good luck. And don't fuck around w/ your RSI if you care about future computing.

All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy.

Call it discrimination, but when I interview people for my team I filter out those who don't have lives or a multitude of interests / passions. I just don't want to be around robots 40-50 hours per week. I apply that same discrimination in my personal and romantic life as well. After 25 years, a computer is just a burden.

It's more easily said than done but not every software programming job need to lead to burnout, especially of you are not looking for maximizing earnings.

It may vary individualy but switching context/environnement/project is enought for me to avoid feeling being at work while doing hobby project, so I would advice you to go for it if you like coding, more practice will lead to improvements on your side project productivity.

It depends on the person. I have found that as long as the work you do at home is different enough, it could boost your productivity at work. Ideally, it should relax you and lower the odds of burnout - if it doesn't, perhaps it is not a good idea.

RSI is a more serious problem, I suggest sorting it out as soon as possible. The split keyboard suggestion is an excellent one.

The answer is simple; if you do NOT need the money from working as a SE in the Tech Industry, don't go in. You will burnout. It will affect your brain and health in ways whose consequences we do not yet fully understand because the effect is cumulative over time. Even if you don't dramatically break down one day, you will be worn down in ways which you may find hard to reconcile with your past self.

Now Tech itself is interesting and enticing. The problem is that the "Tech Development Industry" has made the environment around it poisonous. Everything is judged according to its monetary value, insane competitive pace and work schedule, no planned time for rest, recuperation and recharge, constantly shifting landscapes, herculean demands on your brain as regards coping with complexity and finally, quite complex human interaction dynamics. For some reason the industry completely ignores the psychological aspects involved though it has been studied from the beginning (see the works of Gerald Weinberg) and we now know more about the human brain and how it works. I have come to the conclusion that working in the tech industry is "death by a thousand cuts" where the cuts are in your psyche/brain draining the "joy of life" out slowly.

Very few people are able to come to some sort of understanding between their work and passion such that the downward decline is arrested and settle down to a comfortable plateau.

Get a truly ergonomic keyboard. I like the Kinesis Advantage 2 for home, and the Kinesis Freestyle Edge when traveling.

Both are more expensive than the somewhat ergonomic keyboards made by MS or Logitech, but both are well worth it!

For some it is too much, for others not. A lot of people work from 9-5 as developers, and when they get home they put in a couple more hours on their side projects. Others can't stand even looking at a computer afterwards. In your case, you will have to find out, but if you're already asking and have that doubt, I believe that it MIGHT be too much.

For me, the key to not burnout (fast) is to have separate mindset for hobby and work.

Say, my hobby will not relate in anyway to my work (that's quite obvious) but also not about personal development, nor about maximizing my "potential", nor about peer pressure, nor a way to make passive income or how it'll help me in my life in the future, because that'll be the best recipe for burnout. Those business/self development jargon words can stay within 'work' realm. Your hobby can have those features of course, if it comes naturally, but I will not put it as priority as to WHY I choose something as my hobby.

Hobby for me is purely hobby. Things I can lose myself into and not worry about ANYTHING ELSE except things in front of me.

P.S. My day job is high-precision graphic designer, my hobby is clay sculpting. There's something calming and relaxing about its low-pace nature — unlike digital hobby though.

Yes. This was the key for curing me from burnout. Vacations didn't help. My "non tech hobby" was spending time with the kids.

This was fine but I went out of touch with what I loved about tech. Teaching helped a little, but lost the edge when my students didn't continue down the SE path.

So I built things. I built them ruthlessly. No plan. No career goals. Just free fall hacking.

Join random online games, then hack together solutions that help you beat them. Don't just limit yourself to MySQL, NoSQL, etc, try making databases in Google Sheets or plaintext. Maybe try optimizing things for no reason. If you feel curious about something do it without planning, unless you're in a planning mood.

Basically you should actually enjoy the hobby.

I was wary myself before commiting to a techy job, decided to get into sys admin shit. Haven't felt passion doing anything tech-related in a long time, so probably wouldn't recommend. Software development might be different, though.

I'll say this much: the longer I work in technology the more I loathe it. Every time anything breaks, which it seems is absurdly often these days, I get really angry. It isn't enough I have to deal with esoteric issues brought on by overly complex bullshit at work, no, pretty much everything people use today that runs on electricity has the same damn problem! People are even putting this shit in their light bulbs! Their fucking lights! Famously simple enough to be operated by a switch for, what, over 100 years and now some jackasses who want to sell shit think its a good idea to put more computing power than man took to the fucking moon into it!?

It's enough that I'm seriously considering some sort of technological ludditism. I'll start a new lifestyle, one where we only use technology simple enough for the average 10 year old to hold an accurate model of in their head. We'll trade messages on snail-mailed disks between our Commodore 64s or something.