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Ask HN: Loosing Interest in Programming After Getting a Job. Any Advice?

6 points by falloutx ↗ HN
I graduated with bottom of the class last year at low-rated college, but I was lucky to get a job at one big corporation(for almost good money).In Junior year, I started Learning Ruby on Rails, and liked it and in sometime I was able to get up from my bed to actually do something useful. In Senior year, I sat for one interview(The big corporation I mentioned), And talked about stuff I was trying to learn(including Mocha, Angular, Meteor etc) and they hired me. They had no Idea about anything I was talking about in the interview, they just figured I am intelligent and they hired me. I was a total noob.

It didn't end there, (Remember I graduated with lowest GPA in my class), The big corpo that hired me, made me work on stupid Java and XML, and most of the time it wasn't even programming. I quit in 6 months. Found a Job with Python and Javascript stuff at a small startup. Again I got this job by talking about stuff and doing a little programming.

I was happy, until I found out that the small startup was actually a lot older than I thought. They pay me good, but they have very small chance of growing up. They have a lot of legacy code, and thier JS code is also totally fucked up. I can't get my head around a lot of code they maintain. Mostly I sit there watching at my clock as time passes. I have taken 3 leaves in last 7 days, and 3 other days I was late by atleast 4 hours. Somehow, I am actually losing interest in programming, its just been a month at the new company.

All I think about these days is that I hate working for a big corpo, also small startups are bad now. I have no clue what I'll do the next day. I can leave this job also, but that would giving up 2 jobs in a year. Any Advice?

[Some Context: I am not actually a very bad programmer. I am ok. I have contributed to some open-source projects, was in top 100 in all hackerrank competitions in fall 2013-14, and also have one app on play store, downloaded 60K times]

5 comments

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soham
It's not about big corp vs startups. It's not about Java or Javascript. It's about finding and working with a team that inspires you.

Those teams do exist, and are perennially looking for good programmers. Move to a tech-hub if you aren't already there, hang out with more tech people, ask probing questions whenever you interview and thus find your corner. I bet that a right team will rekindle your interest (if it's actually lost).

falloutx
The thing I worried about the most is "What If I am Actually not fit to be in good programming team?"
gt565k
There are a lot of companies out there. It's true, a lot of them have a terrible interview process and they weed out very talented people.

Regardless, go on as many interviews as you can. You'll eventually find a good team that values you.

Don't be sad or demoralized if you bomb an interview, just use it as practice, and go to the next one.

mcdougle
It honestly sounds like you're not losing interest in programming, but rather, you're not doing a lot of what you enjoy at your job.

1) You can find a new, more interesting job. It sounds like you've searched around, but you may have to search a little longer to find the right fit. I've heard that many young people go through 5 to 10 shitty jobs before finding one they like.

2) You can talk to the higher-ups about your concerns, if you have a good enough relationship with them. Let them know you feel like your work isn't very engaging and, if they have any more interesting tasks, that you'd like to do some of that.

3) If you're paid well enough, you could just accept that you're not doing what you enjoy, but at least you have a job. I feel like this is what most of corporate society does anyways. You can always do the stuff you like to do in your free time.

When I first started my current job, I was kind of in the same boat. I loved coding and building new things, but found out quickly that what the position required wasn't very engaging or taxing. It was mostly one-off SQL queries and working with SSIS (simple, UI-driven stuff -- it uses programming concepts, but it's very basic). I wasn't building new things, I wasn't working on solving especially complex problems, and it felt like the stuff I was doing could be done by someone who knew far less about software than I do; I was just cranking out simple stuff whenever we needed it. I was probably just overqualified for the position.

I've expressed my concerns and since then, we've started working on cooler, more interesting things, including web development. It's still not the ideal, but it's much better. In addition, I've done consulting work on the side, built a web app (which I hope to ultimately be able to work on full-time), and I've ventured into some non-programming things like real estate.

I probably would've quit and found a different job, but they pay me very well, and I get a lot of leeway, which allows me to work on the other stuff on the side.

I think that a lot of developers probably find themselves in your situation. I don't think it's necessarily the "code-writing" part that's so enjoyable -- it's the problem-solving and building cool things that we love. And when we're stuck in a position where we're not only not doing any of those fun things, but we're wasting our talents on simple things, that's when it gets frustrating.

gt565k
Hah, this reminds me of myself.

I worked at some good places and some not so good ones. At one point I worked at a place, and I thought I had it bad, so I left for something supposedly much better. Turns out, it was bad. Worse than my previous endeavors. I felt like I couldn't motivate myself to do anything. No one cared about the quality of the code, why should I? Never the less, I wrote good code, because that's what I believed in, but it still felt empty inside.

I literally thought to myself "Maybe I'm getting tired of being a software engineer and I need to find something else to do"

Then, I pulled up the source code for an old project I worked on. The best project I worked on. The code was beautiful! The project was complex, very involved, and fun. We had a great team that worked hard and solved difficult problems.

And so it dawned on me that I was simply tired of working with people who didn't care and had the wrong motives for getting things done.

This is a process that a lot of engineers / developers go through. Some realize it sooner than others. Some people just don't know better, because they've only had 1 or 2 jobs so they have no point of reference.

And yes, working on anything with Java after experiencing Ruby on Rails is going to make you hate the damn language. But don't do it. Don't hate the language or the framework. Don't be a fanboy. Experience multiple languages and multiple frameworks, as you will see that each has a good use case. Some are better than others for web development. Some integrate better with certain tools.

Don't be the smartest person in the room. Find a place where you can learn from people. Challenge yourself. Learn new frameworks and tools. Network and form long lasting relationships with colleagues. Build cool and fun things. Explore your creativity outside of work. Sooner than later, someone you know will reach out to you, because they value who you are.