[pfarnsworth]

I've been programming for over 2 decades and had 2 bouts of burnout. The first was around the dotcom bust, when I thought my career was over because all the jobs were going to go overseas, and the second after a too-long stint at a shitty well-known enterprise software company where I felt useless and worthless.

I didn't take a break during the first one, which took a toll and probably had a hand in my subsequent divorce. The second time, I stuck around as long as I could until I got health issues, so I quit for a year. That was the best thing I've ever done and I wonder if I'll ever get a chance like that again. I spent probably $50k in cash and lost out on $100k net income after taxes, so delta in money was large, but worth it for my sanity and overall career. It helps having a supportive spouse with a great job/health care and good savings.

During my break, I programmed for 8 hrs a day 5 days a week, except on things that I loved, and it was worth it. I did things like spend 3 solid weeks improving the accuracy of my OCR system using OpenCV/Tesseract from 90% to 98%, something I never could have done without all the freedom or time. I regained my love for programming as well as my self-esteem, and so far so good. Hopefully I can ride this current wave out until I retire, but if it happens again, I have enough fuck you money saved to take more than a few months off.

[sdegutis]

Interestingly, I just wrote a blog post today [1] about how larger enterprises use different tactics to keep developers from realizing they're the ones who hold the real power at software companies. (It was going to be a comment to another thread on HN but it felt too long.) Your comment that you felt useless and worthless at the well-known enterprise software company is no coincidence, it's a very intentional and calculated cultural move.

[1]: http://sdegutis.github.io/2016-04-10/looming-shift-in-power/

[zenlikethat]

I like your article. My feeling is that some of the new guard will get savvy and parlay their power into managing other developers (I firmly believe that only truly technical people can effectively manage other technical people, otherwise it's easy to deceive them). Others will remain clueless and be subservient for all their careers.

[mclovinit]

It's great that you are staying in the groove. Resetting by taking time off is definitely easier with a supportive spouse/partner. I had to voluntarily take time off when I got sick about 2 years ago. My spouse is a CPA so she was able to offset my loss of income for 6 months before I was able to get back to work.

I learned to back off and enjoy my life outside of work. Life is just too darn short. I still stay relevant by learning at least one new thing each day. Will I ever use all of the tech I learn on personal side projects? Probably not, but I get a kick out of designing things on my own schedule without any corporate constraints by some manipulative middle manager.

So today I broke out my old electronics kit and taught my young one a bit about adjustable voltage regulators. Could have caved to the guilt of work and VPN'd in to code some stuff, but that just isn't worth spoiling my time with my family.