Ask HN: What other tech roles are out there?

[JSON_bourne]

Apologies if this is a duplicate question.

I’m a senior software engineer with a little over five years of experience and I am starting to lose interest. I feel bored by the work I do. I’ve changed jobs twice in the last year and that hasn’t made a difference. Has anyone else experienced this and found a more fulfilling role?

I’ve worked with Rails, many JS frameworks, Docker, native and React Native mobile development, PHP, and some other random things scattered in over the years. All I can conclude is that I’m tired of writing code. What can I do with my skill set? I’d hate to start over from scratch.

Thanks for reading.

[saheb37]

Yes, it's a feeling majority of us experience at some point or another. After writing code and making software for a few years, you feel it's not fun anymore.

You should experiment more and find out what tasks or activities you find fulfilling so you can look for roles that allow you to do them more. For instance, if you enjoy investigating issues or incidents, then there are roles that allow you to spend majority of your time doing that.

Looking back helps. Why did you get into programming in the first place? Perhaps you like working from scratch. So go back and do that. This is a good way to reevaluate whether you still like programming like you once did.

If you don't care about low level details and don't enjoy programming, that's fine too. You can explore management roles, where majority of time goes in managing people, processes, and/or products.

If you feel you still want to be on the tech side, there are plenty of roles that are worth exploring: platform engineer, data engineer, network engineer, compiler engineer, research engineer, database engineer, etc.

The field is vast; you can just keep expanding your breath. It's okay not to find a niche.

You can teach, or study more, then teach. Presuming you still like learning more about computer science.

You can write about tech, instead of writing code. Still be in tech industry, but write words instead of code. Communicate with humans, instead of computers.

You can go further away and still be in tech I suppose, get into math modelling roles or quant roles.

Also worth ruling out is burnout. If you are burned out, you probably won't find anything interesting. So take a break, and contemplate what sort of things interest you. Whatever piques your curiosity, just follow that, and see where that takes you.

[JSON_bourne]

Thanks! Some good thoughts in here. I took a month off before starting my current position and it made me feel even less interested in writing code once I got back to work. Maybe finding a different place in the field will get me interested again.

[cl42]

What kinds of companies do you work for? I find the actual vision of a company and the products one is working on has a pretty big impact on what I do.

If you've been working at very large corporations that simply give you Jira tickets that you have to close, then I can see why you're bored. In that case, maybe try a startup or smaller company where you're writing code but also believe in the product vision and are closer to the leadership team?

Others are mentioning different roles (product management, etc.) but definitely make sure you've explored different types of companies, too.

If you need broader support for thinking about your life, I recommend an essay by Peter Drucker: "Managing Oneself". It covers different types of career decisions that are worth exploring (small vs big companies, company cultures etc) without focusing on specific roles.

~~~

Worst case scenario, are you willing sell Hacker News user names? Because yours is perfect. :)

[JSON_bourne]

I'll check out that essay, thanks for the words.

I've worked mostly for younger companies (5-10) years old, typically building tools for in house use. CRMs, sales tools, management systems etc. I've always wanted to find an organization I feel passionate about but haven't found a good match yet. Maybe that's where I should be starting.

[sn]

It could be that you aren't tired of coding but you're tired of coding with those languages, or for those given applications.

I personally really like the embedded space or any other role where I can lay hands on hardware, even if that's servers or networking equipment. I've worked in a data center, on gunshot detection systems, and also computer or network-controlled lighting, vehicles, and herbicide sprayers.

[JSON_bourne]

I've never worked with hardware, that sounds like it could be a lot of fun. As a mostly self taught web developer I'd have some learning to do. I've never really thought about jumping into that field.

[spsesk117]

What got you excited about this field in the first place? Try and get back in touch with that maybe.

Try exploring another side of the field, like systems programming, or a language like Haskell. Maybe play around with Python ML libraries.

I realize this doesn't really answer your question, but for me personally, passion for messing around with computers has been a constant in my life.

Other things come and go, but there is always something interesting to be done with computers. If one area starts feeling boring or uninteresting, there is a staggering fractcal of interesting problem areas in computing, that seem to spiral out infinitely.

If Web/JS/React/etc feels boring and uninteresting, maybe look at some other space in that fractal.

[JSON_bourne]

Good point! I am really tired of building fairly basic web applications.

[cpach]

Some random ideas:

Product Manager • Ops/devops/sysadmin • Become a developer advocate • Start a consulting business and try to grow it, so you can hire people • Learn design/UI/UX • Learn appsec

Also, you might find inspiration in this article: https://jvns.ca/blog/2018/09/30/some-possible-career-goals/

Best of luck!

[JSON_bourne]

> work with people who share your values (this involves knowing what your values are!

I like this bullet point, establishing goals could help narrow this down.

Thanks!

[netizen-936824]

Honestly I would be bored as f*ck writing Yet Another Web App(tm). Scientific work and continual learning keeps me engaged, but of course that might not be for everyone.

[walrus01]

Look into network engineering and ISP/telecom operations, if you have an interest in that. Lots of different sub-specialties within those fields.

[aprdm]

I particular like programming/leading teams in the Visual Effects / Media space. On the intersection between art & tech.

[rl1987]

There is more to tech than software, and there is more to software than web development.

[f0e4c2f7]

Check out software sales. No more coding but similar pay to software dev.

[svilen_dobrev]

it's .. like a staircase. (none of these is management)

First there are the languages, coding, "inventing" hot water, forward, reverse and re-engieering, having fun and what not. Then after 3-5-10y, this wears out.

Next, there is architecture, design-of-software, blocks, communication-diagrams, all that. You do this with one hand while doing the above with the other hand.

Next, there is the team as a structure to program.. who does what, is good on what, should be taught what, etc. Again, do it with one hand while doing the above two with the other hand..

Next, there is the culture of people and of a group/team/dept/company, methodology and all that.

Next, mentoring...

Probably i am missing some step.. sure you can figure it out. They come in 3-5 year periods. And are not exclusive to each-other.

Like an uphill training, first you do the first 10 meters, up and down until sick of it, then enhance to 20, up and down to 0 and again, then 30 ...

i've been doing these for last 30 years, never stopped any of them. Just this year moved to actual management. Guess what, the only thing i've never done was hiring and firing. Ah, and meetings-in-calendar-shaping-life.

so.. it's not deadend. If you want, you can find what to apply your skills to. and Enhance them.. while doing some/all of the above with your other hand..

have fun

[hacful-tonteg]

security