[whatthedangheck]

Yes. I'm currently employed by a well known company but interviewing elsewhere. I've been a SWE for 10 years and even though I'm still able to smash tech interviews for the most part thanks to lots of grinding over the years I just feel so empty inside about working on computers. It's no fun. I feel isolated. I'm a very social person in real life so I live for the weekends and otherwise spend my mornings and afternoons stressed out about what to say at our daily standup because the truth is I don't care about any of it enough to get invested in a project. But it's hard to leave this field. I'm really good at interviewing and because of that I've been able to secure very good pay and conditions of employment.

In the past 4 years I've seriously looked into going to Nursing School and Cosmetology School respectively (Cosmetology School might seem silly but it's only a year, it's cheap, and it's something I'm interested in). The idea that I'd give up my cushy SWE job for much lower pay even in the case of Nursing says everything there is to say about how burnt out I am. In the end I probably will leave this field anyway. I don't suspect spending my middle age and above programming will be any more fulfilling.

Above all the weirdest part about burnout as a SWE is the GUILT that I feel about it. I get paid a lot. I have a very flexible job with a lot of autonomy. I am coddled but somehow I daydream about ... going to work from 7-7 at a hospital???? It makes me question my sanity.

[jahewson]

Daydreaming is more fun than working though. I can daydream about working down a coal mine and engaging in that thought can be more pleasant than working on some boring coding task - but the reality is very different.

Nursing is a noble career but, especially in the US, it is brutal, will destroy your body, horribly paid (unless you're a travel nurse, which comes with its own downsides) and the working practices are essentially a non-stop wall of abuse. That 7-7 shift you dream of? Great news - your next shift begins at 9am, see you then!

Cosmetology is nice but the schools trained thousands and thousands more students than the industry required so your job prospects are close to zero.

Go work for a startup or find yourself an expensive hobby instead.

[whatthedangheck]

Very sober advice and I appreciate it. That's why I haven't done these things.

[yodsanklai]

> I just feel so empty inside about working on computers.

I feel similar. I used to love programming. Nowadays, it seems most of my day is fixing problems and patching things. I'm getting anxious every time I get pinged, and oncalls are the worse. The simplest things made me nervous as I'm worried I won't be able to fix them.

But then, the salary is comparatively so high that I may as well work a few more years in this field. I know I could just switch teams, or go work for a different FAANG. But even knowing that, it's hard to get detached from the work. It is very stressful, and I think not good from my health. One thing that put a lot of strain on me is thinking how my colleagues perceive me. They are all very good and it makes me feel bad not being at the same level (and not as passionate as them).

[simpixelated]

I think this form of imposter syndrome is fairly common. I feel the same way, quite often. I no longer feel like I don't belong because I'm not smart or skilled enough, but that I'm not passionate enough to keep my skills as sharp.

One thought that helps me deal with it, is that every company/team needs people like us. If everyone on the team is obsessed with the work, then it starts to create bad habits of overwork that will further alienate new people. So just by being less interested, we're helping normalize separating work from life, taking things slower, and hopefully preventing the whole team from burning out.

[xdfgh1112]

Some of the best programmers I know are lazy. They don't work crazy hours because they a) automate stuff b) don't reinvent the wheel and c) know what work is critical and what can be skipped

Overworking can lead to overengineering which has a knock on maintenance cost for years.

[iceswimmer]

I left tech some time ago for medicine after being a SWE for 8 years (currently in Medical School, but I initially considered Nursing School too).

Burn out played a role, but the most driving factor was that I couldn't care about what I was working on most of the time. I didn't want to spend my productive years adding the next useless feature, "making that button pop", or tweaking the sign up form to try to increase sales. I felt that I wasn't using my time right.

I saved enough and quit my job. I could've made a lot more money if I kept working as a SWE, but now the feeling I have that I'm doing the right thing for me is well worth it. So far I'm very happy with the change.

[whatthedangheck]

That's really fantastic to hear. Another commenter said that Nursing is very brutal and abusive. I've heard the same said about medical school. How do you feel about this based on your first hand experience?

[iceswimmer]

Med school demands a lot of my time and energy, way more than what I imagined before switching, but I feel an unexpected satisfaction learning about how the body works. I think it's because that knowledge is so universal (how the body and pathologies work is the same everywhere) and relevant to everybody. Plus I feel very grateful to be in a position to be able to do this.

[WheelsAtLarge]

I knew a corporate communications writer that used to dream about being a cashier at McDonalds. The never ending pressure to meet deadlines was getting to her. The big plus in some jobs is that you can drop them as soon as you are off work. Other jobs you carry all day long until you solve them. A continuous supply of work means that you're working all the time.

I'm a true believer that a daily hobby you love gives you the opportunity to decompress. That's my first suggestion to anyone in danger of burning out.

[sharken]

Good advice, taking work home is not sustainable on a daily basis nor is working weekends.

If you're continuously put in those situations, then it's time to consider your options.

Actually, it's always a good idea to have a backup plan, just incase some unforeseen event happens at work.

[Throwaway112211]

>But it's hard to leave this field. I'm really good at interviewing and because of that I've been able to secure very good pay and conditions of employment.

This is the first worldiest of first world problems, but it is something I have also experienced. A high paying career like this does end up feeling like a trap if you ever want a change. It becomes extremely difficult to make the jump and switch careers. Not only will I be giving up the relatively high salary I am lucky enough to have to switch to an industry that on average doesn't pay as well, but I would also need to start completely over in that industry making my new salary well below that already depressed average. I would be willing to take maybe a 20%-40% pay cut for my mental health, but it doesn't even feel like a real option when we are talking about something around 75%.

[dirtybirdnj]

> otherwise spend my mornings and afternoons stressed out about what to say at our daily standup because the truth is I don't care about any of it enough to get invested in a project

Oh man do I feel this one. I love the daily communication of the standup rituatl, but when its used as a cudgel by uncaring PMs it just becomes this daily shaming ritual used to extract maximum efficiency (under threat of pain) from terrified developers just trying to keep up.

My only advice is to get a plan together for when your runway suddenly ends. I hope your situation is better than the ones I was in, but I didn't expect to be in the situation I'm in and not planning for it (having better savings) made it a lot worse.

[whatthedangheck]

It's good advice, thanks for it. We are in good financial shape and only plan to have our one child luckily. My partner is not working at the moment but he has a masters degree in engineering so I'm sure he could also find work.

I hope your situation worked out in the end too.

Speaking of standup, yeah.... It's obviously a way to keep people on track and apply some social pressure insofar as that. It's not too bad compared to other stressful jobs but it's annoying haha.

[dirtybirdnj]

> [standup is] not too bad compared to other stressful jobs

My beef with the standup is that it does not serve the developers. It's simply the act of management pulling the oil stick from the engine, wiping it clean and firing the engine up REGARDLESS of what oil levels are present.

So many times I've had the standups used simply as a one-way process. People get their information but theres "no time" to discuss anything at length and the deciders are magically busy all day long afterwards. I don't think its wrong to have brief updates and not get into long-winded discussions during the updates, but if there's not ever time to discuss relevant issues this becomes a social / psychological tactic by deciders / planners to avoid "blowing scope" and "adding additional work" as I have experienced it. Fuck the people working on the thing, we already decided. Stop complaining nerd just sprinkle some PHP on it and get on with your life.

Granted, I am painting a worst-case scenario picture here based on my experiences. The alternative (no check-ins, or hardly ever) is actually worse in my opinion.

The common thread is give-a-shit. Do the people asking for updates actually care or are they simply collecting information to regurgitate to others. One of these two personality types brings value to the organization, which one do you think it is?

I will talk all day to people who are on the same page as me, or people who genuinely care and want to understand.

The ones who actively don't want to understand can go directly in the volcano.

[cokeandpepsi]

daily standups shouldn't be a thing

[dvtrn]

My team does them twice a week and I still dread waking up for the call.

Maybe if I felt like my department head actually did anything to unblock people but sit there, blink a few times before saying “ok who’s next?” I wouldn’t dread them as much.

As practiced though, I really don’t know who benefits from our standups anymore.

[dirtybirdnj]

> As practiced though, I really don’t know who benefits from our standups anymore.

It's not for you, this is why it sucks. Standup could be better but it's not designed with concern for all participants, or at least it takes effort and empathy to run one this way. If doing it well was easy developers would all be tripping over their dicks to give standup updates.

tl;dr: stick not as effective as carrot, but stick is cheaper / easier / simpler so stick is the only option

[sharken]

It's sometimes the only way you get to communicate with all of the team during the week. So it's more of a social ritual than anything else and those are important too.

One way to avoid burnout is to achieve progress in the form of milestones.

Another one is the pure joy from achieving a difficult goal, e.g. a difficult problem that has eluded you for some time.

Those two things are what I am for to avoid burnout. And if there is no longer joy from the second option, then it might be time to call it quits.

[giaour]

Have you ever considered working in hospital IT? The past will be way lower, but you would spend a lot of time interacting with nurses (and whoever else is doing chat updates /data entry in a given facility).

To echo another commenter, nursing as a profession is noble but brutal. My cousin has what is considered a "cushy" nursing job working in pediatric oncology. He has stable hours, gets to work long term with a small set of patients and get to know them, and his work is less dangerous than many other specialities, but the work is emotionally devastating.

[giaour]

Autocorrect error: Second sentence should start "The pay will be way lower"

[c-fe]

> I live for the weekends

Why are you not trying to find some part-time positions, and then maybe decrease your SWE work to 20 hours per week and try out other things in the remaining time? I think this could be a good fit for your situation, and possibly be a transition to see if you really want another work or if not without completely leaving the field.

[whatthedangheck]

At this point in my career everyone wants to hire me at the equivalent of what would be L5/L6 at Google and at that level they all want me full time and want me to "mentor" people and be a leader. It's part of the problem of me doing really well at interviewing. I can solve your leetcode problems, design a distributed system, and tell you everything about how your operating system works down to the level of hardware interrupts so I pass these interviews left and right but I don't have the drive or passion to be a "leader" in this field.... Maybe this is the root of my burnout actually.

edit How can I even find a part time job at this point? I have executive recruiters sometimes even trying to get me to be a CTO. Everything points in the direction of companies wanting more of my time not less.

[wnolens]

> How can I even find a part time job at this point? > Everything points in the direction of companies wanting more of my time not less.

You'd have to look for smaller companies without the clout to pick up FANG engineers. They desperately need folks, and can be negotiated with.

I've had two part time gigs. One was a food delivery app startup, but not as big as uber eats. They had a real patchwork of an engineering team, few contractors, few full timers. I just told them 20h/wk is my maximum and declined their requests for me to work more. They needed me, and hiring is very hard.

Another was a tiny payroll software company. Another small contender in a larger market. But they had their niche, and some real old software built almost entirely by one contractor at a time over the course of two decades. Moved at a real slow pace. Paid me $130/h if I remember correctly.

However.. since you sound like me in every other way (FANG, distributed systems, tech lead level), know that the work in smaller places like I describe is boring. It's cleaning up old cruft, shoehorning features in with no budget to rewrite any existing code, working with terrible tooling and documentation.. All good if you can turn off the part of you that wants to write sexy code and build beautiful novel systems. I lasted about 1.5y. But got to travel the US, play music, date, have serious side projects.. a good life for a while.

[vanilla-almond]

You mentioned in another post how rewarding it was for you to support a friend and how much more meaningful it felt (contrasted to your joyless office job).

You have a lot of expertise in your field, would becoming a freelancer trainer or coach be an option? For example, running short (1-5 days) on-site courses at different companies. I can imagine it might be rewarding to impart you expertise to the attendees - the feeling of satisfaction of helping others. Best of luck whatever you decide.

[cableshaft]

> I am coddled but somehow I daydream about ... going to work from 7-7 at a hospital?

I daydream about working as a barista sometimes. I don't even know anything about being a barista. It just seems like a job where I interact with people and the worst I can screw something up is a drink order, not a feature that millions of people use.

And the worst I can get stuck on something, is a machine breaking down and telling a customer "I'm so sorry, here's a refund, can we get you something else", not spending all morning banging my head trying to figure out why javascript won't let me iterate through an array and claiming it's not an array, or trying to figure out how to fix out complicated parsing function so it will properly parse some gnarly data coming in for a new query in a slightly different way.

But the pay cut would be obscene. I couldn't afford that. Otherwise I'd probably make the switch for a while.

[whatthedangheck]

Yes. The pay cut would be obscene. The only way I could justify it would be to think of it as a soft retirement.

(Because I suppose we're here to trauma dump I'm moving my stream of consciousness about wanting to be a nurse to this comment where it seems more appropriate.)

My daydreaming about being a nurse started again when I was taking care of a friend in the hospital after she had a serious blood clot. I was spending 15-20 hours a week there feeding her and stuff because she could barely move and thinking that it was the happiest I'd felt in ages. I should have been stressed out because I was coordinating with her out of town family, and taking care of errands for her, and coordinating with her job, and talking with her doctors and nurses and such but I would leave the hospital feeling so happy and recharched. Meanwhile I feel so drained after spending a few hours "coding" or reviewing design documents or, worse, writing design documents. I think I just don't like technology even though I learned a lot about it to make money.

[wonderbore]

If you can, find a remote job and move to a more social location. It’s not for me, but I see lots people loving coworking and coliving around me. Reduce your work hours to 25/30 per week and work when/where you feel like it.