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I thought I'd never be able to code again - here's my story. There are no revelations here, perhaps just know that people do, eventually, recover. I spent 6 years at a startup before realizing it was never going to be successful and I walked away (I was the founding engineer and mostly handled the PM work, it felt like walking away from significant other). I was doing the same, crazy 70-100 hour weeks sucking up all my energy. I had no energy or doggedness to get to the bottom of even the simplest issue. That was 2012. I'd been an engineer for 15 years, and I figured I was now too old to keep up. I gave up. Since then I've been working Product/delivery roles, which I enjoy very much, but there are frustrations (no EM likes a technical PM looking over their shoulder). I tried to code in my spare time on things but the doggedness to learn/fix complex stuff just wasn't there anymore. Also life gets in the way. There are always more important things to do when you've got kids than spend time noodling with code. Fast forward 7 years I was trying to get a game running for my son, an old 90's Win95 title. I started noodling with Docker and python. Very simple scripts. Suddenly, one night, I found it was still there, all that excitement about code, all that interest and inquisitiveness that had previously been hidden/suppressed came out bursting out. Before long I was pouring code out like hot coffee. I'm still working my confidence back up to a place where I feel I could interview for a JOB doing it - but for putting time into my side-projects and noodling with Apps, I have all the energy and focus in the world. TL;DR - I burnt out and changed roles, continuing to support engineering teams. A few years ago I did some code and concentrated on learning, not delivering, and that seemed to unblock me. |