Do you ever feel like you've had enough of working in the IT industry?

[xil3]

I've been working in IT (software developer, architect, devops) for around 20 years now. I've dabbled in pretty much everything. I actually had a passion for it all - I enjoyed every second of what I did. The excitement of learning all that new technology and building something was amazing.

Fast forward to present day - I feel like I've lost that passion I had for technology. I don't feel like working in the industry anymore. Has anyone else gone through this?

I'm thinking of what else I can do with my life. I could focus on my current hobbies and start a business based on those. Not because of money, but because I'm looking for that excitement again.

[SeanAnderson]

I've found that the further away I get from "hacky, simple, works" scripts that wow the uninformed the less I enjoy my work.

I wrote a Greenhouse bookmarklet for our Head of People a while back. All it did was click buttons, poll the page for content, and copy/paste some text. It took me two hours. It was such a magical experience hopping on a call, demoing the bookmarklet, and being told I'd saved someone tens of hours.

In contrast, I spent the last few months building out a greenfield, microservice architecture that product wanted in anticipation of a new feature that was going to need to scale to the moon. It was a real technical challenge but, in the end, business needs changed and it never saw the light of day.

I know that when I first got into programming - I didn't know all the complex stuff. I just saw things in the world I wanted to affect with programming - and then did. Over time, I learned to tolerate all the BS that gets in the way of making magic happen in exchange for an ever-growing paycheck. Each step along the way made sense, but, upon reflection, the magic has been incrementally bled out from my passion all in an attempt to best utilize my abilities.

Consider building something simple for a non-techy friend who needs some help. You might be able to catch sight of the magic you feel you've lost by looking into their eyes as you deliver what you've made.

[altacc]

I'm in a similar position and took up coding random projects for micro controllers (e.g. Arduino & ESP32) precisely so that I could get a kick out of writing small amounts of functioning code that did stuff in a single evening. I was inspired to do this by somebody else who did exactly the same (although working in industrial design).

[xil3]

You're absolutely right - the pure excitement that I felt at the beginning was mainly because I could do all the hacky, simple things. Nowadays you have to write 3 million tests before you can write any real code. I just feel like the red tape involved in doing anything is ridiculous.

I mean, I don't want to completely dismiss testing, but it was a big part of the reason I started moving away from development, and more into the DevOps realm. The other big problem is working for medium/large companies, which require so much administrative overhead to get anything done.

[mxuribe]

> ...I've found that the further away I get from "hacky, simple, works" scripts that wow the uninformed the less I enjoy my work...Over time, I learned to tolerate all the BS that gets in the way of making magic happen in exchange for an ever-growing paycheck. Each step along the way made sense, but, upon reflection, the magic has been incrementally bled out from my passion...

Wow, its like you just wrote the intro to a chapter in my life!

[koromak]

I love programming, but man I'm tired of software development.I want to build MVPs that work 95% of the time and let someone else handle the rest...

[smcleod]

May I ask:

- How is your happiness and your energy levels outside of work?

- How is your cognitive performance at work? (Can you focus, are your thoughts 'foggy', do you have any issues working out complex tasks/solutions that you used to solve without issue etc....)

- Are you empowered in your job/role/team to make changes / improvements as you see fit, without being significantly limited or blocked by others?

--

I'm someone whose always gained a large portion of their energy from their work. When work wasn't going well it massively impacted my personal space / energy.

When my cognitive ability was impaired I found that all the rewards that technical work used to afford me disappeared, I was considering looking for options outside of engineering - or at least pivoting to less hands-on work, however I managed to completely fix my cognition and as soon as I did so - work was enjoyable again, and as such - my personal time as well.

[flockonus]

Curious how you "fixed" your cognition and energy levels?

[smcleod]

This is sort of the TLDR - I had tried a bunch of things over a few years, changing my diet, more exercise, various antidepressants etc... - none of it really did anything at all.

I went and saw a new psychiatrist and he wondered if it was perhaps a dopamine regulation issue. As such he prescribed Bupropion - which is only prescribed in Australia as a smoking cessation aid - but off label / in other countries it can be prescribed as an atypical anti-depressant.

Almost all antidepressants work on serotonin and norepinephrine - however, bupropion works on dopamine, hints being known as an atypical anti-depressant.

Within about five days, it felt like I'd been swimming underwater and surfaced to the clear air for the first time in five or so years. And within, perhaps a month or two, my is completely back to where I was say eight or nine years ago, perhaps even slightly better.

A few other things changed such as ever since I was little child. I was a chronic nail biter - at within two months that was completely gone and hasn't come back over a year later.

So that fixed my cognition, and I now know that it's a dopamine regulation issue, and is completely treatable.

[mxuribe]

Thanks for sharing! Wow, that is quite the discovery! Glad to hear you arrived at a good place!

[mxuribe]

As @flockonus noted, i'm also curious how you solved your cognition issue. If you're comfortable sharing, would love to learn!

[smcleod]

Replied :)

[mxuribe]

Yep, just saw above. Thanks again!!

[mattw2121]

I'm in a similar, but slightly different place. I've been in technology roles for 28 years. I've been at my current company for the large majority of those years. For me it's not the technology that I've lost interest in, but all the other parts. The political squabbles, the red tape, the broken processes, and the lack of competency in general. If I could just concentrate on the technology, and deliver great products, I'd be in a much happier place.

I believe a significant part of my problem is that all those things I'm not a fan of come with the seniority I have. I'd be happier, work-wise, as a junior dev without those responsibilities. My lifestyle, unfortunately, doesn't support such a move.

[hn_user2]

I tried branching away from IT because I thought I was bored of it, and thought I would be happier not sitting at a desk.

I almost immediately started thinking about tech projects I wanted to do. I realized I had all this tech experience and everywhere I looked I found things that tech could improve.

For me, in my case, it turns out I was just tired of technology for technology's sake. And instead I needed a different cause, and different ways to apply it and solve things.

Fast forward to now, and I love my tech job, but now my passion and excitement is not for the tech itself, but instead it is in the way the problems it is being applied to are approached and solved with the tech.

I don't know if I would have re-found this passion without the couple years off outside of tech, so maybe it was a required part of my journey to get to this point.

[nlstitch]

Yes I have. Coming from an entrepreneurial family, I always had that itch to become part of something bigger than yourself.. But in IT you're expected to stay in your cubicle and enjoy the ping pong table. After 11+ years professionally in IT, i've already seen it all.

So here I am; Ive been working for several companies, the last two being a "flat hierarchy" / Holacracy. Sound great right? Well no.. not if you want to grow to management to give that entrepreneurial mind a go again. Im stuck and it has been weighing me down for a while now. Ive applied for several CTO positions but because I've had "roles" instead of actual "job titles" companies wont take everything seiously. Im in a perdicament; On one side I'm tired of being rejected for work Im certainly qualified for, on the other side I dont want to be the loner freelancer (been there already) and on even another side I don't want to stay in that cubicle anymore. Im tired.. And im only 33.

[badpun]

> Coming from an entrepreneurial family, I always had that itch to become part of something bigger than yourself..

I don't get it. Entrepreneurs don't want to be a cog in somebody else's machine, they want to start their own thing.

[abarwick]

It sounds like you were fortunate to have your passion and career be one and the same for 2 decades. Many people do not have this blessing, so ask yourself: what does everyone else do in this case? Personally, I think trying to find purpose/meaning/happiness in your life is the point of life.

This is to say, you'll probably need to hunt for hobbies and find something that gives you meaning, now that the IT-shine is gone.

[dsfyu404ed]

I realized I didn't hate the industry or the work, I hated the people. So I got out of "real tech" and got into the tech side of the kind of industry that tech industry people seem to think is quite evil, Wall Street. And sure, I'm probably not making the world a better place but at least theres plausible deniability. When I worked in real tech it was pretty obvious that unless I adopted a very specific set of beliefs (loosely summarized as "naive tech optimism") I was making the world a worse place. I'm happy mostly not having to deal with the kind of people I had to deal with in tech.

[scabbycakes]

I've been in the web development industry for roughly 17 years and loved most of it until Agile took over.

Now everything is reduced to ticking off tasks and almost zero room for creativity. Meetings after meetings. Overcomplicated development workflows, or really just everything is overcomplicated. Twenty people to do the job of two, checkups, check-ins, checkouts, checkboxes. Gratuitous positivity makes any genuine gratitude hollow and meaningless.

I've taken the last two years off aside from a little bit of contracting to pay the bills and serves to remind me of how awful it's become. The only times I'm happy is when I can work on weekends or holidays and no one will be pinging me haha.

[kcartlidge]

> I feel like I've lost that passion I had for technology. I don't feel like working in the industry anymore.

I had that about a decade into my career, and left tech.

Gave everything up and joined a community, living 4 years with no personal possessions. Went homeless for a stint. Spent a while living in a room empty but for a mattress on the floor, in a house of drugs and ex-cons. Helped others on the streets through cold turkey.

Tried my hand farming (fruit, veg, chickens, pigs etc). Did a stint pricing up new kitchens. Worked a trade sales counter at a builder's merchant. Ran fleets of delivery vehicles. Did door-to-door sales. Loaded trucks. Drove a forklift in warehouses.

Ran an overnight support service for an ISP in the days of CDs with AOL and Demon Internet software on them. Ran a nightshift call-centre for a startup telecoms company. Worked in a credit collections department.

Eventually I got back to where I started - in tech and with a fresh appreciation for it. It seems that everywhere I went and everything I did kept steering me back to my original passion. Unavoidably so. Decades later I'm still here and am daily grateful that I do work I can (mostly) enjoy.

As alluded to elsewhere in these threads, sometimes you just need a break from it all. Take the time to step away, then come back with a renewed perspective.

[eep_social]

Yes. I burnt out of FAANG, took a funemployment break, worked as an automotive service tech for a while, and am now back in tech.

I returned with an appreciation for the flexibility and variety. Car work was varied but inflexible and the pay was terrible. I dabbled in other hobbies over the course of my break but in the end tech is the best overall way to support myself so I expect to stay. However, my next gig will be at a much, much smaller company because it keeps variety high and the ceo/founder/decider close.

To me it sounds like you have the mildest version of being burnt out. Have you introspected on why in particular you have arrived where you are? Projecting, was it a couple bad team fits? When were you most happy in your job? What were prevailing conditions? I realized that I need to run my life with Dunbar’s Number in mind or I risk othering my coworkers in ways that make me a kinda shitty peer. So I’m looking for smallish companies just starting to scale as my ideal work environment. What’s yours?

Edit: fixed a typo.

[xil3]

I'm starting to think that's my go-to now - I need to either focus on smaller companies, where I can feel like I'm contributing to actual change. Whereas in the bigger companies I worked at, it felt like I wasn't actually doing anything, just because it was a constant struggle with politics and 'how' or 'what' things should/can be done.

If I can find a company that will just let me program and be where I want to be, in my own element, that may bring me back to my original point of happiness.

[eep_social]

You’re not alone :)

[nyokodo]

Seems like a timeline for a midlife crisis. Either way it might pay to talk to a good therapist about it. They’ll be able to help you work through whatever might be getting in the way of experiencing that passion, and help with concrete steps for what you do next.

[Hippocrates]

Yes. I've also grown tired of it. I used to spend nights and weekends learning, testing out new languages, starting (never finishing) side projects. I'd often work on actual work items after hours out of excitement, and it would even pay off.

I have noticed that the larger the company I work for, the higher the position, the more the pay... the worse it became. I'm inundated with process, planning, and "teamwork" where it used to be mostly solo problem solving and execution. Is this really how it is at a big successful tech company?

I need to go back to a startup or less mature but "still having their shit together" company.

[enasterosophes]

Yep, absolutely. I share the first-hand experience of this paradox: it's good to work on something you feel passionate about, yet at the same time working on something is a surefire way to kill your passion for it.

I'll probably be stuck doing tech forever, because I'm good at it, and although I feel bored and exasperated with the bullshit, I wouldn't go so far as to say I hate it. There are worse ways to keep a roof over your head and food on the table. Tech is reliable like that.

Still, the last year or so I've started putting more effort into learning non-STEM skills like music and art. Things that don't involve staring at screens (which rules out writing, which I'm also okay at.)

While I doubt I could ever earn a living from such things, it's nice to have options. These pursuits also provide an avenue for meeting people who don't feel the need to fill every conversation with inane debates about the same old cybersecurity issues, enterprise vs FOSS, text editor and other workflow holy wars, and what steaming piles of tech stacks are "cool" this year.

[ergonaught]

After a couple of decades, I went in a radically different direction for a few years. I've spent the past six months trying to reverse course. I won't say that it was a mistake or that I regret it, necessarily, but it is quite clear now that what I really needed was a sabbatical, and I should have taken that before making any decisions.

[xil3]

I have actually been on a sabbatical now for about 5 months, and I feel the same.

[knorker]

I suspect you'll mostly get "Yes" because selection bias, so from me you get a "no".

The IT industry is huge, and you can work on so many different problems (as I'm sure you know).

I would find it hard to burn out on the whole thing. I mostly have on security. Not that I don't follow it, but 15 years ago I was deep on the state of the art front lines. But I found it too depressing to just work on preventing destruction, as opposed to actually constructing things.

I still do the occasional security work, and proof of concepts, but that computer security career is now a road less travelled.

If I did FIRE I would spend most of my time on opensource coding and such, which is not by day job. Which means even if I started hating my current job I'm not sick of the whole industry. But that's me.

[olalonde]

Not personally but yes, there seem to be threads like this every week on HN.

> I could focus on my current hobbies and start a business based on those. Not because of money, but because I'm looking for that excitement again.

If you're comfortable enough financially I'd say to go for it.

[the_only_law]

Yeah, I’m sick of it but it’s about the only thing I can do at this point. Any other options seem at least equally miserable or a pipe dream. My career is basically dead at this point, so maybe it’s still worth it to jump ship while I’m young.

[xwdv]

> I could focus on my current hobbies and start a business based on those. Not because of money, but because I'm looking for that excitement again.

A life without money while slowly killing your hobbies is an interesting way to chase excitement I guess.

[altacc]

Indeed. I know quite a few people who turned their passions into jobs and ended up not enjoying their job or passion anymore. Familiarity breeds contempt, or just boredom. I ignore the trite 'Do a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life' and recognise that jobs are complex and have their ups and downs and for most people the activities you love are outside of work and that's OK.

[rsj_hn]

The (always insightful) Joel Spolsky discusses this in his essay "The Developer Abstraction Layer"

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/04/11/the-development-ab...

Bottom line, what is necessary for a business to run requires a lot more infrastructure that you, as a developer, will not enjoy maintaining. Here, I'm not talking about infrastructure just in the sense of what Heroku gives you, but marketing, billing, dealing with customers, keeping track of bug fixes, release engineering work, etc.

[vsareto]

I'd consider 20 years a good run and then move to something else. That excitement could still be in technology though. You could try digital art of some kind (2D or 3D) or get into hardware or embedded development. Maybe you need to find an unknown-to-you software niche and deep dive into the state of the art and start putting things together. Business software produces endless ennui because most of us aren't stakeholders and won't get early retirement money for putting in long hours, so maybe that kind of direct benefit can revive passions.

[mattgolsen]

Absolutely. In a similar place after 20 years of various roles in technology. So I built a lumber mill, a woodshop and I'm going to start making things. Much more fulfilling.

[xil3]

Yeah, I started building camper vans (from cargo vans) for the past few years, and I've really enjoyed it. I got the same excitement I had when I was really enjoying technology.

Carpentry was a huge part of the builds, so it's something I have strongly considered doing more professionally. I actually thought about building my own lumber mill as well!

[sbf501]

IT is such a big domain. Can you be more specific? I've been coding for 35+ years across an extremely broad range of topics and can't get enough of it. I do it on my free time. I've worked for a dozen companies and at least as many managers and countless projects. I'll probably quit when I can no longer type.

I think if I had stayed at one place, it would have soured. So to risk being obvious, try a new company?

EDIT: maybe a bit of hyperbole on the # of jobs. but it's been a lot.

[GianFabien]

Yes, about once a week.

I still enjoy the core technology. But as a contractor I constantly come across the most incomprehensible mashups of technologies. Managers buy stuff from the pushiest salesperson and then demand the technical team to make it work. There also seems to be a tendency to define the budget and deadline before the requirements are even gathered, documented and understood.

[jimt1234]

Yes! I feel like we used to be the good guys, but we've become the bad guys. I used to be proud of all the change we were providing for society. I used to preach to family/friends all the time:

- Find and purchase products on the web that you never had access to in your small town. Easy as clicking a mouse.

- Find directions to your destination, and even be guided how to get there in real-time. No more fumbling with the Thomas Guide.

- Connect with old family/friends easily. Or, easily make new connections with people in your home town or across the globe.

- Access new music, or old favorites, with the click of a mouse. No need to buy a CD just to listen to one song.

- Online banking! You no longer need to go stand in line at the ATM just to transfer money from your savings account to your checking account. And no more need to write a check each month to pay your bills, it can be automated now!

...and so on over the last 25 years. I used to love evangelizing the stuff we were creating, because I believed in it. But now I feel myself warning family/friends to avoid us:

- Don't use Evil Corp's social media service because they're gonna bombard you with misinformation and negative/combative content, just to drive engagement. You'll end up hating your family/friends.

- Don't get an Alexa or a Ring because they're basically spying on you. If you wanna be creeped out, read this: https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/whoops-amazon-alexa-user-a...

- Your smart phone knows where you are at all times, where you're going, and who you're with.

- All your financial data is being sold to marketers who wanna sell you more credit (credit cards to mortgages).

...and so on. Maybe it's me, like I'm just paranoid because I'm older now. But yeah, I feel similar about what we do these days.

[samsquire]

I craved meaning and purpose. Technology I was filled with ideas but never the motivation to work on them

I then found spiritual things gave me happiness. I began reading quotes about God. I then found a bible in hospital. It brought me to God and Lord Jesus Christ.

Today I can focus on technology problems again since I have a backstop.

[HellDunkel]

Yes, i have been there. I worked for 10 years as a developer when a pretty bad bore out hit me. I quit and started a business which failed but allowed me to reboot myself working in graphics and design. I profit from the technical background today but as developer but beeing a dev made me very, very unhappy.

[icedchai]

I feel this way, and it's become worse since the pandemic. Video calls and constant interruptions from Slack messages are incredibly draining. "Remote work" used to be a treat: you could work from a coffee shop with minimal interruptions or annoyances while focusing on technical work.

[no-s]

The other day I started wondering if I could find success and achievement working in open source agricultural robotics. i feel like it be a handy thing for off grid folks. Seems like it would be exciting way to enable more self-sufficient living.

I suspect there are a lot of untapped niches out there.

[Glench]

Maybe you'd enjoy reading the story of why I quit tech to become a therapist: http://glench.com/WhyIQuitTechAndBecameATherapist/

[sureglymop]

That's cool but how could you even afford to study again? Money saved up?

[Glench]

Yep, and doing part-time contract tech work. That school has a part-time program, too, which would have amortized the cost even more. Plus I could always take student loans if I really needed, or do work-study.

[boxed]

I've always been suspicious of people who enjoy the tech. You should enjoy solving a business/customer/user need. That never goes away. But tech is just a boring slog.

[d23]

Yes. It lost its luster. I think it came from being disillusioned by the realities of working for my "dream" job and what once seemed like a challenge technically no longer seeming difficult.

[incomingpain]

My consideration lately, am I contributing to my community as best as I can be? Could I be doing more? Perhaps I need to open a steakhouse? or cnc and 3d printing business?

[SoftTalker]

Yes, I have pretty similar history to yours (30+ years in my case) and pretty much feel exactly as you do.

[nelsonenzo]

yup. imho, the high salaries we receive is a combination of both talent and willingness to do this rather unsatisfying work for long periods of time.

If this paid as much as say, brick layer, I would rather have been the brick layer.

[jon_adler]

I used to think like this too, until I saw the physical pain that an older bricklayer experiences every day. Whilst I can also relate to the loss of enthusiasm, I also know that my body is much happier staying in IT.

[intelVISA]

Enterprise coding is the mental equivalent of bricklaying though, for better or worse, at least this way my body is (slightly less) damaged by the labor.

[joanfihu]

No, I feel I had enough working with people but not coding.

[hcarvalhoalves]

I’ve worked 13 years, looking forward to retirement.

[nlstitch]

I must confess when I lost both my parents-in-law at young age (both died just before 62), it kinda gave me this same perspective.

[mgarfias]

yep. on the regular. especially when a shitheaded boss is leaving me voicemails threatening to fire me.

[rzazueta]

Been going through something similar. I still enjoy technology, though my passions have cooled into what I think of as "useful technologies" as opposed to "toy technologies" (basically - is it useful, or is it just entertaining?). I, too, have been in tech for at least 20 years now. The funny thing is, I remember when I got into the career right out of college how resistant I was to the whole idea. I recall very clearly sitting in my college apartment the week of graduation cursing the fact that I was now facing down a couple of decades of sitting in a cubicle instead of actually living a life. Everyone told me to suck it up and get to work - parents, mentors, media, etc. - so that's what I did.

I think a big part of the reason so many people are miserable - not just in tech, but across every industry - is because we have all been convinced to sell the bulk of our lives to rich people for the sole purpose of making them richer. We spend on average 40 hours a week dedicated to jobs whose sole focus at the end of the day is to make the owners and investors richer. We get a piece of it - some more than others - and we're told to be happy with that as we spend the best parts of our lives not with the families we have built, the communities we have chosen, or in celebration of the life with which we have been granted, but dedicating ourselves to the betterment of a wealthy few. And it's only getting worse. Elon Musk's expectation of having a "hardcore" group of employees willing to work 80 hour weeks just so he can save his $44B mistake is peak malignant narcissism, and there are folks actively praising him for it. Fuck. That.

Find work that is meaningful to you. Not that bullshit "save the world" type of crap that hides exploitation of workers beneath a veil of toxic positivity (effective altruism is, at best, bullshit, at worst it allows these assholes to not only exploit the labor of others, but their sense of good will as well) - I mean true, meaningful work that you and the communities most important to you see direct benefit from. Rather than work for another bloated rich asshole, either work for yourself or find a group of local, like-minded folks and work cooperatively - sharing the duties and sharing the proceeds equally or equitably. If you can't find folks locally and want to stick to tech - the choice I'm currently making until I can be in a position to start something locally - then do the same thing, but with a group of like-minded techs. I am now a full time independent consultant, but I occasionally hop on to projects with friends in the industry in similar positions. We name our prices and often kick a little more to the person handling the coordination with the client, which grants us control of our time and a reasonably steady income. You may be surprised how easy it is to build such a group of people. You say you've been in the industry for ~20 years - my guess is you have developed a pretty strong network. Shake that tree and find your people.

If you've completely lost your passion for tech... well, first, I'm very sorry to hear that. I'm willing to bet if you can take a break from having to rely on it to make all of your income, you may find yourself drawn back into it. Until then, I'd suggest looking around your community and starting a small local business, run as a worker-owned and operated co-op. Get loans or fund it by providing the loans yourself, but no one should have an ownership stake unless they work directly for the company, and everyone working for the company should have an ownership stake and a say in how it's run. Spread the risk among everyone who joins, and also spread the reward when you succeed. Don't build a business, don't be a boss - build a community, become a leader. Unless you were born rich or are willing to commit the majority of your time and life to becoming rich by exploiting other people, you will never be rich yourself. Instead, shoot for thriving in a community where you are well fed, well loved, and well rested. There's no single or simple path to it, but focus on that as an end goal and you'll find the path that works for you.

[jimt1234]

Uh oh. Sounds like somebody's got a case of the Mondays. Sorry, I couldn't resist. Please don't kill me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AB9zPfXqQQ

[excalibur]

I believe you'd get your ass kicked saying something like that.