[frithsun]

After decades in the software industry, I decided to just get a factory job within bicycling distance of my house and only do programming as a hobby.

I can't take the hype cycle anymore. First it was big data this and big data that, now it's all AI. It's always about something other than crafting sensible solutions to real problems.

A breaking point for me was getting scolded to figure out how to apply LLM technology for a sewage utility contractor. Like, WTF.

I'm not too moral to take money for stuff people want but don't actually need. But it gets old. I'm tired. Now I can do little projects that I enjoy after work.

Maybe they'll go somewhere. Maybe they won't. They're not my real job anymore so it doesn't matter.

[matrix87]

> I can't take the hype cycle anymore. First it was big data this and big data that, now it's all AI. It's always about something other than crafting sensible solutions to real problems.

I've thought the same thing. So many people in software just pretend to chase after some meme and being around them makes me really cynical

It's just buzzword this buzzword that to some people. Who gives a shit about solving problems when you can just shuffle a couple buzzwords around and pretend to do shit?

After 2020, it feels like more and more people are full of shit and only care about money

[beej71]

Yes! And so many of the products sound so _dull_ to me. They're so excited to talk about how this technology will revolutionize some niche sector... As I got older, my response more frequently became, "Who cares?"

When I think of what would bring me back to dev, I always think of jobs supporting some kind of science work, like weather or GIS.

[leetrout]

> After 2020, it feels like more and more people are full of shit and only care about money

Something had definitely changed. But I am not sure how much of that is me.

[tasuki]

I can understand software work can be tiring. But I can't imagine it being so tiring I'd rather do a factory job (maaaybe if it was a bread factory or lego factory or some such). How is it?

[frithsun]

I'm not trying to sell anybody on it, but it was certainly the right choice for me. Maybe it's just that I'm, burned out, in my forties, and I would rather make widgets all day than learn another framework.

[doublerabbit]

35 and feeling the same.

This contract working as an linux engineer bank only allows me to work 24 months without having to take three months off.

Working 15 years none stop since the age of 17, time to rest for a bit.

I hope to work in a old persons retirement home next year. So much wisdom and knowledge that year by year goes and is forgotten, I would love to hear past time stories.

[tasuki]

Good for you!

Majority of people choose to maximise money/prestige. I'm pretty sure you end up happier than them.

[mikrl]

From experience, counting small stock (10s of pieces) in a warehouse allowed me to zone out into a high fidelity mental landscape.

At one point I was doing my job and vividly hallucinating what I was going to do in dwarf fortress later that evening.

Honestly one of the trippiest experiences I’ve had and a sign that I should probably be applying my mental abilities to something else, which I did eventually.

[itronitron]

There is a comedian who would tell a story, years ago, about how they knew they needed to move on from their job after they earned 'employee of the month' for three months in a row, without even trying.

[matrix87]

> From experience, counting small stock (10s of pieces) in a warehouse allowed me to zone out into a high fidelity mental landscape.

I wonder if this is what writing code for the feds feels like

[burningChrome]

Have a similar story.

Was a front-end developer, then tried to go full-stack and it was just too much to deal with. I worked at a huge corporation and the team I was on was full of the "rock star" types - like you said, always chasing the latest thing. I finally had to get out when someone said, "Bruh, you still use Angular? Pfffft, SVELTE is where its now, you're practically a dinosaur!" Same thing, it became so consuming trying to know the coolest thing instead of just being able to build something robust, accessible and easy to use. I look back now and just think how bizarre that mindset is.

I moved into accessibility and love it. I'm further up the chain and work closely with business owners and designers which is really fun to work with and I get to indulge the UI/UX side of my brain now.

I'm doing the same thing. I do some fun dev stuff on the side and have a few freelance clients I work with to keep a nice side income coming in. I have a lot less gray hair now and actually enjoy having free time to decide what I want to work on and when I want to work on it. My wife says I hardly ever complain about my job now so I got that going for me, which is nice.

[disqard]

I love your username -- it's a terrific reference, and ties into what you do for work as well!

[pragmatic]

How did you get into that? What's the job title?

If you don't mind sharing I'd love to know more.

[burningChrome]

>> How did you get into that?

It was from networking and timing. I was on a team that was being dissolved because of some internal politics and at the time I had been talking with some people in the UI/UX department about some openings they had for designers or UX researchers. By chance a director heard I was poking around and wanting to move over and reached out and said they were going to need to fill some backfill roles and asked if I ever considered accessibility.

After meeting several people on the team, I thought it would be a good fit and a role I could use a lot of my development background as well, so the learning curve wouldn't be so steep. The final weeks of my team being dissolved was basically spent being onboarded onto the accessibility team so when I moved over, it was a really smooth transition.

>> What's the job title?

I'm an accessibility engineer. We do mainly two things - consulting and assessments. Its a great place for me as a developer because I get to work with designers and developers so I'm in the middle of all the action and interface with everybody on the team. Its been a great move and its an area that is becoming super important so demand is only going to increase in the future.