
Ask HN: Did anyone leave Software Engineering as your profession? If yes, why? - notadoctor_ssh
I am a Software engineer right now with over 4 years of experience. I have been having this feeling lately, that I feel the excitement I experience is not enough and I need more. So, I have been thinking about doing other things.<p>Has anyone else here felt the same? Or felt like being done with Software engineering? If so, I would like to know when did you figure this out and what are you doing right now, and how did you end up doing what you are doing?<p>Asking for Software Engineering in particular, because I have seen people from other professions find coding as a passion and wanted to know if there are people who went the other way.
======
UglyToad
I'm currently on my first break after 6 years with no job lined up and I'm not
sure I want to go back to software.

Unfortunately I don't have any answers but as the other responses point out
software is a gilded cage because it would be very hard to get anywhere near
an equivalent salary doing anything else.

I had become increasingly disillusioned with software, mainly the maddening
bureaucracy, problematic management and lack of teamwork over my previous two
jobs. But I also had something of an existential crisis when I realised I
think that so much of what we do is just rewriting or updating apps to use the
new hot tech in order to have something to do. I feel like so much of what's
exciting people at the moment are solutions in search of problems, if
StackOverflow can run on a few servers to serve an incredibly high traffic
site why do we need k8s and serverless and firebase and microservices and
kafka and whatever else (granted I have no idea what most of these things are
or do)? Why in the name of God do I need an entire build pipeline and SPA
framework to deliver some static HTML to users? I feel like Rust is
interesting and potentially worthwhile but I don't have much interest in the
domain of problems Rust excels at. Granted all this is coloured by the burnout
I'm recovering from.

I think I will probably end up going back to software, maybe as a contractor,
but I'm tempted to try something new. My belief is that it would be easier to
do something socially meaningful in another field but even in scientific
research most work is pointless and the reward/funding system is entirely
dysfunctional.

~~~
Aeolun
I never really understood how insane it can get until my current job. We
literally have a system diagram with like 30-40 different components (proxies,
lambdas, pretty much all aws services), for a system that would work just as
well with 3 (front/back/database).

At this point it’s become a kind of joke for me because anything else would be
too depressing.

~~~
sergiotapia
Search for baklava code. Or architecture astronauts.

It's comes from leadership and trickles down to individual engineers. If your
leader is deep into this mindset of completely over engineering things, you
are screwed. I quit a job like this because the system was just too much. It
was making me hate my profession and that's when I knew it was time to go.

You can get so far with a simple monolith, there is no need to suffer the
whims of someone justifying their position.

~~~
krzepah
Hi,

I've had the luck to work on a 10 years old Django System. Everyone from the 6
people working on it said it was the purest sh.t they saw.

On the other hand, I need to learn new stuff. I tried Express or other JS fmw
but these are not new things.

You can get pretty sh.tty unusable code with a monolith, while state-of-the-
art is expected to be understood and seek by people that crave for more.

Tbh, I think it all depends on how well a team is prepared, and ofc it is more
complex with the later tools, but they definitely avoid a lot of useless and
shame code.

It is also very common that business hasn't validated their initial client
base.

------
codingdave
I took a break for a couple years at one point, also about 4-5 years after I
started. I went and threw boxes around warehouses for UPS, then I did a year
of law school, then I realized that software wasn't so bad, so I came back to
it.

But I came back with different goals. I wasn't pushing myself to be the best
engineer in the world... I just did the work. I wasn't trying to make software
used around the world... I just took jobs and did my best.

And I found that with a more relaxed attitude, I was better. My work was
better, my performance and satisfaction overall was vastly improved. And my
career went to a better place. I still don't have the passion for it that some
people do, and won't miss it when I retire. But I have solid skills, a solid
work ethic, and a solid career.

~~~
marsrover
I want to do something like this. Take a hiatus but work a minimum wage job so
that I appreciate what I have.

~~~
Rainymood
No need for extreme measures. Why not do some gardening in the weekend? Some
manual labour?

------
speedplane
This isn't for everyone, but after working as a software dev for 3 years I
went to law school. Because I had a technical background, I was immediately
pegged to be a patent attorney. I know, most software developers hate patents,
but most of the work is not as evil as it seems in the press.

There are often real disputes, between real companies, on patented ideas that
are incredibly similar. Having a solid technical foundation is necessary to
fully understand what's going on. As a patent litigator, you generally get to
work on 2 or 3 cases at a time, often involving different technology, and you
get to become the expert in them. I personally worked on Bluetooth, H.264, and
crazy image processing algorithms, among many others. The downside of course,
is that while you deal with tech and learn about it, you're now on the
outside. You don't make anything, and the job is stressful, but for the right
person, it can be a good fit.

~~~
ablekh
It seems that you still have found some middle ground between software
engineering and law by creating Docket Alarm. :-) Congratulations, it seems
like a nice and useful platform. Apparently, it is Django-based, though I'm
curious about what are other components of your stack (e.g., for mobile app
and analytics).

~~~
speedplane
> It seems that you still have found some middle ground between software
> engineering and law by creating Docket Alarm.

Yup, for me, it was the right balance. If you want to start a company, learn
engineering, then learn something else, then build something for that
something else.

> Apparently, it is Django-based, though I'm curious about what are other
> components of your stack

I use Django, jquery, elasticsearch, and google app engine 4 years ago. For
analytics, I have used so many platforms and have built a bunch of custom
stuff. Sadly, no native mobile app, but the site is fully responsive.

I'm pretty skeptical of taking my past decisions and re-applying them today.
Today, parts of it (especially jquery) seem outdated, I'd probably choose vue.
Even Python, which is generally great, is causing pain today (moving 2.x to
3.x; performance for a number of corner cases). App Engine used to be an
incredible platform, but google has stripped so many features from it that
it's hard to describe it today as a real PaaS.

------
caymanjim
I've thought about it many times, but it's hard to walk away from the money.
I'd have to start at zero in any other field, and to reach even half the
salary in another standard professional career, I'd have to go to school for a
few years. If I had any business ideas or an entrepreneurial spirit, I could
try to set out on my own, but that's unlikely. In lieu of going insane from
the tedium and politics of a software career (not that other careers are any
better in this regard), I take a lot of time off; usually about a year every
three years. I always go back to software, though, because it's easy. I'm
tempted to do something completely different for a quarter of the salary, like
become a dive instructor. Beats sitting behind a desk writing the same web app
for the 50th time and dealing with sprint planning meetings.

------
CyberFonic
I was burnt out as a programmer a long time ago. Using my IT knowledge I moved
into the field of business analysis and then on to project management. After a
while I got tired of the politics so I switched to working as a network /
operations engineer. More recently I went back to university to do post-grad
research in model based software engineering and now freelancing as a
consultant / project manager.

I have never felt that I had to stay stuck doing something that I no longer
enjoyed. For me learning new material (and enterprise scale networks was a big
challenge) and facing new challenges has always been more inspiring than
merely picking up a fat wage. The biggest problem being that, for most people,
their spending increases faster than their income. Exercising a small bit of
restraint and having some savings opens up so many great opportunities and
adventures.

I can understand the fear of starting from zero. But that doesn't need to be
the case. What I have always done is to focus more on domain knowledge and
then segueing from one area to a adjoining one. Technical knowledge, alone,
quickly becomes outdated. But domain knowledge continues across multiple
generations of technology.

------
Jack000
Not sure if everyone feels this way, but I kind of hate "software
engineering". I feel like once the logic or core principle is figured out, the
rest is just the chore of implementation. It's like the fun part is
visualizing how everything should work in your head, then you have to do the
boring part of typing it all out, debugging, dealing with stakeholders etc
which forms 90% of "software engineering".

I'm a lot happier now that I can outsource some of that work to other people.
Maybe in the future some of the boring 90% can be automated away, but the
human factors remain.

~~~
burntoutfire
Try being an analyst or architect. This way, the "boring" work gets done by
coders, while you define the work, figure out big problems etc. It can be
quite fun.

------
factorialboy
I moved to sales & investing after 10 years of coding. I still write code
every day, but only for myself. For me, programming is beautiful if I am in
control of the product getting built. It's a complete package and the creative
aspects is what gives me the thrills. Being a code monkey does not.

~~~
mrfusion
How’d you do that move?

~~~
factorialboy
Jumped right in. Struggled a lot in the first six months. Then it got better.

------
JoeAltmaier
My old VP Engr quit and opened a falafel shop. Still going strong after 20
years.

------
nashashmi
A friend I know went from software engineering to civil engineering for
difficulties in finding work. But I find many more that do the opposite, go
from civil to software.

I was first inclined into software before deciding on civil in college after
the dot com bubble burst.

I recommend all software inclined engineers do anything but software. Software
Programming is a very powerful tool in most industries but is least required
in the software industry.

So I recommend you pick up another skill. And start working on it from a
software perspective.

~~~
ScottFree
> A friend I know went from software engineering to civil engineering

Do you mind if I ask how he achieved that? Did he go back to college? I ask
because I've been thinking about transitioning to mechanical engineering, but
going back to college for 4 more years and racking up 10s of thousands of
dollars in debt is off putting.

~~~
nashashmi
The first degree was from India. So he had little college debt. Second degree
was from public university. With two years at county college. And he worked
part time.

------
tracer4201
I’ve gotten bored multiple times and changed companies, organizations, teams,
or worked more on my promotion to change the nature of my work.

Try to see if you can find a more interesting domain to apply your skills in.
For me, moving to a senior role offered a more interesting scope and facing
more design work and advising mixed with some coding, mentoring, etc.

If you’re tired of the field entirely, maybe there are non technical roles
where you can apply a set of your skills in something like management.

------
he0001
I quit software for mainly two reasons: the constant squabbling about what
framework of the day to use and the lack of training people have. I know it
may sound petty, but when people doesn’t even know how to use the current
framework, why on earth should the add more they don’t know anything about?

------
zapperdapper
Surprisingly common to feel like this. You've done 4 years. Hope you've been
saving hard. You should be able to take a year out and rest up and see what
takes your fancy - you might find after a good break your interest in software
is rekindled.

p.s. I believe all software engineers should be factoring in a year out for
every five years worked.

------
40something
Did 10 years at 4-6 companies, from startups to big co. Felt like most
coworkers were big pussies who couldn’t even change their own car oil. Their
time is just so valuable. I was always handy, did all my own auto/home
repairs, etc. so took the leap and started buying distressed properties as-is
in “bad” neighborhoods. Learned a lot about evicting squatters, keeping
homeless and druggies from trespassing and loitering, fixing roofs, replacing
leaky cast iron plumbing, repairing refrigerators and stoves, fishing romex up
3 floors, renting to millennials, gentrifying a street, etc.

~~~
theworld572
Call me a pussy but your new job sounds a hell of a lot worse than most
software Dev jobs to me. Each his own I suppose.

~~~
CloudNetworking
I think Op is some parody / troll account. It's too unhinged and it's trying
too hard to offend. I don't see any other explanation.

~~~
theworld572
Is using the word "pussies" trying hard to offend? It seems like a pretty
legitimate post, I know many people that think like this guy, only most of
them don't read hacker news..

