
Ask HN: Experienced dev having career lull - throwawaydotcpp
Hi folks, throwaway account obviously.<p>I&#x27;m a dev with a bit over 15 years experience. Right now I&#x27;m a senior dev working in &quot;cloud computing infrastructure&quot;. I&#x27;ve hit a point of malaise and I need help.<p>Admittedly, calling my problems problems is a disservice to real problems. I get that. But I hope you can empathize with the fact that anyone in any situation can become unhappy and want to feel happy and fulfilled again. So, hear me out.<p>I need change. I&#x27;m not burned out. I&#x27;m bored, maybe. Confused, perhaps?<p>Problem 1: My comp is high (total comp &gt; $200k last year), to the point where almost anywhere else I go will be a step down I feel. Having said that, I know if I randomly jump ship to another BigCo, I will keep that comp at least the same, and also pull down probably close to $100k in signing bonuses. So do I just bounce somewhere to pick up a pile of money?<p>Problem 2: My seniority is decreasing &quot;hands on keyboard&quot; time, which is what&#x27;s made me happy since I started programming in second grade. So I feel like my reward for accomplishment is to diminish what makes me happy. Some weird version of the Peter principle...<p>Problem 3: I literally have no idea what I want to work on. I&#x27;ve worked on lots of different things over the years, and I&#x27;m at the point where I look at the landscape out there - and it&#x27;s just &quot;meh&quot;. I don&#x27;t see much changing on a day to day basis from where I&#x27;m at now. Nothing is exciting me.<p>Problem 4: I don&#x27;t want to go into management, and I&#x27;m having a hard time understanding how to grow anymore as a developer.<p>Has anyone ever been here before? How did you get out? The tl;dr is &quot;don&#x27;t find satisfaction in what I&#x27;m working on, look around, don&#x27;t find anything appealing or any motivation to choose one thing over another.&quot; Is that it, have I just arrived at my professional plateau?<p>Help!
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tslug
Your money is a microscopic magnetic domain of bits on a hard drive on a
computer in a bank somewhere. If you acquire twice as much, you didn't even
get a new bit, because you prolly already had at least 32 allocated, if not
more, just one of them flipped its spin orientation to represent a "1". It's
pretty stupid.

Money is an addiction, like a high score for the world's oldest, most fucked
up MMO called "capitalism". This MMO has been patched so heavily that it's
totally unmaintainable, incomprehensible spaghetti code. The gameplay is
wretchedly paced, totally unbalanced, and unfair due to the ridiculously silly
positive feedback loops strewn everywhere. It rewards people lavishly for
bullshit work that doesn't really benefit our species much less the species
we're busy exterminating through neglect. It really needs a total rewrite from
the ground up, but that's called "revolution", and it's generally bloody and
awful and no fun.

So the fix is to stop playing the game. Ween yourself off money. You don't
need much of it to get by. The lower you get your burn rate, you'll find the
happier you get. Bills put a lot of subconscious burden on you.

And do something deeply satisfying. Cloud computing infrastructure isn't that
for you anymore. Move onto something that resonates deeply. Get into the
import/export business and take what you've learned to an entirely new field.
Which field to pick? Try something you dreamed of doing as a kid. You were
more honest with yourself as a kid.

~~~
throwawaydotcpp
"Try something you dreamed of doing as a kid. You were more honest with
yourself as a kid."

Don't think I agree with the socio economic commentary a whole lot - after
all, the capitalism MMO is what brought me my childhood dreams - but the above
statement is deeply true. It guided me for part of my career. But I lost my
way.

~~~
tslug
It's not just commentary. I'm a game developer
([http://davetaylor.name](http://davetaylor.name)). I assure you, capitalism +
our national laws + the international treaties our nations have agreed to is a
game. It's the Old Game.

Catch is, the rules (laws) of the Old Game are such a complex mess that we
have to hire expensive lawyers at hundreds of dollars an hour just to
interpret slivers of the rules that apply to our particular situations. It's
not fair to those still at level 1 (in poverty) still learning to play the
game and who can't afford to pay people just to know the rules. Even at level
100 (extreme wealth), no one likes that they have to hire armies of attourneys
just to protect themselves from being the targets of lawsuits.

This is poor game design. We learned years ago that players don't read
manuals. That's why games don't come with them anymore. We learned they can't
even stand tutorials. What they want is intuitive gameplay and gentle pacing,
so that their minds aren't blown with the whole wad at once, and so that they
can get a sense of steady progression and accomplishment. That's definitely
not what the Old Game has to offer today. Perhaps it once did, but not
anymore.

Today, the Old Game essentially tells us: "Congratulations. You've graduated
high school. Maybe. Now, the rules moving forward are... incomprehensible.
Don't suppose you have a few law degrees? Oh no, that's right. High school.
OK. Better get a job, or you'll be homeless and will starve. Cool? Oh, unless
you're rich, in which case, don't worry about it. You have no obligations."
You haven't played any games like that because they wouldn't be compelling.

Worse, the Old Game has evolved to a point where it now tries to place a
monetary value on all things. Its precept is that all your problems can be
solved with money. Need new laws? Spend money on lobbyists. Need new
politicians? Spend money on their campaigns. Need a date? Spend money on a
dating service. Need excitement? Spend money on travel. Need new cloud
infrastructure? Spend money on coders.

What modern game has a single currency that satisfies all your desires? It's
hard to think of one, isn't it? That's not by accident. I assure you, we tried
it. It doesn't work. We discovered empirically that money just isn't that
satisfying. You need things that can't be bought, like random loot drops,
level ups, status, new goals, friends, exploration, surprises, emergent
behaviours, challenges, defeats, victories, romance, and more. We've even
learned the importance of breaks. Too much is too much.

The Old Game is losing its competitiveness. It would have flopped long ago if
it were not for the fact that playing it is mandatory. You need it to clothe
yourself, eat, shelter yourself, and receive medical treatment to not die.

But read that list of items more carefully. We have 3D printers marching
steadily towards finer-grained resolutions with more materials and can now
build just about whatever we need, even tools, homes, and clothes. We have the
ability to automate the gathering of our own energy, the ability to grow our
own food (you can eat healthier with a fish tank and some algae than you can
visiting most supermarkets now), the ability to diagnose and even treat
ourselves.

The costs of living are plummeting. We are approaching autonomy. These things
subvert capitalism, because they subvert your need to change the spin of more
magnetic domains on your bank's hard drive.

You are in an incredibly enviable position. You have an enormous amount of
potential excess income, probably a decent savings, and certainly a valuable
skill set (for now- you know you can already feel the competitive heat from
younger, cheaper minds than yours). You can continue to play the Old Game
while scaling back your dependency on it so that you can transition to a new
game of your own choosing.

I get that it's frightening, but I assure you, it's mostly your addiction to
money that makes it frightening. The Old Game certainly hasn't kept up with
the times, but it does know how to addict its players, and it keeps us playing
by frightening us with scary potential consequences if we stop playing it.

I don't want to trivialize the risk, but to put it in context, the outcome is
the same for all of us. Game over is death. You don't lose or win. There's no
high score or prize. All we can do is decide what games we want to play
getting there.

I don't recommend playing the Old Game anymore than you absolutely have to.
It's just not well designed.

------
postit
You should take a sabbatical right now.

I had a similar bored moment who rapidly turned into a destructive burn out
situation that almost destroyed both my relationships and my reputation as a
good developer.

When started showing depression symptoms I took care of the situation and made
some changes in my life.

\- I resigned my job;

\- I convinced my wife to join me in a 3 week retreat in the woods w/o phone,
tv and internet. Just books, wine and conversations.

\- I took a really long vacation period away from keyboard/internet (sure, you
won't lose the next big thing if you turn off a few weeks - the internet, HN &
Reddit are always recycling their contents)

\- I went to some US universities just to hangout with people, I managed to
know a bunch of nice people just hanging near the MIT campus and even visited
a couple of labs.

\- I started taking small weekend-trips to places that I've always wanted to
visit but never had time.

\- Managed to get a new job with amazing people.

\- Adopted a crazy Dog.

Now I know I'm still not 100% but every day I fell better than yesterday.

~~~
raarky
Sabbatical is a great idea.

Try and do it cheaply as well. The places you end up staying as a result puts
you on an interesting path where you can meet some very interesting folks.

I try and do a 1-3 month long snowboarding trip each year. Buy a season pass,
find a room in a hostel and hang out with the other seasonairres. The total
cost is only slightly more than a 1-2 week holiday in a hotel. I've meet some
awesome, crazy, fun, random and right-down good folks from all around the
world.

The imagination gets fired and after some time, I actually really look forward
to coming back home and working on something.

------
haihaibye
I switched from programming, where I didn't care about the domain (business),
to bioinformatics, which has an inherently interesting domain to me (biology
research). I have a deeper sense of purpose now.

Find a domain that interests you, is a greater goal of mankind (maybe your
malaise is not being part of a 'greater good') and needs people good at
solving problems with computers.

Try and build the better world you want to see when you're an old man. Want to
see less people die on the roads? Maybe work on self driving cars. Or clean
energy, or robots to do dangerous jobs. Or analyze data to improve aid
efficiency, or health services, etc etc.

Find a big problem that is interesting and going to grow.

Learn in your own time. Grow your skills.

Step sideways into a slightly different role as the field expands and your
skills are needed.

------
bellerocky
If you haven't already start a family and you'll stop being bored. You will
wish you had the time for malaise and boredom. And you will create happiness
for yourself outside of your career.

~~~
throwawaydotcpp
Good advice, I took it about 6 years ago, and now I've got a great kiddo
sleeping one room over from me. We had a pretty awesome wiffle bat sword fight
tonight :)

------
nugget
Find a well-funded post Series A or B company that you really believe in. Make
it clear you want work as a technical contributor who writes lots of code
(they will like this). You'll still make $150k and have equity in place of the
extra bonus cash. But, if you like the team and believe in what the company
wants to do, and you write code every day to help push the company there,
you'll probably be a lot happier.

------
jvert
I spent 21+ years at Microsoft. From college hire to partner level. Finally
got fed up and left for a smaller company 2 years ago. Sure, I'm making less
money but I'm working with great people, building cool stuff, and not wasting
my time on bureaucracy & management. Don't get hung up on the $$ if that's not
what makes you happy.

~~~
throwawaydotcpp
Yeah. BigCo bureaucracy and management is killing me. If you don't mind me
asking, what smaller company did you go to, or what does smaller company do?

~~~
pyronite
It sounds, from his comment history, as if he moved to Valve Software. Gabe
Newell (founder of Valve Software) is a former Microsoft producer.

------
tallerholler
Get outside yourself and go help someone else out. Donate to a charity, go
teach code to high schoolers, go help your neighbor paint their fence, go
volunteer at an animal shelter, go visit the elderly, spend time with your
family, run a marathon, run for office, plant some trees, help build homes for
the poor in Mexico - get out there and do stuff that doesn't involve YOU!

------
rdl
If you like working hands-on, pick a company which highly values that, even at
the senior level.

In my experience, you'll have a hard time doing ONLY tech stuff at a company
with <10 people even if you're not a founder, but you might find an acceptable
level of deep-problems.

I'm really enjoying being in a 50-250 person company (CloudFlare; it's around
110 right now). It's big enough to let people specialize, but not so big that
there's a lot of bureaucracy. You wouldn't get near $200k in cash comp in a
company of this stage (outside maybe sales), but equity upside can exceed
$200k/yr total comp easily.

You _probably_ have to live in a top-tier city (SF, maybe NYC, maybe London)
to have a large choice of different 50-250 person companies which highly value
senior devs (without forcing them into management), but there are individual
companies in all kinds of random places which do; it's just that you're locked
into a less competitive job market and switching costs can be higher. I'd
recommend SF for this reason, even though I personally hate SF.

------
hliyan
Few questions:

1\. Are you making more money than you actually need?

2\. Are you happy with the amount of decision making power you have? Or do you
frequently have to subject your own judgement to corporate policies,
management, marketing and bottom line considerations?

3\. Are you really really sure that there's nothing you want to work on?

I broke out of a somewhat similar situation last year (10 years in very nice,
well paid, senior but eventually boring position) and I've done spectacularly
well since, if I say so myself. The only difference between you and me is #3
-- there were so many things I wanted to do but didn't have time for. So I
specifically negotiated for a new job that gave me oodles of free time, even
if it meant a temporary drop in compensation. As a result, I've done more
things in the past 12 months that I had in the past 10 years. The boredom's
all but evaporated!

So whether anything further I have to add will help or not, depends entirely
on the nature of your problem #3.

------
bobsil1
Another approach by Hunter S. Thompson: pick your way of life first so you're
guaranteed to enjoy what you do. Then pick the gig.

[http://www.yourfriendshouse.com/2014/hunter-s-thompson-on-
fi...](http://www.yourfriendshouse.com/2014/hunter-s-thompson-on-finding-your-
purpose/)

~~~
cfieber
I recently (just over a year ago) relocated myself and my family to the SF Bay
Area. I couldn't ever explain (other than the OMG Bay Area salary/big name
company aspect) why it mattered so much to me, but reading that Hunter S.
Thompson letter really hammered it home for me.

Thanks for the link!

~~~
bobsil1
Welcome to the Bay! Yeah, thought he expressed "life is about the journey"
particularly well.

------
hliyan
I just noticed something after I posted my previous comment. Your username --
throwaway.cpp -- I'm assuming you're a C++ programmer or have been at some
point? Then you and I have a lot in common. C++ is a great language, but after
about 10 years, you can reach a level of mastery where there's not much more
interesting things left out there for you to learn and play with. If you're
someone who started developing because you enjoy it, this is around the point
where you should probably consider rebooting yourself into a completely
different technology stack (or stacks). I did this and it worked out very
well. Not only that, after working with something like C++, almost every other
language is a cakewalk (and also more pleasant to code in).

~~~
pestaa
Haskell might be a nice challenge. I had several years of experience, but
learning Haskell felt exactly like the first time to me.

------
ishbits
I hear you. I'm just at 15 years professional experience as well. Did a
startup early on in my career, was acquired (more of a firesale) and I'm still
there. Things are OK, but not great. I've learned new languages (Scala,
Javascript, Go), but still feeling unfullfilled - I think I'm more after the
bigger picture, and regardless of what language, frameworks, etc, if you just
aren't into the big picture (anymore) it gets old.

You are lucky though with such a high salary. I'd think you could quit and
take some time, travel a little and perhaps rediscover yourself.

And a bit unrelated, what localities does one have to live in to pull in $200k
a year? I'm a bit sheltered living off in the sticks I guess.

~~~
morgante
> And a bit unrelated, what localities does one have to live in to pull in
> $200k a year? I'm a bit sheltered living off in the sticks I guess.

Probably either NYC or the Bay Area. In either place, $200k really doesn't go
very far (what I pay for rent on my 1-bedroom in NYC would buy me a mansion in
the sticks).

~~~
axlprose
> _Probably either NYC or the Bay Area. In either place, $200k really doesn 't
> go very far_

I don't know about NYC, but I'm from the bay and $200k can definitely go
pretty far with decent money management skills. It might be a stretch on
$100k, but twice that should be enough for anybody to live comfortably with
savings here.

~~~
morgante
> I don't know about NYC, but I'm from the bay and $200k can definitely go
> pretty far with decent money management skills.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply they'd be scrimping. On $200k you can certainly
live a comfortable lifestyle in NY or SF, but it's not nearly as luxurious as
some of my rural friends assume it would be. $200k is comfortable in NY/SF,
but it's not rich.

~~~
axlprose
True, though nothing short of hitting the lottery (either in the traditional
sense or through a large startup exit) would really produce that kind of
'rich'.

Then again, my family comes from a pretty modest background, so anything in
the 6-figure range would be considered _reasonably_ rich to me, but nobody's
expecting you to be Donald Trump wealthy either. So in coming from that
background, it still rubs me the wrong way when even reasonably well-off
people downplay their success and potential freedom.

~~~
morgante
> True, though nothing short of hitting the lottery (either in the traditional
> sense or through a large startup exit) would really produce that kind of
> 'rich'.

I wouldn't go that far. A doctor in most parts of the country probably meets
that kind of "rich."

I make 6 figures, but I'd never even think about being able to afford a luxury
car or any of the things which people usually equate with a 6-figure salary.

Especially when you factor in taxes, the picture looks a lot less rosy. On
$150,000 your take-home is really only $75,000. Factor in $5,000/m for
expenses in SF or NY and that's only $15,000 of savings a year—at that rate,
it takes many years to even save up a good emergency fund.

Don't get me wrong: my family also comes from a very modest background, so I
feel incredibly lucky to have the excess income to do things like help my dad
buy his first house (in a cheap, low-cost area).

------
1602
When I was in similar situation my solution was: 1) travel, 2) opensource, 3)
meditation.

So I would suggest you to leave your zone of comfort, learn how your mind and
body works and use them properly and give more attention to details of your
life, turn off autopilot mode.

------
martingoodson
I recommend you read Richard Feynman on how he went from burnout to Nobel
prize [https://www.physics.ohio-
state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html](https://www.physics.ohio-
state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html).

------
axlprose
Step outside of your domain and learn something new entirely. If your job
takes up too much of your time with 'busy-work', find another one that
emphasizes a better work-life balance (it's worth taking a pay cut for this).
Or alternatively, gather some savings and go on a sabbatical. Just do whatever
you can to go off and study
music/painting/writing/photography/design/cooking/whatever, and then take on a
totally different branch of programming (like games or front-end work) to
explore some new challenges, or abandon programming as a career altogether and
save programming only for stuff that you're actually passionate about.

Starting a business is also an option (like others have pointed out), but
while it isn't _exactly_ 'boring', it can become grueling if you're not
passionate enough about the specific idea you're working on. But whatever you
do, make sure it is a major shift -- don't expect that just changing _where_
you do the same 'dull-work' will suddenly make it feel like 'awesome-work'.

------
lasryaric
I'm not as experienced as you are but I completely understand your situation.
I'm 26 years old and I was making $190k+ / year - bur I was bored! I was doing
more and more management and I was slowly loosing my passion for computer
science. After interviewing with a bunch of companies, I found one that I
really liked and I joined it. I can't tell you how happy I'm. I'm working on
interestong problems, doscovering new technologies (there is still a lot of
computer science related problems not solved yet), slowly learning about
machine learning, working with talented people, etc.

My salary is lower but still very good compare to a lot of people outside of
the silicon valley and my passion is coming back extremely quickly.

Find something different, forget your $200k, money is here to help you, and it
is clearly not helping you here. Go outside, on interviews, talk to startups,
big companies, who ever you want. A lot of interesting things are going on!

~~~
throwawaydotcpp
Thanks for your thoughts. I look back on a lot of the random jumping around I
did earlier in my career - and I never thought twice about it! I always did
what interested me and it was never about money, or wondering what my "career
arc" would look like. And yeah, if I had tried to "climb" I might have been
better off, but instead I have some cool accomplishments under my belt and I'm
proud of my work and have learned a lot. Now, I guess it's unsurprising in the
late 30's, to be thinking - will this sustain/increase my employability, will
this be sufficient for my retirement, etc -- none of the carefree exploration
I used to do on a whim. I'm glad you were able to shake yourself out of a rut,
even if it was a golden rut.

~~~
onetom
Maybe visit Thailand...? And I don't mean a "Hangout" style, Bangkok only
trip, but more like travel across, see all ends of it, observe the people and
their attitude towards life, look into what do they consider problems... Then
Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, India if you got used to Thailand.

It's really transformative. (while not even very expensive)

The Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia is too easy; too many people speak (some
kind of) English there.

------
robbles
My (totally subjective, anecdotal only) experience has been that a lot of
developers who have moved away from day-to-day coding tend to have less of a
sense of what's new and interesting in technology. This would make sense,
given that the pressure of keeping up with the latest and greatest is removed
somewhat when you don't have to work directly with new technology and compete
with other developers and their experience.

The main downside of this could be that you'd slowly develop a jaded feeling,
and start to think that nothing is really new and interesting, or worth
working on. I think the only cure for this is likely to get back down into the
trenches and start working on a coding project at the same level as more
junior developers, who may be less skilled, but might also be able to provide
you with a connection to new areas that will interest you.

Or you could do what most experienced programmers seem to end up doing, and
write a book or two.

~~~
throwawaydotcpp
Not sure if I'm jaded or not - just feel like my internal compass is on the
fritz. Nothing is singing to me. I think plenty of products are cool, sure
(like - slack.com for example - love it) - but I wonder - what will I _learn_
there? What new problem will I be able to solve??

Even if I'm not hands-on at work, I still dabble with new tech at home. I've
always had side projects at home in my spare time. I don't trust developers
that don't.

------
nbm
Focusing mostly on #3:

Might be worth interviewing or just chatting around at a bunch of different
places (big companies, startups) and see whether something grabs your
interest. Passion is often a bit contagious.

I've been pretty happy changing teams every year or so at Facebook, so also
consider whether your employer has any internal transfer options available.

Focusing on #4:

If you don't think you have people to learn from in your team or sufficiently
close to you in your company, you should move - either within the company or
without.

If your company doesn't offer an IC-only track, you probably should make a
move elsewhere.

#1 - you'll only really find out about comp once you've got an offer (and then
negotiated on it), so you'll need to get out there.

#2 - Tell your manager what is eating up your work time on things you don't
enjoy. If they can't make a difference on that, look around. And also just opt
out of things. Also might be useful to be more clear here on what is eating up
your time.

~~~
klausjensen
What does "IC-only" track mean? I am assuming it means that you can keep
advancing in a technical field without moving into management, but what
exactly does it mean?

~~~
themonk
IC: Individual Contributor, examples are Staff Engineer, Architect, Principal
Architect, Distinguished Architect...

~~~
nbm
Well, the examples at Facebook are: Engineer, Engineer, Engineer, Engineer.

I get "Staff Engineer" (some seniority indicator, which we don't have at
Facebook on purpose), but "Architect" seems more like a change in role and in
expectations rather than advancing on your existing path.

------
CyberFonic
Chill man !

A lot of us on HN would love to be pulling down >$200k. My guess is it's like
golden handcuffs, you have gotten used to the lifestyle it allows and won't
contemplate earning half of that. I think that's what's blinkering your
evaluation of the many brilliant suggestions here by other readers of HN.

------
morgante
Go find a well-funded and growing startup building a product which interests
you.

Most startups really need people who can write lots of code effectively, so if
you go that route it can be entirely possible to get great compensation
without going into management.

Yes, there will be a minor hit in cash comp initially (you'll probably pull
around $150k at a startup), but the equity upside allows for more interesting
growth than in a BigCo. Importantly, the growth factor in startups also means
you can grow in comp (equity & cash) without having to move up the management
chain.

If you can't find any interesting startups, take some time off to build your
own ideas.

(Pure self-promotion, but if you do want to go the startup route I'm currently
hiring: [http://cafe.com/developers](http://cafe.com/developers))

------
marcomonteiro
I feel there's an important amount of context left out for anyone to give you
sound advice. Do you have a wife/husband? Children? Ages? Any other
commitments? A mortgage, car payments, other debt? What fields have you been
in? Then, there's the personal side. What's on your bucket list? Could you
earn half of what you're used to and live comfortably along with any
dependents you may have?

Also, what's wrong with management? For that matter, what's wrong with being
bored or confused? It seems like you have a certain sense of urgency for
change, but is work where change is most required in your life?

What do you want? If nothing, then at least learn to be content. This is not
advice, just me repeating what I often find myself contemplating.

------
sriku
For some reason, our cultures generally put a negative spot light on boredom.
In hindsight, I've found boredom to have the reverse effect - it has always
been the germination of some new phase, something deeper and more satisfying
always crops up.

So ... be more excited about the unknown stuff that's now going to flow your
way!

As I read your post, I was reminded of Richard Feynman's tale of how he idly
began playing with the physics of an object on a spinning plate that was
thrown by someone in a cafeteria (am wondering whether my recall is right) ...
and ending up with some very interesting physics that got him the Nobel.

Play!

------
throwawaydotcpp
Thank you everyone for all the amazing feedback. It's so helpful after you get
stuck in your own head with your thoughts. Very good stuff to ruminate on
here.

I probably should have mentioned for context - for people recommending radical
alterations to my life, or wondering why I'm not on the verge of retiring -
I'm a divorced dad. I have my kiddo 50% of the time and still write his mom
large checks every month. So, no spirit quests for me nor moving somewhere
cheaper, etc.

~~~
onetom
Just saw this, but I don't see it as an excuse for not travelling. I also have
a son in Hungary, still I left to Japan when he was 3. I'm also writing checks
(not too large ones from my perspective, but still...) We were not married
ever though, neither did we permanently live together.

It was 7 years ago. I've never been back. During this time we found out he has
Asperger's syndrome, but I just can't regret leaving them.

I married a 38rys old Thai lady ~5yrs ago; I'm 37. She has a daughter (15yrs
old) studying in Thailand and visiting us in Hong Kong whenever she has a
school holiday. Before that we worked in Singapore and she visited us there.
While I regret we can't live together, it's not sin not to. You should not
treat it as such a hard constraint.

"I have my kiddo 50% of the time" cries for some clarification.

1, Does it mean you _have to_ take care of him every second day, week, month
or year?

2, Or maybe - knowing the ridiculous laws - it's actually just the grace of
the jury that you _can_ see him/her, _if_ you want?

3, Or is it the other way around that your ex-wife is actually not capable of
taking care of the kid, _but_ the jury still granted her 50% of the time?

If the kid's age permits, you should bring him/her with you to Thailand when
school holiday kicks in.

I don't see how your self-sacrifice is really beneficial to anyone really...

Were you born to get tanked with your life after all that effort you put into
what's your passion was? All the potential you carry in yourself can help not
just your kid but many more people on the long term, young or old.

Having a break of a month or 2 can only be beneficial to your whole family.

------
mtrimpe
I'll chip in another view; and that is to read the book "Flow: The Psychology
of Happiness."

It's based on a lot of research about when people find them selves to be happy
and builds it into a logical framework that's so simple and obvious you'll
wonder why we don't teach this in every high-school.

After reading the book I'm quite confident you'll know where you're going
wrong and what is the best, most effortless, way to fix it and get back on
track.

------
binaryanomaly
Also +1 for Sabbatical

I'm in a similar situation right now and think I'll again make a sabbatical.

It helped me a lot when I found myself for the first time in such a situation.
When I came back I was deeply relaxed and highly motivated to start working
again. I was so lucky to sign the new contract before I started the Sabbatical
- therefore everything was really chilled and relaxed.

I can really recommend it - take some pressure from yourself and find joy in
life.

------
tunesmith
I'm curious what other people would say about #4. The only two answers I've
ever heard are to become a chief architect (that seems to be the only
seniority path that isn't management), or just go into consulting.

~~~
nbm
Facebook (and probably many other companies) maintain an IC (individual
contributor) track that doesn't entail becoming a manager or becoming some
sort of architecture astronaut.

There are a few flavours of seniority for ICs - deep domain expertise, deep
skill set, high productivity, high flexibility, able to design and communicate
and drive large-scale changes, mentorship, and non-technical organisational
leadership like running a training programme, improving hiring, and so forth.

------
MAGZine
Maybe find a co that you like, and if they can't offer you the 200k+, bargain
on extra vacation.

And then use your vacation to get out. I find I sometimes fall into a lull if
I don't balance constant tech out with other things.

------
paulannesley
You probably have some savings. Quit work. Take a few weeks or months off.
Pick up some old or new hobbies. Then decide.

------
NDizzle
Start your own company.

~~~
zeekay
I concur. I was in a similar situation at the beginning of the year. Started a
new company with a couple friends, and it's rekindled my passion for
programming and forced me to grow not only as a developer, but in numerous
other areas as well.

The challenges associated with starting a new company will be varied and
entertaining, drag you outside of your comfort zone and demand the most of
you.

Build something cool. Build value for yourself and others. Find other people
that believe in you and want to work with you. Very little is more exciting or
rewarding.

------
dhaval10
Become a professor at a university and research. You wont feel constraints and
also share your knowledge with students who are about to start their career.
Guide them and together make something meaningful.

~~~
nimeshneema
I'd second that

------
parfamz
After 10 years of cpp this was happening to me also. I switched gears to new
projects in Scala and I'm now happier and productive.

------
csoare
Why not think about startups?

------
jw_
Maybe seek fulfillment outside of work? Family, charity/service work, etc.

------
jvehent
Don't work for the man. Work for mankind.

------
michaelochurch
I'm 31 and have been in technology for almost a decade, so I can relate to
this.

There are two kinds of boredom. There's the acute, dangerous kind which is a
form of anxiety. That's when you physically _can 't_ do the work, because it's
so menial, and fall into a dangerous feedback loop of underperformance,
anxiety, burnout, social stress, etc. That sort of "emergency" boredom is a
different beast, and I won't address that because it doesn't sound like you're
facing that. Instead, you seem to be fighting the nagging, "I could be doing
more with my life, but I don't know what" kind of boredom that all of us get,
from time to time.

The good news is that the latter kind of boredom, alone, rarely transmutes
into the acute, emergency kind. There's always that nagging fear that it
might, that you might wake up one day and say, "I can't do this", but it
rarely happens that way. Emergency boredom (the early stages of sudden-onset
anxiety and depression) either involves a biological mental illness, or low
social status, and it doesn't seem like either is a problem for you.

Some people are advising sabbaticals. I'm sure that it works for some people,
but the problem with that approach is that many people try to "find
themselves" and come back with nothing, but are six months of savings poorer.
You typically find out what you want to do when you're trying to do something
else. Getting out of this kind of lull is like falling asleep. You can't
consciously "find yourself". You have to let go and let it happen on its own
time.

I'll address the four problems by line item.

 _Problem 1_ : High compensation may reduce your options somewhat, but that's
a good problem to have. Why? Because the myth is that companies slot people to
appropriate roles and status levels and then pay accordingly. The _reality_ is
that most of the important, high-status people have no idea how good you are,
so they work in reverse: they look at your compensation (and compensation
history, and titles, and how your carry yourself) and assume that to be "your
level" and find appropriate work based on that. With no prior experience of
the sort, you could be a VP/Engineering or VP/Research at a startup tomorrow,
just on the credibility conferred by your $200k salary alone. You might be
taking a 10-20 percent pay cut to do it, but if the startup is genuinely
interesting, it might be worth it.

You might think you have fewer options than at 23, because of your
compensation history (and justified desire to stay at that level) and the
pyramid shape of this industry. In reality, you have far more _good_ options.
You've already won. At 23, you have a lot of shitty options. At 38, with a
decent professional history, you have a small number of better options. This
can still be problematic if you lose your job suddenly (it can happen to any
of us, even if not especially the best) because the smaller job pool _does_
make searches longer, even if what is found is usually of higher quality, but
it sounds like you're employed.

 _Problem 2_ : you probably wouldn't be happy as a junior developer, churning
tickets and dealing with problems you've already seen before, while using
technologies that are new and different but generally not better. Nostalgia
and the fact that you were new to the craft makes those junior years seem
better than what they actually were. In reality, the percentage of people, at
any rank, who get to spend more than 2 hours per day on real coding is quite
small.

Your best odds might be with taking a 9-to-5 that doesn't tax you too much,
and getting your hours of real programming in early mornings, weekends, or
evenings. If you can block out 2 hours each morning, and 8 hours each weekend,
to work on projects you care about, then you're doing more real coding than
95% of professional programmers.

 _Problem 3_ : That's a "going to sleep" problem. You won't find it if you
consciously look for it. There are plenty of things worth working on:
alternative energy, cancer research, even making social games more engaging
and less manipulative. The problem is that it's damn near impossible to get
paid to do them (especially if you're not already a "brand name" domain
expert). Corporate capitalism is dying (slowly, and it'll probably be 50 years
before it's definitively dead) and generating all sorts of incentives to do
pointless work while systematically neglecting the long-range R&D work the
country (and world) so desperately needs.

A month on vacation will get you to the point where you have the opposite
problem: there are _tons_ of things you want to do with your life. Getting
paid to do them is the nasty, ugly, stupid problem that no one should face
but, while corporate capitalism persists, we all do. Committing to one, and
actually seeing it through, is a secondary, internal challenge. (Committing to
exactly _two_ projects-- the day job and _one_ side project-- is even harder.)
Most people end up committing to the one prospect that gets them paid, even
though that tends to stop being rewarding after a couple of years.

My advice would be to find smart people, work with them, and learn things. The
upshot of this career is that there's always new stuff to learn: machine
learning, GPU programming, new programming languages (Rust, Haskell, Clojure),
and plenty of cool, slowly-changing stuff (compilers, operating systems,
algorithms) worth a refresh as well. I doubt that MOOCs and online resources
will "take over the world" (they're tailored toward highly motivated,
intelligent 25+ year olds who want to accelerate their knowledge and who _don
't need_ the social context of immersive education) but there are a lot of
great free resources out there for us. Get a Safari Books subscription if you
don't already have one. Make contacts, learn cool shit, and level-grind. That
has you doing more than 95% of your peers. Read papers and books, go to
conferences, and do this on company time as much as you can (by your late 30s,
you should be politically adept enough that you can work nearly exclusively on
your career goals without getting in trouble, and that approach is more
rewarding and less boring than regular-ol' slacking). You can't force yourself
to find something worth working on, so just make the contacts and learn the
skills that'll have you prepared when the muse comes.

 _Problem 4_ : The bad news: as a traditionally managed developer, you're well
past maxed out. Most of Corporate America is manage-or-be-managed and, now
that you're the eminent senior and "tech lead", there are very few places
(effectively zero, because you can't get into them without contacts or a
Stanford PhD) where you'll learn _anything_ technical from the people telling
you what to do. If you stay on your current path, you'll probably be stuck as
an interface between non-technical management and the programmers you'll envy
because they get to do "the fun work" and seem to be progressing while you
stand still. Unless you can work directly for someone Peter Norvig or Jeff
Dean... you're going to stagnate as a managed programmer. In truth, you're at
risk of backsliding as new-ways-of-doing-old-shit keep emerging and eroding
your relative status. You can still be a programmer post-45, but as a
traditionally-managed programmer, you're just fucked by that age.

My advice would be to go into management, not because it's great but because
it's better. It will give you credibility and status and a bird's eye view
into the social _and_ technical aspects of the organization. Try to leapfrog
over the lower-middle management stage (MacLeod Clueless) where you have
responsibility without power or status. Those jobs are traps and don't lead
anywhere better. You may have to change companies, taking a lower-upper-
management job (Sr. Director or VP) at a smaller company. But get a job where
you have autonomy and some executive control, smart people under you (who you
can learn from, because the people under you will know more about their
domains but you can get them to teach you) and enough status and leverage that
you can cut away a couple hours per day to keep current on the parts of
technology that interest you. It's not like executives _can 't_ code. No one
says they aren't allowed. If your eventual goal is to have your own startup,
then orient your 1:1's toward learning as much as you can from your
subordinates (and, if you're willing to play that way, ask them to investigate
technologies you're curious about, but don't personally have time to look
into).

The perception that management is "hard" comes from two sources. The first is
complain-bragging, because executives don't want people to realize that they
have better work lives in all dimensions (respect, autonomy, flexibility,
compensation). They dog-whistle it, so their jobs sound easy to their peers
(projecting status and competence) but painful and sacrificial to those below
them. The second is that middle management is often a trap that leaves you
cleaning up messes made below and above you, and doesn't confer much status or
respect. You're best to jump over that "uncanny valley" and into a role where
you get to make actual decisions. With 15 years of experience, you're more
than qualified for those jobs. (You were probably more than qualified several
years ago, to tell the truth.)

That's enough for one post. Good luck!

------
notastartup
You make 200k+ a year, you should invest in me.

~~~
junto
But you're notastartup!

------
ckdarby
Your question has already been answered by your own post.

Quit. Pack your bags, move to low cost of living area and just code.

Seriously, if you're > $200k comp last year and this year should be at least
equal to $200k comp and you're not at the point of being able to retire with
already 15 years of work behind you then you're doing something wrong.

~~~
nbm
Saying "Seriously, ... you're doing something wrong" when talking about
someone else's financial situation when you don't know about their situation
(single income family, kids, supporting parent(s), paying partner or kids
through university, medical situation) is not particularly productive.

------
wellboy
It's the same post as yesterday
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8177259](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8177259).

Developers that probably have close to half a million on the bank account
complaining that they don't know what to do. It sounds a bit like you want to
self-actualize yourself, but you don't want to put in the work. So if you want
self-actualization, you need to work hard for it. That's the whole reason why
self-actualization is so satisfying, because you have worked so hard for it.

~~~
throwawaydotcpp
Don't know how you can conclude what I have in my bank account, and you're way
off. Sorry :(

Moreover, not sure how having money in your bank account helps with
professional ennui. I don't want to take a trip, I don't want to take cooking
lessons. I want meaningful work.

~~~
onetom
You just cast some light on a major misunderstanding.

It's irrelevant whether would you _like_ to take a trip or not. It's like
medicine. Many of us know how it works. You should try taking it even if you
don't feel the urge. Based on what you said so far, it's very likely to be
effective.

For example I went on a 5 weeks, inter-Europe trip in 2004 with MPlayer A'rpi
when he was heart broken. All of my friends said I'm crazy to recommend such a
remedy, but it worked! :) We were ~27yrs old only though...

I would be delighted to talk about meaningful work with you. I see soooo many
problems in the world unsolved... many just in software land. The amount of
knowledge required to evoke the help of hardware of software to solve real
world problems is just ridiculous and very prohibitive for people who
otherwise understand the problem domain well and have probably good ideas for
solutions.

We will never know though whether their ideas were good solutions or not,
because it's just beyond their capacity to learn all that bullshit we call
"programming" nowadays.

Rebol, the
[http://easiestprogramminglanguage.com/](http://easiestprogramminglanguage.com/)
showed a possible direction. A friend of mine is pursuing that direction by
writing a modern incarnation [http://www.red-lang.org/](http://www.red-
lang.org/) He gave up his job, retreated from Paris to Montenegro and in the
past 3 years he was living on donations, then just moved to Beijing recently
for incubation at InnovationWorks. He is your age too...

------
ilaksh
Would you like to become an Angel Investor? I have been working on my startup
for about six months. There is a chance I may need a little more runway next
month. It is a PaaS built around Docker containers. You can email me at
ithkuil@gmail.com.

