
Ask HN: How do you get out a career rut? - stuckinarut
I graduated in 2012 and went to work for one of the big tech companies. I wound up working on a pretty cool project for about a year. I felt like a big part of the team and was able to learn and grow a lot. The project wound up cancelled which was disappointing but I was still pretty happy with the results.<p>After the project got cancelled I wound up a project I really didn&#x27;t enjoy. I was very frustrated and eventually I asked off the project. I know that sounds lame, but at the time things were not going well. The team had a lot of problems with mismanagement and poor team dynamics. Anyway, I stuck around for a little bit after but decided to leave company as I got an offer from another one of the big companies which sounded like a good fit and came with a nice bump in pay&#x2F;title.<p>I joined the new company as a new team was being spun up to work on a part of a new infrastructure effort. The problem itself is pretty interesting, but I don&#x27;t feel like I&#x27;m contributing. I&#x27;m by far the most junior person, and most of the people have been at the company for a while. Most of the actual work on the project gets done by the two most senior guys. The other people are doing a bunch of tooling and analysis work. I&#x27;ve done some stuff that&#x27;s fine (metrics pipeline, some tooling) but most of my time is spent doing mundane stuff. It&#x27;s important work, but it&#x27;s extremely dull.<p>I&#x27;ve reached the point where I think I&#x27;m going to just write off this job as a poor fit. The problem I&#x27;m having is that I&#x27;m ending up failing phone screens with places I was easily able to get onsite with previously. I have been brushing up on the algorithms, but it&#x27;s frustrating. I also feel like I&#x27;ve wasted two years and now I&#x27;m 5 years out of school with about 1.5 years of time where I was actually learning and growing. I&#x27;m feeling stuck and it&#x27;s becoming quite depressing.<p>tl;dr: Took a job and it&#x27;s been a poor fit. Feeling like I&#x27;m behind the curve in skills and have become stuck in a rut.
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bsvalley
Glad and sad to hear that someone is facing the exact same problems I've had
in the past. There are several underlying problems in your situation. It took
me a while to find out about all of this. Though now I have a clear vision of
the problems. In 2017:

1\. Software Development is not fun anymore. It used to be 10 years ago...
today it's all about how many resources a company can utilize to implement a
solution that has already been defined. All it needs is a set of arms and
legs. No more creativity in software development, you don't use your brain.

2\. Companies evaluate and hire software engineers based on CS principles
(big-O and all the crap we learn at school). In real life, it's all about code
architecture, integration, modularity, maintainability, etc. Software
Engineers (because of companies like Google) are not operational anymore.
Which means, there's no code quality anymore and products go out of the door
full of bugs, poorly implemented. Look at iOS and OS X today. It feels like
Windows Vista. %80 of your job as an engineer today is to fix all the mess
(bugs) versus %20 new features.

3\. Companies do not spend any effort in selecting their interviewers. You
might come out of FB, google, etc. then get rejected by a small company after
the first round because the interviewer asked you something way too specific.
Like a bug he or she ran into one day, spent 3 weeks to fix it, thinking it
would make the perfect problem for a 30 minute phone interview. If you get the
solution in 30 minutes you pass, if not, you're not the right fit for this
position. That makes sense right? Hell no.. And that's when you're lucky
enough! Someone can ask you to write a program that rotates a matrix in a
notepad, using a correct language syntax in 30 minutes. If you don't deliver
you're out.

So, because of these 3 underlying problems, people can end up in your
situation fairly quickly. This is 2017 and it's getting worse everyday. So the
solution is to run away from coding... let the "machines" do it for you. Act
now and jump into another field.

~~~
flukus
> Which means, there's no code quality anymore and products go out of the door
> full of bugs, poorly implemented. Look at iOS and OS X today. It feels like
> Windows Vista. %80 of your job as an engineer today is to fix all the mess
> (bugs) versus %20 new features.

This is it for me, just about everywhere is fixing shit that was made over the
last decade. Companies don't even want it fixed they want it patched to keep
running. Even when I've worked on new stuff lately it's usually mandated that
we repeat all the mistakes that made the old software so bad. Architecture
isn't about how fast or clean you can make things, but how many layers you can
add.

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posix_compliant
I can relate to this. I joined IBM right out of college to work on tooling for
realtime data pipelines. While I anticipated c++ development, I discovered
that most of the core project had been implemented and the remaining work was
not in my area of interest (which is systems).

It's hard to pass phone screens when you feel burned out. Have you considered
taking time off?

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mathattack
I've had a couple ruts. I don't presume my life lessons are worth reapplying,
but a few thoughts...

1) Immediately after both my undergrad and grad experiences, my ego was WAY
too high. I was too full of myself, and not completely lacking humility. It
took setbacks and tough times to ground me. Nobody likes to work with a big
ego.

2) Once your spirit is broken, it's time to go. Don't quit before you have a
new job, but start searching.

3) You mentioned "Big companies" twice. Early in your career the brand of the
company matters very little. Optimize completely on "Will I respect my boss?"
and "Will they give me time?" Everything else (learning, long term wealth,
happiness at work) follows from that.

4) Sometimes it takes a while to appreciate the lessons that you're learning.
But you're not paid to learn. That's a benefit that comes from what you're
actually paid to do.

Good luck. You have good skills in a good economy, and in the long run you'll
be fine.

~~~
mkaziz
Does the brand of company matter later in your career?

~~~
mathattack
Sometimes. In Sales brand is a negative signal. "Anyone can hit their quota if
they're selling SAP" In engineering it can be helpful. "We hired the VP of
BlahBlah from Google, she knows how to scale"

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nbm
If you're at FB, reach out to me (nbm is my unixname). 100% privacy guaranteed
or your money back.

Otherwise, you should consult with your manager and a trusted (but not
necessarily intimate) peer or mentor about what your options are in the space
before resigning and trying another company. If you just repeat the same story
at your next few places, you'll end up more behind. Perhaps you can come to
value the work you find dull, find a way to prove your value to the more
senior folks and be let in on the "actual work", or move onto a team with a
different focus or problem set or composition.

Don't stick it out if you hate it, but make sure you give yourself the chance
to find a better fit - this sort of thing translates whether it's a big tech
company, a startup, or just your own confidence.

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hluska
I have two comments.

1.) Have you ever considered that the job is fine, but you are the problem?? I
am almost 40 and have been in and around this industry for a long time. To me,
it sounds like your senior developers don't trust you. From what I'm reading,
it sounds like you are bored and have tuned out from the job. Senior people
tend to have a very good nose for juniors who have tuned out. And frankly, it
is frustrating to deal with juniors like that. When I've been in that
situation, I more commonly than not give them the absolute shit tasks in the
hope that they won't f __* up anything too critical.

2.) Has it ever occurred to you that you might not be a good fit for one of
the big tech companies? I don't know you, but it sounds like you have a bit of
an ego. That's fine, but in big companies, you are going to have to prove
yourself before you get to work on anything truly interesting. If your ego is
bigger than your contributions, you may never reach that point. There is a
whole world of tech outside of the big tech companies. Consider taking a look
at some smaller companies. Startups would likely give you the challenges you
feel you deserve.

Good luck and I hope that this hasn't come across as too harsh. You're in a
tough spot, but tough spots are perfect moments for self reflection. Take some
time, think this over and trust me, this will get better.

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solipsism
You haven't mentioned whether you've mentioned this to your manager. Your
manager is there to help you chart your career. You should be having frank
conversations about this.

If you don't have that kind of relationship with your manager, figure out it
it's you or them. If it's them, that's your real problem and it's indeed time
to go.

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rick_perez
"but most of my time is spent doing mundane stuff. It's important work, but
it's extremely dull."

I feel like you have unrealistic expectations. Unless you are in a startup
with no senior developers (or senior compared to you) as coworkers, you will
be spending the beginning part of any job working on mundane/boring tasks.

As you get more experience with the project (and gain the trust of the more
senior developers), you will be given more responsibility.

The same thing may happen at your next job.

But it doesn't sound like you're happy here and you should try to find another
job.

I got out of my 'rut' by finding a new job. Then I realized I wanted to work
for myself and started my own company. 6 years later, my company is still
going strong.

~~~
stuckinarut
> you will be spending the beginning part of any job

It's been over a year.

~~~
rick_perez
Well, it sounds like you haven't gained the trust of the more senior
developers.

