
Ask HN: Developer burnout – how to rediscover the passion, or new career? - docflabby
I&#x27;ve been developing software for the last 15 years and I&#x27;ve stopped 3 months ago and just quit.  It wasn&#x27;t the job, it was one of the better companies I&#x27;ve worked for, the people were nice, the tech was cool and the money was great.  Outside of work my life is pretty fulfilled, my first child was born last year, and although its been hard its also really awesome.<p>I&#x27;ve just lost the passion for developing software :(<p>I&#x27;ve taken 3 months off so far, but still can&#x27;t bring myself to open up some code - I&#x27;m wondering now if I should think about changing career completely, what can an ex-developer retrain into?
======
trcollinson
I have been coding since the 90s. This year I finally felt really burnt out.
It got so bad I was upset, miserable, and lost all passion for working. I have
6 kids and a wife with a chronic untreatable disorder so I couldn’t just quit.
And I’m glad I didn’t, it turns out that wouldn’t have helped. Here’s what I
did and what I would suggest:

1) after talking to my wife and my doctor I got a counselor. Well really a
team of mental health professionals. My counselor and a psychiatrist to help
with meds really helped. I started out by taking some medication and doing
weekly one on one therapy. Over time I actually got off of medication and the
therapy reduced to every other week and then monthly. I still see my counselor
every month. He’s amazing. I am so glad I sucked up my pride and met and
talked to him.

2) through therapy I realized that I didn’t have an identity outside of being
a software developer. That’s what was burning me out. I wasn’t Tim the person
who has a family and interests and develops software. I was Tim: software
developer. The end. This turns out to be really bad. I had to remember who I
am other than software developer. All I ever did was work or think about work
or work on other things that were just like work.

3) in discovering who I am I remembered my other passions in life. I spent
more time with my family and enjoy the time more. I spend a little time with
just myself and that is ok too. I enjoy hobbies (mine are recreational math,
reading legal briefings (I’m aware this is weird), crocheting, and writing
short stories). I do these by myself or with my kids and wife. It’s nice.

4) now when I sit down to code it’s deliberate and I don’t feel passion
towards it as much. I'm okay with that. Coding is work and pays bills and
makes me happy in that way. And when I’m done with it for today I’m ok with
that too.

Ironically enough I’m more successful in coding and business than I have been
in many many years. It’s great. It hasn’t harmed me at all.

So I would suggest not giving up on coding. It pays the bills well and it’s a
good career. I’d suggest going to talking to a professional. Figure out what
the underlying issues are and fix those.

I’d be glad to answer any questions you have.

~~~
dabockster
The point about seeking professional help is super underrated. Just in the
past few months, I would have entered a similar thread on HN to see the OP
being brigaded by posts telling him/her to always be coding and to just chug
along. This kind of talk completely ignores other issues that may be present
and can cause even further damage.

~~~
mooreds
If I were to enter a complicated transaction without consulting a lawyer
(raising funding for example) people would say I was crazy.

Yet somehow we think we should be able to work out personal issues (burnout,
marriage issues, depression, etc) by ourselves. It's bizarre.

If you can afford help, get it. If you can't, often you can get a discount
(sliding scale) or work something out.

~~~
eb0la
It is not bizzare: we are used to do stuff other people cannot think to do...

... Like if it was a superpower.

Superheroes doesn't need advice. At least in the comics I read as a kid.

So this superhero syndrome, hurts more than having no superpower at all.

~~~
eeZah7Ux
> stuff other people cannot think to do

What are you talking about?

~~~
eb0la
A lot if people has trouble with computers, technology, etc.

If you're able to understand or at least start troubleshooting computer
relates stuff, you look like you hace a superpower to them.

------
muzani
Burnout is usually not caused by exhaustion, but by lack of progress. Progress
isn't just about money or working with a good team. It's about doing something
worthwhile.

I quit software a few times.

The first was because of low income. I started a cafe. But someone offered me
about 5x the money I was making to get back in, and I did.

The second time I was a freelancer. I kept building all these shitty apps that
nobody used, that were backed by bad teams and didn't make any money. So I
started my own startup to do something worthwhile.

The third one was after I sold my startup. It was doing okay, at 5% weekly
growth. But I was tired of people in the "startup community". I was working
100+ hour weeks. I couldn't get any funding even with significant traction,
while some fools got lots of funding without even a product. I felt like a
failure as a CEO, sold the company and retired for about a year.

Resting did nothing at all to cure burnout. What really helped was when
someone asked me to go around the country, training teachers and students in
advanced programming techniques.

It was giving back that really helped me out of burnout. If you've been in the
industry for a long time, mentoring helps a lot.

------
DoreenMichele
_my first child was born last year, and although its been hard its also really
awesome._

Most new parents seem to be perpetually short of sleep and exhausted for the
first two years. Being exhausted can make intellectually challenging things
just too hard to cope with.

I will suggest that it is possible you are just tired and should consider
finding employment that is less mentally taxing for now. Consider the
possibility that when things settle down, you may want to go back to coding.

~~~
Boulth
This is definitely it. I've got kids and I was also unprepared for the amount
of time that they will take. Usually as a developer one has a lot of time to
explore wider area of topics (playful exploration). That keeps the mind
energized.

So: get plenty of sleep (a golden rule is when the child sleeps the parent
should also sleep), then invest in some topic that's not in your comfort zone
(e.g. working on CRUDs? Learn embedded programming with Rust).

~~~
juliend2
> Learn embedded programming

Yes, this.

I'm currently learning electronics, with the Arduino environment, and I think
I never had so much fun with programming since the days I learned to do some
ActionScript 2.0 with Flash MX, back in the days. Not a very glamorous
example, but I genuinely enjoyed the simple fact of programmatically moving
stuff on the screen. Now, with Arduino, I get to programmatically move things
in the _physical_ world.

Pure fun.

~~~
wott
> Pure fun.

Well... that gets quite different when you do it in a professional context.
I'd say there is more pressure than in pure software development.

1\. The deadlines are harder. You cannot really ship a half-baked product and
tell yourself you'll ship an update every week after. This is of course even
more true if you are on the hardware side.

2\. The pressure is higher. Because of point 1, you have more pressure to get
things right on the first launch. You also have to deal with the intertwined
timeline of the hardware design and manufacturing. And the money involved is
arguably higher, so a failure can represent a big hit for the company.

3\. The final product is a bit more likely to have a real use. That gives a
better sense of purpose, but it can come with a greater moral responsibility
(it depends on individuals, of course). You may not carry the same weight for
the Nth rewrite of a random advertising webapp and for a critical safety
related device (to take extreme examples).

And now after you've overcome all this, you get thanked by being paid half
what the advertising software developers get ;-)

~~~
Boulth
> > Pure fun.

> Well... that gets quite different when you do it in a professional context.

Isn't this true with everything? That's why it's important to have something
that is not related to work and by extension you can play around with it
without the pressure of doing it "professionally".

Actually, that's what I think leads to burn out: no time to play around with
stuff without pressure of "doing it one true way" or with "business value".

------
Tade0
Congratulations on retaining your passion for so long.

I got myself fired at least once before I realized that what I'm passionate
about in programming is not the thing that pays the bills.

My point being: It's a job. You receive money for doing it because it's either
hard or impossible for your employer to do it themselves. Most of the time
there's really nothing to be passionate about here.

It's enough that you're in the 1% of people who made an effort to learn all
this. The vast majority of the population consider our line of work to be
immensely boring - so much so that even our relatively high salaries don't
attract them that much.

Cold professionalism and tinkering after-hours[1] are the things that I would
recommend.

[1] That is - once you'll have the time and energy for that. Currently, you
clearly don't.

------
ghthor
I've taken to extended breaks in my career, reduced my expenses to dollars a
month and pretty much focused on something else entirely. The first time it
was learning taijiquan and reconnecting with my body through walking and
physical labor. The second time is was to play video games and build a
community. At the end of both sessions my energy was revitalized around
software engineering because in each instance i came back around to using the
computer to solve the actual problems I wanted to solve for my real goal. Each
time I needed to relearn the tools which was also a nice experience as it
allowed me to fix lingering problems. I highly recommend these types of
breaks, especially if you have a first principals understanding of computers,
as that's critical for saying, "I know this is a problem I can solve with math
and computers."

~~~
zapperdapper
Extended career breaks work magic for me too. I recently took six months away
from work and it was sheer bliss. I was doing some techie stuff - but only
things I really wanted to do and didn't force myself. I did a lot of sleeping,
walking, eating good food and generally relaxing. Worked like a charm and I
went back to work reinvigorated.

I do think though if you are significantly burnt out then a year off might be
necessary in order to fully recover.

------
onion2k
When I felt the same way I actually went the opposite way and started to write
code every day - _the code I want to write_. I got back the passion and
enjoyment I had from writing code. Even if it's just a line in a readme, I do
_something_ every day. I'm a lot happier now because of it, I've learnt a lot,
and I'm a better developer all round.

~~~
DoreenMichele
This is a great idea.

How do you find code you want to write?

~~~
frfl
What is a problem you face regularly? Write code to solve it, there's probably
a market for the solution.

~~~
Insanity
When you start thinking of bringing something to market, it already adds
stress to the 'just coding' part to me. When I write something for fun I don't
want to have to think about making it usable for other people and everything
that comes with that

~~~
onion2k
Exactly this. I don't write code to make useful things I could sell (that's
the day job). Code I write in my "coding every day" thing is more often toys,
games or art.

~~~
Insanity
I would love to hear or see more about the 'art' part if you don't mind
sharing that. Or just explaining what kind ot the things it are :)

------
bsvalley
When a software engineer burns out he or she always identifies the same set of
problems: I don’t like my job anymore, I can’t code anymore, but there’s
nothing else I can do. I will never be able to make the same amount of money
doing something else.

To me, it’s a lifestyle issue. Coding has nothing special to it. It is
something that a machine can do a million time better and faster than us,
humans. Also, you don’t want to lose your salary as a developer because you’ve
probably set up your lifestyle around that kind of money. Most of us go even
beyond that, by getting into debts. That’s the real problem in my opinion.
Your job is what keeps your current lifestyle up and running. You put all your
eggs into one basket like most of us do. Life is too short, you shouldn’t put
work in the center of your life. Are you a software developer? Yeah? Well,
stop putting yourself into that bucket. “Yeah but it pays the bills”... what
bills? who set up the bills? You or your work? You should try to disconnect
your lifestyle as much as possible from your day to day job. It has to become
“loosely coupled”. Does it sound familiar? ;) At the end of the day, a normal
job is a dollar amount (or whatever currency you use) and you are in charge of
setting up that amount.

Make it as low as possible and reprioritize things in your life. The ultimate
thing you can do in life is to live for free... why? Because you could be free
like a bird and do anything you want. It’s technically impossible, but your
mission in life is to get as close as possible. Good luck.

------
newhotelowner
I quit my FE engineering job and bought a hotel. I don't think I can go back
to what I used to do.

I still love writing code. Now I just build stuff for myself.

~~~
zapperdapper
Recently was in Philippines for a month and met a guy there who was a former
software engineer who owns and runs a resort. He'd been there 7 years and was
really doing well. Really nice Swiss guy. Resort was magical too - we had a
cold spring in the back garden of our bungalow... sigh...

------
JDiculous
I don't know what the solution is, just know that you're not alone. It's been
7 months since my last job and I still don't have any desire to go back. Not
sure what I'll do going forward though. There are things I enjoy doing, but as
soon as I have to do it for money it no longer becomes enjoyable.

------
Viliam1234
3 months are not enough to revert the impact of 15 years. It's like having 3
hours of weekend, after 6 days and 21 hours of workweek -- you wouldn't feel
refreshed either. If you can afford it, give it more time: a year or two.

In the meanwhile, try other things. Do you have hobbies? If no, did you have
any when you were a child? Or just experiment with new stuff.

Or perhaps try finding a place where your computer skills will be useful, but
you wouldn't be doing the classical kind of development. For example, you
could help some people in their work by creating a spreadsheet with
automatically calculated results. Or try writing documentation for open-source
software. Teach kids programming or using the computer.

Without knowing more about you I can't give a better advice. But the main
message is that after 15 years of doing something, 3 months of break do not
mean anything. Especially if you spent them taking care about a small child;
that is not the same as having a break fully for yourself.

~~~
zapperdapper
Absolutely agree - 3 months is really the minimum for a career break. I was
thinking a year off in this case might do the trick. There could be other
issues at play here though of course...

Also agree with your advice to do other things. Simply walking for an hour in
the fresh air is _vastly_ underrated in these days of back-to-back ultra-
marathons.

------
ultrasounder
I have been a Hardware Engineer for the past decade or so. After jumping
around a bit this year I got an easy job just so that I can practice coding at
work. Go figure. I realized that I have nothing more to do with schematics and
PCBs and made a decision one fine day on a leap of faith. Haven't looked back.
By the end of this year I hope to start solving Leetcode medium to hard and go
through the riggamarole of coding interviews. Long story all of us go through
the "developer" burnout. How we deal with it is whats important. In my case my
spouse has been super helpful and I have family commitments which are a major
source of motivation for me pivot careers midlife and purse something that I
have developed passion for just recently. Maybe you should try a different
field all together. Art, woodworking,machine shop might not pay you well and
benifits suck but could very well get your motivation back. Good Luck!

~~~
wott
I tried to shift into landscape design and park maintenance. I had 2 training
periods. I was supposed to work on sites or supervise those works. After a few
weeks or months, I ended up drawing AutoCAD plans in the 1st one, and I
started developing an interface for a database of green spaces of the local
government in the 2nd; so each time it was not long before I was back in an
office in front of a computer :-/

Some of us are leopards who cannot change their spot...

------
poulsbohemian
Identify _why_ you have lost passion for developing software. I can think of
dozens of reasons _why_ you could reach this point, but the answer will direct
you toward the next destination.

~~~
some_account
I'm not burned out but my reason for moving away from coding is simple. It's
not fun in a open office environment with "agile" way of working. I got tired
of feeling like a factory worker.

~~~
poulsbohemian
Sounds a lot like why I don't like being a working software developer any
longer as well. That combined with the short-term memory of the industry where
new fads boom and bust constantly. If you enjoy building software still, just
not the environment, then perhaps look at other ways to apply your skills. For
me that means freelancing, where I can control for my environment and how much
project BS I'll stand.

------
aphextron
Learn a whole new paradigm of programming. For me, starting out as a CRUD web
app developer, getting into game development was a huge eye opener. It blew my
mind to realize that programming isn't all about object hierarchies and
application structure. It can be _fun_ and expressive. There is no single
_right way_ to do things, and there is always something new to learn.

It's so important to remember that "programming" is a skill roughly equivalent
to "writing". It's not one specific "thing", but a generalized tool for
solving problems in life. There are styles and domains of programming that
would feel like almost a completely different occupation from each other.

------
jowiar
See a therapist.

Do explore a bit. Play with your baby. Pick up some hobbies. Particularly
creative ones. Make music, art, sing, dance, act, etc.

Re "my first child was born in the past year"... If you're like any other new
parent I know, you've been running on fumes, and I lose all ability to produce
code when I don't sleep.

You don't need passion to be a successful, productive, professional developer.
many have it (and many of those passionate people drive me batshit crazy with
their protecting their passion and making software-crafting an intolerable
place to be).

For me, I've burned out of it several times. One of the things that brought me
back was realizing "the tools suck, and whenever I'm doing something else, I
end up drawn back in by the need for better tools".

Writing code isn't the end. I don't particularly enjoy the act writing code.
But I really hate working with crappy tools. And while writing code isn't
particularly fun, it helps me deal with other shit. It's a damn powerful skill
to have, even if the major output isn't "software".

As to what you can retrain into? Anything you want. Find out what matters to
you, though, then figure out how to get there. One of the great things about
being a developer is you can usually make enough cash happen in such a way
that you can find a path anywhere you want to be.

------
tracer4201
I work as a developer now. Over the past couple years, I helped launch a few
different really cool products, which you may have used or heard about. These
two years have been a constant high with insanely busy work weeks but I loved
every minute of it.

I'm currently in a phase where I still get satisfaction from design and coding
but the things I have to work on right now just aren't that interesting.

I'm not feeling a high from my current work. It seems trivial, boring,
reducing tech debt that I just don't find interesting at this point in my
career.

The dopamine release isn't there and my previous work was giving that to me
daily in large quantities.

I'm considering changing teams.

At some level though, I am in the same boat as you. I don't want to just write
lines of code. I want a bit more.

Since this started happening, I've enrolled in courses on Coursera and Khan
Academy. I'm leaning about deep neural networks and machine learning. The
amount of information is staggering.

I have one stream on just relearning or newly learning some of the math. I
have another stream just watching ML and neural net tutorials and articles to
become as familiar as I can. Then, there's a third stream of actually coding
through some exercises.

Motivation comes and goes. Stay disciplined and find something that really
excites you.

If you're just done with development, maybe consider a step into management.

------
notadoc
Management is the obvious answer.

Or if you like to travel frequently, look at becoming a sales engineer.

Or do consulting, become self employed, start a company, etc.

Lots of options, but you have to find something that inspires you. Take
another few months off if you can afford it, travel around, get involved in
things that interest you in and out of the industry, engage in hobbies,
eventually something will strike your fancy.

------
q-base
There are a lot of good comments that probably hit a lot closer to the root
cause that what I can supply. But I just wanted to chime in with reading
either "Deep work" or "Flow". (A third contender could be "So good they can't
ignore you").

I am not overly passionate about programming, but I really like the feeling of
reaching flow-state. And programming is especially good at this - if I let it.

I will move away from programming, but until I have a clear alternative I
might as well enjoy the feeling of reaching flow while also getting paid
heftily for it.

------
paulgrimes1
What about moving into a field within the meta of what you used to do?

Organisations of differing sizes benefit in a huge way (and pay for the
privilege) to hear stories, “war” or not, relating to their current problem
set, and the various ways those problems can be solved, from an experiential
aspect. Just to hear the various woes you faced and how you tackled them, is
valuable to upstarts in the field.

Aside from being cathartic to anonymise and relay your experience, you could
possibly help an organisation focus or see what they’re doing right, or wrong,
in their current initiative.

Your 15 years of stories are something new companies almost _need_ to hear.

------
SE4L
To me, burnout is a symptom of always feeling hopelessly behind. My identity
as an employee was always in knowing what was going on, where trends headed,
new projects, side work, etc. I now have 3 kids and just navigating the whole
parent scene takes up the time I would have spent keeping up. It makes me feel
like, if I sit down and watch a TV show it was time wasted so I feel guilty
about it. That has really had a negative impact on my own enjoyment in
programming.

~~~
zapperdapper
Yes, I do think "overwhelm" is a huge problem in the industry. I recently
started a new job and not been there 3 months yet and it felt like been caught
up in an avalanche.

GTD can help. I get a sense of control from simply opening up my GTD
spreadsheet and tackling the 'next action' for a project. If you chunk it
correctly it really helps.

------
zapperdapper
> I'm wondering now if I should think about changing career completely, what
> can an ex-developer retrain into?

Been asking myself that question for 16 years - I wish I had the answer. My
solution was to go contracting and take extended career breaks. It sort of
worked. I would like to move out of the industry permanently, but always run
into the "but what else would I do" question.

------
guicarus
I personally turn to travel to re-energize the passion. I have terminated a
job 2 times to spend time abroad doing something different (learning a
language or working as a contractor for a startup). While doing so, you meet
up new set of folks, interact with new cultures (I was in Thailand and later
in Russia). Works wonders!

------
watwut
Anything that does not require separete degree.

But, if you want to keep it close, you can do analytic or managemnt work.
Analysts with development bacground have advantage.

Or maybe don't code yet, just read about theory - math, engineering,
organization and soft skills for a bit. Maybe you will start to get feel for
coding after you do related but different activities for a while.

------
borplk
My question is how would you know if a new thing is not going to turn out the
same way? (not that I have an answer)

------
gorbachev
Burnout is entirely different from disinterest or loss of passion.

If you're suffering from a real burnout, you need to seek professional help.

If the latter, do some self reflection and figure out what it is that truly
interests you and see if you can change your life in ways that would allow you
to do more of that.

------
Jach
It'll probably take at least a full year to recover, if not longer. Read this:
[https://jacquesmattheij.com/dealing-with-burn-
out](https://jacquesmattheij.com/dealing-with-burn-out)

------
jongold
Wish I knew. Hit the point this year where I seriously considered quitting
tech forever.

~~~
zapperdapper
You are not alone!

------
tmaly
Have you thought about what you originally liked about software development
that allowed you to work on it for 15 years?

What have you not liked?

Are there aspects of it you still have not mastered?

Have you tried mentoring a someone?

------
docflabby
Thank you for all the comments and advise, I think I can see a way forward
now, its been an eye-opener, I really didn't expect this many responses.

------
cm2012
Maybe marketing? But you would start at a much lower salary than before.

------
xstartup
Retire before burnout.

After meeting many successful tech startup founders I realized, _they retired
before having their first serious burnout._

