

Questions from a young developer that "just" started working aka: how do you manage it? - kamme

I've just become 24 and I've been working with computers since I was 12, got my own when I was 14. I've been programming for more then 10 years now and I was capable of spending days behind my computer screen. But since I started working things have changed for me. I don't have any personal projects anymore, not because I don't have time, but just because I just don't _feel_ like it. I have idea's in my head but can't seem to think them out into a good project. I just got a new job (with a raise and a lot closer to where I live) and sometimes for some reason I can't get simple things to work, while I know I wouldn't have had any problem with them 3 years ago. Am I getting burned up? Too much stress? Do you have the same issues? Or did you have them and got rid of them? Feedback very much appreciated!
======
bkbleikamp
Sounds like what used to be your hobby has become your job. If you spend your
whole day sitting behind the computer and then go home and spend your off
hours behind the computer, you run out of time to do anything fun (hang out
with friends, read, etc.)

I am a big fan of golf, and when you look at the PGA Tour most of those
players go on vacation and fish, or ski, or do some other activity - anything
but golf. Golf becomes a job when you play at that level. I think a similar
thing happens to good developers when they start developing full time for a
company.

If you have a great project idea, try committing one hour a day to it when you
have free time, and see if it really starts to turn out how you planned. If
you still feel motivated to work on it, start working on it 2 hours a day - if
you can make money from it, turn that into your full time job :)

~~~
swombat
Agreed. I couldn't program as a hobby when I was a software engineer. So what
I did was simply to change my job. I moved into more business-y consulting,
and regained my interest in programming almost immediately!

------
jnovek
"I don't have any personal projects anymore, not because I don't have time,
but just because I just don't _feel_ like it."

This is very similar to my workforce blues that I got after I finished school.
I became very apathetic; being at the bottom of the seniority roster and
thinking to myself, "This is what I have to look forward to for the next 40
years." really did me in. That's why I've decided to do a startup -- perhaps
I'm being idealistic, but I think I can enjoy what I would consider a better
quality of life in that sort of environment.

"I have idea's in my head but can't seem to think them out into a good
project."

Do you have anyone to bounce them off of? Say, an old friend from school? I'm
in Minnesota and one of my project's co-founders is California, but we've kept
in contact since school and tossed around a lot of interesting ideas in that
time. It took us a couple years to land on one that we thought was valuable,
but I don't think we would've gotten there if we hadn't played with all the
mediocre ones first.

------
Tichy
I have the same feeling. I sit at work and have lots of ideas for things I'd
love to code, but at the end of the unproductive day in the office, I feel so
burnt out that I don't have the energy anymore.

I still hope to eventually find the right mode that will work for me, though.
Probably that will involve working on my own projects...

Also, I plan to take on a project I can work on from home as my next
freelancing contract, where I have most of the responsibility for the design
and architecture of the application. What is killing me among other things are
many of the unfortunate design decisions in the corporate world.

~~~
njoubert
your "burnt out at the office" speaks very closely to my experience - its my
first serious job as a full-on C++ software developer, and frankly, it sucks
the interest out of programming.

------
felideon
I'm in a similar situation as you. Recently, however, it's a little worse
because I actually do have less time to work on my own projects than I did
before. So most of the time I can't work on my own projects, even if I wanted
to, because I have other priorities and responsibilities.

So at times I feel frustrated when I wish I was hacking and learning but I
can't. And it's not that I'm unhappy when I'm not hacking (I am very happy),
it's just that I never get a chance to do what I _really_ want to be doing.

And the root of the problem is not that there isn't enough time or lack of
energy. The problem is that most of my time is spent at a job where I'm not
doing what I like to do, and it is draining. I'm a software tester, and I test
other people's buggy software without even having the chance to fix it myself
because there's a hard line between Engineering/QA (coders/testers) in this
company.

However, even if I was working as a full-time programmer I would probably not
be doing what I like doing anyway. I'd still be a monkey (or robot, however
you look at it) coding what other people (i.e. PM) have badly designed.

So after reading some of PG's essays, I came to the realization that the
solution to my problem is to start a startup. I'm young enough to take the
risk, and the worse thing that could happen if it fails would be to look for
another, better job possibly in a startup where corporate culture is frowned
upon. And then maybe correct the mistakes I (or my team) made the first time
around and try again.

I'm kind of rambling here now, so I'll just end it now by saying that if you
don't think you'll ever find a job where you will do what you love to do, you
should start a startup instead of keeping that day job. If that's too far-
fetched of an idea you would pursue, well then others here have posted some
good suggestions.

~~~
mleonhard
Are you saving money to start a company?

~~~
LKM
I'm not sure whether saving money for a startup is a good idea. It might just
be a copout, a reason why you can't yet start your own company. But you can.
You don't need that much money to incorporate, and you don't need to quit your
day job - you may be able to move to a cheaper flat, keep working something
like 50% at your day job, and spend the rest of your time on your startup
while still making enough money for a reasonably decent living.

~~~
felideon
That, or look for seed funding.

------
aasarava
Do you like your job? Do you like the people you work with? Do you respect
your boss? Do you feel like you're learning new things there on a regular
basis?

The reason I ask is because some jobs -- ok, many jobs -- drain the energy out
of you. It starts while you're at the job and then affects the rest of your
evening once you leave the office. You get home and pretty much the only thing
you can get up the energy to do is peel the wrapper off a takeout sandwich and
turn on the television. It becomes a cycle, and the cycle becomes a habit, and
pretty soon you're staying awake at night thinking existential thoughts.

The solution? Find a job that gives you energy -- one that gets your brain
working again. Going home energized and focusing that energy on your own
projects is just as much of a cycle and habit-forming as going home on
watching TV until bedtime.

I know, it's easier said than done, but it _can_ be done.

~~~
spydez
But how do you _find_ that job?

~~~
aasarava
Craigslist -- ok, just kidding.

My advice on how to find a job that energizes you rather than saps your
energy? It's similar to advice you've heard before, though in a different
context: Keep iterating. Try something new or someplace new, if it turns out
that it's not what you thought it would be, move on. At least, that's what has
worked for me.

I think all too often we create our own limitations and believe that there's a
"career path" that would be dangerous to jump off. Or we worry that we're not
qualified to do something different. Or else, we worry that we'll have too
many jobs on our resume and no one will want to hire us.

But the truth is, the odds are against you finding a meaningful, energizing
job on your first or second try. The system is set up against you, if you
will. You do maybe one or two interviews at a place and get a quick look at
the office and based on that you're supposed to pick the place where you're
going to go spend a huge part of your waking hours -- and somehow it's going
to be wonderful? Good luck.

So, to sum up, I'd say you find _that_ job by treating the whole process more
like the dating process. You'll date a handful and they won't work out, and
eventually, hopefully, you'll find one that does work.

------
holycow
You're situation is almost exactly like mine. Same age, same recent job change
etc. While reading your question, I really questioned whether I had wrote it
myself 3 or 4 times. The one exception being that I'm starting to get my
personal work done, slowly but surely.

My biggest issue was a dead-end job, now that I've got a much more fulfilling
job, things have improved drastically. Currently, the hardest part for me is
balancing personal time (time with wife and dog) and professional development
time (anything with computers, coding, reading development books etc). What
has been working well is just to set aside time. To make that extra time that
seems to never come after work, I wake up early and read/program.

This niche of just-out-of-school/barely-in-the-workforce programmers could use
some kind of online social group.

Does anyone know of an existing site or group that is fills this void?

~~~
matt1
No, but I second this feeling. A year ago I was hacking away, loving every
minute of it. Now I'm in a managerial position at a non-technical company so
that I can pay the bills and wow, does it sting.

------
kleinsch
It's tough to start working on something after you just got home from an 8
hour stretch of work. Some of the things I've done are:

\- In the beginning, start projects on weekends or holidays. If you're not
already burned out, you can get a solid start on something that will carry you
through the work week. It's tough to start something at 9 PM, but if you've
got a foundation, you can come up with 1-2 hours of work and not feel
disappointed that you didn't do more.

\- Pick a project that will allow you to accomplish things in 1-2 hour work
sessions. If you try to build the next Google, you probably will never have a
working result. If you try to build a simple app, you can take it in small
pieces, adding functionality in short work sessions.

\- Pick tools/projects different from what you do at work. Tired of lousy
source control systems at work? Use Git for your next project. Tired of
J2EE/Spring/Struts? Use Ruby on Rails or Python. The goal here is to make your
project different from your work activities, so it doesn't seem like an
extension of your work day. This also lets you pick up other technologies you
might not have a chance to learn through work.

\- Find somebody else to work with. If you have a friend to encourage you,
you'll be more motivated and can split the work, getting more done.

------
Locke
Here's what worked for me when I was working for the man:

Pick an evening sometime this week. Tell people you're not going to be
available. Ask your SO to go out with friends or something. I'd grab a quick
bite after work, go home to an empty apartment. Close the blinds, dim the
lights. Turn off my cell phone, turn off the wifi on my laptop. Put on a
playlist of music that puts me in a good, happy, mellow mood. Poor myself a
glass of wine, and settle down in front of the computer.

And just program. Don't worry about getting the code just right. Don't worry
about business logic, unit tests, or what might happen if the user clicks the
wrong thing at the wrong time. Just program. Make the computer do something
_cool_ , just because you _can_.

Who cares if it won't scale? Who cares if there's no business use case? Who
cares if people won't pay for it?

Forget all that. That's work. You won't be able to program after work if you
make it _work_. It has to be _different_. It has to be _fun_.

~~~
culley
My god.

Are you making love to your computer or what?

~~~
Locke
Hey, it sounds like the OP has lost the passion. If all the fire has gone out
of his relationship with programming, how should he get it back?

------
henning
I thought I was the only one who felt this way. I'm in exactly the same boat.

I always mean to start a neat little project but it's been about a year and a
half now and I haven't done anything substantial.

------
baha_man
How many hours a day do you work? What are you actually doing?

I've been working as a programmer for about 6 years, and most of my time now
is _not_ spent coding but answering email, on the phone, debugging, etc. When
I actually get to do some programming, I still enjoy it.

------
morbidkk
It happens with all people who are working for big companies i.e. more no of
employees. _Key to get out of this is to get selfish._

Work on the things you want _even when you are in office. :)_ Compress regular
work in smaller chunks and keep promise to you that I would write atleast 50
lines of good code everyday. Am sure you do this for 7 days and you know what
to do next to reach there.

Getting started is the important thing. Get away from HN/programming.redddit;
work on small snippet; be happy and then search anybody has done similar
thing. Discovering similar/better/quicker approach to your code i.e. whatever
would boost your confidance especially when you can write code without google
search.

So that helps to get back to books/api documentation. And suddenly you become
a programmer you want to be.

I know this sounds pretty simple but that is the key.

google appengine + small JQuery/Prototype project can help anyone to get
started

------
morden
I have to ask, has there been much change in your personal life? Since meeting
my soon to be wife I know that I have found it much more of a draw to spend
time with her than to be coding all evening.

Also, I have found that it helps to be directed with your personal projects.
Over the years (I've been working as a coder since 2000) I've started many
things and not finished any. But now, as jnovek suggested, I am working with
some friends and we are about to launch our commercial web project. All from a
few months of evening work.

Like you, I lost some of the joy of personal coding and even though this
recent project is not exactly something I have my heart in, my heart is in
producing something I am proud of. That is spurring me on to finish so that I
can get on with other personal projects on my own again.

Good luck.

------
silentbicycle
First things first: A vacation will almost certainly help.

After that, try learning something outside your normal programming repertoire,
ideally very different from what you do at work. A new language (I suggest
OCaml or Smalltalk, either should have plenty of new ideas to get you
inspired), or program category (OpenGL graphics? Interpreters for tiny
languages? Games?), etc. Do something new and fun.

------
petercooper
I've been in the same situation, but a lot of people here have given good
advice on the general aspects of it already. I have only one specific thing to
add..

Build things that you NEED.

There is a natural drive (survival?) that kicks in when you start creating
things you need or that will make your life a lot easier in the short term.
These things do not need to be for resolving basal needs like food, shelter,
or even money, but for resolving problems you have regarding technology, the
Internet, or programming, say.

A few years ago I started to use del.icio.us, and decided I wanted my
del.icio.us postings to appear at the header of my blog. I developed an RSS to
JavaScript service to do this. To cut a very long story short, it turned into
a very big deal quite quickly, got funding, tens of thousands of users, made a
profit, and I sold it a year ago for a reasonable sum.

Ditto for a "tagged source code repository" (like a del.icio.us for code) I
developed a couple of years ago. I needed to store bits of code I used
regularly in a tagged fashion, so I built it (in a day or two). Natural forces
took over, it became popular, and I sold it.

I'm not a procrastinator, but I'm an incredibly lazy person. I don't "feel"
like doing lots of things, but if I know I have a "need" (or there's no way I
can get out of doing something) I jump into it out of necessity. Perhaps you
are the same.

------
sethg
How well are you sleeping?

In my experience, when I get sleep-deprived, one of the first things I lose is
insight; if I'm not repeating procedures I've pretty much learned by rote, I'm
staring at the screen going "uuuuhhhh..."

------
culley
Have you taken a vacation lately?

Get away from your current location. Experience something new.

Guard your time away and don't let the work intrude.

You'll be surprised how much easier problems like this become with a little
time to recharge your battery.

And if you find the job puts you right back in this blue space after a few
days back... then look for another job.

------
aditya
Well, do you like writing code? It's a simple question but one that isn't
easily answered.

Take a vacation, and think it over, if you were able to do any 'job' in the
world, would you still pick writing code?

Does making things still appeal to you or would you rather be out doing event
production or be a talk show host of some sort?

If the answer is still yes, you just need to get back into the groove and
unplugging for a while on that vacation will help.

Other than that, I agree with @bkbleikamp up there -- start slow, don't force
yourself to complete that cool idea you have in a day. Write it up and break
it down into tasks, do 1 task a day and then go get drunk. Rinse and repeat.
:-)

------
sebastianavina
Hi kamme, I'm in the same position, 24 y/o, hacking around since 12, and at
some moment, about 2 years ago, I got tired of programming the same foo, bar
classes over and over. I founded a little software company, and now I've 12
full time employees, and we offer a lot of services, web paage design,
multimedia cd-roms (a.k.a flash movies), and consulting for companies for erp
implementation (opentaps, mostly), by the end of this year i'm opening a
repressentetation office in Monterrey... I know it's a little company, but it
allows me to play around (evaluating new technologies) when i'm not dealing
with people...

follow your dreams !

------
alexk
I had the same feeling after 2 years of regular job. My solution was: I've
chosen some serious project in the area of my interest and worked hard to
complete it. It helped me to survive in this daily routine.

------
auston
I am where you were 3 years ago in age.

But I work full time...

I still have enough energy to do freelance for other people and still work on
the stuff that really interests me.

I usually take a break after work and let my brain rest while I watch some
comedy, exercise(running or skateboard), take a nap (for 1 - 2 hrs) or spend
time with loved ones.

Then I am usually ready to rock until around 2 - 3 A.M.

I think it's really about how excited you are to work on something, or how bad
you really want something.

~~~
wenbert
same here. fulltime and i still do freelance. i have friends who are doing
fulltime on freelance projects. we rent a room and hack everynight... this guy
should get more people around him. talking and laughing helps a lot. :)

------
nihilocrat
I would agree with most people here that you should take a vacation of some
sort, and make sure it's something that's going to really take you out of your
element. Anything that keeps you away from the internet is a good idea; going
sailing with my family for a three-day weekend in October felt really
refereshing and gave my brain something to think about (navigation and sailing
technique) that didn't have anything to do with my usual interests, but that I
could still get interested in. It just felt like a great way of removing
myself from my routine and being refreshed... sort of the objective of a
vacation, right?

Also, I've noticed my level of energy has a lot to do with inspiration, and to
a lesser extent how heavy my workload is. I started working for a video game
company in a non-development position (I develop web-based tools, actually,
but nothing directly related to the game) and it's given me a whole lot more
motivation to follow through with one of my myriad video game projects, which
I've never before managed to get to this level of completion. Being around
them and around lots of people obsessed with them simply just helps me from
getting too distracted or thinking that my projects aren't going to amount to
anything and that it's no big deal if I abandon them.

------
LKM
We don't know what your issue is, so we can't give you useful advice that
applies to your situation. For me, I'm finding that I don't want to work 100%
anymore, and I won't work overtime anymore, and I don't want to live in a city
anymore. I can afford to stop doing all of these things, so I will, and I'll
do it before I burn out.

I've worked years for other people, and in those years, I have created nearly
nothing that I own. Like you, I've had ideas, and technically I would even
have had some time to work on them, but after a day of sitting in front of a
PC, more sitting in front of a PC at home just didn't seem very pleasant.

I want to have more time and energy to work on stuff I actually own. And
that's what I'll do.

But perhaps that's not what you want. We don't know what you want and why what
you're currently doing isn't working for you. I guess the first step should be
for you to find out what you actually want.

------
ulf
Programming for a living may take some energy on that level right out of you.
I am in a similar situation and currenty trying to find an interesting project
for myself. I think it is just natural that you lose interest if all of a
sudden you spend the whole day programming. Especially if you have to do
bigger portions of trivial work..

------
qty
Serious fitness, binge drinking, and periodic vacations. Make time to work out
four or five days a week. Get absolutely plastered on Friday or Saturday -- at
the very least hit up a bar and talk to some people. And make sure to get the
fuck out of wherever you are every month or two, even if it's only for a
weekend.

------
bayareaguy
The "cutting edge" is getting rather dull. -- Andy Purshottam

I suspect you may have gotten to the point where you're able to quickly
recognize fundamental issues. Problems which may have once seemed to be
interesting and challenging because they were new to you are now familiar and
boring.

This happened to me a while ago and I decided doing the same kind of thing for
work and play was too much so I decided to take up the piano in my spare time.
I rented an old upright and bought a lot of beginner books and just started to
try and learn to play. I'm not very good but I find even a few minutes of
practice now and then helps me clear my mind when I'm stuck on something.

Perhaps there is some similar creative outlet you could explore?

------
azharcs
What matters is what does your inner self want. If you want to be secure and
have fun with your friends and need weekends off, You should stick to your job
and keep cursing your boss or company. If you want to build something neat and
want to be free, you should quit your job and concentrate 110% on your vision.
We humans were not born to work in cubicles for 40-50 years of our lives doing
something lame. Never, Never, Never ...Give Up - Winston Churchill.

------
rahulgarg
Take a break from your personal projects for a few months. Read physics or
something or maths or just go and watch a few movies or play video games or go
running or join karate. Basically anything but programming for a few months in
your non-work time. Take a vacation if feasible.

Then come back after a few months with a fresh mind and evaluate your options
and situation then.

------
wenbert
um, shouldn't you just look for your passion and work on it? you could either
quit your job or do your stuff in your spare time.

if not, perhaps a girlfriend / wife would work for you ^__^

------
syalam
dont quit your job. immerse yourself around creative people. you need money to
live, unless you live with your parents.

------
giles_bowkett
Dude, quit your job, work at a coffee shop, and build things because you want
to build them. Your skill will return, the light will return to your eyes, and
your career will improve.

I'm not even kidding. Take a few years away. You'll build something so much
cooler than you would at these apparently soul-destroying jobs you've got.

I did it, and I'm now showing off what I've built at damn near every Ruby
conference in the United States, plus ones in Scotland and Canada. I just
recently had to very reluctantly cancel on speaking at a Smalltalk conference
in Amsterdam too.

Nobody gave a crap what I was building back when I was building what the suit
monkeys told me to. Now people are interested, and of course the job offers
these days are much more interesting as well.

Ironically nothing makes a suit monkey drool more than meeting a programmer
who several years previously told some other suit monkey to go fuck itself.

Might seem like a paradox but your best career move is to stop working for a
living.

~~~
mynameishere
_Dude, quit your job, work at a coffee shop_

This is bad advice.

~~~
astrec
Sure. But

 _Dude, quit your job, work at a coffee shop, and build things because you
want to build them._

is stellar advice. Seriously. The sabbatical is the instrument of champions.

~~~
mynameishere
No, it's bad advice. Without knowing a lot more about this guy, you can't just
say, "quit your job" just because it sounds romantic. It's cheap advice. I
notice that every time someone complains about his job the advice coming from
the internet is always the same, "Quit". The world doesn't work that way for
99 percent of the population. Decent jobs are no one's birthright, and the
poster may be an ordinary, mediocre person who will never make a marketable
app. If he's capable of great things, he's not going to need prodding from Mr.
Anonymous.

In the meantime, keep your job and do what you can after hours. If you get a
good idea and a year's worth of savings, then maybe think of quitting...

<http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39174>

~~~
wynand
Forcing someone to do a job he hates is no-one's birthright either. We see
"quit" everywhere we look because too many people are afraid to rock the boat,
but wish they had the courage to do so.

Quitting means nothing in itself.

It is a vice when you back out of reaching good things because you lack the
courage to do what is necessary.

It is a virtue when used to eject soul-destroying things from your life.

There is no virtue in voluntary suffering. There is no virtue in staying in a
horrible job (I'm ignoring the complexities of having dependents).

------
time_management
Become a morning person (oddly enough, I'm typing this at 12:45 am... but I'm
also unemployed right now). Use brainwave entrainment technologies and
meditation to get yourself to sleep in the evening, because you probably
haven't had a habit of going to bed before midnight since grade school. Most
people need less sleep if they go to bed and rise early, so if you're asleep
by 10, you can get up around 4:30 easily.

Why are traditional jobs scheduled between 9 and 5? Because despite claims to
the contrary, the majority of people are naturally "morning people" and most
productive early in the day. The boss wants the workers' best hours, and most
people get up around 8. If you get up much earlier, though, you can use your
early morning hours for exercise and side projects. This will be a lot more
effective than trying to use your burned-out evening hours, and unlike
quitting your job, it won't hurt your career. You'll be pretty tired by 5pm,
but the effect that this will have on your performance or career is
negligible.

The only downside of this is the effect it will have on your social life, but
that's a lot smaller than you think. You'll still be able to manage the
occasional late-night party or code-fest, but you'll find your 2am IM chats no
longer occur. Socially, you'll be focusing on quality rather than quantity,
which is not necessarily a bad thing.

I had a similar experience to yours in previous jobs. I wish I had taken the
advice I'm giving you now, and as soon as I'm in a structured work environment
again, I'm going to switch to the early-morning rhythm.

~~~
a-priori
This is my advice too: work on your own stuff in the early morning.

I'm in a similar situation, in that I'm working a 9-5 job, but with me the
"other programming" is a freelance gig. I found I never had time to do the
freelance work, so I started getting up earlier to work on it before going to
the 9-5. It's been a big improvement.

