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| | Ask HN: Ideas for Late Career Reinvigoration? | |
14 points by throwexaway on July 27, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 6 comments
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| | Throwaway. I'm a mid 40's developer (non-manager) who's worked at a gamut of companies (big cos, startups, self employment/contract, "fun" but low-paying gigs), in many problem domains, but mainly FAANG for the most of the last ~15 years. Close to being able to retire, but not quite there yet. I'm bored. I've done a bit of everything at this point, and it's starting to feel tedious. I don't care about title/level anymore. With various market meltdowns, the golden handcuffs are feeling less binding, and I'm feeling a bit more free to make choices career-wise, since at this point I'm fortunate in that I only really need to cross the finish line so to speak. I have no desire to leave software development - I'm not going to become a woodworker or teacher. After I retire I will still code as one of my main hobbies. But everywhere I look, it all seems very "been there, done that." I've reinvented myself several times over my career (domain-wise) and I think I'm quite malleable in that regard, but the intrinsic motivation is waning after decades of enthusiasm. What have other folks my age done when this sort of ennui hits? |
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I'm an outlier-coach here in that I see this as an opportunity for more little-picture thinking, where that applies. In results I've seen, it's a very useful model worth testing.
So even if it sounds crazy, for the time being you'd start by:
- Lowering your time scales to minutes, hours. Kind of like the beginning of the film About a Boy, where the main character describes his life.
- Lowering your product/experience focus to individual product-/experience- level differentiations
- Lowering your stimulant focus level to common sensory inputs rather than big-picture stimulant undertakings
Result examples:
- What sounds good for lunch today? I had a ham sandwich from the store yesterday, boring af. What sounds really good today is some fresh lemonade and a monte cristo made with bakery bread. Followed by maybe a new type of chocolate I haven't tried yet.
- What sounds good pre- and post-nap today? To eat, to read, to watch?
- What would be a really funny thing to do with my career today, that only takes 10 minutes?
Big-picture result: The little picture factors eventually start to re-calibrate your big-picture values over time, making you more aware of your comfort levels, and eventually they make their way into your big-picture interests.
Once this propagation cycle is more complete, you get a more tightly-calibrated feel for what you want your future to look like in the big picture. So this is not ignoring the big picture at all.
But this is really really difficult for a lot of big-picture folks to start on, since our culture is currently mainly focused on / obsessed with career-change starting with big-picture first, and we are taught that the little picture is kind of naughty, and that we already know way too much about the little picture and what that's like.
Just another crazy idea though. Lots of methods to try from here & good luck with whatever path you take.