When I was in high visibility roles in start-ups, I dreamt of a place where I could fall through the cracks and kind of breathe -- or at least what I thought would be breathing. I found that spot, and after a couple years feel like taking the offer was a monumental mistake in my career. Nothing is a challenge, my output is minimal yet when I actually do produce something, I get massive praise, and yearn for somewhere that I can throw myself into interesting work.
I think that next phase is coming, but I've definitely stagnated a bit and wish I'd spent more time using the required seat time (have to be visibly online 9+ hours a day) doing something fruitful instead of wasting time on HN and occasionally toying with various project ideas.
The soul crush is real in this kind of position, and as OP said, always being "half on" emphasizes the mental toll that all of my output has suffered both personally and professionally. Or I might just be burnt out.
I think this soul crush only occurs if you take the stance that it's an issue. I.e., if you suddenly want to find fulfillment and meaning in work, sure, you'll feed bad.
I submit that you can counter this by using that free time to do things that interest yourself and help you progress in the areas you want to grow in.
I have a lot of free time as a designer maintaining an enterprise product, so I flex my downtime into acting as my team's de facto product manager. When I step back from this interest of mine, I can otherwise use the time to teach myself VR (not related at all to my company).
My biggest piece of advice to people is to not look for fulfillment in work, but rather to find fulfillment in your interests. The burnout happens when your interests don't align with a highly demanding job. The soul crush happens when you suddenly try to tie all of your interests back to your job. That'll never be feasible 99.99% of the time. There's a reason why "a job is just a job" is an adage.
If you're fortunate and your job doesn't demand a lot, don't look to it to fill the void of free time if it's not interesting. Use that time for yourself to the extent that your company will allow/overlook it (I suspect this is why so many FAANGs are anti-remote work).
As most people can agree, no one will ever be lying on their deathbed thinking "damn, I wish I'd clocked more time filing those TPS reports".
I worked in Texas for a stint, and completely understand what you describe here. However, don't look to the PNW as a place it's any better.
Both Oregon and Washington are at-will states, and have the same laws with the same kind of work cultures -- you're a cog in a system, and if you start grinding or upsetting the status quo in some way, the candidate pool in this region is strong enough, they'll replace you. However, the expectation still remains that when you choose to exercise your same rights under at-will that you give two weeks notice. Can't say any employer is going to give an employee that same courtesy when letting them go. Not to mention if you're salaried, you might as well accept that your role is nothing more than indentured servitude branded as capitalism (to clarify, this may not be at all companies, but definitely is a strong cultural trait I've seen at the ones I've worked at).
All that being said, the PNW is much prettier than many areas of Texas, and while natives are hostile towards transplants, the quality of life is leaps and bounds better than that horrendous mass of land called the Lone Star State.
Thank you for the information. I am looking at smaller cities rather than Seattle or Portland. I don't care for major conurbations. My wife can work anywhere with her job and I'm starting to edge out of IT myself after 20 years for something a little less stressful like woodworking or arts/crafts. I'm handy with these things and I need to pursue this angle while I'm young enough to do so and still make money.
Location: Vancouver, WA
Remote: Yes (100% only)
Willing to relocate: No
Technologies: PHP, Python, Ruby, JS (Angular, Vue, React, jQuery, Vanilla), SQL, Linux, FreeBSD
Résumé/CV: https://www.thomasjost.com/cv/
Email: tjost@protonmail.com
At this point, I am eager to move into a more senior level position with opportunities for mentoring and to work with newer technologies while obtaining a better work life balance.
Ideally my next position will be in DevOps or SRE type role as my skill set aligns well with those responsibilities, and my latest role has afforded me the opportunity to learn many more facets of SRE. Full stack development is also a viable option, for the right opportunity.
This definitely resonates with me as well to an extent. However, I've identified the core issue being related to where I'm working, and not so much the career itself. I'm in my early 30s, been in full stack development for the entirety of my six year career.
As another poster said, startups are tricky. I've worked for two, and the first was a poster child hostile work environment, doing subpar work for angry clients with ridiculous expectations. The second was an incredibly positive experience though the pay was junk. Now I'm at an enterprise, and burned out like I was at the first startup, but have identified a different path forward (heading into SRE now) as I know the root cause of this mentality now.
At the end of the day, if you're not interested or passionate about what you're working on, and you don't have clear upward mobility within your org, it's time to move on. Otherwise, it feels like your career stagnates and you think the career itself is the problem, not the current employment situation.
Location: Vancouver, WA
Remote: Yes (100% only)
Willing to relocate: No
Technologies: PHP, Python, Ruby, JS (Angular, Vue, React, jQuery, Vanilla), SQL, Linux, FreeBSD
Résumé/CV: https://www.thomasjost.com/cv/
Email: tjost@protonmail.com
At this point, I am eager to move into a more senior level position with opportunities for mentoring and to work with newer technologies while obtaining a better work life balance.
Ideally my next position will be in DevOps or SRE type role as my skill set aligns well with those responsibilities, and my latest role has afforded me the opportunity to learn many more facets of SRE. Full stack development is also a viable option, for the right opportunity.
Location: Vancouver, WA
Remote: Yes (100% only)
Willing to relocate: No
Technologies: PHP, Python, Ruby, JS (Angular, Vue, React, jQuery, Vanilla), SQL, Linux, FreeBSD
Résumé/CV: https://www.thomasjost.com/cv/
Email: tjost@protonmail.com
I enjoy learning new technologies and working on inspiring projects. In addition, I prefer to work throughout the full stack as my background has required full understanding from UI through to the full backend infrastructure. I have an even split of experience both in enterprise and startup spaces.
At this point I'm looking to move into a DevOps or SRE type role as my skill set aligns well with those kind of responsibilities, and my latest role has afforded me the opportunity to learn many more facets of SRE. Full stack development is also a viable option, for the right opportunity.
Location: Vancouver, WA
Remote: Yes (preferred)
Willing to relocate: No
Technologies: PHP, Python, Ruby, JS (Angular, Vue, React, jQuery, Vanilla), SQL, Linux, FreeBSD
Résumé/CV: https://www.thomasjost.com/cv/
Email: tjost@protonmail.com
I enjoy learning new technologies and working on inspiring projects. In addition, I prefer to work throughout the full stack as my background has required full understanding from UI through to the full backend infrastructure. The majority of my experience has been in the startup space, and I'd prefer to move back into that type of environment over working for another medium/large corporation.
I'm also very passionate about security and am studying to pursue the OSCP later this year, so any roles in secure development or appsec will catch my eye over full stack roles, though I'm open to most opportunities.
Location: Vancouver, WA
Remote: Yes (preferred)
Willing to relocate: No
Technologies: PHP, Python, Ruby, JS (Angular, Vue, React, jQuery, Vanilla), SQL, Linux, FreeBSD
Résumé/CV: https://www.thomasjost.com/cv/
Email: tjost@protonmail.com
I enjoy learning new technologies and working on inspiring projects. In addition, I prefer to work throughout the full stack as my background has required full understanding from UI through to the full backend infrastructure. The majority of my experience has been in the startup space, and I'd prefer to move back into that type of environment over working for another medium/large corporation.
I'm also very passionate about security and am studying to pursue the OSCP later this year, so any roles in secure development or appsec will catch my eye over full stack roles, though I'm open to most opportunities.
I'm five years into my career, and still experience this same kind of anxiety. Only recently did I revisit algorithms as I'm getting serious about my job search now, and am still super nervous.
Not to mention, having a family, I don't have a ton of time to study for the gauntlet decent tech companies put in place to vet candidates.
As for personal projects? See lack of time above. I'm lucky to get an hour a week to work on something I actually enjoy. Forget about building something unique/useful/worth public launch in any kind of reasonable time. Also, let's not forget the fun non-compete/anything you build while employed with X is owned by X clauses.
Hiring in general is broken. In tech it just seems amplified.
Most jobs are who you know. So cultivate the kind of person who interviews well and will quickly be trusted to say hire you.
My first job all open positions went to Jon (last name hid), if he handed a name that person was called in, the interview was reverse, unless you really did something stupid you had the job, the purpose of the interview was to convince you to take it. If Jon didn't know anyone a head hunter was called for a 6 month contract, with option to hire if we liked you. So moral of this story is know Jon.
Where I work now we train people on how to put you at ease. It works okay, I think.
That's definitely something that seems to be reiterated often -- the power of networking is real. You'd think after hearing it since high school (some time ago, not gonna date myself lol) I'd actually spend more time nurturing the network I do have.
Luckily my current and last position didn't require any kind of mental gymnastics (my soft skills are great in terms of software engineers), but I'm still wondering what lies behind those gates kept locked by technical trivia and tricky buzzword algorithms that send CVs to the void before a human ever sees them.
My current situation is a bit different than previous (trying to transition tech stacks and job titles now) so the nerves are a bit different. The anxieties are just as real as before though, albeit the payoffs are higher with the new goals. Guess you could call em game day jitters.
Your interview process sounds improved over traditional corporate style interviews. My last employer had similar tactics (put the interviewee at ease, casual conversation), and it led to the best 18 months I've had in my career yet.
When I was in high visibility roles in start-ups, I dreamt of a place where I could fall through the cracks and kind of breathe -- or at least what I thought would be breathing. I found that spot, and after a couple years feel like taking the offer was a monumental mistake in my career. Nothing is a challenge, my output is minimal yet when I actually do produce something, I get massive praise, and yearn for somewhere that I can throw myself into interesting work.
I think that next phase is coming, but I've definitely stagnated a bit and wish I'd spent more time using the required seat time (have to be visibly online 9+ hours a day) doing something fruitful instead of wasting time on HN and occasionally toying with various project ideas.
The soul crush is real in this kind of position, and as OP said, always being "half on" emphasizes the mental toll that all of my output has suffered both personally and professionally. Or I might just be burnt out.