Blogging is very Web 2.0. Cool kids make videos on TikTok and YouTube, some even get so popular they leave their super high-paying tech jobs to make videos to shill products inspire and help others. What a time to be alive.
I have not been a developer or as my job title says, “Engineer”, for very long. Only about five years, but I am also 35 years old. I’m a late bloomer. And I’m so tired. No one tells you how difficult this career is and I am not referring to the actual coding tasks.
I’m talking about the meetings, time crunches, re-orgs, scheduling conflicts, lack of documentation, legacy code (the fucking legacy code), money chasing, egos, complete lack of understanding from “product” people, stupidity, dealing with contractors, being overworked as a “badge of honor”, and I feel like I could go on forever.
I’ve only been doing this for five years and I’m jaded. I’m tired. I’m stressed out. I’m burnt out. And no, it doesn’t really get better if you switch jobs, because if you are a hard worker/high performer at one job, you will be at your other job and that might be the problem: Just don’t work so hard. 75% of your peers aren’t, so why are you?
This blog is for those of us that get this and for those that soon will. This blog is for everyone.
I didn’t really intend to create a blog to teach others, but you never know what could come out of it.
What I really want to do is identify trends. Recognize patterns. I want to try and learn from these things so that others can learn as well.
Despite all my bitching, I think software and software engineering is the greatest career in the world. We can tell a computer what to do. How to react. If we have an idea for an app, with enough time, we can create it. This is a very valuable skill. How many times have you heard people say “Oh you are a software developer? Cool, I have an idea for an app…” *Insert eye roll*.
People wish they could do this stuff (And I actually think anyone could, most just lack the discipline to learn). People think it takes some sort of level of genius to do this job and we know that it really really doesn’t. I’m pretty sure I’m a diversity hire.
What it does take is a variety of skills, not just technical: Problem-solving, working well with others, recognizing good and bad software design patterns, identifying good architectures, and knowing what is needed to meet requirements for the business.
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