this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
32 points (100.0% liked)

CSCareerQuestions

1004 readers
60 users here now

A community to ask questions about the tech industry!

Rules/Guidelines

Related Communities

Credits

Icon base by Skoll under CC BY 3.0 with modifications to add a gradient

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
ericjmorey@programming.dev
odium@programming.dev
32
Lost the sauce. What should I do/think about? (lemm.ee)
submitted 11 hours ago by deaf_fish@lemm.ee to c/cs_career_questions@programming.dev
18 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I have been a software engineer of off highway farm equipment for most of my life. I have like 15 years of it. I have just lost the ability to care about it anymore.

I have explored all the things that interest me and now it seems like everything is just turning the crank to completion. A very boring/slow turning with deadline pressure. I am doing less development and more code reviews because I have become a more senor developer.

My position in the company is pretty good and I could probably ride it out until I die or the company picks up on the fact that my output has dropped due to the lack of caring. But that eats at my soul and it isn't fair to my coworkers.

If money wasn't an issue, I would jump to game development but I hear that doesn't pay well or treat their employees well either. I suppose I could start my own company...

I have a wife and we plan to have one kid if that is possible for us.

Burnout is a possibility, but if that is what this is, I am not sure what to do about it.

So here is what I think my options are. I am open to other suggestions:

  1. Stay where I am.
  2. Pivot hard to management where I am.
  3. Try to find a new job within Embedded Systems
  4. Try to do Game Development.
  5. Drop everything, become a philosopher like Diogenes of Sinope

Thanks for your consideration.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 22 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

My position in the company is pretty good and I could probably ride it out until I die or the company picks up on the fact that my output has dropped due to the lack of caring. But that eats at my soul and it isn't fair to my coworkers.

Let me push back a bit on "isn't fair to my coworkers".

I have worked many times with a cranky senior technician who has seen almost everything before and barely gives a shit to do more than the bare minimum.

I adore working with this person. There's never any drama. They get their work done barely but consistently before deadlines. Their work is done correctly more often than my own work is (and I'm quite good, honest). And once in awhile they're generous enough with their time to pull my ass out of the fire of my own incompetence (everyone fails sometimes) with their advice.

Once you've hit the point where things are easy for you that are hard for everyone else, I find your bare minimum effort is more than fair and generous to peers like myself.

[–] Killer_Tree@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Let me add to this by saying the disillusioned old hand in any workplace also has an important role: if management ever starts being unreasonable or makes poor/toxic decisions, the guy working there for over a decade has far more clout in calling it out than a young hire. You've been there long enough that you'll know if something isn't right, and that is insanely valuable for someone starting their career to have in a coworker.

[–] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 1 points 58 minutes ago

So true!