What is often hidden in these kinds of posts is a relationship with money that's not fully understood. There's thousands upon thousands of different jobs out there, but your post implies that there's none outside of tech. I'm assuming this is because of the lifestyle it afforded you which you are used to, addiction to cash flow, dependents to support, or perhaps an identity fused with high earnings.

Do a thorough think of how much money you really need. And convince yourself that a dollar more isn't worth any amount of extra effort.

For most people it took a 3-5 years in school or lower level jobs to get good enough to crack into the fruits a high earning software engineering career. If you were young when this happened, you didn't even notice those years go by. Now you're older, but the same rules apply. They just feel different and usually unmotivating. You may need to spend a few years at the bottom again to make some progress down a different skill tree.

When you're winning for so long, it's hard to imagine eating shit for years just to make bread again elsewhere. Harness some excitement around that and commit fully, or realize that you have a pretty great life and find a way to stay cozy in tech (like divorcing your identity from your job).

edit: also if you've only been in big tech, then get out. it's so much more fun elsewhere.

Agree. I've been doing coding for 20+ years and I've gotten to the point where I'm pretty unmotivated about my work on a good day. I've tried managing teams and it wasn't for me, so I went back to being an IC. I daydream about more fulfilling careers, but there's nothing I can switch to that would come even close to my current pay right out of the gate.

It is a strange prison for sure.

I think the issue is that many intelligent and curious people get restless when they do the same thing for years. Eventually you stop growing and you stagnate. First it's boring, then, for many people, it becomes depressing. Even Leonardo Da Vinci got seriously bored of painting (and procrastinated a ton on his commissions, dragging them for years on some cases) once he mastered it. That's why so many people daydream about switching to a different career, including plenty of people daydreaming about switching to coding. They don't neccessarily hope the other career will be better, but they yearn to do something new and not be stuck in Groundhog Day.

40+ years programming, a couple of episodes of burnout. I tried managing but didn't like it. Got into freelancing that at least allows me to travel and live anywhere I want. I can't say I love writing code, or doing system admin, but I don't get stressed over it either, and I do like getting paid.

Maybe figure out how to do the bare minimum to maintain an income while you figure out what you want to do.

Thanks. I want to move to something else that is not coding. Coding is too taxing on my mental health, and I don't think I can do it on someones terms anymore. I am trying to build a business on the side, but until it becomes profitable, I want to find a job where I can still make good money and support myself and my family.

I understand, but you might want to ask why you find coding so taxing on your mental health. Maybe coding per se doesn't cause the problem, but the rest of the job or work environment. I don't get the same pleasure from writing code that I did two or three decades ago, but I don't find it particularly frustrating or bad for my mental health, either. Perhaps you can come to terms with that. Any job will have frustrations and mental health hazards, you have to learn not to internalize the work and the job, because that causes the problem. In other words the frustration and boredom and feeling of burnout comes from you, not from the code.

I feel that most of it is pointless. I'm past the stage where I can argue with people over stupid engineering architecture decisions. It's all full of BS and ego.

Most people would rather die defending their favorite language/stack/framework than change their POV. I'm tired of wasting my time on countless meetings trying to "convince my engineering team-mates to write tests/use strongly typed languages/avoid new-age BS like lambda/k8s".

Sure, leadership feels like BS as well, but at least this BS IS the job. With coding, the job is to write code, which usually ends up being 20% of the work time anyway, so I'd rather do BS all-day and get paid for that (often times bigger salary), while doing my own thing with my own architecture and framework, than try to explain my manager why it takes 7 days to change the width of the button because the app is so over engineered that any line you touch creates a butterfly effect that can bring the entire organizations to bankruptcy.

I get it. I freelance for small companies that don't have all of that nonsense, usually working directly for the owner or a stakeholder who can make decisions.

I gave up with the technical arguments a long time ago, too much effort trying to swim against the current. You get less of that outside of the software industry -- I worked for a long time in enterprise logistics where the team had to focus a lot more on solving business problems and a lot less on "best practices" or the latest language or framework. Not exciting but not as likely to induce rage, either.

I've worked for my own company for 30-some years. Occasionally I consult for a big corporate.

Each consulting gig reminds me why I'm not cut out for that world. It's everything coding is not. But when a corporate hires me to write some code, I understand that the corporate BS is the job .

I still love coding. But working for a corporate is not coding (at any level). Coding is what you get to do when there's a gap between meetings.

I know jobs are hard to get right now. But you might find more joy working in a small company, with people who already fit your preferred tech choices. I will say there's somewhat less job security and a lot less pay, but equally there's no bs and there's more freedom to actually code.

Sounds like you might enjoy switching jobs with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42289955 (not because of the "seniors" bit, but the more general thing where they're rewarded for biz outcomes and don't have any tech colleagues)

I've made four broad transitions in my career over thirty some years. First I was a hands-on coder for about 5 years. Then I transitioned into tech sales for about two years. Then into leadership/management for four years. Then I went to law school and was a lawyer for about a decade. By then I made enough money to retire in a modest way (and I'm very modest in my lifestyle), so I went back to programming without any pressure. But ended up having to manage a team after a couple years because the project I was working on in retirement grew and needed more hands.

I'm hoping to retire again. And then I'll just work on something like a video game where I don't need to hire anyone else (outside of contractors for art).

What I've learned over the years is that you should never chase prestige and the opinion of others. I did that for too long. What you should chase is getting money by the fastest means possible, even if its something with no title or career prospects, if you can buy your freedom from the wage wheel. If you can jump off the wage wheel then you can do your own projects with freedom. And freedom to set my own calendar is the only thing that matters to me anymore.

I can give you some advice. Imagine your favorite activity that you can do for free even on weekends. Look for such a job.

I am a programmer from Russia. I live in Siberia. I have not been able to find a job for a year. I continue to look, but I have already started to do some part-time work.

I participate in low-paid projects on image marking for training neural networks, checking the quality of their work.

I wanted to get a job in delivery, but our city is too small, and there is not even a delivery service. The only work in our city is drivers and store clerks, but also very low-paid (USD 300 per month).

I am doing a project to create a new programming language based on the C language, to unload the human brain from programming and give the opportunity to write programs in a human language. If you are interested, there is the first link to the article on my site azhibaev.com

> Imagine your favorite activity that you can do for free even on weekends. Look for such a job.

Sounds like a good way to start hating your favourite activity.

Yes, and no. It depends.

On the one hand, yes. Turning fun into work can rob you of the pleasure part. I do ceramics in as a hobby and it's fun. I'm not terribly good. The fun is in the random creation and seeing how it comes out. If I had to make 100 pots the same I'd go mad. I made one piece on commission and I didn't like that.

On the other hand, I started programming at 12 years old. I got my first programming job at 22. By then I was well practiced at my craft, and I loved the work part - the completion of projects, the conforming to customer requirements etc.

Thirty-something years later and I'm still programming. I still enjoy it. It still gets me out of bed, and it still challenges me. I've made a career put of doing something I love, and that's a huge blessing.

So yes, it can kill joy in something you love, or it can lead to a fulfilling career getting paid for doing the thing you like most. The latter though is a rare gift most of us are not given.

Can you send me an email (my HN username @ gmail.com) with your resume or some code samples? I have worked with programmers based in Novosibirsk for 20 years and can try to help connect you. No promises but at least can refer you to some people who might have better work than you are doing now.

I answered you in a letter. Of course, I understand that this is only a message. Thank you for your offer of help.

I forwarded your resume to a couple agencies in eastern europe that I know of, as well as a friend in Novosibirsk best of luck to you in 2025!

Consider taking a sabbatical if you can afford it. Reflect on what got you where you are today, and imagine where you want to be tomorrow. Let your mind disconnect from the day to day rigor of development. I have done this a few times in my career, and each time it keeps me centered on what is important to me. Hope this helps.

I'm taking a 9 month sabbatical next year so I can learn to enjoy coding again. It's not coding that bugs me, it's all the BS you have to deal with modern management practices that makes it unbearable.

I did management a few times and didn't like it. Keep in mind that no matter what you do, if you're in a corporate environment, that's still going to be a problem.

I started my sabbatical in Summer 2023. I couldn't even stand to look at a computer for first 12 months.

At the end of this summer, I started working on a software project I've wanted to build for a long time. Programming is so much more fun when you don't have people breathing down your neck asking when it will done, and why are you not completing all your story points in the sprint.

I had a problem that took me three days to figure out. I wasn't stressed at all and was able to just focus on the problem. It has also been enjoyable because I can choose the technologies I want to use. There have also been a couple of times where I start working with something and say I don't like this and go with something else.

I think it has been good to have this project before going back to work. It helped me to start like working with computers again.

I presume that you are familiar with it already, but in the off chance that you are not. Check out the Recurse Center

Damn, wish I had known about that 10+ years ago, I would have definitely done it.

Would probably be difficult to do that nowadays, although it's tempting. I doubt my partner would be comfortable with me being away from home that long, though. Even me going to a convention for a few days seems to be pushing it sometimes.

There used to be a monthly hacker night meetup near here at an app dev shop, and that was fun to go to and code around other people, but that died with the pandemic.

There was one time period about 20 years ago of about two months where I did a daily sabbatical to the library when I was in between jobs, and spent ~4 hours just working on my games each day (and I started the day with about an hour reading classic books before heading to the quiet work area). I remember growing a lot as a programmer then, and I released one Flash game and made major progress on another during that time.

Second this, I know several close friends who have done the Recurse center and they say it's a phenomenal experience, one of the best things they've ever done. Generally speaking the job placement afterwards is also not all that bad if you decide to go back into the workforce.

Thanks for the suggestion, but honestly, that sounds horrible for me right now; looking at the picture of all the people hunched over their desks in an open office. For some background, I've been doing this professionally for 28 years. I've been in the architect/team lead role building software, mostly Greenfield projects in the medical field since 2008. I've shouldered all the responsibility that entails; guiding devs, checking code, working with business directly, making deadlines, project planning, all that.

I plan on doing nothing computer related for the first few months. I need to get healthy again. Once I get healthy I'm gonna spend some time doing deep dives into the new hotness (probably AI), then look for another startup type company who won't shackle creativity and ambition with useless process (scrum).

Or maybe I'll just do some contract work here and there and be semi-retired.

My personal advice where I am 2/2 in being successful in this method: find business you actually believe in but has 0 technical staff. Start at bottom in general operations. Soak up everything from day 1 with the intention to build their IT on your own terms, not someone elses.

Nah. Unless I get a real fat equity and a nice paycheck. Most of such business offer neither, and in this case I prefer to build something of my own

An approach from a place of greed, nice. Good luck!

Not, it's an approach from reality. I'm not going to slave away for an idea without getting rewarded for it. I'm not 21 years old to waste my life. I have a family and financial obligations to take care of.

If you want me to risk my future by taking an unpaid job, I want a big enough equity package. I'm not stupid to follow the "American dream" anymore.

Try teaching and lecturing position.

You'll do minimum coding unless you want to code for fun and try new ideas. If you have research funding you can become the project lead but the pressure is much less than industry since only prototyping demo not shipping.

The academic institutions will really appreciate your experiences and students as well.

I wish all the best for whatever you decided to do.

Teaching tends to be low pay/high effort. K12 education is about classroom management first and subject matter second. You will need specialized education to teach public school. Post-secondary is badly broken with the majority of open positions being non-tenure track and/or adjunct. You end up getting no benefits and low pay and have to teach at multiple schools to cobble together a sub–middle class income. You will also need a graduate degree, preferably a PhD.

This is such a bummer because teaching is both critical to a functioning society and enjoyable to do.

I constantly fantasize about teaching but stop quickly after reality hits.

My spouse loved teaching.

The problem is that teaching is a small part of the job, and has been steadily shrinking for years. Almost every other part is terrible.

My spouse is no longer a teacher.

Thanks. Teaching does not pay as good as tech. Pity, but this is the world we live in

Keep coding then. Pity, but this is the world you live in.

I think at some point in my life I'm going to quit programming and join a trade. Electrician sounds engaging, technical, and fun. The world will also never not need trades. After I retire, I want to pick up farming.

It really sucks that most of us have to choose between doing something that we're interested in and doing something that pays the bills.

trades pay the bills too… very vey big bills too…

we choose to kill ourselves staring at the screens all day to make a few extra bucks ;)

If you think trades don't kill you... you're naive

they do they do… but in a more obvious way :)

Moving into management[0] to get away from burnout is quite possibly the dumbest thing you could do, short of setting yourself on fire or trying to launch yourself out of a cannon into the sun.

Do you like dealing with people? Do you like dealing with people's problems? People who get promoted into management tend to be fairly adept at managing themselves, and it is easy for such people to develop the misapprehension that everyone is like them. Nothing could be further from the truth. At any given point in time, there will be someone on your team with a personal crisis effecting their work, or someone just not performing up to standard, or someone who is performing up to standard that your boss thinks is not, or some other interminable inter-personal drama.

All of that will explicitly be your problem and your problem to solve, one way or another. Management is a burnout multiplier, not a refuge.

If you really have a passion for leading people, by all means, develop yourself in that area and try it out when the time is right. I did it for five years, and generally enjoyed it. But don't think it will lower your stress or cure your burnout.

0 - I'm going to call it management, because that's what your first "leadership" job will be. You aren't going to be "leading" much of anything or anyone for a while

I've been at this point at least 4 times, each time I couldn't find anything else to pursue long-term that seemed all that compelling when I looked at even the cursory details/financial prospects/day-to-day. It's still on the table for the next time, and I'm keeping an open mind about it, but it would take full commitment.

The silver lining in being laid-off or fired numerous times, for spans of a year or more, is that I've been forced into re-thinking things and my relationship with coding and work. I don't think I'd be able to re-enter a coding job otherwise, it just gets miserable at a certain point, it's isolating, bad for your body, stressful at times; I do think this comes with anything you pursue for long-enough while trying to push yourself in some direction or another, unless you just get extremely lucky and it becomes entirely optional.

In those times, I've worked in random jobs (cafe, etc..) when they've come up, where I've had a different physical and organizational relationship with peers, solving different problems, using my body and communication skills differently, on different schedules, and I think that's absolutely crucial. A LOT of the time it's not as easy as you'd think; if you don't get rejected out of hand for a myriad of reasons, many jobs aren't as easy or as miserable as one would think from the outside. Volunteer work may also be incredibly rewarding. This is my recommendation to you, especially if you have some savings to fall back on for an extended period of time. It'll give you the space to consider things differently and get out of the headspace of being mired in code. Take up a challenging hobby and not-so challenging one, just to do anything else buy coding. Try to learn design or something in the visual arts to a serious level. Have an adventure.

Ultimately, I had the same thoughts as you earlier on in what can only vaguely be called a career, that coding is somehow intrinsically important and I should love it and it'll change the world or whatever crap, but later after numerous burnouts, I realized that coding is just whatever, it's text, it makes computers do things, who cares it's not that important. But it can still be compelling in various ways, and that's fine too, let the relationship be an organic one, and let it fight for your attention once you've put your attention elsewhere.

Have you considered project management roles? I have taken on stints as project manager for IT projects both within the same company as well as by changing jobs. It is less of a leadership role and more of an understanding issues and resolving them through people actually doing the work.

With 15 years experience, you must have had times you were a team leader or even a designer. Those roles can be amplified and used as a stepping stone.

I drifted in and out of management up to a high level throughout my career. My last stint in my 60s was back as a coder. I was offered a management position but turned it down. If you think coding is unsatisfying you may be disappointed by management. I found it worse (but better paid).

I got sick of programming, so I switched to management and then technical writing, but soon realized that it is bureaucratic corporate America and its focus on process over achievement that I dislike.

I then discovered that I do like programming. I just don’t want to do it with anyone else.

it's about culture. is Jira a tool to help us along the way to get us to achieve our goals, or are we slaves to the ticketing system in service of itself. some process is good, but when that becomes an end unto itself, that sinks everything. tools are to make our lives better, we're not here to make things better for our tools

If you're decent with documentation, then there's a whole field out their for documenting and technical writing

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_writing

This feels dangerously close to being almost totally automatable, unfortunately

Tech comms is good if you want to stay close to software but want more-verbal work. You'll find you have a leg up on many other TC folks if you grok code. Also you might be able to code a bit here & there, write your own tools, that kind of thing.

Transition into product management, if you have good people skills, you're naturally a consensus-builder, and you're a jack-of-all-trades type that enjoys talking to design, sales, legal, customers, etc.

The traditional routes to PM are from engineering, design, or an MBA -- so you'll be taking one of the classic paths. Basically try to unofficially take on PM-type responsibilities in your current role. And then they either realize you're good at it and make it official, or you interview for an official PM job somewhere else and explain that while it wasn't your official title, it's what you were effectively doing.

If you want to stay in IT AND you are good with customers, then look into Presales Solution Architecture. The coding you do is for demos to customers or little example snippets. The main part of the job if talking through architecture with customers to help them through issues or questions using whatever your product is. I made the move about 7 years ago and I wish i had done it sooner. Also, you get commission, so it can be even more lucrative.

I started as a programmer than moved to management position of team of 8, mainly because I felt I wanted more impact on the projects I worked on, I still code as a hobby. Now I’m doing product management, and I enjoy it very much, but it’s definitely connected to my talkative personality and my enjoyment from talking about ideas, also the feeling that no programmer can slip out of responsibility by talking about technology with me also helps because I feel like things are moving fast and for the better understand my responsibility

The options available to you heavily depend on your financial situation. How much do you have saved/invested, and what is your monthly spend? Can you take time off to learn a new skill while living cheaply in Vietnam, or do you live paycheck to paycheck in a high cost of living area w/ an expensive mortgage & big family to support?

I have a family. I don't live paycheck to paycheck, but I also can't take time off.

Alternatives to coding:

* Management

* Dev ops

* network engineer (routers and switches)

* cloud engineer

* security engineer (defense)

* cyber operations (offense)

* project management

* program management (more business than technical)

* platform infrastructure (similar to cloud but farther from the metal)

* recruiter

* API engineering

* test automation

* business analyst

* public relations

Most of these require certifications and most of the rest require specialized education. Some just happen by accident.

In my case I was a long time JavaScript developer but after being laid off I refused to go back to framework hell. I got picked up to author API for this big enterprise management thing. I was perfectly happy being a developer with no work ethic but for some weird reason I am now standing up developer operations for this enterprise effort. I had options because I have a coding background, prior experience as a principal and in management, certifications, and a security clearance. If you want options have some of those things that employers are looking for.

Would you be interested in creating or being a part of a cooperative?

I too am unable to maintain any interest in working with a corporation. I tried doing open source for a long period of time, working off of grants, but this is quite difficult to do sustainably.

I'm in the Bay Area, and can be reach at my username at madefromscrat.ch

I can relate. I code at home on my side projects, and enjoy solving coding issues at work once in a while, but I couldn’t sit and do it every day. The two easiest things you can do is either move to Engineering Management or to Product Management.

Be sure that people management or a PM role is something you’re actually interested in as opposed to just being a plan B. If someone asks why you’re switching, “because I grew bored with coding” is a terrible answer. Each of them also has its own downsides. The grass isn’t necessarily greener on the other side.

I progressed from coding to sysops - probably differs from company to company, but as a software dev I was pretty much locked into doing the same thing day-in and day-out (ie coding, and probably only in a small number of different languages).

I find a lot more variety / interest in operations - there's a lot of scope to play with infrastructure, security, performance tracking, sysadmin stuff etc, and even to get a small amount of coding done on company time - though not on product, more on ancillary support services/infrastructure.

It's still IT, so a lot of industry knowledge and skill transfer is still relevant.

I understand this frustration. I was a coder for ~4-5 years but wanted to try something different so I went to solutions engineering. I kind of regret it but it has given me exposure to a business / sales side of things and I’m very grateful. I found that I really like designing and architecting backends so I’m trying to get that role again. Best of luck to you!

Are you experiencing burnout?

I don't know anymore. I tried to take a year off, was super fun, but didn't help. I think I'm just tired of writing code for corporate.

Oh… maybe you are. At first some of what you wrote seemed similar to what some people describe when they describe burnout, but I suppose people can just be ready to move on to new things too!

Become a manager. Talk to your manager, most decently sized organizations have clear paths. I've been offered coursework to prep for the transition a number of times now in multiple companies. If you haven't yet, seek it out. You can also possibly take a new IC job at a different company that offers clearer paths / training for the move.

Leadership/management positions are not your only option. Try a "customer success" role or a support position.

Have you tried indie-hacking as your side project, trying to build your own product / tech company?

In my experience, its more interesting and challenging than coding for corporate. You will be motivated to learn a lot of things more than codes, like SEO, marketing, content creating, etc.

It feels really great when you know people pay for your codes / products

I am, but it doesnt pay the bills.

You probably already have leadership experience. Leadership means leading, not managing. Plenty of developers lead others through their technical excellence or interests, even though they don't have a formal management role.

So you should reflect on how you have provided leadership at various points.

You're living in the perfect time then! With tools like Cursor AI, I find myself writing less and less code to achieve a product outcome.

First question will be what do you enjoy and how can you do more of that? Or enjoyment aside, what is it you would like to achieve.

Difficult, I know.

have you considered farming? you could simply dabble in it to see if you have base interest, and if so, continue digging deeper (pun intended, I guess). I continually see coders move into farming with great success, as there seem to be many overlaps. There's a good gardening/farming channel on YT called Epic Gardening that provides lots of educational content. Maybe that's a good start?

I too tired of it too early not much experience in years like you. I am doing side projects as well. If this success I will left coding works.

> how I can pull it off while having minimal leadership experience.

Work on that. First thing is to kick your line manager's ass.

What makes you think you’d be good and/or like a leadership position?

First, you need to identify and quantify your skills and strengths.

Systems architect