After three months I almost felt like a human being again. That feeling was gone 2 days into the new job.
Then there's a ruggedized telepresence robot with enough flexibility that it can be used for inspection and troubleshooting on remote sites, so you don't need a person physically present. It would also let systems maintainers 'teleport' to a remote site for troubleshooting without having to lose a day to plane flights and paperwork. This might even be my next commercial project.
No-one's done a self contained drone 'airport' yet which can hold a few small drones and launch / retrieve / recharge them. It'd be useful for a whole bunch of remote observation and monitoring applications, eg. early bushfire detection. This will be tougher to commercialize due to large incumbent drone operators trying to increase red tape to prevent new players entering the market.
Another idea is a lawn weeding robot, using computer vision to detect weeds and some kind of claw to physically rip them out of the lawn. A few people have done hobby style builds but I don't think one's been commercialized yet.
And then there's a few fun non-commercial project ideas like a license-plate reader based automatic opener for our front gate, facial recognition doorbell / automatic lock for the front door, and a couple of game ideas.
(Before anyone thinks I am saying you won't also love your kids: that's not how it works.)
Fortunately my current employer is very understanding, I work from home at least one day a week or more if I need it. I can tone down the act a little here, which is very helpful. Unfortunately I can't completely turn it off (I wouldn't be able to function that way). If it were up to me I wouldn't leave the house at all, unfortunately I need to eat, pay the mortgage, etc.
> Work can suck, but it shouldn't be that soul crushing.
Every job is soul crushing. Not because of the work, but because of the fact that you have to do it. The fact you have zero say in how you spend your time. The fact that you have to interact with human beings. etc. There's no way around it.
It really isn't for everyone. If I decided to pack it in tomorrow, I'd still do a lot of the same things I do today albeit with more pure pure leisure mixed in. I realize I'm in a privileged position in that regard but nonetheless that's how it is for me.
Same here. The problem is not the core of the job, I love writing software. What kills me is meetings, having to sit in an office surrounded by humans (the sound of people talking especially easily causes sensory overload), having to work during the day (I'm a night person by nature and bright light is problematic for me), having to stay in the office for 8 hours even though I'm spent after 5, bullshit social events (I usually skip them, but you can't skip all of them), having to work with others (sometimes I spend more time convincing others of how I want things done than actually doing them).
Programming is great, having a job isn't.
I disagree that every job is soul crushing, though. At least not intrinsically so. Different jobs are good or bad based on the situation of the one performing it. We do have a choice in that we can choose not to perform that job (although for many that isn't really a true choice).
In any case, I hope your current and future employers recognize your needs. There are too many hard-ass managers with a "business mindset" that would rather avoid working with perfectly productive individuals such as yourself.
So far I have mainly worked for small startups in R&D type of roles, which suits me well. The problems start when the company starts to grow.
At my current job I was the only developer when I started, now we’re at a dozen developers and they are talking about hiring a scrum master. That’s kind of my sign to start looking, which is a bit sad because this employer has been really good to me. Experience has shown me, however, that sticking around too long when a company gets over a certain size is not a good idea.
> I hope your current and future employers recognize your needs.
They do. Honestly they’ve been great about it, but unfortunately that doesn’t mean it’s easy.