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> I'm tired. I'm tired of the artificial deadlines

I think the ephemeral nature of software really plays poorly with the artificial deadlines, and the artificial importance of some projects in general.

Eventually you recognize the pattern, and there's no logical way to justify it, so it's harder to motivate yourself. You know the deadline isn't real, and you know the software will be rewritten next year with some new technology. You may even be rewriting last years right now.

Tooling churn hurts here as well, because eventually after enough iterations, new tools are just in the way of getting real work done. You know it's not gaining you anything by putting in the effort to learn Toolchain X, because arbitrarily different Toolchain Y is about to become the new industry fad, and will make all that prior arbitrary knowledge pointless.

Some of my favourite years in software were when I worked at an eCommerce agency that served only one framework. Learning I invested directly impacted my work for the coming years. I began to master the tools, which feels amazing. I could also see the real world effect the software had. Sure, it was simple, selling products to people. But commerce is an interesting problem space, and a fundamental part of society, so it was neat to be a part of it and see real companies I worked with grow because of my software.

> the ephemeral nature of software [...] it's harder to motivate yourself

It's been a few years since I left the industry, and I'd be surprised if any of the code I wrote professionally hasn't been superseded by now. Even worse, plenty of it was scrapped before it was even released.

Of course, I knew this would be the case when I was writing it - that does indeed affect one's motivation.

I doubt if more than 25% of my work-hours as a developer have gone toward any kind of program or product that went on to provide enough benefit to have been worth the effort and expense. It feels like being one of the monkeys in some kind of million-monkeys Shakespeare project. Like the system just tries random shit and sometimes something works but mostly it just wastes everyone's time (lives).

> code I wrote professionally hasn't been superseded

Well, the state of New Jersey is looking for programmers to update COBOL programs that were written 50 years ago, so you might be underestimating the sheer power of inertia in software development...

It also really depends on in which corner of the field you work in (and of course practices of the specific organization you work for)

The code I wrote in my first job out of college is still running in thousands of locations 25 years later. But then, it was Windows software for a particular industry, not a website. Most stuff I've written since then has been replaced or will be soon.

I can tell you that working with legacy turd (that will probably run for another decade or more) isn't necessarily much better.

Again the deadlines and lack of planning ahead bites. Look we just need this little feature now, it can't take long? And again, and again. You never get enough time to take a step back and re-evaluate design decisions (or, God forbid, plan ahead and do it right in the first place) and fix what wasn't done right. No, it's always this little feature that needs to be quickly hacked in, another branch, another special case, how it interacts with other past or future special cases is anyone's guess, and the code base that was already full of hastily hacked together barely-functional crap grows more and more poorly thought out crap. Tests? What tests? No tests, so if you dare go back and try quickly fix some poor design.. well, someone is eventually hopefully going to find out what you broke and give you a completely uninformative bug report. Updates? Well there's no ticket for that. And besides, something might break, because there are no tests. There's no ticket for tests.

Sometimes you might even wish that the whole thing would be discarded and done from scratch..

I prefer working with legacy turds over steaming hot new shit, but I have a hard time finding companies who will pay me for that work. Everybody wants the steaming hot new stuff.

This is why open source software at least is good -- it tends to have much longer lifetimes, so chances are decent that your code will still be running decades down the line (so long as you picked the right project).

For example, one of the open source projects that I contributed to most heavily, PyWikiBot, has been around for almost two decades now, and most of my contributions were made ~13-15 years ago, plus some minor maintenance since then, and most of those features I wrote are still in continuous use to this very day by me and many others. And that's just some random tooling library for Wikipedia stuff; imagine how much long-term impact your work would have if you were editing MediaWiki itself, or the Linux kernel, or gcc, or any number of other incredibly widely-used things.

I am in the same shoes and would add the reason of no pride or sometimes shame. Not only in the many marginal products I am forced to squeeze out rapidly and in parade but of belonging to this group of profession. Basically both stems in the pretentious design of incomplete products making people more miserable than successful or satisfied. Phones, 'smart' appliances, revolutionary technology, software and OSes promise the world and beyond (twice!) bringing tons of 'dream' (sometimes nightmare) functionality but f*k up even the most elementary function (repeatedly!) while being unreliable to the extent that it needs to be updated in the frequency of watering your plants, to no avail. Despite the mounting problems the industry takes itself very seriously with infant obscure practices considered rock solid fundamentals and with robotic approach to human resources and processes. Talking to recruiters feels like they expect not thinking humans but custom programmed organic mechanisms able to type and can be judged by ticking checklists in a couple of minutes. In seeking satisfaction in self and results I left several places for something assumedly better, sometimes leaping into unknown, but my bitterness just mounts with each position. Financial limits forces me to seek engagement in something I am experienced in but I am afraid my lethargy shines though of my smiley and optimistic face I wear for interviews. I have little trust in those sitting in front of me. I hope I can figure out something better, meanwhile trying to make money for living.

> The thought of going through a modern tech interview process yet again so that I can do all the rest again just fills me with dread.

A couple years older than you. I was working a nice gig at a startup until November. Nice because the owners were nice, the coworkers were nice and it was an interesting embedded application involving renewable energy - so not the run-of-the-mill web app. They ran out of funding in November but there was the possibility (prior to covid-19) that they would get more funding so I didn't look around much hoping I could just go back to work for them when they get more funding and avoid having to interview again.

Of course, that's not likely to happen at this point given where the economy is at. And I still can't bear the thought of interviewing again. So I'm effectively out of tech at this point. If someone comes along and offers me a gig without the arduous interview process I'd take it, but otherwise, I think I'm done.

You know, people worry about age discrimination a lot because there aren't a ton of older programmers around. But when the discussion comes up, people don't talk much about the reasons you describe.

Sure, bad programmers age out because they were never great at programming in the first place. But I would assume the HN crowd falls in the top half of competence because there are so many people here who seem smarter about programming than me. If you're good, you don't have to worry.

Maybe good programers age out because the technical side gets too repetitive, their jobs become more about politics, and they have enough money to change tracks later in life.

> But when the discussion comes up, people don't talk much about the reasons you describe.

Which people you're talking about? The survivors who are still working in the field? Or those who had heart attacks at their desks at 50?

Dead programmers don’t commit code much less talk, now do they?

The changing nature of the job is definitely part of it. When you're on the steepest part of the learning curve, that makes up for a lot. I still learn plenty, but less than I used to. Instead, I spend a good deal of my time correcting mistakes made by those who hadn't learned yet. Mistakes happen, that's OK, but it's still less fun than learning new things myself. At my age/experience there's also an expectation that I'll do more "force multiplier" work - for me it's often fixing broken infrastructure - so that others can stay more productive with straight coding. Again, nothing wrong with it, but still less fun.

When it gets downright tiresome is when being the project janitor puts me in conflict with young "tech leads" who denigrate those contributions because they've only ever worked on that one project where other people took care of those things for them. It's like the difference between living in a college dorm where everything's taken care of for you, vs. having a house and kids and bills of your own. Being a strict individual contributor with no cares beyond the one piece of code in front of me is just a fond memory.

Unfortunately, few companies will hire someone with 30+ years' experience just to write code, even for a salary appropriate to that role. Companies want to pay those lower salaries not only for direct work product but also for growth potential. The worst part is, I know they're not wrong. The only way to do the kind of work I really enjoy, and only that work, is as a hobby.

This is one of the saddest yet truest things I've read here on HN. Really hits home.

Same.

> If you're good, you don't have to worry.

You don't have to worry about keeping your current job, but getting a different one becomes a lot harder. Your 27 year-old interviewer might be thinking "You're my dads age, and my dad is crusty. No way you can wrap your head around lib-of-the-week.js"

> You don't have to worry about keeping your current job

Depends on the job. There are employers who recognize the value of somebody who has broad experience, and who can/will do things that are necessary but not fun. There are also employers who only measure hands-on-coding skills, and/or who insist that everyone should be on a "growth path" even if they're already at a higher level than most will reach. Good people don't have to worry at the first kind, and very much have to worry at the second.

I had a coworker at BigCo who would disappear for a month every summer. I wasn't paying attention to other PTO days through the year so I assumed that extra PTO for work anniversaries added up faster than I thought.

Turns out they were just taking a leave of absence, every year, to travel, and just eating the pay cut.

When you're at $500k/yr, losing <$50k/yr isn't really that big of a deal.

And most countries would give you 4 or more weeks annual leave

I believe the person is taking that extra month off /in addition/ to taking the standard PTO. (Which is around 3-5 weeks with holidays at FAANG)

Very very few people earn $500k/yr at FAANG

Perhaps very few make that year after year, but that's a totally achievable total compensation anywhere in the top half of the individual-contributor range if they get two good evals in one year. I work at one of those companies, and I'm sure I talk every day with people who have hit that level at least once.

> The first simply had another passion - travel.

I thought engineering enabled travel. I met countless "digital nomads" traveling the world, doing 20 hours of work a week at cafes. Making bank and getting to travel all they want.

In this particular case, it was adventure travel - savannahs in Africa, mountains in South America, icebergs in Antarctica. It was also 25 years ago. The "digital nomad" thing wasn't an option for this person.

What is a full time parent? I remember as a kid that I was always encouraging my mom to take up hobbies so that she's leave me alone so I could get on with my own stuff. I can't imagine putting all your identity into being a parent. Kids grow up extremely fast.

I presume GP doesn't mean someone with no other identity, just someone who is doing it instead of a FT paid role. I could be a full-time plumber and still have an identity outside of plumbing

It's the gender-neutral, unpaid-work-respecting equivalent of a "stay-at-home mom" or "housewife"

If a couple decides they want four kids, the numbers can work out, for 10 years or so - especially if childcare is expensive.

Yup - the "numbers" can work out with even one kid, particularly if your equations value time spent with the child.

All the more reason to be a full-time parent. You get a return on your investment extremely fast. When you're old, you have adult kids that care about you, and hopefully grandchildren which are basically just children but free because you're not the primary caretaker anymore. All the fun with much less fuss.