Ask HN: What can you do as a software engineer who has lost their passion? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What can you do as a software engineer who has lost their passion?

12 pointshnsnsn14 comments

Quick background: I started with TI-Basic in high school math class and things snowballed from there. I'm about to graduate and I've worked constantly since I started college. I've either been coding part time during the school year or full time during various internships. I woke up today and realized that the spark that started it all is dead and has been for longer than I can remember now. I'm competent at my job and I don't dislike it, but I feel like I just go on cruise control completely devoid of interest or passion. I also don't really have the energy or excitement to start a personal project.

My question(s): Can anyone relate? Does it matter that I don't feel passionate as long as I don't dislike my job? What steps can I take to reignite the spark that I once felt?

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I'm in the same boat, although I'm a senior systems engineer. I had considered a move to a dev or devops type of role, but I can't stomach the pay cut to start back at the bottom. I wish I had some advice for you, but I'm really searching for the answer to the problem myself. I've got some personal projects that I'm working on, but between work and my 18-month old son, I don't get much time to do that sort of stuff. When I do have free time, I find myself wanting to spend that time with my family instead of sitting at a computer like I do most of the time already, and that's a pretty rough fight to have with myself.

Normally if we get burned out from regular engineering software or just feel like we need a change we switch over to another high paying field like financial engineering, game development, infrastructure automation, big data, statistics, cryptography, penetration testing, consulting, aerospace for us that have those special skills or can obtain them (normally requires a few degrees to become a rocket engineer due to not having the funds for a production scale wind tunnel or labs) and if the others do not seem that fun we normally start a business.

As a software engineer you have more outside the field opportunities then others may have. Since we are very quick learners we can pick up things unnatural fast compared to others which is why you see many software engineers or programmers owning multi-billion dollar businesses in Silicon Valley. Ever meet someone that people keep telling him or her they can't do x,y or z and they end up doing it on a massive scale way beyond what anyone thought they were capable of (Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc.).

It is all about finding what you like doing for fun, maybe the software your building at work is not fun, many go into game development mobile apps or cryptography and that excites them along with bringing in a nice paycheck if they do it for their own business.

rigorous exercise did wonders for my passion, so did a sport fishing trip.

learning a new language or starting a new project will probably reignite that spark.

Can relate. Coding from 12-45 y.o. I've burned out a few times. Now I'm at Uni doing a degree in Supply Chain Management. I will end up with a bunch of cross discipline skills and either keep coding or not, who cares.

Do something else. If your passion nags you after a while, all good. If not, time to let go.

My personal experience I realized I love technology but don't enjoy many facets of application development. I have been doing it for 15yrs, I tried working for startups, tried middle management, realized it didn't get better just became a different animal. So I am finally getting out.

But my go too's were stepping back to interests before tech took over, read books on other topics. I did philosophy, some math, and books I wanted to read but didn't before. This was the best compartmentalizations for me and helped me gain perspective and reflect.

I also realized passion, dedication, happiness are all for the most part a choice we make and I needed something I could do for 10yrs+ and not regret. So I made my choices and am ready to stick with it.

Here is how I got my passion, motivation, and ambition back. Let's call it my slump-buster.

1. Find Inspiration. It could be music, watching a movie about a start-up or some other inspiring story. For me it was listening to Brian Stevens keynote speech from the RedHat Summit on YouTube. If you listen to the past 3 years he makes it clear that software developers and Linux are going to rule the world. Use this as a tool to get you into your command center to get stuff done.

2. Do not come home from work and go to your command center or computer room. You need time away from the computer to remember what your passionate about. Watch TV, go exercise, spend time with your family, whatever makes you happy.

3. Go to bed early. When your lying in bed, think about your side projects and what you want to build. Go into detail about the code, UI, technology stack, where your going to host it. This will help you dream in code and get you excited to wake up.

4. Wake up early. I get up around 3am without an alarm clock now because after dreaming about my passion projects I'm so excited to get up and make things happen. You would be surprised how focused you can be at 3am with no distractions. In the last 6 months since I started this new me I have read over 20 books and wrote several documents for my passion project.

5. Setup the perfect development workstation. I use my 27 inch mac for development but I also have 3 laptops running Linux. I told myself I was going to setup and learn all the best productivity tools to help me code better/faster. I setup my dotfiles perfectly with all the vim plugins I wanted to use, tmux scripts, and pushed it up to github and synced it to all my workstations. It is such a rush to have everything running perfectly.

6. Start a ritual or habit and set goals. Document all your ideas for your passion projects in as much detail as possible. Go to Trello or Evernote and document everything. Include pictures, links, sound, video, whatever to help you describe your idea and get yourself motivated. I call mine my 5 year project plan even though it will only take me about a year and a half. (Part of my plan is to save money and move to SV.)

Some advice I've heard in the past: don't be pushed from existing stuff, but be pulled to new stuff.

I.e. work hard to enjoy your current circumstances and only leave if there is a positive pull - something you really want to do - elsewhere.

Read 'Hackers and Painters'.

Think of yourself as an artist. Your medium is software.

Do you have side projects? Unlike a lot of other professions, software puts you in control. You can build whatever you like.

Regardless of the job, an artist always produces...art. You are lucky to have a job that pays you reasonably well. Well enough to have enough free time to pursue what ever would make you happy. Pursue it now. Even if no one else will see it, get in the habit of producing stuff.

Put it somewhere for display and share it with others.

It's okay to burn out. Relax, take the time to recharge. Accept your cycles of creativity and periods of rest.

Maybe it is related to your passion, maybe not.

Try to enjoy what you have, how lucky you are to be where you are with your skills. Some people can just dream of those.

Sometimes, it seems that we lose our passion but we just need to stop, refresh our mind and start enjoying small things in life. The excitement and passion will be back..at least, that's what happened to me.

Take it easy and stay positive :)

The world is heaving with people who do their job to pay the rent. It's normal. The mantra "do what you love" and claims that programming should be some kind of wonderful life experience is self-selecting echo-chamber chatter. If you love your job, that's a nice bonus for you, but it's really not necessary.

Can you combine your skill in software development with another interest? What other areas interest you?

Build a motorcycle http://www.rycamotors.com

Maybe your lack of passion isn't about the job.

Have you another passion in your heart?

I think you have(like drawing,painting,etc).

I ever felt like this before I'm a painter but suddenly I like philosophy.

And now i hate painting!

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