As I avoided burnout, having worked as a programmer for more than three decades
After reading many posts about the current “burnout” of programmers, I began to think how I managed to keep interest in this profession even after such a long career - since 1981 (!). Why is my interest in the code not yet extinct?
Of course, I partially explained this in my post “Yes, I still want to do it in my 56 , ” which became famous almost three years ago. But that post was about the side of the life of a professional programmer, related to the programming process itself; here we are not talking about the actual writing of the code, but about how I still endure “programmer existence”. What is this work that captures so much that in the morning you can’t wait to open a text editor or IDE, or do you feel awe at the thought of sending your ass to the office?
Looking back at my places of work — those that I liked, those that I hated, and those that you could just live with — I think, what is the difference between them? What did I do that allowed me to take this path for so long?
Let's start with a simple description of all employers in a chrological order that I have worked on up to now. Please note that I do not indicate the real names, if this has nothing to do with the case. There are no time intervals when I worked for myself in different directions; something will be mentioned next.
')
Do not see anything strange - like, for example, I have never worked in the same industry twice? Projects of consulting companies also differed radically.
Probably only these two of my startups were connected: both were in the field of software for Mac. But in the first we acted ourselves as our publishers, and in the second we wrote for other people. The occupation of something substantial that belongs to you is both a boon and a great torment. Everything was fine and wonderful, as long as things went well. But the first startup ended when it became clear that we do not have such capital to compete with Microsoft. And on the second startup after 5 years of working for Deltagraph, the publisher wanted to move in a different direction, and the Mac market closed for us.
So, I launched both companies and was there not only the lead programmer, but also the president, led everything related to the business, and in the first startup also gave interviews to the press, held shareholders meetings and took care of the profits. After two attempts, I realized that I didn’t want to do this, and just worked for other people. By that time (almost 21 years ago or so), I only once worked for a company that I did not manage.
Over the past two decades, I have worked mainly for hire - as a programmer, or as some kind of developer / programmer; sometimes I had to fulfill other roles, but never did I act as a pure manager. And, of course, after all the question arises, how am I still holding?
(1) I do not work overtime, except sometimes at the completion of a project. I wrote about this in my famous post “Why I don’t do unpaid overtime work and advise you to do the same . ” Some employers (often consulting firms) insist on almost endless hours of work; they don't care if you burn. And it makes no sense to work for them. It is simply unwise to destroy one's dedication to programming, leading oneself into a state of unwillingness to continue writing code.
(2) I try to find a place that corresponds to my idea of how it is convenient for me to work. The problem is that you do not always know when you start, whether the new workplace corresponds to the aspects that you consider important. For example, the process, the method of organizing the execution of projects, even the expectations that people place on everyone. I would prefer to work in a place where people do not impose on me what I have to do, where I can maximize my contribution using all my abilities. Everyone has strengths, experience and ideas, and the most beautiful thing is to find a place that allows you to be yourself. The difficulty is to try to correctly assess the place before starting work, or at least to find a reasonable way to leave without leaving people in a difficult position. Life is too short to put up with its inconveniences - you will not like it so much, and there will be no great benefit from you either.
(3) Do not think that you should always do the same thing over and over again in the same industry or, even worse, never leave your first job and constantly stay on it. I know people who have worked in the same company for 25 or 30 years because they were afraid to leave the comfort zone. You find yourself completely immersed in the familiar and not aware that there are much better places to work. I didn’t always leave a company just because I wanted something new; sometimes they just shut up! But a new place means new opportunities, new challenges and the prospect of learning something new. “New” is not always “better”, but if you always do the same thing, then certainly it will not be better.
(4) Sometimes you should just stop and do something just because you want to. Several times I did something, because I had a special interest or at the time I wanted something very unusual. After the second startup, I researched and created a futures trading system precisely because it was interesting to me. I did not make a lot of money (at least not enough to trade at that time), but I was very pleased with the process of mastering the new. I played one of the MMO FPS for 10 years, but I was never satisfied with its quality. The company never had enough money to fulfill all the requirements, and there was little benefit from the corrections they made. And since the office of the company was nearby, I worked for them for more than 2 years. It was the hardest job I ever had to do, and I paid almost nothing for it. But its complexity - the giant code base of the 3D engine on two platforms and OpenGL with thousands of problems to be solved - was a challenge for me and demanded the strain of all my strength. I felt like a child, suddenly caught in a pastry shop. Unfortunately, I had to leave, because I needed money for my life!
(5) If you are not the owner of the company or do not have serious options or stocks, do not be afraid to leave. You must provide the employer with only the best work you can do for being paid. And pay you for 40 hours a week. You are not a slave, and you have no other duty of allegiance beyond the obligation to properly do the work. Find a good place and work for a while. But if it turns out to be not very good, or not inspiring, or boring, or you are annoyed by people, or the manual seems dull, or anything else, then do not be afraid to go in search. I know that it is not always easy (there were difficult times in the zero years), but look around and never be afraid to talk to recruiters or friends or on the web, even if you currently feel completely comfortable. You never know what a cool thing can come out in the next moment.
(6) Starting your own company is not always possible, but if it works, then this is a great opportunity to see what a business is. Often, you can get a new look at your employer's actions. In addition, you will learn a lot of new things (for example, about sales and profits), which would otherwise pass by you! For 9 years I managed two companies, and almost constantly - except for the period of the end of their operations - I got great pleasure. I was lucky to work with great specialists and write something that actually was useful for people! I never sought for money for something that would go beyond the limits of a good salary, but it was an experience that I would not trade for anything. You can seize the opportunity to work in someone's startup, where you need to deal with a bunch of different responsibilities, but keep in mind that it does not always make sense to plow into death.
(7) Do not be afraid of new technologies or changes in the industry. You must continue to learn, at least every day. My favorite metaphor - “steam roller technology” - should be constantly in memory. New ideas, new languages, new frameworks, new platforms - you never know what will lead the way to the technology that you like more. The new, of course, is not always better; sometimes a new one happens too fast (fortunately, I am not a Javascript programmer), but a new one always carries with it some possibility. If you do not constantly learn, then in the end you will not only dislike your work, but you will simply be left without it!
I hope something in this list will be useful for you. At least, these considerations helped me manage my rather long and ongoing career. I want to add that to keep this blog for almost a decade was a wonderful thing for me: the opportunity to contact experienced and understanding people (and sometimes get answers from them), who apparently find something useful for themselves when reading and I, of course, get a lot of comments.
Remember that your professional career depends entirely on you. Control it as if it were your whole life, and perhaps then it will be. Never work where you do not like (of course, if the conditions allow you to leave), and always carefully look into life. Only then can you retire once and say: “It was beautiful!”.
Of course, I partially explained this in my post “Yes, I still want to do it in my 56 , ” which became famous almost three years ago. But that post was about the side of the life of a professional programmer, related to the programming process itself; here we are not talking about the actual writing of the code, but about how I still endure “programmer existence”. What is this work that captures so much that in the morning you can’t wait to open a text editor or IDE, or do you feel awe at the thought of sending your ass to the office?
Looking back at my places of work — those that I liked, those that I hated, and those that you could just live with — I think, what is the difference between them? What did I do that allowed me to take this path for so long?
Let's start with a simple description of all employers in a chrological order that I have worked on up to now. Please note that I do not indicate the real names, if this has nothing to do with the case. There are no time intervals when I worked for myself in different directions; something will be mentioned next.
')
- Defense Contractor
- My startup number 1
- My startup number 2
- Company, software for technical support
- Email Company
- Apple (before Steve Jobs returns to the company)
- Consulting firm
- Consulting firm
- Financial operations
- Digital printing
- Health care
- Online 3D games
- Tourism
- Building
Do not see anything strange - like, for example, I have never worked in the same industry twice? Projects of consulting companies also differed radically.
Probably only these two of my startups were connected: both were in the field of software for Mac. But in the first we acted ourselves as our publishers, and in the second we wrote for other people. The occupation of something substantial that belongs to you is both a boon and a great torment. Everything was fine and wonderful, as long as things went well. But the first startup ended when it became clear that we do not have such capital to compete with Microsoft. And on the second startup after 5 years of working for Deltagraph, the publisher wanted to move in a different direction, and the Mac market closed for us.
So, I launched both companies and was there not only the lead programmer, but also the president, led everything related to the business, and in the first startup also gave interviews to the press, held shareholders meetings and took care of the profits. After two attempts, I realized that I didn’t want to do this, and just worked for other people. By that time (almost 21 years ago or so), I only once worked for a company that I did not manage.
Over the past two decades, I have worked mainly for hire - as a programmer, or as some kind of developer / programmer; sometimes I had to fulfill other roles, but never did I act as a pure manager. And, of course, after all the question arises, how am I still holding?
(1) I do not work overtime, except sometimes at the completion of a project. I wrote about this in my famous post “Why I don’t do unpaid overtime work and advise you to do the same . ” Some employers (often consulting firms) insist on almost endless hours of work; they don't care if you burn. And it makes no sense to work for them. It is simply unwise to destroy one's dedication to programming, leading oneself into a state of unwillingness to continue writing code.
(2) I try to find a place that corresponds to my idea of how it is convenient for me to work. The problem is that you do not always know when you start, whether the new workplace corresponds to the aspects that you consider important. For example, the process, the method of organizing the execution of projects, even the expectations that people place on everyone. I would prefer to work in a place where people do not impose on me what I have to do, where I can maximize my contribution using all my abilities. Everyone has strengths, experience and ideas, and the most beautiful thing is to find a place that allows you to be yourself. The difficulty is to try to correctly assess the place before starting work, or at least to find a reasonable way to leave without leaving people in a difficult position. Life is too short to put up with its inconveniences - you will not like it so much, and there will be no great benefit from you either.
(3) Do not think that you should always do the same thing over and over again in the same industry or, even worse, never leave your first job and constantly stay on it. I know people who have worked in the same company for 25 or 30 years because they were afraid to leave the comfort zone. You find yourself completely immersed in the familiar and not aware that there are much better places to work. I didn’t always leave a company just because I wanted something new; sometimes they just shut up! But a new place means new opportunities, new challenges and the prospect of learning something new. “New” is not always “better”, but if you always do the same thing, then certainly it will not be better.
(4) Sometimes you should just stop and do something just because you want to. Several times I did something, because I had a special interest or at the time I wanted something very unusual. After the second startup, I researched and created a futures trading system precisely because it was interesting to me. I did not make a lot of money (at least not enough to trade at that time), but I was very pleased with the process of mastering the new. I played one of the MMO FPS for 10 years, but I was never satisfied with its quality. The company never had enough money to fulfill all the requirements, and there was little benefit from the corrections they made. And since the office of the company was nearby, I worked for them for more than 2 years. It was the hardest job I ever had to do, and I paid almost nothing for it. But its complexity - the giant code base of the 3D engine on two platforms and OpenGL with thousands of problems to be solved - was a challenge for me and demanded the strain of all my strength. I felt like a child, suddenly caught in a pastry shop. Unfortunately, I had to leave, because I needed money for my life!
(5) If you are not the owner of the company or do not have serious options or stocks, do not be afraid to leave. You must provide the employer with only the best work you can do for being paid. And pay you for 40 hours a week. You are not a slave, and you have no other duty of allegiance beyond the obligation to properly do the work. Find a good place and work for a while. But if it turns out to be not very good, or not inspiring, or boring, or you are annoyed by people, or the manual seems dull, or anything else, then do not be afraid to go in search. I know that it is not always easy (there were difficult times in the zero years), but look around and never be afraid to talk to recruiters or friends or on the web, even if you currently feel completely comfortable. You never know what a cool thing can come out in the next moment.
(6) Starting your own company is not always possible, but if it works, then this is a great opportunity to see what a business is. Often, you can get a new look at your employer's actions. In addition, you will learn a lot of new things (for example, about sales and profits), which would otherwise pass by you! For 9 years I managed two companies, and almost constantly - except for the period of the end of their operations - I got great pleasure. I was lucky to work with great specialists and write something that actually was useful for people! I never sought for money for something that would go beyond the limits of a good salary, but it was an experience that I would not trade for anything. You can seize the opportunity to work in someone's startup, where you need to deal with a bunch of different responsibilities, but keep in mind that it does not always make sense to plow into death.
(7) Do not be afraid of new technologies or changes in the industry. You must continue to learn, at least every day. My favorite metaphor - “steam roller technology” - should be constantly in memory. New ideas, new languages, new frameworks, new platforms - you never know what will lead the way to the technology that you like more. The new, of course, is not always better; sometimes a new one happens too fast (fortunately, I am not a Javascript programmer), but a new one always carries with it some possibility. If you do not constantly learn, then in the end you will not only dislike your work, but you will simply be left without it!
I hope something in this list will be useful for you. At least, these considerations helped me manage my rather long and ongoing career. I want to add that to keep this blog for almost a decade was a wonderful thing for me: the opportunity to contact experienced and understanding people (and sometimes get answers from them), who apparently find something useful for themselves when reading and I, of course, get a lot of comments.
Remember that your professional career depends entirely on you. Control it as if it were your whole life, and perhaps then it will be. Never work where you do not like (of course, if the conditions allow you to leave), and always carefully look into life. Only then can you retire once and say: “It was beautiful!”.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/308106/
All Articles