Is It Time to Step Away from Coding After 10 Years?
After more than a decade of daily coding, I'm questioning whether to step back. When I take coding breaks, my energy and focus improve, but returning to coding brings back procrastination and fatigue. While I still enjoy the intellectual challenge, the industry’s saturation with AI tools has made coding feel less fulfilling and original. Financially, coding has been my best source of leverage aside from investing. For those who’ve stepped away, how did you find the courage to make the change and replace that leverage (and fun)?
I think the thing to realize (which can take 10+ years), is that coding can be a means to an end, and non an end in itself.
You can lean into the business and people side of wherever you work, help people out, mentor the new joiners, try to become a manager if you want. Try to connect with the purpose of the organization. If there's some urgent bug or temporary project, by all means jump in and roll up your sleeves with the coding, but you don't need to be doing it all day, every day, to the exclusion of anything else.
Ultimately, coding is just like accounting, plumbing, sewers, etc., yes, it's "important" and you couldn't have, say, a hotel, restaurant, or city without them, but they're in the background, enabling the _whole thing_ to function. No amount of overachievement by a plumber is going to make for a better restaurant experience.
Perhaps you don't have to "step away" and start from scratch with something new, but you can try to do it less, and do other things more.
About 10 years ago I graduated with a useless degree in mathematics. My dad was homeless in San Diego and I was tired of being unable to help him when he reached out for money for a hotel.
So I enrolled in App Academy. I got a job at Apple and four months later he's killed in a motorcycle accident.
I quit my job, floundered a bit, found sporadic success in startups, had a few breakdowns, spent some time in the hospital, but always went back to work, back to grinding out Python and SQL and other nonsense.
I hate it, to be quite honest. I want off this damn ride. It would probably help if I had family, friends, or mentors to fall back on, but I don't.
So I keep pushing, keep committing, cursing myself out for introducing more bugs, failing to find the spirit to go on fixing things for big mega-corpo customers. And if I stop, I don't have an alternative means of survival.
I don't code on weekends but 15 years in and I am finding inspiration in the AI tools. I'm so pumped in being extra productive. Especially when working in a new technology, the learning experience is so much better. I can chat back and forth to learn things, I can ship so much faster. I love it. I hope you can find that.
I code for 22 years and be almost 40 years old. Years ago I felt the need for the social aspect in my life and so I started another education path as social councillor beside my 4-day work week with the support of my wife.
Now I finished this path and be very happy about it! I won't start changing my professional field yet I have another, better position in my current work and might replace the ceo soon. I look after my coworker and the social balance at my workspace _and_ code. You see, I still code (it's my hobby after all) but my focus shifted somewhat.
I hope you can find your way. If you want to talk just tell me :)
I feel you to some extent. I love the challenges and problem-solving but the actual coding part becomes less interesting over time.
I am not quite as far along my career as you but after three failed startup ideas I decided to do freelancing for now. This gives me the opportunity to work on problems that companies really have and while I still code a lot of this is now more focused on the architecture not so much on boring tasks.
Besides that, I also get to see new companies and new projects every couple of months and I am working for myself and not for the secnd vacation home of some boss.
It sounds like consulting could be something you'd enjoy, too.
Also, quitting and finding a new job is really underrated for mental health
I did coding freelancing for some time now. But i'm thinking on doing consulting working in a completely unrelated thing. At the end of the day, what gives me pleasure is adding value to other folks.
Ure, if you don't see yourself coding at all or doing technical work, doing consulting in an unrelated things is perfectly fine. I guess it's easier if you already got some experience in the field but at the end of the day the only thing that matters is signing clients
It was okay. I first realized that freelancing might be an option after I was approached by someone on Linkedin to help them with a project and then I had little success with getting more projects but for 2024 I have been booked most of the time.
The things you learn in a startup are mostly applicable to freelancing, too.
You can lean into the business and people side of wherever you work, help people out, mentor the new joiners, try to become a manager if you want. Try to connect with the purpose of the organization. If there's some urgent bug or temporary project, by all means jump in and roll up your sleeves with the coding, but you don't need to be doing it all day, every day, to the exclusion of anything else.
Ultimately, coding is just like accounting, plumbing, sewers, etc., yes, it's "important" and you couldn't have, say, a hotel, restaurant, or city without them, but they're in the background, enabling the _whole thing_ to function. No amount of overachievement by a plumber is going to make for a better restaurant experience.
Perhaps you don't have to "step away" and start from scratch with something new, but you can try to do it less, and do other things more.
So I enrolled in App Academy. I got a job at Apple and four months later he's killed in a motorcycle accident.
I quit my job, floundered a bit, found sporadic success in startups, had a few breakdowns, spent some time in the hospital, but always went back to work, back to grinding out Python and SQL and other nonsense.
I hate it, to be quite honest. I want off this damn ride. It would probably help if I had family, friends, or mentors to fall back on, but I don't.
So I keep pushing, keep committing, cursing myself out for introducing more bugs, failing to find the spirit to go on fixing things for big mega-corpo customers. And if I stop, I don't have an alternative means of survival.
So it goes.
I hope you can find your way. If you want to talk just tell me :)
I am not quite as far along my career as you but after three failed startup ideas I decided to do freelancing for now. This gives me the opportunity to work on problems that companies really have and while I still code a lot of this is now more focused on the architecture not so much on boring tasks.
Besides that, I also get to see new companies and new projects every couple of months and I am working for myself and not for the secnd vacation home of some boss.
It sounds like consulting could be something you'd enjoy, too.
Also, quitting and finding a new job is really underrated for mental health
The things you learn in a startup are mostly applicable to freelancing, too.
This is burnout and psychological support might help.
Maybe focusing on building skills for a career change (or just a career detour or pivot) would help reignite passion?