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[flagged] I'm hating swe, what could be another career?
26 points by tokyowiz 84 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 41 comments
hi, i like to code, i like tech in general. but currently i working as a consultant in a corporate, and i'm hating it, there is a lot of stress, many working hours, and im also not very good, A lot to analyze production problems , software with milions of line, and my techlead is an asshole- it's hard to leave this job because its remote and paywell, but im hating CS and i dont have a freetime. so after 1y of my first job, i'm trying to search another career, related to tech. what can i do?



>but currently i working as a consultant in a corporate

This is the problem.

Your experience with software development will range widely depending on where you're working, who you're working with AND what you're working with (tech stack).


Exactly. You may be writing code day to day, but ultimately you are a consultant, not a software engineer. Working for a company that sells a product and getting to own chunks of it for the long term is a completely different experience than working on short term contracts for random companies with the goal of maximizing hourly billing.


I agree. Sounds like OP shouldn't give up yet. It's their very first year and the range of experiences at different employers are so vast. Just hop around and see if you like other areas.


> my techlead is an asshole

And this one, I find this is more often the case than not...


Consider working as a SWE for a small shop working in a niche industry, or trying to solve a niche problem. I wouldn’t recommend early stage startups based on what you’re describing.


Lots of people dislike their first jobs, which is totally reasonable because you don’t know what you like and what to look for. So congrats on realizing quickly what you don’t like. Over the course of a career, that’s progress.

You could change careers, but if you like tech and coding maybe try changing environments first. There are certain things you don’t like about your current work environment, and you can probably find a new place where those things are not present.


I would ask yourself if you enjoy writing software, and consider trying different SWE jobs and areas if you do. To me, it seems like you're struggling because of your workplace conditions. There are many, many SWE jobs out there (all sorts of industries need to write software!), and even SWE is a very broad term. For example, you might hate webdev but end up really enjoying writing database software or mobile apps or whatever else. If on-call and deployments are stressing you out, there is software out there with longer release cycles that doesn't require on-call at all.

The start of your career can be tough, as you don't have much experience, but it's also a good time to explore and try different options. Don't let one bad workplace define your entire career!

That said, it's also totally fine if SWE is just not a good fit for you. There is a lot of process around planning, code reviews, git, etc. that is separate from the act of coding itself. If you want to keep coding, there are plenty of areas and industries that still need to write code. If you want to switch careers but stay tech adjacent, there are some broader options too, like IT and sales engineer.


There's always great demand for developers in major academic projects (e.g. cancer, genomics, climate, etc). It won't pay as much, but it's much less soul draining


Do you have a recommended resource for discovering SWE openings within such projects?


https://us-rse.org/jobs/


Any similar European resources?


Change companies. In my 10+ years the experience varies wildly from startup to medium size to large. Consulting for a corporation generally sounds not so appealing, especially if you’re more junior. Go seek out a company and tech stack that you’re more genuinely interested in working for rather than completely changing tracks.


Tech sales sounds like it could be nice, especially if you're charming and good-looking. Don't listen to anyone who shills you a physical trade. It's a common trope that SWEs dream of quitting and getting into the trades, but that's only because they've never had to actually do them.


Solutions Architect, Developer Advocate, Technical Product Manager, Technical Pre-Sales Engineering


SA role might take some time. I haven’t seen anyone in that role with less than 5 years experience. Typically more like 10.


Do SWE for a different industry. Stress, hours, struggling with effectiveness as a new hire can happen to you in almost any role in any industry. It's pretty much down to company culture and even the team you are on. Just find nicer people to work for.


early in our career we are (we should be) in "sponge mode". we can learn at lot and quickly. You should not waste this time. As somebody already said, things change a lot depending on the people you get to work with, and then how you work with them (you could be surrounded by amazing people but because of corp-rigidity you would not learn much from them anyway).

Reach out to your connections and figure out which company(ies) to apply for.

Go through interviews with a clear idea of what to ask for: interviews are not just for candidate screening, do the reverse and learn how to screen for good companies (before and during the interview process)

IMHO remote work is not the best for a career start


How about an infrastructure team where code-lite/scripting will be used, or QA-style position where you get to do deep-dives on someone else's awful code?

What specific tech interests do you have _besides_ code?


You didn’t discuss what tools or languages you’re familiar with. Try adding that to get some more tailored recommendations.

Have you considered transitioning to Data Engineering?


> i working as a consultant in a corporate

> im also not very good

How did you get the job at all? You're taking up a spot for someone who actually wants it.


This post needs an "[Ask HN]" prefix


Work for a smaller company/startup.


You could do athletics, fitness instructor, nutritionist, mixed martial arts champion, etc.


Get out of consulting and get into product development. It's much better.


Well...

Since it is your first job: Try to learn as much as you can. Gain experience and then leave or see if you can get a different assignment.

Is your boss really an asshole? Or does he want to achieve something where he needs you and your skills?

See if you can work one day less per week and spend that day on your hobby, or code something without stress or pressure.

my 2 cents...good luck


Try teaching, in the high school and below level


Doesn’t that take a year or two extra schooling to get into?


If you like coding and tech, just look for a different job, at a smaller company, with less legacy code, less code, less red tape, less middle managers, and overall less bullshit.

Smaller companies are not always golden, and come with their own unique challenges, but large corporations seem to almost guarantee a certain type of soul destroying pain in tech unless you are in a well insulated position, or for some unusual cases like when it's actually just a collection of separate small teams and projects under one umbrella.


Carpentry


Why a lot of software engineers have carpentry as a hobby or pivot to that job?


Ah !

    - working outside
    - wood is a joy to work with: touch feels good, looks good, smells good too
    - you get to build cool things that are actually useful like sheds, car ports, house extensions, bridges, even simple furniture
    - when it's done, it's done
    - it's both intellectual and physical work, it's good for your body and your mind
    - learn new things


I think part of it is that at some point what you’re working on is considered “done”, which is rarely the case with software.


Some similarities; with a small amount of math, planning, and investment in understanding tools, you can quickly achieve things that the non-practitioners think are cool and useful. Plus the tactile experience provides a nice antidote to the endlessly ephemeral working experience of gazing on the computer screen.


If your mental embedding for "carpentry" is very similar to your embedding for "woodworking", this [0] HN post provides many excellent reasons.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31687378


No one is on-call in woodworking.


Making things is fun, usually regardless of the medium


Depends on what they have been doing, maybe they want to build things that are more likely to stand the test of time?


Working with physical materials is a nice change after organizing bits all day.


Saw. Bang, bang. Scraaaape, smooth slivers of wood. Mmm, smell. No think. Quiet. Peace.


Throwing away years of your education (I guess you have some kind of degree) after only 1 year on the first job ... Hmm. Makes one wonder about your maturity and a few other things ...

Don't get me wrong, there there is nothing wrong with walking away from a job or career you hate. But given your obvious lack of experience, I would perhaps suggest a different approach.

You wrote you like tech, I guess you went into software because you like to write code and solve problems. Then the solution is not to dump your career but to find another job that aligns better with your needs.

Just keep in mind that as a junior engineer with no experience (one year really doesn't count as experience yet) you need to keep your expectations realistic and will have to put up with things like asshole/incompetent bosses, unsexy tasks to do, etc. That's the rite of passage at any job/career, you will need to work your way through that. Sadly real life is not what Youtube influencers/millionaires try to make us believe.

For a junior engineer, I would strongly suggest looking for work in an established, mid-sized enterprise. Avoid:

- Startups. You will be doing literally everything at once because the company doesn't have the resources to hire specialists for the various tasks. Yet you don't have the experience or skill to do this yet.

It will be extremely stressful, long hours are the rule plus you have zero job security - you could be unemployed tomorrow because the mistake you (or your boss) made yesterday made the company go bust today. And given the lack of experience the mistakes are inevitable - they are part of the learning process. Don't get lured by a promise of equity - 90% of startups fail and that equity will be worth nothing.

- Large corporations. They pay well, you have a reasonable job security - but you will be spending most of your time dealing with the various corporate BS, sitting in endless meetings and not solving any interesting problems most of the time. And as a junior employee you will be likely the first on the line to be thrown under the bus whenever something goes wrong - or at the inevitable next round of layoffs. You are also unlikely to learn much that could help you to advance your career there.

Go for a middle-sized business (maybe around 100-200 people). That will be established already, so you won't need to worry whether you will get a paycheck this month or not. At the same time there is not as much BS as in the large companies yet. They are likely to be reasonably agile, the development team is not going to be a huge department and most people are likely on a first name basis. You are also less likely to be stuck with a 30 years old rotting codebase and more likely to be working on something that solves problems the customers need today, not giant projects that take two years only to get approved. Try to learn as much as you can from more experienced people there about how the development processes work, how things should be done (and what to avoid), keep your skills sharp.

That is the best way to go about your career in this field, IMO. Certainly not giving up at the literally first obstacle.


Hardware! Learn SystemVerilog and forever be a wizard




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