Ask HN: Wanting to grow – what questions should you ask yourself?
by maligree on Hacker News.
If this ends up dead and nothing more than a semi-introspective rant, so be it, served its purpose. I started programming when I was 16. I am now over twice that and still programming. I don’t like the realities of day-to-day software engineering. I cannot shake the feeling that I’ve spent the last 16 years doing it just because of… inertia. The 16-year old me just liked to hack around, learn fast, write shoddy scripts that pushed the limits of what I knew. So I know nothing about windows internals but I’d like to write some cheats for a game I’m playing? Let’s dive in. And I loved it. But I never had any love for the “art” of programming. I can, however, say with some confidence that I have a good sense of what makes a good, clean, sustainable solution – but the answer to that question isn’t even a matter of programming, but of humans and how we work, and how we use our brains. You know, it’s the old “you’re too dumb to debug smart code in an emergency at 2AM”. This can be extended to 95% of problems in my eyes. We need to be nice to other human beings working with us – that may be other people, or even may be me, but 3 months from now, tired, trying to hit a deadline or find a bug. I digress, but I think I’m trying to convey the point that… I never really felt at home in my job. It all seemed off. And I have trouble figuring out where the problem lies. Have you had moments where you did a sober double take and decided to alter your course or commit to it and stay on it? Heck, maybe close the laptop altogether. I know this topic comes up every once in a while, and the usual answer seems to be burn out, but hopefully I can put a spin on it by focusing on what questions a person can ask themselves to better figure out what they want out of their job in the short, medium and long term. What questions would you say one can ask themselves to really get to the bottom of it?