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Ask HN: Career trajectory? I'm terrible

30 pointsby hoboonalmost 10 years ago
hi, hn.<p>I know I posted before...but I feel like my situation is the same or worse. I&#x27;m trying, I really am.<p>I keep trying and failing. I am sincerely worried that my career as a software engineer is over, if it even began. This is the end. All I wanted to do is get really good at this and build things but no one wants to hire me. I try to get good on my own but I know that I don&#x27;t know what I don&#x27;t know. I keep trying to do stuff on my own but all I do is fail. If I never quit and never win, what do I do?<p>I don&#x27;t know what I&#x27;m doing wrong. How do &#x27;normal&#x27; people do this? They graduate school, get a job doing this, and then get better after years of practice? Did I take the wrong jobs? What did I do to so colossally fuck things up so no one wants me?<p>I&#x27;m terrible. I&#x27;m shit. I&#x27;m in the wrong field. I feel like eating a bullet would make the world a better place. I&#x27;ll never understand. I give up.

16 comments

DanBCalmost 10 years ago
&gt; I feel like eating a bullet would make the world a better place.<p>Thoughts like this are always a significant cause for concern. If you found a mole that was raised and had changed shape you would see a doctor. If you found a lump on a testicle you would see a doctor. This is similar.<p>Your treatment options should be a broad package:<p>1) change the situation<p>2) give you the tools and skills needed to change the situation<p>3) support you while you&#x27;re getting those skils and making those changes<p>(2) here is not just about your software skills, or your interview skills. It should include some stuff about how to recieve criticism (take what&#x27;s useful; ignore the rest).<p>I often push Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. That might be a good idea, but you have some complex interdependant stuff going on and CBT is more effective if you just concentrate on one thing.<p>There are other therapies that may help, but they&#x27;re harder to find. DBT is well known and might be useful.<p>You make several reference to your perception of your programming skill. You describe bug hunting as low skill. Try to frame that as specialist skill, that helps you avoid mistakes in your own code. Do you program in your own time?
azdlealmost 10 years ago
First, please go see a doctor. You know how shitty you feel right now? That isn&#x27;t a normal state of being.<p>I&#x27;ve been there, I really have, I know it feels hopeless right now, but I promise it&#x27;s not. If you&#x27;re anything like me you might feel that getting anti-depressants is somehow wrong or cheating, or that you&#x27;re admitting defeat , but you know what? They are just another tool that you can use to improve your life. Think if it like toilet paper, sure people lived for years without it, but we live in a modern world why not use the modern conveniences?<p>&gt; all I do is fail.<p>That is called learning. Maybe you are trying to take on too big of a project or maybe you&#x27;re just not giving yourself enough credit for what you are able to accomplish, it&#x27;s hard to say without knowing you. Just don&#x27;t compare your self to what you see on the internet. I know this is kind of a cliché at this point, but when you do that you&#x27;re comparing someone else&#x27;s highlight reel to your everyday, and it&#x27;s just never going to compare.
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istvan__almost 10 years ago
I am pretty sure there is something you like to do. Get good at a tiny small particular thing first before you extend your interest to other things. If it helps, I used to be a test engineer who was tasked to run test cases manually. You know what I did? In me spare time I wrote an extremely dumb and simple executor that did my job. Management realized the potential, they let me write a better tool now with their approval. This was 10 years ago. Today I still struggle with Java and sometimes with Python but I found a handful of languages that I really like and I am focusing on getting better with those, kind of ignoring what is mainstream. I regularly fail job interviews (the last one few days ago, using codility) but I keep interviewing so I can do those better over time as well. I do one interview per week as a minimum. I try to contribute things to open source projects. Even stupid simple things like this (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;cloudera&#x2F;hue&#x2F;pull&#x2F;68" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;cloudera&#x2F;hue&#x2F;pull&#x2F;68</a>) it is not even code, it is configuration, but we needed that few jobs back.<p>I don&#x27;t think I am particularly talented, but I spent so much effort on this (learning how to write software) that I can say today that I am a mediocre software engineer. Again, just think about it. I spent 10 years on this. In the meantime I did everything that I could, being Linux admin, systems engineer, data engineer, just to keep myself running. Almost forgot, I never received any formal education in computer science.<p>My co-workers run circles around me when it comes to programming, yet my persistence helps me to outperform them.<p>I guess what I am trying to say is: - don&#x27;t give up - expect success over time (1-2 years as a bare minimum) - try to start with a simple thing, as simple as it gets (QA, DevOps, anything where you don&#x27;t need to flip binary trees on a whiteboard :) )<p>This was my story, I hope it helps.
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czbondalmost 10 years ago
Dude - we understand. We&#x27;ve been there, just maybe for other reasons. Are you applying for things too far above your pay grade, or too far below? Are you applying using technologies or a background that the companies you apply to aren&#x27;t interested in? Or are you always making it to an interview and flubbing there? Can you see a pattern? Look for the stopping point - and optimize by focusing only on fixing that one point - forgetting everything else for now. Make it a game - make spreadsheets and test (as an engineer would).
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shepikalmost 10 years ago
This sounds like a depression. Not as a &quot;I&#x27;m in a bad mood&quot; depression but as a medically diagnosed illness which has to be treated properly. So please, go visit a doctor.
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jtfairbankalmost 10 years ago
Email me (email in profile). I&#x27;ve coped with depression before, can relate to how you are feeling and perhaps give you interview tips &#x2F; a resume review.<p>Seconded about seeing a doctor- seeing a therapist as needed is one of the best things I&#x27;ve done.
LarryMade2almost 10 years ago
a) Share with us example(s) of stuff you&#x27;ve done. so far you have hidden behind doubt, can&#x27;t give you pity till I see something pitiful. :-) (if you are nervous, preface it with, &quot;please, be gentle&quot;)<p>b) Maybe the platforms&#x2F;technology&#x2F;projects you&#x27;ve chosen aren&#x27;t clicking with what you want really to do, just because its popular doesn’t mean it works for everyone.<p>c) Sounds like you might trying too hard, relax your self standards a little and concentrate of getting something running to your satisfaction, don’t worry about tight&#x2F;pretty code. Once you like how it works, go back and re-factor if you feel the need.<p>c-2)Take one of your earlier projects and revisit them, might have some new insights on how to prop up some earlier work. Sometimes looking over my old code is a mixture, of &quot;I can do that so much better now&quot; and &quot;wow, I wrote that?!&quot;<p>d) you might be REALLY good at debugging from what you say.<p>e) you know, you can build stuff on your own. Reinventing the wheel is also something to do, maybe you can make a spiffier one.<p>f) maybe the jobs you are applying for are too high for starting out. Or maybe you should take a non-developer position and work your way up through the company (this is how a lot of folk do it, including me).<p>g) network, it&#x27;s not always what you do but also who you know, even in non-teach, someone might know somebody...
Nzenalmost 10 years ago
When I feel down, I like to read [Winston Rowntree&#x27;s autobio](<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.viruscomix.com&#x2F;makingofpartseven.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.viruscomix.com&#x2F;makingofpartseven.html</a>). He makes the subnormality webcomic. His story is the same as others have said, &#x27;it gets better&#x27;, but shows that it was crushing on _every_ _step_ and only his insane persistence got him to the success ten years in the making.
bgilroy26almost 10 years ago
I def echo the CBT and mindfulness exercises everybody is taking about in thread. I struggle with anxiety and depression and they are difficult challenges.<p>Did you see these suggested learning projects on Hacker News?<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;projectsthehardway.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;projectsthehardway.com</a>
ice303almost 10 years ago
I can relate to what you are feeling. You have to take a couple steps behind, take a deep breath, and start to see things how they really are. There&#x27;s no evil that will last. You will get over this, I can assure you. make a list of your strengths, of what you are passionate about. Maybe change job, work on something else that might make you happy. Maybe relocate and start over. A good friend of mine, sysadmin for a couple of decades, burn out one day. Left everything and bought a small house on the country and he&#x27;s producing wine. He&#x27;s never been happier he said to me. Do some sports, go out, be with friends, talk about what you are feeling. It helps. Take care mate.
Bahamutalmost 10 years ago
This sounds like you are depressed - please see a counselor, for your own good.<p>The road to being a successful software engineer is paved with failure. I failed to get accepted to an Ivy League (or equivalent) for undergrad. I had a failed relationship affect my graduate studies and partly ended up dropping out of a prestigious PhD program in math as a result. It took me 2.5 years to find a first full time job afterwards. And yet, I became a senior frontend engineer in under 2 years despite my failures - the important part is that I maximized the lessons learned from all of my failures.<p>Failure is natural - what you do when faced with failure is what defines us.
PhilWrightalmost 10 years ago
It would be helpful to get more detailed information in order to provide more targeted suggestions. What is your educational background? What is your work experience? What languages&#x2F;domains have you worked in?
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bbcbasicalmost 10 years ago
&gt; no one wants to hire me<p>Are you getting feedback from the job interviews that you can share here, so we can give more targeted advice?<p>&gt; I&#x27;m in the wrong field<p>Are you sure yet? Do you enjoy programming and tinkering with computers in general? If so it probably is not completely the wrong field. Although the roles you are applying for may be wrong for you.
gargarplexalmost 10 years ago
Join a developer bootcamp with a guaranteed junior-developer placement program
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M8almost 10 years ago
Do you honestly enjoy programming though? Or is it just a job?
fhoxhalmost 10 years ago
Hoboon,<p>I invite you to step out of yourself for just a moment. Position your perspective within someone else of your choosing; a co-worker, a manager, an interviewer. Read both the post from today and the one from several months back. Ignore the particular details of the narrative itself. Instead, see what you can pick up on, sense, about the _author_ of the narrative. Then, observe how, what you sensed about the author, makes you, the observer, feel.<p>Go ahead. I&#x27;ll wait.<p>As the observer, did you pick up on desperation, despair, defeatism, confusion, and anguish?<p>How well do you think you&#x27;d be able to hide those mental states in person or even just on the phone?<p>I think we already know the answer to that question.<p>Being around a person that&#x27;s experiencing acute non-positive states induces acute non-positive states in others. Considering that most people spend the vast majority of their time preoccupied with both moving towards feeling good and moving away from feeling bad, they would do everything in their power to avoid being around such a person.<p>It&#x27;s not even about the words that would be coming out of your mouth. It&#x27;s easily detectable before so much as a single word is uttered. Your posture, facial expressions, respiratory rate, inflection, intonation, etc., will tell anyone, everything, in an instant.<p>This is why the places that you have interviewed with have not hired you. It has nothing at all to do with your technical competencies, because your technical competencies were not, in fact, evaluated. They shut down, disqualified you virtually immediately based solely on &quot;lack of cultural fit&quot;, went through the motions, and then fed you a generic line.<p>When people spoke about the &quot;experience they want,&quot; I don&#x27;t think you quite understood the subtlety. They were not referring to your technical background. They were speaking to what they wanted in terms of the experience of having a new hire at the office: a positive, uplifting, energizing experience.<p>As an aside:<p>* Trying and failing is good, not bad. Why? Because you&#x27;re learning. Not trying at all is bad.<p>* No-one wanting to hire you doesn&#x27;t mean what you think it means. No-one wanted to hire Steve Jobs.<p>* Similarly, just because the few companies that you&#x27;ve interviewed with didn&#x27;t extend an after does not mean that you colossally effed anything up.<p>* You can&#x27;t say that &quot;no-one&quot; wants to hire you. You&#x27;ve interviewed at only a tiniest fraction of potential employers.<p>You may or may not feel better knowing that the roadblock is your disposition, as opposed to your technical competencies, but at least you now know the truth.<p>The question is _why_ is this your disposition? The answer is quite obvious.<p>In your short post from today alone, I have counted a staggering thirty two occurrences of first-person pronouns. Here&#x27;s what your post looks like with all of the other words removed:<p>I...I...I...my...I&#x27;m...I...<p>I...I...my...I...me...I...<p>my...I...I...I...I...my...<p>I...I...I...I...I&#x27;m...I...<p>I...me...I&#x27;m...I&#x27;m...I&#x27;m...<p>I...I&#x27;ll...I.<p>It&#x27;s no wonder at all that you are the way you currently are; you are stuck -- trapped -- instead your own head. Replaying and re-analyzing the past, over and over, worrying about and agonizing over the future, over and over. When other people are speaking to you, you&#x27;re not really listening -- they don&#x27;t have your full undivided attention -- you&#x27;re off in your head doing something else. When you&#x27;re eating, you&#x27;re not tasting your food, you&#x27;re too distracted talking to yourself. You are perpetually lost in thought. This is why you&#x27;re struggling with trying to get good on your own and struggling with trying to do stuff on your own.<p>Your self-identity is far too strongly, unnaturally, and unhealthily, intertwined with things that it should not at all be intertwined with. You are not your career; You are not your skill at programming. Your value as a person is not measured by your career progression; your value as a person is not measured by your programming skill.<p>This is the point where you have a decision to make.<p>You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and the bullet that you spoke of may very well, at some point, find you. Considering that you&#x27;ve already made suicidal statements, it may be sooner than later. Let&#x27;s hope that you don&#x27;t take the blue pill.<p>You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and you show yourself just how deep the rabbit hole goes. You enroll in an MBSR course in your area, or find a Mindfulness retreat, or listen to headspace.com, or find a good Mindfuless book. Mindfuless will allow you to dissolve those negative emotions, gain insight, not be stuck in your own head all of the time, attain full control of your internal state, and so much more.<p>Only then; and not before; will you have transformed your disposition such that you&#x27;ll easily find a job that will progress your career, have successes doing your own stuff, and be able to do the best work of your life. None of these things will ever be possible if you&#x27;re constantly experiencing negative emotions which are inducing pain, and distracted by negative thoughts that are constantly stealing your attention, as this will only serve to cause others to feel uncomfortable, unsafe, and&#x2F;or ill at ease around you.
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