Comment by yowlingcat
5 years ago
You are not a shitty software engineer who's been "coddled." What you likely are is dissatisfied with where your career is going (and who amongst us is not in some way) and nervous about not having a name brand pedigree so you are turning it inward and trying to understand it in ways that imply the cause and effect are localized to yourself. That's understandable but I wonder if it will get you anywhere. Stop beating yourself up and start exploring what you really want.
Do you want a brand name? Go work at a FAANG. Trust me, they're hiring. You'll get there and like me you'll realize they too have their problems and maybe the "over-paid Rails shit solutions" you "know will eventually leak" maybe weren't so bad after all.
Do you want to level up as an engineer? Go work at a hyper-growth startup (probably series B) that is falling over from its scale problems. You will probably end up solving some oddly challenging and novel engineering problem along the way.
Do you actually not mind this stuff but hate feeling like you have to always keep up with the Jones and it gives you anxiety? Go find a therapist that you have good chemistry with and see if you can't work out why you feel this way and how to fix it. To be honest, the corporate rat race thrives at making people who are otherwise doing quite well with their career progression feel like they're not because that makes them easier to exploit. Life is not an exam to be min-maxed. You don't take that fancy career or lifetime earnings with you when you die, so unless you're doing it for the intrinsic joy of doing it, there's an argument to be made that becoming better at engineering has no guarantee of making your life better.
See this blog post for just what it is -- a breathless discovery of a hammer and an author who now wants to use it for everything but may not be at the point where they realize it might not be a great tool for everything. You the person are probably a lot more competent and capable than you're letting on here. And if that's the case and you're unhappy for reasons in your control, hone in on why that is and see if you can't make life moves to change it. There's never been a better time to make a career move.
Good luck. I believe in you.
This. Especially that last line. I feel most of the time I'm just wanting to get more and more, both financially and challenges wise. But to what end? Your words here really calmed me down. I got me thinking. I felt like a dog running after a car.
You and me both, my friend. Perhaps now more than ever before, we are not so much dissatisfied with our careers (with a dissatisfaction that has always been present), but more able to think deeply about why that is the case. In my opinion, the answer isn't pleasant and yet, it's strangely comforting (even freeing) in a sense.
Now that I have accepted that my lasting happiness will not be found in a prestigious job or fame as an engineer, where shall I find it? Perhaps the same place other humans have for the last ten thousand years. In the center of a quiet meadow in the woods. Next to an animal that considers me a friend. In the arms of someone I love. Plucking strings on an instrument, singing my stories.
Is this response a coping mechanism, or an acting choice to minimally engage with the parts of human existence which entail naked power brokering and empire building? Maybe it's a little of both. May we both find our own peace somehow, friend.