this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2025
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I’ve been a software engineer for almost 10 years now and lately, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to doing something else. I went into the field because coding and computing in general are genuine passions of mine but I find it difficult to be the code mill I’m expected to be, especially when getting work done quickly is prioritized over getting it done correctly. I also feel like most of the coworkers I’ve had over the years don’t have any genuine interest or intrinsic motivation, and are just in it because it pays well - which I don’t fault them for, especially in the current economy, but they’re much more likely to put up with being treated like shit.
I just don’t know what else I would do. Teaching high school CS seems fun but I’m pretty sure making that transition would take a couple years, since I gotta get a teaching degree and be a student teacher and all that, and I’m not sure I have the patience for that
You’ve nailed it. 15 years of experience here.
Scrum messed everything up too - lots of less-technical people needed jobs in software and that’s where they tend to slot in.
We would do better to think one level of hierarchy higher than the context we’re in more of the time. Doesn’t seem to be much appreciation for holism and design patterns (your mileage with the latter can vary of course).
Elegance is down and writing your own shitty code instead of using decent opinionated frameworks is up. Because people hate reading code.
If I’m frustrated I write code outside of work.
I tend to look for roles where there is serious, vertically integrated ownership of the code over time.
Spaghetti (or lasagna) is common and I can deal with it, unless the team worships the “clever” maniac who wrote it.
The one specific thing that will cause me to leave is micromanagement.
Thinking about moving closer to bare metal where there is less room for cruft and genuine tradeoffs have to be considered.
Same. Half the time the code base is an indicipherable, spaghetti filled dumpster fire. More often than that, the business plan is either non existent or just plain idiotic. Management can't even answer basic questions like, "who is going to pay for this?" The last three projects I worked on were DOA because there was no clear path to profitability. This was at large, well established corporations.
I'm still trying to figure out how it's possible to graduate with an MBA without understanding the inherent need for revenue to exceed expenses.
Industrial automation is always looking. Don't underestimate the satisfaction of watching your code produce something tangible in front of your eyes.
Just be prepared to integrate with 40 year old equipment and add new features in to a PLC that should have been decommissioned a decade ago and the program is a mangled Frankenstein piece of shit made by 50 different people, many with no real understanding of programming or how to structure things...oh, and various "temporary" hacks upon hacks to keep production running with minimal downtime.
Those things happen, but if they're the norm for you, seek different employment.