Quitting programming as a job!

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Original post by animator My question is: Has anyone here quit the IT industry and found that they are happier in another job. If so what was it?

I left it for 6 years and worked in a restaurant with my family. And I was quite happy with it until it ended. Then I came back to the city and started working on IT again and discovered that while office work sucks big time, I'm quite good at what I do...

I believe that's what professional pride is all about, being good at what you do, whatever that is. It makes me happy.

I'm not terrible and not brilliant at programming. But I hate it soooooooooo much. The thought of going back to it. Sitting at a desk for hours on end. I know I would quit within a week. I feel like I'm in a prison doing a punishment!

For some reason I thought I would like it.

All my best friends are programmers and they love it. But I don't understand why they do.

I look at people like fitness instructors and envy their jobs, they look so free.

sounds like you don't want to be a programmer

kudos for realizing it and wanting to change

go find something you love, and do it :)

your programmer friends love their jobs for the same reason fitness instructors love their jobs

Unless you work for yourself, you'll be constrained by other peoples rules and given very little freedom no matter what you do.

I don't like bugs either, I don't like tracking them. I like programming though because I get to create things. When I think about how I like programming, its not because of what I do at work, it's what I do in my spare time. I started my programming career as a hobby and moved it to job only 11 years ago, after about 14 years as a hobby.

At work, I get enough freedom to design the solution to the problem we're trying to solve, so that's the bit I enjoy. I have many other restrictions in my day job which I rebel against by writing games at night, in my own style, my own way, with noone to tell me what to do :)

If you still like/tolerate programming but don't like being a peon, consider working for a small company or going freelance. Freelancing is of course the more difficult route. Working for a smaller company means you get to make more of the decisions. Of course, if you want to make all of the decisions, that's called freelancing! And then you will likely find that you don't want to make all the decisions. Small companies split the difference between making all the decisions and not making any at all.

You should note that, even if you are the only person in the entire "IT department," you will still have to deal with numbers 2, 3, 4, and to some degree 5 and 7 on your list.

Sometimes the only thanks you will get is just knowing that you're awesome.

Of course, if you're not awesome it isn't wrong to change career paths.

Hm, I'm the opposite, it seems. For me, I enjoy fixing bugs. To me, it's like a puzzle "Why isn't this working the way it should?" and I investigate the cause. The end result is similar, I feel momentarily rewarded with a "I'm a genius! I figured out the problem!" feeling as in solving puzzles. I think I actually prefer fixing other people's problems, or optimizing code, than creating something new.

Another thing is that I'm deaf, so having work that don't require much communication is nice for me.

Why do some quantum scientists enjoy their work? The math hurts my brain. Each person have their own preferences of what "work" is like. For me, programming is my perfect work. Sorry, I'm up late, and I may be rambling...

From your list, most points are not exclusive to programming:

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Original post by animator 1) No control over what I make

Where/when *do* you have, except as a self-employed person or as a dropout? And even they must fit to the market or goat situation (if you use goats for food when you are a dropout, I mean).

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2) Finding bugs

Many jobs on the world focus on fixing bugs, e.g. shoemaker or mechanic.

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3) The continual process of trial and error involved in fixing bugs

Sucks to me, too. But many jobs often have this not only in fixing things, but all day.

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4) Trying to work out what someone else's code is supposed to be doing

Same for an electrican.

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5) Making things that are of no interest to me

To me, most jobs (except for forest ranger, maybe) are less interesting than a programming job.

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6) Feeling like a replaceable cog in a machine

Applies to everyone.

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7) Getting no thanks for completing a project. (All the praise goes to the producers and sometimes the artists).

Applies to everyone, even in health and environment. Have you ever thanked the guy that carries away trash from your local park?

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My question is: Has anyone here quit the IT industry and found that they are happier in another job. If so what was it?

Some (me? who knows) consider that every job sucks, and no job at all sucks even more, professional programming is therefore a choice of least evil to them.

Personally, if I ever give up professional programming, I would tend to the outside world, where there are rabbits and squirrels and forests, e.g. ranger would be cool. I think I would not give up home-coding and my pet-projects even then, though. Being inside all day indeed sucks at times. Especially in winter, summer, spring and autumn :D

Tried professional programming. Hated it, and wouldn't do it again unless it was something really special/fun or a niche area.

The politics and culture of professional software development really put me off in particular but the worst part was people sneering at you because you went to university, even though they did too - fair enough university doesn't teach you everything, but it does at least teach you a "correct" and structured way of doing things. If you handed in some professional code for an academic assignment, odds are you'll either fail or get a desperately low mark because it's usually an incomprehensible, tangled kludgy mess - but the bullshit politics precludes you from discussing it with anyone because the original author is obviously and arbitrarily the best.

The big issue is that you're pretty much doomed to a life of programming with a computing related degree, but it's the one area where a degree isn't really necessary :/ It's a funny old world.

Thank you gamedev. Thanks to threads like this many years ago I do not have a programming degree right now; thanks for sharing your missteps with me, because im quite sure I would hate a programming job with a passion as well.

- Work for a company that has a real QA department
- Work on a team that values TDD
- Learn to value TDD yourself (if I still programmed the way I did 20 years ago, I would have lost my mind by now)
- Work on a team that does not use a waterfall/sequential design process
- Enjoy programming for the sake of programming
- You should be replaceable, just as your job should be replaceable. Neither party should be doing the other party a favor.

and as for number 7: You did get paid right?

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Original post by RDragon1 your programmer friends love their jobs for the same reason fitness instructors love their jobs

Gym babes?

Well, Im a 3D designer/animator, but the only reason for that is because its something I understand and know how to do.
To be perfectly honest Id rather be a programmer. The way I see it programmers are the life of any project. Without them you'd have useless content like paintings people dont want to stare at for more than a few seconds.
Problem is I dont have the brain pan to do what a programmer does. I get very easily confused very fast, so much so that my incompetence sometimes gets on peoples nerves. and thats not an exaggeration.
Theres so much involved in comp science that I would never understand. Ive tried relentlessly in the past many times, but no dice.

So Id say you have a gift just like all the members of gamedev. My advice would be to go with your gut. If programming is something you dont want to do anymore find something you like. But bare in mind that your a rare breed and people like me will always look up to you, never down.

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To be perfectly honest Id rather be a programmer. The way I see it programmers are the life of any project.

Hi,

I'm very green and on the other side.

Regards,
Grass

Comments rather than an answer to your specific question.

I've been programming as a full time job for 16 years, and a hobby for 25, I can empathise (also in my mid 30s). Som of this comes about when your hobby is the same as your job, I go through similar down periods. Some of the issues you list are just the realities of the commercial world, if what you made at home had to be commercially successful there would be equally annoying (but maybe different) problems.

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1) No control over what I make

Like the person working in a factory or a bank. Your home programming is more fun, there are no constraints, so is more fulfilling - and that makes what you do at work feel too restrictive.

At work you have to program whatever your immediate boss wants. You get more seniority in the company and you have to program whatever the directors want. You become a director (or more commonly, start your own company) and have to program whatever the customer who's paying the bills wants. More seniority gives you more control over how but not what.

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2) Finding bugs

More preparation == fewer bugs
Testing after every change == bugs much quicker to find
More experience == less pain; it's just another form of problem solving, it can actually be fun!

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3) The continual process of trial and error involved in fixing bugs

There shouldn't be any trial and error TBH! I think this is again an experience thing. Most bugs are easy to find. A small handful of bugs are tricky to find, but experience gives you tools, techniques and intuition to track them down more quickly. Fixing bugs should be easy too, in my experience if a bug is difficult to fix it's usually because of bad design or bad implementation based on an incorrect assumption.

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4) Trying to work out what someone else's code is supposed to be doing

Yep. Been there. If the comments are crap, what's written doesn't conform to any of the coding standards and the person who wrote the code left years ago. Don't try to read the code, just put test functions and breakpoints in and see what comes out the other end in the debugger. NIH Syndrome is a demon in most programmers though, it's difficult to resist at times (sometimes what's there works and is algorithmically correct, just different to the way I'd have done something - in those cases it's better to grin and bear it - maybe adding a few comments to the code to clarify it and keeping a few notes on how it works).

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5) Making things that are of no interest to me

Same as #1 really. Even things that once were interesting lose their interest and fun.

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6) Feeling like a replaceable cog in a machine

True for most jobs where you're not at director level really. I've found less of this feeling at smaller companies (I've worked at 3 and 8 person startups as well as multinationals), but that's replaced with more uncertainty because smaller companies usually have a single big customer/job that's keeping them going.

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7) Getting no thanks for completing a project. (All the praise goes to the producers and sometimes the artists).

Your salary is your thanks. Anything more is a bonus. Just be proud of what you did. Plenty of people don't get credited for hard or even creative work (how many buildings have the names of the builders or even the architects on them?)

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It seems there are two kinds of people. People who work as programmers, the ones who love bugs and the ones who swear at their computers. I have worked in web programming, game programming and flash programming and hated them all!

Yep, does sound like while you can program, it might not be something for you. I've hated some of the corporate and political aspects of most of the programming jobs I've had, but not hated the actual programming itself.

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What I do like is talking to the artists. That's quite fun. I like writing too. And am average at drawing. Now I'm in my 30s and I feel like I don't have any transferable skills to do a different kind of job. Plus I've got loads of gaps in my CV since I keep quitting jobs because they drive me stir-crazy. I think I would like a job organising and helping people in some way. But I don't know what.

Producer? (or similar project management). You could capitalise on your existing experience (maybe there are jobs at your own company - talk to your boss, maybe there's an intermediate role without changing company) and make sideways moves.

Being a producer (or something like a lead programmer) will have more paperwork, more meetings, more politics, etc, but none of the code woes you hate.

Even less creativity, certainly, and still equally stressful, but that's work...

If you can improve the separation between work and home, you can be more creative at home.

Sideways moves are less risky (but ultimately less fulfilling) than radical ones.

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Maybe a conference organiser or something to do with the environment.

Your description might also be a sign of being burnt out and/or depressed. Alternative idea: grin and bear it (the job market is too difficult/competetive to be looking at the moment), save up some money, go travelling in some far flung place and work as a volunteer - come back recharged and with a better idea of what/were you want to be in life.

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My question is: Has anyone here quit the IT industry and found that they are happier in another job. If so what was it?

Not personally (yet? ;)), but a number of friends who have. One qualified as a personal trainer and runs a gym. Another makes giant robotic sculptures and makes money from performance art at festivals and other events. Others got into different fields within IT (i.e. out of making products and into stuff like support and consultancy).

I like my job, in a matter of fact, I like any job that come my way. I'm like that. What I don't like is the environment.

I once read a business book that mentioned this:

"business is easy, people is hard." Which is 100% true.

there was a story but I won't name names. anyway, it goes like this. a person was in a very bad situation. so one day he talk to his boss.

boss "well guess what, life not fair."
him "but you doesn't have to contribute to it."

i know some of you might say that it's not nice to burn bridges (if such reply equals such). but he said, "do you have to be nice to rapist just in case one day your car run out of juice and he might have a jumpstarter?"