I wonder about what in the software industry causes so many people to have similar "symptoms" from it.
I believe it must be something about dedicating oneself to creating something that "does not exist" in a material sense.
My 'farming' has been woodworking: completing the simplest wooden furniture has given me a satisfaction that I do not remember any app or software product ever getting close to causing, despite the fact that I love the work.
At least for me it was the realization that I didn't really know why I was doing what I was doing.
I wanted to change the world and make it better, and it felt good to pursue a career with a high salary and prestige, but after years of working in software I was not seeing my work actually make the world better. In fact it was making me feel sick, tired, and depressed.
There was a short period of time in the 2000s when it did feel like tech was beginning to transform peoples lives and society for the better, but after the algorithms and rougher edges of our collective human nature took it over, it all seems to have drastically changed course.
What did you do about it? I am asking with sincere interest.
I quit my SWE job more than a year ago and have been trying out a solo/indie thing for a few months. It has been hard, as it really forces me to face how much I really suck at things, but the motivation and the joy of learning are slowly coming back.
I am wondering if indie webdev might become a thing, given how it is going in the game development space, how enshittification is slowly becoming a mainstream term, and how the industry seem to lean right now in terms of jobs.
After leaving my job at a FAANG, I did consulting for a large company for the first two years, working for 20 hours a week. I focused on my mental health which I'd self-neglected for years, by seeking therapy. I also went along the same route as the author, reconnecting spiritually and improving my diet by teaching myself how to cook. I was pretty much eating out every day before this.
At the same time, I began reducing my living costs. I sold my townhome and rented a room in a siblings house. I was able to bring my total core expenses down to around $25k-$30k/year.
Last year I started a nonprofit related to art (fieldsofcolor.org). I found a lot of joy and meaning in this endeavor. We recently received 501(c)(3) exemption, and I am planning to begin fundraising soon. I hope to someday make my living doing this. If not, my lifestyle is frugal enough I can manage via small consulting gigs here and there, or through a side job.
> I wonder about what in the software industry causes so many people to have similar "symptoms" from it.
By and large those who end up in the software industry are engineers at heart, and therefore want to be engineers, not just software developers.
That's why farming is the oft dreamed of escape. In farming you get to be (and have to be, if you want to remain competitive) a software engineer, mechanical engineer, electrical engineer, structural engineer... and on and on. You get to actually solve problems for what they are instead of trying to force arbitrarily selected tools into searching for a problem.
I live on a small dairy farm. We milk the cows, make cheese, raise most of the forage for the cows, do our own plumbing, electrical, and the majority of the mechanical repairs. We do most of the repairs ourselves on our milking robot.
Sometimes it's hard to remember I have such an amazing opportunity to do a little bit of everything.
- You now likely have the money/time to pursue passions you didn't know you have, or would have developed if you didn't pursue software development as intensely.
- Even if you had/have passion for computers, being paid to do something you wouldn't do otherwise can quickly drain that passion.
- We're built for sunlight and exercise, not LED light and sitting, so you may have felt increasing physical discomfort that only the former can alleviate.
- Woodworking and farming were never lucrative enough (or as lucrative as computer work) to convince you to make the switch for money.
Depends if you find that fun enough to counterweigh the bad sides of work.
There's a common trope that monetizing your hobby is a good way to start hating that hobby. But it doesn't have to be that way; a lot of people love what they do.
It's that we make enough money to not be trapped in it for life.
Jobs are, by definition, things you get paid to do, because you wouldn't do them for free. Therefore, by definition, everyone hates their job to some degree. We just have the luxury of leaving.
I'm a software engineer who does woodworking in my spare time. But I've never experienced that satisfaction. I've never made something that is perfect. Every time I look at something I've made all I can see are the flaws. Most of my things are smaller, but I can look at a project I completed 4 years ago and know exactly where the tear-out is that I had to hide, or the errant marking knife line that I tried to sand away, or the snipe from the planer that I didn't have enough spare material to be able to cut off, or the piece of wood that is perfectly shaped but there's a knot that just doesn't look quite right there.
At least with software I can go back and edit my past transgressions.
That's why I realised that I really enjoy embedded systems, as they often include a good level of physical world in their architecture. Using ES in a farming setting is even more satisfying because the code could be extremely simple but still make a huge real impact to people. Love that!
- Our work feels very abstract and removed from real people in the real world. Sometimes I did not even understand what our product did, or it got axed after a year. Marx's theory of alienation felt very real.
- We can afford to consider other options. It actually feels achievable. Few people have that luxury.
- Many of us had a relatively easy career start, and underestimate how hard other fields are to get into.
- The material world just feels better. Making digital art does not feel as good as watercolours. Carving wood is a much more complex sensation than drawing in autocad. Even paper books feel better. I can't explain why, it's just how it is.
I thought about this a lot, which is why I greatly value doing the occasional electronics project, home renovation or even cooking. There is just something about working with something I can touch.
I believe it must be something about dedicating oneself to creating something that "does not exist" in a material sense.
My 'farming' has been woodworking: completing the simplest wooden furniture has given me a satisfaction that I do not remember any app or software product ever getting close to causing, despite the fact that I love the work.