[flambojones]

I’ve completely been there. I burnt out hard, not from overwork, but from this type of stuff. I started to think maybe I enjoyed software engineering but not the business of software engineering.

I took a break and did a lot of reflecting. I bought a workbook in career changes and started working through it. After a bit I started getting the itch to code again, so I did a Udemy course in a programming area I had done previously and really enjoyed but had gotten away from.

After a while I realized I was ready to go back to work. Before I did, I tried to figure out what made me so miserable previously. In my case it was the poor decision-making processes with unclear ownership that made me feel like I was always seeking permission to get things done. I also decided I didn’t want to work on large projects with untyped Python. When I started interviewing, I decided not to be picky or make too many assumptions in the early stages of the process. Once I started interviewing, I really honed in on these things and asked a lot of questions about it. I ended up at a small startup that’s doing reasonably well with really high velocity. I feel like I have a conversation about some design thing in the morning and I’m well on my way to implementing it in the afternoon.