So Hacker News, I'm 30. Not super old, but I've got a good decade in the software world under my belt to a large variety of all the garbage there is to see.
My first job was at a medium sized corp, and after about 3 years, I left to escape the typical pain points of corporate life (slow / no projects, lazy / unmotivated coworkers obviously there only for the paycheck, too much red tape and processes, etc., etc., etc....)
I then joined a small company, where we built what in my mind was a next gen e-commerce shop (real time product stock checks, multiple currency support, etc.) only to have the project (a 1.5 year project, mind you) not be payed for and then in the end scraped for a shittier one (MUCH shittier, the site they arrived at looks like 2001, and many features are missing, its amazing you can even get through the checkout process).
After leaving that company, I joined a startup which was initially marketed to me as very fast growing, with a $__M valuation, and well funded. They offered me a 3% stake, which I thought was a lot. I'd also be the full owner of the tech stack here. All factors combined (tech ownership and stake), I took the job. Fast forward another 1.5 years: I built dozens of new features for this app, a payment system (TWICE, because the founders didn't know what the hell they wanted), and much more.
Now today the engineers have to go on "pause" because there is not enough funding and funding opportunities are rapidly drying up. "But don't worry! We can hire you out to some other XYZ company for a few months while we get our act together because we are stupid!" I could hardly contain my rage when I heard this, I didn't sign up for this shit, if I wanted to be a consultant, I would have done it myself.
I'm sick of being lied to and cheated by clowns who have the tiniest sliver of the tech and app building experience (not to mention the wisdom / foresight / knowhow) I have, only to end up back where I started in approximately 2 year cycles. _Every single time_ I have held up on my end, putting in the hours, producing quality, shippable product, only to get a pile of shit in return.
What's the point of giving my good faith and hard work if it has NEVER once been returned to me? I was raised as a respectful and hardworking individual, and went on to university and learned how to be an ethical and responsible engineer, all of which I've taken to heart. But over and over again the world of idiotic, confused, and greedy business clowns beat my spirit down. I've even had notions to leave software entirely and find some other career path.
Indeed, I'll admit, it's partially my fault, I consistently buy into the dreamer mentality before fullying doing my research, but I think that is in a bit of all us hackers, and it's a hard feeling to ignore. (At least for me)
The one shining star for me in all this was a period of 5 months between the e-commerce and startup fiascos where I was working for myself - I created a ~$50-100 MRR SaaS product, published some courses, youtube videos, and blog posts. The problem is I didn't make enough money right away and I had to scramble back to find a job. (Though now the time spent from those short 5 months has led to approximately $400-600 MRR total)
Anyway, I've got half a mind to just go fully indy, I'm just worried I won't make enough money fast enough, and I'll be back where I started, working for some goon company with clueless C-levels and processes fettered with incompetence.
So HN, what do I do here? Is this just the reality of software life? Or am I just facing burnout? Should I expect repeated beat downs and failures like this forever? Really getting sick of the whole thing. I just feel stuck.
The other reality, is the majority of software work doesn't end up mattering in the long run, or even in the short run, and you need to come to terms with the reality that you're exchanging your time for a salary and maybe some equity, but don't get your hopes up, it's just a job like others. Nobody is really changing the world, and it's a lie that we bought 12 years ago when we got into it. You can work on something that improves someone's workflow marginally though, and that can be satisfying. It's way way more satisfying to just get the work done and then have great interactions out in the real world with people you meet. I recently helped a Taiwanese immigrant get their passport, and I started my day by playing an mmo with some friends, now I'm back to coding whatever.
The other other reality, is that a lot of that time even if the product or website or company is worthwhile and sells stuff, it's often not the "features" or the fancy frontend that people care about. That's why Rockauto for example is so awesome, and look where you're posting right now.
It's probably worthwhile to go independent, but the same things apply, except you'd now have a real stake.
That is, most of the avenues that were presented to you to "succeed" in life when you were younger are actually designed to either turn you into a petty tyrant or a willing servant. As with how everyone behaved around the pandemic, we're prone to turning our backs on the astonishing facts of the matter and call it normal, and then call the negative outcomes mysterious and inexplicable. Most of the media we consume is in turn made to support whatever normal needs to be; it's not a conspiracy, it's a symptom of our underlying illness. Actually getting a square deal - and they do happen - is really, really hard when you're faced with gregarious competitiveness at every turn, people who aren't there to solve problems but to treat everyone as an asset, liability or threat, and put their contact list into a spreadsheet to calculate how best to get ahead.
Thus, indifference. Nature is mostly indifferent and can't maintain all the fallacies that we order ourselves through; if things aren't looking good, most creatures just run and hide. Survive until options improve. Every job looks important in the moment, and not so much in the rear view mirror. It's not software alone, it's every sort of business. The good stuff trades not on credit, but on logical coherence, but nobody wants to buy into it until after it's proven itself. They'd rather hear that a so-and-so is involved or a BigCo has already made a deal with them.
These and other thoughts are how I turned into a speculative investor. In this there also an unwellness, but I can face it less frequently, and with more retained optimism in the sense of "they'll all be wrong, probably, but in roughly the right direction".
You don't deserve anything, your talent isn't going to get you anything. Keep trying and you might hit, you might not. Even if you disrupt a major market your return isn't guaranteed to be huge financially. That's about as much logic as I've seen in it over my 30 years experience of it. It's up to you if you want to stay on the ride/purchase the lottery ticket.
You are correct that this is a problem, but there is a different flavor of that scenario that really works: Competent coworkers with solid work ethics who are there only for the paycheck.
Find a group like that and you don't have people trying to make work into a family, nor the startups acting like they'll change your world if not the entire world. You get people who go to work, do it well, then go home. It makes a great team and a great working environment that also lets you live your life. And such teams tend to produce working software in a working market because if either of those were not true, the paychecks would not be stable so the team would leave. So when you find such a team, join it -- you will all get paid reliably with stable work on a stable team.
So go more meta on the process. Ask why you are deciding to choose these companies etc... It is easy to put the blame on others but not always helpful to our own personal growth.
You have to embrace failure (of the product) and move on. Embrace uncertainity. You built some great software and learnt a lot so much so that next time you can build faster.
If you want stability, join a larger company and do your side hustle programming.
That's really all there is.
There's no magic destiny or guarantees. Find joy and life in the work.
"I'm just worried I won't make enough money fast enough, and I'll be back where I started, working for some goon company with clueless C-levels and processes fettered with incompetence"
Define fast enough. If you can create $500 MRR in 5 months, is that not fast enough for you ?
You do need to let go of the bitterness and the fact that you failed to hit big with startups (most startups fail). You will be ok. Figure out your goals and go from there.
Startups are high reward potentially because they're high risk. And a lot of these companies are doomed-to-fail, snake oil-peddlers. Choose carefully if you do carry on down that path.
In your shoes I'd probably design a specification & system to get what you want. Starting with questions like: How would you know you're applying at the type of company you want to work at? How could you find that out before accepting a position? If things don't turn out the way you want, how could you turn your critic-voice into a grounded, solutions-oriented voice as soon as possible, to regain control?
And on the independent side, what's the minimum you need to make to survive?
Additionally, putting those together, what kind of PT or FT employment runway might you need--how long would you need to work & how much would you need to save, as a launch-to-independence stage?
Caveat, you'd probably need to get into the details, which will require a rested, patient mindset.
You are already forecasting in your post, which is generally automatically based on your past experience. But the future will have to be different. This means you'll need a lot of trust in yourself, more than you may have right now, for any kind of progress to feel good.
A lot of little successes are needed from here. And a more objective self-trust system based on new experiences & accomplishments may need to be designed, constructed, experienced going forward.
As a coach myself I'd generally grade your success from here based on how much of this ends up in something like a milestone-focused schedule or spreadsheet that you are actively using, revising, & sharing for accountability on a weekly basis. IOW, subjective mental reflections are not on their own generally reliable for a challenging process like this. Emotions will tend to creep in at the wrong times unless objective measurements are the mainstay.
I would also try other objective-ish methods, e.g. any journaling should be done in the third person before using first person.
BTW It may also be important to build your own system of getting recognition for your contributions, no matter where you're working. This is very much a thing and IIRC some articles along those lines have been posted here. Get what you deserve.
Good luck from here, however this goes for you.
I am at Google and one can generally change team every year, no questions asked, the company is structured around supporting internal mobility and the common tooling makes onboarding relatively easy. Hundreds of internal positions open for all tastes. You can work like a dog or just chill, there’s a team for everything.
Also: you might need rest before you dive in. But try to make it rest plus some tiny empowering step that you have control over. Eg, making the bed, going to the gym, keeping a room tidy, being on time for things
In a sense, it’s a form of exposure therapy, convincing your subconscious that you are fully able to handle things again, one step at a time
Almost everyone you ever meet who seems lazy is just somebody who lost their empowerment and didn’t find it again. Take it easy on those people, they all feel a little powerless and it’s not pleasant. You might be feeling that same thing right now
Then don't work for them. Don't apply to startups building yet another ecommerce site. You can find a job writing code for something that won't evaporate next year, they're out there. You now know what to avoid, avoid it.
That's the reality of the startup world. A lot of it is unethcal bozo who dream of making it big without neccessarily putting in a commensurate amount of effort. They are perfectly willing to ride on the backs of idealistic suckers like you (sorry for calling it like it is). If you want to work with serious people, it's best to do boring jobs at big companies. Startupland requires having your wits about you at all times, lest you'll be taken for a ride again.
You may be “lonely” doing this so make sure you mitigate for that.
Just take responsibility when the customers don’t like or understand your product and improve from there.
It’s humbling for everyone. Really grounds a person to the realities of life.
I stopped reading once that seemed to be the case, because that made it clear this post is ridiculous, tbh
- Helped open one of the original stores in Downtown Disney as inventory manager. Company no longer exists.
- Helped open one of the first Great Indoors, an attempt by Sears to get more serious into furniture and interior decorating. Company no longer exists.
- Director of Development at a youth mentoring nonprofit. The grant that funded my position was canceled after six months and I was gone.
- Performer at Disneyland. By far the most fun I've ever had at a job. I had honest to god groupies who bought annual passes and followed me around and stalked me. But Disney Parks had serious cutbacks after 9/11 and that included me.
- Army officer during Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns. You think it's disappointing to see a product not launch? Try training up a foreign government for 20 years only to see the Taliban sweep in and kill everyone the minute you leave.
- Software responsible for the initial ground processing of all US spy satellite collections. One of the most successful and longest-running programs in the entire government, staffed by passionate domain experts who have often held the same job for decades. I can't really tell you jack shit about it, but I'll say I've seen some stuff not many get to see and I sleep much better at night having been able to get information raw rather than filtered through a scare-mongering public media that largely doesn't know what it's talking about.
I currently still work on military software projects, but at this point strictly unclassified because I like to work from home. Some projects have failed, some have not, some management has been short-sighted shitheads that sabotaged what could have been great, some have been legitimate visionaries that have pushed through real change and innovation that the military and government in general badly needs, pulling Congress behind them kicking and screaming. It's not Facebook pay, but I'm still making six times what I made working in any other industry I've been in. Software is by far the most rewarding thing I've ever done. I haven't ever had to bail a subordinate out of prison at 1 AM on a Sunday morning for hitting his wife. I haven't had to find a room to quarantine someone in for a week while an investigation takes place. I've never had a direct report shoot himself in the face two days before returning from overseas. I've never been forced to fire a woman I knew was innocent, also pregnant, and likely to end up on the street, but the owner didn't care. All things I've had to do in other jobs.
Should you go indy? I can't advise you there. I would never even try, personally. I'm far more risk averse now than when I was younger. I'm sure my dad didn't love waking up at 3 AM to go literally wade through shit as an LA County Parks and Rec plumber for 40 years, but he did it anyway and I had a stable and predictable childhood and grew up secure and safe because he did that. I'll never scoff at building anything at all that sells even a dollar, but just be aware that $600 MRR is about half what I get from VA disability for having ten screws in my spine, and that's tax-exempt. It's not something you can live on.
Assuming the checks never bounced, it seems to me like you ultimately came out ahead from every single one of these jobs. One more day you stayed alive, paid all your bills, and one day closer to retirement. It's a grind, but man, you could have been a slave, you could have been a concentration camp victim, you could have been a coal miner, you could have been a child during a cholera outbreak, you could have been a native when the Spanish first came to the Americas, you could have been any animal other than a human that lives for maybe a few months before getting ripped to shreds by a bigger animal or starving to death. Every single one of us here got one of the greatest deals any sentient creature has ever gotten. We're the lucky ones.
To me, it is like complaining about the volatility of growth stocks. The reward wouldn't be what it is with lower risk and volatility.
The same pattern happens over and over again. I go somewhere, try to do exceptional work, then something changes and I get screwed.
I think you have hit a moment of realization that I hit: “Whenever someone is dangling a carrot in front of you, they are always going to snatch the carrot.”
You have to move past it. The solution is to develop a selfish side. You have to take the mindset that you are going to move onward and upward and that all of these intermediary stages are just temporary.
Don’t believe the stories they are telling you. Everything is actually make believe in business.
It is profoundly unhealthy to become cynical and stop working as hard and stop learning. I view being diligent and reliable and proactive as a form of mental health exercise.
It’s a game just like any other. FAANG is a game, startups are a game. It’s all a game.
And what engineers find out is that the deeper into the game you go, the less writing code matters and the more it’s about understanding the political, business and relationship metagame.
Programmers are just pawns in these systems. They don’t get to decide anything and they aren’t treated like important players. Even though being a developer is touted everywhere, and programming skills are held up with this high regard - it’s actually a lie. Programmers get used up and tossed.
Being useful is important. However, being naive is a big mistake.
I learned not to trust companies ever. To always have my plan B and plan C underway. To not give everything to the company.
Almost all of the tech industry is fake. It is a byproduct of easy money and hype. Some of it more so than others.
I think there is a middle ground between being cynical and being naive. This middle ground is understanding everything is just a game. That playing the game well keeps you healthy and sane (playing it badly will ruin your mental health).
Have one foot in the game and always be looking out for your interests.
With this latest startup. They exploited you. But you should have been exploiting them. Your telling me there was no way for you to use their resources or brand name to advance yourself?
For example, telling the founders you want to develop an AI speciality which you can trade for a higher pay later.
The other problem you have which is the problem I have is I didn’t have an end goal.
Sure you work on startup X. There is a 5% chance that has a big payout. Let’s be honest that is a truly shitty deal.
You need to look at the whole deal. Does it get you a better title, qualitative life improvements such as getting to work from Costa Rica, or maybe you can use it to raise funding for your own startup.
You should have a plan every day of what you plan to do after your current job. And be working on it the entire time.
Never make the mistake of outsourcing your career or life ambition to some idiot founders.
You can exploit them the same way they exploit you. Keep it in the back of your head: Maximize your own interests while playing the game and always have an exit plan or several that lead to a 100% better outcome.