Strongly considering a career change..but to what?

Howardy

Hi,

I have been working 25 years in the IT industry now (software development). Over the past 5 years, I have started to hate my job. I have always been pretty successful and competent in my work but lately, my confidence is low and I'm doubting myself. The industry has also moved on (quite common in IT I know) but I hate the direction it has taken. I feel under constant pressure to keep up with an every-growing tech stack. Don't get me wrong, I love learning new things but the rate of pace today means I am never on one particular task or project long enough to fully learn and master the topic.

I recently moved companies in an attempt to refresh things and thought perhaps a new start would help me rediscover my mojo but to be honest, things have grown worse. I sometimes wonder whether burnout the cause, who knows? But given where I am now in my life I don't want to spend the next 20 years in a career I am not enjoying. While I really enjoy software development, I just hate the way it has gone in the industry and for that, I think I have to accept it's time to leave it.

But here lies the problem, what else can I do? I am highly qualified and my skillset is very up-to-date in the IT sector. I like technology and sometimes I wonder (hope) perhaps there's a different role out there where I can leverage my skills while enjoying the buzz of something different.

Has anyone else been in such a position? I was thinking of talking to a good career coach, but I am acutely aware of many spoofers out there (I've been to one in the past!).

If anyone can point me in the direction of a good career coach or just offer some advice I'd appreciate it.

Diceicle

Just follow your passion....

No, but seriously - have you considered non-tech IT roles - I'm thinking more in terms of the governance and risk elements of the business. Moving more towards the strategy end of the business?

Howardy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119579005#Comment_119579005

I laughed at your 'passion' comment, reminds me of a self-help book a career coach sent me before. Real American cheesy stuff to be honest.

What sort of roles are you referring to? Things like digital marketing etc? I'd would definitely consider such non-tech IT roles if only I knew of them. I think that's half my problem, I'm not aware of other roles available to me in the IT sphere.

caviardreams

Digital policy, security policy, digital transformation/strategy - lots of firms looking to switch their business to a more digital first approach after covid - could do consulting to advise on strategic approaches to integrating technology in business processes and workflows etc.

https://www.ibec.ie/influencing-for-business/enterprise-and-innovation/digital-policy

purpleshoe

Is a possible way forward is to try a different role within IT?

As an example, a project manager, a product manager or a technical writer. These roles can be taken into other industries too.

I bet with your experience you would work well in those positions.

Howardy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119581305#Comment_119581305

yes, I have often thought about project management and product management roles (or Product Owner in Scrum terms). The problem is I have no experience in those roles. I presume places hiring are looking for experienced people.

Howardy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119581263#Comment_119581263

excellent material, thanks for posting this.

SuperBowserWorld

In similar boat to you.

It is probably burnout. Give yourself a break. Take some time off if you can. Try and relax and maybe examine your position with a clear head and away from home and office and family.

I was burned out and in my previous position too long. Instead of taking sick leave I resigned to force a change in my life. I had a rotten 2 months of interviewing with no job to back me up, and feeling **** about myself. It could have been a disaster. Luckily the job market didn't decline in this time. But I don't recommend this. Employers who are your friend when you have a job and great experience, really don't want to know you when you are unemployed. Also, the recruitment process has become really anal and convoluted. So, it's much easier to get a new job and change career direction while you have a job...

Now, the job I switched to was a lot more interesting and less stressful than my previous job. So, that was good. But I hear you 100% about the way the industry is. Agile software development, poor communication, hype, ignorance, cutting corners, support issues, constant interruptions being the norm, people working in different time zones ... So, you've got to learn how to deal with this and set aside time to do real quality work. Hard, but you've got to push back. I'm trying to do the same.

I've also started to look for another job. I know I'm not a great manager or people person, and that's really hard in the environment I outlined above. I know I do like programming so I'm sticking to that while I can and also expand management/leadership skills, so that I have other options open to me. One good thing about actively looking for another job is that you soon realise what you do and don't like about your career and where you want to go and where the opportunities are. In fact I wish I kept actively interviewing regularly during my career for this reason. But there are other ways to find out where you might want to go and what opportunities are available.

Also, maybe your current employer has sideways opportunities ... I know in my current place, people do switch from developer to people and product management. Just give it a go and see what happens. I did some people management in my current place for a time, during covid. I learned a lot to be honest and it'll stand to me. But it was tedious work.

Now, at this stage of my career I wish I had an exit plan. But I don't right now. And I've unforeseen problems and expenses to deal with. So, my plan now is to slow down and stay employable until I'm 65 and hopefully retire earlier and in good health if I can.

purpleshoe

Is taking on a post grad in project management possible for you? It would be 1 academic year part time. So approximately Sept/Oct to May.

Potentially, you could then take on PM duties in your current workplace, which would then give you the experience.

run_Forrest_run

some very interesting points here, I'd imagine it's very common in IT.

Howardy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119582646#Comment_119582646

you see I am still relatively new in this company and I'm up the walls with high-priority work so I doubt they would allow me to take on PM work because it would put the current workload in jeopardy and then the overall team and timeline would suffer. But I think looking ahead a few months/year I think there could be opportunities to side move. The question is, am I willing to stay put until then?

Flinty997

I would always suggest leveraging your previous experience in a new roles as it jumps you up the ladder and your not starting from scratch.

But once you are older you will find it difficult to get new rules due to ageism. Also the usually don't want to train people in, and expect them to come with specific qualifications and experience. Which makes it hard to transfer to other roles. So rather than moving existing staff to new roles. They'll direct hire new people into new roles.

But you won't know till you try. Get involved in other projects, committees and such.

Howardy

@SuperBowserWorld wow, I could have written most of that myself! yes, I feel the so-called Agile approach can be somewhat attributed to a lot of this unease and general discontent, and lack of job satisfaction.

Flinty997

I've realized I'm shallow enough that I like acknowledgement, rewards and a start and end to projects.

Being a cubical drone on a never ending project is soulless. ( tedious and uninspiring).

I moved to smaller projects and was much happier.

SuperBowserWorld

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119585193#Comment_119585193

Funny you mention that but I notice that there are NO celebrations to mark major releases in my company and stuff just bleeds from one time period into the next.

I used to think covid was an excuse ...

I also noticed same in previous company ... Agile came in and humanity went out. 🤣

Flinty997

We are probably not helping the OP. Sorry. 🙃

Howardy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119585368#Comment_119585368

😅 actually it's sort of therapeutic to read stories of misery from others, clearly I'm not alone!

There's nothing more soul-destroying than being in the middle of a hectic sprint and having to sit in an hour-long (or two) grooming meeting discussing more work you'll be diving straight into once you rush the current sprint's workload into the 'done' column.

dazberry

OP, I'm in a similar scenario, it feels like I've been grinding metal for the last 10 years.

Due to a family bereavement earlier this year I had to step away from work and it's unlikely I'll get back until next year when things are finally sorted. I could go back to my old job, but that was a complete grind, so I'll look for something new when the time is right. But the flip side is that I've had time to think about things.

-- software development is less about writing code

I'd say if we discussed this openly, the thing that most of us like about writing software is the coding part. There are bits that aren't so much fun, they're generally the stressors, the coding but is the reliever in a sense. The problem is that the stressors are now out-weighing the relievers. Not to say that writing code isn't stressful, especially under a deadline, of course if we did scrum properly there would be no deadlines because expectations would be managed on our estimated velocities - oh well.

But it sort of comes down to cortisol and dopamine. The former is the stressor and the latter is the reward:

dumped with some monolith - stress

Pick an item from the board - feeling progressive - reward

Unclear story - trying to get product owner in different timezone - stress

Get ambiguous answer from product owner - decide to wing it - stress

figuring out what I need to do in this mess - somewhat rewarding

needing to interact with other teams to confirm but are difficult to reach and always feel obliged - stress

understand what I need to do - reward

write about 10 lines of the code - about 10 times as I'm second guessing myself - but enjoy the process - reward

create the PR- trepidation = stress

CI pipeline: integration test fails absolutely nothing to do with your code - stress

trying to figure out why - stress

rerun pipeline - takes 30 minutes and still fails - stress

trying to figure out why (part 2) while waiting for remote team to come online - stress

remote team says test was always ropey, disable for the time being - frustrating

pipeline completes - PR is being reviewed - stress

dealing with PR comments - stress

• a couple are helpful and appreciated
• some are just sticking cocktail sticks under your toenails
• some ppl are arguing about the name of one of your tests - no one can agree, you don't see a problem with the original name but decide it's not worth the stress
• a flamewar starts on the use of automapper. PR follows existing automapper conventions (monkey see monkey do) but that doesn't matter

All comments are resolved, hit merge - trepidation = stress

Get a merge conflict because it's all taken so long - stress

Rebase branch against develop

Rebased changed causes new integration test to fail - stress

trying to figure out why - stress

rerun pipeline - takes 30 minutes and still fails - stress

trying to figure out why (part 2) while waiting for remote team to come online - stress

remote team says test was always ropey, disable for the time being - frustrating

Commit change - couldn't give a fcuk at this stage

Commit is merged - reward (sort of)

... time passes

Asked to join deployment meeting because you have a merged change request - stress

Can't remember what the PR was because it was last week and have moved on - stress

Changed gets merged to master/main - meh

Production issue nothing to do with your change - but you need to join the call because you were part of the release - stress

Issue resolved - off the hook - relief

Take next item off board - feeling productive - reward

New item completely changes the last bit of work - want to stick pins in my eyes

Yeah software development is a great job 🤯

Flinty997

I think you need a finger painting holiday.

irishgeo

Have you considered a change of roles from a commercial environment to the public sector. The HSE and other public sector areas are always on the lookout for programmers. They don't tend to jump around too much on the different stacks.

WFH possible.

Just a thought.

Flinty997

In the public sector the larger projects in departments are often contacted out and have those massive never ending projects.

Smaller agencies will have smaller projects and a less formal development process.

SuperBowserWorld

QA might be good. Just test ****. No need to worry about stuff in production.

Howardy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119590750#Comment_119590750

you still often need to test stuff in production or even more worrying, releasing a bug into production...but test has its unnecessary stresses too because of scrum.

Howardy

@dazberry what a brilliant post! Nailed it.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119592458#Comment_119592458

Testing is ok when you're part of the process. That your feedback is valued and is built back into the product. That your contribution is valued.

Too often though it's a tick box exercise.

Flinty997

I think if you are tired of massive endless projects. Move to smaller projects, and closer to those that need it.

alias no.9

Not in IT but in a technical role and was close to burnout earlier this year.

The last few years have been manic, working from home is not all that different from sleeping at work at times. Natural peaks and troughs during projects and between projects where you recharge a little and dare I say find your creativity seemed to have disappeared, just peak to peak to peak. I went to the point of job offer and handed in my notice.

The new place were pushing me to start sooner despite me having been very clear in the interview about notice periods and two weeks downtime I wanted to take between jobs which they clearly saw as negotiable despite what I explicitly said.

When I handed in my notice and explained my reasons, my managers immediate response was take some time off, when you come back, step back a little and find your way back into some projects that suit you.

What I'm trying to get to is that in a burnout situation, your existing employer will probably offer more support than a new one who will be most likely recruiting to support an immediate objective, they're looking for someone to hit the ground running.

Talk to your manager, you might be surprised at how supportive they may be.

If this doesn't work out, look back to early career and see if you have any specialist knowledge of legacy systems that is important but almost forgotten, maybe there's a niche you can carve out for yourself that the young tyros will never be able to fill.

y0ssar1an22

become an accountant. it pays well, you can work from home for the most part if you want.

prob 5k investment and 2 years:

https://www.charteredaccountants.ie/Prospective-Students/Entry-Routes/Working