15 YoE, have founder and faang experience. At a faang+ company now. Extremely well payed, however not learning anything. In a “systems engineering” role which is essentially vendor management for bare metal storage solutions. Used to be a real swe for most of my career. Now getting pigeon holed into infra/sre/systems roles. Imposter syndrome is getting bad. Just had my first kid and don’t feel like I have time to do side projects but feel like I should. Also feel like side projects don’t matter at this point and I should just stay in leetcode shape, but god damn I miss actually making things. Have tried game dev and thats what I want to do but no money in it and I am in HCOL. Currently on a path to early retirement if I can keep whoring for 10 more years. All of this is to say, do I lean into building a side project and gridning leetcode for the next job hop after my cliff or do I go to management? Also have a wild idea of leaving tech and becoming a therapist treating tech / finance bros for mental illness after it helped me during my separation from my pregnant wife somewhat. TLDR burnt out on tech, paid way too much to quit, job is easy, pigeon holed in sre/devops role, misses actually producing software, considering management versus the vendor management hell, albeit well payed, hell I am in. How long can the charade last?
Just invest your money and stay where you are, I don't see the problem. Do gamedev on the side for fun when you have time. If you are made redundant try to weasle your way into a management job for the last few years and call it quits.
>>32627215Worried about my cliff and having gone soft as I still need to eek another 10 years or so out of tech. I don’t have a ton of interest in going deeper anymore. Management could be the move but it’s also going to be worse from a $/hr standpoint since I will have to work. Im not terribly convinced anything matters for a job hop besides leetcode or I would do a side project. Basically I grew up poor and getting paid a lot for a joke job deeply bothers me but there are no other options for me besides tech that won’t lead to poverty.
>>32627214Hello Sir.Do you also know about game development or have you experience in this area?
>>32627217Game development is a hobby not a career
>>32627216I see what you mean. fwiw I did the jump to management and yes the WLB is objectively worse. You can't bullshit about your time because so much of it is tied up into fixed duration meetings. Leetcode is king for job hopping so I would go all in on that, though it seems like you want to find a rest and vest team so I wouldn't worry so much about keeping the rest of my skills sharp.
>>32627218Good to hear :)Can you help my from plan:How can I create a concept art from a game like a picture - screencap / game scene, that looks like it is in the real world? Is that even possible?
>>32627219Yea currently I am planning in grinding leetcode 1 hour a day and taking it easy until 2026 then hopping again back to faang as an IC then trying to get to management in faang. My current place is remote which is also part of the hesitation for switching to management right now, seems miserable remote. I feel like my weird urge to become a therapist is my subconscious saying my IC days are done. I am a little behind on the IC ladder as only a senior at 35 (faang standards) and feel I am never making principal.
>>32627219I actually just want someone to pay me what I make now to do actual software engineering 8 hours a day. Big tech the higher you go the more its about appearing to work and have “cross team” impact. Startups have the work part but I am not into the private equity lottery and want to retire early. Its absolutely wild how much of a joke big tech jobs are despite the pay. When I first got in I thought I was going to be joining an elite engineering organization. LOL. Been burned out since. You either do drudgery and retire or work on cool stuff and stay poor. Tech is just depressing and there are no better options.
>>32627222Jobs just sucks in general.
>>32627214man up and keep making money, retard
You sound like you are on drugs or about to have a nervous breakdown. Just do your fucking job and when they fire you, pivot to whatever lmao.
>>32627214I know that existential dread. Lately I've been reading "Unscripted" by mj demarco, it's more or less about what you're going through, idk if you'll like it but I did.
>>32627214>a faang+ companyIs that like HIV+?
>>32627214You're beating the hell out of me. 17 YoE. Spent the bulk of it underpaid at a small financial firm. Way more familiar with C++ and desktop frameworks than I care to admit. Currently getting tossed around at investment back because they don't' know what to do with a real programmer. Bored shitless more often than not. Loathe the idea of having to grind leetcode/hackerank/whateverthefuck but nobody gives a shit about exp in this market anymore. Learning on the side just feels like a waste of time at this point. I'm just so tired at this point.
>>32627214Why do you care? Seriously, fuck off. You've got people who can't get jobs, people stuck in hell desk, people working as baristas because $50k+ in debt that republiboomers ensure cannot be wiped clean ever for a piece of paper did not actually qualify them for a job. And here you are, in a cushy, well-paid position, whining about it because you've been poisoned by the sigma grindset meme and its non-meme bootstraps pulling origins into thinking you're somehow failing because you aren't hopping to another job or codegrinding yourself to death.
>>32627214>getting married and having a kid after you already have shittons of money and incomeouch
>>32627229>there are starving children in Africa so you have no right to complainoof
>>32627214I am in the same boat anon. > anon you're a system architect now congrats here's new customer please win them over and get us 4 new engineers positionsEvery project is like that but I found the key: I just do much beyond of what's asked. It's like you actually make something and when corporate drone on the other side is blown away by attention to detail, it becomes the positive feedback loop. I also realized I have side project addiction and they're all useless. None of them have proven to matter but my 3yo kid did. You probably don't give your kid enough attention rn, so should redirect some. Ultimately only family matters.
>>32627229Im aware that I should be content but I am unable to feel that and do feel bad for others trying to break into tech but maybe consider it a cautionary tale. A wise man once told me, big tech pays you enough to give up on your dreams.
>>32627228Yea I feel that and have been there you just have to accept the leetcode game and accept that it is the only thing that matters to getting the high paid jobs. The frustrating thing was realizing how much of a joke things were on the inside after grinding when I first got in but the pay makes it worth it for a time. Unironically neetcode.io is probably my the way to practice.
>>32627224This is actually the advice I needed
>>32627226The weirdest part is despite doing almost nothing I have insane job security because my manager is empire building to the extreme.
>>32627232Yea I do have an actual project to do soon I could try on and exceed expectations and just spend time with my son. Probably the move. Will probably lead to promotion and being stuck here longer though haha.
You can either accept the challenge or just buy a small business somewhere cheaper and enjoy life away from a computer.Your challenge is to get as many /g/entoomen into your fagman company as possible, pay it back.
>>32627238It I could do it again I would go to military preferably special forces for 20 years to get retirement which is about the same position as having $1-2M saved up from fagman / tech in 20 years. But if you insist, the play is the same as always, do CS. Get good at leetcode/algos. Practice interviews. Get referrals. The pay is legit. Don’t get distracted by startups unless it’s really special. The expected value is much higher to work at fagman right of school. I made that mistake. They don’t care about your startup experience and you will get down leveled I assure you. Staff at a startup under 30 is L4 at AWS doesn’t matter how good you actually are either.
>>32627239Not everyone can work at FAGMAN, anon. Getting through the interview systems they have up is a part time job in itself, you'd do much better jobmaxxing two midtier jobs for a combined salary that is FAGMAN level. This is what I do, and I never had to touch leetcode (aka "Indian Treadmill"). It's more about who you know these days and how much the interviewer likes you.
35 years old, ~15 years in a completely non-/g/ fieldReady to kmsAlways interested in tech stuff and a hobbyist but zero formal training, bachelors and masters in non-stem fieldsWhat do, bros?
>>32627214>>>adv
>>32627240I already was at faang before my current job I went to this one for more money, you have heard of it just technically not faang.
>>32627214Im right there with you. Not a swe, but I'm at 18 YoE now, company I started sold in 2020, and that company sold out last year. I'm 90% sure the only reason they employ me is to keep me from starting up another company in our tiny niche again and competing with them. I do actual work maybe 10 hours a week and they are 100% autopilot for me. I get paid 6 figures. The first couple years of this was pretty great - wfh and just mowed my lawn, wrenched on my cars, taught myself to weld, etc. Pretty bored of all that now and not sure wtf to do. I dont even want to start another company, and the pay is too good to quit. It's a weird place to be in. To answer your question OP, the charade can last as long as you still stay sane enough. Try learning a fun new hobby during work hours like me - it got me through the last 3 years.
>>32627244Yea I am about 2 years in now. It caused a lot of personal issues like my pregnant wife separating… fixed that with a ton a of therapy. I also coped by doing yard work. Comforting to know someone else gets it. It’s such an awkward thing to talk about. I suppose you are right just keep the charade going and take advantage of it. Take care of my health right now. I do not deal with boredom well. Quitting adhd meds has not helped this situation but did help my blood pressure lol.
>>32627245>pregnant wife separatingI can't believe anyone chooses to get married in the West
>>32627246It was mostly my fault for being an asshole but both wfh after covid in a new city didn’t help. Had some anger issues to work on. Its actually been for the better.
>>32627241Pretty much this but 32. I have 2 years at a company but got fired. I've since been freezing and starving while contributing to open source software. Ready to die when the money runs out.
>>32627224>>32627235Be careful with his shit anon. I went full 'fuck you modern life' when I finished my electrical apprenticeship and became a shit eating hippy and backpacked the world. Now I'm employed and grinding towards my goal of owning a small rural block of land with a small house. I'm earning more in a week than I used to spend in a entire year travelling. Hell Im even thinking of having a family now (34) if I can find the right person. But In my travels I discovered my purpose, to be in service of God, family and community (I had a strict secular upbringing btw). Some money will enable this, but too much will be a distraction and make me stray from this path>tl;dr money is a tool. Don't let it control you and use it to achieve what your purpose in life is.
>>32627249very important to understand. i ended up in a place where i work remote and i don't actually have to do that much genuine work in a week. i could make more, but i'd have to work more hours. the amount of freedom i have means i get to use nearly all of my time for myself.
>>32627233Go pay for a therapy with your money. You legit have some depression
>>32627214it seems you're at the stage:managing your financials > managing your career
A job is a job, don't gotta love it. Enjoy making a quarter million when your friends who work physical labor all week are barely cracking 100k, you get to sit at a desk and use 4chan all day. It's kinda annoying at times but life could be way worse. My hobbies and recreation exist outside of my job.
Know that there's a purpose to the suffering. Just don't unnecessarily add extra meta-suffering on top of the suffering you already experience by meta-cognitively thinking about your suffering.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muLO4obpPCk&t=1681s
https://desuarchive.org/g/thread/103969731Why did you remake your thread
>>32627214stay in your containment board >>>/adv/
>>32627256no, u>>>/fa/ggot
>>32627251Yea I have been doing a lot of therapy and even ketamine therapy it has helped somewhat.
>>32627214You will never be a real programmer. You have no commits, you have no pull requests, you have no public repos. You are a low IQ brown man twisted by an unearned comp sci degree and coding bootcamps into a crude mockery of nature's autism.All the “validation” you get is two-faced and from bots. Behind your back people say you're a useless DEI hire. Your parents are disgusted and ashamed of you, your “tech bros” laugh at you behind closed doors.Real programmers are utterly repulsed by you. Thousands of forum posts have allowed programmers to sniff out frauds with incredible efficiency. Even devs who “pass” have no creative output and excessively verbose with AI generated tech buzzwords. Your GitHub profile is a dead giveaway, and even if you manage to score a 3 month internship at some tech company, they'll lay you off the second they find out that you haven't completed any non school related projects.You will never be happy. You cope by saying that your bullshit software is using a "proprietary test framework" so you can't open source it, but deep down you know it's because you don't want people to see your incompetence where all you did was push README updates over and over, and that the core codebase was stolen off an open source GPL licensed project which you're shamelessly profiting off.Eventually it will be too much to bear. You'll buy a spoofed business phone number and start cold calling old people into redeeming your gift card scam. This is your fate. This is what you chose. There is no turning back.
>>32627253The problem is feeling the need to stay sharp after work for the next job when the gravy train stops versus enjoying family life. Tech is such a hamster wheel. I am stuck in HCOL too because the grandparents are here. My wife is not working either and do to taxes and child care costs thats actually cheaper but more stress for me.
>>32627214Don't worry, you're going to be replaced by an Indian soon.
I'm at 5 YoE and have to work my ass off in a tiny company for my 102k salary and handle constantly high pressure & stressIt's 9 hours a day of never ending extreme intensity work day after day and it's killing meHow can I get into these 6 figures comfy jobs? Every day I'm trying to figure out how to earn more to retire earlier, or work less and chill in the same salary range
>>32627262I want to switch to a higher paying job, but trading my comfy job for a higher paying, but a stressful one sounds like a fucking nightmare. I'd rather get paid peanuts, than deal with crushing stress 24/7.
>>32627218> have a career and work like a nigger> make money from hobbywhy cant you have both? You just need passion, something no one has these days because reasons
>>32627229You are not owed success.
>>32627261Doubtful part of my job requires us citizenship and manager is white
>>32627263>>32627261Unless its Amazon, the higher paying jobs are going to be much less work. The only thing that matters for getting them is interview performance (leetcode) assuming you can get interviews. Tech is a completely broken industry at this point.
>>32627262you're underpaid
>>32627214Just to let you know: I hate you SWEfags, every single one of you. You live like kings, do basically nothing and yet, you whine >muh burnout ;(((((((>muh booooring ;(((((((>I was offered only 400k, but I wanted 500k ;(((((SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU UNGRATEFUL APESGo collect garbage at 6am no matter the weather. Go fix clogged sewers. Mommy's little princess does not want that huh? So shut your trap. I wish you the most severe cases of hemorrhoid, arthritis and RSI possible.
>>32627269I grew up on a farm and had a restaurant job from 14-22 while learning how to code on my own sorry you are poor.
