I'm so tired
Posted by fkitnewy@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 169 comments
Lately, I’ve been coming to terms with the fact that I’m not a great developer.
I’m solid at tracking down problems and fixing them - debugging is actually fun for me. Stepping through code and unraveling bugs feels like solving a puzzle.
But when it comes to greenfield projects or building new features, it’s a slog. I’m starting to question whether I even want to keep doing this - between the rough job market and needing a decent salary, I feel stuck.
What kind of work can a moderately competent problem-solver with decent scripting skills do to earn a living - without spending all day cranking out mediocre code?
I’d love to start something of my own. Finding a real problem, building a solution that helps people, and having them actually want to pay for it - that’s the dream.
BroadConfusion6563@reddit
have a sleep
tnerb253@reddit
You and every other developer with imposter syndrome
I mean unless you're ready to downgrade your lifestyle you are going to keep doing this. Maybe ask your manager for more scope? You don't just learn all these things in software in a day. It's a marathon not a race. Most people have probably considered leaving the field or doing something else but unless you have a solid plan or choose to go back to school your only option is to start out a side hustle in your free time until you can eventually do it full time which could take years.
Consistent_Mail4774@reddit
How did you find the product and stack that interests you? so far, no product has interested me and no tech stack (some are better than others but still). Not sure how to try new product domains or how many domains there are.
zeth0s@reddit
My rule of thumbs: if Linux and kubernetes are in the stack, it's interesting. If Microsoft is mentioned only once, it's a boring legacy headache
UMANTHEGOD@reddit
I don't know if this works for everyone, but for me personally, I don't really care that much about the product. I just care about doing a good job.
That doesn't mean I'm not involved in the product or that I don't understand it. It's just that I'm not that emotionally attached to the product itself.
Consistent_Mail4774@reddit
I'm not attached to products either. I just never worked on something I tolerated so far and everything has been a shit show in tech.
tnerb253@reddit
I think it's a mix of luck and being selective of what you interview for. I like retail and ecommerce related products as well as front end and mobile, so slowly been tailoring my resume and applying for roles more focused in those areas. Obviously when you're unemployed it's harder to be selective so that's where the luck comes in. Most roles will try to box you into a general SWE role where you do a bit of everything but those tend to bore me the most. Also helps to ask the team when you interview what their product is like and what your role will be to make sure you're a good fit.
As far as trying new product domains I don't have general advice other than speaking with your manager in 1 on 1s to see if any projects are coming up where you can have more impact or transition teams if you don't enjoy the work.
One-Program6244@reddit
I feel for the OP and can probably relate. I think I suffer from bouts of Imposter syndrome too. Although I have decades of software development experience including a lot of Android experience, I always feel I'm on the backfoot playing catch-up all the time with new stuff coming in and what I'd just learnt, no longer being relevant. All the new 'next big thing" stuff that people seem so enthusiastic about I can't get too excited because for me it's just another way of delivering a competent solution.
tnerb253@reddit
I'm sure most engineers can relate to OP, it wasn't to downplay his perspective by any means. I still feel this way at 5 YOE often thinking if I was 'cut out' or I was a good fit, wouldn't know until I hopped around a few times to find something that would stick. There are people who still decide to switch roles or leave the field but only time will tell.
ubabahere@reddit
I can relate. I just finished my first app with all features, the journey was quite different. Starting something new could be frustrating because so many moving pieces and everything seems to fall apart. If you never start decent sized projects, they could be overwhelming. However, all projects will eventually settle into your comfort zone to maintain. You just have to tough it out the first couple of months of development. You are a confident dev, don't despair. You will get there.
pl487@reddit
You're at exactly the right time in history. We are leaving the era of developers cranking out mediocre code all day. The AI is going to crank out the mediocre code for us. We're going to be understanding business requirements and fixing the bugs the AI can't figure out on its own. The job is changing completely.
GerwazyMiod@reddit
That is so sad. I think it will contribute to burnout. Fixing bugs that AI left in the code seems like a nightmare for me. Right now I can talk with real people, I have a chance to meet the original code author (slim, but still) and ask questions. I hope AI will just stay to be a tool, multiplier for productivity.
Lceus@reddit
Absolutely with you. Every new story about AI, every new push from leadership to "adopt more AI tools" ... it all just drives my burnout deeper into my soul.
BitSorcerer@reddit
There are typically 2 types of developers on a solid team.
You just need to find a team that has this balance. A lot of teams expect everyone to be both 1 & 2 but there is a perfect dynamic for you. Keep looking!
j_d_q@reddit
I've said there are farmers, settlers, and explorers.
Explorers like running around and don't like staying in one place.
Settlers like building a foundation and making sure everything will function as planned.
Farmers take the settled land and tend to it for forever.
They're all necessary.
Redditbayernfan@reddit
Unexpected Catan
tonjohn@reddit
🪵 for 🐑?
computer_geek64@reddit
Nah but I'll give you 🪵 for 🌾
redzedi@reddit
... Then they come and k*ll the farmers , replace them with machines that plant and harvest to maximize profit :) . THat's what Kings (visible or invisible) do . All these groups are at the service and mercy of the King( C-suite)
Unfair-One6349@reddit
I know what I'm going to force my dev team to do tomorrow. I'm really curious to know what the makeup of my different teams is and how that might affect the culture of each team versus the task they are working on.
Generalists included. This is really interesting to think about.
German_PotatoSoup@reddit
I’ve been all 3 and as I get older I went from explorer-settler-farmer. Now I’m an old farmer who supports and trains the younger guys and I’m 100% ok with that.
macpeters@reddit
I'm a farmer. I do the security patches, framework upgrades, general bug fixes, and any other platform wide work that needs doing while other devs build all the shiny new features.
j_d_q@reddit
Love it
No_Heat2441@reddit
Exactly. The thing that is starting to drive me nuts is the amount of LinkedIn wankers claiming that every dev they hire needs to be the top 1% ninja rockstar dev. Most of the work everywhere is the routine day to day stuff. You only need 1-2 superstars, the rest of the team can be pretty average and they can still do great.
EvilCodeQueen@reddit
I used to be an explorer, but had it beat out of me.
ProgrammersAreSexy@reddit
God I'm 100% an explorer and I kind of hate it about myself, I wish I had the follow through to see my ideas further along the process. My crippling ADHD gets the best of me though.
I just carried away ping ponging through my company's code base and understanding how other teams are solving similar problems, trying to analyze and understand the root causes of our velocity issues, brainstorming how to simplify our architecture, etc.
I can do this exploratory research for hours on end and time will just fly by.
Irish_and_idiotic@reddit
You may have changed my working life with this comment… I can see every dev I have worked with in a new light
fuckoholic@reddit
So, you and I are farmers, settlers and explorers, and also hunters and masons and peasants and cleaners, and burned witches, the quality assurance guys and devops specialists, all for the same measly pay.
Irish_and_idiotic@reddit
Tbh I am paid extremely well. I am making more than anyone else has ever in my family. I think we need to see the wood from the trees when talking about wages.
Our wages are extremely generous on average IMO
Forgot_Password_Dude@reddit
Why aren't people just using AI? Forget using brains
Any_Juggernaut8391@reddit
My team is all Explorer-o-settlers. nothing needs maintained if it can be re-written faster :D
j_d_q@reddit
Good luck asking explorers to farm for more than 30% of their time
DifficultBeing9212@reddit
this analogy bops
j_d_q@reddit
My first ever award. Thanks!
DaRubyRacer@reddit
Why am I mediocre in all three?
w3woody@reddit
Management.
I'm being serious. If you're good at people, but are medicore in development, you really should consider going into management. Even a medicore developer who understands (sorta) what their developers are doing and how development progresses would be world better than many of the managers I've worked with in the past. Hell, I worked under a guy who once bragged he didn't even know how to turn his own fucking computer on. (It was as horific as it sounds.)
shagieIsMe@reddit
The Codeless Code: Blocks http://www.thecodelesscode.com/case/159
(and remember that each image has a mouseover text... better to discover this before reading them all and having to go back and re-read them all... or maybe not)
goobernawt@reddit
That seems like a really good description of what a good manager should be doing. Been thinking that's my best option at this point. I'm not super excited about it, but trying to figure out how to best adapt to it
w3woody@reddit
I’m of the mindset that work—regardless of the kind of work, even if it’s doing something you love—becomes a drag, simply because you’re dealing with other people who have different expectations than you have for what you need to do. It’s how I can love coding—and hate writing software for a living: I don’t hate software development. I hate working for others.
At that point, I shrug, think “it’s a living”, and honestly the time I spent managing others wasn’t so bad—despite the fact that I’m somewhat of an introvert.
The only other real piece of advice I have for you is when you run a meeting, treat meetings with staff as if you’re just the chairman whose job it is to make sure everyone else has a chance to speak. Meaning instead of dominating the entire meeting with what you want to say, set a topic, say your piece (perhaps the first few minutes), then make sure you open the discussion to give everyone else a chance to comment and ask questions, moving on if someone looks like they’re about to dominate the conversation.
That has two advantages: first, everyone gets to be included (and you often get really good ideas out of the more quiet folks on your team), and second, it means you don’t need to have any long speech prepared for the meeting.
PureRepresentative9@reddit
That's actually a role as well...
Generalists are good at being aware of existing solutions in another tier and then asking "we did it this way last time, why are you (specialist) recommending this alternative?"
It starts discussions and helps the specialist break out of their silos (even if only temporarily)
fallen_lights@reddit
And if you are bad at all three? Congrats on promotion to manager
j_d_q@reddit
I'm sure you're capable. You're probably having imposter syndrome, unnecessarily.
wooody25@reddit
I think I’m a settler I definitely have commitment issues.
MocknozzieRiver@reddit
Ohhh I love this.
I'm definitely a settler then. Like right now I'm working on moving us to another database and I'm setting up the dao and new data classes and etc. and I just love it. I love writing new stuff with the goal of it being easy for others to use it and writing tons of tests/docs to make sure it's really hard to mess it up in the future. I'm making a point to get everyone's feedback, and I take implementing everyone's suggestions as a fun challenge. It's kinda the perfect task for me since I normally am scolded for future-coding lol, but in this case I'm essentially tasked to future code.
And I think I can see that some of my teammates are explorers and farmers. Like one teammate loves refactoring existing code and another loves doing small tasks that keep us moving forward.
Franks2000inchTV@reddit
My favorite kind of work is finding something no one thinks is important and implementing just enough of a proof of concept that someone can come along and say "this critical software is poorly written!"
texclayton@reddit
There's a similar concept of Commandos, Army, and Police. Commandos establish the beach head and prep it for the Army. The Army comes in, expands, etc. The Police are there after things are stable to maintain things.
McGlockenshire@reddit
Every time read this name, I have flashbacks to sitting in the garage reading through my dad's extensive BYTE magazine collection. I will never forgive my parents for throwing them out.
RazerWolf@reddit
Excellent mental model. Will definitely use. Respect.
Smok3dSalmon@reddit
Damn that’s fantastic
fkitnewy@reddit (OP)
I’ve only ever worked in small companies with very small teams - never more than four people, usually just me and one other. It seems like that would help keep things interesting, but I’ve definitely missed out on learning opportunities and other dynamics.
Thank you for the encouragement.
MissionCake9@reddit
I'm on the same boat. 19y in the field, actually 13yoe with on and off, part time, fte disguised as interns. Always small companies, the biggest team I worked with had 6 people, packed with internships. Just wearing a lot hats and being overloaded with mundane tasks + endless bugs. No heavy consumed apps (so on distributed/scalable job exp).
Graded in CS in a prestigious college in foreign country. Had to give support to IE4, loved to work with JS when 95% of devs hated it. Seen the arrival/departure of jQuery, 1st gen of web frameworks, 2nd. That counts almost nothing today.
I was laid off 6 months ago and as of today I'm not getting even a 1st call anymore. Well. except for Meta, which I'm set to probably fail because I can't grind leetcode enough to code a Medium solution in 20min with the approach interview want. Last time the guy had so unintelligible accent that I completely misunderstood the question, even when I asked clarifications..
sorry to vent out
Karl-Levin@reddit
Every job I ever worked on was management promising me I would work on exciting green field projects during the job interview and me ending up with 90% maintenance work in reality.
In most companies being able to work on greenfield projects is seen as a privilege. I think you will fit right in with bigger corps and your coworkers will love you.
noodlebucket@reddit
I joined an older (10 years) startup when I was mid-career. I maintained the aging code and lead big refactors of hastily written, outdated features from the early years. Loved it! It was my area to shine. What was ESPECIALLY fun was designing the strategy around modernization. So much involved there. Find that kind of job! What’s also nice is that I find most developers want the greenfield project. That wasn’t for me, and it allowed me the space to flex technical leadership elsewhere.
teslas_love_pigeon@reddit
You would probably succeed in any corporate environment dude. Corporate software, especially the kind that makes money, is mostly horribly written.
Yet they still have to be maintained, refactored, and fix. This is where I think you can be very useful.
Understanding how to debug and fix code independently is actually a really good skill that is hard to find. Try to work with legacy codebases, it'll definitely scratch that itch.
The issue with working at very small companies is that you have to be a jack of all trades because of so few bodies. You can't really specialize, and yes understanding how to debug systems is a specialization, your skillset in this environment typically.
Good news is you can easily get this elsewhere.
w3woody@reddit
THIS!
I'm a maker. Maintainance is a fucking slog. (I'm good at it, but only because I have a long memory.)
If I had a person who loved maintenance on our team I'd treat him like gold. (Already I document my work--and one use of AI is to help me prepare that documentation--so it can be maintained. But the people I deal with either see themselves as Makers when they really aren't, or decide "maintenance" means "translating your code into a style format I like"--make work bullshit that rarely helps and often makes things worse.)
cuntsalt@reddit
I like fixing things. Rewriting a little bit of code to make it bit faster, repairing mangled data, checking over dependencies and removing those that aren't used anymore, writing tiny tools that make things like dependency updates less painful for everyone, really love learning a system to the point I can write really good docs for it.
I can do new things and I enjoy it, but I don't think I'm as good at that as fixing things, and I know for sure I'm much slower than someone with a real maker brain, prefer to noodle a while and can't seem to stop thinking about how it'll be maintained (which sounds good in theory, but turns out people with deadlines get angry with you thinking about future beyond those important dates).
Pretty often feel like none of my work has impact and languishes without appreciation. Your comment helps, thank you.
jaypeejay@reddit
I’m a maintainer and I’ve accepted it and grown to enjoy it. Maybe I’ll grow into a maker one day, but I don’t really care. I’m really good at understanding the domain and side effects of fixing bugs (aka not playing bug whack-a-mole) and I’m heavily relied on for just that.
BitSorcerer@reddit
Nothing wrong with any role. We need them all or shit will burn 🔥
fragofox@reddit
i recently joined a team that appears to be nothing but #1's, meanwhile, i'm a solid #2... it's kinda weird and bizarre how different we all are,.. at the moment i'm being forced into the #1 role, while a dude who wants to get promoted is trying to take on a #2 role... we'll see how it goes...
BitSorcerer@reddit
My team is 40% #2s and 60% #1s
It’s a good mix. Maybe your team needs more number 2s!
Yeti_Detective@reddit
Software engineers should unionize. A moderately competent problem solver with scripting skills can provide a ton of value in maintaining AND creating software applications.
mxldevs@reddit
Debugging is a very different skillset from architecting and design.
Spending a lot of time fixing existing software doesn't improve your engineering skills.
duck-duck-goob@reddit
Greenfield projects can feel terrible, but they’re a lot of fun. Halfway through the project, or even before, there are often a lot of things you wish you had done differently, but it’s too late to turn back now. That can kind of make you feel dumb because you kick yourself for not noticing it sooner, but that’s just how it goes.
GYsocial@reddit
Hi everyone,
I'm currently looking for motivated developers, potential co-founders, or early-stage investors to collaborate on a new kind of social network app. This is not a typical social media clone — it’s built around emotions.
🔧 I’ve already built a semi-functional MVP using modern tools like Vercel’s V0 for UI and Supabase as the backend. The product is at a point where we can start iterating fast, test core mechanics, and grow into something powerful.
👤 While I’m not an experienced programmer, I bring:
🔒 The core functionality of the app is confidential and will be shared privately with serious collaborators, but I can promise it’s not just another content feed. The concept has been validated informally with early testers and shows strong retention potential.
🧩 I’m looking for:
📈 The project is early, but with the right team, we can launch, learn, and iterate quickly. If you’re interested in partnering, investing, or simply hearing more, feel free to DM me or comment below.
Thanks for reading — let’s build something that matters. 🚀
Ai fixed.
NoSmarter@reddit
Your post is a fence around your self imposed limitations. I'm pretty sure you can be a "10x" developer if that's what you really wanted. The question is -- do you really want that?
Gooeyy@reddit
For what it's worth, most code is mediocre by one or most metrics. It's a nice idea to only ever ship beautiful code, but like any industry, the product is compromised by deadlines, money, etc.
Anyway, in one part, you say you don't like greenfield projects or building new features. At the end, you say you want to find a real problem and build a solution. How do you reconcile these two?
fkitnewy@reddit (OP)
You're not wrong.
I feel like what's missing is ownership. Building platforms and solutions for other people without a real stake in the final product feels like a Sisyphean exercise. The financial reward isn't nothing, but after 2+ decades of building stuff, that's all there is to show for it.
German_PotatoSoup@reddit
You’re right about this and I came to terms with it long ago. But you have to ask yourself what do you really want out of your career? Everything we build is completely obsolete in 10 years or less anyways. Get your paycheck, invest and take care of your family cause in the end that’s all that matters.
agumonkey@reddit
Known feeling.
Gooeyy@reddit
That makes perfect sense. I can relate.
agumonkey@reddit
Depending on the field, beautiful code will be erased just as fast as mediocre code. Something someone should have told me during all the sweng/cleancode college classes.
Flimsy-Speed-4805@reddit
Dang, never thought about it like that...why such does "clean code" become such an obsession if it's not really practical
agumonkey@reddit
I meant it more on the business side. Most bosses or stakeholders will not give a single f about your pattern. And modularity is 'only' worth it if you know it's gonna be a long term thing in a way. I used to polish code a lot.. I liked it, but I see now how rarely people care.
Flimsy-Speed-4805@reddit
Yeah I hear you, from a pure engineering mindset. I think there's tons of benefits but most of us operate in this business context and it seems like all the arguing and hold up over not getting code merged because it's not clean enough, seems impractical especially if you know your business is in a state where priorities are shifting and products are changing.
agumonkey@reddit
you phrased it better :)
Princess_Azula_@reddit
I don't like saying this, but your work is just a job to do and you don't need to be the best to get the job done on time. You're exchanging your time for money and if it's fun, fulfilling, and effortlessly good at it then that's a bonus, but if that's not possible then maybe you should do something on the side to find that fun and fulfilling instead since you don't want to change jobs.
Too many people who code for a living try and make it their whole life, purpose, hobby and shame those who don't. Don't be afraid to try something new for fun and purpose. In the end, we're all going to get old and die; you might as well do something fun, whatever that might end up being.
No_Heat2441@reddit
Every time I see a LinkedIn post that talks about how you have to work on side projects in order to be a good dev I want to comment something like 'ffs get a life'. Maybe one day I'll reach financial independence that will allow me to do it.
nothingexceptfor@reddit
Best and most based comment
Pavlova_Fan@reddit
BTW, a debugging Dev is usually called QA
Pavlova_Fan@reddit
I feel your pain 100%!! I also do not like doing actual dev work, but love repairing and maintaining and I know I am very good at it. A lot of folks think technical support means the person that asks if you have rebooted and it does - for FRONT line. Upper level support tracks down issues that are frequently quite difficult such as instance issues on cloud networks, etc.
Recent-Blackberry317@reddit
Why is it that every single post here people talk about a “rough job market”. It’s just not true, if you are GOOD at what you do there is a ton of work out there.
Just because companies aren’t hiring anyone with a pulse anymore doesn’t mean it’s a “rough market” it means that you actually need to be somewhat competent to be employed, which is exactly how it should be.
So fucking sick of hearing this shit about how bad the market is or how hard it is. I do consulting and contract work and I’m constantly turning down projects because I’m too busy.
jinsinjune@reddit
Oof I could have written this. Relate completely to everything you wrote and I’m scared of throwing away a decent career over what could just be burn out. But idk I’m just having a hard time putting effort into something I’m becoming less and less interested in. I know people say to separate your worth from how much value you provide at work but I can’t help but need that dopamine hit of knowing I’m nailing my job during the day (adhd does not help). I’m still trying to figure out whether to stick around and suppress the misery or if this is my brain’s way of telling me to jump ship, or at least start making an exit plan. Don’t have any good advice other than I empathize strongly.
wjaz@reddit
And I could have written this comment. So good to know I’m not alone in feeling this way.
Informal-Cow-6752@reddit
If you are tired maybe look at health as well - physical and dare I say mental (burnout). Get a checkup. Improve health routines. Maybe take a break if you can and recharge to fight another day.
fkitnewy@reddit (OP)
Thanks. I’m definitely burned out and out of shape. I absolutely need to get out from behind a screen more often.
Ok-Letterhead3405@reddit
Take morning walks in sunlight. I'm telling you. If you can't do that, a happy lamp is cheap on Amazon. But a walk in the morning with your music on, and you get that early in the day vitamin D. It makes me feel better in my day. That will also help you sleep better at night.
If I learned one thing over the years, sleep is the foundation of all the other stuff people tell you that you need to fix. Without it, I've crumbled over and over then felt guilt or have been guilted. Sleep can be so hard to get right that people don't give it enough credit.
Informal-Cow-6752@reddit
Take this with a grain of salt etc but - blood tests including sugars, blood pressure tests, apnea tests, eat lower GI food (get off the crap), daily walking, less booze, track weight etc. Focus on non work stuff that's healthy - hobbies, friends, interests etc. Anyway we are all on the same journey. Good luck.
cantuccihq@reddit
Yes! Fixing sleep was a HUGE lift for me. I struggled for years but I found a psychiatrist who was really into behavior modification. He did give me some drugs, but more importantly he pushed me really hard to get to a more regular exercise routine and fix my sleep.
Informal-Cow-6752@reddit
Many people I know (including the one in the mirror) have been in denial about apnea. But if in doubt, get a test. Breathing is important it turns out...
CanidaeVulpini@reddit
I know as devs we like to downplay burnout because of how well we're paid and how relatively privileged we are, but there's a study in the UK that said 83% of software engineers experience burnout. It's very normal, and simultaneously very serious. Get as much sunshine and physical exercise that you can. Develop healthier habits. The better you feel about yourself, the more you'll realize you're indeed a good developer and the more you'll actually enjoy the job.
Ok-Letterhead3405@reddit
Gah. My passion is leaving me all the time because people insist that giving me a goddamn break to sit and think through problems isn't agile enough or whatever. I have a pretty decent team of good humans, but like, I'm neurodivergent and constantly getting interrupted and then pushed back on when I offer ideas to help make communication less chaotic.
Do you not feel strong enough in your architecture or system design skills? That could be a reason for green projects to feel like a slog, that or having to churn through boilerplate that might be automated.
In my experience, there's always a place for people who want to debug frustrating code or dive into legacy code bases and update features there. That's stuff a lot of folks don't want to touch. We're just in a position right now where we can't be pickier and have more suitable work environments and go to the jobs that make us feel the happiest. It sucks, it's harder, I hate it.
cantuccihq@reddit
Do you like working with other people? Sometimes managing teams can be more fulfilling when you get a bit older and are burned out on turning the crank. When I hit 40 I realized that I couldn’t out-code the 25 year olds from MIT anymore, but Iearned I could really help them be on a path to grow, help them work with others, and make sure their work was connected to a business outcome.
BanaTibor@reddit
A new feature or greenfield project is uncertainty and I think you feel overwhelmed because you are not anchored. Find some stability in your life and the uncertainty of unknown project will not be able to sway you. Yin and Yang, you need both, balance is the key.
a_reply_to_a_post@reddit
take some steps to make that happen
fkitnewy@reddit (OP)
I do need to. I always get hung up on what idea to pursue.
Arkarant@reddit
Don't take this the wrong way, but ideas are cheap, commitment is where the money is. I don't think ur problem is ideas, I think ur problem is that you don't wanna commit to anything; this just sounds like ur burned out. We have our routines, I know, but maybe u should commit to something more tangible and external? Maybe a chess club that meets once a week? Something of that nature? Some sport maybe, but that's lame, any new hobby is cooler than that tbh. Just commit and try it for a month, 4 weeks, 4 times. Doesn't matter what it is, but it'll give u perspective!
Consistent_Mail4774@reddit
I have the same dream as OP, been searching for a profitable/valid problem for months now, nothing so far. I know I can't work for others forever and my tech career might be short-lived but can't find a way out.
New-Yogurtcloset3988@reddit
Greenfield is ok, but going back and making it better is where it’s at!
Bayul@reddit
Become a QA?
The_Northern_Light@reddit
Sounds like we need to hire you 😂 you’re my exact opposite. I’m all about greenfield development and get frustrated with debugging.
quypro_daica@reddit
I am the opposite, I hate fixing bugs, because every time I try to fix something, I notice the bad things of the code base and really want to knock them down and rebuild it.
evilneverwins@reddit
I am really comfused. You said you like solving bugs and don't like greenfield projects but starting something of your own is the dream? 🥴
fkitnewy@reddit (OP)
I think Sqweekybumtime expressed it better than I did. I don’t inherently dislike greenfield projects - they just feel pointless. Building tools and features that often hardly get used is a slog. Debugging, to me anyway, is often fun, even though it isn’t necessarily any more meaningful.
Building my own project that legitimately improves people's lives sounds great.
evilneverwins@reddit
If you don't end up doing your own thing maybe you can find a company that aligns with your values more and actually makes an impact.
kenlefeb@reddit
Honestly, I would rather have you on my team than most "creative" developers.
If you know how to diagnose a problem, you also know how to build a system that needs less diagnoses. Just keep notes about all the logs and switches and config settings you wish you had available during a troubleshooting session, then refer to those notes the next time you're adding a new feature.
The other skill I look for in an my interviews is testing. If you write lots of unit tests, especially if I see that you're writing tests to prove all those bugs you're finding, you'll be on my short list for hiring.
Troubleshooting and Testing.
simonmales@reddit
Your humility is 10x.
SpaceGerbil@reddit
I worked 2 years on a security and performance team. We swooped in and fixed or reimplemented all sorts of things because the native team just couldn't figure it out. Each new problem was, like you said, a treasure hunt. Was actually super rewarding to solve problems that others just couldn't tackle, even thought they are the ones who created them
fkitnewy@reddit (OP)
That sounds like fun. How did you get into that team? Why did you leave?
SpaceGerbil@reddit
I interviewed for a lead backend position at the company. During the interview it turned out I had a bunch of Hibernate expirence. I guess most of the performance issues we had stemmed from people not using the framework correctly. I also had a bunch of AppDynamics expirence as well. We used it for observability, but again, no one knew how to get the most out of it. So I was hired into that team.
The team was disbanded after almost two years, since the company wanted to replatform and rebuild our monolith into microservices.
GoTheFuckToBed@reddit
You seem to not consider that producing code is a team effort.
big-papito@reddit
You are experiencing this because of analysis paralysis. Back in the day, things were simpler. You had your LAMP stack and off you went. Now, there are so many ways of achieving the same thing that you can spend weeks of finding AN option.
Those who are less competent and with a bad case of Dunning Kruger just jump into it, and people like you feel dumb.
It's really the other way around. If you are good at fixing and debugging, you ARE a great engineer of great value. A ball-less monkey can type something into ChatGPT and create a "feature".
questi0nmark2@reddit
Great developers are overrated. 99.9% of software needs competent developers, even if great developers are/can be a plus. Greenfield projects are also the least professionally stable, usually start-ups, and the majority of jobs are centred on maintenance and aditionality.
So for me, your issue is not that you're not a great developer, but that you're tired, and you're going through a shift in your professional identity. It may be that the aspiration of being a "great developer" may have been a big part of your professional motivation, which I think is more common in early to mid-career, and your feeling you are not is demotivating. Your sense you're not a great developer is of course itself not super reliable. When my grandfather was greeted "How are you?", he would answer "compared to whom?". I remember a fantastic, internationally respected developer, generally very confident, feeling very nervous about giving a talk around peers he felt were (even more) expert than himself. Your sense of mediocrity may in fact be an indication of excellence and experience, midway along the dunning-kruger curve. Your standards of greatness have risen and your version of mediocrity has widened.
Which is not to say you're wrong. By your standards, you may have worked with colleagues you consider "great developers" and your judgement of being middling by comparison may be accurate. But there's nothing intrinsically wrong with that. You're evidently not a bad developer, just not as "great" as you'd like to be or thought you'd be earlier in your journey. The question is how much weight you choose to give this. And it is to a large extent a choice. Probably the vast majority of devs are happy being competent, and don't feel they are great, and it is not crushing. They get their job and life satisfaction from a job well done (greatness or not), a good team, a good product, a good salary, and life outside their job.
I was curious that you said you don't value your work on greenfield products but would like to start your own thing, presumably a greenfield product. That reinforces my sense that you're fully competent, including in greenfield projects, even if you don't feel you're great, whatever that means to you. My advice would be, since you also value stability, to stay in a solid maintenance job, and in your spare time join some motivated non-technical co-founder (there are networks for that), and together find an idea you can work on. If it takes off, you can take the leap, and if not, you can scratch the itch and learn from the attempt. Meanwhile, I would encourage to reframe your professional identity and motivation and satisfaction away from the inherently socially comparative "great developer" ideal, which, however great you could actually be, would be psychologically precarious, as you would merely elevate your comparison benchmark so impostor syndrome would not necessarily vanish. Find satisfaction in your work, your progress, your growth, your impact and your environment, regardless of where it ranks against whoever your are currently comparing yourself to, explicitly or implicitly. That is something that will benefit you wherever you move toward next, and not doing so will follow you wherever you change to.
Diligent_Stretch_945@reddit
For what it’s worth but I feel I can relate to that in a way. I’m more of a type that likes to build things (features but also all my hobbies are basically creating stuff). That is my driver and I don’t have the same patience for bugfixing or debugging. In my recent project I was basically put in a position of a maintainer and bugfixer for over 4 years - with some short exceptions + side projects - but I that made me burned out. Totally. It took me well over a year to process this and tbh I still working on this.
I guess all I wanted to say is that I believe you should try to make a change for the better as soon as possible. I think I personally waited at least a couple of years too long hoping that I would adjust. The only way of fighting the feeling of being stuck is to move in any direction - at least in thinking, if you know what I mean - this stuck state amplifies imposter syndromes, self devaluation and cluelessness. Making at least a plan was crucial for me personally, from there I was able to take step after step towards change. I know it’s not that simple but I keep my fingers crossed for you. Take care :)
fkitnewy@reddit (OP)
Thank you - I appreciate the kind words. I’ve definitely allowed myself to get stuck in this rut for far too long. It’s a vicious cycle - burnout amplifies imposter syndrome, which then deepens feelings of hopelessness and makes everything worse.
What kind of plan are you referring to? A career plan? Or a personal one?
How do you settle on what side projects you invest your time in to?
Diligent_Stretch_945@reddit
In my case it was a plan more for the career but it influenced my personal life as well.
I defined the state where I wanted to be and asked myself „will this make me go closer to my target?” on every decision. Well it might sound silly but it started a chain of positive changes for me.
Based my decisions on questions like: What I want?, Where is it? How to get there? Is this thing/activity/side project/job/book/food moving be towards my goal?
Now I gained some momentum and it goes naturally. It probably sounds very silly but in my case I wasn’t asking those questions myself for years while running in my cycles.
noobilee@reddit
I always enjoyed maintaining/fixing other people's code more than green field development.
Eventually I switched to application security - white box security auditing and/or pentesting, exploits development. It essentially requires similar skills to software maintenance, but it's more fun and pays more.
fragbait0@reddit
Come over to devops.
IME lots of interesting problems to solve and nobody has ever minded me jumping into the app code to sort out bugs, tweak some infrastructure related behaviors, or even more; usually I can help as much as I want without the expectation of building new customer features.
Maybe in some larger strongly structured organisations that line is more clearly cut but by number of firms I think its quite niche in practice.
paulydee76@reddit
You like doing the stuff everyone hates, and that won't be easily replaced by AI. Take advantage of it.
Writing greenfield code is easy. Fixing bugs is hard. You don't sound like a bad dev.
F1B3R0PT1C@reddit
Established companies spend the majority of their time fixing crap. Banks, military contractors, big industry-specific inventory management software
ToThePillory@reddit
You're probably not a good developer because you've not been doing it very long.
It really does take many years to become a good developer.
cmpxchg8b@reddit
His post history says 20 years.
ToThePillory@reddit
I never expected that, OK.
CraftySeer@reddit
“Support dev.” When something goes wrong, a support ticket is opened up because somebody lost some data or the application freezes up somewhere, they call you. You happily go in there with your natural curiosity to figure out what exactly went wrong, how to fix the code long-term so it doesn’t happen again, and how to fix it short term so the client gets their data. That’s the job for you. The rest of us hate that crsp so you’ll be loved!
dhurlzz@reddit
I switched to a reasonably technical solution architect role at a big vendor. Do I build product? No. Do I get to use my technical skills, troubleshoot, code up demo/poc, learn new things. Yes. I’m also learning a whole new set of sift skills and business skills, I used to think good products sold themselves (engineers are kings sort of mentality), kind of true, but boy getting that last mile can be challenging and really rewarding when it happens.
SomeEffective8139@reddit
Honestly i think AI code generation tools will help with this a lot. Writing new code is boring for me. It used to be fun to design code, but after many years you realize there are only so many ways to build a widget and marshal some JSON. That's 95% of what we do when we write code. Tests are even more boring. The fun part is making things that work end to end, and, as you mentioned, fixing weird bugs.
Software development is in an interesting place. I was thinking about it this week when I got my car serviced. I thought about how much manual work it took to service a car 50 or even 80 years ago. Now things are very streamlined. We've seen this happen with software in various waves. When I started out it was normal for even e-commerce website companies to lease rack space at a data center and hire a bunch of sys admins to figure out deployments and version upgrades and hardware etc. Now a lot of that is automated and abstracted away from us.
Humans will need software for a long, long time. And the software we have and that we are writing now is BAD. It has security holes a mile wide and so many bugs. It's a depressing state of affairs. I think we will get to a place where we are able to produce quality software.
unconceivables@reddit
DevOps might be a good fit? Lots of problem solving and some scripting.
WideMonitor@reddit
Or SDET? Not much writing code for feature development and the code you write is mostly internal for automation. But you get to do bug triaging/fixes a lot since you're the first responder to internally found bugs via automation.
unconceivables@reddit
True, except it seems like SDET/QA isn't much of a thing anymore at most companies.
bsidesandrarities@reddit
maybe the features are too easy for your skill-level?
i like doing both – i find if i'm solving bugs for too long, i get bored of it and want to build something new and vice versa.
Hideki-kunn@reddit
I feel you. I'm not a great developer too.
I love (and hate) bugfixing, there is always a satisfaction on fixing something and making it better. I also like making feature that automate stuff or making things easier but I hate the start of that process, usually after putting stuff together and finding my flow, it become much more enjoyable.
Developing new feature or starting a project on the other hand, is painful for me because I don't have any creativity inside me to design stuff.
I found out it's okay to be like that because different people have different speciality. I hope you find your dream position!
PrestigiousDrag9441@reddit
Looks like you have the mindset to be a great QA.
Breklin76@reddit
At the heart of every happy dev is a problem solver. The stack doesn’t matter. Years of experience really only teaches you how to solve harder problems.
Maybe take a break, dude. Go be a bartender for a bit. Or get a job on a cruise ship. Dig ditches. Something else.
I’ve done that several times over the past 27 years, give or take a few lines of code.
At 49, I’m digging all of it like I did when I was just eager and starting out in the field.
Go find you curiosity. It may not lead you back to 0 & 1s. Maybe you find out what you love to do and do that.
fkitnewy@reddit (OP)
Thank you - I think you're right. The state of the market and the rise of AI has me worried that if I step away, I won’t be able to come back. I’m unsure how easily I’d transition back into development if I took a break. That said, I’ve definitely lost my passion for development just for the sake of it.
It's nice to hear you're still enjoying it. I miss it.
Breklin76@reddit
Hey. It took me a lot of years to get to where I am now, mentally. I always came back to development when I was done exploring my other options.
You’ll find out what you need.
zica-do-reddit@reddit
I think there is a lot more to software development than just code. Maybe you are good with processes, requirements, priorities, architecture, setting milestones etc. Everything has value. I myself am used to wearing many hats in software projects.
ladyatlantica@reddit
Sounds like sre might suit better.
zoddrick@reddit
The fixer archetype is totally a real thing within our industry.
_zjp@reddit
Are you positive there's not some perfectionism complex holding you back? I mean, it is hard to stare at a blank editor, but I find it helpful to sketch and write what I'm going for first, then type the code in. It's like making supersaturated solutions in distilled water; one nucleation point for the idea and it'll flow out.
CodrSeven@reddit
My dream is to structure teams more around these kinds of preferences than artificial lines like FE/BE/whatever, allowing everyone to do what they love doing. I imagine we would build much better software that way.
Agreeable_Hall458@reddit
Get a job in QA. They often like having coders that can track stuff down so that the greenfielders aren’t constantly having to be derailed.
rhforever@reddit
I dunno. In my most recent job search, it seemed like QA teams are not that common (anymore). I asked if they had a QA team and at least half said no, had a bare bones team, or were off-shored.
DigThatData@reddit
Doesn't sound like you're a bad developer to me. Sounds like you're a good developer.
siammang@reddit
Perhaps you can try to shift to DevOps or QA. You will be dealing with those puzzle solving a lot.
Take extra on-call and first tier customer service call if you feel bored.
StillEngineering1945@reddit
Do you really suggest for a developer to switch to QA/on-call support? xD He is going to die out of boredom there.
siammang@reddit
Would you rather have the OP go flip a burger at some ghetto area for some thrills?
StillEngineering1945@reddit
Dude is clearly looking for a maintenance job at a bigger company. Suggesting him to switch to DevOps, QA or on-call is just a downgrade and brainrot.
siammang@reddit
Amazon get their devs to do that all the time, their pays are at least $100k, so ....
StillEngineering1945@reddit
Ah.. is it already time when the bar is so low that people think Amazon is a good place to work? So sad.
meevis_kahuna@reddit
QA engineering?
fkitnewy@reddit (OP)
I'm not sure how to transition into a position like this. I’m not even sure what the day-to-day looks like for a QA engineer. I'll look into it - thank you.
Sqweekybumtime@reddit
This is an eternal problem for a lot of devs, you want to work on something that you feel drawn to that's a net positive for society - I share your pain.
Don't worry I suspect most developers are mediocre. myself included.
Nothing wrong with collecting a pay check, I would suggest trying lots of different tiny projects and see if anything resonates with you before committing.
fkitnewy@reddit (OP)
I think you're right. I’d love to know my efforts are actually benefiting people at a real level - not just making my employer a bit more money.
sleep_deficit@reddit
Lots a great open source projects out there that could benefit greatly from your natural skills.
It's kinda silly, but I have GH badge for contributing to projects that went into the Arctic Code Vault
Not that I did anything special or exceptional, but it's still pretty cool to know my contributions will outlive me by ~1,000 years.
ButchDeanCA@reddit
Whether I’m good at bug fixing or architecting new code kind of depends on the project and how much of it is there already. You didn’t indicate how many yoe you have, this sounds like the thoughts of a person with a handful of years.
More seasoned developers realize that software engineering is the endless cycle of not only fixing and creating code, but also fixing and creating a new you. What is important here is to not find something that affirms your perception of yourself as mediocre, but something that challenges that perception and takes you to a new level.
You can do it. We all had to and still have to, you’re not alone.
fkitnewy@reddit (OP)
I've been doing this for around 25 years, but it's a bit of a "five years of experience, five times" scenario.
Thank you for the encouragement
ButchDeanCA@reddit
You’re welcome. I hope you eventually find something to grow you into who you should be.
xDannyS_@reddit
Have you looked at this? I personally haven't used any of the resources listed there, but I have heard great things.
fkitnewy@reddit (OP)
This looks like an interesting resource - thank you.
No-District2404@reddit
That must be related with a bit talent or the way of thinking. We have a junior engineer we tried many times to give him responsibility to implement a feature request but he always struggled. We gave him time generously he implemented the feature but with lots of issues etc. apart from that he’s really good at solving bugs, implementing small stuff, doing changes etc. However when it comes to design a feature translate the request into code he struggles. We need also that kind of teammates to maintain the code without getting bored because it’s always a burden to fix small stuff for one who designs the code
ryanstephendavis@reddit
Can we trade jobs, I have the opposite problem
DabbingCorpseWax@reddit
Maybe also worth considering the SRE and/or PlatformEng route until you figure out a business plan.
geeeffwhy@reddit
as others have said or implied, nobody is great at everything to do with software development. i’m the opposite of you, for example, in that i love learning new tools and designing new systems, but i find long term maintenance tedious and uninspiring.
so a high functioning team will balance both types, and let people play to their strengths as the needs of the business change
danknadoflex@reddit
I’ve been doing this over a decade. I suck at this.
Boom9001@reddit
Have you expressed this preference to managers and in interviews? Most engineers hate maintaining code and looking for bugs, especially in legacy code. If that's what you enjoy I'd have to imagine you'd be a unicorn to a boss.
Typically managers are playing the balancing act of giving people new fun stuff and the necessary bug work.
ElfOfScisson@reddit
I was the same way. As another has said, there is a definite need for “do’ers” and “thinkers” on a team. A solid “do’er”, like you seem to be, is immensely valuable.
I fell into the “do’er” category as well. I decided to go the management route, because I preferred that side of the business, and having a technical background definitely helps, so that could be something to consider.
Over-Tech3643@reddit
It is actually much more easy now. Use a little help from AI to help design and initial code for any new feature. BTW everyone can write code but only few devs can debug and solve the problem by themselves. this is a huge skill don't underestimate yourself.
TotallyNormalSquid@reddit
The number of devs I met who never use a debugger greatly outweighs those who do, I can never understand why
anor_wondo@reddit
For the most part, greenfield projects involve a bunch of 'already been done' boring stuff inspired by competitors. Nothing wrong with how you are feeling
Far more repetitive than any debugging will ever be
tr14l@reddit
You probably just need to plan your work out more so you don't feel like you're starting at an empty code file. The benefit here, additionally, is that having well planned work means you can have AI write all the boring stuff and get you moving.