How to be excited to work again?
I’ve been working in the same place for over 4 years now as a senior dev. I reached the point where I don’t care anymore at what I do, I don’t care if the code I write is good, I don’t care if the company will do good or bad or if they fire me.
Now I took 2 months of vacation to unwind and do what I love.
During this time I would like to listen to some audiobooks or podcasts to become excited to code, to create and in general to work again. Anything you can suggest?
I think everyone needs a regular dose of motivation.
1. Motivational talks. They mostly appeal to your base emotions (greed, lust, pride, laziness, etc). So for a while, you feel motivated. But there's a point where you want it so bad but hate the process, leading to burnout. Treat it like junk food - a little is fine, but don't make it your main.
2. Fiction. The opposite of motivational talks. Motivators appeal to your conscious, fiction appeals to your subconscious. Comic books are the most efficient form IMO. Series, especially anime and Netflix, can be very inefficient. This is your bread and butter of motivation.
3. Watching people do good work. Code is hard, because people rarely record themselves in flow. Music (e.g. guitar, freestyle on Omegle videos) is very accessible. Also handwork - people fixing stuff, restoration, Mythbusters style edutainment-engineering. It motivates you seeing what skilled people can reach, but on the other hand, may make you give up.
4. Mentoring. My most motivated period was going through Sam Altman's startup classes [1]. There's very few truly good sources; most technical content today is plagiarized and a form of self-marketing. Lots of stuff on Udemy, etc, are just mediocre. But find yourself a good class or teacher, and you should also get a burst of motivation.
[1] https://startupclass.samaltman.com/
You need to be financialy independent, as long as you are not you risk being a wageslave and doing what you have again if you fail to make money in some other way.
If you're not financialy independent you need to create a sustanabile revenue stream from some other project.
In general the recommendation is to either match your wage with your alternative revenut stream or even 2x of your wage before quitting.
If you quit without heaving a revenue stream you risk just jerking around and ending up having to go back to a job you hate.
Based on your tone I don't think you can ever enjoy the work you are currently doing. Trying to enjoy something you hate is trying to square a box.
You're too far gone, you've seen/understood thing that makes it clear that you don't want to do what you do anymore.
But the reality of this planet is that you need $$$ to survive.
Based on my own personal past experiences I really have to say this: don't quit until you have an alternative revenue stream that covers atleast your living expenses.
This might be why everyone is burned out. They feel they need two jobs before quitting one job. By the time someone retires at 50, they're so used to working two jobs a day that working none is a shock.
By comparison, I see cooks and truck drivers who are happy with their work, despite making much less, whereas tech people talk about feeling exhausted all the time. I don't think it's about the money. It's probably more related to the nature of tech work.
You need goals to be driven in life. You need to sit down and see where you want to be in i.e. 5 years from now. This could be work related or not. Some people find passion in field within computer science, i.e. security and dedicate their time to pursue that passion to be the best they can.
Change jobs. No one stays at the same place for 4 years these days.
I rarely feel excited to code after taking a new job, but it works for some people. I think it's because new jobs end up with a massive context change, plus having to deal with all the onboarding, so it's about 2 weeks to actually start. Sometimes even months to get used to the new codebase.
No one stays at the same place for 4 years these days.
Why is that, do you think?
And is it a good thing?
Because doing the same shit gets boring after a year or two, and it's easy to get a big raise by switching companies. Feels normal because everyone does it. Majority of my coworkers at my last 5 companies (various startups) lasted two years on average.
People do change jobs frequently, but yours isn’t a very good sample.
Startup hopping has its own dynamics, where people sign up to catch the next orbital launch and then move on when they haven’t been seeing engines firing strongly enough.
In more mature companies, which do still turn over way faster than they used to, the dynamics are more traditional (pay/title/resume/perks/culture).
To me startup or not does not make any difference. The pay is good (265k, working remotely, far away from the volley), the environment is relaxed (I work realistically ~20 hours a week including meetings), and I don't care about the exit (I assume my shares are worth zero). Yeah, I could be making 600k at FAANG, but I'd have to move back to CA, and honestly, I'm quite satisfied with what I have. And yet I will probably leave for something new within a year. There are a lot of well funded startups working on interesting things, and my skills are in high demand.
Make side projects.