I started to outsource thinking at my job as my company made it very clear that they do not want/cant afford thinking engineers. Thinking requires time and they want to deliver quickly. So they cater towards the very realistic deadlines our PMs set for features (/s). Funnily enough the features have to be implemented ASAP according to the customers, but the customer feedback takes like 6 months due to them using the new feature for the first time 6 months after delivery. I just dont care anymore. Gonna leave the learning part up to my time off, but getting generally tired of the industry as a whole, so just putting in minimal effort to pay my bills until things explode or get better. So for me its definitely outsourcing thinking at work.
This is a fatalistic attitude, but I can totally get behind. It has become harder to associate my job with contributing with society.
I agree and I am far from being a senior engineer. I'm only in the market since a few years and started out just before the whole LLM stuff started to pick up. So I have been grinding a lot (2nd job I've learned, am in tech since ~2020) only to be confronted with permanent existential fear of having to possibly learn a 3rd job (which takes 3 years of full time work for neglectable pay in my country). I dont want to start from zero again and I am tired of corporations that are shitting out money to be cheap on their employees. Starting from zero is never fun, going back into debt is never fun and having to leave a job/career you like also is never fun. I'm 30 now and only ever have been making (noteworthy, still below median) money since 1.5 years now. I cant afford starting anew and there is little I can do about it which is extremely frustrating.
I work with/am friends with many junior-ish developers who are in the same place as you (got into programming in their late 20s around the 2020 hiring cycle). I'm very sorry for the stress you're dealing with.
I don't know if this describes your situation, but I know many people who are dealing with positions where they have no technical mentorship, no real engineering culture to grow in, and a lot of deadlines and work pressure. Coupled with this, they often don't have a large social group within programming/tech, because they've only been in it for a few years and have been heads down grinding to get a good job the whole time. They're experiencing a weird mixture of isolation, directionless-ness, and intense pressure. The work is joyless for them, and they don't see a future.
If I can offer any advice, be selfish for a bit. Outsource as much as you want to LLMs, but use whatever time savings you get out of this to spend time on programming-related things you enjoy. Maybe work the tickets you find mildly interesting without LLMs, even if they aren't mission critical. Find something interesting to tinker with. Learn a niche language. Or slack off in a discord group/make friends in programming circles that aren't strictly about career advancement and networking.
I think it's basically impossible to get better past a certain level if you can't enjoy programming, LLM-assisted or otherwise. There's such a focus on "up-skilling" and grinding through study materials in the culture right now, and that's all well and good if you're trying to pass an interview in 6 weeks, but all of that stuff is pretty useless when you're burned out and overwhelmed.
Yea I never had real mentorship and I am responsible for 6 projects as solo developer. I am heavily against using LLMs for my tasks as thats just passionless mind numbing back and forth with a machine trying to get it to spit out stuff I actually understand.
I also learned that I absolutely hate most programmers. No offense. But most I've been talking to have a complete lack of ethics. I really love programming but I have a massive issue with how industry scale programming is performed (just offloading infra to AWS, just using random JS libs for everything, buying design templates instead of actually building components yourself, 99% of apps being simple CRUD and I am so incredibly tired of building http based apps, web forms and whatnot...)
I love tech, but the industry does not have a soul. The whole joy of learning new things is diminishing the more I learn about the industry.
As a product manager, this makes me think the features you're building are not the things your customers need or want most. I'm curious if you were to ask your product manager about that six-month timeframe, and just ask the open-ended question of is there anything on the backlog that we can build that the product manager thinks users would pick up within days instead of months?
As a product manager, this feels like they're in the pretty typical B2B SaaS trap of building the stuff that the people who pay for the product insist they need but the people using the product don't necessarily want, so they've gotta invest a bunch of time and effort getting usage/feedback.
Could be for good reasons (e.g. they're security features that are important to the business but add friction for the user) or just because management is disconnected from the reality of their employees. Either way, not necessarily the wrong decision by the PM - sometimes you've gotta build features fast because the buyer demands them in a certain timeframe in order to get the contract signed. Even if they never get used, the revenue still pays the bills.
If they were building the stuff the people paying for the product insist they need, it seems unlikely that they'd take 6 months to use it once built. Unless it's some API that takes a ton of work to build to. It didn't sound like they were getting feedback for those six months.
Security features that add friction for the user are usually forced, aren't they?
Contract requirements do make sense, but I get the idea that this user would know that.
What are you imagining that would be actual value but not used for six months?
Put your LLM to use writing a resume and looking for a new job. You've already checked out of this job. There is a better and more fulfilling way to spend your waking hours. Good luck friend.
What do you really care? Its a job.
Historically (I'm 48), professionals have cared about their jobs, generally speaking, and often do make serious attempts to logically derive sociological benefits from their personal efforts. There's been a seismic shift over the past 5-6 years, though, and this sense of care has massively eroded.
> There's been a seismic shift over the past 5-6 years
Nah. It's been at least since 2009 (GBC), if not longer.
It started happening with the advent of applicant tracking systems (making hiring a nightmare, which it still is) and the fact that most companies stopped investing into training of juniors and started focusing more on the short-term bottom line.
If the company is going to make it annoying to get hired and won't invest anything in you as a professional, there's 0 reason for loyalty besides giving your time for the paycheck. And 0 reason to go 120% so you burn out.
I feel you. I’m 46 and now on the hunt for the right company to work for, and hopefully finish out my career there. While the company values haven’t technically changed, the actions taken in the past 5 years have eroded my trust so much I barely recognize the place. When you no longer have a sense of pride working somewhere, it’s time to move on. At least that is what I believe to be true.
> While the company values haven’t technically changed, the actions taken in the past 5 years have eroded my trust so much I barely recognize the place. When you no longer have a sense of pride working somewhere, it’s time to move on. At least that is what I believe to be true.
The problem, as I see it, is the changes that bug me [1] seem systemic throughout the economy, "best practices" promulgated by consultants and other influencers. I'm actually under the impression my workplace was a bit behind the curve, at a lot of other places are worse.
[1] Not sure if they're the "actions" you're talking about. I'm talking about offshoring & AI (IHMO part of the same thrust), and a general increase in pressure/decrease in autonomy.
I'm 44. It's been more than five or six years. I would say 15 or 20, if not more.
It feels like covid turbocharged it though. The amount of grift outright corruption is unrecognizable compared to even 2019. Maybe it was always there but it feels like companies have gone full mask off now.
Give me a concrete example?
Software developers have never been professionals. Doctors, lawyers, accountants, chartered engineers are professionals. They have autonomy and obligations to a professional code of ethics that supersedes their responsibility to their employers.
Devs are hired goons at worst and skilled craftspeople at best, but never professionals.
There are, proportionally, more lawyers than software engineers in prison I would claim. Code of ethics doesn't really mean much.
> What do you really care? Its a job.
Because having a job that's somewhat satisfying and not just a grind is great for one's own well-being. It's also not a bad deal for the employer, because an engaged employee delivers better results than one who doesn't give a shit.