I haven't seen many folks who actually hands-on programmed this long willingly and grown to hate it. Instead one is usually trying to become something else (CTO, executive, etc) but due to financial difficulties, struggle to make connections and promote themselves, had to keep writing code. Are you sure this wasn't more of your case? That said, I haven't programmed for 35 years yet (approaching 30 in my case), so I don't know how I might feel when I get there.

▲

pjmlp 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Started with computers in 1986, and I don't want to become something else other that programming related activities, even if only partially due to architecture and devops stuff, unless obliged to by external factors.

Already did management tasks occasionally, and I rather be stuck on the last step of the career laddder with a job that makes me happy, than one I have to drag myself to office (physical or virtual one).

Eventually if healthy enough close to retirement age, I might as well do something completly different than computing related.

▲

radicalbyte 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Nope not at all. The first ~10 years were as a kid, so not professionally. Professionally I'm at the top of my niche and decided to work as a consultant instead of starting doing my own startup or starting an agency as I wasn't able to commit and have a family, and I loved writing code (and was bloody good at it, and at making my teams much much better by leading by example & helping them grow).

I spent the pandemic being one of the key players in the pandemic response, writing a lot of code but also helping a load of teams over different countries collaborate, and anything else I could do to make everything work. Oh and bringing up kids at the same time.

Now I'm at a startup, finally, and getting the engineering team off of the ground. Still trying to code (it's really hard to give up chasing the highs) a bit but there's less time for it and no time for the really hard deep dives (and I'm not willing to ignore my family to no-life it as others can do).

With that context, yeah, it's not as enjoyable. Sure I could try and transition back to a full-time coding roll and yeah, I'd be working on fun puzzles and enjoying it, but that means my impact is more limited. It's a better use of my skills + experience to be doing what I'm doing. Pays more too but both pay well :-)

	▲	hakunin 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Sounds very interesting, and at first I thought maybe you're an outlier, but the more I read people mention "solving puzzles", the more I notice a more fundamental difference in enjoying programming. For me it's not solving puzzles, but rather finding elegant/eloquent expression of something complex (feel like I'm more of a writer than an engineer). That's what makes me tick: clear code that can itself serve as a primary source of knowledge of how a business functions. If I work with an AI agent, I become an editor rather than a writer — a very different job.
	▲	jimbokun 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Uh, so in the end you pretty much ended up in a management role instead of coding and seems like you’re much happier that way. So not far off from the comment you replied to.

▲

lenkite 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It can happen if you develop health issues like carpal tunnel or Sciatica due to extended sitting. Programming then gets mentally associated with pain.