This is eerily similar to what I went through a few months ago! The startup I worked at was going to either be acquired or shut down. The founders and managers had to pool together ~$1m to keep us running for a few more months. We got news here and there about potential buyers, and some of us were interviewed. One day, we got an emergency all-hands and the CEO told us that we couldn't find a buyer in time. In an unfortunate turn of events, the last handful of potential buyers dropped out in a matter of a few days.
I really missed what we had there. The people were genuinely good. It was one of the rare startups that actually had work-life balance, and the founders had integrity.
Being an alien resident, I rushed to find another job, and was able to get a job 3 days before my last legal employment date. This new job is almost as bad as it gets. The PMs are micromanaging every software engineer. 5-days in-person, and every day our standup boiled down to the PM reading our task of linear and saying "end of day, ok?". Speed is their company motto. Speed is their culture. Their strategy for growth is to "just write more code, that's it". During one of the interviews I asked them "what’s crucial for success at your company?” and they said “write good code, fast”. They do write code fast, but that’s about it. The product is unstable, and most of the employees have worked there for less than a year.
This is really making me reconsider what I’m looking for as a software engineer. In the first week, I thought that all I wanted was a healthy workplace (like my previous startup). Entering a toxic workplace, this idea made a lot of sense. Over time, though, I’m thinking that might not be the case. After enforcing some boundaries, I was able to limit myself to a roughly 40-hour work week. For context, others on my team are working up to 10-12 hours, and some are working weekends and public holidays. Even after enforcing this, though, I still didn’t feel satisfied.
I realized that, in all of my jobs so far, I haven’t really pursued what I wanted to build. It was always a generic frontend/backend role. I think that even if I did find a healthier job, I would still be quite miserable. I might be clouded by how toxic the current workplace is, and how fun and nice the people were in my previous startup were, but it probably boils down to the same thing. It’s gotta be something I like.
So, I’m currently working on a CLI game. I’m hoping I can take it far enough so I can work on the things I’m really passionate about: software tools. I’m getting jaded with SaaS and leaning more towards smaller products that work really well locally, like terminals and IDEs. It might also mean that the work I’d do would be less spread out (e.g. writing new microservices that might get phased out in a few years) and are concentrated into something more valuable (e.g. a new rendering engine).
I’m getting tired of startups with herculean expectations and leaning towards sustainable growth, like Obsidian and mymind. Anyways, I hope my current job is at least a good catalyst and realization for my long-term growth as a software engineer. Thanks for the read!
> This is really making me reconsider what I’m looking for as a software engineer. In the first week, I thought that all I wanted was a healthy workplace (like my previous startup). Entering a toxic workplace, this idea made a lot of sense. Over time, though, I’m thinking that might not be the case.
This is insightful and matches my experience. I often think about jobs in three buckets: impact, reward, learning. Impact could be the scale of the product, or how big of a dent I can put into it, or the autonomy I have in the job, etc. Reward can mean recognition, money, something to put on the CV, etc. Learning means that I grow.
The words I use for these three buckets often change, but I think it's roughly these categories in which I think about it.
Now, the kicker is this: the 3 buckets have to be balanced. A job that pays me 3 times as much as I earn now, but I won't learn anything and don't have any impact? No way. A job that doesn't pay well, you have a huge impact, but no learning? Eh. A job where you learn a lot, have a lot of impact, but get paid less? Interesting. A job with good pay, _a lot_ to learn, little less impact? Also interesting.
And what I learned is that at certain points in your life you want different balances. And sometimes you try out a configuration of these buckets (like you described!) and realized that it doesn't work for you. Or in my case, as described in this post, I had autonomy, I could learn, but zero impact.
> this constant feeling that I’m wasting my time, wasting someone else’s money, that I’m doing things that just do not matter.
This hurts a lot.
The only thing that stays with you is the last part, the feeling that nothing of what you do matters. Even when the problem is in the past, that feeling stays with you for a while, even when you have things to do, things that _probably_ matter.
It feels somewhat good to know that it happens to others.
if you can’t start something that might not end up ‘making it’, then you don’t feel like at least what you learned is important for the future? or maybe the fact that you found out it was a dead end is also a big step in knowledge?
Yeah, absolutely. I think it depends on a lot of factors: how long do you work on it, how likely is it to "make it", what are the expectations around it, what do *I* expect from it vs. what do others expect.
There are many things that I do and did that never made it - but that was clear from the start. Then there were other situations in which I worked on features/products that I and everybody else knew aren't used by more than 3 customers and even those 3 customers don't care if you delete it tomorrow — then it's hard to motivate yourself.
This is eerily similar to what I went through a few months ago! The startup I worked at was going to either be acquired or shut down. The founders and managers had to pool together ~$1m to keep us running for a few more months. We got news here and there about potential buyers, and some of us were interviewed. One day, we got an emergency all-hands and the CEO told us that we couldn't find a buyer in time. In an unfortunate turn of events, the last handful of potential buyers dropped out in a matter of a few days.
I really missed what we had there. The people were genuinely good. It was one of the rare startups that actually had work-life balance, and the founders had integrity.
Being an alien resident, I rushed to find another job, and was able to get a job 3 days before my last legal employment date. This new job is almost as bad as it gets. The PMs are micromanaging every software engineer. 5-days in-person, and every day our standup boiled down to the PM reading our task of linear and saying "end of day, ok?". Speed is their company motto. Speed is their culture. Their strategy for growth is to "just write more code, that's it". During one of the interviews I asked them "what’s crucial for success at your company?” and they said “write good code, fast”. They do write code fast, but that’s about it. The product is unstable, and most of the employees have worked there for less than a year.
This is really making me reconsider what I’m looking for as a software engineer. In the first week, I thought that all I wanted was a healthy workplace (like my previous startup). Entering a toxic workplace, this idea made a lot of sense. Over time, though, I’m thinking that might not be the case. After enforcing some boundaries, I was able to limit myself to a roughly 40-hour work week. For context, others on my team are working up to 10-12 hours, and some are working weekends and public holidays. Even after enforcing this, though, I still didn’t feel satisfied.
I realized that, in all of my jobs so far, I haven’t really pursued what I wanted to build. It was always a generic frontend/backend role. I think that even if I did find a healthier job, I would still be quite miserable. I might be clouded by how toxic the current workplace is, and how fun and nice the people were in my previous startup were, but it probably boils down to the same thing. It’s gotta be something I like.
So, I’m currently working on a CLI game. I’m hoping I can take it far enough so I can work on the things I’m really passionate about: software tools. I’m getting jaded with SaaS and leaning more towards smaller products that work really well locally, like terminals and IDEs. It might also mean that the work I’d do would be less spread out (e.g. writing new microservices that might get phased out in a few years) and are concentrated into something more valuable (e.g. a new rendering engine).
I’m getting tired of startups with herculean expectations and leaning towards sustainable growth, like Obsidian and mymind. Anyways, I hope my current job is at least a good catalyst and realization for my long-term growth as a software engineer. Thanks for the read!
Thanks for your comment!
> This is really making me reconsider what I’m looking for as a software engineer. In the first week, I thought that all I wanted was a healthy workplace (like my previous startup). Entering a toxic workplace, this idea made a lot of sense. Over time, though, I’m thinking that might not be the case.
This is insightful and matches my experience. I often think about jobs in three buckets: impact, reward, learning. Impact could be the scale of the product, or how big of a dent I can put into it, or the autonomy I have in the job, etc. Reward can mean recognition, money, something to put on the CV, etc. Learning means that I grow.
The words I use for these three buckets often change, but I think it's roughly these categories in which I think about it.
Now, the kicker is this: the 3 buckets have to be balanced. A job that pays me 3 times as much as I earn now, but I won't learn anything and don't have any impact? No way. A job that doesn't pay well, you have a huge impact, but no learning? Eh. A job where you learn a lot, have a lot of impact, but get paid less? Interesting. A job with good pay, _a lot_ to learn, little less impact? Also interesting.
And what I learned is that at certain points in your life you want different balances. And sometimes you try out a configuration of these buckets (like you described!) and realized that it doesn't work for you. Or in my case, as described in this post, I had autonomy, I could learn, but zero impact.
> this constant feeling that I’m wasting my time, wasting someone else’s money, that I’m doing things that just do not matter.
This hurts a lot.
The only thing that stays with you is the last part, the feeling that nothing of what you do matters. Even when the problem is in the past, that feeling stays with you for a while, even when you have things to do, things that _probably_ matter.
It feels somewhat good to know that it happens to others.
Thanks for sharing it!
if you can’t start something that might not end up ‘making it’, then you don’t feel like at least what you learned is important for the future? or maybe the fact that you found out it was a dead end is also a big step in knowledge?
Yeah, absolutely. I think it depends on a lot of factors: how long do you work on it, how likely is it to "make it", what are the expectations around it, what do *I* expect from it vs. what do others expect.
There are many things that I do and did that never made it - but that was clear from the start. Then there were other situations in which I worked on features/products that I and everybody else knew aren't used by more than 3 customers and even those 3 customers don't care if you delete it tomorrow — then it's hard to motivate yourself.