<story><title>Ask HN: Depressed, need to leave web development, what can I do?</title><text>I&amp;#x27;m an average developer. Been doing it 15 years. All the vacancies in my field now seem to have 300+ applicants.&lt;p&gt;~60% of the jobs are with outsourcing companies like toptal, gigster and so on.&lt;p&gt;My labour is a commodity but even lower paying jobs expects you to be a superstar leetcoder, with the wherewithal to go through 6-8 interviews and IQ test.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t see progress in my career, i hate technology, i hate what this industry has become - it&amp;#x27;s not something I want to do anymore.&lt;p&gt;Nearing my 40s, so my profile is less appealing to employers, this field is very oriented to young people.&lt;p&gt;Anyone managed to move from front-end to another role, while leveraging your existing work history?&lt;p&gt;Appreciate any guidance, thanks.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>jaitaiwan</author><text>Seems like you’re experiencing burn-out and from what I’ve read and experienced, burn out is a function of emotional investment vs the emotional return.&lt;p&gt;So I see that you have two options both of which shouldn’t happen before first taking a small break:
1. Continue to work in the industry and reduce your emotional investment. Hint: great places for that are big corporates.
2. Continue to work while upskilling in another field or your current field depending on what you prefer.&lt;p&gt;Depression often comes with the temptation to catastrophise the situation, avoid that urge. Seek out others who can be objective and talk you through it, be prepared to hear their answers.&lt;p&gt;I started out front-end, did a lot of my own side projects to get backend stuff. PHP is pretty good despite the hate because not many people want to do it these days but a legit and easy way to get some backend experience.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ChrisMarshallNY</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; PHP is pretty good despite the hate&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I suspect the &amp;quot;hate&amp;quot; is rather localized.&lt;p&gt;I find the &amp;quot;Fishtank Graph&amp;quot;[0] to be a fairly good way to get my feet firmly planted back on the ground.&lt;p&gt;That said, I don&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;like&lt;/i&gt; PHP, and avoid it, if possible. I use it for my backend work, and it does a great job, there. I just prefer writing apps in Swift.&lt;p&gt;The &amp;quot;game-changer,&amp;quot; for me, was retiring, and working on the stuff &lt;i&gt;I&lt;/i&gt; want to work on, at &lt;i&gt;my&lt;/i&gt; pace, and using &lt;i&gt;my&lt;/i&gt; methodologies. No more insecure middle managers, pissing on my work, and no more insecure co-workers, fighting over every detail, and deliberately sabotaging team dynamics (to be fair, I spent a good part of my career, as a manager, which I &lt;i&gt;hated&lt;/i&gt;, but it paid the bills).&lt;p&gt;I know that retiring is not an option for a lot of folks, and realize how fortunate I am (I didn&amp;#x27;t feel that way, at first, though. My retirement was not by choice).&lt;p&gt;But it&amp;#x27;s not work, if you love what you do.&lt;p&gt;These days (and for the last five years), I actually get more done, every day, by 10AM, than I used to get done, all day, in the office. My GH activity graph is solid green (no exaggeration), and it isn&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;gamed,&amp;quot; like so many of them. I do two things, every day:&lt;p&gt;1) I walk three miles, and&lt;p&gt;2) I write Swift code.&lt;p&gt;Life is good.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;w3techs.com&amp;#x2F;technologies&amp;#x2F;history_overview&amp;#x2F;programming_language&amp;#x2F;ms&amp;#x2F;y&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;w3techs.com&amp;#x2F;technologies&amp;#x2F;history_overview&amp;#x2F;programmin...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: Depressed, need to leave web development, what can I do?</title><text>I&amp;#x27;m an average developer. Been doing it 15 years. All the vacancies in my field now seem to have 300+ applicants.&lt;p&gt;~60% of the jobs are with outsourcing companies like toptal, gigster and so on.&lt;p&gt;My labour is a commodity but even lower paying jobs expects you to be a superstar leetcoder, with the wherewithal to go through 6-8 interviews and IQ test.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t see progress in my career, i hate technology, i hate what this industry has become - it&amp;#x27;s not something I want to do anymore.&lt;p&gt;Nearing my 40s, so my profile is less appealing to employers, this field is very oriented to young people.&lt;p&gt;Anyone managed to move from front-end to another role, while leveraging your existing work history?&lt;p&gt;Appreciate any guidance, thanks.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>jaitaiwan</author><text>Seems like you’re experiencing burn-out and from what I’ve read and experienced, burn out is a function of emotional investment vs the emotional return.&lt;p&gt;So I see that you have two options both of which shouldn’t happen before first taking a small break:
1. Continue to work in the industry and reduce your emotional investment. Hint: great places for that are big corporates.
2. Continue to work while upskilling in another field or your current field depending on what you prefer.&lt;p&gt;Depression often comes with the temptation to catastrophise the situation, avoid that urge. Seek out others who can be objective and talk you through it, be prepared to hear their answers.&lt;p&gt;I started out front-end, did a lot of my own side projects to get backend stuff. PHP is pretty good despite the hate because not many people want to do it these days but a legit and easy way to get some backend experience.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spoiler</author><text>This is all excellent advice.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d just like to emphasize your point about being prepared to hear their answers. But &lt;i&gt;really&lt;/i&gt; hear it. Don&amp;#x27;t let the brain demons (depression warps perception) get to the words before you do!&lt;p&gt;Also, people often don&amp;#x27;t know how to have difficulty conversations, so this is another thing that can just make hearing the message harder. Eg, they often try to encourage as a way of showing compassion, instead of just showing compassion. They&amp;#x27;re stills being supportive, but it might not be the support you need. And &lt;i&gt;just&lt;/i&gt; encouragement, without a good framework and a healthy mindset—which could have has been compromised by burnout—won&amp;#x27;t be enough.&lt;p&gt;I wholeheartedly also recommend going to therapy (and people often think this takes years, but it can just be a couple of sessions).</text></comment>