I hear you and I know what you are going through. I burned out two years ago and I started to think in my future. Do I want to continue programming what I am told when I am 40? I find out that programming is sometimes frustrating depending on the motivations of your coworkers as well...
You may be considering you will be a "manager" in the future but I do think that only a bunch of today programmers will be managers or CTO in the future (a lot of politics in Spain). Somehow there are some people that are meant to be CTO no matter they age or experience, so don't trust you will be one.
So I started to think what do I wanted to do with my life. I considered two options:
- Helping make the world nicer by learning the secrets of design: my mother and brothers are artists and I consider I have some potential, I have done some freelancing regarding this topic.
- Helping the IT world to be more secure in an useful way: I was kind of a hacker in my teen years and I loved it but I started to work as a developer and I lost this track.
Long story short, I studied a MSc in Information Security and now I am helping the enterprise where I was a programmer to build useful security. The good things about the security world is that: is an art, is quite challenging, it involves working with people, is a growing industry, you can program from time to time and... It is cool! =D
I continue programming but as a hobby and I find it much more rewarding.
(Any grammar corrections are appreciated since English it's not my mother tongue).
Comments
I hear you and I know what you are going through. I burned out two years ago and I started to think in my future. Do I want to continue programming what I am told when I am 40? I find out that programming is sometimes frustrating depending on the motivations of your coworkers as well...
You may be considering you will be a "manager" in the future but I do think that only a bunch of today programmers will be managers or CTO in the future (a lot of politics in Spain). Somehow there are some people that are meant to be CTO no matter they age or experience, so don't trust you will be one.
So I started to think what do I wanted to do with my life. I considered two options: - Helping make the world nicer by learning the secrets of design: my mother and brothers are artists and I consider I have some potential, I have done some freelancing regarding this topic. - Helping the IT world to be more secure in an useful way: I was kind of a hacker in my teen years and I loved it but I started to work as a developer and I lost this track.
Long story short, I studied a MSc in Information Security and now I am helping the enterprise where I was a programmer to build useful security. The good things about the security world is that: is an art, is quite challenging, it involves working with people, is a growing industry, you can program from time to time and... It is cool! =D
I continue programming but as a hobby and I find it much more rewarding.
(Any grammar corrections are appreciated since English it's not my mother tongue).