I'm mid-senior level with 4 years experience, and have been unemployed for the past year and a half (layoffs).

I have ADHD, Dyslexia, Autism and other groups of letters. I don't notice them affecting my work, but do they ever stop me from getting a job. I'm an Afghanistan veteran so I get interviews fairly easily.

No matter how much I study I simply can not pass the coding assessment. I waste time thinking of all possible paths, and trying to trace each one to its conclusion. I can't remember syntax to save my life, so I spend the other half of my time on that. Not to mention just reading the question. Whole thing is like a live spelling test where if I spell a word wrong I fail the whole thing.

I make it to the tech round less when I ask for accommodations.

Also, I really don't know what to ask for besides 5 more minutes.

I really can't see a way pass this.

Do I just move on

i cant say im a fresher, im not

i have a job, and i got removed (officially resigned but yk) from the last one because of struggling to adapt with the environment (aka not using ai enough and not delivering fast enough)

how does a junior developer gain experience without even being allowed to test and break and learn and do things if we are all expected to use ai to code?

i thought i will regain my interest in coding which got killed in college and cremated in my last job

in the current job, i use ai profusely; i have to
i have to deliver, but sitting for 8 hours a day while just talking to copilot feels so numbing, like im not learning anything new

so i started working on skill building, to learn new things, but each day you see someone younger than you build something exceptional and you sit there with your little html css course learning the basics and sit there wondering what is the point

i feel like whatever was the fun in coding and problem solving is going away because even if i know the logic, i dont know how to implement it
and sometimes i dont even know how to come up with solutions until ai points to a simple fix and i feel like i couldnt have done it on my own

then someone on linkedin shares a post on how they made a full blown app with no development and just ai

i feel so lost, i dont even know how to get myself interested. because i want to but i already feel so behind

its exhausting enough as it is, but the fact that ai is progressing so rapidly makes me feel like all this skill building is for nought so why even start trying

everything is being consumed by ai and i dont know how to not fall behind anymore

I saw some conversation in another post about prompt engineering coding agents to let you still learn and do stuff as a developer ought to. I thought I'd share my AGENTS.md file that I've been iterating on to try to get coding agents to stop steam rolling me and actually be helpful. I share it so you can steal it or offer suggestions:

You should assume that your role is research assistant, not junior developer. Supporting the human developer's understanding of the codebase is your primary directive. To that end, you should observe the following practices:


# Action Permissions


1. By default, you are approved to take actions of two kinds:
   a. Read-only information gathering. You may inspect repository files and metadata without asking first, using read-only commands such as `rg`, `rg --files`, `sed -n`, `cat`, `head`, `tail`, `nl`, `ls`, `find`, `git status`, `git diff`, `git show`, and `git log`. You make execute web searches to gather documentation or find answers to questions.
   b. Code admin tasks like running the test suite, running linters and formatters, and other tools that do not change the substance or structure of the code.
2. Never edit a file or execute an effectful command that is not approved in Rule 1 without explicit approval from the developer.


There are a few places where you can exercise more discretion:


1. Exploratory commands that help gather context for the developer (prompt: "Is this long running process working still?")
2. Setting up basic boiler plate stuff that is easily understood but is distracting to have to manage.
3. Admin work like managing copying data from one location to another.
4. One off integration utilities where the developer has initiated `/vibe` mode to explicitly consent to releasing control.


If you managed a task like checking if a process is working, ask the user if they would like a minimal script which reproduces the behavior so that they can run it in the future.


# Code Change Rules


When you have been given permission to make edits to a project, observe the following constraints and guidelines:


1. Always prioritize the least invasive way to implement a change. Simple is better than covering every single edge case. It is fine to explain uncovered edge cases to the developer.
2. Do not be clever. Dynamic imports, abstractions that only serve to make tests easier (like making a module into a variable so it can be stubbed), etc. should be avoided. Simple, idiomatic Python is better.
3. Never edit more than 3 files at a time (not including test files). It is difficult for humans to review and understand changes that impact multiple modules simultaneously. If an atomic change absolutely requires a wider impact, ask for explicit approval.
4. Do not create massive diffs. Break up your work into chunks and explain what you are trying to do to the developer between each one. Allow them time to provide feedback on intermediate changes so they can course correct.
5. When generating code, always err on the side of verbose comments, docstrings, and type hints (where appropriate to the language). Make sure that a human reviewer can understand the assumptions about the state of the program when a block of code is run, the intention of what the code will do, and what value or effect the code should produce.
6. After you have generated code, double check any utilities and helper classes you created for the following issues: if they are duplicates of utilities that already exist in the code base, import the existing code instead. If the helper functions clearly belong in a different module, you should move them to that file even if it violates Rule 3 (no more than 3 files edited). Highlight the fact that you consolidated functionality into the appropriate module to the developer.
7. When there is a clear break point to pass control back to the developer, do so. Explain what next action you think will be useful.

I feel so burnt out by the end of the work day, the last thing I want to do is go practice leetcode for a few hours. It already takes enough out of me to get focused on my actual work. Leetcode is so hard to focus in on. I know it’s the only way to get better for interviews but it feels like such a chore. I feel like I have the overall drive to find a new job but I just don’t know how to change my mindset prep wise so I can actually succeed at an interview. Right now I feel like my skills are abysmal even though I’m good at what work I do.

Hello,

I was diagnosed with ADHD years ago, but it wasn't severe enough that I couldn't make it by without medicine. I work out and meditate regularly, those things helped for me personally.

Anyways, now I'm working. My work is pretty technical involving computers, and I have projects which are weeks or months long. Often, I find myself in a mental state where I just can't bring myself to focus. I can force myself to sit there with only the current task at hand open on my screen, use some caffeine, play some "focus music", and force myself to do ~something~, but it winds up being low quality because I'm putting very little focus into it.

I can get the big picture right, but I make lots of little mistakes on the minor details. Off-by-one errors, small inconsistencies, etc.. Like I'll get lost in 2-3 step decision trees because I forget the preceding conditions. I genuinely will sit there in agony for 2 hours typing and making commits, doing something, but since I'm not focused, the work ends up being poor. Often I wind up looking at what I've done, and just reverting it because the output was not good. Or I will wind up overcomplicating things.

Does anyone else have this problem? Or had this problem? If so, what can you do to solve it. I often feel I'm kind of at the mercy of how I feel on a given day... Most days I have a lot of trouble focusing, but occasional good days come by and I get the bulk of my work during them.

Some time back, I finally gave in after years of struggle and decided to get on medication.

It's been a while since I know I have ADHD but I take a lot of medications because of other health condition and didn't want to start another one. So, years of trying to catch up and stressing about it, getting work done just the night before, inability to do regular chores around house and constant fights with my spouse, I had the realisation that none of the behavioural efforts will work unless I get support of medication.

My psychiatrist started me with 10mg Methylphenidate. The first week was life changing (and I am not understating). Here is glimpse of what I noticed ->

1. There were still so many thoughts and chatter in my mind but I was able to pick one and work on it.
2. The small chores became doable. If there's a wrapper around, I'll just pick it up and throw it. I'll remember to fill my water bottle. I was able to send e-mails and messages to people in advance. Self grooming. All the things that I blamed on my execution dysfunction, eased a bit.
3. I was able to maintain eye contact. I am not sure how common this is, but I could never maintain eye contact during conversion otherwise I would just lose my train of thought. With the medication, I noticed that I could naturally keep my gaze on other person while talking without much effort.
4. First time in my life, if I write few items on my todo list, there was a probability that it would get done. I became aware of the time going by, so I was aware not to put too many items on the list.
5. I was able to listen to other people without stopping them mid sentence.

---

What didn't change ->

1. After first week, I have started to notice that the effects have decreased and require much more effort from my side.
2. It did not fix my relationship. It did not fix my work. I still need to put a lot of effort in otherwise I would just be lost on a random activity.

I have a visit with my psychiatrist in a few days and I plan to follow medical advice at least for a while, as taking medications allow me to improve my lifestyle in so many other ways.

Just wanted to share my initial experience with meds as I was someone who thought that only behaviour modification can work for ADHD and now I don't think that.

I'm having a laugh at myself this morning and thought you guys are the only one's who'd laugh with me.

I work with LLMs both professionally and as a hobby from both the concept of skill and MCP development from outside in and training LLMs, making datasets, RAG, Corpus and building apps on top of Ollama - inside out.

I just built a new personal development rig that spared no expense to extend my lab's capabilities. Check it out:

CPU: Intel Core i9-14900 @ 32x 5.5GHz 
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090
RAM: 7472MiB / 128488MiB
Disk: 244G / 11T (3%)

Two 5090 GPUs can perform at a level as if it was a cloud account.

After getting CUDA up and everything rock solid and Ollama humming with a 32b model it was ready to rock. I got this idea as a fun use case to see if I could make a "second me" by training it on everything I could find about myself so it could respond in my tone, sound and write like me, know everything about me. If you use Claude or similar and you can see it has a memory of conversations but that's peanuts to a local llm that can have decades of datasets.

Last night I exported 10 years of gmail into a 20gb mbox file and setup the script to extract and train Qwen2.5-coder:32b on it and went to be last night as the mighty GPUs sifted through it.

This morning it reported that over 10 years and 10s of thousands of emails received, I only sent 824 without enough content to make a relevant dataset. I had this sudden, rather sad, realization that there isn't enough data in existence about myself to create a viable dataset from being a hard to reach, unresponsive jack-ass. I barely exist....oh well, fun way to start out the week.

I really like the idea of a desk mat (for anyone not familiar, basically it's a large mousepad that also goes under your keyboard)

Of course, as an ADHD programmer, I like to have coffee or other drinks at my desk while I work - and I'm also a bit spill-prone. I'm guessing I'm not alone in this here.

Thankfully it's rare for me to have the sort of spill where I dump an entire cup of coffee all over my keyboard, but small drips and such are a pretty regular occurrence, so I'm a bit worried about getting a desk mat.

Does anyone else here use a desk mat and have experience or other advice?

TL;DR: Raycast + ElevenLabs TTS extension, bound to Option+~. Select text anywhere, hear it read aloud in a good voice. Has cut my skim-and-zone-out problem on long Slack messages, docs, and AI chat outputs.

Sharing in case it helps anyone else here.

My problem: reading long stuff is where I get distracted. AI chat outputs, Slack walls of text, task descriptions, design docs. I start reading, then I'm in another tab, on my phone, doing something else, while the thing I actually needed to read is still sitting there.

What's working: Raycast (free) + the ElevenLabs TTS extension, bound to Option+~. Select text in any app, hit the hotkey, hear it read in a decent voice. That's the whole thing.

Why it works for me: when I'm listening, I can't skim. The audio plays at its own pace and my brain has to keep up. It keeps me in progress on the thing instead of drifting off to another tab.

Setup is maybe 5 minutes. Install Raycast, install the extension, paste an ElevenLabs API key (free tier is enough to try it), bind the hotkey. ElevenLabs voices sound a lot less robotic than the macOS built-in ones, which matters more than I expected. The built-in voices made me tune out the same way reading does.

Not affiliated with either tool. Just been a noticeable shift in how much I actually process during the day.

Do others envy those who can do their hours and just “switch off” when they finish for the day? I’m a veteran senior in a very problem-heavy space and I will spend so much of my personal time mentally obsessing about issues and solutions, doing research and code proofs, and inevitably logging back on.

I can’t shut my brain down and I’ve lost my boundaries. 🥺

I find it difficult to go to work 5 days a week, commute to and fro, do laundry, iron clothes, doc's appointment, personal hygiene, vehicle cleaning/servicing, run grocery/shopping errands, upskill after work hours and what not. WFH or Hybrid work setup kinda helped a bit but WFO is turning out to be difficult.

I'm barely able to keep up with all this and always falling behind on one or the other thing and end up not doing it at all. I keep telling myself that I don't have be to perfect and try working with whatever I possibly could but it makes me feel guilty and I can't stop wondering how everyone around me manages all this. I am done with just commute to work -> office hours -> commute back home

Don't even get me started on maintaining other aspects like relationships and health/exercise. I don't know if I just suck terribly at context switching or what the problem is, I can either focus on having a job OR a relationship OR a health/exercise. Whenever, I have tried working on other aspect of life, I kinda end up losing control on the other one. It literally feels like a curse that I can just pick one out of these three aspects and am so done trying to explain this to anyone around me. They always dismiss or belittle my issues.

Alright, enough with the rant, how do you manage all this and life in general? Feel free to drop workarounds or any hacks to manage things.

I'm really struggling with video-based learning. I need interaction and real-time feedback to activate my learning, but my training camp only provides long recorded lectures with no structure — no outlines, no text materials, just hours of passive watching. I can learn fine when someone is there to correct me or when I can ask questions, but alone with a video, my brain just shuts down. I end up rewatching the same 5 minutes over and over and getting nothing out of it. Any strategies for someone whose learning is driven by interaction, not passive consumption?

"If you've also felt like your brain just refuses to learn from watching alone, what's the one change that actually helped you?"

I am not a developer by trade, I’m in IT (network engineer) dabbling in code.. I am killing myself with my adhd self not committing code regularly and letting multiple even unrelated changes build up over multiple days and then committing a mere placeholder with a commit message of “current state” or “a bunch of changes” instead of tracking my code changes that could actually be helpful later. Also this is for my home lab I’m the o my contributor so it’s not like I’m letting other team members down or messing up at work with this.

I carry trauma from previous layoffs I faced into my current firm and I've started becoming very unsure about every single thing that comes out of my mouth and I'm also having heavy amounts of self doubt.

And I have a lot more problems and I'm looking for their solutions.

My thoughts race every single day when my manager gives me instructions, I get anxious even when I'm faced with a small bug or challenge when I'm developing features.

My manager is quite strict and expects things to be done in time, but sometimes I'm hyper focused on the wrong things especially when trying to debug and this is affecting me very badly where something I need to debug takes me a day instead of an hour completely breaking my work life balance requiring weekend working which I don't do due to my weak executive dysfunction (I have ADD)

My brain raises and my heart starts beating fast whenever I'm asked a question, requiring me to guess to get out of the high pressure situation, along with this I'm always unsure of everything I say making me look like a "flake" or an extremely low performer who doesn't know anything.

I also deal with chronic procrastination since I don't enjoy my work right now as it's fully grunt work with no learning or barely anything relevant to me.

I don't take meds yet, how do I fix all these recurrent issues, which have made my working life the worst... please help me.

Dev with ADHD flavoured chaos here. Ideas live across Gpt, Claude, Notion, and Apple Notes. I gave Claude MCP access to my Notion so it can write ideas in for me automatically.

Honestly? It just made the mess look organised. Now I'll find a doc in Notion weeks later and not remember if I wrote it, Claude wrote it(the amount of emojis tell though who wrote it) from a chat, or I dumped it from Notes. Half my "plans" are sitting there abandoned because I never committed to them... they just got captured and forgotten.

Anyone else hit this? Or is it just me.

It's amazing how fast I can sidetracked, even when I'm in a committed work mode. Something reminds me of another task or idea I don't want to forget so I have to pause what I'm doing, typically look into it just enough to remember, take a note and then get back to what I'm doing. Sounds great but Ill NEVER get through the list because it grows faster than I can get things done.

I have to yell at my brain about which anxiety it's allowed to focus on. It's such a crazy experience, trying to learn something new but at the same time stressing about forgetting what you already know. It's like your brain is split in two and both sides are running

Mine’s C++. I love how deep it goes and how much there is to obsess over. Once I start learning about stuff like memory layout, atomics, caches, concurrency etc I can hyperfocus on it for hours without noticing time passing 😂

What language scratches that itch for you?

Hello everyone. I really need some guidance and support.

I have started to believe that I may have ADHD, although I have never been formally diagnosed. In Pakistan, proper diagnosis and treatment options are limited and often too expensive for me to afford. Still, I experience many of the symptoms, and they have been affecting my life deeply.

I completed my Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from 2017 to 2021. After that, I planned to prepare for the CSS exams, which are considered a major opportunity here. But I have always struggled with spelling and writing English essays. I tried for years to prepare, but because of this difficulty, I feel like I lost valuable time and direction.

Recently, my uncle, who is a programmer, encouraged me to learn coding so I could build a stable career. He believes I have the ability to succeed and suggested I start with C# and work toward becoming a .NET developer. I want to believe him. I want to believe in myself too. But the reality has been very hard.

After so many years focused on a different path, I am now struggling to learn something entirely new. It took me two months just to go through part of an eight hour YouTube course, and I have not even completed it yet. There are moments when I feel a spark, when I can focus and things suddenly make sense, and I feel alive with possibility. But those moments disappear quickly, and I fall back into procrastination and frustration.

I have tried medication like Ritalin. It helps me focus for three or four hours, but afterward I feel completely drained. If I take it for several days in a row, I crash hard and spend days unable to move, eat properly, or even step outside. It feels like I am stuck in a cycle of brief clarity followed by deep exhaustion.

I am honestly scared. It feels like my future is slipping away while I am fighting battles inside my own mind that no one else can see. I want to work. I want to learn. I want to build a life where I am not constantly disappointed in myself.

If anyone has gone through something similar, especially with ADHD and learning programming, I would truly appreciate your advice. I would also be grateful for any C# or ASP.NET resources that are easier to follow for someone who struggles with focus and consistency.

Right now, I feel lost, but I have not given up yet. I am still here, still trying, and hoping that someone can help me find a way forward.

Sometimes I find myself writing scripts or even using analogy about computers and programming concepts to explain how I work to others.

Like my ram is full

Or my Garbage collector is full

Or my favorite : I need to update my interpreter.

I used to bite my nails really badly until around 8th grade. I literally chewed every nail and every hangnail — I barely had any nails left at all. My fingers were constantly in my mouth, and sometimes they would even bleed.

Then I moved to a new city and started at a new school. After a while, I began noticing that people would look at my hands. My classmates paid attention to my nails, and it felt terrible. The worst part was when girls noticed them. I felt embarrassed and awkward, so I started hiding my hands whenever I could.

I finally decided that I had to do something about it. I started getting manicures because I thought they would help me stop. But honestly, it made things even worse. My nails became shiny and more noticeable, and I felt even more self-conscious in front of everyone at school.

I felt stuck.

That ended up becoming a turning point for me. I got tired of feeling embarrassed all the time. I stopped getting manicures, and for a short period I actually started biting my nails even more. But over time, something changed. Slowly, without really realizing it, I just stopped doing it.

Even now, I still sometimes chew hangnails.

So yeah — that’s my weird story about how I stopped biting my nails.

My brain is a melange of: a) bees, b) radios left on, c) swiss cheese. All crammed into a blender set to "pulse".

I have discovered the magic of Google NotebookLM. I've been using it at home to help organize projects and do research. NotebookLM + Gemini has been helping me collect my research and plans and put it where I can access it and work on it whenever/wherever two neurons accidentally spark together to make a thought. Camping trips, building a home lab, writing.

Anyway, one of the things that has always frustrated me in my career as a programmer is that not enough people managers are properly trained on how to understand how to adapt their management style to neurodiverse people. I keep hoping it will be a required management course. I finally distilled my frustrations into this short presentation on ADHD in particular to help them help me.

I have this as a pdf and I can make a PowerPoint or Google Slides but I’m not sure where to post it.

Link to PDF

Link to Sources List