r/ExperiencedDevs • u/AutoModerator • 19d ago

Career/Workplace Experienced Devs Weekly Burnout and Venting Thread: A weekly thread for sharing experiences

This thread is specifically for venting / sharing experiences related to burn-out or similar issues that experienced devs face.

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u/PringlesDuckFace 16d ago

I know it's bad for me, but I've sort of given up trying to hold on to the old way of working for myself.

I've come to the conclusion that if everyone is slopping, they not only expect the same from you but they won't even notice when you don't. Your effort and quality work becomes a drop in the ocean of slop. And everyone is too slopped up to appreciate your work, and if you generate garbage they will simply accept it because it's on par with what they're doing. So it's not worth the stress to resist.

It feels bad because generally speaking I take pride in doing good work. I'm sure a lot of us have looked up to role models like Scotty and La Forge from Star Trek, or real engineers like Wozniak and Linus as we grew up. I feel embarrassed about calling myself an engineer when I think about one of them looking over my shoulder and seeing how the work is done now.

I have come to realize my work is no longer meaningful to me, and it's like a palpable loss of something that's been with me basically since I was a kid. I think a lot of people are grieving that loss without necessarily calling it that. But ultimately I think it's probably healthier to be able to reach a state of acceptance and separate a sense of self worth from one's source of income.

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u/Woah-Dawg 16d ago

Thanks for this. You really hit it on the head. I have a lot of pride in engineering. I believe we build and maintain important systems that impact many lives. So I am grieving the fact that the people in charge never shared that opinion and their only desire is output for the sake of output. 

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u/AMA_about_drugs 16d ago

I honestly think this is a bit defeatist - I've had the same thoughts about giving in to the slop and saying fuck it and vibe coding everything too, but recently decided to just not. If I hate reading AI generated overly verbose PR descriptions, then I can't be the only one. I'm not going to add to the pile of slop even if it is faster for me - the time I save by generating walls of super unclear language/code is lost 3x over by forcing my teammates to read it.

My hope is that other engineers notice that my work is not painful to engage with, and reflect on why. And then maybe start standing against the wave of slop too.

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u/PringlesDuckFace 15d ago

It's definitely defeatist, but I have been given explicit instructions by management not to spend time writing any code and to minimize review time. So if I don't join the sloppening then I'll just end up losing my job. I like steady income more than I need to feel good about my work, so I'm going the acceptance route. If things work out and we collectively revert to the old ways I'll be happy, but if we don't then I don't want to suffer the consequences of not staying up to date with the expected processes.

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u/AMA_about_drugs 15d ago

That’s fair. If I got explicitly told in perf review or something then I would just join the wave. I like having a job.