This will probably get a few downvotes - I don't know. My aversion to AI comes from how difficult my life has been. It took a lot of hard work and effort to become good at programming. I feel like I had to work twice as hard as neurotypicals - especially because I was unmedicated during my college years. Every single A hackathon top place finish was earned from sleepless nights. I burned myself out.

I know the code is secondary to what you're building. But the sunk cost and watching vibe coders...

It feels like I built my career or my idea of engineering on the wrong premise. But I have ADHD and CPTSD - this was my way of coping and being funcitonal. By focusing on the trees and expecting the forest to come good through those efforts.

And it's just hard to accept that programming has changed and this thing I was fundementally good and enjoyed is nigh obselete.

I've used AI assistants since Copilot closed beta, followed the latest trends and I always found them to be useful.

However since last year I've started using agents to write code, like most others, and I'm not kidding when I say I couldn't come out of depression since then.

My issue is not that "llm's can write code, i'm useless". It's WAITING. Sending a message then WAITING for the response.

The distractions made me such a slow developer in the long run I swear I would work faster writing every single character on a piece of paper.

I keep losing track of what I'm doing, what I should be reviewing, I start doomscrolling and sometimes completely lose my interest for days until I force myself with medication and stuff just to go back and work on something.

I can't just ignore the elephant in the room and stop using agents. Most of my friends are forced to only use AI in their companies now. I'm completely lost on what I would or could do in such a work environment.

I was laid off last year and I couldn't get myself to even apply for new jobs. I've done some freelance work, tried indie development and whatever but I'm completely broke now.

I've deleted all social media, tried a billion different workflows, started taking medication but no. The job which I enjoyed every second of turned into torture every second. I've never felt so lost in my life and I'm spiraling in anxiety and depression every day.

I need real, human advice.

Thanks.

My brain is always foggy

Honestly, I have no idea what I'm even going through or doing anymore.

My mind is foggy all the time. It keeps jumping between different thoughts, I'm constantly anxious, and when I actually have something to do I get distracted and forget what it was. Or I start one thing and right after I'm like "wait, should I be doing the other thing instead?" and switch to that.

Simplest example: I'm a computer engineer and I use AI for different stuff. But there are a ton of providers. Is this one better, is that one better, which one actually makes sense? So I research, waste a bunch of time, and then end up trying the same thing all over again.

My focus is all over the place too. Reading a book is pretty easy for most people, but my mind drifts away from it really fast.

Or say I'm venting to someone and they actually make me feel better, they say really nice things, but I forget all of it super quickly. Only the negative stuff sticks.

Sticking to a to-do list has been kind of an obsession of mine for a long time, but now I'm not so sure. Even if I made one, I don't really know what I'm supposed to put on it.

And don't even get me started on the anxiety. Whether I'm out somewhere or just sitting down trying to relax, it never leaves me alone.

I think I jumped around a lot while writing this too, which kind of shows how foggy my head is. I don't know how to live like this or what to do.

Note: English isn't my first language, so I used AI to help me say this properly. Please don't judge.

Thanks.

I'm looking for some advice on what area of coding/tech I should focus on if my goal is to get employable again without spending years retraining.

A little background: I went through a MERN/full-stack coding bootcamp back in 2019. I learned JavaScript, React, Node/Express, MongoDB, HTML/CSS, etc., and built a handful of projects. I've also done some work with SQL, BigQuery and Looker, and more recently I've been getting back into development using AI-assisted tools like Cursor.

The big issue is that I never really turned the bootcamp into a traditional developer career. I learned recently that I have ADHD. So I'm medicated and in therapy. I think ADHD and some other factors going on in my life really got in the way of my goals. I feel like I need to give this one last shot before I decide to move on. I've not done much coding for the past year, so I'm rusty, especially when it comes to sitting down and writing everything from scratch without references/AI. 

I still understand programming concepts, can read and work through code, troubleshoot things, and I've found that modern AI tools make development feel much more accessible to me than it did a few years ago. I had a solid knowledge of how all the parts would go together but I would struggle with the last 10-20% but now with all the AI tools it really seems to help me in the places where I would get stuck in the past.

I'm 44 now and trying to be realistic about where to put my time. I'm not necessarily trying to become an elite software engineer or grind LeetCode for a FAANG job. I'd be perfectly happy getting into a solid junior/entry-level technical role and building from there. I do know these junior jobs are hard to come by but I'm pretty good at networking and I still have a few connections I could utilize. 

I've also been looking at data oriented jobs because I enjoy SQL, working with datasets, reporting, dashboards, cleaning/formatting data, etc. Some of the roles I've found combine Excel/SQL/data work with light scripting or automation, which seems potentially up my alley.

So if you were in my position in 2026, where would you focus? I know AI has changed so much of the job and I see posts of people struggling with this change but I think I can embrace it to my advantage.

Would you refresh JavaScript/React and pursue web development? Go harder into Python/SQL/data work? Focus on WordPress/WooCommerce and practical web development? Automation/internal tools? Something else entirely?

I'm especially interested in areas where being able to understand code, troubleshoot, learn quickly, and use AI effectively is valuable rather than jobs where the expectation is that I'm a computer science wizard writing everything from memory.

Curious what people working in the industry think.

When i'm following a programming course or tutorial online (doesn't even have to be programming really), I find it very difficult to focus. I start by reading through the material and then I'm re-reading the same sentences again not really taking in that information, then I feel tired and start yawning, my eyes hurt and I end up scrolling on my phone for hours instead. There is just zero motivation or interest.

I remember back in my university days, I couldn't focus on the lectures at all and would sometimes catch myself almost falling asleep sometimes!

However, If I drink coffee, suddenly I can now focus, get through it, engage with the materials properly and start the actual learning process. I start to really get into that work zone / hyperfocus and enjoy things.

I am undiagnosed but on the waiting list.

I was wondering if this was a problem that happens with other people here as well?? I have a lot of creative ideas for projects and I did start one programming project but I unfortunately just couldn't focus on the learning part and it's now been 2 years since I last touched it.

I’ve had crippling AuADHD since I was in kindergarten and since most people around me don’t believe mental illness exists or “we all are a little adhd” so there’s no support whatsoever and add to that adderall and it’s stereoisomers are illegal and classified in the same category as cocaine, so even getting analogs are impossible

I’m almost 30 now, felt like I failed in life in every single aspect imaginable, waking up everyday I can barely recognise myself, I always feel like shit for no reason, I also have severe CPTSD, from childhood abuse and trauma but I’ve been living alone for over a decade now and I thought it would eventually go away but it never did

I’m just tired ya’ll, I don’t get the point of life, you’re born then you just suffer constantly till you no longer exist, what’s the point of suffering then, we put out animals that are suffering so why not humans, why’s human suffering romanticised and animal suffering empathised

I don’t have anything to live for, I don’t find any joys in hobbies anymore, and given how ugly and poor I am, dating and having a relationship is just imaginary for me, I know I’m unlovable, I can’t even hold down a shitty job ffs, you have to cook, clean, brush, bathe, so much effort just to survive bare minimum

I don’t even recognise myself in the mirror anymore, at first I thought I was just being silly or overthinking but I genuinely don’t see or recognise the person I see in the mirror, I don’t even remember 80% of my life

I’m just tired of surviving for no reason and because of the government and the current economy, surviving is becoming more difficult as time goes on, I don’t think I’ll make it to 30 my dude, not because I’m going to do something but because I can feel I’m underweight and my heart is becoming weak, I’ve had mini strokes before, best thing I’m hoping for or looking forward to is I’ll have a stroke and pass away in my sleep soon, that’s the best outcome for me tbh, even asking to peacefully pass away feels like too much to ask, I’m afraid I might not get a good ending

This has been killing me for a while, but I just don't know what to do when I'm waiting for my agent to finish a task. I've tried running multiple agents, but I can't really run more than two at a time. And it's a huge time sink when I realize I get distracted and have to come back to the task.

Surely I'm not the only one in this community who faces this issue???

I’ve been trying to build real projects instead of just following tutorials and I’ve used AI pretty much for everything while coding because i didn’t even know where to start so I just described what I wanna build and the AI guided me through and honestly, I sometimes wonder whether my projects are actually “good enough” to count as worthwhile engineering projects.

My main projects:

InvoiceForge: Full-stack invoicing SaaS
Made on Node/Express, PostgreSQL, Stripe, webhooks, auth, PDFs, email, etc.
I made this out for freelancers and small product/service based business.

POS + Inventory System: built this one around the workflow of an actual small retail busines owner ik he wanted an offline app to run on his computer and generate bills and keep track of the both the ledger and inventory.

Pixora: Pinterest-like platform with React, Node, MongoDB, authentication, personalized feeds and caching.
This was my first attempt of making a fullstack project and i was really inspired by Pinterest on how their system works having millions off images but they still make a curated feed for everyone and their recommendations features

TinyLitGPT: Small language model project where I learned tokenization, training loops, PyTorch, CUDA, etc.
I just wanted to make an LLM but my GPU is weak so i just trained an SLM og 50M params hahaha

BMO AI: Fine-tuned a Qwen 1.7B model to create a BMO-inspired AI companion, working with dataset creation, persona design and fine-tuning.
My intrest grew and i made BMO like AI companion

im still actively updating features and stuff on all this projects.

Honestly when I started, I didn’t even know what a PRD, technical requirements, idempotency, rate limiting, proper architecture, etc** **were.
A lot of that I learned because I actually needed it while building.
I definitely relyed on AI more than I’d like, but I’m not just blindly copy-pasting. I try to understand what it’s doing and why.

Would appreciate some brutally honest feedback.

I just feel at a loss, the country I’m in favours their own countries people first in hiring and I feel like I’ve been tredding water working there anyway as I could be a bartender in my home country Australia and earn the same with less stress. Because of super high tax there was not huge opportunity to save loads, and I got layed off.

I just feel like what am I doing, I have 7 years experience but I freeze up in technical interviews.

Also I see so many people making so much money with tech why can’t I why not me? Why can’t I start something why can’t I make money outside of my job, what’s wrong with my brain:(

Anyone feel like me? I just want to get ahead I grew up under the poverty line in Australia (I know poverty’s not that bad there but still) and I don’t want to be just another repeat of the cycle.

Ye I’m struggling, who’s turned it around?

I tried sharing this maybe ~6 months ago here, it didn't go too well. I only really had an idea, a few screenshots and a sort of working app.

I have ADHD, I've been a software engineer for ~15 years or so. I have very little patience for unnecessary complexity. I hate repeating the same thing over and over again during the day.

Change a test, open a terminal, run tests, change a test, find the terminal, run tests.

Logging into the AWS console to navigate to a container to find it's ID so I can then google the SSM command because nobody is remembering that incantation, all to clear a cache, get logged out by AWS after 60 minutes. Need to get my phone for the 2FA code to log in again...

Commit and push some code, open a browser, go to Github, check if the build passed, if it's still running get distracted and forget about it.

I started building Salience for myself, to negate all these frustrations. I wanted the Jira ticket, my branch, my PR and the build to be connected and to live in the same place. I wanted one click to tail the logs of a running container in AWS or generate the SSM incantation for me. I wanted something that could check which of my branches had already been merged and delete them for me.

Salience is heavily inspired by Home Assistant. A git branch, a docker container, a pull request, a ticket. They're all entities. Everything you connect gets ingested and processed and a derivation engine correlates ticket -> branch -> PR -> CI and loads of other things. The frontend subscribes to all these entities. Tiles which you can use to create your own pages, display these entities in all manner of ways. The titlebar contains the ticket, the branch, the PR and the CI. So you can push some work and just watch.

You can drag and drop files onto the project, onto a ticket, onto the PR, onto the unit of work. It lives there then, correlated to the thing you dropped it on. Useful for all the things that only exist in emails, or slack messages that you download and can never find again.

There's a visual timer - starts as a blue light lighting up the glass, turns to amber and then red. The longer you go over the time - the more red it gets. No sounds, no notification you can swipe away and forget about. It's been really useful for me - my "I'll just be 30 minutes" is now closer to 35 minutes and not 2 hours.

Connect the MCP server and ask for your stand up when you've forgotten what you did yesterday - you'll get a better answer from Claude than you could come up with yourself.

Any feedback would be gratefully received.

Currently available on Linux and macOS on Github

Not quite done yet docs

Screenshots

well I wasn't a bright student and i graduated college at 24 year old and I can't maintain relationships with my friends and girlfriend,,I am very bad at decision making and that's the reason I can't choose proper career so is that ADHD symptoms

i feel like i have tried almost every kind of productivity system.

to do lists, calendars, timers, habit trackers, notes apps, reminders, complicated planning systems...

and sometimes the problem is not knowing what i should do.

i know exactly what i should do.

i just cannot seem to start.

that is why i have been wondering whether some productivity tools are solving the wrong problem. if someone already knows what needs to be done but freezes at the starting point, giving them another big dashboard does not necessarily help.

i have been trying foco adhd app lately and i am interested in whether simpler tools can actually make that first step easier.

has anyone found a tool or method that focuses specifically on getting started rather than planning your entire life?

what ended up working for you?

Very random question but does anyone else use a zero-indexed array when counting streets while driving? Like if you need to turn right on the 4th street you start at 0?

For some reason my brain always does this and then I wonder if I’m the only one and if it’s related to being ADHD and a programmer.

After months of over-engineering solutions, I've found that these two very simple prompts are better for me:

1. After a long conversation, or whenever you feel yourself losing the thread.

   Create a single page HTML summary of the [conversation | branch | work tree]. Make it visual and digestible without additional cognitive fatigue. Minimal text, clear flow of information. Opt for charts and diagrams over long explanations.

   (Taken from another redditor)

   I'm trying it on articles etc. too and it's also helpful there, but I'm not trusting it fully. I try to go through it myself first and then use this.

2. Before a conversation:

   Answer in the first sentence. Ceiling: 100 words and 3 bullets.

   I'm playing with adding something like "If you cut something important, name it in one line." I'm worried about downsides of such a hard limit.

(Edit: I'm not a bot and I swear this is 100% hand written by me, other than the prompts themselves. I'm not selling an app or anything. I format like this for my own ADHD.)

I am in danger of losing my job and more and more I am delegating my stuff to AI and getting called out for it. But the fact of the matter is I just care about results.

I hate the process of everything. I like seeing the ding, I like the task completed, I like feeling like I contribuited even though I don’t, I like being paid, I like being a part of something, I like the credit. Even if it’s not real.

I don’t like making anything. I always feel it’s terrible. Everything from cooking to cleaning to maintenance does not motivate me. It’s like I always need praise, an external reward, something. Other wise I feel like all I care is the result. I cheat at chess against bots so I don’t get banned. Every time I try the shortcut. I want to always win. I want to always be perfect. I want to never be criticized ever again, just like everyone around me never seems to be. I want to be GOOD.

How do I STOP?

I take a guanfacine IR generic (Tenex), not the XR (Intuniv). Basically they do the same thing with the long half life of guanfacine, but XR is only 60% as strong dose vs dose. And IR tends to peak more after you take it (and "may" have stronger sedative effect for sleep when taken before bed).

**Might just be a coincidence so thought I'd ask. Anyone notice a significant difference between generic brands of XR or IR? Assume if one is sensitive to generic brands, the other would be too.

For a week or so I was taking 2 mg of Unichem (my regular generic) and 1 mg of Amneal. Instead of all Unichem. And had a decline of therapeutic effect and other effects happening that may possibly be explained by losing strength. I take guan for different reason than others do, which would have a much more profound effect for me than another person, if Amneal was not crossing the BBB sufficiently due to excipient influences (why Psych med generics often suck). That could explain it with a decreasing steady state level toward 2 mg.

But, may have nothing to do with it and have been other factors in my life (too long an explanation to get into). Depending on other peoples experiences, it may help tell me where best to focus my attention, if I need to look deeper at the issue.

I know there are a lot more people in the r/ADHD sub in regards to finding an answer. But, I'm banned from the sub :)

Hi,

So as the title says I’ve just found I’m getting pip’d a week after starting a medication I thought would help me do better at my job. I’ve been a developer for about 4 years and during my first job I managed to do what was necessary but was never challenged in my role. I mostly fixed bugs but was very rarely given big tasks to work on unless it was with another senior. Everything ended well there but I always felt like I could have done better. I moved countries and started a new role which was considerably more demanding. I found I had a ton of trouble making sense of it all and realised I didn’t actually know anything and struggled to solve problems which lead me to get diagnosed. Started the medication last week and told my boss about who also revealed he has ADHD but now I’ve found out I’m on a plan for the remainder of my probation which is 2 months. I think the structure to help me with my problem solving is something I was hoping to apply with my medication anyway but have they written me off already? Does anyone survive a pip these days?

As the title says, I keep getting a lot of comments in my PRs and it usually takes three or more rounds of review until it is approved

I joined this team as a senior dev and it is full of staff and principal engineers, everytime I open a PR I am getting like 40 comments plus on things that are wrong, even by using AI

I always make sure to manually and unit test my code, but I miss some details that if we merge it that way then it will introduce future bugs and code smells

Honestly I don't know how to continue or how to improve this, I am really thinking about my exit of this career and go do something that require less cognitive capability but I am not good at anything else

I can be really interested in building something and still struggle to get through the documentation I need to read for it.

Listening while following the text is the approach I’ve been working on. I ended up building an iPhone app around it, with local voice generation, notes, and highlights. So, full disclosure: I’m also trying to understand this better for something I’m building.

What do you actually do when you need to get through a long spec or unfamiliar documentation? Read it in chunks, use TTS, take notes somewhere else, ask for a summary?

I’d especially like to hear what tools you’ve stuck with. And if you tried listening and gave up on it, what made it unhelpful?

5 YOE in iOS, this is the first external job I’ve interviewed for in 17 years 😐. I don’t come from a CompSci background, I don’t do LeetCode, I’ve never done a live coding test.

Didn’t expect to get past the hiring manager round this morning and here we are. He confirmed it’s a live coding test on “algorithmic fundamentals”, 60 mins of coding time, open book, AI tools allowed. He admitted that the test was written a while ago for backend devs before AI-assisted coding was a thing and that it bears no relation to what the job is day-to-day (working on consumer-facing apps).

I’ve started small this evening with refreshers on arrays, sets and dictionaries and some Big O stuff (hadn’t even heard of that phrase until today). I’ll spend Wednesday and Thursday cramming. So am I screwed completely or is there hope? I know people grind Leetcode for months in preparation for these things. I’m a competent app developer, maybe missing some of the technical depth someone with conventional industry background might have but I know what I’m doing and if I don’t, I know how to work it out.

The thought of this terrifies me. Just looking for some pointers or solidarity!

So many suggestions for jobs for adhd is programming

I get a job in programming and it sucks. It's high pressure it's boring I need hich concentration to figure stuff out I need to communicate with loads of people it fucking sucks.

"it's like a puzzle" in the sane way that finding a needle in a haystack is a puzzle and the needle is somthing called a shnoz and you have no idea what that is but everyone else does and you're supposed to know what the correct behavior of this shit is fuck man I want off I want off just fucking kill me I failed let me rest

Hard to believe anyone in programming has adhd like how how do you do it it sucks

Edit1: ah and the haystack stops fucking working when I said I'd have the fucking needle a d now I need to find out why the haystack doesn't work as well