I could use some honest advice from experienced programmers and engineers.
I’m almost at the two year mark as a developer. On paper I might look like a passable Junior Dev, but if you sat me down and asked me about algorithms or anything else I did to get my job in the first place I would be clueless. I can solve problems and always get my work done, but I don’t even know the language/framework I use daily well enough to explain what’s going on, I can just do things. I don’t think I have imposter syndrome, I think I really might have let any skill I had atrophy.
I used to enjoy programming as a hobby in my spare time, but in two years I’ve opened the IDE on my personal machine no more than twice. People talk about all the side projects they have, but I have none. I feel too stressed out from the job to do any programming outside of work, even though I love it. I feel like I can’t level up from a Junior to Senior because I either don’t have the headspace or the will to do so. It doesn’t help that the job I’ve had has taught me very little and my dev team has been a shitshow from the beginning.
At the moment I have an offer on the table to do a job that isn’t engineering (but still tech) and it surprisingly pays more. Part of me thinks I should take that job, rediscover my passion in my spare time and build my skills, but I fear I might go down this route and never be able to come back to engineering. Not that I’m sure I want to.
It might sound defeatist but I don’t think I’ll ever be a top 5% or even 25% engineer. I could be average with a lot of work, but not great. I could potentially be great in the new field I’m being recruited for, but that’s also hard to say without being in the job.
I know that some people just aren’t cut out for being engineers. Maybe I have the aptitude but not the mentality to do this for 30+ years. I want to know if that’s what it sounds like to people who’ve seen that before. If you were in my position, would you walk away and just be a hobbyist programmer or stick it out and hope to be a mediocre engineer one day?
Don’t confuse a bad work environment with not liking or being suitable for your job.
If you liked programming, do your work in the way that made you originally liked programming. People will put pressure on you to just “do things”. Don’t. Ensure you start understanding, slowly get more insight into what’s going on. Ask the people around you any and all questions you need to get more understanding. Allow yourself to learn. That is the only way to start feeling in control, and the only way to become ‘more senior’.
That being said. If you want to move on, there’s no harm, and no shame. Just do it because you’ll be doing something you know you will like better.
