Advice for inconsistent high achiever
Long time fan of blind, looking for some wise inspiration. I'm an experienced swe (no way!) and I like building stuff. I'm quite good, always been top 10% in schools, perf review and tried staff eng and management tracks. I can do a great job but usually after less than one year or so at a company I get bored, jump to another team or company and start over. Since a while, I'm getting even more easily distracted. Finish my stuff and phase out, can't focus and dgaf in both leadership meetings and stand-ups. Manager puts up with that since I am quite good, I got away with not working for weeks at a time, just being a zombie in scrum rituals But I don't want to keep working like this. I tried startups of any size and Big tech, same problems. What I realized is that I have some bursts of enthusiasm, then a few weeks of ngaf, then enthusiasm comes back. But during the off phase I don't want to work at all. How can I make good money having a on/off work routine like that? Like working hard for weeks, then basically doing nothing (especially meetings) and then back at it? I considered doing contract jobs but there is a lot of overhead. For now just job hopping but it's getting boring too. Not enough savings to fire or try me own company Any suggestion is appreciated TC 290k + paper money (not chime, ml/ai big startup) doing ML eng RN
I feel you. Iām like that when thereās no incentive to work hard. Use fear as motivation or hope (startup or promo?) to get through. This isnāt very unusual for elite folks imo. And itās hard for employees to have that kind of lifestyle where you have long periods of non work. Iād not recommend contract, youāll loose pay and your edge when you have no motivation.
on top of what regularize said, doing longer projects have their own challenges and ofc one of them is staying motivated (no matter how much you know about the results at the end or how interesting the problem is, something like what PhDs go through), seek professional therapy alongside and prioritize personal development too
On the same boat, after a while it becomes really tough to even open your laptop. And there are months when I'm working non stop for 10-12 hours straight with very high productivity.
I strongly recommend therapy. It is not for ācrazyā dudes. Each one of us can benefit from therapy. In my personal opinion, there is probably underlying issues of satisfaction which goes back to your childhood and student years. You are getting your satisfaction from getting the next grade, or award or getting into the next school. Adult life is not like that. It takes a long time to understand that. As adults, we need to learn how to be satisfied with the life we have. The excitement of the new job wears off in 6 months, the promotion keeps you motivated for 3 months and then everything is back to normal. You are bored again. I believe the solution will be a combination of learning to be satisfied with what you have and accepting that you will always be a bit jumpier than other souls. Good luck in your adventures!
I also totally agree with this. Many of my issues with committing were tied to other bigger problems I had. Getting the right help for my depression and anxiety had huge impact on my ability to work on longer term projects.
Thanks for the advice, I went to therapy for unrelated reasons As I wrote above, I can commit and work hard without any validation or reward. But the older I get the less I think it's worth the effort Once a project is stable, there are usually marginal incremental improvements. I find it boring, especially because you start losing ownership when more teams are involved
Maybe try lithium, it is a known mood stabilizer
Work contract/gig jobs.
Sounds like what you lack is grit. You definitely should not start your own company yet if you donāt have the ability to commit. Maybe itās time to try your hand at a larger scale project. The kind that takes years to get off the ground, not small projects you can close out in less than a year. I was in the same position and Iām only now learning to have grit in my work. Itās hard but so worth it! Give yourself a chance and commit to something that will be a real challenge.
I did work on some multi year projects. I bootstrap as early or "founding" engineer and then I get bored once the hard part is done. Or if bureaucracy gets in the way and it's delayed. I know I don't have commitment issue (got PhD), but I just can't convince myself that the work I do is worth putting grit. I'd go to ethical companies but they pay little and I am an immigrant with no family money