I separated from a high paying job where I literally didn’t do anything and was severely micromanaged. There were several factors to account for that scenario including fragility of the software product, fragility of the work requirements, challenge communicating tasks, and so forth. So I drove to work everyday and sat there, but because of the micromanagement I had to toggle the mouse all day to appear active on the computer.
Then COVID and I got to do the same from home. I missed my coworkers because the people I worked with were great, but considering the work I was actually doing it was better being at home. I could toggle the mouse while holding long conversations with the wife or do more entertaining things on my personal computer at the same time.
This left a lot of insecurity and depression about the employment. I never became a software developer for the money, but because I like to build things. I wasn’t doing anything enjoyable and felt the roof could cave in at any minute.
Now I am away on a military deployment where I am often very busy. I have a team to manage and a great many things to produce. I am away from the family for many months but this change of environment is so great for the mental health. I can directly and measurably see the results of my teams productivity.
Am I concerned though. Military deployments are temporary. I will have to go back to that which was so depressing. I have been building a side project. I am thinking of turning this into a business when I return, which is scary. I am a developer, not a business person.
> There were several factors to account for that scenario including fragility of the software product, fragility of the work requirements, challenge communicating tasks, and so forth.
This definitely plays into why I'm feeling overwhelmed. I get these big projects assigned to me with zero clarity on what exactly needs to be built. I reach out to the people who'll use it and not even they know what they want, they just want "something." It's very hard for me to make progress on things because all our infra is managed by an operations team, so anything I want to explore needs to be done by "human proxy".
Communication is a huge issue for me as I'm in the spectrum. How I wish neurodiversity was as recognized and catered to as gender and racial diversity! There is virtually zero empathy for those of us that are quite challenged when it comes to dealing with other people who are not immediate team members who we've gotten used to.
Are you in the US armed forces? I have considered enlisting and not trying to move up the ranks as a way to basically give up my life for a bit and be ordered around without having to make big decisions.
I work as both a senior developer for a large corporation and am in the US military. Right now I am temporarily just military.
As for communication spend some time with your QA people. In my past employment the people who really mastered precision are always the QA. The clarity and detail they dive into with their written word is nothing short of astonishing compared to what many developers produce.
If you want to depth of detail that goes into communicating a well written plan spend some time with a good PMP certified project manager.
To produce better communication about product direction/features you need a huge level of empathy for your users. The end user generally knows what they want intuitively but often cannot communicate that into a feature request. You need to watch how they use your product see where they struggle and repeat steps. Again this is far different than what many developers communicate. Many developers communicate what makes things easier for themselves, the developer, without ever considering the impact to the user and is then completely inept at communicating the difference, which is incredibly frustrating.
Then COVID and I got to do the same from home. I missed my coworkers because the people I worked with were great, but considering the work I was actually doing it was better being at home. I could toggle the mouse while holding long conversations with the wife or do more entertaining things on my personal computer at the same time.
This left a lot of insecurity and depression about the employment. I never became a software developer for the money, but because I like to build things. I wasn’t doing anything enjoyable and felt the roof could cave in at any minute.
Now I am away on a military deployment where I am often very busy. I have a team to manage and a great many things to produce. I am away from the family for many months but this change of environment is so great for the mental health. I can directly and measurably see the results of my teams productivity.
Am I concerned though. Military deployments are temporary. I will have to go back to that which was so depressing. I have been building a side project. I am thinking of turning this into a business when I return, which is scary. I am a developer, not a business person.