Saturday November 16, 2024
I’m currently doing a batch at the Recurse Center in Brooklyn. I’m just a little over the halfway point and it feels like a good time to write down some brief thoughts on how things are going and how I’m feeling.
The reality of industry software development is, at least in my view, quite bleak—a lot of people feel trapped in industry jobs(1) that slowly sap away their passion and love for the craft.(2)
Some people far more experienced than I go as far as to claim that most paid software development work isn’t really programming. I guess it depends what you would count as “programming”—and it’s possible to be quite gate-keepy about it, which isn’t necessarily great—but, in my (limited) experience, there is some truth there: the kinds of software work done in companies, particularly big companies, is usually just not very fun or very interesting (in both a “is it intellectually stimulating?” sense and a “are we making cool things?” sense).
There’s a lot of ink that could be spilled about this state of affairs, but I think it suffices to say that even if you really enjoy programming and/or computer science, or perhaps even because of that enjoyment, it’s hard to not get burnt out by the industry grind. Software is often an enormous mess, both technically and socially. There are a lot of things that conspire against a desire to just create cool stuff that works well.(3)(4)
The best part about Recurse is that I get to hang out with a bunch of people who A) are excited about programming and computing and B) want to share that excitement in ways that edify others. It’s refreshing. As far as I can tell, it’s rare. And I think Recurse does an excellent job of creating and fostering this sort of community.
I do think that if I were planning on going back to industry afterwards, I wouldn’t feel quite as negatively about it all. There are cool things being done (although they’re not always easy to find). There are people who respect their work and who hold values that also matter deeply to me. It’s not all hype-chasing, profiteering, and grift.(5)
Graduate school, or at least a PhD, feels like an extension of the Recurse environment in the sense that it can be (at its best) self-directed and curiosity-driven. You can have the freedom to do cool stuff and make things meaningfully better. I’m excited by that—that’s really the core of what I want.
I hope I don’t lose the excitement and love I have for all of this stuff when it becomes my job, or at least when it becomes the main thing that I have to do. That’s my biggest worry. But it’s hard to tell what the future will bring. There will always be ups and downs and moments of darkness. But if, at some point, I do end up feeling burnt out and tired of it all...perhaps I’ll just come back to Recurse for a bit.