.png)
DonTheDeveloper Podcast
DonTheDeveloper Podcast
The Forgotten Truth About Being a Developer
The reality of being a dev is that you're capable of a future that goes way past the limits a company allows you to work within. Just in case devs forgot, I wanted to record this reminding them of that, and ultimately why I left the industry.
---------------------------------------------------
💻 Learn Frontend (20% off): https://scrimba.com/the-frontend-developer-career-path-c0j?via=donthedeveloper
⚙️ Learn Backend (25% off): https://boot.dev/?promo=DONTHEDEVELOPER
🤖 Learn AI Engineering (20% off): https://scrimba.com/the-ai-engineer-path-c02v?via=donthedeveloper
🐱 Learn NestJS (free) - https://scrimba.com/nestjs-c0n7djgjma?via=donthedeveloper
🧠 Advanced Coding (40% off) - https://app.codecrafters.io/join?via=donthedeveloper
👥 1 on 1 Mentorship - https://calendly.com/donthedeveloper/coaching
👁️🗨️ Join Discord - https://discord.gg/TpQe2k8Ab3
🐦 Follow on X - https://x.com/thedonofcode
👾 Follow on Twitch - https://twitch.tv/donthedeveloper
Disclaimer: Some product links are affiliate links which means if you buy something I'll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.
So I want to talk about an unpleasant truth of being a developer, and it's actually why I quit the industry. So I don't really have an outline prepared, so I'm just gonna rant a bit. But the truth is you are building up someone else's dream. As a developer, you have a skill to give you financial freedom like you've never experienced before. Right? You think about I mean, like if even if you think about the amount of money that a lot of developers are making, some and Fang companies are making hundreds of thousands of dollars. And that's great, but you are capable of making a lot more than that. Especially during a time where load code solutions are limited and agenda coding is creating a bunch of AI slot, no better than very basic prototypes, things that are not scalable. And if you're a developer and you've played around with these tools, you know this. But I want to talk about when I became a developer, and I was really, really excited to just code and build something and earn money from coding. I never could have dreamed that I could have done that because I went down, I didn't go the computer science route. I became an aquatics director, and I'm like, you know, what company is ever going to want to hire me as a developer? But I found myself constantly coding on the side. But I just like when I became a developer, I loved it. It was a lot of fun. I met a lot of really cool people, and that's the experience of being a developer. It's two things it's growing and then meeting really brilliant people, cool people that you make friendships with, um, no matter if you stay at the company or not. But I don't really think it's for most developers, it's building really awesome greenfield projects where you've had a lot of autonomy to like, you know, decide on the product and you've you might gain some ownership over parts of that code base, but when you're on a team, you're you're sharing that responsibility and you're building up the CEO's dream. You're building up their product. And then when I moved into my second deposition, I kind of started to realize that. I started to envy the CEO and what he's done and what he's created. And I found myself um more interested in everything else that had to go along with the coding portion of building up a product. I gotta fix that error. Damn Windows. Um, but I found that I was, you know, trying to build up their social media and I volunteered for that. And then I wanted to learn more from marketing and sales to like build up a product like this. And if I want to do sales or if I want to do like a content creation business, and I was coding and I kept growing as a developer, and I still kind of liked it. Um, but that's because I was newer with it. And then jumped to my third company. I couldn't care less about the product. It was like some business automation tool for like enterprise companies. I just didn't care at all. I found it so incredibly uninspiring, and the work that was required of me was actually challenging. Um, it was the first time I really dove into GraphQL, and that's you know, has a learning curve. And I just didn't care. I didn't care anymore. That's the truth. And part of the reason why is like, first of all, you need to find a company where you're working at a product that you love. Like, if I got hired by Twitch, which I failed the interview, I bombed it. I was way too nervous. But if I got hired at Twitch, I think I probably would still be in the industry, to be honest. Like, I'm building Twitch apps on the side, and it's I I love it. I like I like building tools for streamers and content creators, and that's kind of what I'm doing little by little each night. And I love that, I really do. But you got to be careful, and I think most dev positions, you don't really love everything about the product that you're building, and you know, there's not really job security anymore. We're hearing about a bunch of layoffs, and so to invest all of your time and energy into building up someone else's dream to just like have no job security and probably or like you might have to transition out of that job within a year, that's it's really hard to find fulfillment in that. I don't know about you, but like I became a de a dev to build things, right? To build products. And if I don't really have longevity in that product, I don't have buy-in with it because there's no job security anymore. There never really was, but there really isn't now, then what's the point? That's how I see it, anyways. As a newer developer to get some experience, I think that's great. And I think a lot of people are you you should aim for finding the right company fit. And I I think I should have spent more time doing that rather than chasing money because the third position was a money move. It's a big money move, but it was a money move. And I've just always had this voice in the back of my head that like just keeps pushing me to like build something of my own to go the entrepreneurship route. It's why I'm doing what I do, and it is way more fulfilling than ever being a dev was. And maybe that's just how my mind works. I know not everyone, like a lot of people just struggle to like think of ideas of things they want to build that comes incredibly easy to me. I have hundreds of ideas written down and I have a lot of them sketched out, and it just like I my mind just I have to do it or my mind will keep me up at night. But I love it, like I love it so much that I kind of have to just like let my like exercise my mind to do that to satisfy it, and um eventually some of those ideas turn into YouTube videos. Eventually, some of those ideas I'm kind of coding on the side, right? And I think my problem really is like honing in on like what specifically I want to focus on because I'm interested in so many things. That's always been my problem, and to have that focus long term. So that speaks a little bit more to my mind and maybe why I'm bored of building up someone else's product. But I I when I put out a poll a long time ago, hundreds of people voted in it. Most of you want to build your own thing, and you want that financial freedom, and you kind of want that autonomy and that creative control to build your own thing. Most of you do, I know you do. You just don't know how to do it. And it's hard. It's really, really difficult. And I think most of you would fail at it. And to be frank, I went into a lot of debt over the previous years to just barely be able to pay my bills now. It's not an easy thing. I don't think I'm that good at it. And I think I took it way longer than I wanted to, but I eventually started making it work. And maybe it won't work in a year. I d you know, I'm I'm still at a point where it's like it might not work in a year. I don't know. A lot of what I've built and what I do and the revenue that I earn is based on the economy doing well. And I I think we all know how that's going. And so it's been a challenge, to say the least. Um, but I can change business models, I can change my focus, and also my interest change, and I think my business should reflect that. But I think there is just this, I don't know, just this like power, this fulfillment, this inspiration that comes from knowing that you have the ability to build something that can turn into a million-dollar business and you can do it the right way. Right? You're not a product manager, you're not some random indie hacker that never got a solid foundation. You know how to fucking code and you can build what you want in a scalable way, but I think what you have to supplement, you know, is the marketing and everything else, which is a lot. And I think that's where most developers fail. But if you have the patience to test the waters and, you know, create content around the product that you're creating because you're you really love the the um industry that it's in, right? You love the problem that it's solving, you have to love that. And then you continue flushing out that product and talking about it, and you create a YouTube channel, and you know, you don't have to do cold sales, but you know, like creating content around it and gaining an audience around it is a very powerful way for developers to go off on their own and have their products be successful, and most developers don't want to do that. But if you do, the skill that you have is more lucrative than you will ever know. And if you want to find inspiration of people that have really made that work, there are a lot of developers that have created products, hell, the companies that you literally work for started with a simple product, a simple solution is very narrow-focused. And the founder just built something, scrapped together something, and then turned that into a company. That's exactly what you can do. And so this kind of thinking, this kind of mindset keeps me from going back into the industry. I think there was like a week where like I had some personal recommendations from developers I knew for a bunch of senior positions, or not a bunch, uh a couple senior positions. And I decided to humor those and go through the interview process, and I didn't get the job. Um I think there were two or three that I did not get. I got late-stage interview, but to be honest, the skill that they were looking for was higher than what I was. Um, part of the reason why it kind of made me like want to double down on coding again and like really build a solid foundation and um just be better off than what I was when I left the industry, and I am right now, which is interesting. I've become a better developer like not working for someone else, which I I find really interesting. You don't need a company to build up your skills. But I I'll always have that in the back of my mind to always build my own things, and that's kind of just a you know, it I don't want to discourage you from working for someone else because I think the people that say like everyone needs to become an entrepreneur and start their own business, and like I think most people are not, they don't want to do that, and they're not gonna follow through with that. I I think most people should consider it and test the waters, but it's just kind of a truth of being a dev where like there's just so much more fulfillment in building your own thing than there ever will be of you building up something else for someone else that's gonna make a lot more money than you are. And that's the truth of why I don't go back into the industry. And I, you know, I've kind of been avoiding like really talking about this because I think it can discourage some people, and I I think it can push them into trying to be an entrepreneur, and I'm not saying that is the path for you. But I do think, like, if I had to give one message, I think every developer should have a personal project that they care about. Don't just build a personal project to build a personal project, build a personal project to build something that you want to build for the people that you want to build with your own conventions, where you don't have to follow the conventions of the team. And you can just do your own thing and have that creative control, and then the success of it is 100% on you, which actually to me feels way better than giving up that control to other people. It's more fun, it's more challenging. But everyone should be building their own personal project because you never know when you're gonna get fired, when you're gonna get laid off. If the past few years haven't taught you that, I don't know what will. And it's sad to see good developers struggling. Um, it's sad to see good developers waste their lives away at companies they don't really want to work at when you have an ability to create like really impactful things and actually find a ton of fulfillment in it, way more than you would of building up someone else's dream. So kind of build that personal project on the side. You never know what it's going to turn into. And I think that's the main message. But I don't think I'm gonna be going back into the industry anytime soon. Um, I love what I'm doing, and if what I'm doing isn't working, I will try my best to figure it out. And that for me is way more fulfilling than coding and building up someone else's dream ever was.