How I went from loving my job to wishing i dont wake up tomorrow just to avoid it.

Ive been a backend dev in the company im at for 2 years now.

First year was a blast, i loved my work so much, I used to get so many random features to do, bug fixes, campaigns, analytics, etc..

Second year i started getting familiar with the part of the code that has to do with Search in our music streaming app. Nobody wanted to work on it, so i wanted to take initiative and start doing a few tasks.

A few tasks turned into sprints, and sprints turned into months worth of sprints. And because the code was the definition of tech debt, and because it was so messed up that changing one thing can blow up everything else, working on Search was not too fun.

However, people seemed to be happy search tasks are no longer piling up and someone is handling them so that used to make me feel good about it. They also gave me so much freedom and i felt like my own manager because no one told me what to do (not even my actual manager) they just let me be and were happy i was handling the part they want nothing to do with. I was also given an intern to mentor and have her work on Search tasks with me which turned out amazing.

During the last few months, I completely rewrote search, made it 10 times more performant in such a neat way, made an inhouse dashboard to automate certain tasks so we wont need to waste developers on them (all of which were extra effort on my own time without being asked), all meanwhile still tending to the fixes of the old implementation.

I felt so accomplished, and in a way, i felt like a lead (even tho im not managing any employees, i had so much freedom and I was literally responsible for everything about Search and if i decide to play with the sprint task order i can even do that).

Then 6 or so weeks ago my manager left the company, and while i thought id be a standalone team / person (single person teams are not uncommon in the company) i was instead put under someone else. Someone who likes to micro manage the fuck out of me. I have been happy working on shit code because it was my baby, my project, no one interferes and no one tells me what to do and everyone would call me the search lead (unofficially). now if i dont report to that guy every two hours he calls to see if im working. preplans sprints i no longer have a say in, and im the only dev who knows the code so all tasks go to me. I feel i got demoted so fucking much. I felt like a lead on a project and now im back to being a normal code minion. From deciding everything about a project to blindly following a some irrelevant manager's opinion. (who btw is making Search worse) And after all the extra effort i put in, after actually caring, after actually embracing Search as my responsibility i get rewarded with losing everything i liked about my job...My Independence. From feeling like a lead to feeling demoted. I am so demotivated.

I love the company, but this is hell for me and this made me hate a job i always loved. I am thinking of talking to the CTO asking to work on other stuff because i no longer want this. If i am to be a code minion at least let it be on code i like, let me go back to dealing with PMs, fuck my new manager I dont wanna work with that guy he can take the project along with all its poopoo.

I did it guys, I made the switch! I’m free! 💕

This is why I started studying programming. You have to be able to work remotely.

So I let myself go by all of this talk about giving more freedom and autonomy to your team. "Don't micro-manage them", they said. "Trust them," they said. And that's the way I wish to be treated. That's how I personally work best.

Alas, this only works only when they're truly good at what they're doing. Sometimes I feel like we'd go faster if I did everything myself. These baby devs must be taken by the hand every damn step of the way.

Handed resignation. Last week in the job. Ideas?

Hello. (Android) dev here contemplating about the future of my profession.

I am looking for a specialization or a field in my profession where i can be free of dependencies from GAFAM (The big five)
Basically software development is me only using dependencies and stuff they and 3rdparty people have created and then it works or it doesnt. Or if you dont keep it up2date it wont work because deprecation and breaking changes. I was web developer before and changed to android because of all the libs and frameworks one needed to wield for proper development. And now android has mostly become the same. Vanilla android is easy, but u start using google apis or 3rdparty services u quickly realize how far u get away from your actual usecase. Usermanagement, oauth, 2fa, userdatamanagement, crossplattform, offline, syncing etc.

I am pretty sure the topic came up before (dev fatigue, dependency fatigue) and most of you know what i mean but i might be the recent casualty here.