I want to quit coding professionally but keep it as hobby. What now?

// I like to code when I can build something for fun. I'm burnt out. // I'm a newcomer in coding and lack in fundamental programming skills but don't want to learn it, because I see no future for me in coding professionally.

Before you quit and do something else perhaps it's worth exploring your situation a little?

Are you feeling burnt out and see no future in programming because you're new to programming and still overcoming the learning curve? This can lead to impostor syndrome which is often mistaken for burnout, but just takes time to get through.

Perhaps it means you just need more support at work, more time for training, more freedom to talk about your anxieties and get some advice?

Is your work situation just quite difficult right now because of market conditions or lockdowns etc? For some time yet, although not forever, this will persist even if you move on so it's vital to learn techniques on how to deal with it now.

If any of these are the case you would find it much less disruptive to have an honest conversation with your boss rather than to quit.

However, if you truly made a mistake with your career direction then do look at other opportunities. There's no shame in that.

BTW: It would seem that global supply chains are very brittle in the face of pandemics and perhaps people with your training could help innovate supply chains to help us weather similar things in the future. Programming may play in to this innovation.

Good luck!

You like coding but you're bad at it.

It sounds like you either have impostor's syndrome or you lack practice/experience.

you are burnt out?

As others suggested you can try to look for another job, hopefully this would fix it.

I would suggest to look at it in a different light tho. Try this.

Download OBS studio. Record yourself doing your regular day to day coding tasks. Pretend you are some big shot coding sensation with thousands of viewers.

This will help in many ways than one but the most important thing is it will help keep/make it more interesting for you as it did for me.

Welcome to the club! There's tons of us.

Some people recommend starting a lifestyle business https://www.indiehackers.com/ There's a lot of business that use Zapier for automation and are low/no code

If you like the web shop life, some people find freelancing (Marketing, UI design, Squarespace consultant) gives them what they're looking for https://www.moonlightwork.com/

Sorry to hear about your burnout. I think a lot of us are looking for relief from that as well. Wish I could help more there.

I left the industry for the exact same reasons as you. I like like solving problems conceptually, but don’t actually care for the hours of bug fixing and learning syntax. I stopped pursuing it because I don’t think I have the drive to make it my career.

However, I do like tinkering on my own time and not feeling pressured to do better because it’s my job.

In my current non-programming job, I get to go home after finishing my tasks and I still get paid the same 8 hours a day. So, I made a little Shortcut in iOS that tracks my arrival time, what time I finished, what time I left work, and the workload that day. I plan to write another script to parse the data and graph it.

Another example, if you like cooking, you can write a program that calculates cost per recipe given parameters like how much you bought the ingredients for and how much you used.

I made the switch over to “customer facing tech savvy person.” Think Sales Engineer, Solutions Architect, Technical Account Manager.

Pays slightly less (until you get 5+ years experience, then tends to catch up if you’re good) but my lord it’s so much less taxing on your brain.

You’ll realize that most customer facing folks may be charismatic, but they aren’t very organized or willing to learn on the job. It’s easy to be top 1% while coming in at 9 and leaving at 5, with plenty of time and mental energy leftover for whatever hobbies you want to pursue. Including programming.

Worth checking out if you feel comfortable communicating verbally for a living.

If you want to chat, feel free to reach out at evan dot hellmuth at gmail dot com

Consider product management - a generalist, problem solving skillset is perfect, particularly at early stage startups. Being able to understand developers and communicate with them, even if you're not a good developer, is a really useful skill.

Shameless (but relevant) plug for a book I wrote about how to find/get your first PM job: https://www.amazon.com/Product-Management-Interview-Manager-....

Try technical writing maybe? You get to code smaller proof-of-concept apps and teach others how to use specific pieces of technology to solve problems.

I have a GitHub repository[0] with some resources to get started. It can be pretty lucrative too after building some reputation.

[0] https://github.com/sixhobbits/technical-writing

Working in a CNC shop was pretty fun. There wasn't a ton of actual coding, but you 'write' a lot of programs. I'm not sure how it goes everywhere, but if you can find a place willing to train you, it's a fun environment. You get to make things everyday, everything you do is practical and hands on and what I found the most rewarding, there are immediate tangible results to your programs. Your programs literally create real life things. That's a pretty cool feeling.

Much of the 'programming' these days is done visually through cam software. The high end ones are fairly intuitive and it feels more like building something than programming.

I ended up doing a little bit of everything. I learned to do maintenance and a ton of mechanical stuff. I learned the hand work and learned the basics of a trade. It's one of the few times i've ever got to do both manual work and computer work on the same job. If you have inclinations towards making things and still enjoy working with computers while wanting something different, it's something to think about.

Start thinking about what you actually want to code for fun.

Write an outline of it, and the skills you'll need to accomplish each piece.

Focus on learning those skills while you are working professionally.

Keep learning until you feel comfortable working on your own project. It may take switching a few more jobs before you are that comfortable.

Then, start writing your project, and eventually quit working professionally so that you have more code juice for your own pursuits.

Office work may seem miserable, but if you play it right, it's like a more effective university that you also get a pretty good stipend for attending.

Good luck!

Maybe look at something where the technical skills are there, but take a second row to the business side of things - something like an RPA (robotic process automation) where the important part is working through the problem with the customer, a bit of process improvement, then automating what's left (with what's essentially easy-mode programming tools). Direct business value that's easy to measure as it's directly impacting customer processes and saving them time, rather than more nebulous improvements.

I think it's worth reflecting on it the profession is burning you out or if a switch in jobs could help. I myself have felt this burnout but reinvigorated by a new role.

Consider part time like 20 hours a week. That's what I do and I love it. Steady pay check and no burn out.

Sounds like you might enjoy a role of a business analyst. Less coding, like to solve the problem, understanding supply chain.

Have you considered art and design based programming languages like Processing and the p5.js library?

I'm in a sector that might be of interest to you. How can I contact you?