I love coding but hate software engineering. What's next?

Question

I like computers. I love coding. But I hate working as a software engineer. I dislike having to deal with big codebases, legacy undocumented code, pricky code reviewers, slow bloated IDEs/frameworks and things like that. I've tried (for years) but now I must admit I'm done.I want to shift my career into some area where my coding skills would be appreciated as a tool to enhance my work, but not as the goal of my everyday work.What are my options? I've heard Economists and Biologists are using coding to crunch data, but that's it. Is there any other option?

Gibbon1 · Accepted Answer

Over the last 40 years coding has become a toxic. The fact that the number of women in the field continues to fall tells you everything. And why you are unhappy.I would suggest not working at places where there is a critical mass of CS types. Find an engineering company where the product isn't software or worse adware.

JMTQp8lwXL · Answer

It sounds like most of your issues could be resolved by working for startups / small companies that have greenfield projects.The 'pricky code reviewers' could be addressed by having an honest conversation with your colleague(s).

sushshshsh · Answer

If you absolutely can't persist and have the money to take some risks, you could consider the scientific computing space which in some cases still uses FORTRAN, though I imagine most things are in C now there.

plumsempy · Answer

How about something in research?