"work in ML can be as dull and unfulfilling as any other domain"

I love this statement.

A while back, when I was trying to figure out what I liked, was good at and should do with my career, I realised that I can't select things based on how much I liked the good parts (because I like so many things) but rather, how annoying I found the dull parts.

It's like, if you find a profession or hobby, where even the annoying and dull parts you can say "meh, it's not great but like I'm not too bothered by this", then you'll probably manage to survive a 20 year tenure with it. Since that's where most people would tap out.

It's easy to like the fun parts. Like when you are coding and everything is working fine. But are you also fine with the nitty gritty of debugging, refactoring and all the in-between bits that round up the profession? I see this in many professionals across the board.

Those who understand the significance of the mundane, the small and boring tasks as a integral component of the wider vision of the profession, develop a special bond with that, that is longer lasting and truer.

Not too much unlike relationships I would say. The good times can be great. But if the small day-to-day stuff is slightly annoying, it starts to get under your skin, and grows over time, like chipping away at a tree trunk, eventually felling the tree. Lasting bonds happen when each person understands and isn't too bothered by the mundane and annoying, human side of their partner.

All this being said, please excuse the philosophy. I'm in Europe, it's 11am, I've had my 3rd coffee and ironically I'm supposed to be refactoring code right now.

> I realised that I can't select things based on how much I liked the good parts (because I like so many things) but rather, how annoying I found the dull parts.

One thing I've noticed about myself is that I'm never really sure what makes me happy, but I definitely know what makes me unhappy, so I try to do the opposite of that.

Of course. It's the "zoom" effect, not sure how else to call it.

Take mountain climbing. When looked from outside you imagine the mountain, the green, skies and what-not, but the actual task view is 90% gray rocks, 5% your calloused hands and 5% sky.

> As a parting thought, some of the happiest people I know work a 9-5 job that gives them a reasonable living standard, and have rich and vibrant personal and social lives outside work.

This is the secret. Don’t work in your passion; find a specialization that you don’t hate but also don’t love and set reasonable boundaries on work. If it’s not something you’re passionate about, you will respect those boundaries and the drudgery becomes bearable.

I absolutely love tech and tinkering on code. So much so that I had to stop doing it and actually lean into the managerial battles described in the article. Turns out I’m pretty good at that job, and I like working with people all day, but it’s a career rather than a calling. I also don’t feel compelled to keep pushing to finish a problem and come up for air to see it’s 9pm.

Do you find that you then have more time and energy to code on the side on your own things as a hobby? Or do you get enough of a “hit” from being code-adjacent and spend that mindspace elsewhere?

It’s close enough to my day job that I don’t really do much coding anymore. I burned out pretty hard on it a decade ago so it just feels like work. I scratch that itch with other things now (music, competition shooting, community activism). There are plenty other ways to exercise an analytical mind.

Thanks for the reply, and what you say makes sense and is a familiar tale. Weirdly a lot of people describe their coding past with a burnout, reassessment, and subsequent pullback, almost like a drug relationship.

Kudos on the community activism; talk about building something of meaning.

I really do think grinding code is a young person’s game. It takes the kind of mental stamina you can only sustain for so long before life gets in the way.

I can echo this sentiment, I work as Senior SRE at a FAANG, I always though I wanted to work at a FAANG because it would be exciting, high pace, and use lots new technologies. Well most of the time it's incredibly boring. The only difference between where working at a FAANG and a regular old fortune 500 is that people who don't work at a FAANG think my job must be amazing.

I got asked to help on an ML project and right now it seems dull as dishwater. Having a hard time being productive because I can't get interested in it at all. That might change in time, it's still really early, but I'm starting to think I'm glad I didn't chase this particular rabbit hole.

It's about product sale forecasts, by the way.

Well said. Since work takes such an out-sized amount of our lives, we often assume that this is where our purpose is. At parties, people ask what we "do" and we almost universally reply with our vocation. We assume this is our definition. If that works for you, great! But sometimes, a job is just a means to sustain life. Find a cause, find a hobby, find a purpose that truly fills your soul. The search for such a thing is another joy in life. And when you find it, you can experience it without the business concerns and unrealistic deadlines. I've read countless stories about people who had a dream and once their dream was attached to making rent and having food, it was no longer their dream. Make your job the thing you dread so your passion remains for your dream.

I think the "x is cool" part is necessary. Even if the actual steps to do something are mundane or tedious, it's usually the concept of "doing the cool thing" that gives motivation to persevere.

Part of the “appeal” of some of these tech areas is the supposed status of working on something that is perceived to be hard. But then people get into them and realize that, unless you’re the ones doing the actual research (which itself is frequently a slog in a different way), for most part the day-to-day is the same as anywhere else: occasionally solving small challenges amidst a lot of “boring” work and maintenance. Some “cool” tech alone is not what makes a job fulfilling over any appreciable timespan.