Climbing Mountains or Digging Coal

I was talking to my manager today about what I want to do, specifically about how much of my time I want to spend coding and I came up with a new metaphor!

Coding, especially in Ruby, isn’t the same challenge it used to be. Do I still like it? Sure, it’s fun, and I fear obsolescence so I’d like to stay current as much as possible, but, I’m not scared of any problem I’ve faced in the last… 5 years? 10 years? I’ve been pretty confident I could solve them all.

With code, I’m not climbing mountains anymore, I’m digging coal. It has its dangers, but it’s mostly the same thing over and over again, no matter how much gets delivered or how happy people are, I’ve done it before, and am capable of doing it again.

I used to try something new on every project, and I still do that, but it’s less about code and more about how I work with other people. Mentoring and building people up feels way more like climbing mountains now. Seeing other people flourish and get to the next step of their careers is way more fun than solving technical problems.

What does that mean for my next career steps? Who knows, but it’s exciting to come to that realization.