It's a struggle, I feel your burnt out pain. I went through a similar stretch last year...
I tried traveling, I tried picking up new hobbies, I tried not working at all.
2 things that helped the most:
1. seeing a therapist regularly -- wish i started this sooner in my career.
2. taking a break and traveling with a group called unsettled - group of 30 people who are in transition in some way... leaving job, starting new job, switching careers, wanting to leave job, wanting to start a company, starting a company, etc. unsettled gets you a shared house and coworking space. Being around people from all over the world is inspiring and gives you new perspective. There are other companies that offer this remoteyear, etc. but unsettled attracts people in transition which i found to be a good fit for me. see here http://beunsettled.co
1. Splash page saying what you will do(not effective on HN)
2. Website doing what you say it will.
this doesn't necessarily need to be software powered on the back end. it really depends on what you are working on. if it's a SaaS company for example you could do everything manually and see if it gets any traction before you actually write the code...
I agree, to become an expert takes time (some say 10,000 hours). We don't claim to train people to be experts. Our students do not graduate knowing the solution to every edge case. They graduate with a strong foundation and confidence. They spend a lot of time learning how to learn - how to grow as a developer. The journey doesn't end with the end of the program. For many of our graduates, the end of the program is just the beginning (one graduate just wrote about this today: http://www.mercedescoyle.com/last-day-of-hackbright-first-da...). Our goal is to provide them with the skills they need to start a career in software development. So far, the majority of our graduates from the first batch (8 out of 8 seeking employment) have already started their new careers in software development.
Hackbright may not be for everyone. We have received positive feedback regarding the composition and community surrounding our classes. We create a positive and productive environment to maximize the effectiveness of the program. The quality of instruction is high - and with a strong, supportive community, we have seen some success so far.
Thanks for your message and the kind words. This is our second batch. We trained 12 students in our first class, and 16 in the second (graduated on Friday). Our students do have the qualities you mentioned: ambition, drive, strong work ethic, and technical aptitude. I think it helps that they are surrounded by a supportive and encouraging community.
I tried traveling, I tried picking up new hobbies, I tried not working at all.
2 things that helped the most:
1. seeing a therapist regularly -- wish i started this sooner in my career. 2. taking a break and traveling with a group called unsettled - group of 30 people who are in transition in some way... leaving job, starting new job, switching careers, wanting to leave job, wanting to start a company, starting a company, etc. unsettled gets you a shared house and coworking space. Being around people from all over the world is inspiring and gives you new perspective. There are other companies that offer this remoteyear, etc. but unsettled attracts people in transition which i found to be a good fit for me. see here http://beunsettled.co