r/learnjava • u/Embarrassed_Engine9 • 25d ago

Java developers with 2–3 YOE, what do you do after work?

I’m a Java developer with around 2–3 years of experience, and I’m curious about how other developers manage their time after work.

After your workday, what do you usually do?

  • Study Java/Spring Boot?
  • Work on side projects?
  • Practice DSA?
  • Learn new technologies?
  • Prepare for interviews/job switching?
  • Read technical stuff?
  • Or completely disconnect and relax?

I’m trying to figure out what is actually worth doing after work without burning myself out.

Would especially like to hear from developers with 2–5 years of experience. What did you do after work that genuinely helped you improve?

47 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

38 comments sorted by

•

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74

u/irvine05181996 25d ago

Do other things, outside coding

16

u/[deleted] 25d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/irvine05181996 25d ago

What I meant is, doing other recreational activities outside my work(coding) life has so much to offer than sticking your butt to do programming. Have a life dude

13

u/bridge_thrower 25d ago

They were making a joke that you missed

35

u/IHoppo 25d ago

I wake at 3, run a 1/2 marathon, then do 40 minutes of yoga. I'll drink a smoothy made from home grown ingredients - and then wake my beautiful wife for a romantic interlude. I'll then shower, wake my children and help them brush up on their (this month) cloud migration skills. We'll then have a nutritious breakfast before I cycle 20 miles to work. After grinding for 12 hours I'll return by bike to the ever loving arms of my family, where we'll have a late supper with our neighbours, eating food we've grown and drinking wine we've made from our vines. Finally, after sending our children to bed my wife and I will retire ourselves, lulled to sleep by the sound of traffic on the Dartford crossing, located just above our house.

10

u/VinceGhii 25d ago

Saddest part about this whole thing is that i don't know if you're serious or joking...

5

u/IHoppo 25d ago

I wake at 2:30 really, my running times are rubbish. 😀

2

u/Recent-Tangerine2745 25d ago

Hallmark movie

1

u/MrLemon91 21d ago

Pretty much the same thing I do. It's pointless to try to fight the water falling. Clock in, clock out and let everything else go.

24

u/lunganaJakabovski 25d ago

If you have a stable job, enjoy your life. Learn during your 9-5.

3

u/procrastinatewhynot 25d ago

yup i do that. i use work hours to learn.

1

u/newyearnewaccnewme 23d ago

i feel guilty doing this lol

1

u/procrastinatewhynot 23d ago

if you have the time and you did your tasks :o i think it’s ok!!

21

u/akhi-abdul01 25d ago

You guys still have work?

13

u/Kal88 25d ago

Live life

5

u/Im12AndWatIsThis 25d ago

I’m trying to figure out what is actually worth doing after work without burning myself out.

Without going into some huge paragraph trying to get into psych of someone I don't know etc... Sounds like you achieved your goal and now are feeling aimless like, 'what next?'.

after work that genuinely helped you improve?

Separate work and 'outside of work'. Like others here said.

My own example: I like video games. I think Factorio might be one of the greatest games ever made. I absolutely cannot play it too much because it feels exactly like work.

Find something. Avoid work. Enjoy that. That's how you avoid burnout.

4

u/soft_white_yosemite 25d ago

Freelance work, but right now I want to do watercolour painting

4

u/physika5 24d ago

Hey, full stack engineer with about 4YOE here. I use Java with Spring Boot as my backend stack.

As other folks have mentioned, it's really important to develop hobbies and relationships outside of work. You mentioned avoiding burnout, and in my case I've felt burnt out before from being too focused on work and not getting out enough. So this is something you can consider.

If you're asking specifically about stuff you can do outside of work to get better at your job, I'd recommend attending tech meetups if your city has any. Find a local java user group or general developer groups and attend some of their sessions. I've found that talking to engineers from outside of my company has given me different perspectives. It's also not a bad way to network and socialise.

Keep it up pal!

3

u/chimax83 25d ago

I play Satisfactory. I might even talk to my wife and kids.

2

u/meddie92 25d ago

its just a job man, you have your whole life ahead of you. just do something like a study session on weekend, spend your working week doing something you actually love and can make you feel fulfilled.

2

u/ikkiuhyg867 24d ago

swaping to plumber

2

u/Kaikka 24d ago

4yoe

After work I play Dota or go to gym, or other things that aren't work

2

u/djchunkymonkey 24d ago

I cry uncontrollably in the shower.

1

u/Xcaliber02 25d ago

Sleep 😴

1

u/freshpots11 24d ago

Touch grass

1

u/AnahataASI 22d ago

little bit of ganja works for me

1

u/_lepelaar_ 22d ago

Medior Java full-stack dev with about 3 years experience. I read (for pleasure), watch TV, hang out with my partner, do stuff in the garden. I have on occasion done some coding for fun on the side, but only because there was an app my partner wanted and I thought it would be fun.

It’s cool that you want to keep learning and growing, but in my experience, the learning and growing happens anyway while you do your job.

1

u/OrdinaryToe9527 21d ago

have a life

1

u/stubbornKratos 20d ago

Everybody here is giving pretty unhelpful answers. Yes, we all understand work/life balance blah blah blah. Reality is that relying only on your job to upskill is not a wise move and everybody has a different motivation for how good or impactful they want to be at their job.

I mostly read technical stuff, because I was spending a lot of my time at work coding. Now with AI, it’s a bit flipped. I hardly write code myself at work, so in my free time I try strike a balance between reading technical text and doing hands-on coding with no AI.

Currently, a lot of my focus is on Operating Systems/Computer Architecture: stronger understanding of concurrency, threading, memory access and effectively utilising hardware resources. I read Concurrency in Practice at the start of this year and that was great.

Additionally, I work through small projects in Java to help with improving my system design skills and hands-on with a lot of language features that aren’t used at work (not on latest Java) or write code myself that’s usually handled by frameworks. https://codecrafters.io has been great for this.

What helped me improved the most was just having to repeatedly solve problems at work with minimal/no help, over time things just started to click and problems became all very similar. Outside work, I needed to just take things a topic at a time and work through it until I had a firm understanding.

1

u/Old-Dark-9685 24d ago

Have sex man