I have been working in the IT industry for the last 13 years and I was diagnosed with ADHD around two years back.
As part of my job, I have to look at a lot of code. It used to be that I used to write a lot of it, but recently since getting promoted, my work now revolves mostly around reviewing the code others wrote or sometimes enhancing someone else’s code.
The problem comes when I come across some extremely convoluted legacy code. For example, like a function hierarchy with 10+ levels of function calls across several hundreds of lines. This causes me some problems understanding what’s going on because it’s nearly impossible for me to follow every branch to understand which part of the code needs fixing. After a while traversing the function calls I often forget how I got there and have to retrace my steps (I use debug breakpoints but it doesn’t help much). I also tend to get distracted with ideas of how to re-implement the whole thing with best practices rather than focus and work on delivering the fix that I am expected to do. This severely hampers my turnaround time and I’m sure my supervisors are frustrated.
What baffles me, however, is that my other colleagues look like they have no problems working on this codebase. So I cannot really blame the badly written code before my supervisors.
So I just wanted to ask anyone here who has ADHD, works in IT/Software Engineering how do you cope with a situation like this? Also, does medication help here?
I used to be on Atomoxetine, but after experiencing a nasty anxiety attack, I stopped about a month ago. Not that I observed any major improvements while I was on it.
PS: Apologies if the context does not make sense to any of you non-IT folks. I can clarify if you ask.
I’m a fairly early career dev, my job doesn’t really give me a lot of opportunity to write new code, instead I spend most of my time updating other people’s code, much of which is a legacy rat’s nest. Most of my time on a given story is spent trying to understand the code I’m given, and as I’m reading it I often feel like my eyes start drifting apart, it’s really hard to focus on it and understand the meaning.
The two most helpful things I’ve found are a) diagramming everything out. For that I have a big white board next to my desk, like 15 scattered notebooks and a tablet for onenote. b) my medication.
I was put on Ritalin about a year and a half ago, and (when I remember to take it) the difference is night and day. I wouldn’t say the medication makes the work easier, but it does make me feel motivated to do it and be less distracted even though it’s not work I necessarily want to be doing.
I do feel I should mention since you mentioned having some anxiety issues on other medication that I can end up with the save issue, but I’ve noticed that it only happens if I didn’t eat before taking it, or take it too late in the day to where it’s still fully in effect after I’m done working.
I also absolutely feel you on wanting to refactor everything that doesn’t make sense - it would make life so much easier, but I’m not allowed to do it -_-.