Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?

There reason you don't hear about these transitions too often is because it's virtually impossible to have a "career" solely in the arts.

I've had many friends over the years who where all variety of artists/creatives working in the arts including performing art, visual arts, writing, musicians etc. Skills range all over the board from talented amateurs to highly trained/skilled professionals.

Nearly all of them, even the a few I know that played in professional symphony orchestras, needed another, non-creative full time job to pay the bills. Visual and performing (drama) artists in particular all needed another source of income. The only exception to this would be people living in extremely low cost of living areas, but even then all of them had some sort of major financial support coming from somewhere else (spouse/family).

The closest thing to a full time job that pays a living wage in the arts is to become a professor, but that is insanely competitive and many of my friends who went that route found it ultimately unfulfilling. Some visual artists will also work as graphic designers or in an area like UX, but that's still a full time job just using your skills for someone else, not really making your own art.

I would recommend you talk to artists of all sorts that you know (or reach out if you don't). If you're interested in visual arts go to a few gallery openings, chat with artist, if it's literature reach out to your favorite authors (side note, may Booker prize finalists will only every sell a few thousand copies, just to get a sense of the competition in that space) Many of the ones that are making a living at it are probably not doing the art they would prefer most of the time, and the income they are bringing in is very low compared to even poorly paying software engineer gigs.

My advice would be to find a low stress, remote programming gig and devote as much time as you can to your preferred art. Making six figures at your 9-5 and working in the arts is much easier than working at a coffee shop to support your arts. If you really want to do it full time, then I would recommend putting in a few years at a very high paying FAANG type job and finding the lowest cost of living community you can with an arts scene and see how it goes.

Word of warning: generally arts pay poorly and may have really bad working environments - like any field with a large pool of young eager candidates who are ready to do anything in order to create a career out of self expression.

For each Stephen King there is a million writers who are unknown to public and struggle to make ends meet.

That's not to say you shouldn't do it - but you should be able to approach the proposition with grim determination or flippant playfulness.

What stops you from writing in your free time while having the CS career pay the bills?

It's not exactly the same, but a transition to woodworking seems to be relatively common for programmers. Try a search for that, you'll find some personal stories.

My advice FWIW is that if you're determined to make a new career as a creative, to find some low-stress, absolutely 9-5 job that allows you to just do your job and not worry about it afterwards. The government here has IT jobs that are 35 hours a week. My expectation is that the work would be soul-sucking and the pay very low.

But the money, even if 35% of market rates, can perhaps be enough to keep a roof over your head and Corn Flakes in the cupboard. Stress might be good for creativity, but I can't imagine that eviction notices slipped under the door will help you do your best work.

Furthermore, not having to continuously read technical books and blogs trying to stay on top of the latest trends will leave you hours - and even more importantly brain space and energy - to put 25 or 30 hours into your craft. You'll be able to really put the energy into making your art what you want it to be.

My model for this is a sculptor I know - he's very good, he has a few large sculptures in the city parks and has trained with famous artists all over the world. He became a firefighter. 3 weeks on (12h days, 6 or 7 days a week I forget), 3 weeks off. He was able to lead two lives, live in a pretty good house with a nice studio, and concentrate on becoming the best artist he could be rather than carving pokemon figurines to sell at farmers markets to make ends meet.

I accidentally ran into a case once where an artist of some notoriety (had showings in various large city MOMAs) needed help, and I ended up helping them for several months. It was various forms of modern art that needed some tech assistance with IoT type stuff (LEDs, audio, etc). I wasn't particularly interested in the art, but if I had been, it would have been an avenue to get some advice, experience, etc. All stuff done in my spare time.

So, perhaps that's one avenue you could try. I imagine there are writers that need technical help with blogs, publishing tools, and so on. You could barter that help for advice, contacts, and so forth.

There is Michael W. Lucas who transitioned into a literature career. Writes great technical and fiction books, even has one book detailing the path into becoming a full time paid artist (writer in his case).