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Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?

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Re: Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?

#111

Post by neverartful »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #53
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #40

In my case, I decided to retire. I didn't want to retire, but it wasn't as if I had a choice. I've kept working, but I write free software, for folks that can't afford people like me.

How I wish I could do this. Mortgage is paid off but everything is still so expensive, at 50 I can't plot a way through the next 30-40 years without starving. I want to write software. But these days jobs don't want to pay me to write software. They want to pay me to write JIRA tickets. JIRA tickets about fixing other people's code. I keep trying again and again, but the industry has completely lost any magic for me.…

Consider writing your own software. Maybe something that scratches an itch, related to one of your hobbies, or a need you've observed in the market.

Re: Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?

#112

Post by cmrdporcupine »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #96
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JIRA has always been terrible though :-) I miss buganizer at Google. It didn't try to hoist a process. It was... "here's a ticket. go do it. or not. whatever" low clutter. right to signal to noise ratio. The bug tracker in Google's ill faited github competitor was similar. Really decent. The problem with JIRA is it becomes a little fantasy code writing exercise for people who've stopped coding (managers). You get to…

Which in today’s days of remote work, management may actually like. You may have hit on a carrot.

Mentally making the move from writing code to management needs to be a shift in mentality from "I'm making software systems that solve problems" to "I'm building teams that solve problems".

Team building is people skills, and it's about finding well springs of motivation, soft skills, getting people talking to each other, making sure people aren't forgetting things.

Unfortunately people coming from an engineering/programming mindset can go the other way: management is about making lists, and getting people's names on those lists. Management is about making processes, and making people conform to those processes.

I'm not saying those aren't useful tools, but they need to be seen as that. Tools. Means to an end, not ends in themselves.

Most software developers want to do good work. They want to write code to make things happen, because that's what they were trained to do. Original agile was about trying to liberate that instinct from the crushing weight of corporate processes so that teams of developers could self-organize to do the things they generally naturally want to do.

I don't recognize that in SCRUM based teams today.

And as for your point, I do think that remote work makes things harder, and I've yet to see a remote team that fires on all cylinders. But for years I worked on hobby projects with people who I never met face to face and it was fine. So I dunno.

Re: Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?

#113

Post by Clubber »

whattheheckheck wrote: post #105
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the same age, and I'm pretty sure the industry has substantially changed, not just me. EDIT: and by changed, I don't mean improved. I was a huge advocate of agile and eXtreme Programming early in my career, and I even worked in shops where it seemed to be really having good results. Now I see everyone using SCRUM and... it's garbage and I want to gouge my eyes out in the meetings. I see a lot of talking but not a…

Is there any antidote to needless complexity? How can people effectively classify it without experience?

Steps:

  1. Get the change to work
  2. Refine the change to make it cleaner, less complex.
Most devs stop at #1. Trying to eke out every hour of developer productivity via Scrum is antithetical to #2 though.

One other anecdote, me and a buddy were responsible for cleaning up a fairly sophisticated DSS scheduling system. The original dev left and a poseur came in and wrecked the codebase for over a year. Hospitals were cancelling contracts left and right and our cash flow was ... uh, short a lot. Our rule was if we ran across some bad code while working on our tickets: a bug, janky code, disorganized code, shit variable names, whatever, we fix it on the spot. We were able to do this because we had 3 month cycles and nobody breathing down our necks asking, "what did you do yesterday?" "why aren't all your tickets done this sprint?" Well it worked and we ended up with a clean scheduling system that was really nice after a few years and the company exited with a decent sale. I couldn't imagine a culture like this today.

Re: Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?

#114

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

fm2606 wrote: post #90
nyarlathotep_ wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious how you made that pivot? Did you have an "in" somewhere? What's your background (whatever you mind sharing).

I have a BS degree in Aerospace Engineering and from 1999 - 2006 I was job jumping quite a bit because I was miserable. All the jobs were boring. I took a EMT Basic night class because my wife and I were getting into scuba diving and I wanted to be a dive master on boats during the weekend. I enjoyed EMT so much that I signed up for Paramedic class, not knowing what I was going to do with it, just did it. It was rela…

Sounds like you just worked your ass off. Nice job!

You also have a different background that would perk up interview potential (at least to me). Diversity (aerospace eng, firefighter, emt, paramedic) can help bring different perspectives and ways of thinking through problems that will ultimately help an organization.

Organizations that mostly hire people with CS degrees from top universities that can fly through leet coding tests and ace system design problems I think end up with not much diversity in thought when it comes to problem solving.

Re: Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?

#115

Post by cmrdporcupine »

Clubber wrote: post #113
whattheheckheck wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any antidote to needless complexity? How can people effectively classify it without experience?

Steps: 1. Get the change to work 2. Refine the change to make it cleaner, less complex. Most devs stop at #1. Trying to eke out every hour of developer productivity via Scrum is antithetical to #2 though. One other anecdote, me and a buddy were responsible for cleaning up a fairly sophisticated DSS scheduling system. The original dev left and a poseur came in and wrecked the codebase for over a year. Hospitals were c…

I think you're missing that devs these days are often taught a step "0":

0. Compose a new abstraction to describe the change.

And then at #2, the abstraction starts to get in the way.

Re: Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?

#116

Post by cmrdporcupine »

neverartful wrote: post #111
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How I wish I could do this. Mortgage is paid off but everything is still so expensive, at 50 I can't plot a way through the next 30-40 years without starving. I want to write software. But these days jobs don't want to pay me to write software. They want to pay me to write JIRA tickets. JIRA tickets about fixing other people's code. I keep trying again and again, but the industry has completely lost any magic for me.…

Consider writing your own software. Maybe something that scratches an itch, related to one of your hobbies, or a need you've observed in the market.

I write my own software compulsively every weekend and holiday, often at the expense of housework and personal relationships.

It just has no path towards paying the bills or putting my teens through university.

http://github.com/rdaum/moor

Re: Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?

#117

Post by smackeyacky »

beryilma wrote: post #37
popularrecluse wrote: post #16

I never stopped developing. After getting laid off in April 2023 after 13 years as first a full stack then mobile dev, I just started working on things that interested me. I did apply and interview a few times, but I started to realize that pushing 50 and being as cynical as I now am, I'm pretty much unemployable as an IC. So I released my application to the App Store this month, and while savings are dwindling, thin…

> but I started to realize that pushing 50 and being as cynical as I now am, I'm pretty much unemployable as an IC. Well that's me. My theory is that it is not age that makes one unemployable in the software industry, but the unwillingness to put up with shit cooked up by bunch of 25 year old CEOs, CTOs, and the like.

Unwillingness to put up with bullshit agile ceremonies? Yes. Will never again apply for a job that advertises agile? Yes

Re: Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?

#118

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

anonzzzies wrote: post #2

Doing up houses, doing electrics for houses in the town and making wooden doors. I do it for fun, but the latter two would make me bank; there is a massive shortage, most people suck and even when paid well they don't turn up anyway as someone pays more.

Tell us more about the doors - hobby woodworker here that buys more tools than builds projects. Do you run into code issues (not software but municipality)? For something like a door, how do you deal with weather extremes on 2 sides of the same surface? Like 30 degrees F on one side and 72 on the other. Are there specific wood species that are better suited for door making?

I live in a subdivision with cookie cutter houses and a custom wood front door would be neat, assuming it passes wife and HOA approvals.

Re: Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?

#119

Post by switch007 »

artificialprint wrote: post #47
austin-cheney wrote: post #9

After I was laid off from JavaScript work for 6 months a recruiter contacted me to write APIs using a commercial enterprise platform. Its been great. I did that for almost a year before they promoted me to operations for the project. I should have moved away from JavaScript work much earlier in my career. I had on reverse beer goggles. I love JavaScript and writing programs in the language, but the problem is that al…

Projects managers are absolutely getting slaughtered right now

Which company? Can I join it?

Re: Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?

#120

Post by MonkeyClub »

eplatzek wrote: post #81
artificialprint wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Projects managers are absolutely getting slaughtered right now

How so?

The people they would manage are getting fired, so they're also becoming redundant by consequence.
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