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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?

#141

Post by DanielHB »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #137

I'm very fortunate to have a job right now because having an income is better than not having an income However, the company is sliding downhill imo, there have been constant layoffs and eventually I am sure I will be caught in one of them I'm really not happy about the idea of searching for a new job again, in this new "AI assisted morons" stage of bureaucracy I'm strongly thinking about trying to pivot to independe…

When times are though qualified independent consultants can more easily get gigs than an unemployed person can get a full-time job. From the point of view of companies they like the versatility of being able to let go of consultants if things are going down or if workload dries up.

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

#142

Post by cityofdelusion »

jebarker wrote: post #133
sillywabbit wrote: post #100

Wildlife photography was fun for a while. If you avoid baiting the animals, it sortof becomes a game, figuring out where they live and how to get close without scaring them off. Making any significant money off it seems unlikely though.

I always wonder why more people don't use wildlife photography as a more challenging alternative to hunting.

At least where I’m from, the vast majority of hunters do it for consuming the animal. Trophy hunters here are pretty rare as that’s more of an (very) expensive luxury rather than sustenance. There is definitely overlap in base stalking skills and many people do both, but they are very different activities.

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

#143

Post by switch007 »

MonkeyClub wrote: post #120
eplatzek wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so?

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

Project managers typically manage projects, not people

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

#144

Post by bluefirebrand »

DanielHB wrote: post #141
bluefirebrand wrote: post #137

I'm very fortunate to have a job right now because having an income is better than not having an income However, the company is sliding downhill imo, there have been constant layoffs and eventually I am sure I will be caught in one of them I'm really not happy about the idea of searching for a new job again, in this new "AI assisted morons" stage of bureaucracy I'm strongly thinking about trying to pivot to independe…

When times are though qualified independent consultants can more easily get gigs than an unemployed person can get a full-time job. From the point of view of companies they like the versatility of being able to let go of consultants if things are going down or if workload dries up.

Yeah, this is along the lines of my thinking as well

Just gotta start figuring out this "networking" thing

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

#145

Post by DanielHB »

lm28469 wrote: post #20
francisofascii wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of developer gigs in the US with salaries less than $100k, or with contract hourly rates less than $50/hour. Especially if the job is remote or in a low COL area.

Unless we only talk about big tech companies there are more devs under 100k than devs above 200k, for sure, not even close. 300k as a dev you're in the lucky top 10%

People would be surprised how much of the software world relies on low-pay PHP/wordpress developers. I know a few people who started their careers like that.

No-code and low-code solutions have been getting better so the demand for those jobs is drying up though, but there are still massive operations running on top of some wordpress server that people FTP files to.

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

#146

Post by DanielHB »

more_corn wrote: post #22
ecshafer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certified electricians can make really good money, especially union. But that's really hard to believe. Is this somewhere like NYC or something that there is an edge. A remote software developer is typically in the $100-200k range in the US. I know union certified electricians in that range, but none in the $300-400k range.

My buddy did this. Apprenticed to become a low voltage electrician. Runs Cat6 for office builds. He did it for the reduced stress. He’s a lot happier. He owns a home in SF on a single salary.

Man in highschool I interned as a technician for a school computer lab.

Never in my life do I want to run Cat6 cables around again. I was freaking 17 and already getting back aches from leaning down so often.

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

#147

Post by DanielHB »

itsoktocry wrote: post #94
mjthrowaway1 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hire electricians regularly. Driving a grounding rod is physically demanding. Moving conduit and hoisting it overhead for long runs is demanding. Carrying tools around, mounting light fixtures…and this is for light commercial work. It’s definitely not easy on the body and why older electricians want to transition in to design and engineering as opposed to field work.

These things are relatively physically demanding if your baseline is sitting at a desk. But hammering a rod into the ground for 15 minutes, or holding some weight over your head, or carrying weight in your toolbag are not things that break your body down; they build your body up.

They do if you do the same type of motion over and over for years on end.

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

#148

Post by 0_gravitas »

itishappy wrote: post #129
solumunus wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many full time jobs in SWE where you can easily get away with doing part time hours. Get a full time role and just do less?

And collect a full salary? That sounds rather like admitting there's an SWE bubble, and I can't imagine indicates good things for the future job market...

It's highly unlikely anyone is producing for all X hours in their work-week, especially in a "thinky" field, there has to be some time for the mind to digest and breathe. For many people this usually happens in the midst of chatting with coworkers, clicking through HN, or staring off longingly into a space that isn't there, passively thinking about a side-project, etc. Why pretend like this digestion time doesn't exist/must happen in an office?

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

#149

Post by DanielHB »

xnx wrote: post #103
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I left Google 3+ years ago I was at first delighted to find I still really loved writing code, because I felt like work had drained it out of me. And then, yes, I found, wait, I actually need to work in a team because like you say there's a limit to how far you can get by yourself. To do big things you need more people. So I gave up on my fantasy of solo working or somehow retiring, and returned to work. Only to…

AI coding tools are rapidly changing what a single person can accomplish.

The bigger the companies/products/teams the less code you actually write.

Right now I have a project where a PM asked me to describe the logic of a certain thing to him and I couldn't do it. Literally I couldn't spell it out better than just reading the code.

I ended up translating the code into pseudo code and send it to him (would have made a flow chart if he wasn't very smart).

And it is not just because of "bad engineering" or bad org, no it was just features added to account for multiple series of edge cases that had to work properly or a few thousands of people would call our company to complain the system wasn't working.

Like the hard part wasn't the code, it was the flow chart. Changes to that flow chart could take weeks to implement/test/release.

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

#150

Post by silent_cal »

_benj wrote: post #45

I’m usually hesitant to share but I’ve been doing commodities trading. There’s a humongous amount of BS out there about trading or day trading but the fact is that people do it and make it, and my best friend being a consistently profitable trader for the last 4 years didn’t help my skeptic case… At any rate, turns out that the challenge of trading is less of a technical or financial one. Sure, one needs to understan…

What platform do you use for trading, and which commodities do you trade?
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