Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

#151

Post by zeroc8 » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 3:00 PM UTC

scirocco wrote: post #27

zeroc8 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on a pilot track in my former life, but got out due to bad eyesight, which made it risky to invest more. Now I've been a software developer for 20 years, but it doesn't make me happy. It's an ok job and provides food and shelter for my familiy, but I wish I could get back into aviation...

Meanwhile, if you ask a pilot today on advice... They will say, get a university degree and look elsewhere than aviation

Well, most of them love the flying part itself. Problem is everything else. With software development it's just the opposite. The perks are great, but the actual work can be very boring...

Re: Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

#152

Post by non-entity » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

_davebennett wrote: post #146

jwr wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can relate to your point of view, which is why I don't work for "the tech industry", but instead have my own SaaS. This lets me stay close to tech (I love programming in Clojure and ClojureScript!), do what I enjoy, and not have my soul sucked out by evilness and stupidity of today's adtech world. I have a product which solves a real problem and I'm getting paid by customers who appreciate that their workflow is so…

How do you propose finding those real problems to solve? I know that every problem I encounter in my life (or work) has already been solved 100 times over.

Yeah in honestly shocked at how many niche problems. I encounter that have ready solutions. If I ever find a truly unsolved problem, in likely to assume that its just too hard to properly solve at the time.

Re: Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

#153

Post by tom-jh » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #64

I wish I could leave. The tech industry nowadays is no longer about solving real-world problems and making the world a better place, instead it's all about screwing the end user in every single way possible, whether it's ads, stalking and privacy violations, spam ("marketing" as they call it) or just plain fraud where the company is happy to take the money but can't make it right if things don't go to plan and the cu…

Maybe join my company, or another company like us?

We're funded from customer revenue. Privacy focused. No VCs, so no moral flexibility needed on our end to meed VC expectations. We don't do any dark patterns. All remote.

There's GitLab, Wikimedia, Cockroach Labs, etc.. there are opportunities out there if you make it a real priority to work at such place.

Re: Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

#154

Post by noiselistening » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

The workplace and managers made me so miserable I would drink every night and be sick every morning. Vomiting was routine.

Not only was it an awful workplace, but I was capable enough to work alone, and therefore did, so I had no colleagues to build strong comradery with.

We tried to hire myself a senior developer to mentor me and make me happy, but to put it simply, if you were capable of doing that you were simply overqualified for the company in the first place.

Imagine that, hiring your own boss...

Edit: I'm talking about 1 job because thats as many as I got through in this industry. All my applications are custom made, so after a couple dozen with no responses, I've kind of given up and have stopped looking.

Re: Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

#155

Post by CaciaraAsAServi » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

TheCapn wrote: post #150

CaciaraAsAServi wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that more IT is entering the shop floor, many places are adopting some solutions (for diagnostics, data collection etc.) with more "computer" content than the past; for example all the predictive maintenance platforms big vendors are developing. Or you can concentrate on the "upper" levels, like SCADA, MES; of course working with these tools is not super CS rocket science, most of the time. You can start from pos…

Controls aren't much different than other industries who rely on vendor product solutions either imo. You can talk to your SCADA vendor to see what their Historian / MES solution is and look at integrating that or develop a custom solution. Each obviously have pros/cons. What you might gain in rapid development using the Vendor provided solution your client will probably lose in steep licensing fees. Vendor solutions…

True! Hence my, "most of the time". I recently had to heavily customize a SCADA event engine with my plugins due to the particular requirements of the system; come to think of it, I might have as well rewritten the whole thing, but I had some "non-technological" limitations. :)

Re: Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

#156

Post by TheCapn » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

hnybadger wrote: post #144

TheCapn wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, speaking of mouse traps, while working at an inland grain terminal I met a guy who was using arduinos hooked up to what's essentially a highly pressurized central vac system as a pest control system. Against the walls were small little "tunnels" the mice would run through, trigger an optical sensor then get sucked into the vac system at something like 500psi and their goop put into a holding tank for them to cle…

Incidentally, I am a Software Engineer that owns an Electrical Contracting business too and I would love to learn more about your company and your requirements for electrcians, what is the best way to contact someone to learn more?

Hmm, I apologize for not wanting to give away my explicit employer. We have like... 13 engineers/techs, rest of our staff are admin or panel builders so I'd pretty much be doxing myself to give it away.

I'll just say that my business was started by the owner in his farm's shop rebuilding/selling motors. When he expanded to doing controls they were like 3 employees and his friend was the electrician who they hired on. Since then the Electrician partnered with his Son-in-law and they train the majority of their guys right from their apprenticeship.

As much as I keep using "My company" throughout these posts I'm still just a guy in a programming/integrator role.

Re: Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

#157

Post by the_cat_kittles » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

its now a side gig instead of my main focus. i left because i hated selling ownership of my mind. also because the products i worked on were all stupid. absolutely no regrets, that industry brings out the worst in people. i do recycling and music now, and do random occasional software gigs when im running out of money. i keep following this website because its occasionally interesting, but also to kind of marvel at the bullshit and hypocracy. its not entirely healthy

Re: Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

#158

Post by awelkie » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

hackyhacky wrote: post #78

As a kid, I aspired to be a programmer. As an adult, I succeeded, and I stuck around for a good long while. There are a lot of reasons to like working tech, obviously: the salary, the flexible working environment, the prestige, the opportunity to build products that real people use, the chance to play with new technology, and of course working with occasionally brilliant colleagues. I tried to convince myself that th…

I'm a PhD drop-out, and I'm reticent to give it another shot. Is it easy to find teaching jobs at the university level without a PhD?

Re: Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

#159

Post by VLM » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

This is going to turn into a debate about the definition of the tech industry.

For example, are you in tech if your employer has been around for 20 years and your employee number is five digits? If the business model has nothing to do with technology, or are technology companies like microprocessor manufacturers inherently disqualified because their business model is technological as opposed to financialization? Can you only be in "tech" if you live in SV? Or is it just voting for Democrats that makes one a tech worker as opposed to a typical engineer?

Re: Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

#160

Post by milquetoastaf » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

hackyhacky wrote: post #78

As a kid, I aspired to be a programmer. As an adult, I succeeded, and I stuck around for a good long while. There are a lot of reasons to like working tech, obviously: the salary, the flexible working environment, the prestige, the opportunity to build products that real people use, the chance to play with new technology, and of course working with occasionally brilliant colleagues. I tried to convince myself that th…

Can you elaborate more on how you got into the teaching position? This is a path that intrigues me as well but I also had mediocre grades and I never even tried to go to grad school. However I have been quite successful in my career (worked for the NYT and currently for a FAANG) but like you I am getting burnt out by the daily realities of the industry.