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Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

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

#181

Post by apohn »

ruffrey wrote: post #163
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…

This describes a lot of software. No doubt. It's depressing and disturbing. But not any of the systems I've worked on over 10 years. You may not get the absolute top salaries working on more meaningful projects, but there's plenty of them. Here are some examples that I worked on. To a fault, most of these places over-focused on the business and under-focused on exceptional engineering. Nonetheless, there's a lot of m…

So this is a philosophical argument, but lots of those industries indirectly screw their customers. Optometrists who sell frames generally sell brands from companies like Luxottica who have made eyewear really expensive. The entire insurance industry is one of the major reasons healthcare is expensive and ruins the experience people have with patient care. All of this various from country to country of course.

I could go on, but sometimes your choice is working on a product that either screws the users directly (e.g. ads) or indirectly. Take your pick of where you want to draw the line.

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

#182

Post by _vdpp »

throw1234651234 wrote: post #115
_vdpp wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True - but a lot of people self-disqualify because of rumors and urban legends. Make them tell you "no" if it's something you want. There are waivers for many medical issues, but if you don't ask you'll never get one.

Right. Don't you have to have a letter of recommendation from a Congressman or something? It always felt completely inaccessible to me, much more so than SOF, where you might get by on being fit alone.

It's probably a lot more accessible than you think.

The congressional recommendation is for entrance into the US Air Force Academy, which is a 4-year university.

If you already have your degree, you can apply for OTS (which is your initial officer training - I think it's 3 months long now) and a pilot slot directly.

Another option a lot of people overlook too is getting to pilot training via the Reserves or ANG. Those units can interview and hire you directly, and you'll go through the same training and do the same job with a lot less red tape.

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

#183

Post by jseliger »

awelkie wrote: post #158
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?

If you have a masters and are willing to be a relatively low-paid adjunct, my impression is "yes," particularly in CS, where relatively few people want to be adjuncts.

I don't think it's easy to find jobs that pay at middle-class levels in many larger cities.

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

#184

Post by asdfman123 »

notacoward wrote: post #28

I haven't left myself yet, but at almost-55 I know a fair number who have. Here's what I know of what their answers would be. The first simply had another passion - travel. Work was just a way to pay for that. Eventually went to work for an agency, been there a long time and AFAICT couldn't be happier (despite being less well off materially). I've known a couple of others who fit this pattern. One left the industry t…

You know, people worry about age discrimination a lot because there aren't a ton of older programmers around. But when the discussion comes up, people don't talk much about the reasons you describe.

Sure, bad programmers age out because they were never great at programming in the first place. But I would assume the HN crowd falls in the top half of competence because there are so many people here who seem smarter about programming than me. If you're good, you don't have to worry.

Maybe good programers age out because the technical side gets too repetitive, their jobs become more about politics, and they have enough money to change tracks later in life.

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

#185

Post by commandlinefan »

pansa2 wrote: post #79
ehnto wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm tired. I'm tired of the artificial deadlines I think the ephemeral nature of software really plays poorly with the artificial deadlines, and the artificial importance of some projects in general. Eventually you recognize the pattern, and there's no logical way to justify it, so it's harder to motivate yourself. You know the deadline isn't real, and you know the software will be rewritten next year with some new…

> the ephemeral nature of software [...] it's harder to motivate yourself It's been a few years since I left the industry, and I'd be surprised if any of the code I wrote professionally hasn't been superseded by now. Even worse, plenty of it was scrapped before it was even released. Of course, I knew this would be the case when I was writing it - that does indeed affect one's motivation.

> code I wrote professionally hasn't been superseded

Well, the state of New Jersey is looking for programmers to update COBOL programs that were written 50 years ago, so you might be underestimating the sheer power of inertia in software development...

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

#186

Post by eropple »

BerislavLopac wrote: post #126
adrianN wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could always switch to a company that doesn't make its money with ads. For example I work for Snowflake and I don't feel like I'm building stuff to screw the end user at all. I just make our database better. I also worked for Siemens. There too I didn't try to screw any users, I just tried to make trains run cheaper, faster and more reliably.

> You could always switch to a company that doesn't make its money with ads I always thought that I would be able to switch to any programming job I wanted, and that the only decision would be between making a lot and roughing it up (like the GP), or working for a better cause for less money (as you propose). But now I find it -- after 25 years of professional experience -- nearly impossible to find any job. Maybe it…

Here in Boston I'm hearing that the market is still pretty strong. Lots of smaller companies are having trouble but bigger ones are hiring like crazy for senior and higher roles.

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

#187

Post by detaro »

commandlinefan wrote: post #185
pansa2 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the ephemeral nature of software [...] it's harder to motivate yourself It's been a few years since I left the industry, and I'd be surprised if any of the code I wrote professionally hasn't been superseded by now. Even worse, plenty of it was scrapped before it was even released. Of course, I knew this would be the case when I was writing it - that does indeed affect one's motivation.

> code I wrote professionally hasn't been superseded Well, the state of New Jersey is looking for programmers to update COBOL programs that were written 50 years ago, so you might be underestimating the sheer power of inertia in software development...

It also really depends on in which corner of the field you work in (and of course practices of the specific organization you work for)

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

#188

Post by olyjohn »

ratww wrote: post #171
karatestomp wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was spending more time wrestling with package managers, version conflicts, obtuse configuration files, pointless deadlines, egotistical colleagues, and almost zero time solving interesting problems on products that I care about. That squares with my experience of software development. It's like being a furniture maker but spending 80% of your time fixing your goddamn hammer because it keeps breaking and no better…

And when you're doing woodworking and has to do some repetitive task you make a jig or a template for your router. This is something that you're supposed to know on the first day after you finish apprenticeship. In the modern tech industry you need authorization from your product owner/manager and engineering manager just to build a new tool or abstraction to automate or speed up your own job, because god forbid you…

I have to manage infrastructure, but I'm not allowed to manage user accounts or permissions. I have to send a ticket to IT, and then wait 3 days for a response... Or I get no response from them, and find out 5 days later that they did the job and closed the ticket with no notification. All because their manager requires tickets for every little change... But they don't put any information in the tickets about what they did, so there's no point whatsoever to the ticket.

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

#189

Post by turrican »

I left the tech field just a year out of college. I worked in cybersecurity. It was a lot of fun for a tech job, with lots of travel and interesting problems to solve. The pay was decent even fresh out of college like I was.

I left to be a pilot. Spending time traveling, watching the aircrews and staring at airplanes taxi up got to me. I put my time in flying small planes and just finished training for my first airline job on Valentine’s Day this year. The work is amazing, and I’m still very solidly in the “I can’t believe they’re paying me for this” phase of my job as I eat breakfast and watch the sunrise from up high.

I’m not sure if I’ll still have this job by next week, much less October. Oh well.

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

#190

Post by asdfman123 »

_vdpp wrote: post #26

I was working as a SWE for a large defense contractor on some pretty neat projects, and I felt like I was good at what I did. It was 40 hour weeks, good benefits, good pay, but I was bored and miserable. I lived in a town with no friends, and was so desperate for a change and some adventure, that I left the industry to join the military. I took what I call a 12 year sabbatical from tech. I became an officer, went to…

The real lesson I take from that is not that you should do X or Y, but that you should constantly be trying new things in life.

If you don't let yourself explore, you're not going to be happy long term. (Eventually, you will hit that fabled mid-life identity crisis.)

Perhaps it's less that any one situation is preferable, but more that you need variety.

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