Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN?

#181

Post by mihaitodor » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 8:50 PM UTC

dm319 wrote: post #179

mihaitodor wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, that’s awesome! I’ve been working as a software engineer in various companies for years now doing mostly Go development these days. I’m very interested in switching my career to cancer research and doing a PhD, potentially on immunotherapy. May I ask what you’re using Go for? Also, I’d be curious to learn more about your research work.

Oh sure - biomedical research is in real need of a combination of programmers / statisticians / bioinformaticians and regular scientists at the moment. The latest research techniques are terrific at maximising the amount of information extracted from precious samples. While definitely a good thing overall, it introduces new problems, like multiple testing and simply crunching lots of data. My PhD was in cancer-immuno…

Thanks for the details! Sounds like you’re doing the kind of things I’d love to do for the rest of my career. Indeed I’ll have to start reaching out to people to figure out where I can do what interests me. I’ve been hanging around the r-bioinformatics Slack for a while now (not sure if you know it) and it’s impressive to see how much this field took off. I have limited experience with R (and Python), but it’s a great language to master. I haven’t played with Julia yet.

Re: Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN?

#182

Post by matheusmoreira » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

I've been programming since I was 13 years old. Chose not to pursue a career in technology because I felt like I would never get to work on the really cool stuff like a programming language, a virtual machine, an operating system, a kernel... A future working on business systems and websites just didn't appeal to me. I wanted to work on the infrastructure that powers everything.

Ended up going to medical school. Now I'm in the process of specializing in occupational medicine.

I still wonder what might have happened. My friends always tell me I would have made it. Who knows.

Re: Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN?

#183

Post by TrackerFF » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 9:07 PM UTC

Engineer by education, now analyst.

I think HN is a great and simple looking resource for keeping up to date on various news in tech and business world.

Admittedly, I have little interest in some of the topics that pop up - that goes into the politics of open-source software, controversies surrounding some of the languages and tools, etc. But there's so much different stuff here, so it's cool.

Re: Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN?

#184

Post by tailspin2019 » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 9:28 PM UTC

zfxfr wrote: post #140

I am not even a professional. I am an uneducated French house-husband in his late 30s. For some reason I have always been considered a "geek / nerd" by my surrounding but I did not really work in "tech" that much except for some web developpement gigs. One of my last job was forklift driver. I believe I am not part of the typical HN demographic. I like to create things that involve programming. I love and follow the…

Your English is very good. You should comment more!

Re: Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN?

#185

Post by tailspin2019 » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

warner25 wrote: post #125

After reading HN daily for years, I finally registered to answer this question. I'm a military officer. I spent the first half of my career flying helicopters and doing general management stuff, but now I work on IT (not software development, sadly) within the military because I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in CS. I still do some programming as a hobby. I guess I straddle both worlds, like others who've al…

Welcome!

I was a long-time lurker too but it’s much more fun when you engage in the comments! :)

Re: Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN?

#186

Post by tldrthelaw » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

garagemc2 wrote: post #82

tldrthelaw wrote: post #61

Tax attorney, was a general IT guy/systems administrator/software engineer in a previous life and I maintain an interest.

What made you switch?

Something like preemptive burnout. I didn't work long enough for it to be burnout per se, but I did work long enough to know I didn't want to turn my interest/hobby in to a career and wind up hating both.

Re: Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN?

#187

Post by susiecambria » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 10:22 PM UTC

I'm a social worker by training and a public policy wonk/advocate/lobbyist turned quilter for work. I can't recall how I found this most wonderful place but I love it! I get to read things here I wouldn't otherwise find and the comments add, well, are the real value!

Re: Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN?

#188

Post by psd1 » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 10:27 PM UTC

kcrx wrote: post #147

I’m a manager at a smallish community bank. I ended up here because I was looking for a place to keep up with the world that wasn’t the google news main page, twitter, or facebook. I got hooked on the condescending, presumptuous, all knowing commentary. I’m kidding! I really got hooked on the many, many gems I’ve found (links & comments) about many of the various things I’m interested in: music, nutrition, leadership…

You're clearly not a 10x engineer.

Re: Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN?

#189

Post by psd1 » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 10:28 PM UTC

psd1 wrote: post #188

kcrx wrote: post #147

I’m a manager at a smallish community bank. I ended up here because I was looking for a place to keep up with the world that wasn’t the google news main page, twitter, or facebook. I got hooked on the condescending, presumptuous, all knowing commentary. I’m kidding! I really got hooked on the many, many gems I’ve found (links & comments) about many of the various things I’m interested in: music, nutrition, leadership…

You're clearly not a 10x engineer.

;-)

Re: Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN?

#190

Post by psd1 » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 10:31 PM UTC

e-clinton wrote: post #142

dgoodell wrote: post #118

I’m an engineer at NASA working with nuclear space power systems. I ignore most of the more trite software / internet / money making bullshit. Some of that stuff is legit but most of it feels like “advances in advertising technology” or media delivery. I’m old enough to remember the earlier days of the internet and it’s sort difficult to admire the people that worked hard and made a lot of money turning it into what…

I think advancements in advertising has added more value to the average human life in the last 20 years than NASA has. If any human wants to learn how rockets fly or how to make focaccia bread, thanks to advertising YouTube will provide that information.

Interesting perspective, thank you for the thought, but I'm going to go with "nah"