I wonder how HN would respond if I asked "heya HN, what programming jobs would fit someone who has 10 years of TIG welding"
This is effectively what the OP is asking.
Ask HN: Career in trades for possible ex-programmers
21–30 of 46 posts
Re: Ask HN: Career in trades for possible ex-programmers
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you get out of the loop? Recruiters seem to want lots of experience for embedded roles for example.
The embedded world is crying out for people experienced in modern software teams. A big chunk of it is one man bands who know C and maybe some C++. Most embedded projects could benefit from unit testing, automated build systems and modern memory safe languages. If you're interested in a job in embedded you could learn it on the side. Buy a dev board (from one of the main vendors - ST, NXP or TI) and write an applicat…
Hi, one man band here doing firmware at a small company. Could you elaborate on any particular skills, or tips for this sort of thing? Right now I'm trying to learn how to integrate unit tests into our newer/future projects, and setting up a Jenkins server for builds. I'm learning a lot, but it's difficult since I'm the only guy that understands firmware at my company, and these are fairly large projects to take on as a single person when there are other things I need to be managing.
Re: Ask HN: Career in trades for possible ex-programmers
#23During the pandemic I was going stir crazy. I decided to immerse myself in some hands-on activities in the garage. Initially, I focused on restoration of antique tools. Then I had a small bit of blacksmithing. Then I learned the basics of welding. These activities were all great fun, very interesting to me, and gave me something to really look forward to for the weekends.
Not quite 2 months ago I launched a residential handyman business (no website yet). My day job is in software engineering, but I also have the handyman work as a part-time thing. So far, it's working out pretty good. My weekend work is completely different from my M-F day job. One of the things I like about handyman work is that it's not all the same. It's a bit of carpentry, plumbing, and electrical combined in various ways. I'm not a licensed plumber or electrician (nor a contractor), so I steer clear of jobs that require them.
Re: Ask HN: Career in trades for possible ex-programmers
#24My advice. Take a year off. Renovate a house and see if it is what you want. If you are burnt out. This is a good way to recharge. But the work is hard and it doesn't get easier. Did this a few years ago and I it helped me get back to software engineering.
> But the work is hard and it doesn't get easier.
I agree, low paying hard work is not a good solution for boredom or a midlife/existential crisis.
Re: Ask HN: Career in trades for possible ex-programmers
#25What about permaculture/gardening?
IMO working with nature is a lot like programming. The genetic material (seeds) are like packages, the soil cycle is like memory management, and the water and sun are like your system's resources.
You get the satisfaction of building something beautiful (and eating it).
You are constantly learning about genetics, variants, processes and the language of plants.
There are role models and teachers creating new processes and testing theories (just like programming).
You are involving your entire body, puts you outside, and is amazing on your mind.
If you're looking to make money doing it, you could pick a high-value product like mushrooms, sprouts, or hot sauce and bring it to the farmer's market.
Re: Ask HN: Career in trades for possible ex-programmers
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
The embedded world is crying out for people experienced in modern software teams. A big chunk of it is one man bands who know C and maybe some C++. Most embedded projects could benefit from unit testing, automated build systems and modern memory safe languages. If you're interested in a job in embedded you could learn it on the side. Buy a dev board (from one of the main vendors - ST, NXP or TI) and write an applicat…
Hi, one man band here doing firmware at a small company. Could you elaborate on any particular skills, or tips for this sort of thing? Right now I'm trying to learn how to integrate unit tests into our newer/future projects, and setting up a Jenkins server for builds. I'm learning a lot, but it's difficult since I'm the only guy that understands firmware at my company, and these are fairly large projects to take on a…
The things I've found are productivity and reliability multipliers are:
Unit testing - and the modularisation that it forces you to do. It's great to unit test C not just because it tests your code well before it runs on hardware, but also because it's basically impossible without embracing dependency injection and modular "object oriented" C. Personally, working with a bunch of higher level languages - Rust, C#, Scala, Python - and the tooling that they have gave me a much better understanding of how things can be done. I'm a big fan of Ceedling - http://www.throwtheswitch.org/#download-section
Writing firmware which can target a desktop environment. The hardware dependencies should be a small part of the project, and easily replaced with fakes or simulators.
Having a CI pipeline which runs tests/linters/builds for you.
Those aren't necessarily easy to insert into an existing project though. Honestly I think the most useful thing is just building projects using other languages, and taking the best parts back into the low level code. It depends a bit what kind of projects you're working on - if it's mostly just glue between peripherals then these approaches are a lot less useful than if you're doing complicated maths or json parsing or higher level stuff.
Re: Ask HN: Career in trades for possible ex-programmers
#27I wonder how HN would respond if I asked "heya HN, what programming jobs would fit someone who has 10 years of TIG welding" This is effectively what the OP is asking.
The most interesting thing about programmers is our unshakeable confidence that we could easily do any else's job. Where does that even come from? Coding is not even the hardest job I've done.
Re: Ask HN: Career in trades for possible ex-programmers
#28Look, a job is a job and work is well, work. As noted in the other comments trades are hard work. Far harder than a desk job. I would suggest not romanticizing the trades as some replacement for a desk job. Go do some trade work in your free time (go build a fence in the middle of the summer as an example) and really find out how much hard work it is. If you still enjoy it after being in 95 degree heat for 8+ hours while hauling thousands of pounds of concrete, then a job change might be right for you. But first try it as a hobby.
I say this with lots of experience. I do a lot of trades work as a hobby, but the reality is in most cases it is labor of love. I'd be more efficient with my time and money by hiring it out.
Re: Ask HN: Career in trades for possible ex-programmers
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you get out of the loop? Recruiters seem to want lots of experience for embedded roles for example.
The embedded world is crying out for people experienced in modern software teams. A big chunk of it is one man bands who know C and maybe some C++. Most embedded projects could benefit from unit testing, automated build systems and modern memory safe languages. If you're interested in a job in embedded you could learn it on the side. Buy a dev board (from one of the main vendors - ST, NXP or TI) and write an applicat…
> The embedded world is crying out for people experienced in modern software teams.
The embedded world refuses to pay through.
Re: Ask HN: Career in trades for possible ex-programmers
#30I wonder how HN would respond if I asked "heya HN, what programming jobs would fit someone who has 10 years of TIG welding" This is effectively what the OP is asking.
The most interesting thing about programmers is our unshakeable confidence that we could easily do any else's job. Where does that even come from? Coding is not even the hardest job I've done.
My pet theory is that programmers are exposed to many business areas during their career, either directly or hearing it from other programmers. This desacralizes these jobs, and since we spend most of our days working though complexity (requirements, bugs, ...), you end up with "what's so hard about X?" statements.