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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?

#251

Post by _benj »

xyst wrote: post #236
_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…

> doing commodities trading. Game is rigged for big players. You are gambling. > best friend being a consistently profitable trader for the last 4 years didn’t help my skeptic case… Last 4 years have been a boon for day traders. Any idiot with a decent sized portfolio and appetite for risk can make a living. However you are literally staring at graphs all day. Not very fun or rewarding or contributing much to society…

I mean you are right… I think somebody said that where you believe you can or you can’t you are right.

This is funny tho

> Game is rigged for big players. You are gambling.

That’s the whole point of the thing, I’m not playing their game! Look at, say, wheat… a report comes out with adjusted supply/demands (USDA releases those), then if players need to buy/sell a few million bushels of wheat… well, you don’t buy/sell a couple million bushels of wheat without paying on slippage…

I’ve made money exactly that way from “big players”. We are not playing the same game at all!

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

#252

Post by _benj »

dennis_jeeves2 wrote: post #246
_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…

> my best friend being a consistently profitable trader He may have discover a relatively unknown niche than he can exploit, or he is plain lucky. The question is: are you confident that you can replicate his success. For most people that I'm aware of the answer is often 'no'. Most people loose money and will rarely talk about it.

I mean, one wouldn’t attempt something unless one had some measure believe in oneself’s chances. If people attempt stuff they know they will fail… Idk how they do that

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

#253

Post by bloomingkales »

robomartin wrote: post #179

> I'm curious what other kinds of work other former developers got into and if they like it. Speaking in general terms, age discrimination in tech (not just software development) is, in my opinion, a really serious problem. It's like society discards you after a certain point in time, even though you are likely more capable than most younger candidates. I am going to point the finger squarely at YC on some of this, s…

So what is the conclusion here, that DEI needed to include aging workers? That’s going to be tough sell in this society.

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

#254

Post by numba888 »

beryilma wrote: post #37
popularrecluse wrote: post #16

I never stopped developing. After getting laid off in April 2023 after 13 years as first a full stack then mobile dev, I just started working on things that interested me. I did apply and interview a few times, but I started to realize that pushing 50 and being as cynical as I now am, I'm pretty much unemployable as an IC. So I released my application to the App Store this month, and while savings are dwindling, thin…

> but I started to realize that pushing 50 and being as cynical as I now am, I'm pretty much unemployable as an IC. Well that's me. My theory is that it is not age that makes one unemployable in the software industry, but the unwillingness to put up with shit cooked up by bunch of 25 year old CEOs, CTOs, and the like.

> the unwillingness to put up with shit cooked up by bunch of 25 year old CEOs, CTOs, and the like

You haven't seen the shit written by 50++ senior and principal 'developers'. Imagine local variables names 20-40 chars long. Then they are passed into function call, like 15-20 of them. While actually these are just 3 structures. I.e. 'gurus' unroll them into individual elements and pass. Long names to make the code what they call 'self-documented'. No comments at all. And all this is in a big project with other devs working on it for years. It's absurdly slow for the project of this size and resources. But with almost no competitors this can last for decades and it actually does.

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

#255

Post by nextn »

jamesrr39 wrote: post #19
popularrecluse wrote: post #16

I never stopped developing. After getting laid off in April 2023 after 13 years as first a full stack then mobile dev, I just started working on things that interested me. I did apply and interview a few times, but I started to realize that pushing 50 and being as cynical as I now am, I'm pretty much unemployable as an IC. So I released my application to the App Store this month, and while savings are dwindling, thin…

I have heard this a few times from different people/places, but why is it the case that at 50+ it is harder to find work? Assuming a regular retirement age, there are still many more years left in the career than a typical tech employment lasts.

Anyone up for starting a job site for 40+ devs only?

How about an angel investing firm for 40+ founders only?

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

#256

Post by mnky9800n »

_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…

This is a dumb question from someone who just buys and holds, but if you have a strategy, why can't this be instantiated in code and then it just trades for you so you can spend your time doing something else?

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

#257

Post by mnky9800n »

Gnarl wrote: post #107
rozab wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the AI startup culture gets so snake-oily people are jumping ship to practice ear acupuncture, that's when we should be worried

@rozab Made me laugh, though I can't quite figure out whether you're bashing AI-startups, ear-acupuncture or both ;D

you should make an ai enabled ear acupuncture device.

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

#258

Post by _benj »

mnky9800n wrote: post #256
_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…

This is a dumb question from someone who just buys and holds, but if you have a strategy, why can't this be instantiated in code and then it just trades for you so you can spend your time doing something else?

Is not dumb, is just way harder than what it seems. Is kind of like, when the price is going “up” it almost never is going up the same way. What happened before? has the market been more volatile? was there a gap in price the night before? how has the week/month been? are there any external factors (upcoming fed announcement, news, tariffs, etc.) is current “going up” a continuation of something? How fast (momentum)? How “hesitant” (volatility vs clearer directional movement)…

When one starts thinking about how to look at all those factors and when one starts thinking about how to measure those factors (what is volatility? What high or low? Compared to what baseline? Does the baseline move?) it becomes clear that the problem is a bit more complicated to measure and implement in code than it is to train oneself and trade discretionary.

With very fast execution (think server collocation on the exchange and direct fiber network access to the exchange server) the possibility of market making opens, I think of the things that Jane Street does, and look how crazy profitable they are. But very few people have access to that.

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

#259

Post by 20after4 »

mywittyname wrote: post #178
20after4 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar panels are really not very expensive if you shop around. I got some 180 watt panels for $80 each recently.

$80 is a lot of money to a homeless person.

Yeah, it's probably two full days of collecting and recycling aluminum. (Not trying to belittle the homeless, I only mention this because it is how the homeless people in my old neighborhood would earn a little bit of cash. They don't deserve all the scorn they endure and I help them out every chance I get.)

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

#260

Post by solumunus »

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...

There’s nothing new about it. You won’t get away with it at FAANG, but look for old school enterprise software companies and it’s not hard to find roles where you can get away with putting in a few days per week.
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