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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?

#271

Post by _benj »

riku_iki wrote: post #270
_benj wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a way that you can think about it is from a risk perspective. One rule passed down among traders is to not risk more than 2% you account size in any single trade. For a $50k account that would be $1k. Now let’s say that your system gives you 2 times your risk (2R) with a 60% win rate, and let’s say that in average you make 10 trades a month… you can run those numbers and see if they make sense for you. There’…

> but notice how, for example, from the previous calculations the problem of trading is less of a “technical” problem and more of a market, risk management, money management, statistical kind of problem. I agree. It just happened I built such system already which models strategy over significant period of time, and accounts statistical/risks indicators, transaction price, sleepage, etc. I built it for forex eur/usd p…

If you have done the work, why not put it live?

I’m probably biased but I prefer futures, even for forex, just because is only one market vs all the extra markets a big spreads in forex, 6E for euro dollar or M6E for even smaller positions/capital/risk.

There also the element that there are a lot of things you don’t learn until you run a system live

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

#272

Post by riku_iki »

_benj wrote: post #271
riku_iki wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but notice how, for example, from the previous calculations the problem of trading is less of a “technical” problem and more of a market, risk management, money management, statistical kind of problem. I agree. It just happened I built such system already which models strategy over significant period of time, and accounts statistical/risks indicators, transaction price, sleepage, etc. I built it for forex eur/usd p…

If you have done the work, why not put it live? I’m probably biased but I prefer futures, even for forex, just because is only one market vs all the extra markets a big spreads in forex, 6E for euro dollar or M6E for even smaller positions/capital/risk. There also the element that there are a lot of things you don’t learn until you run a system live

I run it on test account, if I subtract commissions and potential sleapage, it looked like gambling with odds slightly in my favor, in short, my deep learning pattern recognitions were not strong enough on that market.

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

#273

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

ipatch wrote: post #229
xyst wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am in my mid-70s now It says something about society that asks people to work well beyond their retirement age. I hope you are only looking because it gives you purpose rather than doing it because it’s necessary (ie, medical bills, rent). If it’s the latter, very dystopian and on par for this neoliberal economic hellhole we live in. Personally, if I get to that age. I am cashing in my chips. No way I am working…

nothing wrong with carpentry

Especially if you build a banana stand. I hear there’s always money in a banana stand.

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

#274

Post by _benj »

riku_iki wrote: post #272
_benj wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have done the work, why not put it live? I’m probably biased but I prefer futures, even for forex, just because is only one market vs all the extra markets a big spreads in forex, 6E for euro dollar or M6E for even smaller positions/capital/risk. There also the element that there are a lot of things you don’t learn until you run a system live

I run it on test account, if I subtract commissions and potential sleapage, it looked like gambling with odds slightly in my favor, in short, my deep learning pattern recognitions were not strong enough on that market.

Ok

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

#275

Post by dumbledoren »

lesuorac wrote: post #159
DanielHB wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People would be surprised how much of the software world relies on low-pay PHP/wordpress developers. I know a few people who started their careers like that. No-code and low-code solutions have been getting better so the demand for those jobs is drying up though, but there are still massive operations running on top of some wordpress server that people FTP files to.

Yeah straight up, SquareSpace is killing more jobs than LLMs.

Every other thread in /r/wordpress is from people who want to get away from Wix or Squarespace because they started squeezing them for $$ for minor features like contact forms etc. When people start paying $20/month for a contact form, suddenly 'Wordpress org' (as they call self-hosted Wordpress) becomes very attractive.

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

#276

Post by dumbledoren »

trod1234 wrote: post #193
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…

The simple fact of the matter is, since the 1970s, work has never been about the extremely competent. Its been about exploitation, and control. They want people who will blindly follow orders while providing the value that is implicit in intellect for pennies. Slavery by any other name. Its not about society either, because this wasn't a choice made by society, it was a choice made by people who have money. Less the…

> Less the people who earned it, and more the people who stole it through money printing non-reserve debt issuance.

Yep. That ended and brought the entire bloated economy crashing down. Now the narcissist psychos who rode to the top of that economy are gutting everyone and everything including their own companies to float the stock prices.

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

#277

Post by dumbledoren »

Johanx64 wrote: post #269
robomartin wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what is the conclusion here, that DEI needed to include aging workers? No. Absolutely not. If I am 60 and you are 30, I can do the job and do it well, I should not be excluded because of my age. You can replace age with any other category that makes sense, like race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. Candidates should not be excluded this way. A basketball team should not include me because I am not tall and…

> If I am 60 and you are 30, I can do the job and do it well, I should not be excluded because of my age. On paper, yes, you shouldn't be excluded because of age. In practice, it doesn't work like it. 60 is basically retirement age for a reason, and it's been stretched to ever higher numbers due to demographics and strain on social spending pyramid schemes. 60 year olds do do not perform like 20-30 year olds unless t…

> On paper, yes, you shouldn't be excluded because of age. In practice, it doesn't work like it. 60 is basically retirement age for a reason, and it's been stretched to ever higher numbers due to demographics and strain on social spending pyramid schemes.

No, its being stretched mainly due to people living longer. People are able to stay active in the workforce until 70s now, so the capitalist governments are pushing the retirement age up to 74-75, calculating that the current generations will live well into their early 100s. Of course, the social security system's format and the desire on the capitalist elite to dump the tax load on the working class do play into this, but the main reason is people live longer and healthier.

In the middle of last century, you'd retire in your 50s because you'd already get some debilitating illnesses or get weakened too much, and you were expected to die sometime around your mid 60s. The retirement age in the countries that still did not push it up because of capital's pressure reflects this.

> Yes, everyone will step out of their way and bend backwards to accommodate 55yo John Carmacks and alikes with impressive track records and impressive resumes where their experience and skills

Actually, many countries are doing exactly that? From Europe to China? That's the norm, not the exception. The exception is the US and its 'lets fck everyone for the profit of shareholders' mentality that reflects in tech corps enshttifying everything and exploiting 20 to 30-year-olds as code monkeys. And from how China is kicking America's ass in almost every tech field, they seem to have got it right and not the US.

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

#278

Post by wallflower »

_benj wrote: post #250
aqueueaqueue wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lost money is 500 error. Profit is 200 success. Just debug.

Kinda! Emotions often get in the way tho! If I was able to lose money as dispassionately as I look at a 500 error it would be a lot easier!!

Congrats on your trading venture! Not sure you will see this but one of my all-time favorite HN comments is by a trader named fiaz about trading and failing.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=121413

fiaz on Feb 22, 2008 | parent | context | favorite | on: Ask News.YC: How to re-motivate yourself?

APOLOGIES for making this post so annoyingly long, but I really hope you find value in the words below.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm going to first share a personal experience from my early trading days to illustrate where I'm coming from. I used to wake up at 4:30 am everyday in the Chicago suburbs to beat rush hour traffic and make it into downtown Chicago at 6:30 am. In order to wake up so early, I fell into a habit of sleeping at 9:00 pm and like a robot waking up at 4:30 am. This simple routine was indirectly helpful when things seemed darkest.

For the first six months, I lost money and was ridiculed constantly by other traders who were more successful than me (which was about 20 other guys CONSTANTLY using me as a punching/whipping bag). The only thing that kept me going was the fact that some of the very same traders that would be making wise cracks at me for losing money were some of the most successful people I knew at the time. For better or worse, if I needed a trader to model myself after, it was the same people that were telling me how bad a trader I was - and although I was not open to really hear what they were saying, they were right about my skills in every way (but their feedback was always packaged in some sort of insult) ...

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

#279

Post by wallflower »

fm2606 wrote: post #90
nyarlathotep_ wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious how you made that pivot? Did you have an "in" somewhere? What's your background (whatever you mind sharing).

I have a BS degree in Aerospace Engineering and from 1999 - 2006 I was job jumping quite a bit because I was miserable. All the jobs were boring. I took a EMT Basic night class because my wife and I were getting into scuba diving and I wanted to be a dive master on boats during the weekend. I enjoyed EMT so much that I signed up for Paramedic class, not knowing what I was going to do with it, just did it. It was rela…

Not sure you will see this. Congrats on your journey into full time dev! I stumbled upon the podcast below a couple years ago, and I found it fascinating. It defines "Mission Critical" as teams that need to make decisions in a couple minutes that impact life-and-death situations. You might find it interesting given your background.

Mission Critical Team Institute (MCTI) Teamcast Exploring the questions vexing the most elite teams in the world

https://teamcast.missioncti.com/

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

#280

Post by _benj »

wallflower wrote: post #278
_benj wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinda! Emotions often get in the way tho! If I was able to lose money as dispassionately as I look at a 500 error it would be a lot easier!!

Congrats on your trading venture! Not sure you will see this but one of my all-time favorite HN comments is by a trader named fiaz about trading and failing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=121413 fiaz on Feb 22, 2008 | parent | context | favorite | on: Ask News.YC: How to re-motivate yourself? APOLOGIES for making this post so annoyingly long, but I really hope you find value in the words below. ---------------…

Wow, thanks for sharing this!! I have experience a bit of the same, although I don't have a group of traders making fun of me, the challenge sometimes comes from having to believe in myself, and also from how family sees it, i.e. going from a high salary "secure" tech job to attempting to accomplish something by myself...

I also find curious the human part of wishing to be believed. The numbers in trading are completely ridiculous given that the ceiling is very high for a skilled trader, and thus most people bundle it together with Vegas the hundreds of thousands of dollars in a gambling game or horse race.

I keep forgetting my own complete unbelief until I experienced a trade with triple digit returns... that makes no sense but I did it (the trick is to not return that to the market and to know that those are exceptions and slow and steady wins the race!).

The irony is that many people here in HN (this is y combinator after all) attempting entrepreneurial pursuits with the hope of making a living and a big payout on acquisition and whatnot... in spite of knowing the statistics of how rare it is for that to happen.

At any rate, thanks a ton for sharing that, it is very encouraging! I've seen people do it, that post is one example, and I have the wild believe that I can do it too! I'm expecting nothing but blood, sweat, and tears, but it's worth it for me :-)

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