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Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now?

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281–290 of 344 posts

Re: Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now?

#281

Late career switch to fine leather bookbinding. Love it. I’ve always been interested in crafts, and they offer an immediacy and a tangibility that’s lacking in technology, especially in the cloud. Also, it’s a community that thinks in terms of decades or centuries instead of weeks or months, which is refreshing after riding the JavaScript rollercoaster for the last few years. I’m currently apprenticing with a master…

Serious question, what’s the TAM on that? Like how many books are we talking a year?

Re: Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now?

#282
I’ll share my story here of multiple switches. I switched to tech in my early career, worked 5 years or so, and am switching to Registered Massage Therapy as I apply to med school. I’ve also always had long term plans to become a Christian pastor.

I’m switching because first of all, I have the financial luxury of doing so. Secondly, because, as another person said, I feel like it’s my calling. My meaning and purpose in life that was missing from a tech job that I actually really loved, but wasn’t spiritually fulfilling.

Life is short, and money is only one part of the equation, so we’ll see how it goes from here. =)

Re: Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now?

#283

Walked away from 20 years of software development last year. I've been day and swing trading stocks for last 2 years. I'm now trading full time and doing great. I don't miss the daily stand-ups, scrum meetings, planning meetings, "quick chats", one-on-ones with management, weekly department meetings, monthly company meetings, and late night critical support calls one bit!

What would you need to get into day trading, properly, as a full time job? I'm certain that bank defaulter lists are filled with mediocre day traders, so without asking what's your secret, what's your secret?

Re: Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now?

#284

I was a software developer during the dot-Com days. Lost everything when my company folded. Transitioned to being a licensed funeral director. Some of my funeral director highlights include working for the Office of the Chief Coroner, supporting the Canadian military during Afghanistan operations as a civilian funeral director and ending up in Haiti after the earthquake in 2010 to do recovery efforts for the Canadian…

That's some adventure! How did you manage to get injured on the job? And what was it like learning to code with the latest frameworks?

Re: Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now?

#285
post #159

I went to law school and am currently a biglaw first-year. Trying to switch back to dev though (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29690759 ) Basic reasons for switch: 1) self-taught dev, so felt like I was always playing from behind; 2) wanted to pursue interests I had before going into tech; 3) felt like I wasn't productive in college, and thus wanted to have an intellectual experience. I didn't think at all…

Did you study from scratch to get into law school or did you already have a pre-law background? I am thinking (daydreaming, really) about becoming a non-profit type lawyer as my next profession because I am interested in some social causes that have fallen out of favor and don’t have much activism anymore. Going to law school seemed to me a good option for understanding how to effect change through the legal system.

Re: Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now?

#286
post #197

I switched from software development consulting to being a game designer at a large studio. I still use my programming skills part of the time to prototype and build content but there’s a lot more variety day-to-day especially as I’ve gotten to be more senior: writing design documents, working with producers on the game’s business strategy, working with artists and ux designers, managing and mentoring, etc. The bigge…

aren’t major game companies the most stressfull place to work far beyond other companies?

Game companies that do “boxed product” releases (eg. giant games that come out on a date announced up to years in advanced that make their money from up front purchases) certainly can be. My company makes Games as a Service games which makes things much less stressful. We ship the game every two weeks so if a feature isn’t ready it just ships two weeks later. The result can be (with the right team culture a much healthier working environment. I’ve had better work-life balance and more time to allocate to skills growth (both my own and to support that of my reports) here than I ever did in traditional tech.

Re: Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now?

#287

Was in tech for 15 years, I was feeling burned out and started a beverage company out of my kitchen. It really took off and now its my full time gig. I have a small staff and work 3-4 days a week. Work-life balance is way better, however I'm missing the challenges and smart individuals that come with working on tech products.

Could you tell me a bit more about your beverage company?

Re: Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now?

#288
post #10
post #7

Not sure if this is what you mean, but I 'switched' from an ML consultancy to entrepreneurship. I now build and market my own projects ([1], [2]) and try to gain enough ad revenue to replace my former salary. Started 1.5 months ago, and enjoying every minute of it! No longer occupying my mind with corporate power dynamics saves a lot of cognitive bandwidth, but to my surprise it has been replaced. I thought I'd feel…

I did something similar. Building is the easy part. Getting meaningful traction is difficult. My own projects: https://cxo.industries https://tradecast.one

My preferred tool for this (seems to cover pretty much everything):-

https://viewdns.info

Re: Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now?

#289

Late career switch to fine leather bookbinding. Love it. I’ve always been interested in crafts, and they offer an immediacy and a tangibility that’s lacking in technology, especially in the cloud. Also, it’s a community that thinks in terms of decades or centuries instead of weeks or months, which is refreshing after riding the JavaScript rollercoaster for the last few years. I’m currently apprenticing with a master…

Serious question, what’s the TAM on that? Like how many books are we talking a year?

At one end, there's making one-offs or small editions that sell for thousands of dollars each (or hundreds each for larger handmade editions). In terms of physical production, a binder could make hundreds from scratch every year; in practice, I believe the market for a binder's artistic works is smaller than that, and everyone I've met supplements that with teaching, grant money, restoration, or ancillary work (such as clamshell boxes or custom rebinding). The person with whom I'm apprenticing makes a good living at it, but he concentrates mainly on restoration and ancillary products, and has a strong side business selling rare books (partly because he can buy old but poor quality books, restore them, and sell them for much more).

It's a business very dependent upon networking within a collector community, and I have no idea how large it is, but it's definitely there and has deep pockets. One student I took a class with made a decent living making clamshell boxes for collectibles, and one collector brought her an original script from Star Wars, signed by the cast, including all the verification paperwork, and one of the prop light sabres.

I don't need to make a living at it, so I'm lucky. But it's definitely an area of the arts with arts level compensation, which is to say... not great.

Re: Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now?

#290
A show I've been watching consistently (about 5 seasons) is Port Protection. It's all about the day to day existence of people living a subsistence lifestyle in the town of Port Protection, Prince of Wales Island, Alaska.

I often wonder what it would be like to live that life without the money pressure they have. Where you're not trapping beaver to pay for bullets, so you can hunt deer to have enough food for the winter etc. There are lots of other shows like this ("The Last Alaskans", "Life Below Zero", "Yukon Men" etc).

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4838586/

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