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Ask HN: I can't do development any more, what should I transition to?

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Re: Ask HN: I can't do development any more, what should I transition to?

#41

Post by burntoutfire »

iKevinShah wrote: post #32
non-entity wrote: post #11

I've wanted to leave the industry for a while for various different reasons and it seems the golden handcuffs are very real. The only realistic options seem to be moving towards adjacent business roles (various management, business, or customer facing roles mostly) as you'll see these are pretty much the majority of suggestions you'll see on these threads. Occasionally you'll see the person who left for a trade or so…

> Another option, which may be unpopular is to find a less demanding job. No one wants to hear it, but theres a plenty of development jobs, especially in non-tech companies where you don't have to be that good, you won't do much outside the standard 9-5 hours, pay what you want,and you can coast at for a very long time as long as you aren't a total incompetent. These ofc come with their own issues, but it might be th…

Government, banks, big non-tech corporations in general. In particular, my observation is that anything "data" related (big data, data warehousing, any kinds of report building) can be technically easy (certainly easier than a CRUD app - also easier to maintain, since it's typically not running 24/7), well paying and populated by not that strong people. These data applications often have a lot of value to the business and hence they're willing to pay for smart people who will swallow their pride, handle the boredom and just get the job done.

Bear in mind that by being a borderline slacker you exclude yourself from any promotions and from doing more "interesting" work, but in many places you'll still get paid. Also, tech moves fast and, if you don't learn, you'll have problems 10-20 years down the road.

Re: Ask HN: I can't do development any more, what should I transition to?

#42

Post by jbpnoy6fifty »

BusterStatus wrote: post #17

I work as an application engineer for a SaaS company and I do a lot of troubleshooting up and down the stack, but I do not write code except for some console apps or scripts. I do a lot of DB work, some DevOps stuff like cert renewals, custom reports, write bug tickets, etc. The job is not that stressful and I earn close to what you are looking for in terms of salary. I actually expect the amount to be in that range…

I have a similar job as a technical support engineer, which requires a lot of DB querying as well. I've optimized a lot of my job by investigating the data through jupyter notebook, which is typically a data analyst / data scientist tool, but works really well for troubleshooting impact and behaviors through data. I highly recommend trying it out, it's made my work more seamless. Learned the job twice as fast as anyone of my other my peers; commended by my boss, in how surprised she found learned the material; seems to be a reoccurring event for my last three jobs.

Re: Ask HN: I can't do development any more, what should I transition to?

#44

Post by UK-Al05 »

viburnum wrote: post #16

It was React/GraphQL/Apollo that broke me. I liked it better when just knowing ruby and sql were good enough. Those jobs are still out there but they’re getting harder to find.

Plently of java,c# and go backend jobs around.

Re: Ask HN: I can't do development any more, what should I transition to?

#45

Post by patatino »

collyw wrote: post #36
theonething wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, you echoed my sentiments exactly. I just hate frontend development so much for some reason.

Most apps would work just as well with server side rendering and a bit of jQuery. We have a spa at my current place and it doubles the complexity for no real gain. Debugging is painful.

You can do that too with react. Most of my stuff is asp.net mvc core with normal postbacks and on a couple pages where I „need“ that interactivity I add react

Re: Ask HN: I can't do development any more, what should I transition to?

#46

Post by remify »

auslegung wrote: post #5

Technical project manager, product manager, product owner. Engineering manager. Scrum Master. As long as you enjoy leadership any of these options should do quite well. Being technically-savvy is usually an asset in these positions, and you should be able to make good money.

In my opinion Product/project manager and product owner are way more stressfull.

Re: Ask HN: I can't do development any more, what should I transition to?

#48

Post by iKevinShah »

burntoutfire wrote: post #41
iKevinShah wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another option, which may be unpopular is to find a less demanding job. No one wants to hear it, but theres a plenty of development jobs, especially in non-tech companies where you don't have to be that good, you won't do much outside the standard 9-5 hours, pay what you want,and you can coast at for a very long time as long as you aren't a total incompetent. These ofc come with their own issues, but it might be th…

Government, banks, big non-tech corporations in general. In particular, my observation is that anything "data" related (big data, data warehousing, any kinds of report building) can be technically easy (certainly easier than a CRUD app - also easier to maintain, since it's typically not running 24/7), well paying and populated by not that strong people. These data applications often have a lot of value to the busines…

Fair warnings and a genuine suggestion. Thank you :)
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