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Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?

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Re: Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?

#41

Post by jcd748 »

I guess it depends what you mean by "working".

In addition to being a software developer (my day job), I also write and publish poetry, reviews, and non-fiction. These pay very little, if anything; I find that US literary publications pay almost nothing, while Canadian ones are usually able to pay a little. I think this is due to Canada Council rules around funding, but may be wrong.

Regardless, it's a field where it's very difficult to make money, and most of the people I know who manage this full-time do some combination of traditional teaching at colleges/universities or via online courses, manuscript editing services, that sort of thing.

As much as I'd like to be able to spend more time on my artistic pursuits, I'm grateful that my day job allows me to do things like pay my mortgage, and eat, and so likely the arts will stay a side thing with me forever.

Re: Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?

#42

Post by chubot »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #11

There reason you don't hear about these transitions too often is because it's virtually impossible to have a "career" solely in the arts. I've had many friends over the years who where all variety of artists/creatives working in the arts including performing art, visual arts, writing, musicians etc. Skills range all over the board from talented amateurs to highly trained/skilled professionals. Nearly all of them, eve…

The closest thing to a full time job that pays a living wage in the arts is to become a professor

I think many people here are missing the career of a tattoo artist (though the OP was asking about literature, not visual arts).

They can get paid as much as contract programmer -- $30 to $100 an hour -- or even a dentist, e.g. $200-300/hour if independent and well known.

Ironically, tattooing is one of the few forms of art that's not economically affected by computers -- you can't download a tattoo :) Computers made every form of knowledge easier to copy and thus less expensive: software (open source), journalism, literature, music, and movies. But it didn't do that to tattoos.

I think they also follow Jamie Zawinski's law, i.e. write software that will help your users get laid. People will pay more for tattoos than they would pay for something they hang in their living room. (This isn't a negative statement about the art form; I don't think anyone who tattoos would disagree that it's often sexual)

Re: Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?

#43

Post by ohnoabigshark »

I was in a similar situation as you. I had a SE job lined up right out of college after having run a small late night bakery out of my apartment during my senior year. After a year and a half working as a SE, I left to pursue work in the food industry full time. I ran my own business which subsequently folded, then worked in a few other restaurants. I eventually bought the same restaurant I managed for 2 years and was chef/founder of it for 3. COVID hit as we were looking to open a second location and I decided that it was time to hang it up entirely. I am now back in software.

I regret none of it. I am so happy I took the chance at the age of 23 because I knew the software industry would always be a fall back if things didn't work out. As others here have stated, try out your art as a side hustle first, if at all possible. You can always come back to software, the industry is not going away any time soon. Some employers will love your multi disciplinary talents if you do come back to tech. It is better to try when you are young. You do not want to look back and regret not trying!

Good luck!!!

Re: Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?

#44

Post by nbzso »

I abandoned "successful" art career to be a graphic designer in advertising industry, moved to web-development and created my own company. It is personal.

I code and design to pay the bills and paint to save my soul.

Saving my soul is not a career so I will stick with tech career until AI makes it irrelevant.

Re: Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?

#45

Post by woudsma »

Torwald wrote: post #37
woudsma wrote: post #32

I’ve done the opposite, I switched from arts to tech. Being able to use programming to create art is fantastic. I can clearly remember the days where creating images _always_ was a manual task (I used Adobe Photoshop at the time). Now I would use Processing, Python, Node.js or look into Adobe scripts whenever I have to make graphics that involve some kind of automation. I wish I had that knowledge/skill back when I s…

> Being able to use programming to create art is fantastic. What do you think about the demoscene?

The demoscene is fantastic, it’s just very math-heavy. I love shaders and the speed of GPU’s/parallel processing, but learning to write GLSL is hard especially when you haven’t had much math education. (Which is often the case for art students).

That’s also the reason why I mentioned Processing. It’s one of the few programming languages that’s very accesible for non-beta students because of it’s very simple and visual documentation.

Re: Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?

#46

Post by homie »

analog31 wrote: post #33

I have a tech career, but am a working jazz musician on the side. I have a couple of thoughts about this. First, ignore the economic implications. The reason is simply that the economics of an arts career are a known known. Nobody goes into those careers blindly. You won't either. Perhaps the only widespread misconception is that there's a tier of artists below the superstar level, who can earn a living at it. There…

>Classical violinists are already playing at close to a professional level before they start college. At your age (assuming you're older than 8), you don't have a chance at making your hands do those things, or mastering skills such as sight-reading. I started playing music at age 8.

Sort of bewildered by this statement. You can't learn to sight read after age 8?

Re: Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?

#47

Post by recursive4 »

In college I studied both CS and Studio Fine Arts (painting), and subsequently while working in tech (startup SE) showed work – that I had painted "for fun" – in NYC art galleries. From there I became part of the NYC arts community and began thinking about interesting ways to combine art & code. I built a few of these in my spare time, which caught up to my day job and led to a SE position at a startup that built software for the art market.

Assuming you reside in a city that has a strong arts community, I would focus on the nexus between where you are at and where you want to be: how could your skill set move the needle in a creative field? If you're living in a cultural desert, take your search online.

There is exciting work being done at the application layer across creative fields from Generative Art (https://artblocks.io/) to revenue management for musicians (https://www.ampled.com/) to publishing (https://mirror.xyz).

At the protocol layer I'm specifically interested in royalty payments streams (https://superfluid.finance), fictionalized ownership models, and partial common ownership (https://www.radicalxchange.org/media/papers/ownership-and-pu...).

Asking the question in this manner indicates to me that you're lacking inspiration and the resulting specific intrinsic motivation; find this first and the steps to transition will become clear.

Re: Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?

#48

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

homie wrote: post #46
analog31 wrote: post #33

I have a tech career, but am a working jazz musician on the side. I have a couple of thoughts about this. First, ignore the economic implications. The reason is simply that the economics of an arts career are a known known. Nobody goes into those careers blindly. You won't either. Perhaps the only widespread misconception is that there's a tier of artists below the superstar level, who can earn a living at it. There…

>Classical violinists are already playing at close to a professional level before they start college. At your age (assuming you're older than 8), you don't have a chance at making your hands do those things, or mastering skills such as sight-reading. I started playing music at age 8. Sort of bewildered by this statement. You can't learn to sight read after age 8?

I think the argument is that someone who started learning music at age 27 is unlikely to ever professionally compare with someone who is also 27 but started music seriously as a career at 8.

Re: Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?

#49

Post by analog31 »

homie wrote: post #46
analog31 wrote: post #33

I have a tech career, but am a working jazz musician on the side. I have a couple of thoughts about this. First, ignore the economic implications. The reason is simply that the economics of an arts career are a known known. Nobody goes into those careers blindly. You won't either. Perhaps the only widespread misconception is that there's a tier of artists below the superstar level, who can earn a living at it. There…

>Classical violinists are already playing at close to a professional level before they start college. At your age (assuming you're older than 8), you don't have a chance at making your hands do those things, or mastering skills such as sight-reading. I started playing music at age 8. Sort of bewildered by this statement. You can't learn to sight read after age 8?

Well... in the case of sight reading maybe 8 is extreme. But even with that specific skill, it gets exponentially more difficult to learn after your teenage years. I follow a web forum for the instrument that I play, and people who learned it informally have talked about their attempts to learn sight-reading as adults. I actually get some work because I've managed to maintain my reading chops over the decades.

Re: Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?

#50

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #11

There reason you don't hear about these transitions too often is because it's virtually impossible to have a "career" solely in the arts. I've had many friends over the years who where all variety of artists/creatives working in the arts including performing art, visual arts, writing, musicians etc. Skills range all over the board from talented amateurs to highly trained/skilled professionals. Nearly all of them, eve…

I'm surprised this doesn't get mentioned more on this thread.

First, find synergetic fields. Parent post is a good example. I definitely think there's something to be said for you UX roles. You could make the switch.

A new suggestion is you have to leverage your current skills as a platform for your new skill / career. Once you know what that is, use your coding prowess to open doors.

For example, if your thing is history, you could go work as a dev at a gaming company that does historical simulations, such as paradox. Or you could do system IT for a museum or the like, to then jump in a job opening of your choice in your field.

There are game studios looking for music talent with tech background, so breaking into music should not be difficult. If your thing is public performance, this route may be interesting - since gaming live music is a very underserved market. Live performance is still going to be a gig for some time and you wont be able to to turn it into a FT job, but you will be both composing music as a FT job and playing it for audiences as a hobby. Thats as fulfilling as it gets

You have a big advantage of having a skill that most modern companies need. Best, the larger the company, the more needs they have in the arts (logos, marketing collateral, art, photography etc) Leverage your tech background to get a foot in the door.

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