Why not try be a swe somewhere besides SF?
I'm hoping for a remote or hybrid gig. If I could find something in Portland Maine that would be amazing - but I doubt there's much opportunity there for SWE's.
Ask HN: Decided I no longer want to be a SWE – what next?
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Re: Ask HN: Decided I no longer want to be a SWE – what next?
#52SWE is not my calling. I never really wanted to be a SWE, and don't have a degree, but things just kind of fell into my lap during the pandemic when i was desperate and short on options, so here i am. I had several jobs previously that i enjoyed quite a bit more but paid barely enough to get by, even living in practically-free flyover nowheres.
My experience is very different than yours. I've never worked for a proper tech company, nor a startup. I haven't been asked a ton of questions about how I engage with software outside of work in interviews, and none of my live coding interviews have been leetcode or memorization.
For me SWE is a nice stable pleasant 9-5 job, not the best job I've had, not the worst, but unquestionably the biggest responsibility-to-income ratio i can possibly imagine. I do mostly pleasant and unstressful work 40 hours a week and have enough money to do most anything i want. $140k goes a looooong way here in Chicago.
I think the burnout you're feeling is probably more tied to SF/big tech/startup culture than it is SWE as a career. I mean don't get me wrong I'm not certain i see myself being happy doing this forever either, but my "doing tech at non-tech or tech adjacent companies" experience sounds so drastically different than yours that i think you should give it a shot before completely changing careers. I can't speak to SF but i do at least see lots of these kinds of jobs out of New York when I'm browsing job listings. Chicago has lots of these kinds of jobs in theory but the market isn't great this second (though it probably isn't anywhere, is it?). Other major cities like Philadelphia, Seattle, hell even LA would save you money over SF and NY if that's a concern.
30 is still really young. Plenty of time to figure out how you want to live still. Clout and money don't really mean much but living comfortably with time and capital to do things you like, do.
Re: Ask HN: Decided I no longer want to be a SWE – what next?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Idk how long it would take me to be interview ready - I know it's not a great look and above all it's really embarrassing... but leetcode seems like a waste of time and side projects seem like the only way to prep for non-leetcode pairing sessions where they always expect you to know all the bindings / syntax like the back of your hand.
Really depends on the company and interviewer. I can't teach problem solving and critical thinking skills, but those are what I focus on during interviews and why I toss 98% of the applications that make it to my manager and myself after an interview. Given I am a hybrid SRE/SWE my role and team is a bit weird, but I can give somebody extra time on tasks while they're learning new tools or responsibilities, what I ca…
> what I can't do is have somebody tell me "I don't know how to do that" and require I sit with them and walk them through the entire thing
Man is this underrated. My peers are so hyper-focused on whether or not new hires know SQL (of all things), and not whether they can adequately problem solve. And then they wonder why my hires, though they might start slower, end up being stars.
To your other point, I’m even fine spending a day explaining the business to someone new - it’s complicated. But I try to bring on people who only have to hear it once.
Anyways, I guess I just like to +1/amplify sensible hiring posts.
Re: Ask HN: Decided I no longer want to be a SWE – what next?
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
If your options are only SF or New York you're leaving a whole world of opportunities out.
These seem to have the most opportunity and most optionality. I've considered austin, but it seems pretty dead. Vastly prefer east coast.
No, “most opportunities” only if you want to work the startup grind. If you don’t, there are tech jobs in other cities that are boring stable 9-5 jobs if you don’t need Big Tech level salary.
Re: Ask HN: Decided I no longer want to be a SWE – what next?
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
If your options are only SF or New York you're leaving a whole world of opportunities out.
These seem to have the most opportunity and most optionality. I've considered austin, but it seems pretty dead. Vastly prefer east coast.
You have a massive country to choose from.
Re: Ask HN: Decided I no longer want to be a SWE – what next?
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, move to a smaller town where apartments can be like $700/month and get a regular job to augment your hundreds of thousands of dollars of savings, you'll avoid starving and going homeless for a good 5 or 10 years that way, plenty of time to figure your life out. Plus you'll have more down to earth experiences that will help give you some seriously needed perspective.
I've lived in non target locales before and I like them - but I think I want to meet my wife before fully bugging out. SF dating is atrocious so I'm amicable to the idea of being in NYC for a bit.
If you weren’t having any luck in SF, nyc will improve your chances but it won’t fix it. NYC is a hyper competitive landscape for dating and the serious women are off market immediately. It also relies on dating apps very very heavily for serious relationships. I’d test the waters online before jumping head first.
Re: Ask HN: Decided I no longer want to be a SWE – what next?
#57> doing this without pay
No, you got paid in vibes.
Never. Accept. Vibes.
Vibes are for losers. Refuse to be treated like a loser.
Reject vibes; demand money.
It is always a mistake to do un-paid work for an organization that wants turn a profit from your work. They will always suck you dry, as if you are a fire hydrant and they are a blackhole.
> Planning on letting him know I'm out near the end of this week.
Stand up for yourself. Stop working immediately and tell them that you won't work for free any more. If they want further work, they should start paying immediately. And consider demanding they pay for work already done.
Your time is valuable; you can't get any of it back. Only genuinely charitable organizations and in-need individuals should ever get free work; everyone else must pay for work.
> Co-founder didn't understand why I wasn't interested working without salary anymore.
This is methhead logic on his part. Again, reject vibes; demand money. Methheads live on vibes, especially the vibes from stimulants.
> most of my friends make way more money than me or have families
Again, reject vibes. You see their vibes, but are you so sure that they are actually doing well overall? They could be in debt up to their eye-balls; they could have terrible family situations; they could be totally burned-out from working 80-hour weeks. A lot of people put out good vibes to try to make themselves feel better about a bad situation; vibes can't fix a broken home, a terrible job, or a bad financial decisions.
A lot of people have started families/careers later in life. Now is the time to figure out why you want money/family/whatever. Working to feed your family is rewarding; working just to work is self-harm. Starting a family in order to shower them with love is rewarding; starting a family because it's a milestone is egotistical.
> Anyone else pivot away from tech and still make half-decent income?
Reject vibes; find a boring job. Research the sort of jobs that nobody wants to work, but which pay well. Those jobe have no vibes to offer, so they attract few candidates. A SWE can find good work doing boring jobs, because SWEs focus on details; and details are the antidote to vibes.
Re: Ask HN: Decided I no longer want to be a SWE – what next?
#58I mean, I would say least try working for a salaried programming job in a stable company. It's still an incredibly well paying career for the level of responsibility & seniority. I'm paid almost as much as an MP and I'm on the bottom rung of my company with virtually no responsibility. I think if you go and get a "normal" job like being an electrician you'd be in for a shock about the level of work and relatively low…
I'm working on this - but frankly most of these companies appear to have off-shored their roles or stop responding when they realize I'm not on H1B. Sometimes I think because I'm a black man they think I'm an immigrant that they can hire more cheaply. It's happened on numerous occasions before. I've actually thought quite a bit about being an arborist. I've always kept trees at a few friends places and really enjoy t…
I have a friend who does that. I don't think you'd be able to get a job doing that without any experience. He found it quite hard to get one and he did a degree on trees and had years of experience as a tree surgeon. And as you say, pay is not good.
Re: Ask HN: Decided I no longer want to be a SWE – what next?
#59What minimum income do you need to feel safety in the next 6 months?
Re: Ask HN: Decided I no longer want to be a SWE – what next?
#60I want to pivot to arts and philosophy, but these are areas with guaranteed hardship when it comes to money. My luck is that there's still a lot that interests me in tech, like datalakes, data intensive systems, OTP and webdev with elixir and phoenix, compilers and micro vms... For me it's an easy answer, I can use tech to finance my true purpose. I'm also lucky enough to live in a country where 66k USD affords me a…
Haha, cool to see someone else who's done lots of work with Elixir! Most of my early career was building elixir for fintech companies. Not sure that I'm ready to leave the U.S. yet - currently that would probably push my stress over the edge. Fortunately, I've never really gotten that much out of material things or clout chasing. That said, money is money and money gives you options. That said, I solidly do not have…
The planet really needs more arborists, I hope you'll find success and happiness in it.