I'm contemplating becoming an aircraft mechanic. I've always loved planes and I still sometimes wish I had chosen to become a commercial pilot. There's a "crash course" school near me that's designed to get you the FAA A&P certifications in eight months. I'd be taking a significant pay cut at the beginning but after 5ish years I'd be back up about to where I am now.
Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?
61–70 of 301 posts
Re: Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Makes double the money he did doing remote coding. Yes, but I presume at a high physical cost in the long-term? (I mean, more than the physical cost of sitting in a chair)
> Yes, but I presume at a high physical cost in the long-term? Why? Electricians aren't doing intense labour, and I'm 99% certain that being in a job where you move around a lot (as opposed to sitting at your desk) has long term health benefits , without even getting into carpal tunnel syndrome and other RSIs associated with being at a computer.
Worked for a res. Electrician for 6 years. It is often a pretty decent physical gig: drilling holes, pulling wire for days, climbing up under over every book you can think of. Someone else mentioned ground rods (relatively infrequent but), digging trenches for conduit, pulling the wire into the conduit, making up thousands of wires in boxes again and again.
Bending a 200 amp service wire around in a panel is no light task.
As someone who has never been to a gym, but has grown up on a farm and lived a life of mostly trades, it reminds me of all I see written about the different types of working out and how gym can be so different from physical labors conditions where what you are doing may not be a giant lift, or a giant use of force, but you've got to be able to do it for hours a day, back to back to back, day after day.
Our perspectives delude us.
Re: Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Certified electricians can make really good money, especially union. But that's really hard to believe. Is this somewhere like NYC or something that there is an edge. A remote software developer is typically in the $100-200k range in the US. I know union certified electricians in that range, but none in the $300-400k range.
My buddy did this. Apprenticed to become a low voltage electrician. Runs Cat6 for office builds. He did it for the reduced stress. He’s a lot happier. He owns a home in SF on a single salary.
lots of missing information here. running cat6 can be done without highschool education. I highly doubt this is a lucrative job, no more than $25/hr.
Re: Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?
#64In my case, I decided to retire. I didn't want to retire, but it wasn't as if I had a choice. I've kept working, but I write free software, for folks that can't afford people like me.
How I wish I could do this. Mortgage is paid off but everything is still so expensive, at 50 I can't plot a way through the next 30-40 years without starving. I want to write software. But these days jobs don't want to pay me to write software. They want to pay me to write JIRA tickets. JIRA tickets about fixing other people's code. I keep trying again and again, but the industry has completely lost any magic for me.…
One certainly can if they want to. You just don't want to.
Re: Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?
#65QC testing rack servers hot off the assembly line and repairing things when necessary. The entire testing suite can take anywhere between 1-2 days across SKU's, depending on customer specifications and requirements.
I can't name names but I can say that I touch DGX H200's and their peripherals on a daily basis.
Re: Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?
#66Friend of mine got into long-haul trucking.
Re: Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?
#67I'm living out of my car, door dashing and Uber in Southern Utah. Saving up to rent office space for my computer (I don't have a laptop)... I lost my mom, marriage of 18 years, Grandma, and sanity a bit last year... but I'm doing great mentally now, just need financial to align, I'm trying to enroll in WGU for CS and then ai/ml masters and I want to double major with psychology...I want to work with therapy ai things…
Solar panels are really not very expensive if you shop around. I got some 180 watt panels for $80 each recently.
Re: Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?
#68When this happened to me in 2001, I moved into operations and support type of roles. There's PLENTY of opportunity to code whatever you want and it's usually well appreciated.
Re: Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but I started to realize that pushing 50 and being as cynical as I now am, I'm pretty much unemployable as an IC. Well that's me. My theory is that it is not age that makes one unemployable in the software industry, but the unwillingness to put up with shit cooked up by bunch of 25 year old CEOs, CTOs, and the like.
At my last gig someone that my team unanimously rejected as unqualified showed up one day the following year as our new technical lead and boss. It went about how you'd expect. Much later I told my skip boss about the kind of feeling of disregard that may have fostered as he pushed me for insights. And he remarked that it sounded like I had a chip on my shoulder. All I could come up with was 'guess I was born with it…
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Re: Ask HN: Former devs who can't get a job, what did you end up doing for work?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Yes, but I presume at a high physical cost in the long-term? Why? Electricians aren't doing intense labour, and I'm 99% certain that being in a job where you move around a lot (as opposed to sitting at your desk) has long term health benefits , without even getting into carpal tunnel syndrome and other RSIs associated with being at a computer.
Worked for a res. Electrician for 6 years. It is often a pretty decent physical gig: drilling holes, pulling wire for days, climbing up under over every book you can think of. Someone else mentioned ground rods (relatively infrequent but), digging trenches for conduit, pulling the wire into the conduit, making up thousands of wires in boxes again and again. Bending a 200 amp service wire around in a panel is no light…
Always wondered if city folk would pay for a “construction” workout. Moving around lumber and handling a framing nailer and stuff.