Heya HN, I was wondering. What trades jobs would best fit someone with 10 years of experience in software engineering, mainly fullstack web.
Ask HN: Career in trades for possible ex-programmers
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Re: Ask HN: Career in trades for possible ex-programmers
#2My advice. Take a year off. Renovate a house and see if it is what you want.
If you are burnt out. This is a good way to recharge. But the work is hard and it doesn't get easier.
Did this a few years ago and I it helped me get back to software engineering.
Re: Ask HN: Career in trades for possible ex-programmers
#3stop developing for web and you'll probably enjoy programming again lol
Re: Ask HN: Career in trades for possible ex-programmers
#4The cut in pay is likely to drive you back to software pretty quickly, but: the debugging and problem-solving involved in electrical work on old houses bears a striking resemblance to working with legacy software systems.
(New installation work is maybe less interesting, but if you're the sort of developer who enjoys logic-ing their way through understanding why a complicated, undocumented system is behaving the way it's behaving, and why did the last guy decide to connect this to that, a hundred year old house that's been gradually updated from knob-and-tube might be just the thing.)
Re: Ask HN: Career in trades for possible ex-programmers
#5My advice. Take a year off. Renovate a house and see if it is what you want. If you are burnt out. This is a good way to recharge. But the work is hard and it doesn't get easier. Did this a few years ago and I it helped me get back to software engineering.
Second this,
Slightly different, but I dropped out of university and worked on a small farm for a season.
Turns out I'm a terrible farmer, but electrical engineering is actually a pretty good fit for me. Finished up my degree easily when I went back to school.
Re: Ask HN: Career in trades for possible ex-programmers
#6My advice. Take a year off. Renovate a house and see if it is what you want. If you are burnt out. This is a good way to recharge. But the work is hard and it doesn't get easier. Did this a few years ago and I it helped me get back to software engineering.
I agree with the core of your advice: a friend of mine wanted to restore bikes. I gave him mine as a test, and the experience taught him that he doesn't really want to restore bikes.
That said, I'll proudly wear my "off-topic" downvotes to nitpick that "find a spare house" sounds to me as affordable as "find a spare Ferrari".
Sent from my balcony-less apartment
Re: Ask HN: Career in trades for possible ex-programmers
#7Being an electrician always seemed interesting to me. I imagine this job to be ever more in demand as we move more and more from legacy energy sources (coal, oil, gas) towards electricity. The job can be dangerous though so that's a thing to consider
Re: Ask HN: Career in trades for possible ex-programmers
#8stop developing for web and you'll probably enjoy programming again lol
How do you get out of the loop? Recruiters seem to want lots of experience for embedded roles for example.
Re: Ask HN: Career in trades for possible ex-programmers
#9CNC seems like a potential intersection of programming and trades. 3d printing etc might let you carry over some skills.
Re: Ask HN: Career in trades for possible ex-programmers
#10My advice. Take a year off. Renovate a house and see if it is what you want. If you are burnt out. This is a good way to recharge. But the work is hard and it doesn't get easier. Did this a few years ago and I it helped me get back to software engineering.
I agree with the core of your advice: a friend of mine wanted to restore bikes. I gave him mine as a test, and the experience taught him that he doesn't really want to restore bikes. That said, I'll proudly wear my "off-topic" downvotes to nitpick that "find a spare house" sounds to me as affordable as "find a spare Ferrari". Sent from my balcony-less apartment
you are looking at it in terms of minimum effort needed. it can cost less, but you would have to give more.
you are in an apartment without a balcony, it is a relatively safe assumption that you are in a high cost of living area. at least relatively. your bike anecdote near confirms it.
if you were to look for a “spare house,” or rather a somewhat rundown but plausibly restorable house, without leaving your current location, you would likely be hard-pressed to do so.
if you were to expand your search, look in less valued areas, more rural, less desirable, you might be surprised the “finds” that are out there. for some, touring such a find may be enough to convince them that this is not actually their path.
a year without a job, by choice, is much more the measure of privilege here.