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Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living?
11–20 of 107 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living?
#12I knew a woman once who went to law school, but burned out on the law before she passed the bar...so she went to medical school, but burned out on that before she completed her residency. What she eventually realized, though, is that there are very few people who have actually made it through both law school and medical school, so she set up a career for herself matching doctors with lawyers who needed medical expert witnesses. You see, both law and medicine have their own unique jargon, and she could effectively serve as a translator between those two worlds. She made quite a pretty penny charging her finder's fee too!
If you have 15 years experience doing software engineering, you're half-way to the same sort of a position. Find some other field you're interested in and learn up on their jargon, or take your most recent gig and dive deep into whatever industry it is you're developing software for. Whether you call yourself "biz-dev" or "project manager" or just "consultant", there is a market for people who can effectively bridge the world of software engineering with the world of...everything else.
Re: Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living?
#13I knew a woman once who went to law school, but burned out on the law before she passed the bar...so she went to medical school, but burned out on that before she completed her residency. What she eventually realized, though, is that there are very few people who have actually made it through both law school and medical school, so she set up a career for herself matching doctors with lawyers who needed medical expert…
This is a fantastic example and great advice for someone who has accumulated skills but doesn't feel like being an 'expert' in their field.
Re: Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living?
#14Have you considered moving to a better area of tech? Some of the new things being done with AI, Learning and Automation are pretty cool and might provide more excitement that your current job (since you didnt specify I assumed that you're in general product/solution development field)
Re: Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living?
#15What part of tech are you in? Maybe you're burnt out on that niche's particular subculture, not tech in general. For example: Tired of 10-person startups? Move to a bigger company. Tired by the constant churn in front-end libraries? Move down the stack and work on server software.
I tried that! It works well to a certain extent but, obviously, it's not completely life-changing. I used to be a full-stack free-lance web-dev and later I was involved in a startup. I was bothered by how difficult it is, sometimes, to deal with non-technical people (clients, non-technical co-founders, etc). I moved to a larger company where I am part of a team of engineers and I have a boss who is a former software developer. We don't have to deal directly with clients, other managers or final users. I feel much happier now.
Re: Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living?
#16maybe become a commercial airline pilot? won't make you a living wage in the valley but you can live well virtually anywhere else plus you get to fly planes which is cool
Pretty expensive to get there, plus you usually have to teach PPLs for a couple of years to get the requisite hours for CPL to make you employable.
Re: Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living?
#17Adjusting your quality of life to the pay scale of the ideal job may be worth it.
At least it could throw a smile on your face. My friend is a Engineer (controlling trains and jazz) who quit after 40 years to work in a greenhouse for 1/10th the pay. He doesn't live as well, and driving a used beater but he smiles now and enjoys facing the day. Took him a few years to slowly dial down his costs and ingrained habits though.
Consider as a method of last resort?
Re: Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living?
#18I knew a woman once who went to law school, but burned out on the law before she passed the bar...so she went to medical school, but burned out on that before she completed her residency. What she eventually realized, though, is that there are very few people who have actually made it through both law school and medical school, so she set up a career for herself matching doctors with lawyers who needed medical expert…
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Re: Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living?
#19https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/
https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/
I bring up /r/Entrepreneur because its about starting a business, not simply a tech business that you'd get insight for on Hacker News. I bring up /r/financialindependence because it'll help you reduce your burn rate and increase your savings.
Getting your burn rate down is critical; The less money you need, the more options you have for your future. The easiest dollar to make is the one you didn't need to spend in the first place.
Re: Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living?
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