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Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living?

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Re: Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living?

#71

Post by mastazi »

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #32
jballanc wrote: post #12

I 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 more or less what happened to me. I had worked in the sofware industry for 15 years, when I decided to get out. Not a developer, but a trajectory of pre-sales support/training, systems analyst, project manager, consultant, and doing a few startups that made me enough money to live, but nothing spectacular. I took my hobby, sustainable large scale horticulture and tried to switch by starting with a degree in e…

> Actually taking a degree as an experienced adult was a blast and I can really recommend it.

I couldn't agree more.

When I was 20-something I dropped out of Uni and started a career in public and media relations.

For several years, though, I had been making websites on the side, mostly for friends and acquaintances, as a sort of hobby. However I was becoming good at that and I was starting to get paid good money. So, after thinking about making a career change for several years, I finally decided to became a web developer full-time.

At some point, though, I realised that, while I was knowledgeable enough to build websites for small clients and earn a living, I didn't have a solid theoretical background. Software development, to me, was a passion, not just a way to pay my bills, and I wanted to know more.

So, at age 34, I started a bachelor degree in IT, majoring in software development (despite the name, it was quite similar to what would be identified as a CS degree in the US).

It was one of the most interesting periods of my life. I realised for the first time how valuable education really is. I had to work part-time jobs and study at the same time and that was somehow hard but I have a feeling that having to deal with (moderate) difficulties made me stronger (I'm lucky, my life, generally speaking, has been relatively easy as a whole).

For some reasons, some of the other students decided that I was a sort of authoritative figure (possibly because of my relatively advanced age) and started to ask for help whenever they couldn't really grasp something.

That helped me to discover that sharing ideas with others makes you a much better developer. So I started going to Meetups and talk to clever people and exchange ideas. Having those connections helped me to find a much better job as soon as I finished my degree.

Needless to say, when I decided to leave my job to become a developer (I was already over 30 by then) everyone told me that it was a bad idea. Same story when I told my friends that I would go back to Uni. However it worked out well for me and I'm happy now.

Re: Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living?

#72

Post by beagle3 »

gaius wrote: post #63
beagle3 wrote: post #51

I've known more than one person who tried something else and went back to software. The unfortunate and not-so-easy-to-admit issue is that for many, perhaps even the vast majority of, software engineers have (on a 10-15 years forward looking basis) a global maximum of salary optimization in the software field. Also, most of us have no idea how easy (except intellectually) our job is compared to other jobs which are m…

On a 30-year forward looking basis, we appear to be fucked, though - the only 50-year old software guys I know are either self employed, or have been working at the same place for 20 years. Even "stable" employees who only switch jobs every 5 years have problem finding new jobs when they are older. Ageism is definitely a problem in software, but not in other specialized fields, which suggests to me that it is fixable…

> Ageism is definitely a problem in software, but not in other specialized fields, which suggests to me that it is fixable.

It will take decades to fix if ever, and the fixed state won't be recognizable.

In my opinion, ageism in software exists mostly because it is a fashion business, and (statistically speaking, and rather objectively), older people are not as good at catering to the latest fashions. This also happens in the real fashion business (that of clothes, makeup etc) and also in marketing and advertising, and acting.

The fields in which ageism is not a problem are mostly regulated fields (medicine, law, mechanical engineering), where someone can die or lose their freedom as a result of malpractice. People in these fields often need to prove they are up to date with recent methods and findings to keep their certification. I, for one, would NOT like to have to prove competence with hadoop or Angular (and then .NET WinForms, followed by WPF the following year, followed by Node.js the next one) to not lose my license -- and if software developers ARE licensed, the requirements will probable [d]evolve that way.

Re: Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living?

#73

Post by gaius »

beagle3 wrote: post #72
gaius wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a 30-year forward looking basis, we appear to be fucked, though - the only 50-year old software guys I know are either self employed, or have been working at the same place for 20 years. Even "stable" employees who only switch jobs every 5 years have problem finding new jobs when they are older. Ageism is definitely a problem in software, but not in other specialized fields, which suggests to me that it is fixable…

> Ageism is definitely a problem in software, but not in other specialized fields, which suggests to me that it is fixable. It will take decades to fix if ever, and the fixed state won't be recognizable. In my opinion, ageism in software exists mostly because it is a fashion business, and (statistically speaking, and rather objectively), older people are not as good at catering to the latest fashions. This also happe…

It's also a matter of younger people being more susceptible to poor management practices and exploitation, e.g. working for "equity" that a more experienced engineer would discount as being no substitute for market-rate salary.

But engineers do it to ourselves too. All the Java guys mocked the COBOL guys for being obsolete old fogies, and now the Java guys are on the receiving end of that, from I dunno Node.js guys, who are going to experience the same themselves in 20 years. We need a culture change so that "legacy" is not seen as a pejorative but a solid, proven foundation on which the organization relies - because this is actually the truth.

Re: Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living?

#74

Post by timr »

kevindeasis wrote: post #70
timr wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been programming for longer than the OP, I have an advanced degree, and I can assure you: unless you have research-level skills in these areas, they will fall out of fashion and you will be stranded in a niche. Even if you do have PhD-level training, you'll still be in that niche...you just might be able to survive when the pond dries up again. I know it doesn't seem like it to folks who haven't been around fo…

I've been looking for someone with this perspective. Do you think it is just AI and ML? Do you feel the same way about data scientists, data analyst (not actuary,statisticians,mathematicians, etc)? What other domains do you recommend instead?

If you are new, I recommend that you pick a discipline with long-term proven value, and go as deep as you can into it. If you have a bit more experience, pick a second discipline, and define yourself as the specialist in X-meets-Y. Just don't be a magpie: make a choice, and stick to it. This is the hard part, because it will be excruciatingly tempting to follow all of the other magpies to the new field when they leave.

As for your other question: no, it isn't just AI. Right now, the "javascript engineer", "mobile developer" and "data scientist" are all magical creatures of the Unicorn Land. I can't predict what comes next, but I can confidently predict that none of these things will be as hot in a decade, because they're all just the latest variations on broader themes.

That said, there are often actual disciplines beneath these trends. For example, "data science" is practically the definition of a magpie fad: science has always depended upon data, so putting "data" in front of the term is an indication of (fairly thoughtless) trend-chasing. But actuaries, analysts, scientists and statisticians have been around for decades, and will continue to exist long after the last 20-something "senior data scientist" has closed his Jupyter notebook for good. Specialize in those things, instead, and call yourself whatever goofy thing you need to say on a resume to get hired.

Any reasonably intelligent kid can pick up a data analysis tool in months, but it still takes decades for that kid to become an expert statistician. Prefer the latter.

Re: Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living?

#75

Post by weinzierl »

beagle3 wrote: post #55
weinzierl wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good advice for probably every field except law. Law is so different in most European countries that it won't be of much use in the US. Also a lot in civil law hinges on subtleties in the respective language.

Possibly; I've met two Israeli lawyers and two British lawyers who moved to the US and were able to pass the bar exam within a year or so - I have no idea how hard they worked at it (and what preparations they did before moving to the US), but it was certainly cheaper then going to school in the US.

If you are a lawyer in one country and want to practice in another then take the exams in the country you want to practice for sure. Going to law school in another country to save money is a completely different thing.

Also: UK and US both have Common Law traditions whereas most of Europe does not. Israel is a more involved case.

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Map_of_t...

Re: Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living?

#76

Post by dozzie »

beagle3 wrote: post #72
gaius wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a 30-year forward looking basis, we appear to be fucked, though - the only 50-year old software guys I know are either self employed, or have been working at the same place for 20 years. Even "stable" employees who only switch jobs every 5 years have problem finding new jobs when they are older. Ageism is definitely a problem in software, but not in other specialized fields, which suggests to me that it is fixable…

> Ageism is definitely a problem in software, but not in other specialized fields, which suggests to me that it is fixable. It will take decades to fix if ever, and the fixed state won't be recognizable. In my opinion, ageism in software exists mostly because it is a fashion business, and (statistically speaking, and rather objectively), older people are not as good at catering to the latest fashions. This also happe…

> In my opinion, ageism in software exists mostly because it is a fashion business

I don't think so. The demand for programmers was inflated only in recent fifteen-twenty years, so compared to today, then nobody was entering IT. This is why there's so little people with 10-15-20 years of experience and kids after three years of work consider themselves senior programmers.

And why there's little 40+ people who have just three years under their belt? Retraining is very hard thing to do.

Re: Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living?

#77

Post by bjelkeman-again »

menssen wrote: post #43
bjelkeman-again wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is more or less what happened to me. I had worked in the sofware industry for 15 years, when I decided to get out. Not a developer, but a trajectory of pre-sales support/training, systems analyst, project manager, consultant, and doing a few startups that made me enough money to live, but nothing spectacular. I took my hobby, sustainable large scale horticulture and tried to switch by starting with a degree in e…

Out of curiosity, your later-in-life college experience: what kind of school was it at? (Meaning: large state university, liberal arts college, Yale, for-profit, etc.) As a college dropout who was a terrible student, I've been wanting to go back more and more as time passes.

Stockholm University, Sweden, which is a decent university. Not sure how that compares to your experience. A government owned university with ~30,000 students. No fees for EU students. I was also a college dropout from Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

Re: Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living?

#78

Post by shaftway »

isuckatcoding wrote: post #21

I am a very young developer (about a year and half out of college) so this might be a naïve thought. Isn't 15 years quite a long tenure for software development? I thought after 5-10 years you move into product/project management or something higher. I mean I realize everyone is different but still. Being the inexperienced programmer I am right now I imagine myself happily coding until I am 50 (lol ask me in 15 years…

Not at all. I'm a 15 year veteran. No chance I'd move into management or project management. First, I'd hate the job. It'd move me away from the code, which is where I enjoy spending my time. Second, the problems I'd be solving would be far less interesting; I hate dealing with inter-personal issues and deciding which project takes priority is boring. But ultimately I'd be less valuable, and therefore make a lot less. Veterans command a pretty decent salary. I know I make a good chunk more than my direct manager, and I make a little over three times as much as the PMs I work with.

Re: Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living?

#79

Post by uola »

timr wrote: post #74
kevindeasis wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been looking for someone with this perspective. Do you think it is just AI and ML? Do you feel the same way about data scientists, data analyst (not actuary,statisticians,mathematicians, etc)? What other domains do you recommend instead?

If you are new, I recommend that you pick a discipline with long-term proven value, and go as deep as you can into it. If you have a bit more experience, pick a second discipline, and define yourself as the specialist in X-meets-Y. Just don't be a magpie: make a choice, and stick to it. This is the hard part, because it will be excruciatingly tempting to follow all of the other magpies to the new field when they leav…

While they might not realized, many programmers will already specialized in software development. Meaning their career will take them to technical lead, project manager, software architect etc. and not "number crunching".

Re: Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living?

#80

Post by Zelmor »

sevenpuddings wrote: post #65

I'd also like more opinions and stories on this topic. My story is somewhat similar, started programming at a very early age, then worked professionally since 13 non-stop (first job writing credit card processing apps). Post-university, I've been in the industry for 15+ years as well. Excuse the rant that follows, but hopefully it will get others to chime in. In University, I made an initial attempt to get out of the…

Why not start a vendor company? Based on the tech stack you know, you can recruit competent people and sell them as business analysts or consultants for a lot of money. They earn well, you earn just as well. That's the kind of thing I'm currently in. Boss-men were two devs some 15 years ago, threw arms in the air in a 'fuck i quit' moment. Started consulting to their previously built business connections, then recruited people one by one for the different job opportunities that were vacant at their clients.
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