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Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else?

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Re: Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else?

#111

Post by jamez1 »

jxm262 wrote: post #40
jamez1 wrote: post #31

Left to work in equities after 5 years of software dev. I find the work much more stimulating mentally, as you learn about the world and how business works, not just abstractions. Luckily there is still a lot of use from my old skill set, and I suspect there will be more as time goes on.

Can I ask how you got started in the field? I actually began my career in Accounting (my undergrad is in it), and still find the world of finance pretty interesting. Somewhere along the line I ended up in Engineering and have been a Software Dev ever since. But I do still think about getting into trading at some point, but not sure how to transition.

I spent about 2 years reading in my spare time, learning, trying to understand the world and markets in general. All the while applying for jobs. You end up getting a good feel for the job market, what you're actually lacking, what people are actually looking for.

I would have properly applied for every job that appeared in the country over that time.

Surprisingly a lot of people enter the field laterally, not everyone goes through the investment banking angle.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else?

#113

Post by ktRolster »

iopq wrote: post #91

I recently started playing a game that I haven't played in a long time. I miss the feeling of being engaged like this. Programming just doesn't do it for me. I want to love what I'm doing, but unfortunately there's few things that tickle my brain like this. What should I do, take ADHD meds and go to work, like everyone else?

Mindfulness.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else?

#114

Post by david927 »

I currently work in a good environment where I'm appreciated and paid well. Not many people in the world can say that, so I have a lot to be thankful for. Programming has done good by me.

But I don't love it. Alan Kay is right, it's like building "an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves". There's no elegance and no higher vision. It's an Asperger profession; smart but artless.

I would prefer, if I could retire, to make short films and maybe to write plays. But I can't retire yet. So I'll push stones. It pays well.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else?

#115

Post by jamez1 »

aridiculous wrote: post #41
jamez1 wrote: post #31

Left to work in equities after 5 years of software dev. I find the work much more stimulating mentally, as you learn about the world and how business works, not just abstractions. Luckily there is still a lot of use from my old skill set, and I suspect there will be more as time goes on.

That's really cool. Could you describe what work in equities is? What's a day-to-day like?

Buying and selling shares of companies, I work in a team of 10 and we manage roughly $10b (equivalent in USD).

Every day we will discuss new developments and how they affect our valuations for these businesses. These decisions are then factored into a portfolio model, which is then implemented by the dealer.

All in all, you have a lot of freedom, you aren't accountable for your time. I could be gone for the week and nobody would bat an eyelid, but the work is honestly so interesting you wouldn't squander your time like that.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else?

#116

Post by subinsebastien »

I have been mostly happy with programming in my early days. I’m now 28 years old, and been a programmer for the past 5 years. I mostly code Android apps, and sometimes server side code in Node/ExpressJS. For the past 1-2 years, I really want to change my career into more unique/niche fields of engineering. Programming, as I see it now, does not need a computer science degree or any degree at all, to do effectively. And people from other domains are getting into programming, and doing it a lot better than I do. I considered getting trained in Industrial Automation (PLC/SCADA/LABVIEW) and get into more mission critical domains, where I can work with lot of other Engineering domains as well. Another option I consider is to go for a masters in a niche engineering field. But as I analysed my thoughts, what I really (really) want is a unique engineering job, where the entry barrier for others is high. I don't have any idea if I could be a success in the new field. To conclude.

  - Programming is boring after a number of years
  - Programming is more of an art-form rather than engineering
  - Entry barrier for programming is low, so you don’t have to be an engineer to do programming
  - Your programming skills plateau after a certain age
  - Your engineering mindset will be lost if continued in certain type of programming jobs.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else?

#117

Post by WalterBright »

I did consider a career as a lion tamer, but the vocational guidance counselor said I was an appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company and irrepressibly drab and awful. So I decided to stick with programming.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else?

#119

Post by ygra »

JDiculous wrote: post #109
sean_patel wrote: post #83

Programming is a creative art, and when I say that to my non-programmer friends, they laugh it off, but if you think about it, it is true. Just like artists, the programmers, coders, developers all design and create new things that didn't exist before, and no 2 programs or applications or completely functioning code will be identical for anything other than a fizzbuzz type test. So it is natural for the creatives to…

Programming involves very little creativity compared to actual art, so to call it a "creative art" is a gross exaggeration. A programmer is given a very specific set of tasks (eg. send data from A to B, fix bug, implement X), and his problems are mostly technical. This doesn't even compare to the creativity involved in a real artistic endeavor like designing your own videogame, writing your own screenplay, or composi…

CRUD apps are probably not the most creative things, indeed. But I've had a fair bit of problems where I'd say solving them was a creative endeavour. Especially on the UX end there are lots of such problems in my experience.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else?

#120

Post by JDiculous »

Yes, I want to do something more meaningful than build and maintain web CRUD apps. Despite the media perpetuating this notion that there's a shortage of engineers, I actually feel that this field, particularly the web space (where most of the actual jobs are), is starting to get really saturated. And from a job security perspective, the barriers to entry are fairly low.

These days I'm most interested in economics and politics because I believe that our most important problems right now are in this realm (eg. poverty, job automation, healthcare costs, housing prices, college prices). The Javascript framework wars are laughably insignificant compared to these problems, yet unlike web development, there aren't enough logically-minded people really tackling these problems. Unfortunately there's probably no job out there that I could realistically obtain that would pay me to work on these problems, thus I'm just saving money for retirement and learning on the side.

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