Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?

Hmm, that's really interesting - "toilet cleaners" in particular stuck out in my mind. There will still be folks doing this job, but I imagine they'll be paid more.

Money becomes less valuable the more you have. For example, your first $1000 dollars buys food and shelter, while your next $1000 buys nice food and a bigger house. With BI, everyone should have the basics covered so any earned income will buy luxuries.

Developer here and just about to turn 42. It helps if you can find a niche where you are a subject matter expert, hopefully a subject matter that is going to be relevant for some time.

Keeps me out of the rat race of which tech to learn next, or at least doing it at my own pace. This year I'll be applying Rust.

I'm tired of busting my ass for a bunch of corrupt businessmen. I'd either be a bartender and do music in my free time, or join the military[0] as I'd rather let someone else make the decisions. Being "smart" is starting to feel more and more like a burden on my well being.

[0] I realize the irony given the "corrupt businessmen" comment.

It's interesting that the majority of these answers are professions that pay nowhere near what a software developer's salary would be.

If the question were, "What other job would you like to do, if it paid at least as much as software development?" I could probably come up with some creative answers.

But even though I'm not particularly driven by money, given that I have a family to support, mortgage to pay, etc., I probably could not take a job right now that would significantly reduce my income.

With that constraint in mind, I suppose I would say I would return to my first career (journalism) and become an editor again. This would involve a significant drop in salary. So I would have to ramp up the time I devote to my second job. I'm an author of nonfiction books, which has been mostly a side project, but a relatively lucrative one. If I could bang out a book a year, on top of working full time as an editor, I could probably keep our household finances afloat.

Something where I can immerse myself into a project for at least a few weeks without needing regular state-exchange with others. I thought programming was the thing, but does seem to be moving in a rather collectivist direction right now.

Farming and winemaking both appeal due to the feeling that you're working on something that will come to fruition months or years into the future. Tax arrangements make small-scale winemaking in the UK somewhat unattractive (beer and especially cider get better deals), but I do ponder given it a go sometimes.