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

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

#211

Post by 6DM »

magic_beans wrote: post #96
kyoob wrote: post #77

I'd open a bookstore/cafe that sells tech and engineering books. We'd run tech classes in a space in the back, with a discount for vets and artists looking to change careers. I'd live in the apartment above the store, with a garden on the roof. The wifi would be phenomenal.

What is the point of owning tech books when a) much of the content is online and b) there are new developments in languages/frameworks all the time?

Although it's changing, books for me has largely been about someone taking the time to actually plan out, organize and go into detail on the topic. Blogs and release notes are good for staying up to date or for figuring out a work around. They "used" to be not so good at the getting started part.

Fundamentals are still better off starting with a book before moving to online imo.

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

#212

Post by Melk »

ryandrake wrote: post #181

There are two possible interpretations of this question actually: 1. What would you do if you were not worried about finances and could simply do what you most loved for a living? 2. Given your financial and career needs/desires, what would be more rewarding than your developer job? I'd answer these two questions totally differently, and I suspect many in this thread would as well.

I came here hoping to find some viable alternatives but I don't think children's book writer or thinker are it.

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

#213

Post by syntaxing »

magic_beans wrote: post #96
kyoob wrote: post #77

I'd open a bookstore/cafe that sells tech and engineering books. We'd run tech classes in a space in the back, with a discount for vets and artists looking to change careers. I'd live in the apartment above the store, with a garden on the roof. The wifi would be phenomenal.

What is the point of owning tech books when a) much of the content is online and b) there are new developments in languages/frameworks all the time?

Mechanical Engineer here (I feel like HN tends to forget about us...). Most of the higher level stuff is pretty hard to find online, especially for heat and mass transfer or fluids. Most other mechanical or electrical engineers I know keep their textbook with them at work either as a reference, to look for some derivations, or to find some empirical data/results.

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

#214

Post by Chris2048 »

kem wrote: post #23

Weird to read this, because I'm thinking of switching into software development. But if I were going to switch into something else, it would probably be something involving the outdoors, with a tangible physical aspect to it. Surveying?

Maybe we should focus on things worse than IT?

Like accounting...

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

#215

Post by rev_bird »

jawns wrote: post #87

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…

As a former journalist myself (and someone who longs to write books), I'd be very interested in your thoughts on someone doing this career swap away from tech into writing nonfiction.

I realize this isn't particularly related to the thread at hand, but do you have any advice for "breaking into the biz"? It looks like the baby experiments book was published by a "conventional" publisher, too, which seems increasingly rare these days. I'm fascinated by people who can make money writing nonfiction without having an academic pedigree or something similar.

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

#216

Post by FiatLuxDave »

I'm not a developer (I'm a physicist), but someday I'd like to go into medical research. I like the idea of coming up with things that directly help suffering people. I hope that the problem solving skills I've acquired would prove useful. Of course, I'd need to go back to school for a few years to get up to speed first.

Unfortunately, I have too much to do still in the applied physics world. It takes too damn long to commercialize inventions. I'd love to move on to the next new thing, but there is no one you can just hand off an invention to; if you want to see it deployed and profitable it seems you have to carry it all the way yourself.

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