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Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

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71–80 of 221 posts

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#71
post #44

I quit my Software Engineering job and am now spending two years driving my Jeep around Africa. I'm working while on the road, writing for magazines, selling photos and filming a YouTube series. I am having the time of my life, and am extremely happy I made the decision I did. IMHO, sitting at a desk is just not worth it. Life is too short. I'm meeting a ton of people who agree, and are living the kind of life people…

Please next time take me with you

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#72
post #18

I'm back in the industry at the moment, but I did quit my job a few years back. I hired an allotment, grew a lot of vegetables, taught myself to bake bread and did a few other projects. How was it? It was just great and it taught me about living on much smaller amounts of money, which is very helpful now that I have children and I work for a charity. So maybe that's slightly off topic, and more of a career break than…

How does one go about renting a small piece of land for hobby farming?

Depends where you are. Look into community gardens in your area.

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#73
I got burnt out doing JS apps development during the past 2 years. I got laid off and knew I did not want a desk job anymore.

I took what skills I had woodworking/web development and started a business. Its called Stump Crafters I build "stumps" to hammer nails in to its a pretty fun game and is not as dumb as it sounds. The game is in much the same vein as Cornhole, washers or other backyard games.

I even made a custom Node.js for a local meet-up group I go to often. https://stumpcrafters.com/pages/custom

I have not fully bailed on IT yet. But I don't think I will be touching any code in another few months.

Now I spend most of my time working in the shop and running the store. It's awesome.

Check it out at:

https://stumpcrafters.com

https://facebook.com/stumpcrafters

https://instagram.com/stumpcrafters

https://twitter.com/stumpcrafters

edit: Spelling

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm buying a sailboat with my wife and daughter and sailing the world in 18 months (waiting for the last of my options to vest). Think about it! It's ~$60-100k to get the boat, and you can live on ~$24-30k/year doing it. There's a huge community out there of cruisers who do it full time.

I hope your daughter doesn't suffer from boredom after the initial novelty.

From the other families I've talked to who have traveled the world with their children by boat, or countries by caravan/RV/Airstream, boredom doesn't seem to be an issue (compared to a lackluster childhood in Suburbia).

Lots of people out there breathing who aren't living.

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#75
post #44

I quit my Software Engineering job and am now spending two years driving my Jeep around Africa. I'm working while on the road, writing for magazines, selling photos and filming a YouTube series. I am having the time of my life, and am extremely happy I made the decision I did. IMHO, sitting at a desk is just not worth it. Life is too short. I'm meeting a ton of people who agree, and are living the kind of life people…

Please next time take me with you

I have toyed with the idea of running some kind of "competition" where someone can win a couple of weeks on the trip with me. Fly into some airport, I will pick them up, tour them around a country or two and drop them off again.

I have no idea if people would actually be into that, or stay away because I'm nuts.

Serious question - would you go for that if I offered it?

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Originally, we were looking at a Lagoon catamaran, 38-42 feet. Due to personal circumstances around an elderly parent (can't sell our house, they'll need to live in it while we're out sailing), we're now looking at a Beneteau 381 (and a few others, needs to be blue water capable but would also like to have a lot of guests on during passages). I'd love a Lagoon, but unless my options are worth >$100K at a liquidity ev…

Could you check out https://itunes.apple.com/nl/app/comfort-mate/id1030350632?mt... / https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nl.marin.comfo... ? Thanks

I will do so!

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#77

The first time I quit, I was 23. Took everything I had and went to travel across the world. When I ran out of money, I cam back and did some odd jobs, ran a small ebay business, and played poker, while trying to figure out what I wanted to do. Eventually, that stopped being realistic, so I moved to a bigger city and got a job. After about two years of that, got fed up, and quit again, and went to grad school to get a…

How was traveling until you ran out of money? Do you regret it? Also, what do you mean by 'pivot into something else?' Do you intend to take your Grad school knowledge and start a business?

No regrets at all. I only had about 2k + another 3k off credit that I spent. It seemed like a lot then, and it can go a long way when you're 23 and cheap.

By pivot, I mean my end goal is to open a beach bar in the Caribbean.

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#78
I taught English in Korea for a year. I absolutely hated it. I was teaching mostly elementary-school. I never got the hang of creating order in the classroom or keeping kids interested. Every second was just torture.

In retrospect though I'm glad to have done it. Glad I stuck through the contract, though sometimes I wonder if it'd have been better for the kids if I had bailed and let someone more qualified come in my place.

The one nice thing about it is when you're done for the day, you're done. (At least if you're not a very good teacher). With software you're always thinking about it even if you're not actively working on it (or at least I am), it just invades your whole life. So it was great having nights and weekends completely free to do whatever you want.

The one adult class I had was fun. But you've got to get lucky to get a position teaching only adult classes, and the hours can be worse.

All that said, I'm back in software now.

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#79
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please next time take me with you

I have toyed with the idea of running some kind of "competition" where someone can win a couple of weeks on the trip with me. Fly into some airport, I will pick them up, tour them around a country or two and drop them off again. I have no idea if people would actually be into that, or stay away because I'm nuts. Serious question - would you go for that if I offered it?

Totally.

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#80

I quit my career for 4.5 years while I did other things that I wanted to do like teaching, writing, and traveling. It was definitely worthwhile and I'm grateful I was able to do it, but the same things that I disliked about my experience in the IT industry end up showing up in other jobs and things I did. I came back to IT with a different perspective and I got a lot better at making my job what I want it to be. If y…

What did you write?` I am genuinely curious as I never had an urge myself.
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