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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?

#621

Post by pcsanwald »

I've worked professionally as both a musician and a technologist since my teens, I'm 40 now. I used to want to be a musician, but I realized that, like technology, there's really a zillion different kinds of careers you can have as a musician, and I was really only interested in a few of those.

Some people love music so much that they are happy making their living any way they can involving music, including teaching, playing weddings, and other functions. I've done a lot of this, and ultimately am not happy doing it.

Even though I loved touring as a musician, most of my friends that made their living touring have retired from it and gone on to do something else, as the road life makes it pretty difficult to have a "normal" family life.

I've often asked myself what I'd want to do if I weren't a technologist, and I always come back to doing something with my hands.

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

#622

Post by tmclaugh »

I moved to product marketing. I have the benefit of working for a company that makes a product for ops engineers which was my previous role as well as exposure to marketing concepts from working at a marketing tech company previously. I understand the product audience in ways that traditional marketers do not and I understand our marketers in ways that most engineers do not.

It's fun and it's a nice change of pace. I've retained some engineering responsibilities. So what might be a passion project for someone on an engineering team, I develop something and then start writing blog content to help educate our audience around the subject. Our product has the ability to fire a JSON doc at an endpoint which gives you the ability to integrate us with other systems... To many ops engineers can't write a web service to bridge us with that other system. So, I'll write a small service and then after it's up on GitHub I'll write a tutorial and walkthrough of the service. If you just download what I wrote and run it, awesome. I've helped solve a customer issue. If you take my blog post and learn to write your own service, that's even better!

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

#623

Post by Arubis »

satysin wrote: post #512

Therapist/counsellor. I love technology/coding/hacking but what gives me the best feeling is helping someone on a personal level. I have realised (from having been told) I am a good listener and I think I would have done quite well in some kine of mental health role. Not a full on doctor but someone who listens and helps a person during difficult times.

I firmly believe that this -- really sitting down and listening to an individual and holding the microsystem that they live in, giving time and space for someone to trust and to heal -- has a far more beneficial and long-reaching benefit to society as a whole than anything that we can ever "scale".

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

#624

Post by jmalicki »

jdavis703 wrote: post #575
komali2 wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man there's some sort of volcanic park north of Berkely, CA that we visited once, and up on some mountain was a firewatch tower with a dude just chilling in there looking for smoke. He worked up there in 2 week shifts, just up on a mountain reading books and watching for smoke. Seemed like an awesome job, especially if you could get a data tether (he did) and do some programming on the side.

I think you're thinking of Mount Diablo. It's not quite volcanic anymore though (however when California was just the ocean it was), but is instead caused by uplift to the earth's plates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Diablo#Geology .

Or possibly Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve http://www.ebparks.org/parks/sibley.htm , which is closer (though not north of) Berkeley.

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

#625

Post by fapjacks »

I'd be an astronomer. I worked in an observatory once and it was far and away the most interesting and awesome job I ever had. But I have no degree, so I'd spend some time in school first. If that didn't work out, I'd like to assist the effort currently underway in Mosul. That's just me being honest.

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

#626

Post by mrtron »

pieperz wrote: post #618
tjic wrote: post #207

Woodworker. From running two small ecommerce companies I think I've learned enough about MVP, shipping, inventory management, etc. From 25 years as a software engineer I've learned about building tools to automate steps. I'd pick some "hard to find / expensive niche (e.g. Greene and Greene, Art Nouveau, etc.), but offer repeatable designs, not do custom work. That would allow for lots of jigs, fixtures, using cheap m…

+1 on the Woodworking.... I started StumpCrafters.com just a few months ago and its great. I love being out in the shop more and still getting to do a few things with code here and there. Im not quite there with the customization yet but its in the works. Check it out at: https://stumpcrafters.com https://facebook.com/stumpcrafters https://instagram.com/stumpcrafters https://twitter.com/stumpcrafters edit: formating

I am a bit confused what stumpcrafters is after going to the website.

There is some sort of game...and you sell these pieces of wood for the game?

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

#627

Post by fapjacks »

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?

I have five bookshelves full of computer books (and other kinds of books, too), and I actually have people that borrow my books. In a way, it's like a miniature, friends-only "library". For all the things people say about print books, they're still useful.

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

#628

Post by js2 »

js2 wrote: post #309
tazjin wrote: post #88

I'd open a bar/pub with good cask ale and decent electronic music. Actually whenever I get too stressed out at work I consider doing this, I've got the necessary capital and in a city like Oslo where people don't care about beer prices it can surely be made into a profitable thing.

https://www.jwz.org/about.html

ugh, sorry everyone. I didn't know jwz was hostile to HN. The comment is too old to delete now. :-( The relevant content at the link is:

Hi, I'm Jamie Zawinski. I'm the proprietor of DNA Lounge, a world famous and award-winning all ages dance club and live music venue in San Francisco, and of DNA Pizza, the 24 hour cafe and pizzeria next door. Prior to that, I worked as a programmer. I was one of the founders of Netscape and Mozilla.org, and have been involved in the free software and open source community since the mid-80s. I was the primary developer of Lucid Emacs (now XEmacs), and probably wrote most of your screen savers.

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

#629

Post by fapjacks »

EpicEng wrote: post #620

Modern day blacksmith. Specifically, I want to make high end, historically accurate swords for a living. I love swords :)

I have a friend who did this. He used to run a hair salon, and when it failed, he started his career as a blacksmith. I've been kind of his benefactor for his early efforts, but he is improving his skills rapidly. Every iteration seems to have lots of skill development. His latest creation for me is an historically-accurate, late model gladius. It's easily one of my favorite possessions! And here I should say... He is on track to be making a lot of money. He doesn't only make swords, though. He makes all kinds of stuff. Swords are just his favorite thing to make.

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

#630

Post by johnnycarcin »

coldpie wrote: post #402
lloyd-christmas wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always whittled as a fun side hobby. My desire to do anything bigger is limited by a fear of the table saw. As a lefty, nothing in the shop plays nice with me. I'm too worried about losing a finger which would impact my income stream as well as my other hobby, piano. But, I still spend more time looking at joinery than I do on HN.

Consider hand tools. It's a bit more labor, but if you're not building for profit anyway, you may enjoy it more. I have some thoughts on this on my blog, see my profile.

+1 to this! I got into woodworking with the goal of just using hand tools. As mentioned there is quite a bit more labor but you can also do things like setup a bench in your basement and work while your kids sleep upstairs.

I'd highly suggest taking a look at some of the videos from Paul Sellers: https://www.youtube.com/user/PaulSellersWoodwork. My first real project was building his simple (but very functional) workbench. He is pretty opinionated so keep that in mind, but he speaks from experience.

Also keep in mind that there are really two "classes" of popular tools: western and Japanese/eastern. If you do get into woodworking I'd suggest trying out a few tools from each class. I ended up going with Japanese saws because they felt more natural to me but then using western style planes.

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