Ask HN: If you were a coder who successfully changed careers, what do you do now?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10036460

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2882619

I found the 3 decades possible though. Started as a little kid, now in my late 30s and still writing software. But if you're not enjoying coding, definitely find something else. Life is too short to spend it doing work you don't enjoy.

If you find yourself not enjoying writing code, then perhaps it's not the perfect job for you. It pays better and is perhaps more fun than manual labour and cleaning jobs, so have a think about what your pain points really are, but genuinely: if you think you'd prefer to be a farmer? Go be a farmer. You'll probably hate it, but at least then you'll know.

I came back to coding because one day I wrote two lists of things about my job: 1. Things I like doing about my job. 2. Things I hate about my job. At the time I was a startup CTO and so was doing some code and architecture stuff as well as meeting investors and doing the finance and strategy stuff. All the coding stuff was on list 1. All the business and strategy stuff was on list 2.

I quit that day, and took a job as a senior dev. Don't regret it, but find it difficult to bite my tongue around managers and even CTOs or CEOs I think have got it wrong. I'm trying though.

I learned to code when I was 11. I thought I was rubbish for a long, long time. I had constant imposter syndrome. But it was only when I left the coding gig I realised that it was something I loved doing, was actually not bad at it, and that the alternative was just mindless games and niceties dressed up as strategic planning.

Go do something else, if coding is for you, you'll find yourself being pulled back to it all the time. If it isn't, consider stuff that plays to your strengths, and challenges your weaknesses in a good way.

A few years ago, started Hacker Paradise, which is basically a travel company. We organize trips around the world for people (mostly in tech) who want to work remotely while traveling.

I came from a background of startups & some freelance web dev, and my co-founder was a senior software engineer. We didn't have much experience in travel, but we both had some experience organize events & managing community (running hackathons in college, etc.).

Interestingly, after 3 years of doing more operational / community work, I'm moving back towards spending more of my time programming and tinkering with hardware. My old co-founder already made the switch and is back working as a software engineer.

I think the takeaway for us is that there is no panacea. There are some fun parts about operational & community work, but it also ends up being pretty admin-heavy. After awhile, knowledge work becomes something that seems like a lot of fun again.

My $0.02 - doing the same thing (regardless of what it is) for 3 decades sounds boring! Feel free to make the jump to something else, but be open to coming back to software or jumping into other areas as well.