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Ask HN: Did anyone leave Software Engineering as your profession? If yes, why?

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Re: Ask HN: Did anyone leave Software Engineering as your profession? If yes, why?

#21

Post by nashashmi »

ScottFree wrote: post #16
nashashmi wrote: post #11

A friend I know went from software engineering to civil engineering for difficulties in finding work. But I find many more that do the opposite, go from civil to software. I was first inclined into software before deciding on civil in college after the dot com bubble burst. I recommend all software inclined engineers do anything but software. Software Programming is a very powerful tool in most industries but is leas…

> A friend I know went from software engineering to civil engineering Do you mind if I ask how he achieved that? Did he go back to college? I ask because I've been thinking about transitioning to mechanical engineering, but going back to college for 4 more years and racking up 10s of thousands of dollars in debt is off putting.

The first degree was from India. So he had little college debt. Second degree was from public university. With two years at county college. And he worked part time.

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone leave Software Engineering as your profession? If yes, why?

#22

Post by undef238 »

UglyToad wrote: post #4

I'm currently on my first break after 6 years with no job lined up and I'm not sure I want to go back to software. Unfortunately I don't have any answers but as the other responses point out software is a gilded cage because it would be very hard to get anywhere near an equivalent salary doing anything else. I had become increasingly disillusioned with software, mainly the maddening bureaucracy, problematic managemen…

Pretty much same, though I've been in analytics and PM at a few "unicorns" over the last 6 years.

For me the disillusion has more to do with feeling like working at a "unicorn" tech co is no different than any other corporate environment, where you have people who are optimizing for titles and influence doing anything to achieve those things, and feeling like playing those games is just not compatible with my personality.

The other part of it was the cognitive dissonance I got between hearing "this is changing the world" and thinking to myself "is this really that innovative and is this a net benefit to the world?"

I guess 6 years in tech is about the time when both you've saved enough and seen enough to decide you want to not do anything for a bit anymore...haha.

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone leave Software Engineering as your profession? If yes, why?

#23

Post by ablekh »

speedplane wrote: post #7

This isn't for everyone, but after working as a software dev for 3 years I went to law school. Because I had a technical background, I was immediately pegged to be a patent attorney. I know, most software developers hate patents, but most of the work is not as evil as it seems in the press. There are often real disputes, between real companies, on patented ideas that are incredibly similar. Having a solid technical f…

It seems that you still have found some middle ground between software engineering and law by creating Docket Alarm. :-) Congratulations, it seems like a nice and useful platform. Apparently, it is Django-based, though I'm curious about what are other components of your stack (e.g., for mobile app and analytics).

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone leave Software Engineering as your profession? If yes, why?

#24

Post by mrfusion »

factorialboy wrote: post #15

I moved to sales & investing after 10 years of coding. I still write code every day, but only for myself. For me, programming is beautiful if I am in control of the product getting built. It's a complete package and the creative aspects is what gives me the thrills. Being a code monkey does not.

How’d you do that move?

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone leave Software Engineering as your profession? If yes, why?

#25

Post by 40something »

Did 10 years at 4-6 companies, from startups to big co. Felt like most coworkers were big pussies who couldn’t even change their own car oil. Their time is just so valuable. I was always handy, did all my own auto/home repairs, etc. so took the leap and started buying distressed properties as-is in “bad” neighborhoods. Learned a lot about evicting squatters, keeping homeless and druggies from trespassing and loitering, fixing roofs, replacing leaky cast iron plumbing, repairing refrigerators and stoves, fishing romex up 3 floors, renting to millennials, gentrifying a street, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone leave Software Engineering as your profession? If yes, why?

#26

Post by theworld572 »

40something wrote: post #25

Did 10 years at 4-6 companies, from startups to big co. Felt like most coworkers were big pussies who couldn’t even change their own car oil. Their time is just so valuable. I was always handy, did all my own auto/home repairs, etc. so took the leap and started buying distressed properties as-is in “bad” neighborhoods. Learned a lot about evicting squatters, keeping homeless and druggies from trespassing and loiterin…

Call me a pussy but your new job sounds a hell of a lot worse than most software Dev jobs to me. Each his own I suppose.

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone leave Software Engineering as your profession? If yes, why?

#28

Post by he0001 »

I quit software for mainly two reasons: the constant squabbling about what framework of the day to use and the lack of training people have. I know it may sound petty, but when people doesn’t even know how to use the current framework, why on earth should the add more they don’t know anything about?

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone leave Software Engineering as your profession? If yes, why?

#29

Post by CyberFonic »

40something wrote: post #25

Did 10 years at 4-6 companies, from startups to big co. Felt like most coworkers were big pussies who couldn’t even change their own car oil. Their time is just so valuable. I was always handy, did all my own auto/home repairs, etc. so took the leap and started buying distressed properties as-is in “bad” neighborhoods. Learned a lot about evicting squatters, keeping homeless and druggies from trespassing and loiterin…

There probably are some bit wranglers would dread getting their hands dirty the way you did.

I would hazard to guess that as much as you had many challenges, you always felt a sense of accomplishment when you completed a particularly difficult bit of tangible work.

Re: Ask HN: Did anyone leave Software Engineering as your profession? If yes, why?

#30

Post by krzepah »

sergiotapia wrote: post #19
Aeolun wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never really understood how insane it can get until my current job. We literally have a system diagram with like 30-40 different components (proxies, lambdas, pretty much all aws services), for a system that would work just as well with 3 (front/back/database). At this point it’s become a kind of joke for me because anything else would be too depressing.

Search for baklava code. Or architecture astronauts. It's comes from leadership and trickles down to individual engineers. If your leader is deep into this mindset of completely over engineering things, you are screwed. I quit a job like this because the system was just too much. It was making me hate my profession and that's when I knew it was time to go. You can get so far with a simple monolith, there is no need t…

Hi,

I've had the luck to work on a 10 years old Django System. Everyone from the 6 people working on it said it was the purest sh.t they saw.

On the other hand, I need to learn new stuff. I tried Express or other JS fmw but these are not new things.

You can get pretty sh.tty unusable code with a monolith, while state-of-the-art is expected to be understood and seek by people that crave for more.

Tbh, I think it all depends on how well a team is prepared, and ofc it is more complex with the later tools, but they definitely avoid a lot of useless and shame code.

It is also very common that business hasn't validated their initial client base.

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