Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

#91

Post by djhaskin987 » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

gman83 wrote: post #38

notacoward wrote: post #28

I haven't left myself yet, but at almost-55 I know a fair number who have. Here's what I know of what their answers would be. The first simply had another passion - travel. Work was just a way to pay for that. Eventually went to work for an agency, been there a long time and AFAICT couldn't be happier (despite being less well off materially). I've known a couple of others who fit this pattern. One left the industry t…

What is a full time parent? I remember as a kid that I was always encouraging my mom to take up hobbies so that she's leave me alone so I could get on with my own stuff. I can't imagine putting all your identity into being a parent. Kids grow up extremely fast.

All the more reason to be a full-time parent. You get a return on your investment extremely fast. When you're old, you have adult kids that care about you, and hopefully grandchildren which are basically just children but free because you're not the primary caretaker anymore. All the fun with much less fuss.

Re: Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

#92

Post by me_me_me » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 2:16 PM UTC

mmargerum wrote: post #84

me_me_me wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to be so closed-minded as you, not realizing that other people are different than you. Ignorance is a bliss. Some people are in tech because its a job, not because they love it. Some people got burned out. Some people discover other things that they love more then what they doing currently.

Programming would be the worst job in the world if you didn't love it and weren't naturally good at it. I don't know why people would get involved in it otherwise. You either have an aptitude for it or you don't. It's completely obvious within days of trying it out. If you don't you honestly shouldn't pursue it.

Same as doing accounting, teaching, doctoring etc. Yet people still do it. Because some people have families, mortgages and can't just flip table and do entry level job in completely different industry.

Not every programmer is 10x programmer who has side projects that they work on after work and dreams in c++. Same with any other profession. I'll bet there are skydiving instructors who don't care much about it anymore but still do it for monetary reasons.

Re: Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

#93

Post by _davebennett » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 2:17 PM UTC

hackyhacky wrote: post #78

As a kid, I aspired to be a programmer. As an adult, I succeeded, and I stuck around for a good long while. There are a lot of reasons to like working tech, obviously: the salary, the flexible working environment, the prestige, the opportunity to build products that real people use, the chance to play with new technology, and of course working with occasionally brilliant colleagues. I tried to convince myself that th…

I relate so much to this!

Re: Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

#94

Post by chewz » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 2:17 PM UTC

PsylentKnight wrote: post #72

chewz wrote: post #32

Meetings took forever, goals and budgets limited my creativity, have been getting fat on business lunches and life is simply too short to spend it in the office. Couldn't breathe with recycled air. I got cancer and when I got better I have never wanted to go back to the office. I have spent last 10 years travelling the world, reading, learning to live on very little. Never looked back. Life is not a bliss but I am ha…

How much did you have saved when you set out? Have you worked at all in the last ten years?

No, I haven't been working in the last ten years. For seven years I have been mostly traveling and drifting, mostly in SE Asia. Long story.

You need way, way less money then you think you do but the expectations adjustment process on the mental level is very slow. But of course it is good to have some savings.

Re: Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

#95

Post by alexbaizeau » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 2:17 PM UTC

abyssin wrote: post #44

alexbaizeau wrote: post #18

I was tired, stressed and bored of tech so I learned how to sail, sold my stuff, bought a boat and sailed around in the Caribbean on a budget. I didn't work for a year and now I'm working on contract 6 months a year and try to maintain my boat/sail the other 6 months It gives me time to refuel and enjoy working in tech again.

That sounds like the dream. Is there anywhere you document the other 6 months?

I have an instagram account with beach pictures in it but that's about it. https://www.instagram.com/2marinsdeaudouce/

Re: Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

#96

Post by ratww » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 2:19 PM UTC

cryptica wrote: post #83

Engineers who work for companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft... They aren't getting paid for engineering. They're getting paid to increase employee head count which gives corporations political leverage. Also, they don't want smart people to be thinking about the economic system in an objective way - Hiring smart people and giving them massive salaries and bonuses is a good way to keep those people focus…

It's not just those four, rando startups have started to do it as well.

It's the third time in my career that I see a company making the developer head count jump from 10 to 100 only to ask all the newbies to rewrite the software from scratch in the most disorganized manner possible.

I'm becoming allergic of rewrites, but I'm pretty sure that I'll land into another one if I switch companies again.

Re: Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

#97

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 2:22 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #76

Nextgrid wrote: post #64

I wish I could leave. The tech industry nowadays is no longer about solving real-world problems and making the world a better place, instead it's all about screwing the end user in every single way possible, whether it's ads, stalking and privacy violations, spam ("marketing" as they call it) or just plain fraud where the company is happy to take the money but can't make it right if things don't go to plan and the cu…

You could always switch to a company that doesn't make its money with ads. For example I work for Snowflake and I don't feel like I'm building stuff to screw the end user at all. I just make our database better. I also worked for Siemens. There too I didn't try to screw any users, I just tried to make trains run cheaper, faster and more reliably.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

#98

Post by angstrom » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 2:23 PM UTC

TheCapn wrote: post #75

encom wrote: post #23

I left it before I really got started, and looking back at it now, I don't regret it. In my mid-twenties I decided I'd rather be an electrician. I don't sit on my ass all day. I get to meet new people, and see new places all the time. Some places that few ever get to see. Power plants, clock towers, police stations, homeless shelters, church attics. All sorts of stuff. Not all of it equally exciting, but a lot of it…

Find your way into Industrial Electrical work if you can. You get a strong mix of tech and electrical, moreso than Residential, can't really say the comparison to Commercial work though... My company (Automation & controls) is partnered with electricians for all the jobs we bid on. Having electricians that know wiring for specialized bus networks, how to do basic troubleshooting on control circuits and all that is am…

You uh...built a better mousetrap I see.

Re: Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

#99

Post by rustyboy » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 2:23 PM UTC

explange wrote: post #15

I worked as a web developer for a couple of years after teaching myself ruby and javascript. I got into programming because I found it intellectually interesting, but unfortunately commercial programming is mostly mindnumbing. I got bored of creating CRUD apps over and over again for boring business applications. I considered upping my CS and maths skills to get more interesting jobs, but decided to pursue more of a…

Can I ask what your job title is? This sounds like an area i'd be interested in but having only experience with tech i'm not sure of any tips or tricks to finding these hybrid jobs.

Re: Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

#100

Post by ehnto » Wed, Apr 15, 2020, 2:23 PM UTC

throwaway-9320 wrote: post #12

_davebennett wrote: post #7

I haven't left, but I'm thinking about it (despite still being early in my career lol). For me, it's the frustration of "nothing really matters." I value helping people, and building software actual people will use is one of the ways of doing that. Unfortunately, I have not had that opportunity. I've had to work on multiple projects that served no real purpose. It's extremely annoying.

I have found myself with a similar issue. Haven't been in the industry for too long (been working for over 3 years), but the constant shitshow that is FE development is really taking a toll on me. No matter what you do, people keep changing things, sometimes for the better, other times for no particular reason other than to work on new shiny things. If what I am writing right now will be thrown out soon or rewritten…

> but going this route will have a minuscule impact also on a larger scale.

I think people trick themselves into thinking that "changing the world" is their ticket to happiness. I think looking more locally is the key to happiness. Make your community better in some way and the results are immediate, and you get to be a part of something meaningful and present. If you become the local guy that fixes people's old computer hardware, then you'll be genuinely impacting people's lives for the better.