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Ask HN: Why did you leave the tech industry?

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

#111

Post by karatestomp »

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 was spending more time wrestling with package managers, version conflicts, obtuse configuration files, pointless deadlines, egotistical colleagues, and almost zero time solving interesting problems on products that I care about.

That squares with my experience of software development. It's like being a furniture maker but spending 80% of your time fixing your goddamn hammer because it keeps breaking and no better hammers exist, or consulting glue-drying tables because they keep changing your glue on you every hour or two and for no good reason every single glue performs differently while accomplishing the same thing.

... and then most of the remaining 20% is meetings and communication, which would be fine if you had more time to do the thing you're actually trying to do.

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

#112

Post by rustyboy »

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…

For someone with a MS CS what would you recommend for transitioning to such a field?

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

#113

Post by explange »

rustyboy wrote: post #99
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.

My title is just 'researcher' - it's not a well-defined industry so titles are not standardised. Here's where I work in case you're interested: https://www.science-practice.com/teams/good-problems/

My route in was pretty idiosyncratic, and I think that's true of many people in these kinds of jobs. A more standard way to transition into this kind of research/consulting/policy work from tech might be go for jobs in technology or innovation policy. If you're in the UK I can point out some orgs that do that kind of work but in any country there will be various think tanks, policy consultancies, etc.

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

#114

Post by digitalsushi »

FlowNote wrote: post #52

I left when project managers tried to Taylorize programming.

Hear, hear. I find that process like Agile is exhausting, but necessary work, when you cannot trust your workers.

I miss working at a small shop where we were fully trusted to deliver. I find I am able to do very well under Agile, but it certainly makes me feel dishonest that such a measurable portion of my day is spent measuring my performance. It feels like a fractal waste of time.

But I completely understand why it exists.

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

#115

Post by throw1234651234 »

_vdpp wrote: post #45
throw1234651234 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the warning here is that most people will drop out of the pilot program and/or aren't qualified for it in the first place (eyesight, blood pressure, age, fitness to a lesser degree since it's "fixable" within 6 months). There's always army rotary, I guess.

True - but a lot of people self-disqualify because of rumors and urban legends. Make them tell you "no" if it's something you want. There are waivers for many medical issues, but if you don't ask you'll never get one.

Right. Don't you have to have a letter of recommendation from a Congressman or something? It always felt completely inaccessible to me, much more so than SOF, where you might get by on being fit alone.

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

#116

Post by augusto-moura »

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…

I think this a biased point, speaking specifically about startupish business models, there's a lot of different models around the world in a lot of places. There's work to be done with critical applications or slow paced startups, or niche applications on premises. All of them pay well too, maybe you are just saying what you are seeing, but there's a lot more options to it

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

#117

Post by mr_gibbins »

normalnorm wrote: post #49

I love computers since I can remember, and started learning to code when I was still in basic school. This lead me to think that the tech industry was the obvious career for me. During my time in the industry, I felt miserable. I would say that the main reasons for that were: * Meaninglessness. Most of the projects are simply not necessary, they do not help society in anyway, they just exist to make someone else weal…

> I honestly believe that if the nerds told them to fuck off and started spending their time working on things they think are relevant, the world would become much better quickly

So much this.

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

#118

Post by CaciaraAsAServi »

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…

Can confirm!!

Especially

> 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...

Avoid residential electrical work if you are technology oriented! Yes, yes, home automation and all that, but that pales in comparison with industrial work. Commercial in theory has the same potential, but (at least here in Italy) the jobs are ..hm.. dodgy (very poor project management, tasks scattered across sub-sub-sub-contractors so nobody has really a clue of the global picture ..stuff like that)

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

#119

Post by mihaaly »

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…

I am in the same shoes and would add the reason of no pride or sometimes shame. Not only in the many marginal products I am forced to squeeze out rapidly and in parade but of belonging to this group of profession. Basically both stems in the pretentious design of incomplete products making people more miserable than successful or satisfied. Phones, 'smart' appliances, revolutionary technology, software and OSes promise the world and beyond (twice!) bringing tons of 'dream' (sometimes nightmare) functionality but f*k up even the most elementary function (repeatedly!) while being unreliable to the extent that it needs to be updated in the frequency of watering your plants, to no avail. Despite the mounting problems the industry takes itself very seriously with infant obscure practices considered rock solid fundamentals and with robotic approach to human resources and processes. Talking to recruiters feels like they expect not thinking humans but custom programmed organic mechanisms able to type and can be judged by ticking checklists in a couple of minutes. In seeking satisfaction in self and results I left several places for something assumedly better, sometimes leaping into unknown, but my bitterness just mounts with each position. Financial limits forces me to seek engagement in something I am experienced in but I am afraid my lethargy shines though of my smiley and optimistic face I wear for interviews. I have little trust in those sitting in front of me. I hope I can figure out something better, meanwhile trying to make money for living.

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

#120

Post by apohn »

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.

>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.

So I say this based on personal experience. The Siemens' sales force uses their size and influence (especially with existing customers) to absolutely screw over customers and smaller competitors with better products. Siemens is no different than many other big companies who can use all sorts of unethical (but legal) tactics to sell.

It's very possible to work as an engineer in a big company and have zero idea as to what everybody else is doing to screw people over.

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