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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?

#261

Post by MattyRad »

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…

I'm very interested in pivoting toward electrical engineering from computer engineering (for all the reasons mentioned above). Do you have any advice on how to do this? I don't even know where to begin, but I imagine there's a lot of certification and/or educational requirements.

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

#262

Post by noelsusman »

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 have a choice. These companies pay so well specifically because of all of the terrible practices you mentioned. You're currently choosing to prioritize your lifetime earnings over these other priorities, which IMO can be a fine choice to make, but it is a choice.

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

#263

Post by sopooneo »

Nextgrid wrote: post #168
ruffrey wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This describes a lot of software. No doubt. It's depressing and disturbing. But not any of the systems I've worked on over 10 years. You may not get the absolute top salaries working on more meaningful projects, but there's plenty of them. Here are some examples that I worked on. To a fault, most of these places over-focused on the business and under-focused on exceptional engineering. Nonetheless, there's a lot of m…

Curious, how do you get jobs/contracts around these examples? My understanding is that most of these industries already have the talent they need (or have a preferred supplier they work with).

I freelanced for a few months for a local high-end cabinet maker. I helped them integrate their online ordering system with the automated fabrication equipment. It was, by far the most I have ever enjoyed programming. Coordinating with super skilled crafts-people to help them eliminate the redundant parts of their work was just so cool.

And by weird coincidence to this post I've recently been browsing around trying to find any other type of traditional businesses looking for equivalent help. But I've mostly found boutique places that wouldn't have need for a full-time developer.

Any tips on places to look for opening greatly appreciated.

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

#264

Post by nitrogen »

hobs wrote: post #205
Nextgrid wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine works at a B2B business. Every week they have a "lead forensics" meeting where they somehow figure out which companies visited their website and then spam them with unsolicited sales calls/emails.

Indeed, there are definite bad actors as I alluded to, but just... don't work there. If your company starts to go the route of evil, you can find another job with people who are less morally bankrupt.

If we're defining sales as unethical, then... Where are you going to work that actually makes any money at all?

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

#265

Post by austincheney »

nradov wrote: post #224
austincheney wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most all the systems I have worked on its more about screwing the user from a technical perspective than a deliberate business action, though there have been some of those too. Either way it all comes down to some combination of mental laziness and no ethics. There is no ethical code, that I am aware of, for writing software. Here are my experiences as a web developer: * Frustration at the general technical incomp…

IEEE Code of Ethics: https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html ACM Code of Ethics: https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics There are incompetent people in every industry. So what. Hiring is an arcane mystery in every industry where productivity can't be quantified. So what.

Those are nice. Thanks for sharing that!

I have never seen anything remotely close to that in a place of corporate employment ever. I have been doing this in the corporate world since 2006, but if you count my time as a security analyst in the military than I could push that date back to 2001.

The military does force feed you (memorization verbatim) ethical standards, though, at a huge contrast to the loosey goosey corporate world:

* https://www.army.mil/values/nco.html

* https://www.army.mil/values/

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

#266

Post by Nextgrid »

sopooneo wrote: post #263
Nextgrid wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, how do you get jobs/contracts around these examples? My understanding is that most of these industries already have the talent they need (or have a preferred supplier they work with).

I freelanced for a few months for a local high-end cabinet maker. I helped them integrate their online ordering system with the automated fabrication equipment. It was, by far the most I have ever enjoyed programming. Coordinating with super skilled crafts-people to help them eliminate the redundant parts of their work was just so cool. And by weird coincidence to this post I've recently been browsing around trying t…

I had a similar gig where a small local business wanted to integrate their Shopify store into their existing Django app. It was very easy and no BS to deal with like Kubernetes or Javascript build pipelines.

The problem is that I find it very hard to find these businesses, and indeed most of them don't actually have enough work to fill more than a couple of days so you would need a reliable source of these gigs if you want to survive (you can't charge insane amounts to compensate either as these businesses just can't afford it).

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

#267

Post by ativzzz »

ves wrote: post #221
ativzzz wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By this logic, every company screws over everyone and business is bad overall.

That’s an unfair conclusion. Those examples were pretty specific and I, at least, see no reason to generalize (except maybe the insurance one), except perhaps along the lines of “serving exploitative monopolies is bad”

What I meant is that you can find an example in nearly every business of some person (or group of people) getting "screwed over", which is of course subjective. So subjectively, you could make the case that every business is "exploitative" (like the other replier who claims every capitalistic business is exploitative).

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

#268

Post by hobs »

nitrogen wrote: post #264
hobs wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, there are definite bad actors as I alluded to, but just... don't work there. If your company starts to go the route of evil, you can find another job with people who are less morally bankrupt.

If we're defining sales as unethical, then... Where are you going to work that actually makes any money at all?

Spam is not sales, and you dont get that many conversions by selling to people who didn't want to buy your thing in the first place.

Most of the enterprise sales cycles I have worked under go from 3 months to a year anyway, and the implementation time might take 8 weeks to a year+ - so drive by spamming doesnt really get results.

(Payroll, Commercial Real Estate)

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

#269

Post by [deleted] »

_davebennett wrote: post #146
jwr wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can relate to your point of view, which is why I don't work for "the tech industry", but instead have my own SaaS. This lets me stay close to tech (I love programming in Clojure and ClojureScript!), do what I enjoy, and not have my soul sucked out by evilness and stupidity of today's adtech world. I have a product which solves a real problem and I'm getting paid by customers who appreciate that their workflow is so…

How do you propose finding those real problems to solve? I know that every problem I encounter in my life (or work) has already been solved 100 times over.

[deleted]

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

#270

Post by rvz »

elroyjetson wrote: post #43

I left after over 25 years. I love programming and love working with Linux, but the jobs always came down to "help us steal peoples personal information so we can slam them with spam for products the neither want or need." It was unfulfilling. I went back to school and got an MA in history. I teach humanities though I still teach a couple of programming classes. I miss it a little. I would go back in a heartbeat for…

> I am through getting mauled in tech interviews which turned into combat trivial pursuit. I love technology and I still create applications mostly for myself or to help automate my school.

This. Something has definitely changed in the last ~10 to 20 years since the end of the dotcom era of interviewing in the tech industry. Before it was as simple as reading the AUTHORS file in an open-source project like Linux to vouch for a programmer applying to somewhere like Red Hat or Mozilla. But now we are expecting them to write a proof of quicksort's worst-case runtime complexity or to explain the Diffie-Helman public key exchange mathematically on a whiteboard to "see how you think" and "prove programmer ability" which is unnecessarily academic and they either don't use it directly or search on Google for it anyway.

That's just the onsite interviews, pre-interviews are riddled with Leetcode, Hackerrank and Codility tests which can be cheated or the solution can be found on Google. What a shame that these flawed tests still exist.

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