Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Former software engineers, what are you doing now?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 164 posts

Re: Ask HN: Former software engineers, what are you doing now?

#51

Post by cosmodisk »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #22
ramtatatam wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess fumes coming out when you do welding are toxic. I have done it myself a few times and remember thinking about smell and if it can indicate I will get cancer frim it..

Based on my experience with machinists I think they might mean on a personal level (although the fumes are toxic too). The machinists I've met have been pretty hard to deal with. I can imagine the work environment being unpleasant, especially if you aren't prepared for that.

This is correct. Eventually people can be very nice, once you get to know them, but you either have to be a certain type or simply have guts to tell people to sod off, as then they would start showing respect:) I think this is very similar to construction and some other related industries.

Re: Ask HN: Former software engineers, what are you doing now?

#52

Post by ghaff »

indigochill wrote: post #25
andi999 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its Financial Independence Retire Early. FU money is 10x FIRE.

>FU money is 10x FIRE How do you figure? I always had in my mind that FU money was the amount you needed to quit immediately and be fine forever, which also sounds pretty much like FIRE. Granted, my mental model of FU money is not cash in the bank but passive cashflow which is probably coming from investments FIRE-style, which is maybe where the difference is.

Whether or not there's a formal difference in the terms, there's normally a difference in how they're used.

1. FIRE tend to mean sufficient money in the bank/money from passive incomes that let you live a fairly frugal lifestyle. See the Mr. Money Mustache stuff that various people are especially taken with. It doesn't tend to mean Retire Early and take expensive trips, buy nice cars, pursue expensive hobbies, buy second homes

2. FU money, on the other hand, tends to mean you don't need to work and can have enough money to do virtually anything you want to. There are degrees of course once you're talking things like private jet ownership.

Re: Ask HN: Former software engineers, what are you doing now?

#53

Post by jcborro »

starpilot wrote: post #23
jcborro wrote: post #17

1. Opened a ski mountaineering shop ( https://skimo.co/ ). I backcountry ski most mornings in winter/spring before we open at a casual 11am; work on the site in the summer. 2a. Sick of pointless discussions about languages/frameworks/architectures, none of it matters to low-traffic/low-tech business. 2b. Sick of meetings/arguments to decide what to build. Making business and tech decisions simultaneously is amazingly…

Wow I've ordered from you guys. I received some great advice on liners and replacing a screw on my bindings, and was pretty surprised to get such detailed responses to my questions. Your site was recommended to me by the guys at Evo (Seattle).

The level of nerdiness required for software engineering translates well to tech bindings! I was an early importer/user of European gadgetry (they are way ahead of us due to the racing scene) so developed a fairly large mental repository of such minutiae. I personally answered all questions for the first several years and still do occasionally.

Re: Ask HN: Former software engineers, what are you doing now?

#54

Post by timkam »

No longer a Software Engineer, but still in "IT" in the broader sense.

* Left SE job for a PhD in CS, roughly 50% of a good SE salary here in Northern Europe

* Do some Product Management/Innovation advisory on the side

I left SE because I found the type of programming one typically does, as well as the Jira ticket-pushing, uninspiring. I still write code, but (almost) only because I enjoy it (a PhD in CS does not necessarily involve much, or any, programming).

Re: Ask HN: Former software engineers, what are you doing now?

#57

Post by ghaff »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #50
indigochill wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>FU money is 10x FIRE How do you figure? I always had in my mind that FU money was the amount you needed to quit immediately and be fine forever, which also sounds pretty much like FIRE. Granted, my mental model of FU money is not cash in the bank but passive cashflow which is probably coming from investments FIRE-style, which is maybe where the difference is.

You can be FIRE at around a million in assets. My wife and I ran the numbers and it seemed possible. But we wanted kids and stuff so retirement wasn't in the cards. If you have FU money you don't need to run the numbers. That's how I look at it.

That's my interpretation as well. You have somewhere in the mid to high five figures revenue stream without touching capital and own your property--presumably somewhere that costs aren't super-high.

Re: Ask HN: Former software engineers, what are you doing now?

#58

Post by zoomablemind »

jhwhite wrote: post #48

1. I'm a Scrum Master. 2. I really wasn't great at it. I loved it, only did it professionally for 2 years, but did side projects for years before I took an official job. I wish I was good enough to be productive in a professional environment.

> I'm a Scrum Master.

It's a the job title? I always considered Scrum Master more like an additional (sometimes rotating) responsibility of a team member, be it a dev or PM.

On the other hand, Scrum Coach is more like a job, or rather a contracting gig.

Re: Ask HN: Former software engineers, what are you doing now?

#60

Post by nsl73 »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #50
indigochill wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>FU money is 10x FIRE How do you figure? I always had in my mind that FU money was the amount you needed to quit immediately and be fine forever, which also sounds pretty much like FIRE. Granted, my mental model of FU money is not cash in the bank but passive cashflow which is probably coming from investments FIRE-style, which is maybe where the difference is.

You can be FIRE at around a million in assets. My wife and I ran the numbers and it seemed possible. But we wanted kids and stuff so retirement wasn't in the cards. If you have FU money you don't need to run the numbers. That's how I look at it.

Someone at FIRE runs their own numbers. Someone at FU pays someone to run the numbers.
Post reply on HN