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

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81–90 of 164 posts

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

#81
Buy a farm, preferably one with enough forest to keep the place warm and build a barn or 2. Start small by growing something or other for your own use while building or renovating the run-down house on the property. Maybe you can help out on a neighbouring farm, say that one where the farmer nearly cut off his hand due to a bit of stupidity with a large angled grinder without a protective cover. Keep at it, get some animals if you want, maybe some sheep, maybe a few cows. Your wife and children are probably going to get some horses so be prepared for that eventuality , you'll end up building not one but several stables, shelters, feeders and more of such. Once you've been doing this for a number of years you'll have a good grasp of what you could do to improve life on the farm so you start developing hard- and software to make things happen. A wood-gas powered CHP system might be a good start? That way those farmers who heat their house and water (for cleaning the stables, milking equipment, etc - lots of hot water...) using wood chips get both heat and electricity for the same amount of fuel, all the long Swedish winter long. Those PV panels don't do that much when the sun hardly shows itself after all...

This is where I am now, more or less.

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

#82
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…

How’s your business going to survive climate change?

Short-term, global warming is set to increase the amount of moisture in the air, meaning that high elevation places will likely see more snow until the warming hits a threshold where most of the moisture will fall as rain.

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

#83

Buy a farm, preferably one with enough forest to keep the place warm and build a barn or 2. Start small by growing something or other for your own use while building or renovating the run-down house on the property. Maybe you can help out on a neighbouring farm, say that one where the farmer nearly cut off his hand due to a bit of stupidity with a large angled grinder without a protective cover. Keep at it, get some…

This sounds really nice, congratulations. I'm hoping to do something similar in a few more years.

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

#86
At one point, a few years ago, I was in your place. Really bored and completely miserable. I got tired of huge companies (one in particular) and went to a "goldilocks zone" startup.

By this I mean the ones were they have enough money to pay you well and a reasonable product/business with a high chance of success, but they're still small enough for you to have an impact in the organization (we were under a 100 people when I jumped in). Really smart people and a culture that fits my personal beliefs.

The first year was tricky, switching from the slowness of the large company to the constant change and challenges of the startup.

Once you get your bearing and feel that you're pulling your own weight is fantastic, been there for the past 8 years or so.

My point is, there may not be a need to change careers completely, maybe just find the right group of people to work with.

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

#87
1.) Run a small part-time electronics business. I do still write software separately when I think of a fun project, though. Programming is a creative outlet, as is circuit design, mechanical design etc. So I still spend a lot of my time in those pursuits. Some outdoor adventuring, hiking, climbing, off-roading, etc. 2.) Got really sick of the way SE is managed at modern companies now, and it was getting worse and worse. To be honest, it was a business where software wasn't their product, and thus the people in charge weren't technical people. Should have changed to a more purely technical company like I had worked at earlier in my career, but the money was too good. More meetings, more HR directed policies, new politics-heavy boss. More projects to satisfy someone's curiosity 10 levels above me. Fortunately I was frugal and saved a lot over a lot of years, and didn't need the job anymore.

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

#88
1. I did a year long bike tour with my partner. When I came home, I went back to undergrad to study art (illustration + painting). So now I’m mostly a student, also working on my own art and doing some part-time work.

2. Boredom which became kind of existential. I had reached a new career high, and suddenly didn’t have anything to strive for - at the time, I didn’t have the insight to try and ask for more impactful work, and I really leaned out of my job instead. The dream of doing a bike tour kept getting bigger and bigger. I couldn’t get the bike tour out of my head, and decided it was the perfect time in my life to jump on it.

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

#89
I would like to leave because the stress of keeping up to date with frameworks and the competition is just brutal. Everything is just so complex to implement these days.

I still love troubleshooting systems and doing hands on work that doesn’t involve writing code with other SWEs, so I’m considering what options I have.

I basically don’t want to be part of a code review or design discussion ever again.

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

#90

1. Selling real estate, raising kids, planning for various future investments and opportunities. 2. I was in software for 20+ years. It was all I had ever wanted to do from the time I was 13. In hindsight, I’d say you have a phase of the moon in which to make your money and get out. It’s a brutal industry and you will likely face burn out at some point and you need to be prepared for that moment. I was in many differ…

Same, graduating in a year and interested in advice.

As a long time senior dev who's desperate to get out of development right now because I'm sick of it, my overwhelming advice is to be sure you're working at places where you can grow. I job hopped from one consultancy to another, getting great pay jumps each time but doing the same thing. And the places I've worked are small - there's literally no job opening to move into, or any way to make a new job.

It's really hard right now to transition to something new while also seeking out a new employer. They see my years of a senior software engineer and probably bin my resume because they probably think my salary expectations are too high or I'm poorly suited to something closer to project management, despite having a lot of PM experience and listing it on my resume. It's just never been a job title.

Transitioning to something different, or more niche, is much much easier when done internally and the people there know you.

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