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

Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 344 posts

Re: Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now?

#121

Post by 11235813213455 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #81
11235813213455 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would help with climate change, but the biggest part is reducing our consumption in all senses. For example, my electricity bill is 10€/month, I have no fridge, use no heating, no hot water, so I'd totally be able to live with just a small solar panel, as I almost never use a device that requires a high power (I eat mostly raw fruits/vegs, more rarely eggs, fish or rice)

I mean, kudos to you, but the vast, vast majority of people (myself included) are not willing to give up refrigerators, or heat, or hot water, so your approach really isn't relevant give the scale needed to solve the problem.

sure, I just gave an almost extreme example for our capitalist societies, but just reducing their consumption by 20%-50% is easily achievable for most people, and that makes a huge difference

Re: Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now?

#122

Post by alisonatwork »

danurman wrote: post #33

I'm not sure if you're looking for stories of moving away from tech, software, or just development, but I did the latter. I started as a web developer, but I realized that my favorite part of the job wasn't building new pages/apps but helping my colleagues when they ran into roadblocks. I got a reputation as a problem-solver and people would come to me with their thorniest bugs or browser compatibility issues and I l…

This is my favorite part of the job too - digging through weird, ancient spaghetti code and finding obscure bugs. Then either crafting a fix to the code, or creating some kind of migration path or workaround to mitigate the problem. Unfortunately in a lot of companies this kind of "maintenance mode" job is not well-paid or well-respected, and is given to the least-qualified devs. I keep finding myself promoted out of the position, or assigned to work on something that supposedly has more "impact" (read: increasing revenue and/or encouraging investment), even though from my perspective the most impactful work is helping loyal customers who already value the product highly enough that they're paying for support.

How did you deal with the "overqualified" problem, or did you switch early enough that it didn't matter? From my end, I have over 20 years of development experience, and I feel that often disqualifies me from consideration by a lot of employers.

Re: Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now?

#123

Post by Gasp0de »

pul wrote: post #55
meowface wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first site is useful, but the second feels parasitic and slimy to me, sorry.

What would make it more useful, less parasitic and less slimy?

All business models that promote VPNs feel parasitic to me. For example, there is this "unprotected" thing in red screaming DANGER to the unknowing visitor that feels exceptionally scammy. It says I am unprotected while I'm using a VPN to my server, Mullvad VPN or even Tor Browser. Why don't you say "You are not connected to NordVPN, the sponsor of this site"?

Re: Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now?

#124

Post by ToddWBurgess »

I was a software developer during the dot-Com days. Lost everything when my company folded. Transitioned to being a licensed funeral director. Some of my funeral director highlights include working for the Office of the Chief Coroner, supporting the Canadian military during Afghanistan operations as a civilian funeral director and ending up in Haiti after the earthquake in 2010 to do recovery efforts for the Canadian government. Got injured on the job and ended up on long term disability. Transitioned back to be a developer because I used the downtime to learn to code again.

Let's just say the last 20 years of my life have been an adventure. Life is good.

Re: Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now?

#125

Post by eric4smith »

Not a full switch.

But I started a cleaning company. I build custom software to help run the business because I could not find anything to fit my needs. My skills also came in handy to build the website to make it exactly for our needs.

And things like building a chatbot to help bring on new cleaners is what we are starting to build right now.

I still code, but not so much these days. Mostly manage and architect. But occasionally I get my hands dirty to deal with things I want quickly and efficiently.

Re: Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now?

#126

Post by matsemann »

Cloudef wrote: post #104
matsemann wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry for the blunt question, but how does it feel to go from something where you make something valuable to ...that? (At least I feel what I do give me meaning)

Tbh, i dont really feel i ever do anything valuable with software either

Fair enough, and probably more people feel that way? Not all tech is good tech, especially not if one follows the money. But I feel the stuff I've done in my career have had a direct impact on people's lives, but perhaps it's because I self select for those kind of projects because that matters to me?

Re: Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now?

#128

Post by kimsant »

robodale wrote: post #71

Walked away from 20 years of software development last year. I've been day and swing trading stocks for last 2 years. I'm now trading full time and doing great. I don't miss the daily stand-ups, scrum meetings, planning meetings, "quick chats", one-on-ones with management, weekly department meetings, monthly company meetings, and late night critical support calls one bit!

Sad to hear that top minds just give up on humanity and accept money as a goal by itself. I do have long term investments (5 nanometers, extreme litography, electric vehicles... just what I love), I make money, but is not something I need to live.

Last month, when war started I told my team, Aerovironment stock, is gonna double (war drones) but I'm not gonna be part and I want you all to feel how calmed I'm about that and undertand (I don't need those 100k). I now undertand the difference between being Socrates or a 'sofist' (greek philosophs both, one for pleasure, the second as a job). Investing shouldn't be a need, is what's best for humanity. I think Elon musk already refered this way

Re: Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now?

#129

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

I'm in the process of transitioning out of a FAANG SWE position to be full time in property development.

There's not enough houses for people to live in. Most people hate you for "driving up prices" and "gentrifying neighborhoods" - but it leaves me much more satisfied than engineering.

After paying ~40% tax for a decade and paying ~3x what the Fed and State spend per Capita over a lifetime - it's nice to see my working hours reduced dramatically and my true tax rate drop down to ~12%.

You don't need to make $1M per year, when you don't have to give $400k to the tax man.

Re: Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now?

#130

Post by jasfi »

hwers wrote: post #48
jasfi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did something similar. Building is the easy part. Getting meaningful traction is difficult. My own projects: https://cxo.industries https://tradecast.one

I like the "Copy successful traders if you don't know technical analysis." feature. I've always wanted that as an option for stuff like this.

Glad you like it! It came about because the feedback I got was that not everyone knows or is good at technical analysis, or even wants to learn it.
Post reply on HN