201–210 of 344 posts
I switched to teaching after 20 years (sidenote: I'm not the only one mentioning "20 years". Is there a common thread?) I've been doing it for one and a half year now, so maybe it's a bit too early to draw conclusions, but I really like it and gave me new energy. In software dev I began to feel like the Ecclesiasticus: "everything that looks new, has been done before". I also felt like IT is often making things worse…
Product Management. I hate it, but I was too stupid to get into FAANG as an SDE and my personality type better matches the role. I love coding and have done it my whole life and for 10 years professionally but at the highest level I’m simply not as smart as other people
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Au contraire. “faang” ( with the exception of the “n” ) engineers aren’t on average smarter than gen pop devs. They are simply willing to grind leetcode and put up with a lot more behavioral stressors ( large companies are incredibly difficult to prove impact and all the low hanging fruit is done, so the fights are more bitter because the stakes are lower )
Being willing to do the interview process is part of it, yes, but this idea that they’re all just average is completely wrong. Highly paid big company engineers are some of the most talented developers out there. The companies invest great resources into making it that way. The idea that they’re all just average devs who did LeetCode for a month and now they’re paid twice as much is a comforting fiction for non-FAANG…
The "golden" pool of applicants would be those that are above average intelligent. They're more financially motivated, willing to jump through the hoops, and confirm to the system, if it guarantees some huge payoff in the end (financial gain, power and prestige, etc.). These applicants are the bread and butter to sectors like high-finance and management consulting. And in recent years, they've jumped ship to join tech.
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Interesting, have you leveraged your tech background to help the business? I'm in a similar spot--my wife bought a retail business (gift shop + dress boutique) with her sister around 2018. My tech background made some things easier, like modernizing how they operate (bluetooth scanners, iPads, inventory management vs. the old clunky stuff that was in place). Retail is a hard way to make a dollar, but very interesting…
My wife is doing the online business for her mother’s brick and mortar business. Unfortunately having the brick and mortar store doesn’t help all that much for the inventory situation. That’s because you can sell 1000 different SKUs with only 1 of each in inventory in a brick and mortar store. But online you better have only 1 SKU and 1000 of that in the inventory. It takes effort to put a SKU online as you need a de…
Yes my wife has had the same trouble putting stuff online: much effort to put it online without the inventory depth to make it worth it.
[1]: https://bonene.com/
Product Management. I hate it, but I was too stupid to get into FAANG as an SDE and my personality type better matches the role. I love coding and have done it my whole life and for 10 years professionally but at the highest level I’m simply not as smart as other people
I switched to teaching after 20 years (sidenote: I'm not the only one mentioning "20 years". Is there a common thread?) I've been doing it for one and a half year now, so maybe it's a bit too early to draw conclusions, but I really like it and gave me new energy. In software dev I began to feel like the Ecclesiasticus: "everything that looks new, has been done before". I also felt like IT is often making things worse…
I’d say the theme is “midlife crisis”.
I went to college for CS, but I knew I couldn’t manage a 40+ hour work week. I did some part time web dev for local companies and hated it. I then shifted to being a photographer, with the idea that the seasonality of the work would let me work on my own projects in the winter.
That kind of worked out, but it turns out that the photography takes up a lot more of my time than I thought. I released an app for the Wii U/3DS that did decently well. I made some extensions for Photoshop that absolutely flopped, though I did get a job offer due to it that I had to turn down due to timing.
At some point during all that I/my doctors figured out what was wrong with me - somewhat, at least. Treating my terribly low testosterone helped significantly and I take stimulants to make up the rest.
Now I’m settled with my wife and baby where we grew up, which is rural. I’ve been thinking about quitting the photography to go back in to development but I’m 33 with basically no relevant work experience. Quite frankly, I don’t know how good I’d be at the job either. I have no basis for comparison for my programming skills and I haven’t exactly kept up.
I’m guessing I could get a local job but I don’t know if the pay would be better than what I make now. Theoretically with a few years under my belt I could maybe get a remote position that I’d possibly enjoy and would pay better.
I feel stuck. I love doing (high school) senior photography, so I’d hate to give that up. It’s also just a small portion of my business and I’ve had a hard time expanding it even though my work is definitely the best in the area.
Don’t discount how nice actually using your brain during your job is. Retouching/editing is largely brainless once you’re at my level and the only thing that keeps me sane are podcasts/audiobooks.
Not a switch per se, because I still work on IT related stuff, but I started a bakery and a retail store (two separate businesses). I hired a chef and a manager to do the work professionally, and I pay for wages, rent, material, etc. But I get to learn the immense efforts it takes for a brownie to be on a table, for a cake to bring a smile to face, and a cheesecake to melt in the mouth. It was a fresh experience, and…
Have you written about your experience anywhere? And if not would you be open to sharing more of your experiences with it?
Cheers.
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One more down the dev-to-woodworking pipeline [1]. [1]: https://github.com/docker/cli/issues/267#issuecomment-695149...
I'm thinking of making custom Kentucky Long Rifles personally. Tons of handcrafting - really woodworking since most makers use manufactured barrels and/or lockwork, and I believe there's a market for them. From a US Federal perspective, they're not even legally firearms so I don't think you'd have to worry much about red tape.