Ask HN: Developers who switched careers, what are you doing now? • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by weatherlite » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 4:22 PM UTC

cellis wrote: post #60

throwawayHN378 wrote: post #45

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

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 )

I'm sure the average Google dev is of higher intelligence than the average dev at Coca Cola. No disrespect to anyone but how wouldn't it be the case? I can't make it into FAANG btw, I get too stressed during interviews or I'm not a quick study enough (I don't really have the energy to self study for months preparing for an interview) or a combination of the two.

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

#212

Post by mgh2 » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 4:24 PM UTC

ac2022 wrote: post #187

kimsant wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can find something meaningful (very easy), or start your own business (easiest moment in history to rise 1million), or teach in a bootcamp... There are 100 options. Wasting a wonderfull mind just because... sad

Sadly, there not many options if you want comfortable life and do good at the same time. My fiends and I really wanted to do good when starting our careers and looked at many non-profits, all of them pay sub-market rates. And then we learned secondhand that most of these non-profits were run by narcissists leaders with worse office politics than regular offices. We got jobs in regular companies building some of most…

Ethical healthcare? There is not much you can bs when faced with your own mortality.

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

#213

Post by RubberMullet » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 4:24 PM UTC

Quit my job as the CTO at a small Bay Area startup. One too many failed startups had taken their toll, I felt like a boxer that had lost his chin.

Thought about culinary school and becoming a chef but after reading Kitchen Confidential, I changed my mind. Decided on welding/fabrication and ended up working on a ranch that had a metal fabrication shop. I enrolled in some classes at the local CC so I could improve my skills and ending up getting an AA in welding and a few classes short of one in machining.

Got a part time job teaching metal trades at the local CC which led to becoming a certified welding inspector through AWS, no the other AWS. I accepted a tenure track offer but switched to management after a few years.

I became the director of CTE department that oversaw the creation of a mechatronics and cybersecurity degree program as well as opening up a makerspace. I loved it because it really allowed me to leverage my eclectic skill set. However, due to a staffing shortage I ended having to train, not teach as I wasn't faculty anymore, incumbent workers as part of a industry partnership. So now I was working two jobs, one blue collar and one white collar. This led to working 12+ hour days and coming in on weekends so I could catch up. In a nutshell, my objections to the situation fell on deaf ears so I quit out of frustration.

After a short break I went back to university to finish my bachelor's degree with the tentative idea of pursuing a job in edtech. Right after I graduated lockdowns started so I took the time to explore some other avenues while I looked for a job.

Today, I'm solo dev working on my first indie game funded by selling some Bitcoins I had been sitting on for over a decade. With the current geopolitical situation aside, I couldn't be happier.

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

#214

Post by pid-1 » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 4:25 PM UTC

dplgk wrote: post #109

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!

I've been exploring day trading recently and have not yet found the angle that works for me and also fits my lifestyle/budget. It's hard to find reliable sources of education on the topic because it seems like so many materials are teaching hindsight technical analysis that looks good on paper but is really just BS to sell a e-book or Discord subscription. I'm still exploring what time frames I want to trade and if I…

The best way to learn trading is to work for an investment bank / hedge fund and learn from folks who already do that successfully.

Anything else is likely BS.

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

#215

Post by mgh2 » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 4:26 PM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #176

taormina wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, if you were working in advertising or crypto, you’re probably about breakin even in the “meaningfulness” department

I'd argue that daytrading is less of a net negative for the world than working on ad tech software.

ads and fake news fuel daytrading, same side of the coin

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

#216

Post by danthewireman » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 4:27 PM UTC

I did web development and graphic design for a couple decades, and wrote a few technology books (one of them was on DHTML, so this was a while ago). I'm now writing fiction, mostly fantasy. The $$ isn't quite where I'd like it to be, but it's getting better, and I'm 100x happier. My brain works with stories much more easily than it does with programming, in a much more satisfying way, and it took a long time to learn this. It's crazy to make this switch in my 50s, but it'd be crazier not to.

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

#217

Post by throwaway984393 » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

askonomm wrote: post #144

eropple wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m 34 and I am nowhere near retirement and I do this now. It's easier to get started when you're young and have the physical stamina and strength to spend a Saturday in the shop. I'm going to go spend my day down there today, as it happens, while the dog supervises!

That's super cool! I'd love to have a dog as a supervisor. Unfortunately it's a bit harder to do in Europe where people don't generally live (or can afford) houses and tend to live in big cramped cities instead (I live in Barcelona). That said, I want to get out of the cement jungle in the next couple of years if the economy and work allows, and start realizing some of those dreams I've been having, before I'm dead o…

What's the housing market like in Spain? In Greece you can get houses/land for dirt cheap, if you can get the deed from the previous owner (bribes are basically required)

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

#218

Post by weatherlite » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #77

cellis wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Agree and personally I think the Leetcode part is the easiest part in their process. The whiteboard algorithms is where the real fun begins.

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

#219

Post by jrumbut » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 4:29 PM UTC

gmays wrote: post #112

Ayesh wrote: post #25

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…

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…

> What if they turned that into a service where people submit who they need a gift for + their budget and the store sends a gift to the person?

I've built sonething like this ~3 times as a consultant and I've never seen it get meaningful usage. Somehow it still sounds like a genius idea. Maybe if they have a following that is personally loyal to them it will work well?

I hate to be discouraging but I might see if the idea gets traction with your customers by mentioning it on Facebook Live and running it through the chat before building out anything complicated.

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

#220

Post by sandoze » Sun, Mar 20, 2022, 4:29 PM UTC

2bitlobster wrote: post #139

sandoze wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s the thing. If I could just code without being a slave to a scrum master or being product micromanaged.. I would never leave the industry. I worked five years in mobile gaming when the Apple Store first opened. Released 13 titles, had my hands in a half a dozen others, three teams in two countries, 15 employees at our height (95% remote). Never had a standup, planning meaning, grooming.. etc.

What were your main means of coordination and planning?

We knew what needed to be built. Sometimes it was easy, we were doing a direct port, other times product and design would write it up in somewhat detailed documentation (can you believe no stories/tasks?!). Because they were games you’d start with the play loops and continually tweak them. Assets would come in from designers throughout the lifecycle of the project and they’d just document what they wanted to see (fonts, colors, animations, flow).

We had a product manager who would regularly play our builds and speak with the clients. If the clients were unhappy, had feedback, or found bugs, he would chat or hop on a call with the lead developer (usually me). We’d write it on a sticky note or put it in our mind palace as a Todo (or if you were a defensive programmer and planned that a certain piece of code needs to be flexible, you were fixing it while he was explaining the problem).

So, we had communication, but not in the form of formal meetings. Product set the delivery dates, we set goals/cadence as engineers around those dates, and based off of continual feedback we iterated on the design.