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

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

#341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d say the theme is “midlife crisis”.

It's the opposite of a crisis though. It's midlife career rebirth.

Crisis in its origin just means 'decisive point'.

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

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d say the theme is “midlife crisis”.

I did label it as such, although I didn't feel it helped to use the label. Because it's so often used jokingly, it feels like an underrating of what you're going through. You may come out of the period as a totally different person, a change process which you'd better take seriously.

Oh, I mean it completely literal and in its original sense as a 'decisive moment', but you are of course right that it's diluted in everyday use.

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

#343

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…

Are you looking for a cofounder

Not for the cleaning company.

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

#344

Moved from development to quant trading. Still involves writing code but that's not the focus, and the code is for yourself, not somebody else. Much more satisfying having such a direct feedback loop between your code/research and its impact on the markets in production. Also feels more intellectually stimulating in that many of the problems you solve don't have an existing solution (or at least not one in the public…

I’ve been considering quant for a while too. What you mention about latency sounds like HFT, market making strategies? Instead of that I’ve been looking into momentum and mean reverting stuff, and my best friend being a profitable trader gives me the confidence (hopefully not misplaced) that we can automate him away and scale the strategy that he has already developed, or at the very least setup a system that receives weekly input and can operate by itself with low maintenance requirements.

I’m curious what was your journey into quant from software development… did you studied statistics and data analysis? Saved to have a ton of capital before starting? Open a quantconnect account and profit? :)

Thanks and congrats!

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