Engineers weren’t paid until 2000. Early in my career, I switched to marketing (1983). The problem was, it was repetitive, and ultimately boring. But it paid the bills way better 1983-2000. I switched back to engineering in 2000. It had the same EXACT difficulties as in 1983: assholes who felt contempt for “the details” and were invited to meetings you weren’t. It was actually even worse! Now the assholes were 20 years younger than me and had the same misapprehensions about people I had back then. Yet it didn’t really bother me. Houses were paid off and I could screw around with LabView, Solidworks, and LTSpice all at once and get paid for it.
Ask HN: Have you ever considered leaving tech because you didn’t feel fulfilled?
21–30 of 95 posts
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever considered leaving tech because you didn’t feel fulfilled?
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of these people seem to be the ones who have done their FAANG stint and vested mid-6, low-7 figures so they can just hop off and start dallying in woodwork without a major loss in income.
I'm probably off-base here because I'm told i conflate woodworking and carpentry a lot, but isn't it a fairly well-paying profession?
It pays better than retail, but nowhere near as well as tech.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever considered leaving tech because you didn’t feel fulfilled?
#23Hmm. I've had friends stating they feel like going into something agricultural. But consider that on that idyllic countryside farm, you need to wake up at 5 to feed the cows on a fine summer day. Also on that stormy day when you have to wade through half a food of mud to the barn * . And also when the snow is up to your waist * . Another solution is using that income from your cushy tech job to get some fulfilling ho…
The cow farmers of Bavaria (and Austria, and probably some other places too) had this figured out centuries ago already: they simply built the cow stable back-to-back with the main farm house, so no need to go outdoors to look after the cows and other livestock anymore. But you still have to get up in the wee hours of morning of course...
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever considered leaving tech because you didn’t feel fulfilled?
#24You may find that you don't have to leave tech in order to find more fulfilling work. "Tech" spans so many industries that you can likely find a position at a company that's more aligned with your interests than whatever it is you're working on now. In other words, I think you can have it both ways—fulfilling job while utilizing the technical skillset you've built up over years of professional life. That being said,…
Only problem is whenever I see a job in a domain that interests me, the only people they seem to hire are new grads from university pipelines or established domain experts that have been at it for a decade or two.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever considered leaving tech because you didn’t feel fulfilled?
#25Hmm. I've had friends stating they feel like going into something agricultural. But consider that on that idyllic countryside farm, you need to wake up at 5 to feed the cows on a fine summer day. Also on that stormy day when you have to wade through half a food of mud to the barn * . And also when the snow is up to your waist * . Another solution is using that income from your cushy tech job to get some fulfilling ho…
Even so I wonder if for you the farm will come out on top when a coworker tells you "shards are the secret ingredient in the web scale sauce".
For those who haven't seen it, welcome to the lucky 10,000: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HdnDXsqiPYo
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever considered leaving tech because you didn’t feel fulfilled?
#26I did, took a year off to backpack around the world. Didn’t think I’d come back to tech but I did with much renewed interest.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever considered leaving tech because you didn’t feel fulfilled?
#27Inb4 "No way I am just sooo fulfilled by improving ad targeting on a social media website."
Are you possibly projecting...? I have so many options in tech that I've never had to consider anything even close to ad targeting and/or social media work.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever considered leaving tech because you didn’t feel fulfilled?
#28I totally understand the impulse, but if you can find a way to get a tech or tech-adjacent job in a fulfilling industry, you'll probably be able to have a bigger impact and sacrifice less in terms of pay and work life balance.
I spent two years working in civic tech, and I've known others who have left big tech jobs for non-profits.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever considered leaving tech because you didn’t feel fulfilled?
#29I think the hard thing about mental work is you never feel like you've finished something. There's always more work to do and new features to build. The appeal of something like woodworking is it has a finish, and you have a tangible thing at the end. I think lifting and running scratch the physical exertion itch that the desk job leaves me with. At the end of the day, if you have a pretty easy going role that pays w…
This is the killer for me. I've never found tech work fulfilling, personally, and I never expected to. But what has burned me out is the sense of being perpetually behind because there's no finish line; infinitely marching onward without ever feeling you've accomplished something. Every morning I open the same files.
My friends outside tech often talk about the satisfaction and relief they feel after completing a big project, and the relatively peaceful lull between such projects, and it just sounds so nice. Doesn't matter whether it's a big event they planned, a tour they went on, or a structure they welded. When something is done it's done. They get to move on personally and professionally.
It used to feel like a job change would provide that sense of momentum, but even that's disappearing now that every product (at least from my designer's perspective) feels more or less identical these days.
Re: Ask HN: Have you ever considered leaving tech because you didn’t feel fulfilled?
#30Considering switching towards tech because finance isn’t fulfilling. Seems like a grass greener problem frankly
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