Ask HN: How do I find a new career?

#1

Post by notsurenymore » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 10:48 PM UTC

I was laid off from a SaaS company a year ago. Since then, I’ve been unable to find employment. Prior to that, I worked for a variety of non tech companies mostly doing enterprise crapware for internal business processes: a lot of legacy stuff, and low effort, low priority, poorly organized projects. I’ve learned and played with a lot of things outside that, and certain things gave piqued my interest before, but I can never take it far enough to be useful. I have no education, suck at CS, no deep business domain knowledge, and have zero math intuition. I’m decent at figuring things out ad-hoc, but that counts for nothing.

I hate programming. I thought I liked it as a kid, but even then I knew that if tried to turn it into a career it would ruin it for me. I only ended up taking it up as a job because my immediate post high school plans feel through and I didn’t know what else to do, but at this point it seems the only reason I was able to pull that off was because of the ridiculous market conditions of the time.

Now no one will hire me, not even the sort of companies just described I used to work for. I’ve even been rejected from shitty fast food jobs for a variety of reasons at this point. I just feel lost. I don’t know what I want to do or what I can do anymore. The risks and time costs of going back to school are too expensive, no do I believe I have the cognitive ability for any “useful degrees”, and I’m not particularly in the shape to do hard labor.

What are some options I might be overlooking for finding a new career?

Re: Ask HN: How do I find a new career?

#2

Post by Djle » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 10:54 PM UTC

"I’m decent at figuring things out ad-hoc, but that counts for nothing."

That counts for a lot. You shouldn't discount it. Some of the best programmers I every worked with didn't have a degree. However, having said that you need the passion for it. I'm assuming you still like tech, since you are posting on HN?

If you do want to give software a try again, maybe try working on an open source project. Most projects need all kinds of things besides programming. Writing tutorials for example or other developer advocate type things can lead to a different career.

Re: Ask HN: How do I find a new career?

#3

Post by lusus_naturae » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 11:14 PM UTC

Personal shopper, executive assistant, quality control/assurance, factory work, personal assistant? Look into getting a trade license, maybe? I hate the idea of you posting this and not getting a response, so hopefully this one spurs more (and better) responses.

Re: Ask HN: How do I find a new career?

#4

Post by cwdegidio » Fri, Sep 01, 2023, 12:23 AM UTC

Maybe make a list of fields or areas that interest you... and then see if anyone in your social network or friends group are in those fields? Buy them a cup of coffee or a beer and pick their brains. See what the like or don't like about it, how they got started, what they would do different, etc.

Re: Ask HN: How do I find a new career?

#5

Post by vouaobrasil » Fri, Sep 01, 2023, 12:58 AM UTC

What about going independent like starting a YouTube channel?

Re: Ask HN: How do I find a new career?

#6

Post by pschuegr » Fri, Sep 01, 2023, 3:55 AM UTC

vouaobrasil wrote: post #5

What about going independent like starting a YouTube channel?

This seems like a good way to burn out while making no money.

Re: Ask HN: How do I find a new career?

#7

Post by dotcoma » Fri, Sep 01, 2023, 7:07 AM UTC

I would try to intersect things-you-like _with_ things-there-is-a-need-for _with_ things-that-pay-decently (according to you and nobody else) and give whatever comes up a try. Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: How do I find a new career?

#8

Post by quickthrower2 » Fri, Sep 01, 2023, 10:13 AM UTC

> enterprise crapware for internal business processes: a lot of legacy stuff, and low effort, low priority, poorly organized projects.

Maybe this could lead to consulting or freelancing. Maybe call them all up and see if they need help, even only part time / temp?

Re: Ask HN: How do I find a new career?

#9

Post by keiferski » Fri, Sep 01, 2023, 11:39 AM UTC

Try the trades, especially electrician work. It's tech-adjacent but doesn't require high level math and the training programs are very inexpensive.

I'd also make sure that your current negative feelings RE: the job search aren't being transferred to programming as a whole. The right tech job may make you love programming again.

Re: Ask HN: How do I find a new career?

#10

Post by saltbush23 » Fri, Sep 01, 2023, 12:15 PM UTC

This is a question I’ve been grappling with for a while.

The biggest challenge for me is what a coworker once called the “golden handcuff”, it’s pretty hard to find similar salaries and if one has grown to need a tech salary to keep afloat, well, it would require major life changes to get out of there.

With that said here are a few of the things that I’ve seen

1. Medical Coding (has nothing to do with code as in programming) This is an interesting one because it seems that one can get in with a few months of training and a $200 certification exam. The initial salary is not horrendous but it can grow quite a bit.

2. Federal jobs (USA based) (usajobs.gov) I was surprised to find such reasonable salaries for such a big variety of roles! Things like administering programs or approving grants or mathematics statistics for the IRS easily and routinely make it to the 6 figures.

3. Completely different career:

I came across a fascinating masters degree in Coursera which allows me to earn a masters in a field I have no professional experience although I’m quite interested in. There was no requirement for a bachelor’s degree in that field nor the general tedious process of admission to a graduate degree. It simply required that you’d be able to keep up with the course work, like complementing knowledge you don’t have from a bachelor in that area by yourself. This is certainly a longer term commitment but for me sounds fantastic to get to a place where I could match software salaries without ever looking at a software company again!