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Ask HN: Did you change career paths after 30?

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Re: Ask HN: Did you change career paths after 30?

#21

Post by simonblack »

Not so much 'change' in my case, more of a 'wobble'.

Started as a retail pharmacist, moved to become hospital pharmacist, a sidetrack to become a COBOL computer programmer in warehouse software, then back to retail pharmacy plus aviation training as far as Commercial Pilot Licence, then back to retail pharmacy when General Aviation went through a downturn, followed by becoming general manager of the family's Commercial Rents business.

In my youth it was common to see people stay in one job for all their working lives. Today it's common for people to have several careers over that time period.

Re: Ask HN: Did you change career paths after 30?

#23

Post by vitno »

codegeek wrote: post #19
tsingy wrote: post #8

I'm trying to break into SE (at 32 from an accounting background), but not having a US/EU passport and living in a third world makes it hard. So I will say that depending on where you are from, things can get tricky. But the usual still stands, you get jobs by knowing the right people.

I don't know you and don't mean to insult but I advise you to change your mentality. Victimhood is a choice. Yes, you live in a 3rd world country where things are harder. But SE is one of the only fields where you don't need a degree, could work from anywhere in the world and still make decent money especially depending on the cost of living in your country. Plenty of poeple live in 3rd world countries and have found…

Being condescending is also a choice.

Nothing about the GP indicated victimhood, only striving for a better life with real challenges in front of them.

Re: Ask HN: Did you change career paths after 30?

#24

Post by candiddevmike »

sharkweek wrote: post #4

Planning on it and I'm almost 40. I'm in tech now, but in life I really enjoy deep 1-1 time with people more than anything else I do at work. I've got a 5-year plan to leave tech and go back to school to become a therapist, specifically working with people suffering from OCD (and perhaps some other forms of anxiety). At this point it's mostly meeting with people in the industry to hear their stories, with a goal of a…

While you're meeting with them, look into the reasons therapists burn out. I'd take tech burn out over some of the horror stories I've heard from therapists. Computers can't stalk you, and for the most part can't "power themselves off" after you've spent a considerable amount of time trying to prevent that.

Re: Ask HN: Did you change career paths after 30?

#25

Post by klipt »

nine_zeros wrote: post #7
sharkweek wrote: post #4

Planning on it and I'm almost 40. I'm in tech now, but in life I really enjoy deep 1-1 time with people more than anything else I do at work. I've got a 5-year plan to leave tech and go back to school to become a therapist, specifically working with people suffering from OCD (and perhaps some other forms of anxiety). At this point it's mostly meeting with people in the industry to hear their stories, with a goal of a…

In a gold rush (mental health crisis society), sell shovels?

I could be wrong, but I assume tech still pays better than therapy? I assumed OP was going into therapy for personal reasons more than for money.

Re: Ask HN: Did you change career paths after 30?

#26

Post by Izkata »

It's not going to be anywhere near as big as other responses, but I kind of did at 31: switched from development to maintenance.

I was tired of having to keep redoing the same thing whenever the product owner or designer changed their mind on something, and the tipping point came after they were looking for suggestions for this one visualization clients had a hard time understanding. No one liked my suggestion so we did one of the other ones, then a few months later it came up again as still too confusing and the designer came up with something new - that just so happened to be the same thing I had originally suggested. It's been that version ever since.

Switching to maintenance here meant that we're directly solving problems. Not just "thing is broken, fix it" but also creating simple for-purpose tools, refactoring and upgrading, and largely being able to plan our own work. It's been a great place to use the depth of knowledge built up over the years, though not so great for new devs to build that knowledge in the first place, like we typically would try and use the role for.

Re: Ask HN: Did you change career paths after 30?

#27

Post by [deleted] »

codegeek wrote: post #19
tsingy wrote: post #8

I'm trying to break into SE (at 32 from an accounting background), but not having a US/EU passport and living in a third world makes it hard. So I will say that depending on where you are from, things can get tricky. But the usual still stands, you get jobs by knowing the right people.

I don't know you and don't mean to insult but I advise you to change your mentality. Victimhood is a choice. Yes, you live in a 3rd world country where things are harder. But SE is one of the only fields where you don't need a degree, could work from anywhere in the world and still make decent money especially depending on the cost of living in your country. Plenty of poeple live in 3rd world countries and have found…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Did you change career paths after 30?

#28

Post by willsmith72 »

candiddevmike wrote: post #24
sharkweek wrote: post #4

Planning on it and I'm almost 40. I'm in tech now, but in life I really enjoy deep 1-1 time with people more than anything else I do at work. I've got a 5-year plan to leave tech and go back to school to become a therapist, specifically working with people suffering from OCD (and perhaps some other forms of anxiety). At this point it's mostly meeting with people in the industry to hear their stories, with a goal of a…

While you're meeting with them, look into the reasons therapists burn out. I'd take tech burn out over some of the horror stories I've heard from therapists. Computers can't stalk you, and for the most part can't "power themselves off" after you've spent a considerable amount of time trying to prevent that.

I've had many rough nights when computers "powered themselves off" despite much effort spent trying to prevent it...

Re: Ask HN: Did you change career paths after 30?

#29

Post by InvaderFizz »

Yes. I spent about 10 years doing military Satellite Communications, took a year off after a few years in the sandbox. I then switched to IT. Pivoted from Sysadmin to SRE/DevOps five years later.

Five more years after that and I make 10x what I did 10 years ago and am working towards FIRE. My family lives on I love the work I do (DevOps with a Security focus), and that year off I took I was miserable. I'll probably never really retire, just be to the point where I can do the work I need to in under four hours per day and travel.

Re: Ask HN: Did you change career paths after 30?

#30

Post by hellotheretoday »

sharkweek wrote: post #4

Planning on it and I'm almost 40. I'm in tech now, but in life I really enjoy deep 1-1 time with people more than anything else I do at work. I've got a 5-year plan to leave tech and go back to school to become a therapist, specifically working with people suffering from OCD (and perhaps some other forms of anxiety). At this point it's mostly meeting with people in the industry to hear their stories, with a goal of a…

Ha we can trade. I’ve been a private practice therapist for years, am almost 40, and am pivoting into tech. I did CS stuff a lot in high school and early college and find myself missing it a lot. Been doing a lot of hobby projects over the past few years and have even done some contract work. Might even do some school because I would like to converge all my interests at some point instead of just doing code monkey jobs forever.

I do a ton of work with exposure and response prevention for ocd. Also work with autism, more generalized anxiety issues, mood disorders, lgbt issues. Have history with pediatric patients, dissociative and homeless populations. Let me know if you have questions. I’m east coast, northeast specifically, but I’ve been doing this work for well over a decade now and would be happy to help guide if I can

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