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Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

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Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#141

Post by donretag »

upatricck wrote: post #64
grecy wrote: post #44

I quit my Software Engineering job and am now spending two years driving my Jeep around Africa. I'm working while on the road, writing for magazines, selling photos and filming a YouTube series. I am having the time of my life, and am extremely happy I made the decision I did. IMHO, sitting at a desk is just not worth it. Life is too short. I'm meeting a ton of people who agree, and are living the kind of life people…

Visit the Land of a thousand hills(Rwanda) while on the trip.

All the way up to Lake Kivu! As safe as Rwanda is, you need to be wary of the neighboring countries: DRC and Burundi.

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#142

Post by CodeWriter23 »

pieperz wrote: post #73

I got burnt out doing JS apps development during the past 2 years. I got laid off and knew I did not want a desk job anymore. I took what skills I had woodworking/web development and started a business. Its called Stump Crafters I build "stumps" to hammer nails in to its a pretty fun game and is not as dumb as it sounds. The game is in much the same vein as Cornhole, washers or other backyard games. I even made a cus…

Your stumps reminded me of a challenge of skill called "hunker hauser". Might be a different audience/market for a similar product.

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#143

Post by altitudinous »

I started writing some apps and then quit my tech job to do them full time. I took a big risk in quitting my job, I was making $3 a day at that point. I was EXTREMELY burned out with the work though (Java/Oracle dev) so was for my mental sanity. I learned how to make money quickly from the apps, I make 3 sometimes 4 figures a day so support myself. I chose evergreen apps, they are always popular. I delivered my first app 6 years ago, quit job 3 years ago. I have done apps enough, I am looking at getting back into other fields, likely that I will do tech again this year. First goal to achieve this year is a mortgage free home, then will consider how I feel about things. Apps are now passive, I am burned out on devving new ones, I like keeping the UI's on the existing ones up to date if I feel like doing something. I feel I am in a good position but indie apps has been lonely and has warped my social life - working for others has a social advantage. Apps also now 100% passive so want to have the advantage of earning $ while I can - make hay while the sun shines.

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#144

Post by grecy »

donretag wrote: post #141
upatricck wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visit the Land of a thousand hills(Rwanda) while on the trip.

All the way up to Lake Kivu! As safe as Rwanda is, you need to be wary of the neighboring countries: DRC and Burundi.

Yeah, I'm wary of DRC, but I have to cross it on my way South on the West coast. I'll go fast.

My research says Burundi is pretty stable.. I was planning to go there. Do you recommend otherwise?

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#145

Post by grecy »

thinnerlizzy wrote: post #109
grecy wrote: post #44

I quit my Software Engineering job and am now spending two years driving my Jeep around Africa. I'm working while on the road, writing for magazines, selling photos and filming a YouTube series. I am having the time of my life, and am extremely happy I made the decision I did. IMHO, sitting at a desk is just not worth it. Life is too short. I'm meeting a ton of people who agree, and are living the kind of life people…

How do you sell your photos, if you don't mind?

I pitch to magazines and other publications.

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#146

Post by ian0 »

grecy wrote: post #75
james_niro wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please next time take me with you

I have toyed with the idea of running some kind of "competition" where someone can win a couple of weeks on the trip with me. Fly into some airport, I will pick them up, tour them around a country or two and drop them off again. I have no idea if people would actually be into that, or stay away because I'm nuts. Serious question - would you go for that if I offered it?

You could look into providing airbnb experiences, though I assume they are generally repeatable and not once off.

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#147

Post by wyclif »

I quit during the first dot-com bomb. I was a UNIX sysadmin for a large company. I had been interested in geodesy and GPS/GIS for a long time, so I became a land surveyor and GPS/GIS technician. I also did a lot of hydrography and even LiDAR work.

In 2008, when the subprime mortgage crisis hit, everyone thought that the crash would only affect residential real estate, but that turned out to be false—it also took commercial property down, since nobody was buying and selling. The civil engineering firm I worked for laid off all 12 staff surveyors, including me, on the same day. We all ended up down the road at a pub, and the senior surveyors were buying the drinks and we reminisced for a while. But that was effectively the end of two-man survey crews and traditional total station/transit instrument tech. Now it's all robotics and scanning which means one man operations.

I then travelled for a while. I went to Israel and a few other countries in the Middle East, met a new girlfriend there, and got married. Before getting married, I decided to go back into technology and become a web developer and slowly move back into DevOps. Unlike some of the people in this thread, I enjoy working in tech a lot more now than I did when I started. I find that working conditions (remote, &c) and pay have improved a lot, and public understanding of what developers do has increased dramatically.

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#148

Post by ghr »

grecy wrote: post #75
james_niro wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please next time take me with you

I have toyed with the idea of running some kind of "competition" where someone can win a couple of weeks on the trip with me. Fly into some airport, I will pick them up, tour them around a country or two and drop them off again. I have no idea if people would actually be into that, or stay away because I'm nuts. Serious question - would you go for that if I offered it?

These guys (https://www.patreon.com/LaVagabonde) were/are running a competition to invite a handful of paetrons on board for a week or two. Seems like people go for it (https://youtu.be/zKwjPr9vINM?t=13m42s). GL!

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#149

Post by pieperz »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #142
pieperz wrote: post #73

I got burnt out doing JS apps development during the past 2 years. I got laid off and knew I did not want a desk job anymore. I took what skills I had woodworking/web development and started a business. Its called Stump Crafters I build "stumps" to hammer nails in to its a pretty fun game and is not as dumb as it sounds. The game is in much the same vein as Cornhole, washers or other backyard games. I even made a cus…

Your stumps reminded me of a challenge of skill called "hunker hauser". Might be a different audience/market for a similar product.

Thats looks like a lot of fun. I'm going to have to make a set and try it out.

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#150

Post by ewjordan »

rifung wrote: post #42
cerrelio wrote: post #11

I took two breaks from tech. One was for grad school, which I dropped out of after 3 semesters. Like some others in the thread I found academia to be pretty bad. You're paid shit and treated like a peon. The work was actually interesting, but I knew I could just go back to private industry and make 5-10x as much doing the same type of work. I took a break from "everything" at one point and became a nightlife photogra…

> The work was actually interesting, but I knew I could just go back to private industry and make 5-10x as much doing the same type of work. Don't you have much more freedom in academia on what you want to pursue though since it doesn't have to make money or am I mistaken? I'm considering going into academia because I'd like to do research more on the theory side for which there don't seem to be (m)any industry posit…

You'll have freedom to do the things that are fashionable in your field which you are qualified to research and are popular in your department. That's very different from "what you want to pursue" in many cases.

If those things match up with your desires, it will be great, otherwise you're going to be seriously miserable and feel penned in by the work that you're "allowed" (for on-campus political reasons) to do. In a lot of ways industry actually affords more opportunities, depending on the field.

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