41–50 of 570 posts
Left to work in equities after 5 years of software dev. I find the work much more stimulating mentally, as you learn about the world and how business works, not just abstractions. Luckily there is still a lot of use from my old skill set, and I suspect there will be more as time goes on.
I think about law school or an MBA at least once a week. The opportunity cost is extremely high though. It's pretty hard leaving six figures of income in a low cost of living (and the grass is always greener I'm sure).
Leaving a high paying job isn't very hard if you don't have many commitments. I left a decent paying job to attend grad school and so far its been rewarding.
Second time, I took some time to execute on a non profit to help our local community. Being good with data really help organizing event people really liked so I tried to spin that into a startup and failed. Like other commenters said, I was doing stuff I didn't really like.
I'm back to programming but I'm really glad I tried different things. Not everything was a failure, I eat fresh organic food from my friend's farm and I have an impact on my local community.
With that fear in mind, becoming a M.D. actually seems like it would be a good decision. Even this late in the process, doctors have been well paid and relatively rare for thousands of years; a tried and true profession. Plus it will sate my curiosity about the function of the human body.
I sometimes day dream though about doing something outside of software such as landscaping or remodeling houses. Something I can do away from the screen & keyboard. Something that still involves creating and being able to see the end results of your creation.
Left to work in equities after 5 years of software dev. I find the work much more stimulating mentally, as you learn about the world and how business works, not just abstractions. Luckily there is still a lot of use from my old skill set, and I suspect there will be more as time goes on.
Can I ask how you got started in the field? I actually began my career in Accounting (my undergrad is in it), and still find the world of finance pretty interesting. Somewhere along the line I ended up in Engineering and have been a Software Dev ever since. But I do still think about getting into trading at some point, but not sure how to transition.
Even with a gratifying job full of technical challenges, I feared I was becoming a 9to5 zombie. So, I got a new job a few weeks ago. I joined a non profit offering free WiFi in the city as the one man army tech guy. Instead of just software/web/mobile development, I also have kind of managerial type of responsibility and more public relation to do. It's something like a safe steady job with nearly startup mindset.
There's still a bit of programming involved, but it's so different from what I know that it's a real professional challenge. And for that I had to accept a big salary downgrade.
It really depends on what's your motivation. Is it salary, challenges that go in pair with your personal growth or simply working in a different context / mindset?
That may be the tasks you do that aren't fulfilling? For some people, manual work is really gratifying. Last week I was setting new cables in a patch panel; there's nothing challenging about it but it's simple and you can be proud of a cleanly done job.
Today I do both but I'm extremely thankful I stuck with programming. Not just as a useful job skill but as a different, powerful way to see the world.