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Ask HN: In mid 40s. What non-tech job can I do?

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Re: Ask HN: In mid 40s. What non-tech job can I do?

#91
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expect way less than 1/3 pay, though.

Is it really that bad? Where I live, I earn about $50 an hour as a dev. The McDonald's here pays around $20/hr. Hopefully bike mechanics don't earn less than fast food...?

Depends. If you are your own boss, with no store front or inventory, and have word of mouth advertising, and do quality work, it can be a good living. But if you work in someone else's retail bike shop you will be getting paid in the 20-25$/hr range if you're in a big city in the US.

Re: Ask HN: In mid 40s. What non-tech job can I do?

#92
For all those who successfully transitioned:

Did you already own your home?

I live in a HCOL area, and rent. Time off or transition to hobby-job that pays less, even if I have a lot of savings, means risking my ability to find a new rental if I need to move. Landlords want to see cash flow or they suspect you. Also rents are going crazy in the US.

Re: Ask HN: In mid 40s. What non-tech job can I do?

#93
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A close friend just moved across the country and back because what he thought would be his dream teaching job turned out to be laced with dramatic and patently insane identity politics as described. He is himself a socialist passionate about helping poor working class people, but his coworkers were snotty out-of-touch liberals with no conception of class divisions at all. They were intent on dividing society along ge…

And it's not just schools. It's also social work. And related fields. Basically, all the things you'd want to involve yourself in "to make a difference" are dominated by liberals.

I disagree that most "make a difference" fields are dominated by liberals. In my experience, many non-profit board members tend to be wealthy conservatives - bankers, car dealership owners, real estate brokers, etc. This can lead even organizations where the mission, staff or clients are mostly liberal to develop a conservative, elitist culture. Combined with the revolving door of donors and relatives into senior leadership roles, it also can lead an upper management that trends conservative.

Many low-paying social service jobs are filled by spouses of people with high-paying jobs. This can lead to an elitist culture, even in the lower levels.

There is also a lot of overlap between social service orgs and religious orgs which can lead to a conflict between mission and church doctrine.

All in all, I perceive it as being as diverse a field as the rest of society, and filled with many viewpoints. It doesn't seem dominated by one "side" or the other

Re: Ask HN: In mid 40s. What non-tech job can I do?

#94
post #88

If you're burned out now, you're not a good place to be making decisions about what you should do next. Since you've already planned to take at least a 6 month break, don't start thinking about what to do next for at least 3 months. You'll be able to consider what you want from your work with a clearer mind. If you've been working for 20 years nonstop, the idea of a break or not knowing what to do is probably utterly…

Have you sacrified pay to go into that field and how do you deal with that? You may still know people in the startup space, maybe some of them got quite wealthy while you are strolling along with your nonprofit (no offense, I just assume you wouldn't be paid as much). For me this issue is hard to deal with because I used to work at a FAANG, I burned out but don't think I could go back to tech at a tiny fraction of the compensation.

Re: Ask HN: In mid 40s. What non-tech job can I do?

#95

I took some time off to teach. Years later, I'm still doing it. I teach computer science and programming. This is a good field to go into, because (a) it applies my knowledge acquired from my earlier life as a developer, and (b) is always in demand. If you want to teach this, you will have no trouble getting a job at a high school, community college, or university. I would also argue it's not, strictly speaking, a te…

Much more emphasis required on the "people-oriented"ness of the job.

My wife has taught at the high school and community college levels for almost 15 years. Given ten years of her stories and experience (that's how long we've been together; DAMN TIME FLIES!), this is what I have to add:

1. Spend time at /r/professors and /r/teachers in Reddit. Read their stories. Ask questions. Warning: those subs are overwhelmingly negative for a reason.

2. I wouldn't recommend teaching CS at the high school level unless you have complete (and I mean COMPLETE) control over your schedule and curriculum and REALLY REALLY REALLY love teaching growing children. Because most school districts don't offer the former since they teach to national standards, the latter is much more important here.

3. Regardless of the level that you teach at, you'll essentially be casting a huge net hoping to catch a handful of fish. Lots of people only go to school because they have to. They don't care about learning and will suck up a LOT of your time, energy and patience. The only teachers/instructors/professors that universally get lots of love from students are the ones that give easy A's, which given the way that education as a whole is going, might not be a bad idea, unfortunately. (Much more profit-driven, even at the comm college level.)

This is less likely to happen if you teach upper-level courses, like CS2xx or 3xx courses. The students taking them are much more invested and want guidance. At community college, those students are almost-certainly trying to get into a four-year and want to improve their chances of a transfer. They'll be more receptive of your content, and you'll feel more fulfilled teaching it.

4. You probably won't be teaching CS2xx or 3xx levels.

At many schools, there are three rank levels: adjunct, staff, and full-time. Adjuncts are basically 1099s (contractors for the non-US folks) that get paid peanuts with no hope for career progression. Unlike tech, staff is essentially adjunct++. they take the schedules full-time faculty don't want, work as hard if not harder than them, and get paid less to much less for all that trouble. full-time faculty is where you want to be. you make your own schedule, get all of the time off, and get paid the best (though it's still peanuts relative to tech).

Academia is insanely gatekeeper-y about full-time faculty positions. Four-year colleges require Ph.Ds for those roles, no exceptions. Most large comm college networks do as well. Some smaller comm colleges are fine with just a Masters or Bachelors in a related course of study. As far as I understand it, colleges are often fine with hiring staff-level professors with industry experience alone, but you probably won't ever become full-time and will probably not have control over your schedule, courses, and students.

Also, most colleges relegate the upper-level stuff to full-time faculty only.

TL;DR: Do a LOT of research and ask lots of questions before becoming a teacher or instructor. Way more work than people think. Also, sub to /r/professor and /r/teachers on Reddit.

Re: Ask HN: In mid 40s. What non-tech job can I do?

#97
post #43

Consider finding your “Why” first. Then decide what to do. The method is really sound and you can do it within 2-3 hrs together with another person. There is a book outlining the method. It’s called “Find Your Why: A Practical Guide for Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team“. I did it with 2 friends. It was pretty eye opening for them.

I would second this. Also known as the Golden Circle I believe, but it basically boils down to everyone knows what they do (make widgets), and many people know how they do it (through mastery of some tricky to operate widget making machine), but very few people know why they make those particular widgets. Hint: it's not money.

Re: Ask HN: In mid 40s. What non-tech job can I do?

#100
post #70
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What helped for me was switching from a 5000 employee company to a 50 employee one. I really loved my previous job, but just witnessing the politics made me want to quit, and I'm glad I did.

Anything you miss about the 5000 employee company?

not OP but I've worked for startups and now for a big company. if I went back to a smaller place I would deeply miss the ability to work on projects that lasted longer than a quarter before delivering tangible results.
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