[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Has any one successfully pivoted away from t...
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Ask HN: Has any one successfully pivoted away from tech?
Looking for advice from those who've successfully left tech. I've
been in for 3 1/2 years (since graduating). In large part my career
has felt like it has been failing upwards. Recently, I quit my job
and have gotten to a point where I'm starting to think I'm not cut
out for this. A few comments on this: 1. I'm not really
progressing far into interviews, especially in the technical
portions. 2. Some simple tech questions are now throwing me
through a loop. 3. With the negative feedback I've gotten my
motivation has basically reduced to 0. 4. I've traditionally
struggled with logic tasks and have had to take more time than my
peers to solve them. 5. I've had a hard time connecting and
relating to co-workers and team members. My resume reads nicely:
https://github.com/arrjayh/arrjayh-
resume/blob/master/hickok_resume.pdf and I fortunately get lots of
interviews but they pretty quickly fizzle out after 1 or 2
technical assessments. I'm considering/looking into the trades.
I'm hoping there might be a trade where I could leverage some
existing skills, but I find that unlikely. Would love to get some
feedback from any one out there that has pivoted or at least
considered it.
Author : arrjayh
Score : 12 points
Date : 2022-07-13 19:51 UTC (3 hours ago)
| mattewong wrote:
| Yes. I was a CS major. My resume wasn't too different from yours.
| I got tired of being narrowly focused. Went back to b-school for
| various reasons, among them, to get a "clean slate" in terms of
| job opportunities-- ie to avoid being pigeon-holed. It worked,
| and it was expensive, but the jobs on the other side made it
| worthwhile. So my journey was: tech, business school, wall
| street.
|
| From what I can tell there are many opportunities if you are
| "tech + X", where X is _real_ experience in a (non-tech)
| industry. In my case it was finance, and once I had a few yrs
| experience with that, I had lots of choices because every firm
| wanted someone who both understood their business and how to use
| technology to supercharge it. Funny enough, 15 years later, I
| decided to do something different again... and went back to tech.
| andmikey wrote:
| I've just graduated in Computer Science and I'm trying this
| pivot as well, but without the b-school (yet). ~2 years of tech
| work experience during my degree and I realised tech just
| doesn't work for me right now. Starting in a much more
| generalist business role soon where it's really helpful to have
| tech knowledge. Glad to know it's worked out for you :)
| readme wrote:
| i got burnt out once so I joined the military
|
| 8 years later everything is pretty great and i work in tech again
|
| if you're in half decent shape one option is to become a military
| officer
| arrjayh wrote:
| I've heavily considered this but I think the commitment/life
| style would interfere too much with what I've already
| established for myself- would hate to spend less time with my
| pup.
| anewpersonality wrote:
| Why not switch to product management?
| arrjayh wrote:
| It's an option and I ought to take a closer look into it. That
| being said, due to my point 5, I think it might be a tough fit.
| Having to drive and manage a product with people you don't get
| along with sounds like it could be difficult and not rewarding.
| rootsudo wrote:
| "5. I've had a hard time connecting and relating to co-workers
| and team members."
|
| Yeah, me too - I connect only on hobbies, but as I get older, I
| don't really externalize what I do.
|
| Take a break, that's why you quit - enjoy life, see what you want
| to do. :)
| arrjayh wrote:
| | but as I get older, I don't really externalize what I do.
|
| How has this changed the team dynamics- do you get an overall
| sense of a disconnect from the rest of your team? I've never
| been one to share my hobbies, maybe I need to be more vocal
| about the things I do outside of work.
| dmfdmf wrote:
| When I was in engineering I saw a lot of engineers (ME, EE, etc)
| pivot to sales/marketing and do well. Their education and
| experience allowed them to help match client's needs with the
| companies products without getting into the nuts and bolts.
| hellohowareu wrote:
| Do you enjoy working as a SWE?
|
| I'm not a super great SWE-- I'm just a full stack javascript-
| oriented developer (With experience in a few other languages).
| Since I am already familiar with full stack apps, they're getting
| a little boring for me (since they're mostly CRUD, with some
| customized processing thrown in).
|
| However my current company is letting me train in DevOps: stuff
| like kubernetes, helm, terraform. I am really appreciating the
| opportunity to learn new skills and grow my career. And, it will
| likely result in a promotion & higher pay.
|
| The reason I ask if you enjoy SWE, is because you might be able
| to transition into DevOps, or Software Sales for example-- or
| some other SWE adjacent role, which uses your SWE skills.
|
| If you don't enjoy SWE & the tech industry, then that's another
| story.
|
| That said, learning trades is a great idea-- for one thing, you'd
| be interdisciplinary: a combination of tech/SWE experience &
| trades experience may be a highly valuable combination-- for
| example, you might come up with new product/service ideas. Or you
| can consult with trades businesses about their IT / Business
| processes, for example.
|
| Looking at your resume-- I think it's awesome you have a CS
| degree. I kinda wish I did-- I don't have a technical degree but
| I am considering getting one just to improve my career a bit.
|
| That said-- I failed a Amazon interview (for Solutions
| Architect-- i really wasn't ready for that sort of role without
| some training) and for a Google interview (for solutions
| engineer-- but now that I am training in DevOps I felt that the
| Google Solutions Engineer role isn't technical enough for me, and
| I don't think it even pays as much as my current role or a
| potential future role I could have as an Infrastructure-
| oriented/experienced SWE).
|
| If you want to work in Tech, I'd say two things: 1. keep trying
| and 2. consider applying to and/or training for adjacent roles
|
| Other than that... yeah, trades could work out too :shrug:
| baremetal wrote:
| I was in software engineering for 13 years. Took a couple years
| off. Moved away from the bay area to idaho and bought farmland.
| Walked up to a jobsite and got a job framing so i could learn to
| build my own house, started at $12/hr. Two years later and now i
| make $50 an hour and own my own business. And i collect rent on
| the farmland every year.
|
| Ive never been more fit in my life. Which was also a goal of
| mine. Its like going to the gym all day, or an adult jungle gym.
| I dont know that i would want to do it for more than 5 years
| though. So i anticipate starting other businesses at some point
| in the near future.
|
| I have no debt or dependents though. I cant recommend this path
| to someone who does have either of those.
| LewisVerstappen wrote:
| I'd think harder before pivoting. Very few people are just
| naturally good at technical interviews.
|
| What have you done to prepare?
| arrjayh wrote:
| I've worked through portions of this book:
| https://www.techinterviewhandbook.org/ -- I'm hesitant to
| invest too much time into studying these kinds of questions due
| to the inconsistencies I'm seeing across companies and their
| interview processes. In the last month over ~15 interviews the
| questions have been all over the map.
| pyuser314 wrote:
| There are tons of rewarding companies (probably smaller) that
| would never ask those interview questions.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Here's a list: https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-
| whiteboards
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(page generated 2022-07-13 23:03 UTC)