[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How can I get out of tech?
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Ask HN: How can I get out of tech?
Long story short, I'm a veteran and I receive treatment for PTSD.
I've struggled for years. Treatment is helping but I feel that I am
no longer "hacking it". I have an easy job right now, but I have no
idea how long it will last. I'm barely doing anything. I'm
interviewing at a new company but I can no longer cut it when I get
to the tech screenings. I don't sleep much, maybe 4 hours a night
if I'm lucky. I have decent chops but I've never been amazing at
the interview game and I feel like this time around, my mind is so
fuzzy and stupid. I really, really need to just slow down and do
something simpler, but I have kids and a mortgage to pay and I
don't know how I can afford to stop receiving the income I have.
I'm welcome to any thoughts / ideas / suggestions, but I'm
especially looking for ways I can just slow down, change careers
and quit tech altogether. I have a few irons in the fire, but
nothing that I could get off the ground quickly and make a decent
income. I'd really love to be a guitar teacher.
Author : potta_coffee
Score : 63 points
Date : 2024-01-12 21:26 UTC (1 hours ago)
| dudul wrote:
| God do I hear you. If I could make the same money painting houses
| or working in a library I would do it in a snap.
|
| It's probably mostly me, but tech today seems so boring, dumb,
| and shallow. It was so much more fun 10 or 15 years ago.
| hondo77 wrote:
| > It's probably mostly me
|
| It's not.
| askafriend wrote:
| Maybe it's not tech and it's just that you were younger 10 or
| 15 years ago?
| nsxwolf wrote:
| 15 years ago I remember a lot more experimentation was
| encouraged and a lot less process. I could have an idea and
| get an enthusiastic "go for it". I could improve the way we
| deployed code. We had some semblance of "agile" but it was
| much more informal. I had passwords to everything.
|
| Now everything is locked down. Everything is decided. The
| technologies are chosen, the process is complete and rigidly
| enforced. I pull tickets off the board at the start of a
| sprint. I finish the tickets. Day in and day out.
| n_time wrote:
| I think this is more of an organisational thing, as well as
| likely your team within the organisation
| nsxwolf wrote:
| I can't tell the last 3 companies I worked for apart. It
| seems like a large percentage of companies today operate
| the same way. "Agile with 2 week sprints" never ending
| death march.
| solardev wrote:
| (As someone who often works for smaller orgs) It doesn't
| HAVE to be that way. None of the smaller orgs I've worked
| for use those systems. Only the big techy ones with a lot
| of bureaucracies do. They pay better, but you do much
| less, and push around a lot of paperwork instead of code.
| There ARE alternatives. Your average small town non-IT
| company probably still needs developers here and there,
| and they won't have the resources for the overhead of
| Agile bullshit. You'll typically have the keys to the
| kingdom and have to make shit work with very limited
| resources and a tiny team, but it's a heck lot more fun.
|
| I tried a big corpo job for a bit, ugh, never again.
| raccoonDivider wrote:
| The things people experimented with 15 years ago are mostly
| settled now. Maybe you'd like a research engineer job in a
| lab or startup?
| dudul wrote:
| The main difference I've experienced is how people take
| themselves so seriously. The incessant hustle culture is so
| laughable, especially when you're working on a dumb app.
|
| The tech itself is also an issue as you said. 15 years ago
| I was writing code, or at a minimum reading code to make it
| work. Now it's all these off the shelf AWS/GCP things that
| sort of work but you spend days to glue them together. You
| keep relearning the same thing because they all use
| slightly different versions of the same scripting language
| just because.
| gbin wrote:
| You are probably not in the right company. A lot of
| startups are what you are describing.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| I was in tech for 35+ years - yes, I'm old. I'm out now not
| because I don't like the work, I really do and I'd prefer to
| be doing interesting work. I'm out because I'm tired of the
| interview games that are played now - that and I've pretty
| much got my retirement nestegg saved up.
|
| Tech has definitely changed. Having to go through 8 or 9
| rounds of interviews for one position only to find out you
| weren't selected at the end (that is if they don't just ghost
| you) wasn't a thing when I got into this line of work. In
| fact most of my early jobs I got after only 1 or 2 interviews
| for maybe a total of 90 minutes.
|
| Part of it is that companies are just so damn afraid to hire
| the "wrong" person that they just can't make a decision. Part
| of it is because there are so many people looking for tech
| jobs right now that companies feel like they can play these
| silly games. More people need to refuse to play.
| dudul wrote:
| I still remember my 1st interview for my 1st job out of
| college: "You know java?" "Yes" "when can you start?"
| nfw2 wrote:
| I work as an engineer at a university. The pay isn't great but
| cost of living is a fraction of somewhere like SF. The pace of
| work is pretty relaxed. The interview process was more relaxed
| too, less intense problem-solving and more conversations about
| experience.
| solardev wrote:
| Do you mean you work as a software engineer, or some other type
| (mechanical, civil, etc.)?
|
| I'm currently studying to become an environmental engineer
| (after burning out on web dev) and would love to hear more of
| your experience, if you did something similar?
|
| Or if you meant software engineering, I apologize for
| misunderstanding :)
| mandevil wrote:
| When you say you work as an engineer, are you a professor of
| engineering or doing IT/development stuff for the university as
| a staff employee?
|
| If you are staff how does that differ from any other non-big-
| tech company? Is there something (besides location in a LCOL
| area) that makes it more appealing than working as an engineer
| for any other small firm?
|
| If you are on the academic side was that job particularly easy
| to get? I don't have any friends who are academic engineers,
| but my friends who got Ph.D's in humanities and hard sciences
| found building an academic career very difficult, is
| engineering an easier career to make and keep?
| mrcartmeneses wrote:
| Have you tried talking to your wife about a change of income?
| Becoming a guitar teacher would be a wonderful career and give
| you riches money can't buy. It might be disappointing at first
| for the family to adjust to a different financial situation. But
| having a happier and more present dad/husband will be worth it.
| By the sounds of it you're ready to implode anyway. So it's
| better to make the change in a controlled manner than with a
| sudden influx of pressure.
| epic9x wrote:
| I have no frame of reference for how PTSD must impact your life
| but it must be so hard - thank you for your service.
|
| I do have empathy and a frame of reference as someone who also
| struggles with quality and quantity of sleep - sleeping only four
| hours a night makes you a train wreck of a person. Even if you
| could and do this now, it is not sustainable and can create
| feelings of extreme burnout. You likely you have become numb to
| how vast an impact this is having on you. (I say this as someone
| who ignored this for years and realized I was losing weeks at a
| time to living in a fog of exhaustion). I urge you to work on
| this and then make a bigger life change.
| Fin_Code wrote:
| If you leave tech your taking a salary cut. If you can't afford
| that you need to cope better. That means no booze, clean eating
| and at least 30 minutes of cardio a day. If you do those things
| and still have issues its time for medication.
| goethes_kind wrote:
| Have you considered being a product owner instead of an
| individual contributor?
| n_time wrote:
| There's a lot of programming gigs in the public sector or in
| larger boring organisations. They pay less but are also have
| lower expectations and more structure which are both great
|
| No PTSD but dealing with burn out I needed to find something
| else, and that's what I tried. So far it's paying off.
| michaelrpeskin wrote:
| Seconded.
|
| Especially since you're a veteran, look at government (and in
| particular DoD) contractors. The pace is slower and as an SME
| you could contribute in many areas.
| acdha wrote:
| I'd especially recommend the VA: they're both generally
| inclined to hire veterans and specifically against writing
| people off, and they have a ton of modernization projects
| which will improve matters for millions of people.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| like this? https://www.tinker.af.mil/Units/Oklahoma-City-Air-
| Logistics-...
| RajT88 wrote:
| There are also a lot of tech jobs which pay well which don't
| involve programming!
|
| (Everyone assumes a poster is a SWE here - not necessarily the
| case)
|
| Tech jobs not involving programming:
|
| - Support - Ops - TAM - Networking - Architect - etc.
| aisuujudjdn wrote:
| Be careful, there are also programming jobs like this that pay
| less and also have less structure and higher expectations.
|
| It's not an absolute rule that "boring" companies or whatever
| are walks in the park.
|
| In a lot of cases they aren't because they actually have to
| make a profit and so they tend to be incredibly understaffed at
| least by the standards I kinda got used to in the tech
| industry. I can only speak for finance and insurance though,
| maybe the government really is slow paced but people said that
| about insurance before I got this job and its the hardest I've
| ever had to work and it isn't even close.
|
| Now if most of the stress is actually coming from fear of
| layoffs, that genuinely is better in my experience, there
| havent been any programmers laid off in the three years I've
| been here, but only because you are working so much harder that
| they literally cannot afford to lay anybody off. Checks would
| probably stop going out on time if they did.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Have you thought about going to your local church and
| volunteering there?
|
| I feel communion and fellowship with humans can really help when
| trying to break out of a rut.
| tacheiordache wrote:
| How about the mortgage, the mouths to feed and other financial
| obligations? Or are you suggesting volunteering in addition to
| keeping the tech job?
| gbin wrote:
| This reply is full of assumptions... What if this person is
| secular? Or from one of the other hundreds of spiritual
| flavors? How would you react if somebody tells you to head to a
| mosque because you are not feeling well?
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >How would you react if somebody tells you to head to a
| mosque because you are not feeling well?
|
| Personally, I'd thank them for showing a genuine welcoming
| kindness and sharing something that has made their life much
| richer.
| solardev wrote:
| I don't know if this will work in the long term, but I'm
| currently going back to school to try to change careers after
| doing web dev for way too long.
|
| I imagine there must be some scholarships for vets? And if you've
| never done this before, any US citizen should be eligible for a
| bunch of federal and state financial aid and loans that can help
| you offset the income. There are also many on-campus jobs (not
| necessarily just for youngins) that can provide a somewhat
| livable wage along with benefits and discounted tuition --
| nowhere near tech salaries, of course. Might that be worth
| considering?
|
| Afterward, I know many colleges also teach guitar, but I don't
| know if those teachers are actually considered faculty (i.e.
| full-time with benefits) or just one of their exploited
| "lecturers" =(
|
| -------------
|
| Separately, a friend of mine is a "self-made" guitar teacher who
| mostly just played gigs at restaurants and cafes for a few years,
| slowly built up a student base, and now does it full-time, both
| in-person and online (via Zoom). His students love him... it was
| a hard road to get there (6-7 years of really really hard work)
| but he eventually made it work!
| hobs wrote:
| Enterprise support pays pretty well, is pretty stable, and
| requires less deep thought type of stuff; if you can transition
| to supporting something that's expensive (finance, payroll, ATS,
| CRM stuff) you can probably just close tickets and talk to folks.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| > but I have kids and a mortgage to pay and I don't know how I
| can afford to stop receiving the income I have.
|
| Start doing what you can. You can't make it on half of your
| income, but can you make it on 80%? Start trying to live that
| way, to build up your runway.
|
| Can you afford to stop for, say, six months? If so, can you ask
| your job for a leave of absence for six months?
| autoexec wrote:
| Management? It might even let you stick around at your current
| place of employment while meaning that the ever changing tech
| stuff wouldn't be your problem anymore. The techs under you will
| appreciate your experience, and you can spend a lot more time
| sitting in meetings, working with spreadsheets, and dealing with
| employee/scheduling issues.
|
| If you think this might be a temp situation, why not just take a
| leave of absence and get whatever job pays the bills for a few
| months. Keeps the door open to come back at least.
| huytersd wrote:
| Management is stress. The last thing this man should get into
| is management.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Why would you leave an easy job to take on a new challenge now
| when you are struggling with sleep. It's the worst time to
| interview. Slow your role a bit.. spend a few months practising
| interviews or learning a new skill. Be happy to be where you are
| now. Revisit in the summer
| tristanMatthias wrote:
| Not sure if you've looked into psychedelic therapy? It has a high
| success rate for PTSD in veterans. In particular ketamine,
| psilocybin and MDMA.
|
| Not to call it a "one pill solution" but there are cases of
| people's PTSD being cured after a single session.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Slightly tangential but in case you aren't aware: there are a lot
| of very promising treatments for PTSD in clinical trials these
| days. It may be worth looking into those. Navigating the clinical
| trial ecosystem can be pretty grueling and confusing but if this
| is something you really want to try, I am willing to help (email:
| my first name + @ selectiq.ai)
|
| Not a doctor, not a trial expert, but I probably have a better
| grasp on the system than a layperson.
| nickspicer1993 wrote:
| Hello, I don't have PTSD but I do have extreme anxiety and have
| been in the state you sound like your in now. It sounds like you
| are being triggered by something and your body is in a constant
| state of fight or flight causing your brain fog. I would talk
| with your therapist to try and tease out if it is definitely your
| work that is doing it?
|
| I think it would be best to try and get to a state where you are
| sleeping properly and do not experience brain fog before making
| any larger changes. If therapy is not working try a course of
| SSRIs if you are not already one, coupled with really focusing on
| avoiding sugars, alcohol and caffeine, while drinking enough
| water.
|
| If you experience no changes after doing the above after 4-6
| weeks try to put together a game plan for long term change, that
| will require slow methodical thought about what you need and what
| your family requires. Best of luck and PTSD is the absolute
| worst, feel free to message me anytime.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| Perhaps you could try basic technology freelancing as a way to
| keep a basic income running. There are always lots of people,
| local business owners etc., who want basic websites but don't
| have the time to maintain them. As you're a veteran and have
| experience in the technology industry, I would imagine that you'd
| be pretty well-respected in your community. Keeping a Wordpress
| or Drupal instance up-to-date and the DNS secure is already way
| beyond most people's ability, but it really requires a
| trustworthy figure to manage, especially when their businesses'
| reputation is tied to their website.
|
| If this is practical, you could gradually increase or lower the
| amount of sites you manage to keep an income up while you test
| the waters teaching the guitar.
|
| (I'm assuming by 'tech' you're referring to software development)
| gbin wrote:
| What about an adjacent move? For example IT you could leverage
| your knowledge for a for less emotionally heavy 9 to 5? (And you
| would be really good at it!)
| jrgoff wrote:
| Have you looked into options around medical leave and/or
| disability? It certainly sounds like your health is impacting
| your ability to do your job so those seem like appropriate
| avenues to explore. Hopefully if you are able to make use of
| those options they would provide you enough of a buffer to
| relieve some of the stress you are experiencing and get back on
| top of your health.
| globalise83 wrote:
| Firstly, you have a LOT of skills which are highly valuable to
| the world. Secondly, you might feel and even be right that due to
| your psychological state you can't perform at the level that a
| hardcore venture-capital-backed tech company requires and that's
| OK. Thirdly, even at whatever level of performance you are
| capable of there are companies where you'd be the best tech
| wizard around. Look for places where technology is mostly
| considered a supporting factor. As an example from my previous
| experience: academic publishing. Nice, clever people, academic
| vibe, mostly haven't a clue about technology. You could do some
| kind of data work to make their publishing process more digital
| first, or help them build a better online direct-to-consumer
| e-shop. Probably there's a hundred industries just like it that
| are not the tech industry but are having to become tech companies
| in some way. Don't waste your valuable knowledge but find
| somewhere that you can work at a different tempo.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| You're not gonna get the combination of good
| compensation/agreeable workload anywhere other than tech.
|
| I work in general STEM and the compensation gap even between tech
| STEM and non-tech STEM is huge. A mid level IT guy with a handful
| of certs will pull more than a senior chemist with a masters
| degree. And work from home to boot.
|
| Just figure out how to stay in tech if you need a decent livable
| income and want free time.
| ramijames wrote:
| I dealt with crippling depression and anxiety for most of my
| adult life. I used alcohol to try and tamp it down and that went
| about as well as you can expect.
|
| After decades of failed therapy, failed pharmaceuticals, etc.
| what really worked for me was taking mushrooms and thinking
| deeply about myself, my life, and who I wanted to be.
|
| It sounds nuts, but it dramatically changed how I perceive myself
| and my place within the world. It saved my marriage and my
| relationship with my kids.
|
| I realize that it is utterly unorthodox, but nothing else was
| working for me. For those that I come across who feel like
| nothing is helping, I recommend trying it. Preferably under the
| supervision of a clinical psychiatrist, but otherwise if there is
| no other option.
|
| It's been about 18 months and I'm a fundamentally different
| person today.
| jacobmarble wrote:
| Army Veteran here. I had mild PTSD after my one tour. It's
| resolved now.
|
| Now I work in tech (SWE and now Engineering Manager) at a SF
| startup.
|
| I'm sorry you're going through this. Feel free to contact me at
| jacobmarble at gmail.
|
| We moved from Southern California to the Idaho mountains a few
| years ago, because working for BigCo in BigCity was numbing.
| After the fun I had in college, and the intensity of the Army,
| it's easy to get bored and distracted by the beige walls and
| brutal politeness of everything since. The mountains have helped
| a lot, and I still get to work in tech.
| whiddershins wrote:
| I would suggest reading "So Good They Can't Ignore You" and
| specifically the part about making diagonal career changes
| instead of restarting from scratch.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore-You/dp/14555091...
|
| The short version is: Don't think of it as "get out of tech."
| Think, how can I move into a career that builds on what I already
| have in terms of skills and so forth, but has a very different
| day to day experience.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| I don't have PTSD, but do struggle with other health
| complications.
|
| Focusing on the aspects of your health you can control (diet,
| exercise, to at least some extent sleep) won't cure you, but
| it'll make it easier to cope with the problems you have.
|
| If you haven't already, by the way, look into melatonin. I get a
| couple of bottles of the liquid from a company in the US called
| Pure Nootropics, and a 0.25ml under the tongue every evening
| really helps me fall asleep and stay asleep.
| WesternWind wrote:
| Well you can always do IT style tech work for a non-tech company.
| You will still easily solve 90% of their problems because it's
| configuring gmail or adding a form to a Wordpress site or getting
| a printer to work.
| namuol wrote:
| What you're describing sounds a lot like early/partial
| retirement. The effect of changing careers could have a similar
| impact financially too. So probably the same kind of principles
| you'd use when retiring apply here. The challenge is that you
| still have big expenses/dependents.
|
| Government help seems worth pursuing if you aren't already. You
| may consider changing locale to cut living expenses or to arrange
| your life around your biggest expenses. Could refinance or get a
| home equity loan to float you while you look for a new path.
|
| But I'm no finance expert and I've never retired or changed
| careers.
|
| Overall the constraints here are probably financial. So your hard
| constraints are likely going to be what dictate your options. It
| might help to find a financial advisor to help put your
| constraints into clear terms so you can see what your options
| are.
|
| Best of luck; I hope you can find some peace of mind and/or hope
| from some of the comments in this thread. Take care~
| sirsinsalot wrote:
| I've been in the same boat. IMHO you need rest. Having PTSD or
| any anxiety related disorder is like having dodgy knees. If you
| hurt them running, it is best mot to run and instead get some
| physio.
|
| Your brain is more complex than knees (sadly) and so it is even
| more important to get rest and physio when strain happens.
|
| In this case physio is therapy. Take the weight off your knees.
| Stop trying to run. Heal up. Go slow. Regain stamina slowly.
| Walk. Then run.
|
| It may not be ideal, it may result in lower income, but that's
| life. You don't need to give up a certain career path or get out
| of tech.
|
| Move to engineering management, join a gov org, move to something
| slow moving like defense. Something so encumbered with
| legislation that the whole thing moves slow. Incidentally those
| are the areas of tech that often change the least, helping get
| off that treadmill.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Man, I feel for you. I'm fortunate in that I'm able to retire out
| of tech. It wasn't always this bad. Companies didn't used to be
| so scared to death that they were going to hire the "wrong"
| person - which has led to long chains of interviews and decision
| paralysis. I'm hearing that 8 or 9 rounds of interviews for a
| position isn't unusual anymore. In the late 80s, mid 90s it
| wasn't unusual to get hired right there on the spot after an hour
| or two of interviewing.
|
| As for advice... I'm not sure what to tell you. I think if I were
| in my 30s at this point I'd look into being an electrician. The
| pay is good and there will be plenty of work. And it's not likely
| to be automated for another 20 years or so.
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