[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Those of you who've left the SWE world, what...
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Ask HN: Those of you who've left the SWE world, what did you
transition into?
After 13 years in SWE, working for startups, bigger companies, the
golden handcuffs, etc, I can finally say that I think I'm finished.
Right now I'm contracting to stay afloat, maintain flexibility and
delve into entrepreneurship, but I truly don't know what the future
holds for me anymore if building my own company doesn't work out. I
have 0 inclination to go back to a 9-5 at a company coding for a
living. I'm done. I've been an EM, which might arguably be the most
miserable position that exists. I've been senior/staff at places,
and honestly I just don't enjoy arguing about the structure of
software anymore, I'm tired of the personalities, tired of the
infantilization of the industry (frankly, it's embarrassing) but
mostly, I just don't enjoy coding as much as I used to, unless I'm
leveraging it to create an asymmetrical amount of value for me
($$$$) which is just not what a full time job is. However, I don't
know what to look into as an alternative if I need a full time
position once my wife and I start having kids. My strengths revolve
around people and strategy. I've been considering sales at a tech
company because to me, working harder and having an unlimited cap
in what I can earn sounds pretty fantastic. Would love to hear any
kinds of stories or tips from folks
Author : volkk
Score : 131 points
Date : 2024-06-24 21:20 UTC (1 hours ago)
| okasaki wrote:
| Why do you need to argue (whatever that means to you)? Just take
| a ticket, do the work, and check out mentally at the end of the
| day.
| refulgentis wrote:
| EM = engineering manager.
|
| Re: arguing and why not just avoid it:
|
| During my brief (7 year) sojourn at one place that was not-my-
| company (Google), you end up with a mix of personalities, and
| it's _very_ hard to convince people who believe there 's a
| Right Way to do things that there is no Right Way, so you just
| sort of have to muddle through figuring out how to be
| productive without irritating people, or as an EM, leaving them
| thinking you're negligent.
|
| Conversely, theoretically, it's hard to convince people who are
| slopping through and rushing code to slow down. (in _practice_
| , this wasn't a problem at Google, but it's worth mentioning
| for completeness.)
|
| Case study: 6 person team. 1 EM who ended up doing 20% of the
| code, 1 me who did 60%, 2 who did 10% each, only do things when
| directly asked, and they couldn't find an excuse to kick the
| can down the road due to "ambiguity" that was product/design's
| fault, and then two who, in all seriousness, never contributed
| code to this year-long project: 1 who wanted OOP-to-the-max
| InjectedFoobarManagerFactory, another who definitely didn't
| want anything like that, but didn't really have an alternate
| proposal, they just loved explaining endlessly and
| authoritatively why anything else brought up was bad.
|
| (what did they do if they weren't contributing? the first would
| write vaguely productive "experiments" for other teams, that
| obviously wouldn't ship, in the code repo they were used to.
| took them 18-24 months to make their first code contribution to
| our actual code repo, the other wandered off to some other
| random project in the org. EM was new and out 3/4 of the
| project for new child leave)
| Ethee wrote:
| To add to this, it feels to me like SWEs have the biggest
| egos as well without a related checking mechanism. In other
| engineering disciplines getting something wrong very often
| comes back to you as the engineer, in SWE it feels like there
| are so many abstractions people like to point fingers at
| instead. "It's not my code that's the issue, its X
| implementation's fault" the amount of times I've heard
| something similar to this is too often.
| refulgentis wrote:
| 100%. I don't know what to call it other than coddling, but
| there was very, very, very, little true responsibility.
| Safety in the herd: don't let the people who got the stuff
| done get too up in their heads about it, via their design
| had issues at the end of the day, and conversely, if I did
| deliver something of low quality, it was someone else's
| design that was the problem.
|
| All the firing BS in from mid-2022 in this industry was
| poorly motivated, and a lot of the initial wave was used
| for settling political scores, and there's a lot still
| there. But I hope in the long run it engenders a stronger
| sense of needing to have some sort of shared reality and
| responsibility.
| quicklime wrote:
| You might be right that SWEs have the biggest egos compared
| to other engineering disciplines. When I've worked with
| mechanical and electrical engineers, that was the case.
|
| But where I work now, the biggest egos are easily the
| people _around_ the SWEs - especially architects and
| product owners. Is that not the case where you work?
| withinboredom wrote:
| > it's very hard to convince people who believe there's a
| Right Way to do things that there is no Right Way
|
| I worked with a guy who claimed they'd worked at Google
| (probably not you, fwiw). They were SO SURE there WAS ONE
| TRUE WAY, and I'm 90% sure the actual definition was
| "whatever way this guy [me] wants to do it is not the TRUE
| WAY."
|
| I almost quit dealing with that guy, but I ended up wandering
| to some other random project in the org.
|
| Dude was whack though. I'll never forget when we hired a guy
| and he was saying "if the hiring team thinks he's good
| enough, he's clearly not because they hired this guy
| [pointing at me]." Fuck that guy.
|
| I might not be the best coder in any room, but I'm a pretty
| solid engineer.
| hkt wrote:
| This is a dramatically unpleasant way to live, though. Op is
| asking out of a desire to have a fulfilling life and clearly
| isn't finding fulfilment in SWE.
| palata wrote:
| The keywords were: "check out mentally at the end of the
| day".
|
| You can have a fulfilling life out of work. It doesn't mean
| that you have to be miserable at work, but it's also
| important to realize that "being productive" is not the only
| way to live.
|
| Those who make a fortune with software generally don't work
| on improving society; on the contrary they generally are
| bigger contributors to the problem. Whether they realize it
| and accept it in exchange for the cash or actually think they
| deserve that kind of money is a different question.
| obvustroweh wrote:
| I'm not OP and I ask myself that question daily?
|
| I have a job that is financially viable at a small, good,
| profitable firm... that has less stellar engineering management
| (not bad people wise)... and I care deeply about my craft. I'm
| a child hood coder with also a deep "Protestant Work Ethic."
|
| I have semi-checked out at work, it's mentally taxing to know
| the systems could be better. I also know after 5 years my hard
| work and going the extra mile" will not be rewarded so I coast
| with my above-average reviews... but I feel guilt and mental
| anguish and stress and worry I'll be found for a fraud (not
| imposter syndrome way, in a "I could do better and will be
| punished for not" way)
|
| For some of us it's a passion not a paycheck. Although the pay
| is nice.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| That's a very unsatisfying way to work. I like software design
| and architecture and even arguing about it as long as people do
| it in good faith. That's what makes the job interesting to me.
| I think I would get depressed if I just checked off tickets
| every day.
| armada651 wrote:
| Some people have this unfortunate affliction where they went
| into SWE with a passion for programming and want something more
| fulfilling out of a job than resolving a few tickets and then
| checking out mentally.
|
| Hopefully they'll be cured of that one day, perhaps the next
| performance review cycle will finally rid them of any remaining
| illusions.
| tunesmith wrote:
| These employees, or at least one style of these employees, are
| super-frustrating to work with as well.
|
| Like, I have no problem with someone who is in the ticket flow,
| is conscientious about their work, tries to understand the
| business purpose, anticipates and asks some unanswered
| questions, and takes care to truly finish the work. Then, you
| know, sure, work your eight (or six), take your breaks, and
| leave it out of your brain all other times.
|
| But the other style is all-too-common: Do only what's listed in
| the ticket, and the laziest possible interpretation at that. If
| something is undefined, well, that's their problem, if they
| realize it, they can schedule another ticket. Don't ask
| questions, don't collaborate, don't do anything extra and then
| if pressed, say phrases like, "Well they didn't say.." or
| "well, they didn't ask..." Take no ownership.
|
| Those people suck.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| I completely disagree. The more you hand hold the users, the
| less they'll try. You have to half-ass and close some tickets
| and make them reopen. If they don't get any pushback or
| frustration from not following protocol, they'll continue to
| do it. Any decent manager should understand and have your
| back on those kind of requests.
| meristohm wrote:
| Fair question. Not OP, but I'll add that I prefer to do work
| that matches what I value, not just go get a paycheck and make
| other people richer. Taken to an extreme, I'm happiest when I
| forage for food to augment what we buy on my spouse's salary
| and my part-time local utility work. I'm privileged to live on
| land that supports this practice, and to not do work that I
| don't agree with. We don't have much of a savings, but we're
| rich in other ways, notably community, clean water, ~clean air
| when the wind isn't blowing in from the highway and the
| neighbors aren't running their various engines, and a sense of
| purpose. I considered being a software engineer but after
| reading HN for years I burned out on that dream and instead
| focus on land & water stewardship, activism towards the same,
| and building walking-distance community.
| treesknees wrote:
| You're being downvoted but I mean this does work for some
| people. I definitely have coworkers who treat their work as
| purely transactional. Their goal isn't to be promoted or get
| frustrated at their job, it's to receive a paycheck and health
| insurance and get home to their families or hobbies. That's
| certainly a valid approach in any job scenario (not just SWE.)
|
| I'm not quite at the level you've described, but I certainly
| have elements of it. I've been in the same role for ~10 years
| and have pretty much maxed out the expected raises/promotions
| of the role. It's not as satisfying as something brand new, but
| my pay to effort ratio is pretty ideal and I can work on side
| projects and learn new things on my own.
| einpoklum wrote:
| Because "they" are writing the code all wrong and crooked!
| cbanek wrote:
| I think it's a lot more usual to have your ticket and then your
| whole damn team decides to argue for hours on how you should do
| it, just because your manager lets it happen. This happened
| with my last job and it really pushed me out. The reason why
| people argue so much is that the stakes have never been lower -
| they don't do the work, or the thinking, or the fixing. It's
| just really easy to "have input" and then the environment makes
| you follow that "input" because "we're a team".
| dangrossman wrote:
| I bought some production equipment (laser cutters, printers, heat
| presses, etc) and manufacture physical goods out of my home.
| Feels closer to coding when I first fell in love with it --
| making the whole product from start to finish, selling directly
| to the customer, retaining all the fruits of my labor, etc.
| kemitche wrote:
| What sorts of things do you make? How long did it take you to
| learn and get proficient?
| hawski wrote:
| Could you expand? That's close to what I've been thinking about
| in terms of my future.
|
| One thing that I worry about is that there seem to be quite a
| lot of competition in the space and to give clients I feel I
| would have to go through an Uber of laser cutters. At least
| that was an impression I've got after ordering a few parts
| through something like that.
|
| How did you start our transition to it? What is your specialty?
| Etc.
| switchbak wrote:
| How do you like it? I find myself gravitating to this as well.
| The little projects I've made have been outrageously
| fulfilling, like the first days when I was writing code.
|
| I think if you found a niche (like Shop Nation did on
| YouTube/Etsy) you could do quite well?
|
| Do you find the lack of a boss and the BS of a typical corp job
| freeing?
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| I see multiple comments asking the same thing. Some time ago, I
| Asked HN the same thing: What can you realistically manufacture
| in your garage? [1]. Many great answers.
|
| My dream is alive, but no progress yet.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32141962
| codazoda wrote:
| I'm not sure how to figure out if there's a profitable market I
| can tap with the thing I want to make.
|
| As an example, I created a modified level so that my wife could
| set tumblers up for full wrap laser engraving. I've been trying
| to figure out how to sell the tool but maybe there is not much
| of a market to sell to.
|
| I've tried my own website, a free DIY version as an email
| collection tool, becoming active on laser forums, the finished
| level on Etsy, and now a DIY kit on Etsy. I can't seem to sell
| them. I've met similar issues with other items I've designed.
| So, "scratch your own itch" doesn't seem to create a market fit
| for me or I have trouble finding that market.
|
| Halp!
| withinboredom wrote:
| Have your wife do a youtube promo on it, and sponsor some
| laser engraving videos?
| dangrossman wrote:
| I know the guy that sells a tumbler level for the xTool P2 to
| do full wraps. He does some online classes too. He found his
| customers by being active in the P2's Facebook groups from
| when the product first launched. I don't see any evidence
| it's generating more than pizza money for him. I think that's
| too niche to be anything more than that.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I think the structure is the worth here. I felt great when
| doing a stupid min wage delivery job for the same reasons you
| listed. Making the whole thing, direct customer interaction, no
| intermediate no structure. You carry the weight as you see fit,
| free to do better if you can. So much misery comes from the
| endless negotiation and fake social protocol sucking life and
| energy out of you.
| fuzztester wrote:
| I just checked his hn profile, and was interested to see that
| dan is the same person who did improvely, which was mentioned
| by him on multiple hn passive income threads.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dangrossman
|
| https://improvely.com,
| mannyv wrote:
| When I burned out of software I went into Sales Engineering.
| Customer & solution focused, and still technical. You need to
| understand their business and how your product helps them. You
| could also try being a Solution Architect in the professional
| services division, which is more implementation oriented (though
| SAs can be on the sales side too).
| burutthrow1234 wrote:
| Nothing is gonna give you good, consistent comp like writing
| software. I'm sure some sales people do very well but "eat what
| you kill" also means lean months, and sometimes whether or not
| deals close is outside of your control.
|
| My advice is to just get a tech job where you can coast, work
| from home, and knock out a couple tickets a day. Have lots of
| flexibility to see your kid and take vacations while they're
| young. Some places offer 4 day weeks and you still take home 6
| figures.
|
| Sales Engineering or Customer Success would be an interesting
| pivot but you usually make less money and have less flexibility
| than SWEs
| pmarreck wrote:
| I was considering sales engineering because I get along with
| both engineers and salespeople and I hear they actually make
| more money than either, if they're any good, but someone
| discouraged me, saying that if you crave the creative portion
| of the SWE job, sales engineering is not going to cut it for
| you.
|
| I'm still fascinated by the idea for some reason. Closing a big
| deal (and making that commission on top of a regular base
| salary) while understanding all the technical sides of a
| product sounds like a neat way to get that "dopamine hit" wave
| going. (you know, motivation -> work -> success -> enjoyment of
| success -> motivation) Building out big software features often
| seems like yet another lesson about ever-receding goalpost
| lines.
|
| I will say that a work situation DID show me that I DO need the
| creative element though- I worked for Deloitte once, building
| out some enterprisey software for clients for a time and due to
| business reasons outside my control, they halted all new
| development on the product and switched to pure support/bugfix
| mode. My job satisfaction absolutely PLUMMETED.
|
| Another side gig I found fun was... and I don't even know what
| the name of this job is because I only did it a couple times
| but it was fun both times... "objective technical performance
| evaluator". Basically, there are situations out there with
| nontechnical businesspeople who have hired offshore software
| engineering labor who end up jerking them around a bit to the
| point where they suspect they're being jerked around (you can't
| fool people forever) but they cannot point to anything in
| particular, so they hire YOU to sit in on calls and call out
| the BS. I can't tell you how shamefully fun it was to call out
| other SWE teams on their BS while the businesspeople on whose
| side you're advocating for are grinning next to you.
| Essentially, businesspeople hiring offshore SWE teams ALWAYS
| need an advocate on their side who "talks the talk". It
| basically works like this- you get github access, you sit in on
| some calls, you ask some very pointed questions, and then you
| write up a report about the code, the time things are taking,
| the designs being proposed or created, etc. With ChatGPT help,
| writing up such a report would be cake- you could basically
| just brain-dump a bunch of observed facts into a text file and
| ask it to create an organized professional report for you- you
| can even ask it to make it strongly-worded, etc. Easy money,
| everybody's happy!
| marcus0x62 wrote:
| > I was considering sales engineering because I get along
| with both engineers and salespeople and I hear they actually
| make more money than either, if they're any good
|
| Hi, former Sales Engineer/Manager here. SEs do not make more
| than their sales counterparts in salary/commission, and
| usually don't make more in stock (although they often think
| they do.)
|
| In my best years, I would make half what my sales peer made.
| In bad years, I could make more as a percentage, but only
| because sales people are usually more leveraged (50/50
| base/commission vs 70-80% base for an SE.)
| extragood wrote:
| To your last point, that's basically what I did. I get a lot of
| satisfaction from being the technical consult for customers,
| working alongside Sales and CS, and still having that link back
| to engineering. The kicker is that I get paid about the same.
| The right company will highly value a competent customer-facing
| engineer.
| piloto_ciego wrote:
| Aviation does but the road to it is challenging and you can end
| up like me where you end up having to do something else if you
| get sick
| talldatethrow wrote:
| Whether deals close or not is always technically outside your
| control.
|
| What's not outside your control is how many deals you currently
| have working, so that you aren't reliant on one particular deal
| closing so that you have income in the immediate next few
| months.
|
| Obviously the hard part is what happens when things happen to
| go your way and 3 deals close at the same time. But if you can
| figure out how to deal with that, most problems with the ups
| and downs of sales are taken care of.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _My advice is to just get a tech job where you can coast,
| work from home, and knock out a couple tickets a day._
|
| Bingo. We in this field are getting accustomed to extreme
| compensation. But do you know how many SMBs would love to have
| a capable "tech person" for $60-80k per year? If you're remote
| you can probably work half days.
|
| This is my plan, after I finish the grind.
| Vegenoid wrote:
| I think there are actually not that many SMBs that want a
| tech person who limits their working hours and won't handle
| problems that come up on evenings, weekends, and holidays.
| That is, they don't want an IT person who won't return their
| after-hours emergency call.
|
| And SMB owners are not very good at determining what is an IT
| emergency.
| whiplash451 wrote:
| Options you could consider:
|
| 1. Taking a significant sabbatical (6-12 months) if you have
| runway for it
|
| 2. Meeting with people you trust (e.g. past colleagues) and
| discuss your situation openly
|
| 3. Switching role. People & strategy could lead to product
| management (but PM roles comes with their own suite of
| frustrations)
|
| 4. Finding a mentor or a coach and find what drives you. It's
| there, hidden somewhere in the pile of work that you left behind.
| cj wrote:
| Very similar thread from a week ago with 100+ comments:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40720121
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| Question: EM - Engineering Manager?
| n8ta wrote:
| Believe so
| adastra22 wrote:
| I'm launching a startup to make molecular nanotechnology a
| reality. Still engineering, but not software.
|
| Founding a company isn't great work/life balance no matter the
| field, but it is significantly more rewarding in deep tech imho.
| maximinus_thrax wrote:
| Sounds fascinating! Can you disclose the name of the company?
| einpoklum wrote:
| Not quite the career choice I'd recommend for someone about to
| start a family (and whose spouse is not independently rich).
| yowlingcat wrote:
| The best advice that I can give you is that running away from
| something is not running towards something. You need to find
| something you can run towards.
|
| Do you like what you do and not who you have to work with?
|
| Perhaps you want a job in your field that's "good enough" where
| you take a pay cut for better quality of life (defense, govt
| contracting, big banking, life sciences, non tech companies that
| still have hard software problems).
|
| Do you like building but you want to call the shots on something
| you want to build for a decade?
|
| Perhaps entrepreneurship is for you. But, it's tough -- having
| made the transition, you trade off one set of people problems
| (and lack of agency) for another. Net-net it's more stressful and
| while the highs are higher, the lows are much lower.
|
| Do you want a completely different field entirely?
|
| I've seen folks purchase blue collar flavored "lifestyle
| businesses" (self-storage, landscaping, etc) and scratch the
| entrepreneurship itch "in the small". I've seen folks shift to
| building physical things (taking up welding or woodworking), but
| you run into the physical constraints of your body which can
| present challenges. But, this is probably the hardest path for me
| to answer or advise towards, in part because it requires you
| abandoning or at least closing the chapter you've build your
| career experience inside of.
|
| Best of luck. I'd start with the first question; it sounds like
| you've worked at companies with "ambitious" technologists and
| found a common thread of misdirected ambition. That doesn't
| necessarily mean that you can't find a happy home inside
| technology. Technology is a big world.
| marcog1 wrote:
| This might not help you, but it might help someone earlier in
| their career.
|
| I was born, raised and studied in South Africa. Living costs and
| salaries are cheaper. I worked in California. Instead of living a
| lavish lifestyle, I saved. In hindsight, I should have saved even
| more. The important thing I did was opting for cheaper housing. I
| worked hard, which opened doors. I landed up at a startup that's
| now doing really well.
|
| I retired after just six years. Six more years later, I'm doing
| what I want. I've been cycling around Europe and Africa. Next
| week I'm flying to Canada to explore North America for the next
| two years. It's a pretty cheap lifestyle, but I get to experience
| life around the world in a way few people ever do. I'm working on
| building a presence on YouTube. I've met others who sustain their
| travels via YouTube. Even if I don't, I can keep going for quite
| some time living off of savings. I wouldn't be able to do this so
| easily if it weren't for stock.
|
| I'm not advocating a travel lifestyle. Instead, I'm advocating
| for saving up while you're earning decent cash. Don't blow it
| all. Then hopefully you can leave for what you really want to do,
| and not be tied down due to finances.
| ericyd wrote:
| Not only is this unrelated to the OP, but it's also not
| actionable advice. Sounds like you got lucky and got a bunch of
| great stock. That's not something most people can count on, and
| housing in American urban centers only goes so low.
| mgdev wrote:
| "Save while you're earning decent cash" seems pretty
| actionable to me.
| ericyd wrote:
| I found the anecdote of retiring in 6 years to distort the
| message significantly. Sure everyone can save more but that
| likely won't result in massive lifestyle changes in a short
| time frame.
| yreg wrote:
| 6 years is certainly lucky, but it's easy to save working
| as SWE. There are people living in your city on tiny
| fraction of your income. A person without commitments
| could save the entire diff, if they wanted to.
|
| And travelling is cheap as well, I have a friend who is
| travelling long term for like $300-600 a month, including
| all the transportation costs, etc. (The opportunity cost
| of not working is obviously much higher though.)
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| Yeah for real. I think that any dev can retire by 50 if
| they want to. Maybe by 40 if they _really_ put in effort,
| but if you 're retiring before your mid 30's you're
| either 'leanFire' meaning you've basically committed
| yourself to a life of relative poverty or you somehow got
| hold of a 'lotto ticket', and that, by definition is
| extremely rare and not something anyone should plan for.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Kind of depends. Plenty of people COULD live like a monk
| and save a ton over 6 years. But that requires not having
| a family and likely not enjoying your life very much. I
| probably COULD live on significantly less than I make
| right now. Hell, I have in the past.
|
| But I sure didnt enjoy it very much.
|
| But if you lived on rice and beans in the cheapest place
| you could find while making a 6 figure salary... Saving a
| very significant sum every year would be possible.
| benzible wrote:
| "I wouldn't be able to do this so easily if it weren't for
| stock" does not. It's misleading to attribute early
| retirement to a frugal lifestyle and savings when it
| appears that they hit the lottery.
| necheffa wrote:
| > "Save while you're earning decent cash" seems pretty
| actionable to me.
|
| This is in fact pretty unactionable unless you are planning
| on boondocking during your career and retirement - at which
| point - why bother with post secondary education and a
| white collar job in the first place, just boondock from the
| getgo.
| GaryNumanVevo wrote:
| I was able to save around ~$800k over 6 years while living in
| the Bay Area, that's now at $1.45mil two years later. But I
| consider myself extremely, extremely lucky.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| It's incredibly unrealistic for anyone to replicate that
| sort of principal savings and then return. You might as
| well suggest buying lottery tickets, which you essenntially
| admit. This is either bad advice or shameless bragging, but
| tough to see it in any charitable light.
| yreg wrote:
| OP asked for any kinds of stories.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Do you mind sharing your total comp during those years?
| (since you are sharing pretty personal numbers already)
| jimbokun wrote:
| It's actionable advice for many, if not most, people who
| write software for a living.
| matrix87 wrote:
| As an early career I agree with almost everything you say
| except doing it to quit and not work in industry
|
| I mean, I save quite a bit (more than a third after taxes) just
| because consumerism is annoying. But at the same time getting
| paid to write code and learn how computers work seems like a
| pretty sweet gig to me long term. Especially because there's a
| compounding effect, the more you know the easier it gets to
| learn new things
|
| And big company bullshit isn't _that_ bad, at least to me. It
| 's a bunch of convenient things to complain about
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| How old are you? Do you have any dependents, a partner,
| children? Do you have any health issues; what do you do for
| coverage? What are you going to do in 'n' years when you're
| older, less relevant and broke?
|
| I too am a saver, and over the past 20+ years we've been
| suckers. The problem is I grew up as a child when a savings
| account, essentially a zero-risk asset, paid well over 5%
| interest. That hasn't been true for a long time, with inflation
| & taxes grinding away at any marginal gains. I wish I'd
| financed and leveraged more, not consumption goods but
| investments. The other problem with being a saver is it's very
| hard to be one, then flip and be a consumer of your savings.
| The thing that makes you able to save is also what holds you
| back from spending. There are a lot of baby boomers who have a
| lot of assets yet still live very thrifty lifestyles;
| especially if they grew up blue collar when you could "save
| yourself rich".
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _I wish I 'd financed and leveraged more, not consumption
| goods but investments._
|
| The good news is, this is available to you right now!
|
| The bad news is buying the best assets is hard, just like it
| was 5, 10, and 20 years ago.
|
| Savings accounts weren't paying 5% for nothing. It's easy to
| look back at what could have been, but those moments are
| happening right now, too.
| gtvwill wrote:
| OK now let's compound this and think about how society would
| look if every participant followed the "rip and dip"
| methodology.
| lolinder wrote:
| The actual advice you're giving here is generally good, but for
| your specific outcomes there's a relevant XKCD [0].
|
| [0] https://xkcd.com/1827/
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| So long as you are single and childless.
| sgtcodeboy wrote:
| My two-cents, I found myself in this position about six years
| ago. I started Brazilian Jiu Jitsu - a sizable time commitment in
| an of itself - and for the first time really had balance. Now
| that by itself won't solve the problem. Around that same time I
| unexpectedly found myself in a new vertical in software (building
| game backend services). So perhaps moving to a different vertical
| in software, combined with something to bring the balance - might
| just be a possible solution. I get that I'm not answering your
| question, but this worked for me.
| ghxst wrote:
| What has been rewarding for me has been meeting new people that
| work in different industries and seeing how my existing skillset
| could improve their work / job, not sure if is this is great
| advice or answers your question but I wouldn't necessarily look
| for different day-to-day work just different industries to apply
| your work to, but I also don't generally see myself as a "coder"
| but more a problem solver, so ymmv.
| cynusx wrote:
| Try marketing, being a software engineer is a great force
| multiplier there and most marketers are absolutely awful.
| e10jc wrote:
| I company a cofounded went bankrupt last winter, and then my
| first child was born a few months later. I was depressed about
| the bankruptcy, but it was nice to be able to focus on being a
| parent.
| localfirst wrote:
| There is a global surge in blue collar fields especially from
| highly educated crowd. In South Korea, Samsung workers, students
| drop out or graduate from elite degrees and opting for simple
| life.
|
| White collar jobs used to be rewarding and highly paid but
| overtime it became a glorified day care for adults with Animal
| Farm dynamics. It's especially bad in Asian countries with strict
| social hierarchy.
|
| It's no wonder more and more young men are ditching white collar
| jobs for blue collar workers.
|
| But for some growing # of females (and even smaller number of
| men), it seems like they are opting to sell images/videos of
| themselves engaging sexually arousing or sexually explicit
| content while also engaging in legitimate white collar work.
| Again in Asia, this trend is even more rampant especially Japan,
| 40 years ago you couldn't dream of seeing 18 year olds standing
| on the streets of Tokyo but now they seem to everywhere.
|
| I'm frightened by the whole thing. If young graduates are heading
| to workshop instead of office, it means they aren't going to be
| consuming like they used to. There is no need because there is no
| need to be seen with the stuff people covet here vs in
| office/startup environments where the rich/poor gap is wide.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I went from SWE to product design, which is probably not the
| exact decision you're weighing. I agree that the software
| industry isn't a fun place, but I don't have any other employable
| skills, so I'm stuck for a while. It's just a question of what's
| the most sustainable, livable part of the industry.
|
| For me, leaving the private sector SaaS world and working for a
| non-profit was a good decision, because it put me far enough away
| from some of the cultural bullshit I despised the most. Timelines
| aren't insane, growth hacking is a term nobody has even heard of,
| and I no longer feel like the harder I work, the worse the world
| is for everyone except the investors.
|
| I'm just implying there may be ways to continue to be a SWE _and_
| change your situation.
| gtvwill wrote:
| Not swe, but one man band systems engineer/msp. Own company for 5
| years, currently bailing on IT to do construction/carpentry. IT
| is on the decline and I don't see many job opportunities in the
| future (so ripe for AI replacement). The companies put profit
| before best practice (literally nearly impossible to find IT
| companies to work for that aren't mortally reprehensible) and its
| all round just generally horrible to work in.
|
| Ditching it for building comes with a bunch of pros and cons.
| Pros, works interesting, massive demand, jobs last 20+ weeks
| instead of a few hours/days making it way less effort to chase a
| dollar. I've got a six pack again after being sedentary for 5
| years, my health is the best its ever been and i dont spend a
| dollar on a gym.
|
| Cons, wage dropped by about 50% until I get licensed. The whole
| industry in Aus is plagued with bad actors and shit businesses.
| It's rife with sexism, racism, bullying and just generally
| horrible people and companies. There are basically bugger all
| companies offering apprenticeships. The unnecessary hazing onsite
| is a pita too. Old fellas get grumpy watching IT workers pump
| jobs it took them 20 years to learn in less than a week. Turns
| out youtube builders will teach you more tricks than the grumpy
| old dogs have learnt in their lifetime. Age and experience do not
| always correlate in a positive fashion.
|
| I still do IT on the side, it helps me fulfill some inner wants
| and needs (I really like helping folks get the best our of tech).
|
| I would love to try get into building IT infra like datacenters.
| Mix the two job realms together.
|
| Don't be afraid to make big changes, you got one life, might
| aswell "send it".
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Burnout is very common for CS and IT folk. I'd recommend looking
| at the Ikigai diagram to identify possible career choices:
|
| https://amit894.medium.com/ikigai-simplifying-the-intersecti...
|
| The problem with contracting is people often end up locked into a
| perpetual support role, as IT market saturation drives down
| earnings.
|
| Could look at a union job, and set yourself up for a soft landing
| into retirement. There is also the CS dream job of Plumbing... =3
| NSHkr_hn wrote:
| I was working on a failing startup in Hawaii Kai, and left for
| Haleiwa due to a woman who was stalking and gaslighting me.
| Landed in a Haleiwa house and was stalked, hacked and and
| gaslighted by the owner's family help. Ran into a man who engaged
| in state sponsored grand theft and lied to investigators, ruined
| my life. Witness to corruption, perjury, misconduct.
|
| Tried investigating the hacking and stalking and was met with a
| serious coordinated threat of murder. Was blackmailed to stay
| silent about the murder threat.
|
| Couldn't work on code much more.
|
| Went homeless.
|
| Media blackout on the trial (would have been a salacious headline
| in Hawai'i), perhaps due to my reports of receiving the
| coordinated murder threat and the status of the social circle who
| issued it.
|
| Took the NSA's college level codebreaker challenge and did pretty
| well. Bad idea. They call them spooks for a reason.
|
| Met a wealthy man here in Haleiwa who gave me side work and
| pushed various hard drugs on me, so I tried getting away from
| him. Endured criminal violence, harassment, discrediting and
| defamation, obstruction of justice from a judge, and more
| shenanigans.
|
| Tried getting back into coding. Even got a donor laptop from a
| nice ex Amazon employee here on hn to try to rebuild.
|
| Took another NSA codebreaker challenge while homeless and while
| dealing with the ongoing violence, harassment and discrediting
| campaign from the wealthy party with a lawyer. Couldn't handle
| it. Laptop gone. Sorry to the ex Amazon guy who donated it. It
| was a tiny little i5/8GB, enough to participate in the NSA CTF.
|
| Met a guy into data engineering at the coffee shop who gifted me
| a brand new M2 MBP 24GB. Tried getting back into programming
| while homeless. Hasn't worked. Gave it back to him new in box.
| Was being targeted yet again at the time due to being exposed
| homeless on a bicycle in public. Couldn't handle it and can't
| deal with the constant lack of dignity due to experiencing long
| term homelessness and destitution.
|
| Still homeless seven years later and in a far worse predicament.
| Not very optimistic about my future. Scrapping for food money. I
| live on a bicycle with two backpacks outdoors on public
| assistance for food, which helps a bit. Bicycle has irreparably
| broken down today; trying to find a donor replacement locally so
| I can make it to my gardening job for food money tomorrow.
|
| It's bad enough to be ruined with lies while others enjoy lack of
| accountability. Far worse is to be discredited and met with
| skepticism about reports of criminal behavior.
|
| Software development has stopped completely for quite a while
| now. Fighting off the dread of the entrenched, persistent desire
| to end, mid life. Failed career, non existent, now with a ruined
| rep and trauma.
| pineaux wrote:
| Sound like you need to shelter in place. Do some simple work.
| Be open about your shit but dont burden people with it. What
| people like the most in a person that is down is positivity and
| a willingness to grow. It's hard. I know. But in the end of the
| day nobody really cares about all the shit that you went
| through. Talking about it like you do in the post above creates
| opportunity for people to wave it away as a lie, or something
| you brought upon yourself. Better leave it vague. Only tell
| some vague stuff when people ask. Give details sparingly. The
| more story you tell the bigger the chance that they start
| dispising you. They will start victim blaming. They will start
| to believe that you have bad karma or that you will take
| advantage of them. What a lot of people do care about is
| helping someone who is down. The problem is that you need to
| make sure they believe you are trustworthy, not-despicable, a
| good human being, someone they want close. You just need
| someone that gives you a good break. Someone that vouches for
| you. It's shitty and it's fucked that there are no good
| government system in place to help you with your predicament. I
| do agree with your scepticism of the world. The world is being
| manipulated.
| NSHkr_hn wrote:
| Makes a lot of sense and seems right given the perception I'm
| projecting with a post in a vacuum.
|
| Not really seeking help or a break. Just going with the flow
| until death. Just taking a bit longer than expected to get
| there.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| In the immortal words of Asmongold: people who have problems
| _are_ problems.
| nsoldiac wrote:
| I can share some real examples I've seen/heard of from
| trustworthy sources (I'm not there yet myself):
|
| - Open an independent bookstore in a medium-sized midwestern
| city's downtown
|
| - Get into the jewelry business (not sure if there was family
| business experience there);
|
| - Open a coffee shop, this person had someone else manage it
| (must be nice);
|
| - One past tech PM switched careers to become a traveling nurse
| and was loving it still ~5 years in;
|
| - Wive's friend moved to montana and opened a dog grooming
| franchise
|
| Note that virtually all require some money to either invest in
| opening a new business or re-train yourself in some new
| profession (college/grad school prob just means loans). Doesn't
| mean it's true for every option, but worth noting how often
| that's the case.
| ginkgotree wrote:
| Aerospace. It's been a real "blast"
| mindwok wrote:
| Give sales a try. I despised sales before I moved into a Sales
| Engineer role. Once I saw what sales really was, and how good
| sales people are not slimy, I now love it.
| talldatethrow wrote:
| I was in car sales for a decade and quickly became top 1% (more
| like 0.2% really) in the country at it. I only did that after
| first wasting 6 months being a bit slimy first.
|
| You can't really succeed in sales when you're dealing with all
| the drama you created by being slimy in the first place.
|
| Eventually I realized I had to be as good as possible, and as
| responsive as possible, so customers would work with me for
| sure and not accidentally land with a bad salesperson
| elsewhere.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Eh. Depends on the type of sales. Plenty of sales is one off
| sales that requires no long term relationship building. I
| know lots of incredibly slimy sales people who great at
| making money. They just dont have a ton of repeat customers.
| Zacharias030 wrote:
| This sounds like a detailed account of burnout. Take some time
| away from it all and find your thunder and curiosity again?
| SCUSKU wrote:
| Would second this. I would advise OP to take a sabbatical and
| recuperate a bit. In the meantime think about what interests
| you and what is important to you. Deep inside there is a voice
| that will tell you, you just have to listen hard enough to hear
| it.
| __mharrison__ wrote:
| I moved into corporate training (and content creation to serve as
| a marketing funnel).
|
| I teach Python and Data Science (Pandas, Polars, XGBoost,
| Sklearn, etc.) to large companies (and some smaller ones), and
| I've written several books on those topics as well. There are
| certainly pro's and con's to what I'm doing, but it provides good
| flexibility for me and my family.
| roughly wrote:
| Something worth considering here is that while the software
| industry is indeed a cesspool of shitty management, wheel
| reinvention, and peter-pan syndrome, software itself and the
| ability to write it is one of the biggest providers of leverage
| in the modern world.
|
| Consider finding a role or opportunity to write software for
| people doing something you find meaningful - you can provide an
| enormous amount of value, and a good technical person is
| basically a wizard to people who aren't steeped in this kind of
| thing. The parts of my current role where I've gotten to work
| directly with scientists to help them solve complex problems have
| been by far the most interesting and rewarding things I've done
| in my career.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| > Consider finding a role or opportunity to write software for
| people doing something you find meaningful - you can provide an
| enormous amount of value
|
| I agree with the premise but I want to play devil's advocate
| because you can cause harm trying to help in this manner:
|
| Consider a non-technical org like a non-profit that does
| marketing-like activities to further its cause. You can build
| automation for that using SaaS tools binding together a handful
| of their manual processes. But what happens if you leave? What
| happens if some of the vendors you picked disappear? How much
| of your time is now committed to maintaining that software?
|
| Software is brittle. It takes a lot of empathy, time, and long-
| term thinking to effectively integrate software with an
| organization steeped in manual processes. So ultimately when
| you ask "Can I help here" also ask "Should I help here".
|
| A six hour training in spreadsheets can sometimes provide more
| value then a thousand hours of software development.
| datameta wrote:
| I have slid sideways my whole career, ever farther from the full-
| stack origins careening through and past DDIMM controller
| firmware and hardware procedures (one of my first true loves),
| through functional testing (Python) and structural testing (VHDL)
| of processors, as well as the constrained subset of embedded C
| chip-ops. Also slid through that run-on. Now I'm prototyping some
| wizard shit (if you will will excuse my classical romulan) for a
| product in stealth.
|
| TL;DR: If you are eager to learn and do, you can eventually
| switch to anything close to your current profession - in other
| words, this option is to not think about a big jump, imo, and
| rather small steps.
| martythemaniak wrote:
| > I've been an EM, which might arguably be the most miserable
| position that exists. I've been senior/staff at places, and
| honestly I just don't enjoy arguing about the structure of
| software anymore, I'm tired of the personalities,
|
| > My strengths revolve around people and strategy
|
| These don't seem to jive. EM or Staff is about as much people and
| strategy you get.
| lylejantzi3rd wrote:
| Another vote for business. You understand software and the
| software development process. That's more than most in business.
| Your strengths revolve around people and strategy and you like
| leveraging your knowledge to create asymmetrical amount of value
| for yourself. Business sounds like a perfect fit to me.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| > _I 've been an EM, which might arguably be the most miserable
| position that exists._
|
| Why is Engineering Manager the most miserable position?
| dominostars wrote:
| TL;DR I do 3D modeling now, though I'm working for a major tech
| company again.
|
| When I left my last SWE job (after 10 years in the industry), I
| had money saved and was coming off of very challenging changes in
| my personal life. So for the first year, I gave myself a lot time
| to rest, take care of health challenges I had been
| procrastinating on, and getting back into video games and anime
| for the first time since college. Through video games and VR chat
| I got into 3D modeling as a hobby, which I would continue to
| learn doing while also exploring some other things (volunteering
| for a political campaign, and interpersonal mental health
| coaching). Eventually I got excited to move to LA to take classes
| at Gnomon, which was quite expensive but also extremely
| enjoyable. I honestly never expected to actually work in this
| field since I did not dedicate myself fully to it, and it's a
| tough industry. But one of my classmates referred me to a job at
| a major tech company that wasn't that glamorous, but paid well
| and suited my very limited skill set. So here I am.
|
| All in all, there was about 5 years between my last SWE job and
| my first 3D modeling job (with some coaching work in between but
| it was very low paying). Certainly that time gap could be
| shortened, as I was not fully dedicating myself to it, but it
| would have also been a much less enjoyable process and transition
| if there was pressure to support a family behind it.
|
| If I'm going to give you any tips, is if you're trying to start a
| family I highly recommend finding a boring easy tech job that
| doesn't require your full capacity so that you 1) make enough
| money to not be stressed about it, and 2) have plenty of time to
| focus on non-work related things. There are tons of boring roles
| that are.. well, boring, but not stressful or soul draining. I'm
| kind of surprised you want to be a parent but you're also
| entertaining a sales role that would be pushing you to work more
| instead of less. My two cents.
| leoqa wrote:
| Same time in role, in the process to become a criminal
| investigator. Spent my 20s on a laptop with nothing to show for
| it, atleast want to spend my 30s punishing bad actors.
| muffinman26 wrote:
| A variation of this question gets asked semi-regularly on HN, but
| I think the reason the results so often seem unsatisfying is that
| the people who actually find a meaningful answer and switch
| careers aren't hanging out on Hacker News anymore. They're living
| their life and have found community with other people doing what
| they actually want to do.
|
| As a result, the Hacker News responses are often incredulity that
| anyone could ever leave the software industry (even if it's a
| miserable soul-draining place), or slight career shifts that
| aren't really career shifts, with a little bit of Financial
| Independence Retire Early thrown in.
|
| Now, where to find the community of folks who have left Hacker
| News for something they genuinely enjoy, that would be great to
| know.
| azhenley wrote:
| I moved to teaching.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Sounds like sales engineering could be a good fit. Might be tough
| to get the first gig but its likely someone will give you a
| chance if you network a bit.
|
| I came from tech recruiting which I would not recommend but I do
| know a few engineers who have transitioned into that. I think
| sales engineering is similar without a lot of the recruiting
| bullshit and likely a lot higher upside unless you want to run a
| company of sales people.
| hieronymusN wrote:
| > tired of the infantilization of the industry
|
| I would like to hear more about this.
| haswell wrote:
| My recommendation after 20 years or so in tech: if you can, take
| a sabbatical that's long enough to completely reset, and then re-
| assess. Travel, read, try stuff, do personal projects, do nothing
| for awhile.
|
| I started a sabbatical two years ago, and in the beginning I was
| convinced that I didn't want to ever work in tech again. In
| retrospect, that was at least partially the burnout talking.
|
| It took me over a year before I started warming to the idea
| again, and I'm now fairly certain I'll go back to a tech role,
| but with a very different perspective both on life and on
| whatever roles I take going forward.
|
| There's something incredibly valuable about fully replacing your
| routines and truly taking a break.
|
| I sold some stock to make it happen, and it's one of the best
| decisions I've made.
| thecookielab wrote:
| Left the SWE world a couple of years ago after 18 in the field. I
| was fortunate enough to find success in investing/discretionary
| trading over my career (despite blowing up my account early on)
| such that I've been able to "retire". These days I spend my time
| "managing" my own money. This probably doesn't help but hey, you
| asked :)
| Tade0 wrote:
| > tired of the infantilization of the industry (frankly, it's
| embarrassing)
|
| Couldn't agree more.
|
| In any case you might want to consider starting a family first
| and only then switching careers.
|
| I'm trying to avoid platitudes here, but children really do put
| some things into sharp focus and more often than not that affects
| your priorities.
|
| Also you discover where your limits are and that they're actually
| much further than you anticipated.
|
| I see that as a better starting point to do anything challenging
| really, as you're already managing the hardest challenge.
| BatmansMom wrote:
| What do you guys mean by infantilization of the industry? Are
| you talking about managers and leadership talking down to
| engineers as "coding-monkeys" or similar? Treating coders with
| baby gloves because of stigma of social awkwardness?
| smnplk wrote:
| Have you tried OnlyFans ?
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