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Ask HN: How did you move from IT/software to something unrelated?
222 points by brailsafe on May 22, 2017 | hide | past | favorite | 176 comments
I'm a frontend developer in the greater Vancouver, BC area. After becoming burnt out at my last position over a year ago, I've had no success in finding further work and don't have all that much motivation to continue the endless cycle of humouring recruiters and sending resumes out. Not because I don't like software development, more so because of the cost of continued attempts and lack of potentially inspiring outcomes (technical, very time intensive interviews with very few compelling companies worth the effort) that I am qualified for.

Anyhow, I'd like to apply at companies that, for lack of a better description, essentially pay minimum wage and require building basic skill that I may not have developed in software. Like Starbucks, McDonalds, retail. However, computers and software are pretty much all I know and all I have on my resume. I'm reasonably outgoing, well spoken, and have some confidence that I can work with others, but making the backwards transition from my career to a more basic jobby job (no intention of being derogatory here) is surprisingly unclear.

Edit: Part of the intention as well, is to build versatile skills that might allow more job flexibility in the future. For example if I were to travel and work without requiring a skilled worker visa.




SALES. What fascinates me about sales is the ability to bring immediate value to a company. True value. If you walk in the door and bring in a new sale order for $100k: the company just made money. It may sound impossible todo. But it isn't. EG. Selling a twilio account to uber isn't like landing a mars rover. It is totally possible. Uber needs to send text messages and there are only a handful of players in that space. If that was your account your cut could be in the 7figures. You are now the shit.

My friend at Flurry selling mobile ads (in 2012) made over a million in one year flat. During that year - selling mobile ads was like selling drugs behind a school. If Flurry pulls in 30million from your accounts, 1million is just a write off. When I lived in a nicer area of PacHeights in SF, my neighbors with houses were in SALES: oracle, real estate, franchises , on and on. Javascript progammers? No.

Applying a new cool bootstrap theme to a website or making that node.js app is cool, but the value it adds? You are too far down the value stick. One of my sales friends told me a horrifying statement: "Once we finish signing the paperwork, everyone else is worthless." It is true. They can get new programmers, new teams, new infrastructure, new products, hell, money buys anything.

You can do what this guy does. You probably will need a suite and a smile. But I think he makes more than everyone on this thread combined. ALSO. If you passed his desk around 2pm on friday? It would be empty.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-eubanks-a775ba/


> If you passed his desk around 2pm on friday? It would be empty.

And the flipside of this is that his desk is probably empty because he's on a plane, flying either to or from a potential customer's office.

Sales people travel a lot. Now, you might think "oh sweet, I'll get to see all kinds of exotic locales". Unfortunately, that's not what business travel is. You will get to see three things: the airport, your hotel room, and your potential customer's conference room. If you're lucky, you may also get to eat at a nice restaurant. You won't have time to sightsee and be a tourist.

It's very tiring. You go from the airport to your hotel room, drop off your suitcase, maybe change your clothes, then head over to the potential customer's site, spend all day schmoozing them, maybe go out to eat after, and then go to your hotel room, pass out, and wake up first thing in the morning and go back to the airport. Then you repeat the whole process the next day.

It's a lifestyle very few people can tolerate.

Are there sales positions that don't involve travelling all the time? Yeah, it's called inside sales. Inside sales is basically working at an outbound call center. It's a fancy name for telemarketing. It doesn't pay nearly as much as outside sales, because most companies that use inside sales only use them for their smallest accounts, and the work environment is its own kind of shitty. You're going to have a manager walking the floor all the time to make sure everyone's on task at all times. You know how in IT/software you might spend half your time goofing off on HN or wherever else and only doing a few hours of work a day? Yeah, that's not going to fly in inside sales. I used to work next to my company's inside sales department... I remember hearing the head of inside sales tell one of the ISRs "Any time not spent on the phone, writing an email, or in a meeting is time wasted". Later on, I heard him tell the same ISR that he needs to write and develop his sales pitches at home on his own time. Inside sales is the entry level; it's what young sales people who don't have any experience or their own list of contacts do. Once someone has built up a rolodex and gains enough practical experience how to sell things, they leave inside sales and move up into outside sales.


Yeah. I will remember that next time I am at a NFL game. The luxury boxes up top with private bar tenders, steaks and premium beer are filled with sales guys: "working hard".


That is not for everyone. I'd rather be with my family on Sunday afternoon.

Btw, the people they're selling to aren't salespersons (the client) and they're in the suite too.


Should have read this first.


Don't have to be sales to do that. Be the customer. I turn down stuff all of the time, because my down time is worth more to me than free drinks and food in the private box, especially if I don't care about that team or sport.


> "Once we finish signing the paperwork, everyone else is worthless." It is true.

I think that's a fairly myopic, though unsurprising, point of view from the sales perspective. There's tons of work that goes into making a viable product that gets the paperwork to be signed. Programmers, teams, etc. are just as (ir)replaceable as sales staff; when you have the right combination, everything works well. Handshakes and signatures are the final step of making a deal, not the defining ones. From a bare financial point of view, once the paper's signed, you can change your company all you want, but unless the product/service continues to be well-made and add value to the customer, the money's not going to keep flowing. Engineering talent is not exactly fungible.


I'm in the IT services biz and while sales is a huge part of the process, they're selling our ability and our reputation which is based on our track record for quality execution. We don't sel them on "we're good at JavaScript" but we do sell on "we can design and develop high-quality technology products".


And yet, the sales person's paycheck for that hypothetical deal is still worth the same money.


I am a product manager at a large Enterprise software company and as such deal with salespeople daily. No amount of money will convince me to take on that job. Some salespeople make a lot of money, but most salespeople fail to meet their numbers and are scraping by in their average salaries, as most of their pay comes from commissions. You also are at the risk of layoffs constantly. Don't meet your numbers, laid off, slight downturn in business, underperforming sales staff let go. Not to mention the amount of client schmoozing you have to do and be ok with being treated like a door mat at every client location. Plus the soul crushing travel. I have tremendous respect for the sales folks who have made it. It is a difficult job with high rewards, but also high risks.


Any advice for engineers interested in trying sales?


I am an engineer, and used to do sales. I never liked sales enough to get really good at it, partially because I wanted to spend more time figuring out how to automate by job than do my job. But I have some general observations based on my experience:

- the lower the base salary, the crappier position (until you are so good you want a lower base and higher commission)

- a 100% commission job is not a job, it's "I decided to start a business AND give a huge piece of my earnings to someone else!" (until you can value why splitting your revenue is a good deal for you)

- finding people to sell to is not the same skill as getting them to buy from you

- if someone can teach you everything you need to know about the sales job, you are also easily replaceable

- if you have to pay to work there (such as paying for a desk, professional licenses, etc.), that job is gonna suck

- you're more likely to be successful if you don't have to convince yourself people need what you are selling

- some sales jobs are not pure selling (for example a full desk recruiter brings in clients/jobs to work on AND finds the candidates to fill those jobs)

- while this is a sarcastic comment, on some days you will think to yourself "the world is full of stupid people, and I talk to all of them"

- if you don't get motivated by making tons of money, sales is gonna feel like a real grind


I wouldn't get bullied into some inside sales or account management crap position.

With an engineering background:

https://www.glassdoor.com/Job/sales-engineer-jobs-SRCH_KO0,1...


I don't disagree. It's an option to consider. There are also customer-facing roles that are more technical (systems engineers, solution architects, etc.) and various gradations between those and sales generalists.

With that said, a couple caveats.

1. There are definite personality and skill sets that fit well with sales--or at least the sort of outside sales job one would aspire to. Some of this can probably be learned but it comes more naturally to some people than others.

2. Sales tends to be very performance-oriented. On the one hand, it means it may be easier to land a sales role. On the other hand, you have to make your numbers or you won't be around long.


> the ability to bring immediate value to a company

> Once we finish signing the paperwork, everyone else is worthless

Looks like the only interest was getting paid, not actual value.


I stated my career early - while I was still in high school. I went from bagging groceries and doing checkouts at a grocery store to programming for a local company my senior year of high school. I continued doing this for my first couple years of college.

But then dot-bomb happened and it looked like the party was over. I looked down at the job opportunities after graduation. I didn't really want to spend the rest of my life wearing a tie, writing bank software and sitting in a cubicle every day, so I decided to try something different.

I became a seasonal park ranger. And it was awesome.

Like most jobs, I got it through knowing someone. My grandparents had volunteered for the NPS and were able to connect me with the right people. I became a seasonal park ranger at Yellowstone.

It's not for everyone. The pay is not great, but you do get lots of good benefits because it's a government job. And you're often living in remote areas (the nearest grocery store was an hour and a half drive from where I was stationed). It's also not conducive to family life if that's your thing (again, the closest school was 1.5 hours away and everyone around me was my coworkers). And the days are long, helping tourists, checking permits, etc. Permanent jobs are also incredibly hard to get - you usually have to do years of seasonal work to accrue enough seniority to get considered for a permanent position.

But the benefits? Being able to crack open a drink after a long day and look up at more stars than I ever thought existed - I spent many nights on the front porch of my cabin looking up at the Milky Way. Hiking, camping, boating on the weekends are easy because I was right there in the park. Clean air, clean water. A good group of coworkers (for me) who legit really care about protecting these astounding natural resources. And a feeling that you're really making a difference and reaching people.

I did this for a few years and they were among my happiest years prior to my marriage. Ultimately, I ended up going back into tech after things recovered. But there are days that I really miss the outdoors and wearing the uniform.

So I guess my advice would be to forget about skills and whatnot and ask yourself, outside of tech, what do you like to do? I mean really like to do? And can you turn that into a job? Can anyone you know network you into a job?


This is an astoundingly relevant answer to my question and thank you for taking the time to tell your story. I don't have an answer yet but this gives me something to think about. I share the same interests outside of the office and the same feeling you had once the bubble burst. I was hoping to find some advice on how I could turn the experience I did have into something beneficial to a potential employer—such as the NPS—but thinking long and hard about what I'm good at, want to do, and who might be able to help me get there is probably a more feasible route.


I'd consider also how you can pivot slightly rather than completely. Coming out of my undergrad degree I had absolutely zero interest in writing boiler plate style software suited-up in a large company. Instead I took on jnr research positions in other fields like earth sciences as a research assistant, working with satellite data and high throughput laser scanning. Essentially the computer/robotics guy for people not capable of that but with grand ideas. You can find these sorts of jobs on NewScientist or Nature jobs listings, academics are incredibly accepting of computer literate field swappers. Eventually I realised a PhD was essentially the only way to have freedom in the space of research. So I found the most general explorative course I could, which at the time was a new PhD centre training a large cohort (60+ students over 8 years) in complexity sciences. The experience of being around a load of smart people from various backgrounds all working on interesting problems cannot be under estimated as a morale boost. I now also have a wide network of friends doing cool stuff I can always rely on in a pinch for perhaps finding fun work. The course was super rapid switching between subjects with maths covered the whole time. It gave me exposure to most university departments and the sorts of big problems everyone had. Eventually I came across protein structures and molecular biology which was only something I only had a rough understanding of coming from computer science, self studying the biology behind genetic algorithms. The realities of that field have completely sucked me in forever, like nothing I've really found before. I had a misguided try at doing some robotics before settling on molecular biology. But now post PhD I get to work in companies that are doing really interesting stuff, and on software that's relatively creative and cutting edge to develop compared to what I could have been working on post undergrad. Not all software has to give you that trapped dead end feeling. I've recently switched jobs simply because what I was working on wasnt quite engaging enough and I felt trapped by the higher rents that tend to be common where techy jobs are aplenty. But you really dont have to accept this at all once you have some experience and a network of contacts developed.


> But now post PhD I get to work in companies that are doing really interesting stuff

Isn't it crazy hard to get hired for a research position? I was told in the past that just because you had a PhD didn't mean you would automatically be able to find a job doing interesting research.

> The realities of that field have completely sucked me in forever, like nothing I've really found before.

In what way?


>Isn't it crazy hard to get hired for a research position? I was told in the past that just because you had a PhD didn't mean you would automatically be able to find a job doing interesting research.

It's crazy hard to get hired for a permanent research position in academia at a university people will have heard of. In science and engineering <10% of people go on to PhD and <10% of those PhDs who graduate find a permanent position. If you don't feel like you were the top 1% of your year at uni, then its going to be harder, or you've been under appreciated and are good at research rather than being taught. So yeah to remain in academia being paid little actually takes you being incredibly good. But getting an operational research job in something like an innovation or RnD department, in a company, is about as hard as getting any other job once you have some experience, and are qualified for the work. A PhD is not at all required though. But in life sciences its kind of important right now. The main issue of work being "interesting" is probably if you have directly relevant experience or not, which is a lot less likely as a researcher. If you're like me though and can get interested in almost anything then pragmatism wins. Plenty of knowledge and research skills are completely transferable. Getting a PhD is not really about skill or ability its an endurance race that very few people even sign up for and even less finish. By definition finishing the race means you are capable of doing it. It's a trial by fire.

Nothing is automatic in life. The number of hopelessly incompetent people with a PhD is only slightly less than the number with an undergrad degree or without any higher education. That doesn't change. But yeah if someone sucks, they suck. That's never something that can be overcome with a piece of paper. But a PhD at the very least usually represents a level of dedication to trying to make yourself suck less that others were unwilling to sign up for. That's probably about all its ever recognised as. My experience to date is people with a PhD are hugely self starting, and capable of pushing a project along independently. Which is simply a product of being left alone floating in a room for several years expected to solve something independently.

> In what way?

The main way is that I come from an AI background by training. Many of the concepts from that field set you up for sort of reverse engineering how things might be working in molecular biology. It's not that cells and proteins are remotely like computers, but they are doing heavy computation in a strange way and AI is essentially the field of understanding strange computation. The main thing I was interested in when I was doing an AI degree were optimisation problems and specifically genetic algorithms. Turns out evolution of molecular biology -the real thing- is just vastly more interesting and complex in a way you wish you could get genetic algorithms to behave. Better yet is that the alarming rise of biotech to actually manipulate how life works, means for all intents and purposes theoretical work you do in molecular biology can directly become technology. It's basically what I was looking for in AI.


This sounds so awesome. If I leave programming, it's going to be for something outdoors like this. Thanks for sharing.


You write as if you are trapped in IT. You say you are burnt out. Perhaps the feeling you are trapped is coming from inside you rather than the world?

Burn out comes from using willpower to force yourself to do work that you have no hope will succeed.

The feeling of being trapped comes with that. The Fight Flight Freeze response.

The feeling is inside you. You can fly to another industry but the feeling will go with you and you will remain unsettled.

Because burn out is a physiological phenomenon, one that you feel in your your body, focus on physical recovery. Sleep, go outside, reconnect in your relationships, exercise. Get the adrenaline and blood pressure down.

Then it is worth doing other things to build back the feeling of hope. But use that as the guide. Do I believe this will be fun? That I will succeed at this? You need to retrain your sense of hope in your own efforts.

It takes time. A few months to 2 years perhaps. Forgive yourself daily. You aren't the first or the last person to feel this way and there is nothing wrong with how you feel. It was a way to stop you from continuing doing something self-destructive. The primary lesson is to do things that are self-constructive from now on. Things you want to do. Things you wake up to do. Don't stop yourself from those things any more.


"You can fly to another industry but the feeling will go with you and you will remain unsettled." <- Totally incorrect.

I took a break from software development due to burn out, got my CDL and drove an 18 wheeler for a few months.

The experience was practically a relaxing (after training) paid vacation where I could see the country, and made feel so much better.

I was even able to go back to software development afterwards with renewed drive. So... no, the feeling won't follow you.


Agreed. As I wrote, you can and should change scenes but with the intent to do something fun or where you feel successful. OP seemingly wants to grind new skills the hard way but that is just more agony.

To regain a sense of control and success in ones life requires more than following through on feelings of escapism.


This feels like a fascinating story waiting to be told. I don't suppose you blogged about this anywhere?


Well... I hired a producer, wrote 10 songs, hired a director, filmed 3 music videos and worked harder than I had at any software startup in my life (platform/devops) trying to make it work. Serious long shot, but it's been a ton of fun!

Edit: my last video won "Music Video of the Year" at the Oxford International Film Festival. So here's hoping!


You're being polite by not linking, and I appreciate that. However, it's truly good and I think other people will want to give it a watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G31_dEOvYuY


How did you get the youtube video from his profile? I looked through and couldn't find a way to correlate the two as we don't know what year he won.


I just assumed it was this year, and then I noticed he linked to (presumably) his SoundCloud account in another HN comment[1], which I used as (good enough) confirmation that I had found the right video.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12422365


Good amount of research there. :D


..."Music Video of the Year" at the Oxford International Film Festival...


So the oxford international film festival has only had one music video of the year ever? As I said we don't know what year he won.


Well he said "My last video" so we can infer that it was very probably either this year or in the last two years, which makes the search way easier


Yes I presume it was almost surely the last two years (this year or the past two years). The commenter replied and said he read the parent's comments to find the soundcloud account and linked that with the poster of the youtube video.


It was this years awards. http://www.oxiff.com/awards/


Holy shit, this is actually really good. Was surprised.


Thanks!


Thank you for sleuthing it out :)


Fantastic work!

I'm into photography as a hobby since 10 years. I started movie making this year, it's harder than I thought to make everything right. The post production work is also more challenging than for still photography.

I would be interested if you had any good links to get started and progress? What camera did you use? I'm making a movie about some cities, but it's taking more time than I expected, for something far from the quality I had in mind :-)


Wow, your music is great!


David Brent?


I have a comp eng degree but was completely burnt out after graduation. I jumped into digital learning instead; it's ideal for me as it's still "IT" but combined with my other favourite areas, education, product and design. The learning curve wasn't so bad, there are plenty of good WYSIWYG authoring tools with only barebone knowledge of HTML/ CSS/ JS required - although you'll quickly find that that's much less important than the skills to teach and to have a good design eye, for example.

So now, most of my job is to assess training needs, design a programme solution - along with its curriculum, script, storyboard etc - then develop the actual eLearning, test-test-test then launch. So quite similar to a software development cycle - except most often this is a one-man job and shouldn't last more than a couple of months.

Initially I was naive enough to think hey, I got this, but there's a reason why MOOCs generally have high drop-out rates. The bar for eLearning is extremely high. You also have to take account of other limitations, from outdated IT systems to the sizeable number of computer illiterates/ Luddites to the organisation's own conflict of whether the training should look 100% corporate (aka boring) or creative (learners cry hurray!)

But I find that I enjoy navigating through them and finding the right balance. I also learnt a massive amount about how to teach, what good designs mean and how to listen to users. In terms of opportunities - well there's enough I suppose, at least for me I can work on my edtech project - for children, cos hey it's just more fun ;) - with a backup contract work to keep the money going.


I just made an account here to reply to your account .Could you please elaborate on how you got into digital learning/edtech or how can a fellow software engineer get into digital learning/edtech?


Oh goodness, I'm glad someone found this intriguing, I think I came across as a bit self-promotional before :o

It was mainly accidental that I got into digital learning. I was pretty traumatised from my degree, even today I still feel irrationally reluctant to code.

But I've always been passionate about design and education. I also wanted to "self-heal" if you like, to repair myself as a person and as a learner. And what better way than to learn how to learn and teach??

One of the best parts of my job is I can get away with being "dummy". I tell my subject matter experts that it's helpful to assume this position, so I can be empathic to all types of learners, but really I'm a slow learner myself haha. And yes you do end up designing better eLearning! Being in Learning And Development also gives a good overview of the whole organisation, as you need to understand how it works and where the gaps are in order to tackle them with training (or not.) I learnt a lot, and dare I say I am much more confident as learner, teacher and professional.

Lately though I've been feeling that I have a debt to pay. I consider myself lucky to "survive" depression, and to live in a good country with lots of opportunities. So I am moving to my own edtech project focusing on literacy for children, with lots of interactive eBooks :)) I do have a backup remote gig though.

If you're really interested, google up "Instructional Design" and "eLearning" just to get a flavour of the field. As I said, there are WYSIWYG tools but increasingly organisations are moving towards mobile-friendly courses, which is great news for developers as it means more coding opportunities. Have a look at "Adapt", an open source authoring tool which requires a bit of HTML/ JavaScript knowledge. "Unity" is also increasingly being used ... and there's a growing trend for VR learning.

Hope that's helpful, if not just email me via my profile.


Sorry if this comes off as harsh, but do you approach eLearning with this sort of wishy washy that most people tend to have in this field(as far as I observed), or do you know what you are doing, eg. the educational psychology behind it, and basing decisions on empirical evidence?

"Many institutions move towards eLearning" - the impression I got from this topic is that its pretty much every time one of those "Ipad cases" - spend $$$ on Ipads even if they are useless, just to show how modern your institution is. Almost every time I hear about this, its some news-article over hyping eLearning that is so badly implemented that the teachers hate it.

If you know what you are doing (not the wishy washy way) then I would really like to ask you some questions.


If I know what I'm doing? Hmm, I like to think that I can by paying close attention to the problem itself. Every organisation is unique, and though their problem sounds general and well-defined, it usually isn't. So as part of scoping, you need to dig further in order to gauge the actual problem - you may even realise that it's a symptom of a deeper problem in which case training isn't always the solution. This does mean that you have to immerse yourself in the organisation to understand the culture, biases, IT system, branding, language and so on - all this will also feed into your final design. And build relationships; rarely what people tell you at first actually match up with the real problem.

My rule is to start from first principles and work my way up as logically as I can. This helps to cut through the bullshit - yep, I agree with you that there is too much of it in L&D. However it's also useful to know core pedagogy theories and the latest fads, because it will help you speak in their language. Some of them are genuinely useful, but I find myself drawing mostly from design and behaviour science.

Digitalisation is a serious strategy though. You will be surprised at how dated some systems are in the biggest companies, and the amount of reluctance to adapt in the workforce. The mistake most companies do is to rush with digitalising their training, when there does need to be a proper transition sensitive to the workforce's needs and perceptions.

Although I've sung praises about eLearning here, personally I prefer blended learning - but the best ones require skill in creating the complementary digital component well.


Thats does sound pretty interesting and helpfull too.I will definitely check those things out .Thanks for sharing!


Hey, I'd love to connect on elearning a bit more, especially with your developer background. I have a similar background in content and learning platform dev.


It's pretty non-traditional, but: in my spare time, evenings and weekends, I wrote a couple of bad novels. This took a long time. Then I took time off between contract jobs to write a good novel. Then I sold the novel, and got a couple of subsequent book deals, enough to spend six years as a full-time novelist, which was pretty great. Then I parlayed that into magazine journalism.

I eventually went back into software -- writing is not great for one's bank balance unless you hit it extremely big; my gross income is now more than triple what it was during those years as a full-time writer -- but I'm still an occasional journalist and even more occasional author, and those were an excellent six years.

I think the tl;dr is to try to turn what you enjoy doing in your spare time into your secondary profession.


This is very inspiring! I've written my first bad novel, planning the second, although really loving my engineering job as well :)


Loved this response. I love the non-trad roles evolved from engineering.


The thing I regret not doing is sales. And I mean SALES. Selling plots of land in a swamp. Selling GIs suits of armour on an aircraft carrier. Selling fake Gucci jackets out of the boot of a car. I'm talking Glengarry Glen Ross shit and worse. If I had a career timeout I think that's what I might do.

Bear with me here.

It's like there's two ways of looking at what life is really about. On the one hand life is about stopping to smell the flowers, feel the sand in between your toes, enjoy balmy evenings with friends and family. On the other hand life is about a cruel and monstrous struggle for survival in which every living organism is consuming or parasitising some other organism for its own advantage.

Both these things are true: I feel like people who have the privilege of NOT doing sales, don't see both sides on a regular basis. Don't understand where their incomes really originate.

So I always felt like it's a world I know about, but haven't really experienced. Like sometimes I love walking through an industrial estate at 6am and feeling like this is really where things are happening.


As someone who was in sales as a first job working with all kinds of companies, small and Fortune 500, this is absolutely true. Unless you learn to pick up a phone, learn to ask for what you want in an agreement, and learn what it takes to communicate the value of a product effectively you'll have a handicap in starting a company, but also fully understanding any company for which you're working.


Most of sales is pretty depressing and drips of desperation while one person in the office crushes it and others struggle. I'm talking "prestigious" areas like commercial real estate too. Most salespeople are not in high margin, booming areas like IT/software.

Higher the margins and technical complexity the better.


Building and selling is a wonderful thing. It gives FREEDOM.


When my family moved to the Bay Area we owned a home. Rather than sell, we engaged a property manager to rent it out. We had a few years of excellent income from that which essentially paid the PITI (principal, interest, taxes, and insurance) on our FHA-financed home (including holding a "reserve" for repairs, vacancy, etc.) plus a (very small) profit. It definitely lit a fire in my belly to switch out. I find software development to be incredibly boring and, worse, having a higher quotient of immature and unjustifiably arrogant people than I find myself able to tolerate lately.

I haven't made the switch just yet, because I want a slightly larger bank account before I draw down from it to finance a couple of purchases. I've also basically self-taught for a real estate license. One doesn't need the license to buy and sell real estate for oneself, but the knowledge is very handy and I may get a license anyway just to be able to work with an agency for the experience of it. Doing this sort of thing requires one to build skills that translate to any industry (sales, "people skills", etc.).


Personally, I find going into real estate borderline immoral. Competing with people who want to own homes raises prices and makes people spend less on more interesting and intrinsically valuable pieces of the economy. There is some place for it, but right now there is far far too much money and too many people vying to get maximum profit out of a basic human need.


It's not more immoral than any other sales job or being a lawyer, trader, politician, tax accountant, banker, financier... 90% of white-collar jobs are immoral. If you want to be moral, become a garbage collector, builder, janitor, etc...


I'm on a similar page as you but I think that 'flipping' houses is okay. The house next door went for sale and we were thinking of buying it but it was a complete dump. Some guy bought it for a "steal" around $600k, fixed everything up, and sold it for around $850k a few months later. The plus (or downside) is that your new neighbor most likely is more financially well off than someone who would buy a cheaper house.


It isn't any more immoral than, say, working to trade on personal information or for a defense contractor as a software developer.

For clarity: that is to say it can be immoral, but isn't immoral just because.


why not just buy something, rent it out and keep doing your job? it's not like you need to be on it full time to rent out a place. even if you have to do quite a bit of diy. i rent out rooms in my place and it's just a perfect side gig.


How do you find reliable renters? Airbnb or some other?


my renters have proven to be very reliable so far. you have to realize: most people are reliable. people are not looking to stay for two months for free and then get thrown out of the door. most people are not bad people. so whatever you do , it will likely work.

i use fb groups and my personal connections 50-50. i would not use Airbnb because it is usually for the short term. it is important to talk to people before you let them rent. try to judge their character. in general i avoid people who seem too cold/business-like about it, because i know people who like me stay longer and will be more fun to live with.


The feelings are mutual for the most part and the interest shared. I think that'll be a good transition for you. Would you be staying in the Bay area where real estate is hyper expensive or start elsewhere?


Elsewhere. The Bay Area suffers a number of problems for people in my position and with an interest in real estate. Firstly there is the moral issue one commenter noted above: the artificially scarce housing here makes it so that the landlord class is effectively fomenting homelessness for all but the affluent and wealthy. Second there is the issue of ROI. I'm not in a position to purchase an apartment building or capital real estate, and anything smaller in scale is, frankly, a dumb use of money. I can get 5-7 times the house for my capital in plenty of places outside the Bay Area with better cash flow and without engaging the moral issue.


As someone who has worked those type of jobs for years, the grass is indeed NOT greener on the other side.

Those jobs have a much lower barrier to entry, so in addition to being paid less, employers can hire and fire much more easily.

Also don't fall for the "sales is such a great skill to have!" When was the last time a salesperson convinced you to buy something?

What will you have to show for the years you're going to waste in these type of jobs besides a few bullet points on your resume?


B2B sales is probably a lot more compelling than B2C sales. Big difference in mentality. Consumers don't typically value their time monetarily, whereas businesses are (mostly) only concerned with how much money they'll save if they buy your product.

And then you realise why people will pay $10k for software that saves them even an hour a day. It pays for itself in under a year.

Having done it, I would never get a job in retail again. It's absolutely soul destroying.


Think about the last time you didn't buy something because of a bad salesperson.


Like the movie officespace where peter becomes a construction worker is met with construction boss version of lumberg.


Salespeople aren't selling to you or me. They're selling to other companies.


There is a great job that you might be interested in that would be easy to obtain as well as provide opportunities for travel, free accommodation, and give you free time to work on programming, read, or whatever you want. You could stay in BC or move anywhere in the world -- get a job at a hostel.

You don't need any special skills to get a job at a hostel. I think that it would be much more beneficial for personal development than serving coffee or flipping burgers. It's very good for interpersonal and intercultural communication skills. Depending on which shift you work, you could still get in a full day of coding on side projects on some days.

I worked in that industry and was even able to get a European work visa based on it (along with the technical skills). Send me a message if the idea interests you. (@joshhostels on Twitter)


I worked as a software developer for 3 years until RSI struck me. It took me one year of rehab to be in a situation to live normal life.

Life decided for me that I can't be a programmmer anymore. I had an engineering degree in Computer Engineering and it was hard for me to convince myself that I can't type anymore. It just wasn't possible physically. So after much furstration I decided to make a change. I went back to school to study. This time I took up Statistics. Now I'm a PhD student in Biostatistics. Much better in terms of job satisfaction and typing is less. The latter is important for my RSI injury which never went away completely.

PS: in my master's I met all kinds of people from all kinds of background studying statistics. It broke my bubble that I'm the only one who has made a change.


I saw this thing on TV once where a guy recovered from RSI by typing with a pen in each hand, so you hold a pen and use the back flat part to hit the keys, he had some pretty impressive speed too.


Have you tried using a different mouse/keyboard or using one of those silicon pads to support your wrist? You could also try to change your posture while sitting.


I was awaiting that comment :). Short answer to your question: Yes, my desk looks like I will to fly to Mars any moment. Long answer: I rather not type or I will give myself more pain.


I doubt that more technology is the solution. What worked for me was to build up strength in my wrists, hands, and forearms again, with free weights. (I'd actually recommend dumbbells rather than barbells. If I were advising myself 22 years ago, I would tell myself to start really light, and don't work too hard to begin with.) It took a lot of work, but I didn't cause the RSI to flare up again, and within a few months I was able to type at full speed for indefinite periods.

Something else I learned was to not overdo it.

So, that was almost a cure for me, but whether it'll work for you or not is an entirely different thing, depending on what the root of the problem is. You would probably also need to address posture and muscle tension issues, like I do, and you just plain should not attempt any kind of serious rehab without a good physiotherapist helping you.


I share your opinion completely.


I used to be a software engineer and switched into the investment/asset management industry. I had hand, finger and shoulder pain. Turns out it was Carpel Tunnel.. I was 25... I've been using Bracoo wrist braces when typing and they've really helped. I also sleep with them on and while I still have some tingling in my hands the pain has mostly gone.

The switch into investments and the wrist braces basically saved my career...

https://www.amazon.com/Bracoo-Breathable-Superior-Ergonomic-...


If you don't mind me asking. Were you able to trace it back to something that led to RSI ? Do you have any tips for people to avoid it in future.

Also, so glad to hear you were able to find something you like doing. RSI is stuff of nightmares.


I cannot still say what caused me RSI in 2013. It was a combination of muscle atrophy: desk jobs and my own apathy towards my body. I slogged hours and hours in front of the computer. In my country programmers are cheap and working hours include weekend (you are pressurized to do it). I was just out of school and I bought the argument that my output was the best in all teams and I was an amazing "Asset" to the company.

My suggestion to people to avoid RSI is: Just don't work too much, focus on health and small things in life. Work is just a part of life, it is not life.


Maybe what you can do is bring your software development skills to a more "jobby job"? You sound like someone who could easily be a one person back office for a small company/local bank/corporate office, helping with tech, custom software, etc. Might be a good way to utilize your skills, but in a different culture.

I'm with you on the extreme pressure cooker that is tech jobs, and tech recruiting. It's almost as if the dial is either 0 or 11.


This is along the lines of what I'm asking myself and what I attempted to communicate in my question. To your second point, what I consider my most successful role was being the "webmaster" for a medium sized retailer. A sports retailer with a very foreign culture. Turns out, I do fairly well when given lots of responsibility with little micromanagement. Doing that again is not something I'd discount as a possibility, though so not something I've thought to pursue again. Perhaps I'll consider this and broaden my IT related search outside software dev. Could be worth a shot. It would certainly contrast your last sentiment which I agree with wholeheartedly.


There is a huge amount of research that shows that broad responsibilities (without micro-management) are correlated with high motivation. See the classic paper "One more time, How do you motivate employees" for a starting point.

So much in dev and elsewhere depends on the specifics of the organization structure and who your manager is.

Good luck.


Have you ever tried sales? It should be fairly easy to get a sales job at any retail store near where you live. Spend a year or two getting good at it, then get hired as a technical sales engineer. Sales is a versatile skill and somebody with both sales chops and programming skills is hard to come by.


This. I've been a passionate side project software developer yet the job I've had for the past few years that paid the bills well and let me work remotely has been a mix of apps engineer / sales / marketing. Instead of working retail I'd look into b2b software companies and hardware (e.g. Micro-controller/fpga/dsp) companies


I'd add that sales is quite possibly the most universal of skills. You can move anywhere in the world and get a well paying job if you have sales experience. Well, maybe not North Korea, but you get the drift.


well, north korea still has to sell all that coal it pulls out of the ground using slave labor.


This interests me, who would I contact to sell that slave coal? Do they use external recruiters? Any pointers would be appreciated


> very time intensive interviews with very few compelling companies worth the effort

You will probably think this is partonizing, but anyway: I don't really get how working for a non-IT company that hurts your body and soul is better than working at a non-hip IT company that only hurts your soul. I can guarantee you that you'll feel worse at "Starbucks, McDonalds, retail" than you have ever felt in your IT job. A vocational job or maybe construction would be more suitable in doing something for your well-being, but not the kind of customer facing jobs you describe.

I dislike the interview circus, too, but there are lots of small worthwhile companies that don't require you to jump through hoops and waste your time with interview marathons.


Construction does also fall into this category. Simply slipped my mind when writing the question. I haven't found that smaller "hip" IT companies hurt my soul, but everyone's experience may vary. Body yes, but I have a fairly high tolerance for it.


It's a bit similar to what I'm thinking about right now. I started my career close to 20 years ago, coding dynamic web pages (yes, I worked with php3), and unintentionally broadened my skillset into something like a CTO skillset for specific environments - I never was a really great coder, so I'm not suited for the lead-developer kind of role in an early phase startup.

Now I'm losing more and more interest in "core tech". While I find infrastructure, performance and scaling still kinda interesting on a rather abstract level, I find it more and more enjoyable to work with "people & processes", so: How do people collaborate within an IT department, how does IT collaborate with its stakeholders, how are the roles & responsibilities structured, where are the frustrations, what can be improved, how do we scale the team.

I've been doing this as a freelancer for almost three years now, and I had just two large-ish projects (about 6 months each). Problem is that both projects were started because management thought the problems they were facing were "the IT's fault", so I was hired as an interim CTO to "fix the IT". Management had the impression that I would look at the code and improve it, and then everything would be fine. However in both projects I discovered there were various severe dysfunctions that didn't really have anything to do with what the IT produced.

So staying within the jurisdiction of IT seems reasonable, but I'm also thinking about leaving it completely to become a general "organisational coach". But at the end of the day, I have no idea what to do, since right now it's hard to find clients, since my communication is rather incoherent, and people don't really understand what I have to offer. As soon as I say that I won't even _read_ code, they think I'm completely useless.


> However in both projects I discovered there were various severe dysfunctions that didn't really have anything to do with what the IT produced.

This is very common and it's not funny, it's tragic. IME the problem always comes down to personalities in upper management. They're incompetent, and give rise to incompetent teams.

I once worked with an old mainframe programmer who had re-created himself to be a process evangalist by going off and getting a ph.d from some no name univerisity. When I worked with him he was hired as a senior business analyst. I was very intrigued by how he perceived his role and value add. He used to say his job was to get the right people in meetings to talk to each other, and they would make the decisions. And that's all he did, organize meetings, for the full year he worked there.

In the end he was very adamant about not taking on any other responsiblities and was fired. Luckily, the company was smallish and wised up. Looking at his linkedin, you see a similar pattern, 6-12 month gigs all over town. Maybe he'll land in a suitably Big Dumb Corp someday. My take away was, for that type of role, you really need to DO something. Banal, I know.


First of all, getting people together to talk is not doing nothing. It's getting people together and talk. There are companies/departments where people just don't talk to each other anymore, or not about the right things, because many things are so bogged down that people don't bring them up anymore.

Ok, now while I'm typing I see what you might mean: Of course in a management role you actually have to actively "facilitate": You have to challenge things that seem to be stuck, you have to offer solutions by comparing your experience with the situation at hand. Some kind of an "organisational coach with focus on IT teams". But this wouldn't be a permanent position but a freelance one, and 6 months seems to be a reasonable time for an IT team (and its stakeholders!) to resolve a lot of issues and to be able to flourish on their own.

Having the team decide on architectural matters isn't bad management per se in my opinion. At least having most of the ideas - of course management is responsible for the decisions, but if the ideas come from the team, the developers usually feel way more appreciated, and the decisions are supported way better than those that "come from above". But also, management has to facilitate: Have the team explain why they want to do things a certain way, have them lay out alternatives, and challenge their ideas with your experience.

That's just my understanding of an IT manager: You're not a manager because you were the best developer, and so you were promoted - changing into a management role is NOT a promotion, it's taking a different career path, doing a different job. So to my mind an IT manager should not be a lead architect who has all the great ideas, and the team works them off. He's a Servant Leader who helps the team to be the best team they can be.


Unless your just done with tech, don't give up! Picking up other work happens. I've done it plenty of times and still do it but I know what I can do. Start a side project, start a side business, just don't let the job situation deter you. I'm oldish, at least in tech years. After doing the consulting thing for some time I haven't had much in terms of full-time tech jobs coming my way and switched modes to doing something on my own. I still do odd jobs in the meantime but that doesn't stop me. You got skills, don't forget. ;)


I was a 4th-year student in a maths / CS programme in Eastern Europe and had a part-time job as a web developer. Over time, I got the impression that being a dev is a low-prestige job with very slim chances of moving into any position of power. So I abandoned programming entirely, enrolled in a masters' program in economics and in 3 years got a job in M&A advisory at an investment bank.

Getting a finance job was not easy (two full recruitment seasons, 20+ failed interviews - even though I graduated from the top bachelor and master programmes in the country and the financial market was booming those years), mostly due to my lack of people skills. The people's mindset and mode of communication in business are much different from what I was used to in IT and academia. It cost me a lot of time and mental effort to adapt.

Note that I was only 20 years old back then when I started doing my master's in economics but there were much older people around who also succeeded in getting into investment banking, management consulting or other business-like careers of their choice.

Now, after 8 years in finance, I became fed up with it, left the job and am currently trying to break into the IT/startup sector as a CTO/co-founder.


> I got the impression that being a dev is a low-prestige job with very slim chances of moving into any position of power.

It used to be like that in EE (Poland) in the first decade of 2000. Now, with remote jobs paying $10k+ per month and low costs of living, who cares about power? Unless you genuinely want to be "important" and not just well paid.


Seriously, $10K/mo for remote engineers in Poland?

If so then hooray for Poland, but most engineers in Germany make less than that.


It's not about Poland, it's about remote (as in not a Polish employer).


Remote as in working for US companies...


I'm thinking of switching to Finance from CS. I'm all the way across the world but I think you may have some valuable advice. Can you -- or anyone here in similar position -- share your email?


> Now, after 8 years in finance, I became fed up with it, left the job and am currently trying to break into the IT/startup sector as a CTO/co-founder.

Finance + IT knowledge is very powerful these days.


When I was young and I had no degree and almost no experience, I made a few web projects and put them together in a portfolio. I showed the beginning-to-end methods I used (pencil sketches and all) to complete the projects on my own. It took a few months but I landed a job with a small company (they cited the portfolio as the main reason they got me in to interview) and have been employed ever since.

Later as a manager who was hiring, the biggest problem I had with hiring juniors was I couldn't easily tell one between another, and even with a degree from a decent University, I was unable to figure out if a) they could solve problems or b) if they could even code at all (surprisingly, many graduates cannot, and I don't have time or inclination to train them).

On the other side of the fence, candidates that put effort into portfolios like the one I described, even for a single project, made it very easy to decide if they were a worthwhile bet because they had already answered my questions with their portfolio piece: that they can solve a problem and that they can actually code.

Even interview phases, I've had seniors whom have aced the interviews and turned out completely rubbish. If only I was able to determine their aptitude from a real project before I've even called them...

Another angle is to find a company that need something built but are not a 'tech company'. Often these, assuming you can pull of the work they need, are less about the 'passing the tech interview' and more 'solving the problems' the small business is having. I started out doing this also (I worked in ad agencies making bespoke things as their only programmer).

There are avenues outside of 'tech companies' if you can do the work, if you love making stuff, don't give up on it yet!


Answer: cell phone displaced my career/job

Taking a basic job like McD etc will give you new skills.

There will be plenty of upward mobility in service and retail if you show brains and hard work. You will stand out.

For me, going from office/ professional to service yielded these positives:

Working with young people. Youth keeps me feeling young. Plus i never realized that over50% of my old office environment was filled with adults that failed at marriage. Youth have everything in front of them and bring a great load of fun to work beside.

Feeling accomplished. Its easy to see how you help others in a service job. (i worked on the same system for years and never felt the way i do interacting with human customers.

My time after work. If im not on the clock the time is mine.

If you don't make the money you don't spend the money. It was difficult to see how I could have taken a 60% pay cut before i left the golden handcuffs job, but it was much easier than I fretted over.

But beware! Just like most McD employees could not get a job in tech the reverse is more than true. It is just not as obvious


What about doing the physical end of IT/development? Prior to actually getting my first job on the software side of things I did the low voltage wiring for networks and related systems in commercial construction. I have installed several million linear feet of Cat5e, Cat6, RG-11, RG-6, and so on. It's definitely a differerent experience than most have.


I went back to school and got a doctorate in botany. Now I am a staff scientist at a large state university. Working in tech gave me a lot of financial success, but it wasn't something I was passionate about.


I went back to school and got a doctorate in psychology :)

Mind you, then I went back to software development because I needed the money. Still doing some research with my colleagues in my spare time.

Fortunately, being someone who is able to complete a PhD is appealing so some IT employers, even if it's a different field.


This sounds great, congratulations. How hard was it? Were you outstanding in your field? (that's what people report on the internet on the difficulty on landing academia position in biology).


That's wonderful. I'm having trouble finding entry-level science internships as an undergrad because all my past experience has been in tech so I can to what interests me more.


That would be a benefit to your CV for a number of positions. Entry-level undergrad science internships tend to be extremely competitive, I was never able to land one. One of the best things you can do is, assuming you're at a university and not a college, become a research assistant at one of the labs on your campus. There's typically no pay, but you can often get credits, and it can sometimes lead to a publication.


Sell. Sell. Sell.

If you can crack the sales mystery and get good at it, there's nothing you can't have. Good sales folk make $$$$$$$$$$.


“It takes brass balls to sell real estate.”


Got sick of the daily hack, went to an estate sale, found a bunch of rocks and tools that would let me work said rocks, and after a bit of trial, error, and about seven proper youtube videos, here I am.

Made and sold this yesterday - http://i.imgur.com/byR2660.png


This is cool. Do you have a youtube channel or were you watching them to learn?


You can do front end developer contract gigs on one of the freelancer sites. You won't make a ton but you can make 2 or 3 times minimum wage (based on Vancouver minimum wage) without trying very hard. You can make a good bit more than that if you get good at contracting. Plus contracting lets you build skills you won't get working as an employee.

Work 4 months out of the year full time, or 10-15 hours a week year round and you'll make as much as you would working at McDonald's. Spend the rest of your time learning whatever you want.


What kind of places do you look to find this kind of stuff? I'm based in Melbourne, so I'm not sure how different it is, but last time I looked into it the work on offer seemed overwhelmingly based around inexperienced devs working on shoddy PHP/Wordpress sites for far below minimum wage.


Upwork and various sites like it have plenty of people making way above minimum wage. You have to spend some time sorting through the nonsense, but it's there.

If you're in North America, speak fluent English, and you can actually program, steady jobs in the $20-$30 an hour range are easy to find. (note that if you're a decent developer living in North America, I wouldn't advise working for those rates unless you have a specific reason to, e.g., you want easy jobs that are easy to find or you really need money now.

Living in Melbourne it might be a bit harder because of the time zone difference you lose a bit of the advantage North American developers have over eastern Europe, India, and other low cost of living countries.

I still think it's probably doable.

There are jobs on those sites paying decent developer wages as well, but those are harder to come by. I did a bit of work on Upwork and other sites before I started finding work through the Hacker News find a freelancer and upped my rates to $100 an hour.


Do you have any experience doing this? I've done lots of work in Unity and Android/iOS but mostly making games (70-75%). I looked at upwork and all the posts for game-related material looked terrible. I prefer to not make games but that's what I'm best at right now. Would it still be easy to get into? Or do you recommend getting good at front end, fullstack, or anything else? I do like to learn so that won't be a problem.


I can't imagine that upwork is any good for game programming. You're better of finding full-stack and front-end jobs.

Like I said though, I don't actually encourage anyone to work for $20-$30/hour unless they're living in a low cost of living country or have some other compelling reason.

You can find people willing to pay $50+/hour on upwork (or at least you could the last time I looked a year or two ago), but you'll have to spend a lot of time searching.


I'm sort of doing this now. I'm a full-time software engineer, and I have a passion for tea as well. I've been reading a TON about small business, entrepreneurship, etc. My wife and I are in the processes of launching a side-hustle online tea company, and documenting the whole process on our YouTube channel. It may not be a full-time gig, but we want to grow it as far as we can. So, in short, we're sticking with the safe jobs we know and leveraging our free time to build something we love.


FWIW there are some people doing small- to medium-sized businesses in Very Serious Tea here in Europe and while it doesn't seem to be Republic of Tea 2.0 money-wise they do seem to really enjoy it.

Example:

https://zhaozhoutea.com


This is a great answer. It shows a good approach, I think to working on something moderately over time util you make the decision to switch.


Be very careful about such a career transition. Grass always seems greener on the other side. You don't realize what you have until you lose it. Sure there are job related problems in IT but they are nothing compared to other other industry jobs especially the ones that pay minimum wage. Most minimum wage jobs are physically demanding and will drain the hell out of you. Any job that requires dealing with general public is very taxing and offers virtually no flexibility in work hours. You will be more burnt out than in IT. I suggest you take up hobbies in free time (sports, musical instrument etc). Do things that you like and then you will not feel burnt out but you would enjoy the hobbies as well as work. You will also realize that work is not everything. If you view work as something that enables you to do other things in free time you wouldn't mind it so much. And IT is particularly good at that - good salaries, good working conditions, reasonable work hours. Do not underestimate what you have.


Maybe teach English in Asia or drive an Uber? Or go to trade school to become an electrician or mechanic?

Those are the escape routes I daydream about when I'm unhappy at work, anyways :)


Teaching is a difficult job, but I really enjoyed it. If you are from an English speaking country, have a university degree and are under 40 then the JET programme (Japan Teaching Exchange) is a pretty soft landing if you get in. Reputable government job, visa sorted out, travel expenses sorted out, accommodation sorted out and higher than normal wages (which... is not saying much -- it's still pretty low). The problem is that it takes a good year from applying to going and in some countries the competition is fairly stiff. Still, I recommend it. I intended to go for 1 year, but stayed for 5 (maximum length of the contract). I never really intended to get out of the software industry but I would happily have continued teaching English if circumstances hadn't led me back to high tech. I still entertain notions of teaching again...


Oh man the JET program is amazing compared to the other teaching jobs in Japan. I was never part of the program but considering what they do for you and the market rate, the pay is still pretty good. Can I ask how you got back into tech afterwards? I taught for a few years in Japan and it was quite hard to land my first programming job after (I'm still in Japan).


I went to the UK :-). The real story is that I went to Japan only thinking of staying for 1 year. After a couple of months, I knew I was going to stay forever. At that point I quite happily made the decision to give up writing software professionally, do something else and write free software in my spare time. After 5 years, I was actually planning on starting a brewery (I've been a homebrewer since I was 18), but I got married and my wife wanted to learn English (she's Japanese). We ended up going to the UK since I can get a visa to work there. I needed to do something to pay the bills, so I tried to get a software job.

London is chock-a-block with programming jobs. There are also meetups pretty much every day of the week (often with free beer and pizza). I basically went to as many meetups as I could and I also invested in going to some conferences in areas I was interested in (another good way to meet people). I screwed up my first interview very badly and I'm sure that the people involved are convinced I can't program at all :-). But in the end I got lots of interviews and was able to land a job in about a month (though I started a month later).

Of course the biggest question people had was, "Can you still program?" I'd been out for 5 years. Luckily I had been working on a side project in Ruby for that time period. The code was pretty awful (I was experimenting with a few different ideas) and definitely not idiomatic Ruby, but it helped a lot (i.e. it got me a foot in the door). I also needed to create a narrative for my career where teaching English for 5 years made sense. Of course, people don't plan out their lives like that in reality, but it helps people understand that there is some continuity -- you aren't just bumbling around from job to job. In the end, I had to adjust my salary expectations (because London pay is quite low compared to similarly expensive cities in North America and also because my employer was legitimately taking a risk in hiring me). But I've always been more interested in doing interesting work than receiving a large paycheck, so I had no problem with that. If you do good work and are successful, your employer should bump you up the next year. If they don't, you can very reasonably leverage your "I am working in the industry now" status to find a higher paying job.

I'm currently back in Japan, working remotely on contract for that same company. Being married to a Japanese national made it very easy to return. When I was looking for work before I left Japan, I found that recruiters and what-not wouldn't touch me. I suspect that they thought (reasonably) that I didn't have access to a visa. As soon as I touched down in the UK, they were all over me.

I couldn't quite tell if you are working in high tech now or not, but if you are looking, that's my advice (for work outside of Japan) -- work on your portfolio, etc while you are in Japan. Find a busy centre with lots of jobs and an active meetup scene and go there to meet people. Going to the UK still cost me an obscene amount of money, but I'd been very careful about saving while on JET, so it was fine. If you are short on cash, I'd say try to save up -- having enough money to scrape by for 6-8 months in the centre you pick will really help you (and you can live on beer and pizza in the mean time :-) ).

I can't give you any advice on working in Japan, since I haven't tried to get a job here. However, probably the same advice will work. Likely it means working in Tokyo or Osaka, though. Remote work seems to be picking up steam these days, but it's pretty hard from Japan. The timezone is basically the worst. I put in a lot of days where I work to midnight or later so that I can overlap with London. If you were trying to overlap with the west coast US, it would be baker's hours (starting at 3-4 am) and you are a day ahead (so probably you are best working from Tuesday to Saturday). For me, that's by far the hardest part. My current employer is quite liberal about what hours I work, but I find that I'm most effective if I overlap as much as possible, so that's what I generally try to do (taking a week here and there to work Japanese hours to recover).


Thanks for the long write-up. I'm actually employed in Japan now but it was quite some work to get a position. I have a very long commute so I'd be much happier with either a remote position or one closer to my home but haven't had any luck (I live in the 'country-side' and work downtown for a fun 2 hour commute each way). I'm from the SF bay area so I'm thinking of looking at remote jobs from the states but they seem hard to land and cut-throat.


If you have time, give me a shout (my contact details are on my account page). I'd to chat about what you are doing.


No Uber in Vancouver, unfortunately. It's one of the very few cities in North America without Uber and Lyft.


The rules were changed and ride sharing will be legal later this year.


Says who? Last I heard the liberals were trying to use it as an election-year bribe and it backfired on them heavily. I believe the recount is today, so we don't even know if they won yet. They haven't actually changed any rules yet (unless you have a more recent source).


Just go do it. I've worked all of those "jobby jobs" on the way to becoming a software engineer. Maybe just get a less aggressive front end developer job? The difference between whats expected of you at different places or different roles is amazing.


The expectations do differ that is absolutely true. The question was more about how to take the experience that I obtained first, and work in reverse to form a body of experience that would work on a resume for a "jobby job" company. More about ideas and how than if I should.


Aviation.

I'm leaving my cushy software developer gig at a well known defense contractor to become an Army Aviator. It's not so much that I'm tired or bored, but that I'm looking for a new challenge.


The biggest obstacle you'll face is that depending on how you present yourself a savvy manager will assume that you'll get a "better" job as soon as you can and leave them high and dry.

Besides that the best advice i think is that getting a "blue collar" job is no different then getting most others. It's about who you know and how much shit you're willing to eat. I've done ever from hanging drywall to writing R code. If you're personable and willing to roll up your sleeeves you can usually get something.


I suggest addressing the leaving for a better job issue head on. One possible tactic is something like "Yes, I probably won't be around forever. But as long as I'm working for you, I'll show up when I'm scheduled to work, on time, sober, and ready to go. I have a car in good conditions / live a ten minute bike ride away / am on the X bus line. When I leave, I'll give you two weeks notice so you have time to pull me off the schedule."


I like this idea. It would be accurate to say I'd leave once something more relevant comes along (probably) and I think this is an upfront way to handle that concern.


Have you considered going back to school to get a degree in something else that could land you a better job?


+1 to this. I got bored with IT/software, went back to school, got an aerospace engineering degree, had a very satisfying 4+ years in it, then a software job came my way that was too good to turn down. Quite a commitment of time and money but for me it was all very much worth it.


Did you work part-time while going back?


Yes, I did, which helped with expenses. Funny thing is that once I got into the industry, I was the only engineer in my office who was an experienced programmer, so I ended up writing a decent amount of code for the job. It was a very satisfying way to rigorously learn methods of structural analysis, so I didn't feel like I was back to square one. And in the interviews for my subsequent jump back to the software business, when I got some questions about whether I felt rusty (they assumed I hadn't been writing software during school and aerospace), I could truthfully say that I'd programmed frequently enough that I wasn't out of practice.

This brings up a larger point I should have called out earlier: An experienced dev in a non-software field has a superpower. I'm no genius but because of my background, I was able to write software that made our engineering team more competitive, and I was able to negotiate good raises as a result. Everybody won.


I'm in Vancouver as well. The transition to minimum wage from developer wage has been pretty difficult for me as I dove into my startup. It's far too expensive here to live on $11/hr without dealing a big shock to your lifestyle. Despite that, it's been incredibly fulfilling, in part because I've diversified my day to day activities into adjacent fields like marketing and sales (which many seem to suggest exploring, I agree).

Want to meet me downtown this afternoon for coffee/patio beer? If you want to explore adjacent fields and not unrelated fields, I've got tons of pending projects in marketing, sales, community building, even physical installation of smart home equipment. Maybe you could find a way to shape a project into something that helps you explore a new skill set. If not, it's always nice to chat to someone else questioning their life decisions. Let me know! (email in bio). I'll be available after 3PM today.


How did you become a frontend developer? Did you get a CS degree, did an internship, graduated then landed your 1st job?

Well, if that's the case then this is the answer to your question. How do you switch fields? Forget about CS, it doesn't make you any better regarding other fields. You have to start from scratch there is no shortcut unless you have an amazing network.

So to answer your question, pick up a new field then re-apply the exact same process. Go to school or train for another field. Get an internship then land your 1st job. The main difference is that you should pick something you do outside of work. Don't think about your career, income, etc. pick something you'd be wiling to do for free. If you happen to make money out of it, you'll never burn out.


Would you think about working in libraries?

The developer background would be a plus if you wanted to use it in the future* but in the meantime you could apply for front desk type roles. You would develop people skills and it can be a decent paying lifelong career - which retail / food service often isn't.

I don't know what the employment opportunities are like in Canada but you could start by looking here: https://ca.indeed.com/Library-Assistant-jobs-in-Vancouver,-B...

* see https://jobs.code4lib.org/


Why not get a less demanding front end position?

Even working half time you will make more than at McDonalds.


My webdev business has financed a side business in life coaching. Right now it's by referral only and I'm taking it slow, but it's been a nice source of extra income and variety, one where I know I'm making a very direct contribution to others' lives. I have had to pay for multiple certifications and the associated education, and this actually convinced me to pursue web development certification, ongoing education, and memberships in professional societies.


Have you considered taking some time off, like a sabbatical and going to travel and working some odd jobs?

I did that 3 times total and had plenty of odd jobs.

  - fruit picking
  - removals
  - gardener
  - handy man
  - dive master
Out of those only dive mastering was something that considered taking further and becoming an instructor. I was half serious about it but in the end just didn't go for it.

If I was you I'd take some time off and think about the next direction. Good luck.


I still have my web development / programming business too in order support Clients who depend on me, but I opened an Escape Room business about 8 months ago.

Loving life again.


Seems like you are time rich - travel?

If money is an issue - set a goal (say $2000) and work until you reach it.

Building simple website / setting up WordPress / educating people on value of online presence - not very scalable but good enough to get you going...

(I believe you have a techie label among your friends and family)


Burnt out + HR + oversaturated market + 5 in 1 requirements:

I didnt even bother to move into IT. In so many years I tried just as many different jobs. What doesnt kill you makes you stronger.

You will be fine. Start a trade: plumbing, welding, wood work. Or become a photo model if you are lazy.


In this thread: lots of stories, but no one (so far) permanently moving out of coding .


There's one right above you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14390879


It's a good job in a good market for employees. Why switch?

It makes sense that some people burn out due to bad experiences and after recovering come back.


I'm currently working as a programmer and building a side business in the apparel industry. I didn't suspect how much my technological background would be an advantage, when creating an apparel brand in 2017.


Can you share some more details about your apparel business? I've thought about starting a small side business in the fashion industry, but I've been stymied by the lack of informational resources. I don't live in NYC or LA, so I don't have the option of dropping in on factory or anything like that.


The link provided below is my thread regarding starting and documenting the whole process of entering the apparel industry. I am currently developing the second batch of prototypes and hitting market around autumn. Drop me an email on: juliansamarjiev@gmail.com and I can go further in detail. Or a good place to see our process and what we did to get to this point is - https://medium.com/the-needle Let me know, would love to chat!


See here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14352131


Exactly, thank you for that one :)


Have you considered other areas in tech like Project Management, where technical skills are an added-benefit?


With difficulty, but got there in the end.

My education and first seven or so years of working life were all in IT, and in particular in software development related fields.

However as the internet was starting to really take off (1997 or around that time) I got interested in internet marketing. I think the idea of making a good living from home really appealed, and everyone seemed to be making money online, so why not me!

So while keeping my job, I studied online marketing in the evenings. In particular, I found the mental transition from IT to marketing quite difficult.

It's a huge subject, and a completely different way of thinking about things. I think you can often see that in comments here, when people focus more on the technical aspects of a marketing challenge/problem, rather than the marketing and sales aspect that actually generates the business growth.

(For example - if you're getting leads from Facebook at a cost that makes sense to you, and you're converting those leads into valuable clients, obsessing over click fraud is a waste of time and energy. IMO. Focusing on optimising your marketing, rather than the technical challenge of trying to track down click bots, is a far more productive use of your time, and your business will thank you for it.)

There's a lot more information available on marketing now of course, and there's a lot of overlap between the marketing and technical aspects (AdTech for example). But it's still two very different ways of thinking about things, and if you're too technology or data driven in marketing you can often miss the wood for the trees, and you may be ignoring people's "feelings" as abstract as that sounds, and feelings are what actually drive sales. So taking a step back from the data, and really understanding your market and how they make buying decisions, can be hugely beneficial.

So the transition took a long time, and after a few years (a lot of dabbling, only really getting serious the last year or two) I made the move into online marketing full time (running my own sites...etc.) and slowly over time my income grew. Then moved into consulting with clients, and then into starting and running an agency.

Now I have found having a technical background has been very helpful in many aspects of online marketing, but now my attention is fully focused on marketing and my business, and if a technical challenge would require a significant investment of my time, it generally makes the most sense to my business to outsource that. So being specialised and focused on business results, rather than trying to be good at everything.

So to answer your question - yes, I made the transition. It took a long time, and a new way of thinking. But it certainly paid off.


I think the ESL/teaching English abroad thing is always an option.

Being relatively young is def a good thing, imo. Olds are not so attractive to employers, career-switching or not.

i had the chance to do project management after a long time being a dev/whatever, and it was actually really cool. also did some product mgmt and that was cool too. there are often companies looking for 'junior' folks with that stuff -- the main skills needed are tech + 'interested' + young (can also be read as: not jaded yet)/cheap.

my advice to all my friends and people i care about is...get out now. that is, get out of tech, get out of wage slavery, get out of anything that allows you to be owned or is about to be automated (everything) -- get into rent-seeking and other horrible stuff b/c that's the way to survive and thrive, unfortunately.

or, move to a less insane country, like somewhere in Scandinavia maybe.

good luck!


Regarding the ESL, I guess it depends on where. FWIW I hear[0] that in Czechia there are so many foreigners whose only significant skill relative to locals is that they are native speakers, that the native English on its own is not enough anymore. The language schools now demand (and have for some time) an in-depth grammar knowledge and possibly relevant education as well. I would expect it to be the same in other Central/Western European countries.

[0] An online account of an ESL teacher, confirmed by two others in person.

(EDIT: grammar.)


Would an MFA in Writing qualify? Asking for a friend... :D


[flagged]


> I'm sorry to be blunt, but if this is the case then your skills are very much rock bottom.

Job-finding skills, maybe. But those don't necessarily correlate with job-doing skills. All of my job searches have been >3 months ("Absurd! In this job market?! You must be awful."), yet managers have made it clear to me that they've been extremely satisfied with my work.

OP, if you're anything like me, you need interview practice and networking.

* Interview practice is easy. Drill yourself over and over and over until you're comfortable with the kind of things that get asked during interviews. Then, once you're comfortable, find someone to do mock interviews with you.

* Networking is hard. Your best option is to talk to people you previously worked with and let them know you're looking for a job. If you're not in contact with former coworkers, try going to programming meetups and talking with people.


Yeah parent comment's tone is a bit too judgmental - if self-marketing is the real problem, then can I add that having a nice portfolio website is always super helpful. Even if you can't "show" your code stuff, at the very least just talk about the projects you've done.

Make sure that the website is built rock-solid so you don't shoot yourself in the foot as a front end dev ;))


I like these suggestions. Networking is hard but really the best way to find fulfilling work. Implicit networking (meetups, hack nights, hacker spaces) are things I love and come easy which is great. I do also make a strong effort to maintain relationships with former colleagues and have a high success rate leaving a job with a positive impression and mutual interest in maintaining contact.

Interview practice is something I haven't done enough and could stand to do more of. I think one of the things I need to do is take a hard look at all the reasons why I may have failed and see where I can improve. At the very least, unfortunately, most interviews are inconsistent and expectations haven't been set appropriately before hand. Some on-site right away; some never on-site; some a miniscule phone conversation plus a 6 hour coding take-home project. Oddly, intense algorithms haven't come up yet.


I think you're response is quite inappropriate. I am not sure how you were able to deduce that the person's skills lack in someway. I don't think there is enough information in the post to make that judgement.

"IT is in boom now"

Are you by any chance living in the 80-90s? :p. Apologies but I beg to differ. My personal opinion is that the field has peaked, which is why you are finding people writing up a webpage and calling themselves a startup. Of course there are exceptions but I am referring to the majority here. There is also large amount of redundant work happening.

IT is and will always be a complimentary field and cannot stand on its own. We are now going through a transitional phase where what was once classified as a white collar job is shifting on the gradient towards blue, so it lies somewhere in between. Maybe Cyan? :).


Writing software you can get a job straight out of college making 2x more than the median family income of the US. Within 5 years it is common to make 4-5x the median income. The same pattern emerges for system administrators and SRE's, but quite as steep of an income growth curve. The requirements for working in IT help desks is basically 'basic ability to install software and click the button to image hd's, and shows up to work'.

Companies are outright desperate for even entry level skills. If you can't even find work in this field, that is very atypical, and I think it is reasonable to assume that something is going on there. Maybe it's substance abuse, maybe it's a complete lack of skills, but it's something, because there are far more jobs than people to fill them.


> "over a year ago, I've had no success in finding further work" --- I'm sorry to be blunt, but if this is the case then your skills are very much rock bottom

Not necessarily, I think interviewers and tech teams can 'smell' enthusiasm + interest + motivation very well which (A) after burnout is around zero regardless of skills, (B) in a fast-changing field "in boom now" aka. full of fluff and trends and wheel-reinventions is much more crucially important in the first place --- just rarely ever spelled out or recognized like that


I didn't see the parent comment here but it sounds writ with condescension and lacking in substance. Your sentiment is definitely true. Burnout is hard and has an unfortunate spider-web effect throughout one's ability to find further work. After it subsides, I found myself looking at the field in a different light, but more importantly found it incredibly hard to do the side-projects and creative work I once found so easy.


Agreed. I don't know what the OP's situation is, and he might need some counseling to deal with an underlying issue, but his intended career move I cannot in good conscience recommend to anyone. It sounds like he's burnt out, a little scared, and needs to do some soul searching. Maybe swallow his pride and go back to basics to get some help.

If he had said he wanted to do something like become a teacher or tech tradesman of a different kind, that would be a different story, but legions of people in the low-paying, low status, dead-end entry level jobs he is describing can only dream of rising into IT employment, and there are plenty of "coding bootcamps" to "help" them get there. This guy already has an opportunity that millions dream of, and though his grip on it may be tenuous, he needs help in firming it up.


The parent comment, though I didn't see it, seems to have sounded incredibly toxic. But to address your sentiment, this is not a permanent career move necessarily and I don't want to sound like I'm taking a career in software for granted. This is part of my attempt to go back to basics, things I missed, things that might help me become better at working in general but also give me some perspective on this field from the outside. Really the simple question could be framed as "Hey I've got this resume that's filled with a bunch of frameworks and other software experience I have. How can leverage some things from this experience to apply at jobs the most people would be getting as their first job." -- or something


The general impression in hiring is that staying current with software skills requires continual effort. I think the gap on your resumé should you leave the industry and later want to return will be a considerable self-imposed hurdle, and not easy to explain even if you get interviews, and you will likely struggle even harder than now. You are going to make your own decisions and far be it from me to tell you how to lead your life, but that's my honest opinion.

Maybe you can find a non-dev role where having development experience is extremely useful? For example, customer success/support on a SaaS product often is very difficult to fill with human to human contact employees who can diagnose front end bugs a customer might be seeing, run some data queries... stuff that would otherwise result in a long turnaround for an answer by putting in a support ticket with engineering. Support staff with technical chops are extremely hard to find and high value add in enterprise software. I think you can find something more productive that plays to your strengths horizontally in the types of orgs you have been working for instead of dropping in the hierarchy of industry skillsets altogether.


This comment has been removed thanks to aerovistae's toxic comment.


I don't know what happened here but that's an unnecessary swipe and you've broken HN's civility rules before. Please stop doing so.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14390812 and marked it off-topic.


The phrasing here leaves something to be desired, if not the intention.




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