
Ask HN: Former software engineers, what are you doing now? - zffr
I&#x27;ve been programming since middle school, and have been working as a software engineer for the last 5 years. The pay is great (FAANG-level comp), but I&#x27;m extremely bored and considering leaving software engineering altogether.<p>I&#x27;d like to better understand what career options other software engineers have explored.<p>If you are a former software engineer:<p>1. What are you doing now?<p>2. Why did you leave software engineering?
======
jcborro
1\. Opened a ski mountaineering shop ([https://skimo.co/](https://skimo.co/)).
I backcountry ski most mornings in winter/spring before we open at a casual
11am; work on the site in the summer.

2a. Sick of pointless discussions about languages/frameworks/architectures,
none of it matters to low-traffic/low-tech business.

2b. Sick of meetings/arguments to decide what to build. Making business and
tech decisions simultaneously is amazingly efficient; e.g. no wasting time
over-engineering for a requirement that may not even be important.

2c. Wanted to try and combine/balance my skill with my passion.

~~~
cvhashim
How’s your business going to survive climate change?

~~~
jhloa2
Short-term, global warming is set to increase the amount of moisture in the
air, meaning that high elevation places will likely see more snow until the
warming hits a threshold where most of the moisture will fall as rain.

------
poulsbohemian
1\. Selling real estate, raising kids, planning for various future investments
and opportunities.

2\. I was in software for 20+ years. It was all I had ever wanted to do from
the time I was 13. In hindsight, I’d say you have a phase of the moon in which
to make your money and get out. It’s a brutal industry and you will likely
face burn out at some point and you need to be prepared for that moment. I was
in many different roles and responsibilities over that time, but the bottom
line was I hit a point where none of it was fun, the clients were a pain in
the ass, and it was just time to do something else that better fit my life.

If a young person came to me and asked for career advice, I’d be very direct
about what to do and not do in a tech related field.

~~~
amerkhalid
This is funny, last year, I got my real estate license too. And my reasons
were also a bit similar though I don't really want to leave software dev
completely. The ideal situation for me would be to work on my own projects,
while real estate business pays the bills. For years, I used to write code
after work and that started to get very draining.

However, I haven't really started real estate business properly, and still
have day job. Do you have any advice for software devs to transition to real
estate?

~~~
poulsbohemian
My contact info is in my profile, feel free to reach out as it might be a
longer conversation than we can have here. That said - it's like everyone says
about startups: focus. You have to be clear about what you want to do with
real estate, as it is a really big space. My partner and I have a pretty clear
10+ year picture of what we want to do in our local market. I don't know DFW
apart from a couple business trips there in the past, so you'd know better
than myself what opportunities exist there.

One thing I'll note: people often disregard real estate as a "backup career".
It takes a very broad skill set - everything from marketing to finance to
construction and design skills, along with a whole lot of psychology, to do it
right. The reason I point this out is that unless you are in a market that is
just completely flush with opportunities, you really need to be committed to
it and not just as a sideline if you want to understand what's happening in
your market and how to compete successfully. In my own area I see a lot of
part-timers who don't really understand market dynamics and they screw over a
lot of their clients as a result and/or make poor investment choices.

Just like all the startup advice you've ever received: have a plan and just do
it.

~~~
amerkhalid
Thank you, that is a good advice. I will follow up with you later when I am
ready to focus, if you don't mind.

------
Yetanfou
Buy a farm, preferably one with enough forest to keep the place warm and build
a barn or 2. Start small by growing something or other for your own use while
building or renovating the run-down house on the property. Maybe you can help
out on a neighbouring farm, say that one where the farmer nearly cut off his
hand due to a bit of stupidity with a large angled grinder without a
protective cover. Keep at it, get some animals if you want, maybe some sheep,
maybe a few cows. Your wife and children are probably going to get some horses
so be prepared for that eventuality , you'll end up building not one but
several stables, shelters, feeders and more of such. Once you've been doing
this for a number of years you'll have a good grasp of what you could do to
improve life on the farm so you start developing hard- and software to make
things happen. A wood-gas powered CHP system might be a good start? That way
those farmers who heat their house and water (for cleaning the stables,
milking equipment, etc - lots of hot water...) using wood chips get both heat
_and_ electricity for the same amount of fuel, all the long Swedish winter
long. Those PV panels don't do that much when the sun hardly shows itself
after all...

This is where I am now, more or less.

~~~
jeffreyrogers
This sounds really nice, congratulations. I'm hoping to do something similar
in a few more years.

------
trevett
1\. Hiking the NW, thinking about next-steps.

2\. Startup I was working for was acquired by FAANG co. Able to retire from
FAANG after four years of plumbing / ops / politics / meetings. There was
awful latency at all levels, from dev environment to deployment. I found it
extremely boring compared to startup life.

I would say don't judge software engineering by how it is practiced at the
FAANG level (where you can seriously get away with just a handful of changes
per half) and try to find a small scrappy team of smart high-energy folks.

~~~
giantg2
Wow retired after 4 years. I'd work in hell for 4 years if it meant I could
retire. You must of had a nice piece of equity in that startup. Congrats!

~~~
ghaff
He didn't necessarily say he was permanently retired. I read it as taking some
time off. Which is still nice. I've taken month long vacations but never felt
I was in a good position to take extended time off between jobs.

~~~
giantg2
Still, must be nice to make that kind of money.

------
itsmejeff
When I got bored with software engineering, I decided to invest in developing
leadership skills and to try to build teams.

Many people (myself included) are motivated by the impact their career can
have. The impact of a great leader is exponentially larger than that of a
direct contributor (based on the number people they can typically influence,
and the amount of resources at their disposal to pursue “bigger” ideas). A
great engineer who is also a great leader will garner more respect from their
team, and will be more effective than a great leader who was not a great
engineer.

I’m currently a Director of Engineering, and have a goal of becoming a CEO.
This is something I never remotely considered, and even scoffed at early in my
career.

The transition has been difficult and exciting. I considered myself to be an
excellent engineer, so transitioning to a role where the new challenge is how
to convince other brilliant (but possibly less honed) technical minds to do
things has been extremely fulfilling. It forces me to think harder about my
habits as an engineer and why they are important and how I can communicate
that — it also forces me to have humility and admit that some of my habits may
not have been as good as some things other folks are doing. It’s been
extremely fulfilling, and I’m much more excited about my future than I was
during the last few years I was a software engineer.

~~~
ck425
How did you make the transition in the first place? My issue is that despite
enjoying and having good leadership skills (based on external feedback so I'm
reasonable sure that's not just my ego ) I'm not the strongest technically and
getting into those roles seems to require becoming an extremely technically
competent senior/principle engineer first.

~~~
itsmejeff
I got bored with engineering because it became easy. The patterns always
repeated, and I knew that the only thing standing between me and my desired
outcome was a fully understood path of actions.

I don’t believe you have to reach this level across a wide domain, but you
should be able to achieve it within some reasonably narrow technical scope. If
you don’t, you will not be able to lead a technical team effectively. When you
are in leadership, you may not always be on the hook for delivering, but you
can win major support from your team if you are capable of diving in and doing
something technically impressive from time to time. In addition, you will need
to be able to teach engineers and guide technical implementation, which
requires the ability to communicate clearly about deeply technical topics. I
find that the less I know about a construct (think Law of Demeter, etc.) the
less I’m able to communicate it to others or build solid arguments for or
against it.

I think you must dig in and obsess about becoming great at engineering. My
passion for this role is because of its meta nature. I love engineering and
have built strong opinions about it over my career, and now I want to engineer
a team of engineers who can see things similarly, and ultimately do greater
things collectively. This wouldn’t be possible if I didn’t take the time to be
a great engineer first.

------
noahnoahnoah
I wasn't quite a software engineer, but a data
analyst/scientist/engineer/term-du-jour at a brand-ish name software company
for ~8 years, so pretty close in terms of the day-to-day work and culture.

1) I'm a professional cartographer, sort of. I make wooden topographic maps.

2) A bunch of reasons. I was never "supposed" to work in software -- I went to
school in mechanical engineering, and wanted to get closer to something like
that. My side biz was becoming viable, I wanted to do something
entrepreneurial, and even though I had a pretty good gig, no company is
perfect if you're there long enough.

I don't know if I'll go back to data or software some day. Things were great
in the map business before the pandemic, they're ok now, and hopefully they'll
be great again in the future. I still do a lot of data analysis and write a
lot of software for my business, it's just interspersed with a lot more
sweeping, sanding, etc.

~~~
cheez
[https://elevatedwoodworking.com/](https://elevatedwoodworking.com/)

------
deanmoriarty
I would like to leave because the stress of keeping up to date with frameworks
and the competition is just brutal. Everything is just so complex to implement
these days.

I still love troubleshooting systems and doing hands on work that doesn’t
involve writing code with other SWEs, so I’m considering what options I have.

I basically don’t want to be part of a code review or design discussion ever
again.

~~~
kewpiedoll99
Or ProServ - it's a lot of debugging/diagnostics work. There's a whole wide
world of need for good diagnosticians who are thin on the ground, my friend.

------
ciclista
I was a full stack web dev and Linux sysadmin for about a decade. Switched to
welding and machining - I wanted to make something tangible for a change. The
work itself was awesome (legos for grownups) but the industry is fairly toxic
IME.

Right now I'm working on getting back into IT (Network security).

~~~
JoelMcCracken
Interesting; toxic in what way?

~~~
ramtatatam
I guess fumes coming out when you do welding are toxic. I have done it myself
a few times and remember thinking about smell and if it can indicate I will
get cancer frim it..

~~~
jeffreyrogers
Based on my experience with machinists I think they might mean on a personal
level (although the fumes are toxic too). The machinists I've met have been
pretty hard to deal with. I can imagine the work environment being unpleasant,
especially if you aren't prepared for that.

~~~
cosmodisk
This is correct. Eventually people can be very nice, once you get to know
them, but you either have to be a certain type or simply have guts to tell
people to sod off, as then they would start showing respect:) I think this is
very similar to construction and some other related industries.

~~~
ciclista
Both actually. Employers are stingy with PPE and you're constantly surrounded
by dust, fumes and potentially harmful chemicals. Keep in mind this wasn't
some tiny shop that made fences, I was working on military prototypes and
aerospace projects.

I switch to the industry during the Obama administration, but after 2016
people were feeling a little too comfortable with their misogeny and racism.

To final straw was my direct supervisor becoming more radicalized into the far
right. Not a comfortable feeling when they guy you report too leaves a 9mm
with hollow points on top of his toolbox every day. The guy hadn't read a book
except for the bible in 20 years, got all his news from Facebook and Fox.

~~~
throwaway234101
> I was working on military prototypes and aerospace projects.

How does one get into that? And is the money better or worse than software?
I've been looking at switching to welding and machining for a while now, but
the pay in my area isn't great.

The rest doesn't bother me. I even hear my local pastor is a racist now[0]!

[0]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zkL91LzCMc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zkL91LzCMc)

~~~
ciclista
Location, location, location. Well, and skillset of course.

I would strongly recommend against it though. The pay is terrible. There was a
strong push for a few years to get people into the trades, and there was a
strong misrepresentation of what the opportunities are really like.

Keep in mind that government contracts are a race to the bottom. The contracts
go to the lowest bidder and since materials, etc. are a given, employee pay
has really suffered. Being a machinist is not the path to a middle class life
anymore for most people.

------
paledot
I'm in the same place as you are, not FAANG salary but my wife has a FAANG job
and we have enough savings to both retire now (early 30s) if we wanted to. I'm
trying to figure out what I'd do if I "retired". Tentatively full-time parent
part-time tinkerer, maybe put some of my back burner projects on the front
burner and see if I can get a bit of passive income out of them. Mostly I'm
feeling the lack of time and energy to build things (material and immaterial)
for myself.

But, while work isn't a source of joy for me, it is a source of structure. I'm
still trying to figure out if my life would be better without it.

~~~
mrfusion
What kind of tinkering would you do?

Have you thought of switching to a low paying but more fulfilling job?

~~~
paledot
Right now, woodworking and gardening. Later, who knows. Probably I'll circle
back around to programming, but building things for myself instead of for
other people.

I'm not really sure what I'd find more fulfilling in the day-to-day of
salaried employment. In an abstract sense, sure, I could build websites to
help orphaned puppies find forever homes instead of to help people find
mattresses or whatever. However, if overall impact is my objective, I'm better
off keeping the highest-paying job I can (consistent with my values) and
donating my salary to charity.

~~~
mrfusion
What kind of woodworking? Feel free to email if we’re getting too offtopic.

------
mcaravey
1\. About to open a bakery next month:
[https://www.pearlbakery.com](https://www.pearlbakery.com)

I operate the place as well as being the head baker, and the skills required
are vastly different. There is some overlap with soft skills, managing others,
attention to details, and so on.

2\. Still involved in software, but I discovered years ago that I can’t
accomplish much while I write the code myself. The bakery is a family
endeavor, but I’m using it as a way to collect as much business experience and
capital as possible to be able start my next big thing. But I must say, having
time away from a screen is nice too.

------
dave333
Solvent boredom beats insolvent doing what you love. Keep the day job and do
what you love as a hobby. If you don't know what you love keep looking while
still employed. I went from SW eng - > unemployed (dot com bust) -> self
employed as web entrepreneur ([https://samurai-sudoku.com](https://samurai-
sudoku.com) 2005) -> UI lead (massive relief to be earning a wage again) ->
flipping a house as a hobby (broke even but a ton of fun) -> retired (finally
unable to keep up with new javascript frameworks every 18 months).

------
mbrameld
I got my helicopter CFI and CFII and started teaching in May of this year. I
also interview for Karat so I'm not completely out of software but I'm not
writing code or managing people anymore.

I left because whether or not I was working my brain was. I get less actual
time off now but I feel like my batteries get completely recharged. Plus I get
paid to fly helicopters which is still unbelievable to me.

~~~
caprock
_whether or not I was working my brain was_

Did you find you were thinking more about technical problems or about problems
related to management of people?

~~~
mbrameld
Both, tbh.

------
spfzero
1.) Run a small part-time electronics business. I do still write software
separately when I think of a fun project, though. Programming is a creative
outlet, as is circuit design, mechanical design etc. So I still spend a lot of
my time in those pursuits. Some outdoor adventuring, hiking, climbing, off-
roading, etc. 2.) Got really sick of the way SE is managed at modern companies
now, and it was getting worse and worse. To be honest, it was a business where
software wasn't their product, and thus the people in charge weren't technical
people. Should have changed to a more purely technical company like I had
worked at earlier in my career, but the money was too good. More meetings,
more HR directed policies, new politics-heavy boss. More projects to satisfy
someone's curiosity 10 levels above me. Fortunately I was frugal and saved a
lot over a lot of years, and didn't need the job anymore.

------
victorkab
1\. CTO, is that cheating?

2\. It's not so much leaving Software Engineering, it's reframing it. Software
Engineer when done well is about creative thinking and problem solving. If you
feel that you are in a rut, try going to an organization that's not just about
coding. If you are really not interested about Software Engineering as a
discipline, I'd start by taking a break then reassessing.

------
ziffusion
I mostly dodder around trying to remember where my pants are, and wondering if
it was worth it for whoever named the creat() system call to leave the "e"
out.

~~~
tomcam
Between the wall and the hamper, and no.

~~~
ziffusion
goddamnit

------
dvxvd
In the priority order:

1\. Climbing mountains, hiking. 2\. Have a goal to learn something new
everyday.. thats how i measuring quality of the day.. zero learning = bad day
3\. From time to time short term works to earn some money. Usually companies
very surprised then i tell them that i prefer short term projects. Shorter =
better

So far so good ;) (approx 10 years)

Good luck

~~~
mrfusion
What have you learned this week?

~~~
dvxvd
1\. Found few very interesting thougts from this very long article:
[https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1zao_AyBhNb8TPWrQqgXn...](https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1zao_AyBhNb8TPWrQqgXn5NzNAgfEqzTIaFYos7wdqGI/mobilebasic)

2\. Learned tested and implemented for fun few visuals from this link:
[https://datavizcatalogue.com/index.html](https://datavizcatalogue.com/index.html)

3\. Learned and tested two diferent frameworks for the web scraping.. nice,
interesting what will be our role at the time when one machine prepare
information and another machine will consume it..

4\. Found interesting analysis at: [https://www.vox.com/a/maps-explain-the-
middle-east](https://www.vox.com/a/maps-explain-the-middle-east)

5\. Checked what are the main advantages of timescaledb and how can i benefit
from it: [https://www.timescale.com](https://www.timescale.com)

6\. Learned and tested how it works css data attributes [https://css-
tricks.com/a-complete-guide-to-data-attributes/?...](https://css-
tricks.com/a-complete-guide-to-data-attributes/?ref=colorsandfonts)

7\. Read 20+ long and detailed wikipedia articles to find out definitions and
origins of various terms and subjects

Read anothe hundred or more of posts and newspaper artivles, but i think it
was wasting of time, because so many authors writing to get click but not tell
something important/interesting.. subjective. I do agree.. problem is that i
always hope that maybe at the end i will find some briliant mind or
conclusion. so, im reading whole article.. need to change this bad habit..

Not bad week.. but always can be better..;) thing what im missing is -
continuity.. but thats probably something what need to fix by myself..;)

...

This werk i also climbed 3 peaks with prominance grater than 1000 meters and
elevation 2300-2700m... on commercial side i implemented two small automation
improvements. Changes will benefit client company and at the end - myself..

~~~
reactor
Thats great, how do you organize them? if you intent to recollect them.

~~~
dvxvd
Superb question... It more than decade im searching for a good note taking
software or methodology. Tryed hundreds of them.. but no luck.. everything,
all possible project and task managers, including personal wiki, web sites,
messangers, even established dedicated startup.. but none of solutions was
really working. Considering to hire assistant.. human.. ;)

Seriously.. few things becoming clear. Good brain extension or assistant MUST:

1\. Record your minds silently.. without noticing him.. thats why basic tools
like notepad, markup editors and etc.. usefull.. however best thing i would
like to see is device which always listening me and keeping notes.. keeping
notes.. constantly. Without disturbing me..

2\. This smart device must be able to organize information somehow.. i don't
want to mix omlete recipe with important new Angular version features. I don't
mind how to organize. It can be hidden from my understanding. Like real human
brain. as long as i can extract and reconstruct data, im fine.

3\. Obvious next step is utilizing data when you need it.. but if it is well
organized in 2nd step.. should not be a problem.. or not? Aaa.. forgot. Once
required data piece is found it must be read loud..

So far.. NONE of the solutions i tryed are close to this targets.. there are
plenty of complicated solutions.. there are plenty of greedy solutions.. there
are plenty of usless solutions.. but none of them helped me to organize hudge
amount of personal data we have.

Did i told that it must be open source (doesn't mean i dont want to pay for
it) and strictly I MUST own data?.. so..telling.

Ok. If someone is expirienced with good human memory extension techiques or
software PLEASE please.. it will so great

------
claudiulodro
On a related note for all the financially independent people I see posting
here, how did you get enough money to just peace out? Was it just the tried-
and-true strategy of work at FAANG for like 10 years?

~~~
ghaff
It really depends what age people are--as well as family etc.

I do know people who have either done the FAANG thing, the investment bank
thing, or beat the odds and won the startup lottery thing who have retired
genuinely early because they weren't doing what they actually wanted to be
doing--which could include traveling and kicking back.

But retiring 5-10 years earlier than the norm doesn't require much more than
having had a string of reasonably well-paying jobs, being sensible with money,
and being fortunate enough to avoid financial disasters.

------
bitcoin2010
1\. Full time parent 2\. Reached FIRE

~~~
pgt
What is FIRE? Is that a different acronym for FU Money?

~~~
mrlatinos
Yes, "Financial Independence and Early Retirement"

~~~
mandeepj
FIRE = "Financial Independence and Retire Early"

------
immnn
I did not really forced myself leaving software engineering.

I took the chance to be CTO at a startup. However, one of the CEOs was quite a
critical person who yelled at female workers, thus I decided to quit.
Fortunately, I always kept a strong relationship to my former employer who
wanted me to be their co-CEO.

Nowadays I do not really find time to write software. However, I still give
directions and choose technology to use.

I’m still thinking, that currently I’m not where I want to be. So I find this
discussion quite interesting.

------
hellonoko
1\. As absolutely little as possible.

2\. Got FU money and was able to do nothing.

~~~
H8crilA
How long have you been doing "nothing"? I tried it (sort of) for a year, and
found it a little dull.

~~~
juniper_strong
That's where I'm at. Well not "FU" money, maybe "I would prefer not to" money,
job off-shored so I did nothing for a while.

I had this big list of all the things I wanted to do when I stopped working,
and in six months, I didn't even start doing one of them. My girlfriend said,
"You're still on the computer all day, you might as well get paid for it".

I hate it when my girlfriend is right.

~~~
throwaway234101
> "You're still on the computer all day, you might as well get paid for it".

I took a year off a while back and pretty much did the same thing. If I ever
take that much time off again, I'm going to go someplace that has no internet.

------
timkam
No longer a Software Engineer, but still in "IT" in the broader sense.

* Left SE job for a PhD in CS, roughly 50% of a good SE salary here in Northern Europe

* Do some Product Management/Innovation advisory on the side

I left SE because I found the type of programming one typically does, as well
as the Jira ticket-pushing, uninspiring. I still write code, but (almost) only
because I enjoy it (a PhD in CS does not necessarily involve much, or any,
programming).

------
Mountain_Skies
1\. Hiking as much as is legal under current conditions and trying to decide
what to do next. I've been looking into indie games, creating various
productivity tools or maybe plug-ins for popular software. Nothing so far
looks like it is a good bet for making a living.

2\. After close to thirty years, I'm tried of all of the administrative
overhead and attempts to make me part of it. Every job for the past decade and
a half has tried to push me into management despite my clear statements that I
don't want to manage people. When I've refused, the responsibilities were
still handed to me, just without the title I turned down. Simple tasks like
getting a $20 coding tool approved could take months to go through the
purchasing process and then through the approval process for the software
itself. Buying it out of pocket at my last company was considered a major
disciplinary offense. Weekly HR tasks for endless non-technical trainings,
status reports and "check-ins" with managers and co-workers even though I have
daily contact with my manager and co-workers. These reports weren't for
consumption by anyone in my management chain of command but for HR who
demanded to be part of the internal processes everywhere. It's administrative
overhead gone mad and seems to be growing pretty much everywhere.

I never made FAANG type money but also am not a big spender so I have plenty
of time, a couple of years, before I have to start making money again. I'm not
necessarily against doing software development but can't go back to the
corporate world. The way it operates is just too far removed from how I'd like
to develop software. At least by quitting during a major unemployment event,
should I ever need to return to the corporate world, the resume gap won't be a
red flag.

------
juancn
At one point, a few years ago, I was in your place. Really bored and
completely miserable. I got tired of huge companies (one in particular) and
went to a "goldilocks zone" startup.

By this I mean the ones were they have enough money to pay you well and a
reasonable product/business with a high chance of success, but they're still
small enough for you to have an impact in the organization (we were under a
100 people when I jumped in). Really smart people and a culture that fits my
personal beliefs.

The first year was tricky, switching from the slowness of the large company to
the constant change and challenges of the startup.

Once you get your bearing and feel that you're pulling your own weight is
fantastic, been there for the past 8 years or so.

My point is, there may not be a need to change careers completely, maybe just
find the right group of people to work with.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Been there. It was wonderful... and then pretty good... and then it got kind
of boring. (I'm at 11 years.) It doesn't stay goldilocks forever. While it's
good, though, it can be really good. Enjoy it while it's good, because it
won't be forever.

Things change. People change. Businesses change. Good situations become not so
good, sometimes very quickly. If you're in a good situation, value it.

~~~
juancn
I know that. I'm still loving it, once I stop loving it, I'll start looking
for the next great group of people to work with (probably, or start one, who
knows!).

The point is that if you found it once, it's likely that you can find it
again.

So far I've been on two such magical teams. Maybe there's a third one.

------
codingdave
I moved into Product Management - partially because I wanted to stop coding,
partially because after our SaaS got bought, I'm the last man standing from
the original team - everyone else quit, so my knowledge is more valuable than
my code... which means I have more impact as a product guy.

But I expect this job will end within 6 months anyway (if it was going well,
the rest of the team would not have quit), so I'm going to be doing consulting
when this is over. I'm working on the materials and workshops now, focusing on
leadership and team dynamics, because I want to try to help other teams fix
the problems that make software professionals miserable.

------
adyer07
1\. I did a year long bike tour with my partner. When I came home, I went back
to undergrad to study art (illustration + painting). So now I’m mostly a
student, also working on my own art and doing some part-time work.

2\. Boredom which became kind of existential. I had reached a new career high,
and suddenly didn’t have anything to strive for - at the time, I didn’t have
the insight to try and ask for more impactful work, and I really leaned out of
my job instead. The dream of doing a bike tour kept getting bigger and bigger.
I couldn’t get the bike tour out of my head, and decided it was the perfect
time in my life to jump on it.

~~~
JuanJakobo
Your art looks quite cool! The bicycle paintings reflect somehow the amount of
freedom I feel driving it.

------
vinni2
1\. University professor 2\. Got bored

~~~
zffr
What made you want to become a professor? Were you interested in research or
teaching or both?

~~~
vinni2
Research mostly but now I like teaching too.

------
MattPalmer1086
I'm now a security architect. I get to work on a wider set of problems over
the entire business, not just software.

I left mostly because I became fascinated by security, while I was being asked
to secure software. I realised I had no real idea how to do this, and the
deeper I dug, the more interesting it seemed.

I was also becoming bored by the relentless cyclic churn in software
development methodologies and frameworks, and how fashion led the whole thing
seemed to be.

~~~
giantg2
I'm an ASC. I find my security related work much more interesting than my
development work.

------
sbazerque
Raising cattle, programming the dwebs, carpentry, sailing

~~~
hibbelig
What's a dweb? (No my mother language.)

~~~
akavel
distributed web, maybe? (i.e. likes of IPFS/Scuttlebutt/Hypercore)

~~~
sbazerque
Yeah, this is mine
[https://GitHub.com/hyperhyperspace](https://GitHub.com/hyperhyperspace)

------
markc
1\. Traveling the US by RV (for the last year) 2\. After 20 times through the
product cycle and I couldn’t muster much enthusiasm any more. Having enough $$
to stop made my attitude go downhill faster. Being able to finally ignore/defy
a truly terrible boss made it all come to a head even though I was walking
away from almost 300k/y. Bye bye, zero regrets.

~~~
mrfusion
Do you tow a car or drive the rv around town?

~~~
markc
Drive the (26’ motorhome) RV. Somewhat limiting in cities, but the rest of the
time it’s so much easier not towing.

And there are tricks for dealing with cities, like parking on the edge and
biking in. Or finding RV friendly lots using google maps satellite images.

Lately cities have far less to offer (no museums, galleries, restaurants,
etc.) so it’s hike and bike and enjoy the beautiful country.

~~~
blackrock
That sounds incredible. You should just randomly blog about your travels. Take
majestic pictures and bring your subject into focus with the beautiful bokeh
blur. And put ads on it, just to see how much traffic it will generate. And
try to sell the rights to your photographs.

------
superkitty
Started building the houses for needy folks!

------
kevinslin
1\. just launched a local-first, markdown based, hierarchical note-taking tool
- [https://dendron.so](https://dendron.so) 2\. wanted to start a business
building a solution to a problem i cared deeply about (information overload)

------
jhwhite
1\. I'm a Scrum Master. 2\. I really wasn't great at it. I loved it, only did
it professionally for 2 years, but did side projects for years before I took
an official job. I wish I was good enough to be productive in a professional
environment.

~~~
zoomablemind
> I'm a Scrum Master.

It's a the job title? I always considered Scrum Master more like an additional
(sometimes rotating) responsibility of a team member, be it a dev or PM.

On the other hand, Scrum Coach is more like a job, or rather a contracting
gig.

~~~
Traubenfuchs
Some companies of a surprisingly small size even have fulltime agile coaches.
I am yet to be convinced those roles are anything besides "management
padding".

I saw them spend all their time to create reports no one consumed and do
"illusion of activity" kind of stuff. They did retrospectives that never led
to change, had to justify why development was behind schedule and find new and
creative ways to make burn down charts look better than reality.

------
brtkdotse
Starting this autumn I’ve cut client hours to 25 per week and will use the
remaining 15 to try and get a physical print shop going. I’ll be printing
stickers, tshirts and banners. Currently toying around which niche to serve.

~~~
lukejduncan
Election season in the US seems promise if brief

------
ericgong
1\. Started a recruiting agency
[https://www.ericgong.com](https://www.ericgong.com)

2\. Everyone hates the recruiting industry so it's ripe for disruption with an
actual technical recruiter.

~~~
jameshush
I've looked into doing this. At the moment I've been connecting friends with
employment opportunities for free for years (especially my friends in Canada
who don't want to leave with remote friendly opportunities in Los Angeles).

To get you first paying client, is it as simple as finding a payment agreement
online (something like "If the employee stays at company for 90 days company
shall pay %x fee")? Did you start the agency while still working as a VP of
Engineering and slowly switch over?

~~~
ericgong
I left my job a few months ago and just started this business a couple weeks
ago. I have some consultants and recruiters in my network so was able to
figure out the contracts from that.

I'm early in the journey to find my first client!

------
shahinrostami
1\. UK university academic (on sabbatical, consulting and adapting!)

2\. Wanted to try something different... last software engineer post was 2010.
I became very interested in Evolutionary Computation, so I went for a
sponsored PhD position.

~~~
zffr
Did you have a background in research before doing the PhD program?

~~~
shahinrostami
No real research experience until the PhD programme. I did run a blog where I
posted about papers I found interesting in the domain, but I hadn't published!

------
LocalMan
1\. Retired. Mostly I read and surf the web. Take care of my health.

2\. I left because I got old. Twelve hours of concentration just isn't worth
it any more.

------
KorfmannArno
Studying data science - [https://247reading.group](https://247reading.group)

~~~
KorfmannArno
2: because I was also bored with it. Want to contribute to automation (as in
automating non-digital jobs)

------
treeman79
Knew a guy that quit to be a painter.

After 2 years he’s happy to be back in air conditioning.

------
mattl
Sysadmin

