Ask HN: What was the best decision you made in your career? - sardaaraz
======
DerekQ
Moving from permanent to contractor.

I made the jump 5 years ago and have worked for a number of companies since,
on 6-12 month contracts. The money has jumped each time, such that I’m on what
I consider to be silly money now for the job I do — Ireland, not US.

The work is always interesting for at least 6 months and I learn a ton of new
stuff with every contract, much of which I use when building my own products
(Downtime between contracts).

Every aspect of contracting is better than being permanent: the ability to
jump ship quickly without affecting my hireability, the exposure to so many
different technologies and different ways of doing things, the constant
freshness of new things and new people, the ideas that come with seeing how
different teams create and build different software, the ease with which you
can step into new contracts (often one 30 minute interview as opposed to
multipel interviews tests and take home projects for perm roles), and of
course the money.

In terms of learning, each contract is like spending 3 years in a permie job,
and I’ve had 7 in the past 5 years.

~~~
christophilus
I'd be interested in hearing from some US-based contractors who feel the same.
The thing that has stopped me going down that road is the insane health
insurance costs here.

~~~
0x445442
Yeah, contracting is very tough if you're responsible for a familiy's welfare.
I did it for a few years, 2008 - 2011. But back then HSAs were quite
reasonable. With a wife in kids I can only imagine what premiums are now days.
However, when the kids leave I'll seriously consider going back to
contracting.

One other thing I found out was to stay away from the "butts in seats"
contract. That's often the model these contracting houses (middlemen) use so,
in essence, you're the same as an employee with non of the benefits. It can
still be good to go through one of these companies but make sure and tell them
that if you're work is blocked because the customer is dragging their feet on
requirements or the like, you reserve the right to work on other contracts.
Don't let them bill you out at 40h per week if there's not 40h per week of
work.

------
DIVx0
Taking a chance and joining a very large corporation.

Previously I was all about startups or small companies and was very much
against the mega-corp environment.

Over several months a colleague "recruited" me to join their team and I don't
regret it.

I've been able to climb pretty high within this corp and it has been a wild
ride. Never in a million years would I have thought I'd have any sort of
influence over technology strategy that one of the largest US corporations
would follow for the next decade.

So, I've learned to keep an open mind and not let preconceived notions on how
others do business until I see it for myself. If I had not done this I'd still
be hopping from start-up to start-up.

~~~
btown
Were you able to remain technical as your rank and responsibilities expanded?
Or did you need to move into a management-only role to reach a turning point
in the "influence" you mentioned?

~~~
bonniemuffin
I work at a megacorp and I'm familiar with lots of staff/principal-type ICs
who lead big high-impact technical projects that are tremendously influential
around the company. We really need the tech lead types to complement the
people managers, so each side can focus on what they do best.

~~~
DIVx0
I totally agree!

Large tech focused corps usually have a career path for individual
contributors to rise up the ranks without becoming people managers. This
career path is almost meaningless unless there is a corporate culture of
collaboration between ICs and directors/VPs.

A senior IC should not be navel gazing all the time and just building whatever
or getting into peoples business while VPs should not be so protective of
their thing to dismiss or wall off outside contributions.

"Assume positive intent" and "It's all the same stock price" is heard around
here a lot.

------
yutyut
I was a mid-level developer at a large software company making a very
competitive salary and quit to join the U.S. Marine Corps and train to become
a Naval Aviator.

I'm now a 'mid-level' AH-1Z pilot.

I work longer hours and have generally a lower quality of life but there's
something to be said for the immensely unique things I've gotten to do and how
profoundly well-rounded the entire experience has made me.

I will be re-entering the software industry in a few years unless another
passion pulls me in some new direction.

The military is obviously not for everyone but picking up the phone, ducking
into a side conference room across from my cube, and giving a verbal commit to
my 'recruiter' that day (after a years-long selection process) has been the
best decision I've ever made.

~~~
sanbor
With respect I'd like to ask if you don't have ethical issues. The military
forces of USA has been doing pretty bad stuff in the last 50 years, so I have
the feeling that you're not saving lifes but rather ruining them. War became
such a common thing and nonsense in the US that at this point thatnpeople is
not sure if they're at war or not.

~~~
anonu
The US Military is a huge employer and there are a variety of jobs and roles
in the organization. Your comment is like telling employees of a company they
should feel ashamed because management cooked the books.

~~~
krageon
They might be a huge employer but they also murder people. Even if you work in
a role that supports murder and doesn't actually do it directly, I'd say that
the ethical side is a concern. Certainly not something to be dismissed out of
hand, even if you make the decision that you are ok with it.

I am of the opinion that a "well it's far removed from me even though that is
what the organisation's main goal is" stance is doing yourself a disservice.

~~~
loco5niner
> but they also murder people

Not murder. Unfortunately, people are killed in war. Not the same thing.

------
amorphic
Circa-2000 I was in my final year of university and working as a Windows
service desk monkey in the SysAdmin team of a Sydney-based company that
developed a platform for hosting (legitimate, regulated) gambling websites.

Sun Microsystems happened to be across the road from us. My mind was blown the
first time I saw the value of the invoices for servers and Solaris licenses
that we bought both for ourselves and on behalf of our customers. That's where
a lot of those dotcom-era "investment" dollars ended up - at Sun.

One day we needed a router + firewall for some internal service. One of the
Unix sysadmins in the team grabbed a spare i386 desktop PC, stuck a 2nd NIC in
it, installed Slackware Linux and configured ipchains. Job done: no budget, no
managerial approval, no licenses, nothing. I couldn't believe it.

I asked him about Linux and after learning more came to the conclusion that it
could basically do most things that Solaris could do but was 1) free and 2)
ran on cheap, commodity hardware.

That was the writing on the wall for me. I taught myself Linux and pretty soon
had my first bona-fide Linux Sysadmin job. Linux went on to become the OS that
runs the world and I've never struggled to find relatively interesting, well-
paid work since then.

~~~
jonchurch_
Does anyone have advice for starting on a path towards sysadmin work?

Ive used linux for years, I develop on a chromebook running an all cli ubuntu
chroot and have loved working this way for the past two years. Im very
interested in devops (Im a fullstack JS freelancer) and enjoy working with
servers and the cloud a lot. But Ive never considered myself “learn-ed” in the
ways of linux.

I have the time to devote to linux sysadmin training, and intend to do so.

Specifically: What areas of linux knowledge are most useful from an employer’s
standpoint that would make a candidate attractive? Is it mostly experience
architecting systems in production?

I think devops as a realm of work is very interesting, and would like to gain
experience doing it professionally to find out if I’d want to pursue it longer
term.

Beyond joining a team and learning from real world applications, is there
anything useful you would recommend I look into? There are training courses
available online for these things (AWS certs and linux foundation training
comes to mind), does anyone have an opinion about the usefulness of such
material?

~~~
JBlue42
Not the person above but doing some thorough searching through the subreddits
below might be helpful. Quite a bit of DevOps/AWS Cert discussion on
/r/ITCareerQuestions.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/ITCareerQuestions/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ITCareerQuestions/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxadmin/](https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxadmin/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/devops/](https://www.reddit.com/r/devops/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/](https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/)

Would also recommend looking at A Cloud Guru for certification course
learning:

[https://acloud.guru/](https://acloud.guru/)

------
phakding
There is no loyalty in business. Keep your loyalty for your family and may be
friends, not for the company you work for. The company will never be loyal
back. Have an opportunity to make more or work more interesting? Grab it with
both hands. If you are 99.99% of the workforce, you are not indispensable no
matter how much you think you are.

~~~
busterarm
And I'll fly the opposing flag here. Loyalty to people is everything in
business. Got a good working relationship with people? Stick to them like
glue. Make your moves as a unit. Having a team of people consistently work
well together is lightning in a bottle.

I've built relationships with people just by doing right by them in tough
situations that have lasted decades and paid fantastic dividends.

~~~
hef19898
Both is true in my opinion. Strange thing I witnessed, loyalty between
corporations matter (e.g. suppliers and customers) and loyalty between people
matters (just pick wisely, not everybody is worth it). Loyalty between
corporations and people doesn't exist and is usually a one way street.

~~~
jondubois
Yes, only be loyal to people who demonstrate some kind of altruism. I've had a
client offer me a big raise on my hourly rate once without me even asking.
It's a sign of trustworthiness.

------
FahadUddin92
I did following things that helped me grow,

1\. My engineering ended in 2013. I was shit broke. I started doing online
courses in 2016. Till now I have done 51 online courses in different things
and just a month ago I got moved into a DevOps role (from a WordPress
developer role). $0 invested in it.

2\. The other best thing is growing my LinkedIn network. I grew my network
from 200 people to to 15000 people (most of which are founders and
recruiters). I invest time in writing articles and sharing new opportunities
via LinkedIn.

3\. I started reading a lot of books (related to tech and business).

4\. I started emailing, tweeting to people (and getting heard by people like
Jimmy Wales, Elon Musk, Tim Draper, Craig Newmark, Charlie Cheever) etc. This
helped me grow exponentially.

5\. Planning ahead. I started visioning life 30 years ahead. What was what I
wanted. If your goals are clear, it will be much easier to find the path.

6\. Ask, ask, ask. I asked a lot of questions on StackExchange, Reddit ->
r/webdev and Hacker News. Whatever I plan to do, I take feedback from these
groups. I have also joined Slack channels of professionals from different
groups where I talk and take feedback. From ideas to resume review and career
guidance.

7\. Anyone that could teach me, I made him/her my mentor and listened to them
and acted on their advice. Everyone I work with (founders, coworkers etc) see
the passion in me and tries to mentor me. The trick is to always be willing to
listen to others and keep connecting dots.

~~~
minhazm423
I have a ton of questions for you but I'll boil it down to several for now:

1) Which courses would you recommend?

Which had the greatest impact?

How would you do things differently?

Would you forego engineering entirely?

2) Suppose one doesnt have friends from school or work, how does one build a
linkedin following?

What did you write about?

How did you promote your articles?

3\. Again, favorite books? Most impactful?

4\. Maybe once you get back to me, we can talk about 4 this sounds super
interesting! But maybe you can give me the jist of what you did? For example
why did they bother replying to you when tons are reaching out to them
everyday?

~~~
FahadUddin92
1\. The courses on AI/Machine learning and blockchain (or anything that has do
with 4th Industrial revolution) are great. Coursera is great for this.

The greatest impact was the combined effort of being able to do multiple
courses (in so many different things) and being able to better understand
different programming languages, technologies and marketing (SEO, ads, content
marketing, referral marketing, driving sales).

Can't leave engineering. Engineering is the passion. I have a strong belief
that all parts of business should be driven by engineers from development to
sales and marketing. Yesterday I went to a meetup and I met sales people on
the booths who had no idea on the product they were selling worked and how it
could help others.

2.) If you don't have friends in school, go out to events, network. Talk to
people, add them on LinkedIn. Found someone interesting online? Feel free to
email them and get to know each other. Thats how I have built my network.
Don't forget the nurture professional relationships. Your network is your
networth.

3.) I have a 15000 people following, the articles that are of interest get
viral. A few times I tried to post my articles on some FB groups. It did work
out well but I don't do it anymore. Best is to just keep writing (you may post
on Reddit, FB etc but be aware that you might get banned for self promotion).

3\. 'The Lean Startup' and 'The defining decade' are the most impactful books.

4\. You can see my Linked:
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/ifahaduddin/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ifahaduddin/)

~~~
FahadUddin92
'The Startup of You' by Reid Hoffman is another great book.

~~~
minhazm423
Thanks for getting back to me!

Would you be able to link me to the exact courses? Or, the authors at least?

Were you trained in engineering, or self taught?

Where do you go to for your marketing knowledge? favorite sites, blogs, books,
thought leaders?

How do you combine marketing with your other skills?

Any other advice for a person aspiring to be in your position?

~~~
FahadUddin92
1\. You could Google the authors/books/courses. 2\. I did a CS degree but I
worked almost full time as a freelancer learning technology while I was at
University (this helped me pay my University fee and also make extra money for
everything I wanted to try like different ventures). 3\. For marketing. The
basic ideas came from doing my own ventures. When you really need to get the
word out, you start using social media, link building, backlinking, SEO, SEM,
Ads etc. There are really good Udemy courses for that (try the ones that are
free). I read the book called 'Traction' for exploring marketing channels. Its
great. Most of the other things come from daily feed coming from different
sources. I like gary vaynerchuk's stuff on it these days. 4\. I combined
marketing by giving business ideas and opportunities for expansion to each
employer I worked for. Things like sharing links to good content, doing
analysis of competitors and helping young marketing guys (in startups). 5\.
Read a lot. Don't try to be someone else. Adopt the things you like in someone
and keep moving!

------
nrb
A few times throughout my career, I noticed a pattern of dreading waking up
and doing the work that I do. Once I've identified that, my number one
priority is to figure out if that can be fixed or find something else to do if
it can't.

Maybe I'm lucky, but every single one of these changes (there have been 4
major ones in ~15 years) has led to something better than what came before it
in one way or another.

Life is too short to hate what you do. That will always be the guiding
principle of my career, through all the ups and downs.

------
tudorconstantin
By far, applying to work remote for a US based company 3 years ago. I am
living in Romania.

I still work for them.

Theoretically I should be able to retire in about 5-10 years, in my mid 40s,
depending on how frugal I am with my expenses. This wouldn't have been
possible working for a local software company, even though I was paid about 3
times the average national income.

~~~
shRaj9fEc8Vith
it's so sad that from where i live (SEA), 3 times average gdp per capita is no
where enough for retirement.

insurance and healthcare system is a joke. so whenever you got health issue,
be prepare to spend butt-load of money.

i have no idea how gdp per capita is so low yet people have so much of money
(unreported income, corruption probably)

I make about 25 times the national gdp per capita yet i'm just above average
in my country.

~~~
tudorconstantin
I had 3 times the average national net salary, not GDP, which I guess should
be even more. But that income wouldn't have allowed me to retire either. It
would allow us (me, my wife and a child) to live a comfortable life though.

As a back of the envelope calculation, if you can live with 30% from the
income, one should be able to retire in about 7 years.

~~~
momozaur
What is the formula to compute the 30%, how did you compute it? After you
retired, how much (%) of your salary will you be able to spend monthly?

------
edent
Joining a trade union.

When I got made redundant from a very large company, they were able to secure
me a severance package which I pivoted into running my own startup.

They also gave me a huge amount of training on pensions and dispute
resolution, which I still use to this day.

They also helped boost my confidence in public speaking by inviting me to
address a huge conference. I was a few speakers before the then Prime
Minister.

Being a union member also got me face to face with several senior leaders
within my industry, and with people from a wide range of backgrounds that I'd
never have encountered otherwise.

Basically, for a few quid a month, I was able to completely transform my
relationship with work and my peers.

~~~
otalp
Which trade union?

~~~
edent
[https://www.prospect.org.uk/](https://www.prospect.org.uk/)

------
harel
I can't pinpoint a single one, but a few in a sequence:

1\. Before I built my reputation and experience, I said Yes to a lot of
things. Not all of them I could do, but once I said yes and jumped in the deep
end, I found out I can do them and do them very well. Necessity was a big
driver.

2\. Life style trumps "exit". I worked with various start ups for 20 years. I
founded and co founded 4 of them. At some point I decided that if a company
succeeds or fails, I want it to be because of me, not despite me. So in 2 of
those startups I had no investors and full control. I work at and dictate my
own pace.

3\. Best decision: My time and family come first. Nothing urgent has never
been really that urgent. Nothing requires me to work 20 hour days. Nothing
justifies my family being hurt because I'm somewhere working more than I
should be.

~~~
jlengrand
Learning to say no is definitely high on my list. Only when saying no do you
start getting valued by others.

Taking job interviews not as events where I had to prove myself for a chance
to get validated, but rather as a discussion between two parties to see if
what they have to offer to each other matches is another that comes to mind.

I can really see a before and after break in my career.

~~~
harel
Yeah, decision 1 to say Yes was only applicable until I felt confident enough
to say No. Perhaps I should have added 1.1: Unlearn decision 1, and say No
when you don't want to do something.

------
aavotins
Long story short - I was brave and stood up for myself, demanding the
righteous thing.

I was 15 years old back then. I had just learned how to code and my hunger for
programming was insatiable. I didn't think much, browsed through relevant
classifieds and sent out a couple of honest e-mails stating that I really want
to have a job, but I have no real life experience.

A company replied within a few days and they were interested. It was a very
small company, consisting of a CTO and CEO. We agreed on 200$ for a portal
type of website(it was a thing back then), with user sign-ups, public and
private posts, comments and a few more things.

This company was hired by a rather large media company, to develop a dedicated
website for them. I knew who was behind it and I was hoping that I would get
recognized by the media company.

I dreamed about writing lines of code in my sleep, daydreamed through school
and spent all time I could on coding the whole thing.

I think I was done in three months or so, and then came the day I asked to be
paid. I had put daily changes on their FTP server, as we agreed, so I had
literally no leverage. And they stopped responding. I tried reaching out to
them in numerous ways, such as using my mom's cell to call the CEO, but he
hung up immediately after realizing it was me who called.

As I realized that I had been scammed, since we did not have any form of
written contract and had agreed that I would be paid in cash when the whole
thing was done. Therefore I went on the media group's website, found the
contact section and somehow managed to stumble upon the personal cellphone of
the CEO of the media company. And I called him. I was an emotional teenager,
but I spoke the truth. I did not have any demands other than to be heard.
After a 10 minute long discussion where I explained that I was ripped off and
worked for free for months, the CEO invited me over. I still remember the awe
everyone was in, when they realized that a kid had just called them and walked
through their front door in a few hours.

That phone call has been the best career decision I have ever made. The media
company terminated their contract with the agency that had ripped me off
because of terms violation - they were prohibited from outsourcing any
development to any third parties, without a written permission given by the
customer a.k.a media company.

And so I landed my first job! The people working for this media company were
so genuine, mature and supportive, that I did not lose my love for what I did
and had been in web development ever since.

It pays off to be brave and righteous in the end.

~~~
__exit__
Glad it worked out in the end for you!

------
blakesterz
I wish I could say I had a plan that lead me down my career path. I made one
dumb random decision after another, and somehow they all got me where I am
today. The best decision was way back in 1999 I started a blog because I loved
Slashdot. I used that to learn how to program, and that has lead to every job
I've had since. So my long winding dumb successful career path is all thanks
to me wanting to be like cmdrtaco! (I once got to thank him for that here on
Hacker News)

~~~
ObsoleteNerd
Similar here. To this day I have no idea what I'm doing or how I got here. I
made fan sites for various stupid shows, while selling white goods, and
apparently they were good enough to get invited to a career in web dev. Then I
took lead on projects because our project manager didn't know what "html
codes" are, so they sent me off to do PM courses and suddenly I'm an IT PM.

I still feel like I should be selling fridges, but they keep getting good
performance reviews, so I'll take it. Sure pays better than selling fridges.

------
hackanewz
Teaching myself to program. Nothing caused such a hockey stick in
opportuinities. I was able to make way more money in a very short time period
and work in much more interesting companies.

I never took anything so seriously in my life as when I decided to become a
programmer. I bought dozens of used textbooks, read and meticulously
underlined them, relentlessly wrote code and read all the programming
interview books, made guides for myself to study, said yes to every contract
and bug I could help with regardless of the tech stack. I refused to be anal
about picking one programming language over another.

I have a marketing degree from a not good school. If I could do it again I
would (a) drop out and move to a major tech metro and (b) identify a high
growth tech stack and study it intensively. Never should have wasted time
getting a useless degree.

The best thing learning to program taught me was how to read books properly -
Write in the margins, take extensive notes, phrase and rephrase the lessons,
write my own articles and guides to solidify the learnings.

This year I mad $350,000 and got promoted to manage five people. I couldn’t
have gotten here without learning to code.

~~~
iopuy
Wow 360k is insane. Are you still hands on keyboard or strictly a manager?
Mind sharing what industry this is that can afford that salary? Thanks.

~~~
twblalock
As a salary, that would be high. As total compensation (salary + bonus +
RSUs/options) it’s not uncommon for managers or senior individual contributors
at large tech companies.

The stock compensation is a big deal after several years if the stock does
well. The initial grants can become worth a bit more than they started at.
Also, at senior or management levels the raises get smaller and the stock
grants get a lot bigger.

------
mikekchar
I enrolled in the JET Programme [1], got accepted, quit my job at 39 and
taught English for 5 years in Japan. Oddly, I think I'm _less_ effective as a
programmer now. Before I left I was definitely an "alpha dog" programmer and
pushed my way towards success. Teaching changed my perceptions and I think I
am more effective as a _person_. It's been a hard transition and often
frustrating because I now back down in situations where I know the team will
suffer. But young people have to learn and they need someone who is willing to
let them do so. I still need a fair amount of practice not being grumpy about
it, though ;-)

Note that while I feel this is the best decision in my career, I think it's
debatable whether it has helped my career in the traditional sense (i.e. more
money, more influence, etc). Probably not :-) Still, I like the direction I'm
going, which I would not have said before I made that transition.

Edit: Link :-P [1] -[http://jetprogramme.org/en/](http://jetprogramme.org/en/)

~~~
pandapower2
interesting that you did the JET program at 39. I figured it was all 22 year
olds.

Out of curiosity, were you a single person? Wondering if they accommodate
adults with a spouse and one or more children.

~~~
mikekchar
I was single, but the programme _does_ accommodate families. I've even met
more than one single parent on the programme (and universally it seemed to be
a wonderful experience for the child, which surprised me greatly). The spouse
even gets a working visa (or did 10 years ago when I was on the programme).
It's a great job.

I haven't looked at the situation recently, but there used to be an age limit
of 40. I applied when I was 38, which is essentially the very last time you
can do it.

In case you (or anyone else) is interested, I'll write a few things about my
impression of what the JET programme is (which differs slightly from the
official version). The official version is that JET is the "Japan Exchange
Teaching" programme -- so the idea is that people come to Japan to teach
English. In reality, it is a rather brilliant plot by the Japanese government
to both get rural people used to having foreigners in their communities, _and_
to expand awareness of Japanese values abroad in order to soften the position
of foreign powers in business and trade negotiations.

Basically, what was explained to me by a few Japanese government officials
(after many, many beers) is that in the 1980's Japan was flying high in the
world economy, but they were having a lot of trouble with the rest of the
world understanding how they did business. There are some great English
language documentaries on the subject (I wish I could remember some, but I
suspect you can search on Youtube to find some good ones).

You would have American sales people coming to Japan and saying, "We make car
parts. Our parts are 30% cheaper than your supplier. You should buy from us".
And the response would be, "We've worked with our supplier for 250 years and
have developed a level of trust with them. Why should we betray them for a
mere 30% discount" Even small things like people showing up for discussions
with important business people and not bringing a souvenir as a gift, or
refusing to suspend conversations until everybody had properly gone out and
had a drinking party would derail a lot of trade deals.

At the same time, the Japanese government was thinking, "Our population is
getting older and if we keep growing financially we're going to have a massive
labour shortage". But the vast majority of Japanese people had _never seen a
foreigner in their life_. They realised that they needed some kind of cultural
shift to accommodate the bringing in of foreign workers.

They concocted this really bizarre plan where they would seek out and hire
young, educated foreigners _who are from rich connected families_ and bring
them to Japan for a few years. The idea was to indoctrinate these young people
with Japanese ideals and then send them back to their home country. Then 20
years later, those young people would inherit their thrones (remember they are
from rich, connected families) and they would be in a position to change
foreign policy towards Japan. They would also be able to educate foreign
businesses how to communicate to Japanese people. They would also send these
young people only to rural locations (where there are no foreigners) to pave
the cultural way for the inevitable influx of foreign workers.

I think we're getting up over 30 years of the JET programme and it has been a
crazy success - from that perspective. There has been a problem, though. When
they initially set up the programme, they didn't know what the young people
would do. Someone had the bright idea of having them teach English at the
schools. So that's what they did. However, young, rich, snotty-nosed kids
right out of school... ummm... They aren't necessarily the best workers (of
course there are _many_ exceptions to prove the rule!). In fact, historically
quite a large percentage of them had never had a job in their life. They
didn't know how to work, had never had any real direction in their life and
were also suffering badly from other kinds of culture shock. To top it all
off, virtually none of the teachers in the school system _wanted_ these people
and took it to be a particularly onerous babysitting job.

Over time, the programme has started to hire a percentage of older people into
the programme. They _still_ look for people with good connections. Even though
I do not come from a particularly wealthy family, I worked for some of the
largest and most influential tech companies in the world. That's the kind of
thing that has the JET programme licking their lips. You get a person with
that kind of influence and a proven track record of working hard, it's great
for them. They can send that person to one of the schools that are pissed off
about the people who have worked there before. For example just before I came
they had to fire a guy who never once showed up for work -- he went surfing
every day. They needed somebody that would keep a low profile and just do what
they were told.

The JET programme in Japan, despite being wildly successful in their
unadvertised nefarious plan, is under a lot of criticism for their _public_
role. The JET programme pays a _lot_ more than private companies charge for
"assistant language teachers". Quite a few schools have moved from JET
assistants to assistants from private schools. The advantages are many:
usually the workers are older, experienced in teaching EFL and they are a good
%30 cheaper. Why should a school hire JET assistants?

This has caused JET to hire _actual_ teachers! These are people who have no
money and no connections and are probably not a good fit for the original
goals of the programme, but they can actually do their job when they are in
Japan. I think there is some hope that the teaching skills will rub off on
some of the others (it doesn't, but it's a nice thought...).

So that's where it stood about 5-10 years ago when I was involved. I'm not
sure how it's moved on from there. But basically they have 3 categories of
people that they are looking for - 1. young, rich, connected people from
famous universities; 2. older, connected people who have life experience; 3.
people with qualifications in teaching. I think you're still more likely to
get hired if you are in category 1, but there are a fair number of positions
in the other categories.

Disclaimer: many tongue in cheek comments -- I apologise if anyone found it
offensive rather than humorous.

~~~
darolandi
> The JET programme in Japan, despite being wildly successful in their
> unadvertised nefarious plan

Any source on that one? I'd love to share this with my friends

~~~
mikekchar
Ha ha! Only the aforementioned drunken ones ;-) I honestly believe it to be
true, but you should take it with a massive grain of salt.

------
throooowaway
Changing jobs! Seems like it's so much easier to make more money by getting a
new gig than by negotiating with your current employer. I've changed jobs
every year since I graduated college; each jump has added 20k or 30k to my
salary. I didn't have the best grades, didn't go to a good uni, but I've gone
from 45k to 170k in 6 years.

~~~
meetz
Doesn't the employer often ask that why you change jobs every year ? Is it
fair enough that if one company offers better gig than other so I can
negotiate with other to increase gig?

~~~
girvo
They surprisingly don’t, in my experience.

~~~
throooowaway
Agreed. I've seen only a couple job postings over the years that say something
like "no job hoppers". In fact, because of this much change I've been exposed
to a lot more technologies/tools/architectures/etc than most people at my
level of experience, which if anything has helped me in my ability to evaluate
tech decisions, have interview discussions, etc.

------
nathan_long
Bailing out of my first full-time development job after just a few months.

I was driving 30+ minutes to work, working overtime every week, and got a bad
performance review on the grounds that I wasn't working enough. The company
had a "work hard, play hard" culture, which in practice meant "work all the
time and occasionally we'll invite you to take a booze-filled trip without
your family". They had flown me in for the interview and let me eat sushi with
the CEO, but after that it was "nose to the grindstone".

After a few months I got a call from a recruiter about a job 5 minutes from my
house, using a language I liked more. In talking with the company I learned
that they worked business hours only. I felt slightly guilty about making the
switch, but I got a lot less stress, more learning, and more respect at work
out of the deal.

In the nearly-a-decade since then, I've never again been told I don't work
enough, and have always ruled out jobs that smelled of workaholism. I'm having
a happy career.

------
pandapower2
I'm actually unsure if I've ever made any particularly good career decisions
aside from switching into computer science. Aside from that I have largely
been reliant on the combination of being reasonably competent and the
generally high demand for developers to make up for lack of good career
decisions.

On multiple occasions I have resigned from jobs after 2-3 years with no clear
plan for the future, let alone another job lined up, simply because I didn't
like my current job anymore.

On multiple occasions I have poured hundreds, maybe thousands, of hours into
projects and start-up ideas that never had a realistic chance of working out.
I did this safe in the knowledge that I could run down my finances working on
some fun speculative project and someone out there would give me a job to let
me pay the bills when I needed it.

So I certainly haven't maximized within my career but I chose a career well.

~~~
madeuptempacct
There is a lot of truth in this. Switching to software development from
finance was clearly a good choice. Past that, I think "my startup was
awesome", "working for a startup was awesome", "big corp is the way to go" is
going to be elicited by individual experience.

------
gordaco
Don't make money your first priority. Take it into account, yes, and fight for
raises if you deserve them; but prioritize other things that have a greater
impact on quality of life, such as location, commute time or absence of
overtime.

The best paid job I ever had was also the worst by any other measure.

------
bonniemuffin
My best career decision was transitioning from wet lab biology to
computational genomics during my postdoc circa 2011.

I saw the kinds of DNA sequencing analysis our collaborators were doing and
said "hey, I could do that", so I checked out all the R books from the library
and taught myself some stuff. And then around that time both Coursera and
Insight data science were just starting to become a thing, so I looked up the
Insight curriculum and cobbled together my own version with Coursera and made
a genomic data viz website.

That computational transition set me up to go into data science in 2014, which
has turned out to be a succession of being in the right place at the right
time for incredible learning and growth opportunities, but it never would've
happened if I hadn't decided to analyze my own sequencing data.

------
phs318u
At age 42 (11 years ago), going back to school and completing a Masters degree
in Enterprise Architecture. I had been in the same job for 5 years when I made
the decision. Work had a self-education program that paid for my tuition. The
decision was literally made in the space of a couple of days before the mid-
year intake. If I'd had to wait another 6 months, I probably would have talked
myself out of it. It was hard work (had a young family at the time), but paid
off handsomely when my stupid employer not only refused to utilise me in my
chosen field (having graduated top of the class at their cost), but literally
pushed me out of the company. One of my industry lecturers got me my first
contracting gig and I haven't looked back since.

I guess I learned a few things:

1) don't overthink decisions (which is not to say "don't think");

2) to back myself and my abilities with the requisite effort. I'm typically
smarter than I think but I need to put in a matching level of effort. When I
got my Bachelor degree 20 years earlier, I literally skidded out the door in a
haze of alcohol and with a shit grade. That cost me a few years;

3) don't be afraid of a challenge; don't be afraid of the unknown;

4) be sensitive to where you are in your life - can you afford to take a hit
if things go pear shaped? Time-box your attempt to shake things up in your
life;

5) If you work as a contractor - networking and self-brand management rules. I
rely heavily on LinkedIn and the network of contacts I have cultivated, and
keep my brand alive with posts and articles relevant to the kinds of work I
want to be doing - not necessarily flavour of the month.

There's probably more but that's pretty much it. My income now is almost 3
times what it was in 2007, and while I'm not suggesting that's the only
measure of success (far from it), it affords me a professional freedom to be
more picky in the work I take on, and to live with far less fear than before.

EDITED TO ADD: The reason I chose Enterprise Architecture was because it
suited my temperament. I discovered I was a "systems" thinker pretty early on,
and as I moved through a typical IT career trajectory, the "systems" I was
thinking about became bigger and bigger. EA probably sounds pretty passe
compared to all the "it" technologies people are playing with, but it's kinda
like politics - reality is gritty, the problems are hard, endless and
fascinating (if you're so inclined).

~~~
dplavery92
What was the application process like, so many years out of school? Did you
need old transcripts? Recommendation letters from supervisors?

~~~
phs318u
By that stage I was already working as a “technical architect” (in reality
glorified system designer). I was allowed credit for a couple of units based
on industry experience. Combined with the fact I had a bachelor degree (though
in the unrelated discipline of physics), that was sufficient to get me in.
Being a full-fee paying student didn’t hurt either.

------
gregorymichael
Tactically: public speaking. Strategically: forget about titles and career
path and comp and just figure out how to provide value to the people around
you. The other stuff takes care of itself.

~~~
brahmwg
I like how succinctly you've put it. I may add that as long as you are
creating value or reducing the amount of collective headaches for the people
around you, they'll keep you around.

------
ryanackley
Getting a job in a major metro area. I was very resistant to moving away from
the smallish city/metro area I lived in until my late 20's. When I did, my
career just took off.

I'm not even talking about Silicon Valley. I worked in Boston, Seattle, and
Sydney, Australia. Never set foot in the valley as an employee of a local
company. Made insane salaries, one company I worked for got acquired, another
one went public, etc.

~~~
jakecopp
How did Sydney compare to other medium sized cities in the US?

~~~
NamTaf
Define "medium-sized". Sydney has over 5m people in it and covers
approximately 4750 sq mi. So maybe half the population of the LA metro area in
about the same size?

~~~
dionidium
> _Define "medium-sized". Sydney has over 5m people in it and covers
> approximately 4750 sq mi_

This reveals something many readers might not have noticed. It's a quirk of
politics and history that "Sydney" is defined to include the entire urban
agglomeration that surrounds its city core (all 4750 sq miles of it), but this
isn't the case in most U.S. cities. For an apples-to-apples comparison, you
should be looking at U.S. CSA (Combined Statistical Area) populations (not the
populations of core cities).

That puts Sydney outside the top 10 U.S. metros -- considerably smaller than
#11 Atlanta (6,555,956), and about the size of #12 Detroit (5,336,286) or #13
Seattle (4,764,736).

The Los Angeles CSA (since you brought it up) has ~18 million people in it. †

† _In the spirit of fairness, it should be noted that CSAs sometimes cover
extremely large areas. If we were to restrict Los Angeles to its MSA (which at
4,850 sq miles covers an area almost identical in size to Sydney), its
population drops to about 13 million. The difference between CSA and MSA
populations isn 't usually so large, but the Los Angeles metro area contains
an almost ridiculous amount of urban-ish sprawl, compared to most other
cities._

~~~
girvo
As per your footnote, LA reminded most of Australian sprawl in how it’s all
spread out. Brisbane, where I live, sounds big, but the actual _city_ is
rather small — and way less dense than central LA!

~~~
JBlue42
Haven't down there yet but was really surprised by this photo collection in
The Guardian about Australian suburbs:

[https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2018/apr/10/sydne...](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2018/apr/10/sydney-
urban-sprawl-suburbs-pictures-photography-andrew-merry)

Quite surprising how closely it resembles some of the US, especially Southern
California, in the sprawl, car culture, and surburbia. Then again, I hear
Melbourne and Brisbane are quite livable with better public transit options.

------
ellius
I decided to be honest with myself about what I do and do not like, to work my
ass off at the things I do like, and to be vigilant about checking my feelings
and following my gut. It's paid enormous dividends. I taught myself to program
and have gotten good jobs because of it, and I've also avoided going down a
lot of blind alleys. I quit academia after completing a Master's rather than
chase a PhD I didn't really want and saved myself enormous heartache there.
Several times I've started developing skills only to realize, "I hate doing
this." So I just stopped. I left numerous jobs where I was unhappy for various
reasons and have stayed at one where so far I've been happy. And overall this
attitude has kept me growing and pretty happy in my career and life generally.

EDIT: As a part of this: I was honest with myself that I cared about money (to
a point). For a while I stayed in a job I liked that didn't pay me well,
trying to convince myself that "quality of life" was more important than
money. The reality for me is that money is part of the quality of life
equation, and I'm glad I admitted that to myself. It was also sort of a canary
that I wasn't being challenged and could do tougher work that paid better.

------
goatherders
I started waking up early (5am) to start work. I typically am done with the
important stuff by 11am which frees the rest of the day for things like "not
working at all" "learning something" "experimenting with something". This also
means that on the once or twice monthly occasion that I have too much to do, I
still get it done by 5 or 6pm at worst instead of working into the late-night
hours like I used to.

I agree with many of the people here that say understanding the relationship
between worker and company is crucial. In the words of Don Draper "That's what
the money is for." The mission of the business is not the same as your mission
as a person. Giving too much of yourself to an employer is a mistake.

~~~
tvanantwerp
I struggle to wake up early in the winter months in particular. My body
resists being up before the sun. Do you have this problem? If so, do you just
will yourself through it or is there a better solution?

~~~
JBlue42
I'm not sure about the effectiveness but have heard there are "wake up" lights
now that gradually come on. I have a light on a timer that suddenly comes 'on'
but don't think this is the best solution. It works but I get more surprised
into wakefulness than really liking it.

Also, Dan Pink has a new book out about timing with some discussion of the
'stages' of our day. Some people have naturally different stages.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR-
NqSpS_cE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR-NqSpS_cE)

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/timing-is-
everyth...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/timing-is-everything1/)

\--

I'll also second the OP as I'm not what I consider a morning person (when
unemployed, more 10a-2a for natural rhythm) but my current job has me getting
up around 5:30a. I might be a convert though because, as they said, getting a
lot done early is pretty amazing. I like being home by 4 and having a large
block of time to do spend however I want. And it translates to weekends too
where I find myself up in the world early. I live in LA though so our daylight
shifts aren't as drastic in winter as other places.

------
snorkel
Getting off of the people management track and focusing on individual
contributor roles. I quickly learned that I do not enjoy being responsible for
the productivity, pay, morale, HR processes, deliverables, disputes, and
career progressions of other people. I’d much rather just be a helpful
coworker than a boss.

------
dustingetz
Did Recurse Center in 2012. It started a snowball of growth that hasn't showed
signs of stopping. The Recurse Center is a self-directed, community-driven
educational retreat for programmers.
[https://www.recurse.com/](https://www.recurse.com/)

~~~
aryamaan
I wish it was easier for international people to join.

------
pragone
Changing careers. Left software to become a doctor. I'll graduate in 7 months.

~~~
Dowwie
If you eventually find yourself in a residency matching program, don't let a
horrible human being acting as a chief of staff deter you from your hard
earned accomplishment. These chief of staffs think that they are doing good by
abusing residents, perpetuating abuse that they may have received long ago.
You may be able to avoid this by not selecting any top ranked healthcare
programs.

~~~
pragone
Yeah unfortunately that's an attitude that still exists in some places.
Fortunately I'm going into a specialty (EM) that has much less of that, and my
first priority is to find a group of people I like and that I want to go to
work with every day.

------
bvelica
The best decision I ever made was when I bought my first computer and when I
started working in an internet cafe here in Romania (so I can learn what a
computer is and how it works).

I was 19-20 years old, without a home of my own (sleeping on 2 chairs side by
side for many years in a single room with my grandparents), working in a fast
food and with almost no education (just high school night classes done - I was
working since I was 17.).

I've started learning on my own (every day I read), learned Linux and at 36 I
am an accomplished man. Ambition, self education, learning and reading got me
where I am now... and maybe a bit of luck.

------
jmpman
Read “Who moved my cheese?”, and promptly quit IBM. It was obvious they
considered engineering a cost center and were determined to offshore as much
head count as possible. I moved to another company where engineering was
valued as the driver of innovation and the core competitive differentiator. It
was like night and day.

~~~
wingerlang
I just read it. Very interesting I must say!

------
makeupsomething
Getting out of an industry I knew I wasn't right for before it was too late. I
took a job at an animation company about 5 years ago. Initially making iPhone
applications as they were trying to break into that market at the time. That
work dried up and I found myself doing more work as a pipeline director and
technical artist. Work in that field requires a lot of specific knowledge and
I did not want to invest the time to understanding it if I did not see myself
staying in that industry forever. I moved to another company as a web
developer and never looked back.

------
sktrdie
Prioritizing the relationship with people in the team rather than the money I
was making, or the type of product, or the location of the job, or the
benefits it had, or the tech it was using.

People are everything and I find myself being much more motivated going to
work knowing there is a group of people I trust and which challenge me
everyday.

When I will feel that I'll have nothing to learn from my comrades, or that the
friendships have degraded, I will probably switch to another venture where
again: the type of relationships will be my priority.

------
stephenr
Taking a 'risk'.

I was working in an infra/support role at a state government run education
institute, and following a reasonably interesting (compared to most of the
work) project I started looking for work I would enjoy more (than the regular
stuff) elsewhere.

I got a call from an interstate contracting agency (and I still don't know how
this part happened) about a job I couldn't do (flash dev) and didn't apply
for. I explained that I hadn't applied and wasn't interested but then they
mentioned they were also looking to fill a federal government contract for a
front-end developer. I _had_ been applying for web jobs (despite having zero
commercial experience in it, it'd been what I originally intended to do when I
started studying years earlier) so I said I was interested, and within 10 days
(I think? It was a while ago) I had confirmation I'd won the contract, over
someone with 10 years experience.

I've long since moved back towards ops/infra (albeit in a web focus - load
balancers and DB clusters rather than desktop management policies and
file/print servers) and dev-tooling type stuff, but that first big step - away
from family, and a reasonably safe government job, to a fixed-term contract
definitely played a big part in getting me where I am now.

------
girvo
Chasing the JavaScript train back in 2007, weirdly. Now my experience set is
worth large amounts of money, there’s basically infinite jobs, and it’s been
easy to move out of it and into other lanes in the industry.

------
hikarudo
Founding a startup. Two years before that I had very low self-esteem, due to
having dropped out of a PhD program and coming back to my country, basically
giving up the life I had built abroad over a few years. It took me one year to
go back to being a functional person, and after one more year working at a
company I felt confident and wholesome again.

Then I quit that company and co-founded a startup, to which I dedicated myself
100%. In 6 months we had a functional product. In retrospect, that might
easily have gone south, but I had the good luck of choosing to build a product
that obviously had a market, and the extremely good fortune of having great
partners.

I never would have thought that one day I would achieve such professional and
financial success.

I am an introvert and have difficulty making and maintaining contacts. Yet all
of this was possible because of people I knew. On the other hand, it was my
history of dedication, passion for engineering, and 'tackling difficult
engineering problems' that led to people having a high respect for me and my
abilities.

Introverts, consider that possibility that people respect and like you more
than you think.

~~~
ILikeConemowk
What does your start-up do?

~~~
hikarudo
Sorry for the late reply. Computer vision.

------
iangregson
For me it was leaving my PM role at a digital marketing agency for a developer
role on a small but focussed product team. It was a sidestep in terms of
remuneration and initially had fewer prospects for career progression, but
only once I made the move could I see how toxic the agency environment had
been and how much more rewarding the engineering work was (for me) than
project/product management. I have since moved on to work for a startup. I
work 100% remotely and love what I do and it wouldn't be possible if I didn't
take the risk on that earlier move.

------
jedberg
Leaving my cushy public company job for a startup.

And then four years later leaving the startup for a job at a public company.

In fact, my entire career has been startup/corp/startup/corp/startup. So far
all the money has been made from the corp jobs, but the big learning spikes
came from the startups. So that pattern has served me well.

------
laingc
I wrote a doctorate in Applied Mathematics. The process totally transformed
how I think about problems, helped me develop a lot more mathematical
maturity, and got me my first job in a then obscure field called "machine
learning".

It's certainly not the right choice for many people, but it was for me.

~~~
ellius
Nott that this was your situation, but do you have any recommendations for
learning advanced math as an adult hobbyist? I sort of missed the boat on
doing advanced math in college, and while I likely won't be able to go back to
school for it, I'd like to invest a lot of my free time in learning to better
think about problems.

~~~
ddebernardy
Try 3Blue1Brown:

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw)

------
chubot
Learning Python! (in 2003) It led to a lot of learning and a lot of
opportunities.

I often wonder what language is the "new Python", or if that question even
makes sense in 2018.

Related:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html)

~~~
makapuf
I can relate to that. Learned python in that timeframe and this has opened
opportunities but I'm not seeing the next python or web, being a programming
language or technique. ML maybe but the hype is much higher than low key
python was.

------
starchild_3001
Accepted a silicon valley job offer [tech hotspot, eng job] in 2004 over a
research lab in Princeton, NJ [small town, paper-writing job] and another in
San Diego [small town, eng job] upon the advice two elder folks I knew very
little.

Switched to machine learning circa 2007-2009 from signal processing (my PhD
area) after reading the first few chapters of Elements of Statistical Learning
Theory. Quit my eng job. Took a job in ML after studying many nights.

------
andrea_sdl
Working part time. Inspired by a comment here in HN I decided 3 years ago to
take the leap and moving from 5 days/week to 3.5day/week to spend more time
with my family.

My paycheck is less but I get to enjoy life a lot more and I have more time to
replenish my energies. I remember that before this I always felt out of breath
at work. Too much high paced, too little time. After this change I got more
efficient (and I was efficient before) and that feeling of time missing to do
things has gone away.

For anyone reading: if you have a decent pay and have been employed in the
company for some time, consider this option. Chances are they'll agree to
moving onto part-time with no trouble and the benefits are well beyond the
change in the money you earn.

~~~
WhompingWindows
"The benefits are well beyond the change"...unless you lose your benefits for
not working full time.

~~~
polalavik
In Most circumstances employers don’t actually define “full time” as 40 hours.
My employer, for example, defines full time as someone working over 32 hours
which means I can work one less day and retain full benefits.

------
cbogie
after a quick review here, it seems like folks who try (for however long)
something different are content with their decision, in spite of the fear they
had in what they defined as comfort, or whatever they happened to be adapted
to at the time.

ie the developer turn usmc pilot. another example is the police officer i met
the other day who was previously a developer at ibm for TEN years.

not to be too dark, but seems like we get a limited amount of time here on
earth being conscious, so spice it up!

my bias here is that i'm currently craving something different; something
totally outside of my current tech gig (recruiter, hello, DMs open ;) and have
to courage to jump into the unknown...if only i could figure out how the
finances and budget might work.

------
bor0
Get married and have kids. They are my biggest inspiration for all successes
that I have.

------
ToFab123
My best decision was to get a remote job so I never have to come to the
office. So now I live on small beach in Thailand instead of living in a big
European city.

------
billsmithaustin
Quitting my job at an enterprise software company. I worked for a series of
companies that wrote software that they didn't actually use (or at least their
operations didn't depend on using it). Not eating their own dog food meant
they could get away with selling software that didn't work very well. It was
demoralizing to be told we had to prioritize making new things over fixing
what we had.

Now I only work for companies that use their software to provide a service.
There is more of an incentive for the software to actually work.

------
mettamage
Note: I _just graduated_ and have about 2 years of working experience at most.
So my view presents on how to start a good early game. Also my view is EU-
centric. I think this strategy would fare less well in the US (in some
places).

Working as a freelancer with only 6 months of programming experience before
that. (1) Best entry job salary ever, (2) you act and move like a consultant
and see different industries, (3) you realize that there are industries for
which graduate programming level knowledge is enough, (4) tax benefits and (5)
it gives you some time and experience to _actually think_ about what you want
to do as a career after freelancing.

The rub: I am terrible at getting clients. I just have 1 friend who knows that
I'm capable of and he thinks I'm awesome and always recommends me whomever he
talks to. So having a champion is vital. The thing is all kinds of companies
see him as a good programmer (he graduated a bootcamp, top/1st of his class --
by a landslide) and he thinks I am as good as him but with a lot more in-depth
knowledge due to my CS background. So for him it is very easy to recommend me.

The tip I got from some people was: don't be a freelancer for too long. You
don't want to be one in a recession, so being a freelancer should always be
either (a) a side gig or (b) a temporary full-time thing (for a couple of
years). I wonder what people think about this statement.

Immediately investing the excess of whatever you earn is amazing too.

------
yakshaving_jgt
Transformative moments in my career:

\- Learning Vim and working from the terminal

\- Going through the book 'Seven Languages in Seven Weeks'

\- Learning typed Functional Programming

I think the above three things are solid, foundational skills — proficiency
with power tools, learning to learn, and learning to think about problems
differently.

Another transformative moment in my career was when I learned that many things
popular and shiny today are just _bad_ implementations of things we've had for
40 years. Specifically I realised this after learning GruntJS, and then Make.

------
hb3b
Strategically burning bridges when appropriate, putting forth a will-do
attitude even if it means doing things outside scoped responsibilities, and
just being kind to people.

~~~
snorkel
strategically burning bridges? Sometimes it’s tempting but I always tried to
leave each gig on good terms, no hard feelings, no matter how good or
dysfunctional the situation was, since you never know when past connections
can be helpful later on. Curious to know when is it helpful to burn the
bridge.

~~~
kamaal
If you have enemies, or for that matter people who just hate/envy you, the
bridges are burnt no matter on what terms you leave. They will just be happy
to see the end of you.

 _Don 't burn bridges_ is for relationships where people like each other.

Strategically _burning bridges_ is cya in a way that you benefit while
leaving, leave others wondering before they deliver a blow.

~~~
troels
How does that benefit you though?

------
kleer001
Quitting my job at a family-like studio and going freelance. I regret the loss
of comfort, familiarity, and semi-security, but my pocket book doesn't, the
pay increase was gigantic. AND I've gotten to see the world, lived in 7
different time zones.

~~~
abledon
What tech stack?

~~~
kleer001
Houdini. I'm a visual effects artist.

~~~
abledon
Ugh vfx that’s a rough industry

~~~
kleer001
In many ways yes, but someone's always going to be making movies somewhere.

------
neillyons
Becoming a contractor. I've had lots of interesting oppourtunities mainly
because I get to move companies every six months and learn from lots of
people.

------
dopeboy
Getting outside of my developer comfort zone and embracing sales. Giving
emailing, calling, coffee'ing, etc the same priority (sometimes more) as
coding.

------
soapdog
When I realized that life is more than just a career and started taking care
of other parts of my life such as having hobbies, time to myself. My work
hours became fewer than before but my happiness and productivity raised up
quite a bit.

------
docker_up
I could have gone the IT route, being a Windows NT sysadmin and making twice
the amount I could have made as a programmer. I stuck with programming because
I enjoyed it more, and I felt I wouldn't have to keep taking certifications,
etc, like MCSE. 25+ years later and I'm still programming and I still love it,
except I'm making about 10x in total comp vs what I was making.

------
ToFab123
Pretent that I suck at everything related to management and sales so that I
never had to do all the boring paperwork and meetings that comes in a
management / sales position and instead has been able to spend my time on
technical stuff. I have never told the boss that I also have a marketing
degree from university. Lol. Has worked as a charm for 20+ years now.

------
sylentmode
Realizing I was under appreciated and acting on it.

Also realizing family and enjoying life are often more important than the next
step in my career.

------
zwayhowder
Career wise: Investing in myself. After many years of complaining about
companies that wouldn't send me on training I paid for it myself, studied
myself and left those companies for better jobs with more interesting people
on higher salaries.

Personally: Taking time out of the office for my family and myself. I'm
happier and healthier.

------
AndrewKemendo
In 2013 I was at a crossroads.

I was an active duty Air Force intelligence officer and I had been building a
mobile augmented reality product as a side project. This was before AR really
took off.

I had a choice to make: Be a professional spy for the government or do what I
wanted to do since I was a kid and build computer vision/AI products, with the
goal of doing AI for the rest of my life.

This was right as Neural Nets were exploding in vision and I had been focused
on geometrical computer vision and causal bayesian networks.

So I decided to leave the military and start something that was super unproven
without a PhD in CS/ML etc...

Now my whole life now is developing Computer Vision products and doing
commercial research around vision, with an unfinished MS in ML systems. I
realized today that I reached one of my main goals which was to just be in the
field as a professional, doing it full time.

------
bsvalley
I quit for a year after a burnout working at a faang. This was the 1st time in
my career where I had absolutely no plan after leaving my employer. I usually
switched jobs in the past for a better job. This time I had no plan but to
just chill.

What happened? I was out of the rat race and I took time to look around me. I
could feel the rush of people going to work on the morning and coming back on
the evening, while I was simply on my way to starbucks or to the nearest gym.
It is scary. You understand how a 9-5 job turns you into a madman. People
looked so angry, depressed, like robots. You endup doing things during the day
when everyone is in jail working. You have to try it yourself to realize how
life sucks if you follow the rat race. The only way to get out is to break the
rope. My goal in life is to never go back to this dark place.

~~~
ILikeConemowk
Would you say you got out? What are you doing nowadays?

I'd love to ask you a couple of questions about your story!

------
rsrx
Buying one way ticket to Thailand, leaving Eastern Europe and becoming a
digital nomad when I was 24. I'm 29 now and looking to make a home base
somewhere in Europe after 5 years of traveling, but the personal growth,
people I've met and experiences during this time were invaluable.

~~~
rakoo
Honest question: what makes you want to come back? Why not settle there for
the long-term?

~~~
rsrx
Honest answer is that I don't know exactly why. I am really torn about this
right now. After 5 years of moving around all the places look more or less the
same and I am getting pretty lonely/anxious/depressed due to lack of
stability/constant friendships and relationships.

So I have to make a homebase to fix this. But the problem is that I feel like
I would be making a mistake whichever place I choose.

At one side I like Europe more because it's better aligned to my personality,
interests and also the standard of living is higher. I would settle down
somewhere in south of France, Italy, or Spain, and then travel maybe few
months per year max. I want to start a family and figured out Asia is not the
right place for me to do this.

At the other side there's SEA and all the spicyness it brings. I go back to
Europe every summer and spend winters in Asia, and I have good friends in SEA
which I miss, but I feel like I am delaying the "real life" whenever I go
there.

It's a good question to which I don't have a good answer to. I am going
through a bit of existential crisis right now due to this.

~~~
rakoo
Sounds like you've made your decision already but you just want to be sure
it's the good one, which unfortunately no one can tell you. I feel what you're
saying, I've been to Asia (especially SEA) every year for holidays, and I love
the atmosphere and the "easiness" feeling; however I do like the stability and
the reliability of things here in Europe. Tough decision. Good luck to you!

~~~
rsrx
Thanks!

~~~
ILikeConemowk
I'm in a very similar position right now, could I ask you a couple of
questions over DM / email?

------
ian0
I made the decision to not have a career after leaving college and travelled
around the world for a few years, working brief stints in tech and non-tech
jobs here and there to make ends meet and fund further travels.

When I actually started to focus on work that experience benefited me
extremely well.

~~~
shreyanshd
I am very early in my career and would like to do something similar. Can you
elaborate on how the travel experience benefited you professionally?

------
dudeinsf
Leaving my small(ish) town and taking a chance in the Bay Area.

I wanted to validate my skills after being passionate about building software
as a kid; it worked, I convinced a unicorn startup to hire me and moved into
management where I'm able to save much more money. I went from 60K to 285K
with over 500K in options vested in 4 years.

I've had so many growth opportunities and now I manage multiple teams with
influence over the strategy for the company. This has allowed me to develop
the skills to see software as more than just engineering, but a business, and
understand the hard problems of motivating very smart people around me. I
would never have guessed this was possible for myself.

You'd be surprised what you will learn if you just "go for it".

------
paul7986
Doing & pursuing my startup ideas which is how I learned to design, code and
market technology. Neither of my startups made me any money but the stories
from them (highs and lows) I feel help(ed) me stand out in terms of getting
interviews & landing jobs.

~~~
wastedhours
The same - as a uni dropout, I'd have had a pretty hard time getting my career
kickstarted had it not been for a failed startup I was working on after moving
back in with my parents (which is also another thing, having an awesome home
environment undoubtedly helped too).

Had I not had the opportunity to spend 6 months working on something that made
no money, but afforded me the ability to talk about the full-stack skills I
developed, there's very little chance I'd have walked into a temp web
developer/marketer role and stayed for 3 years.

------
richpimp
Different perspective here than most. I worked in the retail grind for a
decade before getting into software development. The best decision I ever made
was going back to school and getting into this industry. For those who've done
this for their whole careers, know that you've got it pretty well made
relative to most other people. If you think office politics is bad in software
dev, I remember people cannibalizing each other over a 25 cent raise. In any
service industry, you really are just a cog in the wheel. It makes me
appreciate what I do now so much more, and I always try to remind myself of
that if I ever find myself down or upset about something work-related.

------
jdpigeon
To leave the academic track and start working full time on a mobile app at the
end of my Masters. Nearly everything notable that's come my way career-wise
stemmed from people noticing that little app that I spent less than 6 months
working on.

~~~
ILikeConemowk
Mind sharing what app that was or what it was about?

~~~
jdpigeon
I was studying neuroscience and met another student who said "Hey, I've been
running workshops teaching people how to build simple brain computer
interfaces with EEG, but it's hard to explain the signal processing steps
without showing them what it actually looks like. We should build an app that
does that."

Fortunately, there was a product out there, the Muse EEG headband, with a lot
of users and a decent mobile SDK. The company gave us some free headbands to
work with, some experience software developers told us what tech to use, and a
few months later we released EEG 101:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eeg_projec...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eeg_project))

------
meu5
Started working less. It forced me to manage my time more efficiently with the
result of being more productive and happy in the end.

The second best thing that helped me being happy is just doing what I like.
Whenever I see an improvement, technical or business related, I start making a
plan to improve it and start talking with co-workers/clients about this. This
resulted in me having better relationships at work and just doing what I like
instead of building (/programming) something someone else came up with. I
really like to be in control of whatever I'm doing. Still in my early twenties
and trying to figure things out.

Any advice?

------
walrus1066
Staying longer at my current job. Over two years my has jumped ~50%, and I
have a lot of independence & responsibility.

I used to think you need to job hop to progress (in terms of position &
salary) - definitely not always the case!

------
dave333
A) Migrating UK->USA and ending up learning C/Unix at Bell labs. Still here
and still use these tools 38 years later.

B) Moving to silicon valley, mostly due to the climate, but also because my
house often made more than I did, and there are just so many opportunities.

C) Joining a startup - learned to be agile - didn't get rich but at least got
to roll the dice.

D) Becoming a contractor - can get foot in the door more easily after the dot
com bust.

E) Becoming full time again at large company. Nominal paycut but with all
benefits and bonuses and stock actually earn 30% more plus more job security
at the tail end of my career.

------
siruncledrew
Not really a decision, but having a mental breakdown after multiple failed
startups and unsavory corporate jobs made me re-evaluate my life and drive me
towards achieving something meaningful I would be proud of.

------
betocmn
Moving countries. Working with Software Engineering and trying to make a
startup succeed from a poor and very traditional region in Brazil was a
struggle. It was a massive learning experience, no doubts, but my career and
my life got 10x better in under two years once I moved to the other side of
the world, Australia, where I found an incredibly welcoming tech market with
lots of jobs and a hot and growing startup scene.

I'm now trying to hire other developers and have interviewed people who are
still living in Brazil (some from my hometown) but excited to move here too.

------
ChrisRackauckas
To start using Julia. I was using that weird smattering of Python +
Cython/Numba, MATLAB, R, C, and Fortran for a long time during my PhD. When I
was developing stochastic differential equation solvers for a paper, I gave
Julia a good try. The competitive advantage that it gave me accelerated my
research a massive amount and the resulting research was instrumental in
landing a position at MIT. I learned: don't follow trends and look for tools
that give you an advantage over others. Invest the time when you can, and reap
the rewards.

------
laurentl
1\. Quitting. I realize this is not a big deal if you have a highly sought-
after expertise (e.g. software development) and the local culture and
employment laws make it easy to change jobs (e.g. the US). But in my case, I
was working as a department head in a big company in France in a relatively
small town with a really small labor market for my particular skills and
salary expectations. And I’d been working in that company since graduating,
playing the corporate ladder game. Changing jobs meant moving (taking my
family with me), making a gamble that I’d be able to make it in the new job
and that it was all worth it — as the saying goes, you know what you’re
leaving behind but you don’t go what you’re going to find.

2\. Understanding and accepting that it’s more important to love what you do
than to chase status and promotions. At my previous job, I was keeping track
of success by how many people I had in my team and how much responsibility was
given to me. But most days were spent in meetings and budget forecasts and
PowerPoint slides, and it kinda sucked. Plus to reach the next rungs it was
heavily hinted that I should move from engineering to marketing or customer
operations (because “you will never manage a BU if you don’t have direct
customer experience”), and I knew full well that I’d hate it. Accepting this
gave me the impetus to look for a new job and quit, and I haven’t regretted it
for a second.

------
ralphc
Staying in development. I figured out early on that I had no interest in
management, and that served me well during the 2000 bubble burst and 2008
crisis. What was harder to learn was that I had no interest in the Software
Architect role. I thought it was something I was "supposed" to move up into,
but as I talked to my managers about it over a period of a couple of years I
realized it was a lot of meetings and drawing diagrams, and I was better, and
happier, actually writing code.

~~~
whatimeantosay
I'm 41 yo and feeling like I'm at a bit of a crossroad. I feel that I will be
miserable as a manager, and will always want the introverted work of
development. How has it worked out for you? Any tips?

~~~
ralphc
I was able to retire at 55 last year, so it worked out. The last few years
were spent at big companies so there was zero pressure to move into
management, there were plenty of people that wanted to do that so they had
their fill. I think there was some expectation to move into a Tech Lead type
role but if you do some of the Tech Lead tasks unofficially (code practices,
mentoring) you should do fine.

At 41 think of it this way. You're older and if you're laid off, would you
rather be a middle manager looking for a job or a developer that's kept up
your skills?

------
hef19898
Joining the aerospace sector after graduation and leaving it some 6 six after
that. I learned ao much about complexity in general and complex systems during
this time that it was possible to basically build my entire career on it. I've
been lucky as well I guess to have the opportunity from day one to take on
responsibility and learn.

Leaving aerospace because I was able to retain flexibility, career-wise,
personally and more importantly intellectual. Aerospace is great sector to
work in but also very, very special. Not having any experience in other
sectors carries the risk to end up limited to that sole industry.

Now I ended up again in aerospace, and so far it most of the tome feels like
coming home, just with a lot more skills and experience most people don't
have.

I have to add, so, that all of the above might seem like a great plan in
retrospect. Reality is it was mostly unconscious, except for the part of
quiting aerospace. The underlying goal, unconscious as it has been, was to
seek out new opportunities to learn and develop new skills. This process got
more and more conscious as I got older.

Yes, and maybe one last piece of advice. It is not, under any circumstances
what so ever, worth it to sacrifice your private life of your health for a
simple job. Most of the time we are not literally saving lives, and even if
you cannot do that when you burn out and get a heart attack or something like
that. Know when it is necessary to give all you have for the
cause/mission/task and when not. And never ever do that _just because_.

------
teknico
Two of them.

1) 1993: switching from computer programming to system administration in order
to avoid the C++ onslaught (at the company I was working for). Managed to
successfully avoid it since then (25 years). And now we have Rust: life is
good.

2) 1999: going back to programming while excluding closed tech and focusing
only on free and open tools. With all their faults, having complete visibility
and control of the software stack has been a blessing. And now there's hope
for hardware too. Life is good #2.

------
aprdm
Dropping embedded systems / switching to services backend dev

~~~
reedx8
Why didn't programming for embedded systems work for you?

~~~
programmarchy
My two cents, having done some of both...

Embedded systems don't really scale the same way backend systems do. In
embedded, you write the firmware, and it gets loaded into thousands or
millions of devices. There may be a few updates, but firmware kind of gets
frozen in time.

With backend, you write code that can be used to expand a business. You're
adding features to grow marketshare or scaling up to meet user demand, so it
has a more direct correlation with the health of a business. It's less of a
cost center, and more of an investment.

~~~
shanghaiaway
More likely, the market for embedded is in China and not the west, so there is
little demand for these skills.

------
zwischenzug
I gave up on formal career advancement (ie climbing the greasy pole) and
followed my technical interests, trying to have fun where possible, but also
with an eye to its marketability.

I ended up starting a blog
([https://zwischenzugs.com/](https://zwischenzugs.com/)) and wrote a few
books. It's all made my career far more fun and given me more control. As a
by-product I'm better paid too. But that was not the aim.

------
wffurr
Quitting my dead end job and finishing grad school at a good university in a
city with a thriving technology sector. My second job search was quite a bit
different from my first; recruiters were calling _me_ instead of me having to
call to even get anyone to look at my resume.

Now, six years on, I am all "ugh recruiters spamming me" like my peers, but I
remember how awesome it felt when I woke up to an inbox full of emails after
posting my graduate resume.

------
hahamrfunnyguy
Leaving my full time job to pursue a startup. Ultimately, I wasn't able to
grow the startup as quickly as needed and returned to full time work about a
year later. Even still the experience was invaluable and I learned so much.

After working that job for a few years and rising through the ranks to lead
the group, I've realized that running a small business is really what I'd like
to be doing.

Currently I am working part time trying to figure out what to do next!

------
otakucode
Does an accident count? The large contract I'd worked on for years got won by
a new company. I had a job offer from Subcontractor Company A that I wanted to
work for. But I wanted just a little bit more money. Like, literally 5k more
so I wasn't taking their initial offer would have been great. So, I sent my
resume to the Prime Contractor asking for an irrational amount of money.
Figured they'd counter with "lol no, but how about X?" and I could use that to
get a small bump at least from the Subcontractor. Then the word came out. The
Subcontractor would get no slots on the new contract. Either the Prime picked
me up or I'd be out of a job. Eep. I found out later the Prime wanted to drop
me like a hot potato, but the customer went to bat for me, so I got an offer
late in the evening after spending the day hearing about all my coworkers
getting offers. It wasn't quite for the irrational amount I'd asked for, but I
jumped at the chance to sign the offer. It still ended up being, by far, the
biggest increase in my salary of my career.

The real best decision, though, was leaving my job. I had been talking to
people for years about the future of work being online and freelance and such.
So, I decided to just quit my job and see what happened. Turned out to
probably be the best thing I could have ever done. My income dropped a lot,
sure, but I learned probably 10x as much in 2 years as I had in the previous
15 years combined. The anxiety of being entirely freelance and chasing money
wasn't really my cup of tea, but it certainly put me in a much better position
when approaching employers with that experience at my back. Not to mention the
psychological confidence knowing that no matter what happens, I won't starve.

------
JazzXP
Technically the decision was made for me, but changing jobs was the best thing
that ever happened to me. I went from a toxic culture I worked at for 16 years
(well, it was about 10 years of the toxic culture that snuck in without me
realising) to work for a small consultancy where I have a boss that actually
appreciates everything I do and supports me in what I need.

The massive pay increase was just a bonus on top of all that.

------
Dowwie
One of my defining decisions was taking leave and eventually dropping out of a
top executive mba program a third of the way in, before I had to take a six
figure loan to pay the rest. If I am to be brutally honest with myself, the
decision not to finish wasn't entirely my own, but I could have finished.

The shit really hit the fan in my life and this forced me to take stock. Had I
not been forced, I probably would have continued down the mba path and career
change. Losing my father after two very sick years, being laid off by a
business in collapse, having a six figure student loan application on my desk,
and other crucial "etc" pushed me to reevaluate my life decisions.

Here are some important lessons learned:

An MBA from a reputable program was leading me into debt servitude and
constraints that would shape my career. Debt constraints are major life
constraints.

Changing careers to do something that was more meaningful can lead to many new
opportunities. I left prime brokerage in financial services and was planning
to transition into healthcare, hospital cfo type of work. Helping create novel
solutions to rising costs of healthcare was a mission I could align myself
with. Helping protect investment bank lending to hedge funds through margin
financing paid well but served no higher purpose. Healthcare doesn't have a
monopoly on purpose, though, and many who work in healthcare do so just to
collect a paycheck. I realized I could achieve my goal elsewhere and with
fewer bureaucratic constraints, but at a cost-- as an entrepreneur!

Entrepreneurship has been everything I expected it to be. I had to become the
technical expert I needed as a partner. It's been a long, grueling experience.
I am so fortunate to have taken it.

------
reustle
Going to more events/meetups and being social without trying to sell anything.

------
jinonoel
Had a quarter-life crisis, so decided to quit my job after working 5 years as
a software engineer and get a masters degree in a foreign country in 2010. Had
to choose a specialization, and chose AI/ML only because I liked reading sci-
fi. Graduated in 2012 and was suddenly and accidentally in a great position to
ride the AI and data science wave taking over the industry.

~~~
mgenglder
Would you recommend getting an MSCS for getting into AI?

~~~
jinonoel
I had a really good time and learned more than I thought I would during my
postgrad studies. However if you would be paying full tuition there's probably
cheaper ways to get into AI though.

~~~
FahadUddin92
Just do the coursera courses and get started.

------
paulsutter
Staying in touch with people

------
hnruss
Getting my bachelors degree.

I had been working as a self-taught web developer before that and went into
college already knowing much of what I needed to know to do the job. However,
getting a degree significantly improved my ability to get the positions I
wanted at the pay I deserved. Also, I learned some important things that I had
never heard of before.

------
icedchai
Saving and investing approximately 40% of my income at all times.

~~~
deathanatos
I've recently jumped off this bridge, twice. They have pretty much gone
nowhere. I know you're supposed to be patient w/ these, but… it is
frustrating.

~~~
icedchai
I split my investments into three pots:

1) Long term accumulation (buy and hold). These are at Vanguard due to their
low fees. Most of it is in VTSAX (Total stock market) and VTIAX (Total
international) funds. I have been averaging 12% yearly returns for the past 10
years.

2) Short term investments: Individual stocks, for more active trading. I don't
have a long term return figures, but the past year has been 30%.

3) Cash: I keep about 15% in cash at all times. I look for high interesting
savings accounts (Ally Bank gives you 1.85% returns) and money market funds
(Vanguard VMMXX gives you 2.05% ish)

------
vowelless
Getting out of my home country.

~~~
iopuy
Mind sharing what country? Thanks

------
sdegutis
Creating a window manager. It skyrocketed into a really fun project that
thousands of people have used to boost their productivity. I've started a
Patreon for anyone who has enjoyed my window managers and feeling grateful
(link in profile) but it may be too late.

------
lifeisstillgood
Good and Bad: I turned around one day some years back, looked at a team of 40
people I had working under me and realised I would rather be coding than
managing 40 people

So I went contracting, and for many years enjoyed banging out code.

But as each new contract starts, the meta-work, the git conventions, the
missing linting hook, the vital relationships I left behind, all start to
grate. Adding them back in, getting this team back up to speed like the others
is just repetitive.

And the more time I spend mentoring, encouraging, reviewing, the less time
there is for fun parts and the more it looks like management again.

I might just bite the bullet and decide I am now old.

------
forgotAgain
I was working for a company that was doing fantastically well but my salary
increases and % bonus were in the low single digits. I negotiated a 50% raise.
The extra money allowed me to save and invest for the future.

------
dotdi
Moving from academia to industry.

I have a Bachelor's in Molecular Biology and was going to walk the academic
path but decided to switch to Computer Science (had some engineering
background before) for a Master's degree with the specific plan to go into
industry. It was hard, I had to do a lot of extra credits while studying full
time and working to pay the bills, but I got into a CS Master's degree and
finished it very successfully.

I now have a very interesting job with good pay, high recognition and enough
flexibility to pursue other dreams (like making music, etc.).

------
anon201812345
Not really a decision I made. But I got into an HR fight with another
coworker. Basically I was getting bullied and this coworker frequently
exploded in hot anger towards me and others. Fought with HR, reported him
several times. Company decided that the best course of action was to fire both
of us. BEST RECENT CAREER THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO ME. I got fired from a job I
hated and wanted to quit anyways, I get to work from home, from anywhere in
the world, work and walk my dog. It's so much nicer to not go to an office
anymore. SO WORTH it.

~~~
abledon
You don’t like working in an office and making jokes seeing your coworkers
faces smile ? Just curious

------
vinayms
I realized that software engineering is not engineering as in applied physics,
but more like engineering as in creating things. The opinions of experts are
just that, opinions, and there is no need to adopt everything. They are not
exactly laws of nature being described. Its ok to have your own opinions and
methodologies as long as things work (of course, as an employee I choose to
simply follow the herd, but with my own things I am my own person). The best
decision I made was adopting this.

------
Marc66FR
Born and raised in Canada. At 27, I sold everything I had and moved to France
to find a job. 25 years, 3 cities and 5 companies later, I'm still loving it
and never looked back.

------
gravelc
Doing a bioinformatics Masters degree. Had 15 years molecular biology wet lab
experience and was getting very bored with the repetitiveness of it. Did the
degree, learnt to code. Now earn more money, much safer in a highly
competitive job market, and most importantly really enjoy what I'm doing.

Without taking the time to do the degree, none of it would have happened. Had
2 kids whilst working and studying - come to think of it, a supportive wife
was by far the best decision career wise.

------
happyvalley
I quit my job in big-law and set out to crack a problem I have seen so often
during my previous career.

I liked my previous job, it was interesting and demanding. But being my own
boss has taught me a lot as well: I have learned new skills, I have met a lot
of people I probably wouldn't have got in touch with in the previous job, and
I learned a lot about myself. On most days I wake up feeling that some new
discoveries are out there for me... Until now, this journey is very rewarding.

------
websitescenes
I always split my time between a day job and a passion of building startups.
My startups all failed until I finally took the leap and fully committed by
leaving my cushy tech day job and went all in. It was super hard being self
funded and I spent everything I had including a 401k but it was the best
decision I ever made. Now I’m CTO at a successful, funded company instead of a
tool for others to realize their visions through. It’s hard work but I enjoy
leading a team.

------
adamnemecek
I quit my job to read and hack or a project and random shit. I’ve gotten so
much more knowledgeable and skilled. I’m also getting much better job offers
than I used to.

~~~
someguy1010
I want to say that I did something similar, and I had to go the odd day
without a meal here or there every once in a while. Not to say that is a bad
thing, but definitely be ready to have a similar experience if you aren't
prepared.

~~~
adamnemecek
It’s not meals that kill you. It’s rent and shit.

------
Liriel
Moved to another city to change my career and get a really nice job. After 2
years of living there, moved once again to get an even better job and double
my salary. I also learned where to draw a line in the sand in that first
company. Working for an international company - and being paid minimum wage,
noup, won't allow that to happen to me ever again. Afterwards, I realized I
loved living in the first city, found a remote job and moved back.

------
shell0x
I left Germany in 2012, moved to New Zealand, and got new jobs in Taiwan,
Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong afterward.

However, I do regret not having spent more time with my parents and my sister.
I haven't been back for the first 3 years or so, but I've changed my attitude
quite a bit, and try to visit them at least twice a year now. I've also paid
my sister's vacation in Hong Kong, so she could come for a visit(she's still a
student).

------
gabaryza
I too went the workaholic route. My departure came when I saw that the utter
faith I had in a project was not at all shared by the Project's management.
That feet of clay moment allowed me to gain emotional distance and maturity.
Thereafter I was able to become what one of my later employees described as
"the adult in the room". However, it would not have happened had I not had my
technical heart broken.

------
JustSomeNobody
The best decisions are either to stay with or leave a job. Knowing when to do
that is tricky. Sometimes I've gotten it right and have advanced my career. I
think this time, I've waited too long. Not happy anymore as new development
has stagnated. Nervous about interviewing again. My last gig I got from just a
phone call, so I've not had a formal interview in years. But, it's time to
go...

------
l0b0
Applying to CERN while studying for a CS MSc. It was risky - new country, new
language and not a software development company - but incredibly rewarding.

------
casper345
Deciding to go to a city like San antonio, Texas for programming (I am from
California) than going to congested places like NY, Boston, Silicon Valley.

------
misabon
Top line optimization instead of everything else. I pay for a gym trainer,
have someone dry clean my clothes, have a rideshare pass and a Muni/BART pass.
The spending gets rapidly wiped out just in my growth each year post-tax.

My greatest worry now is that I can’t spend myself into more time any more and
need to make personal improvements instead (like not reading so much social
media like HN)

------
cannabisceo
Dropped out of medical school I'm my 4th year. I knew it wasn't for me and I
took a big risk...but I knew I had to bet on myself.

------
andrewstuart
To stop overvaluing work/business/career.

------
alkonaut
Staying long enough at a company to become indispensible, then working from
home, and from a sunny island for a month or so in winter.

------
snarfy
I asked if I could work remotely full time. The company office was originally
a transplant from another state, and they had a few full time remote employees
still from the other state.

As soon as I could work remote, I sold my house and moved across country.
After moving I updated the city/state on my resume and immediately started
receiving much better offers.

------
jmcgough
I came to the bay for a few days before a PhD interview (cognitive science).
My friend convinced me to crash on her couch and find a job in SF. I skipped
the interview, taught myself some web dev, and got a job at a startup.

I was pretty burnt out on research at that point. I can guarantee I wasn't
mature enough or stable enough to get through a PhD program.

------
ur-whale
To willingly decide to leave, halfway through my professional life, a career
in which I had become one of very few world-class experts to pick up something
entirely different and that I knew close to nothing about.

It was scary, humbling, deeply rejuvenating and ultimately immensely
beneficial, both from a personal growth and from a financial standpoint.

~~~
ILikeConemowk
Interesting, what as your former career and what did you start doing after
jumping ship?

------
njovin
Six years ago I left my job in IT, took a pay cut, and gave up great benefits
to go work for a startup as a junior developer. I had caught the bug and knew
I wanted to create software for a living.

I’m still here and now I’ve helped to build a team of super-talented engineers
and we are building some very cool things and having fun doing it.

------
dgudkov
Starting a professional blog [1] in English. In some months it got 5-6K
readers (now not so many). I started getting interesting professional contacts
as well as qualified job inquiries. I never looked for a job since then.

[1] [https://bi-review.blogspot.com](https://bi-review.blogspot.com)

------
clueless123
I learned to protect MY shareholders first. (my family) I am somewhat OCD and
have given sweat and blood for companies more motivated by the "get it done"
attitude then for the money. After the last .com crash debacle, I realized no
matter how nice the company or important the task, Family comes first.

------
otohp
My best career decision was to leave microsoft for a smaller company. Back
then, there was a toxic culture at microsoft due to the dog eat dog review
system they had in place. I was spending 60-80 hrs at work with a lot of
stress. Ever since I left, I have been happy and have a good work life
balance.

------
dano
Completing my projects at one company, moving to a startup and taking a pay
cut for stock, building that company, lather rinse and repeat a few times. Not
all of the companies made it, but my career has been interesting and full of
new ideas, technology and most of all, great friends.

------
chasd00
Got into consulting by chance and it just seems like a natural fit for me.
Taking that leap out of strictly heads down coding and more into a "tell me
what you're trying to accomplish and I'll help you get there" role has tripled
my pay and is much more fulfilling.

------
jefffoster
I quit my job as a "research scientist" and joined a startup building
developer tools.

I got paid less and I had to work harder.

The pay-off? I learnt more in those two years than I would in ten years in
another job.

Since then my general philosophy has been to find jobs based on maximising my
rate of learning.

------
cryptozeus
I see lots of people went back to get ma degree, i did reverse. After my bs I
started ms but hated it and didn’t feel like it was right use of my time and
money. I quit it after half semester and started working full time. Have not
looked back.

------
INTPenis
Something every parent hates to hear. Dropping out of school. :D

Because my very first decision in my IT career was wheather or not to drop out
and join my brother in a larger city who was working for a small web host at
the time.

That job lead to another and launched my career.

------
jpincheira
Resign from my full-time job with the idea of starting my own SaaS company.

I feel I should have done this a few years before. But you need to feel you
have enough knowledge/experience and some cash to burn to get a business
started.

------
davydka
Dropped "being involved" in what I want to do to "doing" what I want to do.
This involved moving to New York and running my own web consultancy, which
failed miserably. Still a great decision.

------
ryan-allen
Getting out of 'web design' and focusing on 'web programming'.

Not only did I enjoy it more as it was a better fit for my temperament, it was
better for me financially.

I feel pretty lucky to have fell in to programming.

------
gadders
1) Working in Investment Banking - the salaries are significantly higher than
you can get anywhere else, at least for the UK

2) Starting contracting - Higher salary, greater variety of roles/projects etc
etc.

~~~
uxcolumbo
Are you worried about Brexit - IBs potentially leaving the UK if passporting
rights are lost?

~~~
gadders
Not particularly. From the inside here and knowing people working on Brexit
projects, there doesn't seem to be any plans to move people and businesses out
of London. Certainly in the short term at least.

I'm more worried about the government and their IR35 reforms in the private
sector to be honest.

------
danso
Learning Rails.

~~~
peacetreefrog
When did you learn rails? Would you recommend learning it today?

~~~
danso
This was back in 2009. The NYTimes interactive team had hired folks (Big Nerd
Ranch) to hold an in-office Rails lesson, and my boss sent me over to learn
with them. While I did have a computer engineering degree, my webdev
experience was limited to making elaborate (but poorly-coded) PHP and Flash
scripts. I was actually hired originally to be a web producer (mostly tasked
with posting stories online and making the HTML proper), but learning Rails
not only taught proper web app conventions, but allowed me to build important
data projects, such as this one:
[https://projects.propublica.org/d4d-archive/](https://projects.propublica.org/d4d-archive/)

I stopped using Ruby and Rails and opted for Python when I started teaching at
university, because I realized Ruby wasn't ideal for teaching novice
programmers. But I've recently picked up Rails again for some freelance work
and have been delighted at how easy it is to get back into. My sense is that
Ruby and RoR are no longer as dominant or competitive compared to Python, but
it still seems to be a very high in-demand skill because of all the
apps/startups that used RoR from the time I learned it back in 2009. That
said, learning RoR was less about having the specific skill on my resume, and
more about my first exposure to professional and open-source application
development, which I'm embarrassed to say I had virtually no experience with
when majoring in computer engineering.

Today, I personally would recommend people learn Python and do Django, even
though I've personally never used Django myself, but feel confident that it's
not much different than my RoR experience.

~~~
atmosx
> because I realized Ruby wasn't ideal for teaching novice programmers

Care to elaborate? I work with both of them lately, consider me a novice
programmer since I rarely write anything complex, but which part of ruby is
not _ideal_ for teaching?

I find the ruby syntax much more self-explanatory than python.

An example: recently, I had to use private methods in a python project. I went
for the _method() convention, but priv methods don't exist in py.

~~~
gaius
_I find the ruby syntax much more self-explanatory than python._

Yes and no. Consider that these are different in Ruby but the same in almost
every other language:

    
    
        f(x)
        f (x)
    

Ever had to debug code that _relied_ on this behaviour? Or had to explain why
exactly to someone unfamiliar with yacc?

~~~
danso
Exactly this. People who are new to programming -- and aren't, say, majoring
in math -- don't understand or appreciate determinism and exactness. That is,
if their "program doesn't work", and unless you intervene as the instructor,
they'll try every random thing they find on StackOverflow until their program
"works" (i.e. no longer raises an Exception).

I love the elegance possible in Ruby syntax, but it allows for way too much
ambiguity, and if you don't understand how parsing/interpreters fundamentally
work, it will seem like Ruby is as loose and permissable as regular English
syntax, which is a huge stumbling block for people entirely new to
programming. I admit to slamming my fist on my desk the first time I tried
writing Python only to get an indentation error, but Python's explicitness is
incredibly helpful in making clear the exactness needed for computation.

And Python's design helps prevent many of the kinds of catastrophic/difficult
to debug errors that do not throw exceptions in Ruby. For example, the
following situations are acceptable in Ruby, but in Python, will raise errors:

    
    
          if x = 9
             puts x + 1   # prints 10, because x is assigned to 9 first
    
          y = {}
          z = y["this doesn't exist"]   # z is set to nil

------
fang_throwaway
Working at one FAANG & getting an offer from another.

I (think) I was seen a high performer with an upward trajectory. The whole
thing was incredibly stressful, but it was life changing for my family.

------
gwbas1c
Quitting my job to try to start a startup. It went nowhere, but I was able to
put my career in the right direction afterwards.

I also learned a lot more about what I want to get out of my career.

------
brahmwg
Striving to work as a teacher at my alma mater. Despite everyone telling me I
could not do it, that it would not be possible, I became the youngest lecturer
at my university.

------
raffael-vogler
I'd say taking a couple of months off between engagements. Helps with
reflection, healing and learning. In the long run it reduces the risk of burn
out and depression.

------
fphhotchips
Got into Sales Engineering. Much better pay and conditions than I was
previously seeing, and my compensation is directly linked to my performance in
a way I really enjoy.

------
meritt
Taking the time to learn relational database theory and SQL.

------
atemerev
Starting to explore cryptocurrency trading in 2015. I didn’t make millions,
because I was poor and full of debt back then, but it still had been a
lifesaver.

------
wareotie
In my case, a bunch of different small decisions instead of a single big one.

They look so obvious right now...

Right now, I think that the best decision I'm taking is learning Japanese.

------
GlenTheMachine
Both the best and the worst decision I made: starting grad school in 1993
instead of moving to the Valley and getting a programming job.

~~~
oceanman888
More details?

~~~
GlenTheMachine
I started a doctoral program at the University of Maryland in aerospace
engineering, instead of going to work with a bachelor’s in CS. Had I started a
programming job, my net worth would almost certainly have an additional zero
behind it.

But: A PhD gives you intellectual freedom you don’t get any other way. I’m the
PI for a space robotics program. And in grad school I made friends I’ll have
for life. I got to do a Vomit Comet flight. I got to do a spacesuit run in
Marshall Space Flight Center’s neutral buoyancy lab. I designed a spacecraft
simulator robot from scratch. I’ve done things very few people get to do.

~~~
oceanman888
I see, good for you figuring out what you love and have the freedom to pursuit
it. I can relate deeply to how you feel.

------
clintcparker
Not going into management too early. The opportunity was presented to me on
more than one occasion, but I felt I wasn't where I needed to be technically
yet. Waiting was worth it, because when I finally made the switch, I was
already an influencer and well respected technically. I'm able to call BS when
necessary, and actually provide valuable feedback and review to all of my
team. I think I would always feel unqualified to lead technical people
otherwise.

------
sidcool
Is a Master's degree worth it in Computer science? I am very interested in
operaing systems and distributed computing.

~~~
sdenton4
Grad school is a great thing to do if it suits you. If structuring your own
time leads to side projects and deep diving in a technical area, then you've
probably got the right drive and self determinism to do decently in grad
school.

Just avoid dreaming too much about tenure track jobs and you'll have a great
time. (Well, so long as the program doesn't suck. Do your research...)

~~~
sidcool
Thanks, that helps.

------
djohnston
My career is rather young, but at this point, it has been leaving
${Large_Consulting_Firm} for ${Small_Startup}

------
chrisweekly
Sticking with consulting / entrepreneurship instead of going back to being a
traditional employee.

------
anonymous5133
Getting a bachelor's degree in an in-demand field. Tripled my income upon
graduation.

------
kirbiyik
Quitting medicine faculty and attending to CS. Oh man, that was a game changer
move...

------
drakonka
Applying for jobs even though I didn't fit every point in the job description.

------
the_new_guy_29
Why im not surprised top few comments are about quitting job for something
else.

------
robnite
To be bold enough to significantly up my salary requirements when moving job

------
booleandilemma
Leaving the mom and pop shop that was underpaying and under appreciating me.

------
stretchwithme
Probably taking my first job after college 2800 miles from where I grew up.

------
philpee2
Attending a coding bootcamp and becoming a software engineer

------
gregmelson
I risked everything and took a leap of faith.

------
Annatar
To master UNIX.

------
gao8a
Helping out with a profs side project

------
kwhitefoot
Moved from the UK to Norway in 1986.

------
edsiper2
Getting into open source very early

------
aaronbrethorst
Focusing on being happy.

------
loriverkutya
Becoming a contractor.

------
jiveturkey
moving to bay area from the east coast. i knew not a soul.

------
gnarcoregrizz
tl;dr survivor bias

~~~
Dowwie
Sure, and not just survivor bias but creative rationalizing after the moment
passed. We put a positive spin on bad decisions or situational decisions
beyond one's control. No one can deny doing this but can at least try to be
honest about how much control one had.

------
expathacker
Emotionally detaching. I was a workaholic from age 16 until 33 and this was my
primary identity. I used to always be proud of the work I did, no matter how
lame the company or how many times I was screwed over. Then one day my father
died, and I was fired from a company who I truly believed in and for whom I
had sacrificed.

This sounds cynical, but it's really peaceful. With the emotional energy and
sheer time saved I am able to cultivate strong relationships, passionate
devote myself to music, be a better father/husband/son, discover new interests
that have nothing to do with the internet.

I frequently espouse the virtues of a "Fuck you, pay me" work attitude, and I
recommend everybody examine their relationship with their careers and ask
themselves if on their deathbed they will wish they had worked more.

~~~
m_fayer
It seems intuitive to me that the thing you pour your intellect, attention,
and care into for 7-9 hours a day 5 days a week should be meaningful and
fulfilling.

On the other hand, hanging meaning and mission over one's head seems like a
great way to manipulate and underpay them, and being susceptible to this seems
like a great way to become a useful idiot.

Squaring these two views is something I struggle with.

~~~
koonsolo
I might have a solution for you: Look at yourself as an independent
contractor, even if you are an employee.

This way you can put out your best work & work on things that excite you, but
are still protected from manipulation and underpay.

Your customer is your employer. He's also the main person that needs to be
pleased with your work.

Companies try to push the "This company is all of us" mentality, but in some
situations it becomes painfully clear that it wasn't.

~~~
Vraxx
It's tough because I think the group mentality is part of what can really make
a company able to produce the value it can (more than just the sum of its
parts and all that), so I feel that mentality _can_ come from a genuine place,
but it is also used manipulatively. How we tell the difference is a problem
I'm currently incapable of solving.

~~~
koonsolo
It's a fine line indeed, and it's probably impossible to draw a hard line like
that. Sometimes you're above it, sometimes below.

But the main thing is that you guard yourself from feeling disappointed
afterwards. This disappointment comes from a wrong view on the whole
situation.

So basically anything that you do extra for the company, you do because it
gives you gratification at the moment. Don't expect to be compensated
afterwards, because you won't.

But of course compensation for your work is more than money alone, and it's
perfectly fine to get gratification from seeing what you created, working on
something that excites you, etc.

------
11235813213455
working remote

------
vegcel
A bit of an unethical life pro tip, but to lie. Lying allows you like no other
skill to get a huge jumpstart in your career. I'm not talking about some basic
white lie, but some Death Note-level type of deceptive schemes where you can
then act on the deception. It also trains you for leadership, as deception is
an incredibly important skill the higher you get.

[http://fortune.com/2016/06/02/lying-leadership-skills-
expect...](http://fortune.com/2016/06/02/lying-leadership-skills-expectations-
communication/)

~~~
thx4allthestuff
The more liars that enter the job market who are unable to deliver on their
empty promises, the more valued the people who actually put in the work will
become. So go ahead and lie, make my day.

