
Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do? - bsvalley
If you were to quit your developer job today and move away from the tech world for a little while, what job would you do? Or what domain would interest you?
======
tjic
Woodworker.

From running two small ecommerce companies I think I've learned enough about
MVP, shipping, inventory management, etc.

From 25 years as a software engineer I've learned about building tools to
automate steps.

I'd pick some "hard to find / expensive niche (e.g. Greene and Greene, Art
Nouveau, etc.), but offer repeatable designs, not do custom work. That would
allow for lots of jigs, fixtures, using cheap machines in duplicate to
eliminate setup times, etc.

...and then after growing sales and shaking the bugs out of the production,
I'd hire assistants to keep cranking stuff out.

Eventually I'd allow customers to start turbing a few "knobs" on products, via
a website tool (this isn't too much falling back into software, is it?), which
results in customized cut lists being kicked out for my assistants. Mass
customization.

~~~
bungie4
This is funny, I came into programming from being a high end cabinet maker. I
had to give it up because I'm allergic to the components that make up the
'smell' of red oak. Which we worked with a lot.

Theirs a real satisfaction in looking at a your work at the end of the day and
being able to SEE it.

~~~
lloyd-christmas
I've always whittled as a fun side hobby. My desire to do anything bigger is
limited by a fear of the table saw. As a lefty, nothing in the shop plays nice
with me. I'm too worried about losing a finger which would impact my income
stream as well as my other hobby, piano. But, I still spend more time looking
at joinery than I do on HN.

~~~
coldpie
Consider hand tools. It's a bit more labor, but if you're not building for
profit anyway, you may enjoy it more. I have some thoughts on this on my blog,
see my profile.

~~~
johnnycarcin
+1 to this! I got into woodworking with the goal of just using hand tools. As
mentioned there is quite a bit more labor but you can also do things like
setup a bench in your basement and work while your kids sleep upstairs.

I'd highly suggest taking a look at some of the videos from Paul Sellers:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/PaulSellersWoodwork](https://www.youtube.com/user/PaulSellersWoodwork).
My first real project was building his simple (but very functional) workbench.
He is pretty opinionated so keep that in mind, but he speaks from experience.

Also keep in mind that there are really two "classes" of popular tools:
western and Japanese/eastern. If you do get into woodworking I'd suggest
trying out a few tools from each class. I ended up going with Japanese saws
because they felt more natural to me but then using western style planes.

~~~
jotato
What I like about Sellers is that he doesn't try to sell you tools. He pushes
the same dozen or so tools for every project and proves that you don't _have_
to buy specialized tools for a job.

Unlike Schwarz who I feel like is always trying to get me to buy something
else :/

------
misiti3780
I would be a modern day philosopher/thinker (like Taleb, Dawkins, Harris). I
would start with the classics and read everything, learn ancient Greek,
Aramaic, as well as Italian, French and German (maybe Russian also, who knows)

I would study the first proof in mathematics all the way up through modern
probability theory.

I would throw away my cell phone and do all of this work from a nice modern
loft in the Trastevere neighborhood of Rome - starting every morning with an
espresso, and ending it with good food and two bottles of Red French or
Italian wine.

Back to work ..

~~~
thatmiddleway
I agree, "the unexamined life is not worth living." We should start a club for
expats that all want to do this.

~~~
personlurking
In a sense, I do this. I work/earn 10% of what I could, and spend 90% of my
time studying all the things I want, moving around different countries. On one
hand it's very nice but on the other, earning little gets tiresome (especially
now in my 30s). My 2017 is for reversing the percentage.

~~~
ritchiea
How do you find consistent work doing that? I try to work part time as a
developer and usually either my clients pressure me to full time or hire
someone else who will.

~~~
personlurking
I'm a VA with one long-time client who can only offer me part-time work, plus
the occassional small project related to the work. I also sometimes get a few
side jobs from previous employers. For the last several years, I've generally
worked an hour per day, M-F.

Living abroad on dollars, and staying out of native-English speaking countries
and Nordic ones, it's quite easy to live an average lifestyle on around
$600/mo. However, to live like this you end up going through a few dry periods
where you really are struggling. Three-fourths of the time, I'm living the
same lifestyle as I did in the US, except it's more interesting and I'm not
working a full-time job I don't like just to make ends meet.

My free time is spent exploring cities, learning languages which I teach
myself and then practice in-country, reading and watching documentaries about
everything that interests me (I was born curious), volunteering and working on
some online side projects (non-monetary) related to growing my knowledge.

If this were a few hundred years ago, I would be the first person to sign up
for overseas voyages, but since there are no more unexplored/untouched lands
these days (barring the final frontier), I try to do the next best thing -
explore subjects and places that are, in the least, not previously explored by
me. Another way to look at it is to say I was born (SF in the early 80s) a few
decades late, otherwise I would have grown up hippie and probably fit right in
(rather than have friends who make amounts I can't even comprehend).

~~~
DashRattlesnake
> I'm a VA with one long-time client who can only offer me part-time work,
> plus the occassional small project related to the work.

What's a VA?

~~~
personlurking
Virtual Assistant, so I basically just do admin type work online (for a small
startup).

------
jawns
It's interesting that the majority of these answers are professions that pay
nowhere near what a software developer's salary would be.

If the question were, "What other job would you like to do, if it paid at
least as much as software development?" I could probably come up with some
creative answers.

But even though I'm not particularly driven by money, given that I have a
family to support, mortgage to pay, etc., I probably could not take a job
right now that would significantly reduce my income.

With that constraint in mind, I suppose I would say I would return to my first
career (journalism) and become an editor again. This would involve a
significant drop in salary. So I would have to ramp up the time I devote to my
second job. I'm an author of nonfiction books, which has been mostly a side
project, but a relatively lucrative one. If I could bang out a book a year, on
top of working full time as an editor, I could probably keep our household
finances afloat.

~~~
pc86
Unless moving out of SF/NY is a deal breaker, it's not necessary to make
$100k+ a year to have a solid middle class life. You won't be driving a BMW
making $55k a year but you won't need to eat Ramen to make the mortgage
payment either.

Obviously kids make this harder and my perspective is certainly biased as my
wife and I don't plan on children so our nut is _much_ lower every month than
our friends with kids in HS or college.

~~~
up_and_up
> it's not necessary to make $100k+ a year to have a solid middle class life

Depends on your circumstances. 100k with one salary?

~~~
johnward
I live paycheck to paycheck on six figures in the midwest. I'm not broke but
I'm certainly not living it up. People act like 100k is life changing money.

I think it depends more on circumstances before you get to $100k. If I had
parents who paid for school I'd probably be living it up too.

~~~
up_and_up
Agreed. My parents gave me nothing. Had to pay for school and save up for home
loan, car etc.

~~~
bryondowd
Different experiences. I put myself through school, have $50k in student loan
debt, and I'm living comfortably on $54k/yr in New Jersey. Renting a small
house, and sending around 15-20% of my income to help support my mother and 5
young siblings. I eat out a few times a month, and otherwise have a modest
entertainment budget. I'm only able to set aside a very small amount, if
anything, right now, but overall, I'm fairly secure. Without a requirement to
live in an expensive area, I don't see why anyone would have trouble living on
$100k/yr even with a couple kids and a non-working spouse. May not be
luxurious, but should at least be comfortable.

I often wonder if it's just people who have a different concept of what is a
necessity vs a luxury due to never having to go without for a significant part
of their lives, or people who have just never lived outside of the cities or
other expensive areas.

~~~
nitrogen
_> I often wonder if it's just people who have a different concept of what is
a necessity vs a luxury due to never having to go without for a significant
part of their lives, or people who have just never lived outside of the cities
or other expensive areas._

In my case, I lived on the lower end of the income spectrum for much of my
childhood, and lived even poorer while building my startup in a low-cost area.
So it is with deep experience and sincerity that I say I have no desire ever
to repeat those years, nor to inflict such a life on any future young humans.

~~~
bryondowd
Exactly. The GP of my comment talks about 100k not being lifechanging money. I
know for a fact that it would have been dramatically lifechanging if my mother
or stepfather had been making anywhere near 100k during my childhood, even
adjusted for inflation.

~~~
nitrogen
I can really see both sides of the argument here. 100k is not permanently life
changing for the recipient. But if it can be earned sustainably, it is a
pretty big difference for the recipient's children, if any.

Ways in which it's not life changing: probably have to live in a more
expensive area, which eats into the benefit. Still have to play the office
game with people you may or may not like. Still have to save up and budget if
you want to travel. You won't live in a mansion with a full-time staff. You
still won't have enough money to trade money for popularity if popularity is
something you lack and want.

Ways it is life changing: can afford more nutritious and more enjoyable food,
which helps make life more sustainable. Can provide better
food/clothes/schooling for any children (I have none of my own), which gives
them an advantage when they reach adulthood. Can live two or three emergencies
away from devastation instead of just one.

~~~
johnward
I don't make enough to have a liquid savings for these events. Credit works.

------
kyoob
I'd open a bookstore/cafe that sells tech and engineering books. We'd run tech
classes in a space in the back, with a discount for vets and artists looking
to change careers. I'd live in the apartment above the store, with a garden on
the roof. The wifi would be phenomenal.

~~~
magic_beans
What is the point of owning tech books when a) much of the content is online
and b) there are new developments in languages/frameworks all the time?

~~~
syntaxing
Mechanical Engineer here (I feel like HN tends to forget about us...). Most of
the higher level stuff is pretty hard to find online, especially for heat and
mass transfer or fluids. Most other mechanical or electrical engineers I know
keep their textbook with them at work either as a reference, to look for some
derivations, or to find some empirical data/results.

~~~
contingencies
Mmm. I'm trying to learn ME a bit this year. Wrestling with endless Solidworks
tutorials. Buying stuff just to pull it apart. Working towards a relatively
ambitious goal in little modular steps. Trying to figure out how to buy off
the shelf and have as little as possible in the way of custom parts. It's
really interesting but seems very cross-disciplinary... the manufacturing
process, cost, material properties knowledge, modeling processes and so on
seem quite distinct, with no real high level overview to assist. Then there's
the Solidworks project management ontology which differs from _git_ and seems
to play bad with it. Then there's the fact I live in China and know no ME's,
and that everything I do in industry occurs in Chinese so I am learning at
least two names for everything. A real adventure... :)

------
olingern
I read a kuro5hin post about a programmer turned courier, "A Coder in
Courierland,"
([http://atdt.freeshell.org/k5/story_2005_3_19_133129_548.html](http://atdt.freeshell.org/k5/story_2005_3_19_133129_548.html))
and became pretty infatuated with the idea over a five or six months. The
recession hit, lay offs began, and then I was a courier.

I did it for a little over three years. It had its ups and downs. I returned
to software development and have found a cosier community in the Javascript
realm (pre-courier, .NET).

Takeaways that stick with me till this day:

\- You can develop an incredible amount of strength from just cycling.

\- Air quality is a long term concern.

\- (More sun + more exercise) - LEDs = great sleep

\- Excessive amounts of exercise != great health

\- Learn your machine, and do your own work.

\- Fixed gears are extremely useful in dense traffic.

\- The type of work you do affects your outlook on life.

\- There is a substantial amount of pride amongst messengers who show up,
especially on the worst of days. Most people tend to avoid the harsh realities
of life, and everyone can learn something from just taking life one delivery
or line of code at a time.

\- There is something to be said for sitting on a park bench and admiring the
beauty around - people, man-made, or nature.

I miss it, but don't recommend it to anyone, as it's a job that requires a lot
of grit and is low paying. I wouldn't change my experience at all, though. It
aged my mind and soul in a really positive way.

I will say, returning to software development raises some eyebrows. Some will
scrutinize the hole in your resume, others will congratulate you on being
different.

~~~
nether
Aside: ridiculous how influential k5 was on my life. Their first article on
coffee turned me into a coffee snob before third wave cafes became the rage.
The article on ultralight backpacking started a lifelong obsession, eventually
leading me to thru-hike the Pacific Crest Trail.

~~~
olingern
I think it's because people actually _wrote_ there. Since blogging has become
a part of the "presence" everyone has to have, a lot of garbage and uninspired
things are written on the internet. I wasn't a regular reader, but the things
I did read seemed to be more visceral and well written than your average blog
post you see today. The guy who wrote, "A Coder in Courierland" had pretty
amazing prose.

------
CIPHERSTONE
Would like to be a back country forest ranger. Someone who does work out in
the remote woods. Not one of the rangers that has to deep with the public. The
problem like most of us have is that our position and tenure in IT has lead to
salaries that make such a change (and reduction in pay) almost impossible. Add
kids, etc. and it gets set permanently in the dream category.

I know the logical response to this statement is: Reduce your needs and the
reduced pay won't be an issue. While true, I don't think I am that flexible
sadly.

~~~
komali2
Oh man there's some sort of volcanic park north of Berkely, CA that we visited
once, and up on some mountain was a firewatch tower with a dude just chilling
in there looking for smoke. He worked up there in 2 week shifts, just up on a
mountain reading books and watching for smoke. Seemed like an awesome job,
especially if you could get a data tether (he did) and do some programming on
the side.

~~~
jdavis703
I think you're thinking of Mount Diablo. It's not quite volcanic anymore
though (however when California was just the ocean it was), but is instead
caused by uplift to the earth's plates:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Diablo#Geology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Diablo#Geology).

~~~
jmalicki
Or possibly Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve
[http://www.ebparks.org/parks/sibley.htm](http://www.ebparks.org/parks/sibley.htm)
, which is closer (though not north of) Berkeley.

------
fsargent
I'd be an economics teacher. I'd love to teach High School and/or College
economics. Since this is my own fantasy land, I'd be able to set my own
curriculum.

    
    
      1. Why do we work? (Jobs, Businesses, and the individual economy)
      2. What is wealth, and how do I get it? (Saving, investment, real estate)
      3. Is it supposed to be like this? (Capitalism, Government, modern political economy)
      4. Systems Design (If you want to change the system, how should it work? How do we measure things that aren't money? Love, time, attention?)
    

I wish I'd had an education like this earlier in life.

~~~
grenoire
Higher education in economics quickly ramps up to using actual mathematics.
Your curriculum is more in line with high school or International
Baccalaureate styled diplomas, with a focus on the "old" philosophical
economics.

~~~
romgrk
[https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/mathematical-
ec...](https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/mathematical-economics-
training-too-narrow-by-robert-skidelsky-2016-12)

------
mrlyc
When the tech world moved away from me (doing mainly embedded C for the last
thirty years might not have been the best idea for my career), I became an
aged carer for my disabled mum. I learned a lot about cleaning, gardening and
adding subtitles to films as she is going deaf. I also learned a lot about
editing spoken word audio files for pacing, volume and noise reduction as she
wrote a memoir then recorded an audio version.

In the future, I could be an aged carer as I really like looking after people,
although it doesn't pay well and there can be a lot of poo to deal with. On
the other hand, one of my former managers has been working at Google for about
ten years and is quite enthusiastic about my working with him there.
Unfortunately, they are in California and I am in Melbourne so I'd have to
move.

~~~
kbart
_" When the tech world moved away from me (doing mainly embedded C for the
last thirty years might not have been the best idea for my career)"_

Strange, why do you say so? We live in the era of IoT and _everything_ has at
least one chip inside them. I also do system/embedded programming, but never
felt the lack of possibilities to advance my career.

~~~
kzisme
How did you get into doing system/embedded programming?

~~~
mrlyc
I did most of an electronic engineering course and discovered that I like
software more than hardware. After programming portable barcode readers and
interactive voice response systems, I wrote a Windows device driver at one
company then applied to write Linux device drivers at another. I was strictly
honest during the job interview, saying I wanted to write device drivers but I
had done only one for Windows and none for Linux. The interviewer said
"Writing Linux device drivers is exactly the same as writing Windows device
drivers" and hired me. I found that it wasn't and faced the kind of learning
curve that requires mountaineering equipment.

I succeeded and even trained someone else how to do it. When we started, he
didn't know C all that well so I split the drivers into hard and easy parts
and gave him the easy ones. We wrote about six drivers together. I made his
parts harder and harder until he was able to write a driver on his own.

Perhaps I haven't been reading the right software architecture books but it
seems to me that very little mention is made of changing the design to suit
the ability of the individual programmers, the way band leaders like Duke
Ellington and Glenn Miller did with their arrangements.

~~~
saghm
> I succeeded and even trained someone else how to do it. When we started, he
> didn't know C all that well so I split the drivers into hard and easy parts
> and gave him the easy ones. We wrote about six drivers together. I made his
> parts harder and harder until he was able to write a driver on his own.

This is a pretty amazing way to teach someone something as complex as device
drivers. It sounds like you did an excellent job mentoring him.

~~~
mrlyc
Thank you. Stephen was quite deaf (60dB loss) so we emailed each other all
day, even though we were sitting together. When I noticed he was straining to
hear during a conference call, I started summarising what each speaker had
said. He thanked me afterwards. When he looked confused about something I
said, I made sure to repeat it using the exact words I had used as he hadn't
heard one or more of them. I noticed that other people thought he hadn't
understood, not that he hadn't heard, and repeated what they had said using
different words, which confused him even more.

Stephen's deafness did not affect his work, of course, until management made
him a quality engineer for our voice over IP project. With that kind of
thinking, the company wasn't making any money and owed all of us six months
wages. You learn a lot about motivating your team under those circumstances. I
did it by emphasising the importance of what we were doing. Of the ten
software and five hardware engineers, we were the only ones joining the
software to the hardware.

Apart from not being paid, it was a great place to work and I'm glad it gave
me an opportunity to develop my management and people skills. Until then, I
had been much better at programming computers than working with people and I
was feeling a bit lopsided.

------
FigBug
I'd buy a sailboat and take people on tours in Greece. Except I hate people,
which is why I work in tech.

~~~
bobhall1981
Sailboats are a lot cheaper than people think. Did you know there is no
technical definition for "yacht"? In practice, it just means "a boat that's
nicer than yours". Don't buy a yacht.

In Seattle there are plenty of sailboats under 30' that cost less than $10K.
The moorage is the expensive part and costs around $400/month.

~~~
FigBug
I've owned several boats and I'm done with that. I now belong to a coop where
I pay $650 a year and have access to a 30' Catalina and 24' C&C that I can use
almost as much as I want.

There is no such thing as a cheap boat. The maintaince is a constant time and
money suck.

~~~
rak00n
Is it in Bay Area?

~~~
FigBug
No, but a quick Google turned up two in the Bay area: [http://www.spinnaker-
sailing.com/timeshare-sailing](http://www.spinnaker-sailing.com/timeshare-
sailing) [https://sailtime.com/san-francisco-bay/](https://sailtime.com/san-
francisco-bay/)

------
ttcbj
1\. Write children's books - because I love reading good books to my children,
and if successful, the revenue scales and they have great recurring revenue
potential (much better than adult books, I think).

2\. Try to bring software development education to underprivileged kids in
some way that eventually scales and has real career potential. There is part
of me that feels this has potential, because the opportunity for self-
development is so high, and the cash costs of the tools low. There is part of
me that worries it is futile, because I suspect software development jobs
actually require more deep and diverse basic knowledge of math and reading
than I could hope for in underprivileged environments.

~~~
whynaut
For #2 I have thought considerably about this as well. It seems to boil down
to two things:

1\. Lack of awareness. In many of these environments "software engineering"
doesn't really mean anything to anyone, especially if few households own
computers in the first place. Growing up in Detroit, my Dad lugged in our
first (huge, ancient) PC when I was in the 4th or 5th grade - if I had simply
been pointed in the right direction, I could've started my learning much
earlier. I remember lots of kids in our middle school getting super interested
in HTML/CSS, but only having access to PCs for an hour or two after school.

2\. Learning ability. Obviously not to say there aren't any smart
underprivileged people, but it is not often made clear that one's ability to
learn is, in itself, a powerful asset. I believe this is the strongest factor
in one's ability to program outside of personality inclinations, _and_ that
anyone can increase this capacity (within whatever local spectrum their
personality and lifestyle allows).

~~~
jimbokun
As for 2, I think that's where the life experience of the parents weighs
heavily.

For example, I'm deeply saddened when reading about scam private universities,
because they prey upon people who value the ideal of "education" and really
want to succeed, but don't have the people around them with enough experience
of higher education to distinguish the good schools from the scams.

~~~
ttcbj
Couldn't agree more. Also, again from "Hoop Dreams", it was as though the
basketball players believed that having entered college was going to transform
their career prospects in itself, regardless of what they learned. If you see
college as some sort of mysterious potion, then you might think any college
will transform you. You don't see that college is at best a tool for
developing skills that are relevant to building a career.

------
aerique
I would do some climate activism, become a crew member on a Sea Shepherd boat.

That, or help out my political party
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_for_the_Animals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_for_the_Animals))
since we have elections early this year. The party's name is unfortunate and
its Wikipedia description as well. It is more well-rounded than that and also
is the best party in the parliament wrt privacy, civilian rights, etc. (dutch
link:
[https://www.privacybarometer.nl/pagina/45/Actuele_stand_van_...](https://www.privacybarometer.nl/pagina/45/Actuele_stand_van_de_privacy_barometer))

And Judo, more Judo.

~~~
Fnoord
Is Judo your current hobby?

You could consider to take a sabbatical for a time on the Sea Shepherd. I
don't have the right personality for that (I'm too withdrawn/passive, not
social enough) but I have a lot of respect for people who devote time, energy,
and money against the strong tide of corporate selfishness.

Your party's name makes it sound like a one issue party. I recommend to change
it, or merge with GL/SP.

~~~
aerique
Sorry, I should have said "the party I am a member of" :-)

And, yeah, they're unfortunately pretty resistant to changing the name.

------
tazjin
I'd open a bar/pub with good cask ale and decent electronic music.

Actually whenever I get too stressed out at work I consider doing this, I've
got the necessary capital and in a city like Oslo where people don't care
about beer prices it can surely be made into a profitable thing.

~~~
js2
[https://www.jwz.org/about.html](https://www.jwz.org/about.html)

~~~
huhtenberg
Apparently, they hit a rough patch -

[https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2016/12/19.html](https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2016/12/19.html)

~~~
pavel_lishin
Apparently they've been in a rough patch ever since he opened, fueled largely
by his Netscape money. They're out of the rough patch now, and tumbling down a
rough hillside.

------
ipince
I have a few options/dreams.

1\. Become a musician. I love all kinds of music and drums/percussion in
particular. On the side, I'm working my way to being able to play
drums+timbales for Cuban timba music. I've only been doing this for about a
year and think I have a talent for it.

2\. Go into criminology and/or politics. Crime is one of the biggest problems
in Venezuela, with murder and kidnappings at all time highs, affecting me
personally and frankly every Venezuelan. I'd heavily use technology to help
me. If I can play a significant role in eradicating that problem, I'd be very
proud of my life.

3\. Open up a bar/restaurant. I love hosting people and providing an
environment for people to have fun. Live music and a dance floor would be a
must, but a nice chill lounge area should be available too. Again, I'd like to
use technology, e.g. having automated beer taps that you can open with your
RFID wristband or code and get automatically charged, and having something
similar for standard mixed drinks (of course, I'd still keep bartenders for
specialty cocktails).

I guess there are more, but these will suffice for now :)

~~~
mattmanser
Re:2, I've know people who work for the police in the Uk, and from the stories
I've heard, the police have absolutely no respect for any civilian's opinion.

Statistician telling cops they're spending all their resources on the wrong
thing? Got facts and figures to show that throwing more uniforms at a problem
won't help?

They won't listen and then will tell you that you don't understand policing.

~~~
overcyn
Thats not surprising. I think most developers don't care what non-developers
think about how to improve programming.

------
mauvehaus
Interesting timing. I'm quitting my development job at the end of the month
and going back to school full-time to become a furniture maker.

I have a lot of reasons for wanting to do this. The most straightforward ones
are that I want to create something tangible and enduring with my time.

~~~
taway_1212
> The most straightforward ones are that I want to create something tangible
> and enduring with my time.

Maybe not tangible, but a lot of the backend code in financial organizations
etc. is pretty enduring ;)

~~~
blauditore
"Enduring" is quite a nice way to decribe "old and too risky to replace". ¬_¬

------
cableshaft
I did stop being a developer for a year and a half in order to work for a
video game publisher as a producer. I really enjoyed it, worked on five games
(four of which were released on Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony consoles), got to
go on fun business trips to game conferences, and got to meet some important
people in the industry, but I got nervous not programming for that long
because I thought my skills were atrophying due to lack of use.

Nowadays if I were to do it again, I'd probably go into board game design or
publishing. I'm a bit more in tune with the board game industry than the video
game industry nowadays. I'm actually actively working on several board game
designs and trying to get my first game signed. Hopefully one or two of them
will be a hit and I can afford to stop working a 9-5, maybe just do some
freelance development part time on the side.

I would consider going back into video game publishing too, though.

~~~
TeffenEllis
Could you tell us about how you got into video game publishing? I'd love to
make the transition myself.

~~~
cableshaft
My route is probably hard to duplicate, and was more by chance than anything.
I made a game for Microsoft's Dream-Build-Play game dev competition (Proximity
HD, now called Proximity 2), on their new upcoming Xbox 360 Indie Games
Service. It was a finalist in the competition (you can see me on the list
here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Build_Play#2007_Challeng...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Build_Play#2007_Challenge)),
and was on display at their XNA Gamefest conference in Seattle along with my
name and my city.

A guy who worked for the (small) publisher attended the Gamefest, saw that I
was local to their office, and called me up to stop by and discuss a possible
deal to publish it on Xbox Live.

Halfway through the discussion I mentioned I was looking to break into the
game industry, and the discussion morphed into a job interview.

I was brought in for a second interview with their parent company in Japan via
teleconference, and was asked questions in Japanese and had my answers
translated back, and apparently my answer to "What's my favorite game right
now?" being "Tetris Attack" was a great one, since I found out later I was
being interviewed by ex-Bulletproof Software guys who developed Tetris for
Game Boy.

I got the job, and immediately had to become a competent producer, video
editor (for ESRB ratings and game trailers), localization and certification
checker, evaluating games for possible publishing, advertising asset designer,
the local expert on managing the console dev machines for evaluating builds,
and overseer of entire QA teams, had to come up with new game features and
prioritize which bugs got fixed, despite having pretty much zero experience in
any of that before I got the job. It was intense, but rewarding. I learned a
ton while I worked there, and wore many hats.

If you have any questions about it, I'd be happy to answer them.

~~~
ritchiea
Sounds like the advice to be distilled from this anecdote is "start making
games and meeting other people who make games."

------
ryandrake
There are two possible interpretations of this question actually:

1\. What would you do if you were not worried about finances and could simply
do what you most loved for a living?

2\. Given your financial and career needs/desires, what would be more
rewarding than your developer job?

I'd answer these two questions totally differently, and I suspect many in this
thread would as well.

~~~
Melk
I came here hoping to find some viable alternatives but I don't think
children's book writer or thinker are it.

------
mxuribe
Not in any particular order...And, either one or some combination of the
following:

* Dance music DJ or music maker - I love me some house music. (Notice I said "music maker" \- i.e. a maker of tracks/songs, and not "musician"...i just don't have the formal training to play an actual instrument...however, if time travel existed, then yes a musician).

* Indie film maker / director / screenwriter / or even actor/performer.

* Custom motorcycle maker. Although custom choppers are fine and all, I'd lean towards custom made naked or cafe racer style motorbikes.

* Own/run my own little cafe - with a few small food offerings - showcasing small, local bands, and maybe even a teen dance night. (There was a local dance club that had a teen night where I grew up, and I always thought it was such a cool idea.)

~~~
saghm
> Notice I said "music maker" \- i.e. a maker of tracks/songs, and not
> "musician"...i just don't have the formal training to play an actual
> instrument...however, if time travel existed, then yes a musician.

It's actually much more feasible to teach yourself to play instruments than
people realize! Obviously being taught makes things easier for most people,
but what really makes a difference more than anything else is just spending
substantial amounts of time practicing, which is still necessary even if you
do take lessons.

Plenty of famous musicians were actually self-taught, including some who were
at the absolute top of their field, like Hendrix, Clapton, and Moon:
[https://www.joytunes.com/blog/music-fun/15-famous-
musicians-...](https://www.joytunes.com/blog/music-fun/15-famous-musicians-
totally-self-taught/)

------
Arubis
The one that fits my current lifestyle: carpentry. I love woodworking but am
not particularly practiced at it. Opening up a garage full of tools and
building real tangible things with my hands that still exist when the lights
go off has huge appeal.

The one that doesn't quite fit my lifestyle (married, love it that way, spouse
has a stable job with a set location, thinking about kids): travel journalist.
My wife and I have both spent a significant portion of time living and working
in semi rural areas of underdeveloped countries. I'd do it again in a
heartbeat, and would love to get it all down on paper. But that really doesn't
fit in with giving kiddos access to education, so maybe in thirty years!

------
anexprogrammer
I already did after 25 years in development. I'm tempted to do a side-project
or startup now after a few years away. If I was to return to tech I'd be
_very_ focused on creating real benefit and progress (think perhaps
environmental, climate change, medical or learning etc), rather than a shiner
bauble or "disrupting" something that really shouldn't be (internet connected
kettles? Making everything a consumer replaceable).

My driver was the rant that easily followed on from the above. :) Basically
wanting something more substantive, less ephemeral, more tactile. I ended up
in restoration. I'm enjoying it hugely and the things I'm doing will have life
of many decades, perhaps sometimes centuries.

The surprise was, even after 3 years, discovering there's still more
satisfaction in physical tiredness and manual activity at the end of the day
than just mental. I'd already experienced this in car restoration and various
projects but assumed much was from hobby and novelty interest.

~~~
lj3
> restoration

What type of restoration? Cars? Houses? Pinball machines?

> The surprise was, even after 3 years, discovering there's still more
> satisfaction in physical tiredness and manual activity at the end of the day
> than just mental.

My motorcycle broke down in Silicon Valley once. The guy I called to come pick
it up had a normal ford truck. The bed was outfitted with a dual motorcycle
winch. I got to talking to him on the way back to SF. He used to be in IT.
Specifically, he used to manage and maintain one of Amazon's data warehouses
in Seattle.

I asked him if he missed IT and he told me pretty much what you just said: the
physical tiredness at the end of the day is more satisfying than just the
mental exhaustion. He also got to make his own hours and he made more money
towing motorcycles.

~~~
anexprogrammer
Houses. Well houses++ really. Working at an old estate preserving and
restoring. There's a little of everything including the old farm equipment
etc. I'm a strange mix of restorer, labourer and extremely junior apprentice
(seems like every trade these days needs a vocational course and piece of
paper before you're "allowed", even when clearly able).

They try and use my project and IT abilities when they can too, though I try
and discourage them. :) I'm tempted to focus on blacksmithing as it's so
interesting, satisfying and just a little magic to watch the guy work. Much to
learn if I follow through on that.

I looked around at many things, including car and motorcycle restoration,
steam trains (lots of volunteers, few jobs!), and more current things like
environment and alternative energy. Many either needed me to go back to uni,
or have assorted bits of paper and experience first rather than able to learn
as I go.

~~~
rev_bird
This somehow raises more questions than answers, for me at least: You work
full-time restoring a single property? Do you work for the owner, or is it
maintained by a nonprofit/government? I'm guessing you work for a company, or
are some kind of subcontractor? This sounds amazing.

~~~
anexprogrammer
It's one of the countless historic houses in the UK and Europe. Similar age as
and nearer Downton Abbey than mere house! Elizabethan (late 1500s) and
numerous alterations since, so plenty is in need of care and restoration.

There's gardens, stables, barns, and a number of outbuildings and estate
houses for staff in older times. They still have some tenants and lettings,
managed by the estate. The lettings are maintained by local firms usually.
Then there's all the amenities associated with being open to the public,
putting on various events. There's a charitable trust, but I work for the
estate company.

I like the informality of it compared to the large company feel of say the
National Trust (national preservation charity) who are more defined with
roles. Of course they have hundreds of properties, thousands of staff along
with countless volunteers.

~~~
rev_bird
This is fascinating, thank you for responding. What an interesting way to
engage with history. (I'm from America; anything here from the 1500s is an
archaeological site.)

------
jmsduran
I would go into finance, maybe as a CFA or some sort of investment/financial
analyst. If I could go back in time and restructure my career aspirations as a
teenager, I would pursue a career as a medical doctor (possibly specializing
in cardiology or clinical pathology).

I don't know if this is normal, but I feel burnt out after working 6 years in
the tech industry. So much so, that in my spare time I occupy myself with
hobbies completely unrelated to software engineering. I enjoy reading books
about finance and medicine, and have also grown an appreciation for
cinema/film-making.

My side projects have definitely suffered as a result, because often times I
find myself preferring to read The Economist instead.

~~~
tenpoundhammer
I consider it normal to not work on side projects. How many other industries
consider it normal to work 40 - 50 hours a week and then your "free" time
working on other projects? Everyone I know clocks out and does something
completely unrelated to their work in the off hours.

------
samsolomon
I'd be an industrial designer. I'm a product designer (software), but I have a
deep appreciation for simple, beautiful things. I have no experience with CAD
software, but given the time, it's definitely something I'd like to explore.

Alternatively, I'd like to be a product reviewer and write about products.
This may be more attainable as I was a journalist in college and still blog
occasionally.

All that said, I love designing software. Don't see myself leaving the
industry anytime soon.

~~~
RickS
cinema 4d is a good entry point into working in 3D if you're a designer

------
dasmoth
Something where I can immerse myself into a project for at least a few weeks
without needing regular state-exchange with others. I thought programming was
the thing, but does seem to be moving in a rather collectivist direction right
now.

Farming and winemaking both appeal due to the feeling that you're working on
something that will come to fruition months or years into the future. Tax
arrangements make small-scale winemaking in the UK somewhat unattractive (beer
and especially cider get better deals), but I do ponder given it a go
sometimes.

~~~
dark_ph0enix
Ever considered moving to a more wine friendly country?

------
anabisengrin
When I leave my current job I'm going to apply for an adult course on wood
working. I love to build things, and wood is the most available and easy to
work with material (compared to plastic, rock or metal).

And seriously, I bought a saw, a hammer, a screwdriver last year, it got me
crazy. Same as having a unix terminal and an Internet connexion.

~~~
aidos
I also think it seems pretty appealing. There have been some interesting
things on HN over the years about it.

I loved this talk about how the tools you use determine how you look at
problems (Tim Ewald - Clojure: Programming with Hand Tools)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShEez0JkOFw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShEez0JkOFw)

And if you haven't seen him before, you're about to fall in love with Matthias
Wandel:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/Matthiaswandel/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/Matthiaswandel/videos)
[http://woodgears.ca/](http://woodgears.ca/)

~~~
anabisengrin
Cool ! It is true that I haven't looked online to learn wood-working related
stuff. I'll look into it

------
grok2
All the carpentry-as-an-alternate-career comments here reminded me of
something Fred Brooks wrote in his "The Mythical Man-Month" \-- how he
described programming, reminds me of carpentry (note: it's a quote from the
book all the way from here):

Why is programming fun? What delights may its practitioner expect as his
reward?

First is the sheer joy of making things. As the child delights in his mud pie,
so the adult enjoys building things, especially things of his own design. I
think this delight must be an image of God's delight in making things, a
delight shown in the distinctness and newness of each leaf and each snowflake.

Second is the pleasure of making things that are useful to other people. Deep
within, we want others to use our work and to find it helpful. In this respect
the programming system is not essentially different from the child's first
clay pencil holder "for Daddy's office."

Third is the fascination of fashioning complex puzzle-like objects of
interlocking moving parts and watching them work in subtle cycles, playing out
the consequences of principles built in from the beginning. The programmed
computer has all the fascination of the pinball machine or the jukebox
mechanism, carried to the ultimate.

Fourth is the joy of always learning, which springs from the nonrepeating
nature of the task. In one way or another the problem is ever new, and its
solver learns something: sometimes practical, sometimes theoretical, and
sometimes both.

Finally, there is the delight of working in such a tractable medium. The
programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-
stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the
imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and
rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures. (...)

Yet the program construct, unlike the poet's words, is real in the sense that
it moves and works, producing visible outputs separately from the construct
itself. It prints results, draws pictures, produces sounds, moves arms. The
magic of myth and legend has come true in our time. One types the correct
incantation on a keyboard, and a display screen comes to life, showing things
that never were nor could be.

Programming then is fun because it gratifies creative longings built deep
within us and delights sensibilities we have in common with all men.

~~~
Sk1pp
I love this quote. Probably going to read the book. When I look at a lot of
the comments here I see people talking about they hate what they're creating.
Maybe - relating to the mudpie example in a lot of corporate environments is
that there isn't much room for creativity in programming: its all pretty
defined from start to finish.

------
tehwalrus
Politics. The only way to fix the broken stuff in the world.

I have stood in a bunch of elections and lost them all. I'm not dissuaded yet.

~~~
cafard
Interesting. At what level? And are you involved at all in your local party,
on the precinct or county level?

~~~
tehwalrus
In the UK. I've stood in local council elections three times, and for
Parliament once in 2015:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_East_Hertfordshire_(UK...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_East_Hertfordshire_\(UK_Parliament_constituency\))

(I came 4th).

------
FiatLuxDave
I'm not a developer (I'm a physicist), but someday I'd like to go into medical
research. I like the idea of coming up with things that directly help
suffering people. I hope that the problem solving skills I've acquired would
prove useful. Of course, I'd need to go back to school for a few years to get
up to speed first.

Unfortunately, I have too much to do still in the applied physics world. It
takes too damn long to commercialize inventions. I'd love to move on to the
next new thing, but there is no one you can just hand off an invention to; if
you want to see it deployed and profitable it seems you have to carry it all
the way yourself.

~~~
randlet
Have you looked into Medical Physics (mostly concerned with radiation therapy
and imaging). Best of both worlds in my opinion! If you tire of research you
can likely pursue a clinical career and clinical physicists get paid pretty
well ($120k-$200k in Canada at least, not sure about US).

~~~
FiatLuxDave
I appreciate the kind advice, since you are correct that Med Phys is a
rewarding field for many. However, I'm already more than familiar with Med
Phys, since that's most of the "boring day job" I use to pay the bills. I was
on the design team for some of the most widely used devices in the field.
Unfortunately, as a field of applied physics, it is the epitome of slow steady
progress with almost no real breakthroughs. There's nothing wrong with that,
especially when it helps people, but I'd prefer to work on things with the
potential for big breakthroughs. So I work on the boring stuff during the day,
and do mad science at night.

------
jly
I would work in agriculture, producing food and managing honeybees (currently
a hobby). I think we desperately need more small, local, sustainable farming
practices which inevitably will require more individuals actually engaged with
food production. I would focus my time left to advancing this practice and
writing about it.

My second choice would be as a researcher in a field of biology. As many
others have said, the interest in tech lends to a natural interest in how
humans and other life forms work, and I'd like to explore this more. The time
for this has probably passed me by, sadly.

------
jeffsaracco
I'd be a baker - I've recently (as of the past year or two) started baking my
own bread and find it incredibly therapeutic, fun and interesting. Maybe open
up a small bakery with a cafe and if it went well expand it to teach classes
on how to make bread, pizza, etc...

If anyone is also interested, I'd recommend the book Flour Water Salt Yeast
([https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-
Fundamentals/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-
Fundamentals/dp/160774273X)) as a starting point

~~~
fjdlwlv
Opening a bakery would destroy all the pleasure you get from baking

~~~
smoyer
Read the E-Myth Revisited: [https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-
Businesses-About...](https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-
About/dp/0887307280)

------
SeaDude
Sitting and thinking about this for just a moment...is unnerving. I'm not
convinced I could "move away from the tech world" for too long. My brain is
wired to tinker and build in the digital realm, my physique is accustomed to
stationary existence, I've allowed tech to build a house of cards within
myself which props up my life. It gives my day structure and when I take
breaks (2-3 days here and there), i'm often at a loss for what to do with my
time. It takes a good week for me to find my pre-tech self, something I
haven't done in 6-8 months.

If I were to quit today, I would spend time unschooling my child. Maybe along
the way I could rediscover some important lessons about how to live a more
physically present life.

~~~
ddorian43
That's messed up. Really no hobbies beside tech ? Try jiu jitsu or something.

~~~
mathw
I concur. Aikido is one of the things that keeps me sane after a day fighting
a JavaScript runtime.

------
gravypod
Welder. It's everything that makes a skill desirable to learn. Very easy to
start, impossible to master.

Pays reasonably well too if you can find work. Also most welders are people
who don't put up with much BS so it's refreshing coming from pretty much any
other field.

~~~
hunterjrj
There was a study done recently linking airborne manganese (below federal
occupational safety levels) and neurological symptoms similar to Parkinson's
disease.

[https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/manganese-exposure-
puts-...](https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/manganese-exposure-puts-welders-
at-risk-of-parkinsons-even-at-low-levels/2500208.article)

~~~
gravypod
There are far worse conditions that arise from welding (and more so from
welding incorrectly) that Parkinson's is the least of your worry. Even then,
"so what" comes to mind. If you love doing it the fear of death shouldn't stop
you. A youtuber I love once said "Has anyone ever noticed how there aren't any
old welders? (cynical chuckle)". He's right but people still do it.

You can also, in some cases, avoid using manganese based fluxes. There are
quite common rods without the presense of manganese.

------
cafard
Teach, I suppose: high school history or English, or maybe with some brush-up,
math.

(Over the years, I have earned money as busboy, stock clerk, landscape worker,
driver, proofreader, copy editor, tech support worker, and developer. At this
point, I don't know that my back is up to some of the manual labor, and I
think that I'm too much of a wool-gatherer to be a good commercial driver. I
wasn't a bad editor, but it doesn't pay well: people know when their computer
systems don't work, but don't know or don't care when their texts are
unreadable...)

------
gorbachev
Something with absolutely no deadlines.

Digging ditches sounds really great at times.

~~~
ryandvm
Fuckin' A.

~~~
ndstephens
Office Space reference?

------
fa17
Doctor. The idea of studying human body and saving lives fascinates me. Having
said that, i think Docs should be more accountable, like for ex: they could
screw up a surgery resulting in a loss of life and no one would even know
about it, is something always scares me.

~~~
ceejayoz
> Having said that, i think Docs should be more accountable, like for ex: they
> could screw up a surgery resulting in a loss of life and no one would even
> know about it, is something always scares me.

I'm curious about where you got this idea. In the US (and I'd presume any
other modern healthcare system) a patient dying in surgery leads to a full
incident review.

~~~
wyldfire
I believe they're referring to a mandatory publication of these events or even
all outcomes, linked/contingent with licensure.

AFAIK the incident reviews are protocols that physicians and administrators
use as tools for teams to learn, not for patients to consider which physician
to choose.

------
lightedman
I do exactly that as a break from my other businesses of lighting and network
installation. Mining is awesome stuff. You get outdoors, you see awesome
views, you can go it solo or with friends, and if you use your brain a little
bit, you can make some serious cash in a short period of time. There are tons
of BLM lands with abandoned claims just waiting for someone to re-register the
claim and open it back up, or lands adjacent to that claim which were never
touched and possibly have tons of material the other claim couldn't get
to/missed during survey.

And then you get to start your own D&D-style real-life dragon hoard and put it
on display. Very few people are unimpressed by nature's splendors.

~~~
civilian
So, are you just re-prospecting? Are you looking for things that were
forgotten?

I'm trying to figure out where the value is coming from. Are you essentially
trading on the difference in metal markets between now and when it was last
claimed? Or are you trading on the difference between current mining
technology and past mining technology?

Are you working with someone who actually does the mining? Or are you just re-
prospecting? How do you test the ground? What equipment do you need?

Mind emailing me? :)

//edit one place where people tend to sell their claims:
[http://www.icmj.com/properties.php](http://www.icmj.com/properties.php) What
kind of due diligence do people put into this?

~~~
lightedman
Re-prospecting on some occasions as certain things tell me that the area was
not exhausted of what was being mined there. I rarely ever go after metals. I
have more luck with minerals/gemstones.

I just get the minerals by hand and sell them to collectors. Occasionally,
they ask me to take something like a piece of jade and put it into a pendant.
I make money teaching people how to find and locate what they're after.

I do all the mining myself for the most part. I don't do it until I get a lot
of evidence that I'm likely to find something.

How I test the ground is via publicly-available satellite data. The equipment
you need? Basic digging tools, pickaxe, folding shovel, hammer, chisels, rock
picks, breaker bar/wrecker bar. Be nice to have a jackhammer and generator.
Need lots of water in the desert, too, and some shelter (like an EZ-up.)

As far as the claims selling - those are legit, but do make sure the land is
patented first so you own EVERYTHING.

------
jay-anderson
Music Typesetting. I've published a book and have been involved with a few
related projects. I do pretty good work here. It pains me showing up to
rehearsal and seeing poor quality sheet music on my stand. It's worse when
these mistakes cause stoppage during rehearsals--usually easy mistakes that
the person creating the end product could have fixed saving rehearsal time.

~~~
tetraodonpuffer
very interesting, I've sometimes done transcriptions etc. in Sibelius for
personal use and it sure takes quite some time!

I have never been able to get things looking as nice as something like the
Henle Urtext editions though, wonder what they use to put those together.

~~~
jay-anderson
I believe Henle was one of the last hold-outs doing hand engraving of their
scores (there are some good videos on youtube showing the process). Today I'm
not sure what they use (I've seen one reference say they use finale). Here's
some work to recreate that style in finale:
[http://notat.io/viewtopic.php?t=46](http://notat.io/viewtopic.php?t=46)

I use lilypond. It tends to get scores mostly right saving time in proof
reading and tweaking. With each new version of lilypond it feels like less
needs to be tweaked to make it correct.

------
chiph
Recreational vehicle repair. Sales are way up since the industry almost died
after 2007/2008, and the manufacturers are producing crap quality in order to
satisfy sales demand. It's not uncommon for someone to spend $400k on a new RV
and have to take their new purchase back for a months worth of rework -- only
to find out there's no service openings for 5 months.

What's stopping me is the up-front capital requirements to lease a building,
hire technicians, and buy the tools & equipment needed (you can't just use an
ordinary car lift on a 50,000 pound bus).

~~~
SigmundA
I have thought about this too along with selling the house and going full time
in the RV.

One interesting sub-niche of this is RV solar installation, this seems to be
booming as well with few who know how to do it right. AMSolar is the premier
one and are booked solid months out.

~~~
chiph
As well as LiFePO4 battery conversions for the well-heeled boondocker.

------
psiops
A 3-D ocean farmer: [http://greenwave.org/3d-ocean-
farming/](http://greenwave.org/3d-ocean-farming/).

~~~
hanniabu
That's a very interesting concept. I've worked in aquaponics before so I've
also been intrigued by the idea of being able to recreate sustainable
ecosystems. If I had the time I'd love to be able to create a database and
'calculator' or sorts where you can enter inputs such as the type of herb crop
you'd like to grow, and going by the preferable water salinity, pH, ppm, ds,
and a few other criteria, you'd be given options of what crustaceans and fish
you'd be able to incorporate into the ecosystem. It's a huge endeavor, but I
believe it's something that would have a tremendous impact on society since
too often there's reinventing the wheel with this type of stuff and that
destroys the runway for a lot of startups that have grander visions.

------
clueless123
Relief bush pilot on the Amazon jungle... Today, there is so much need for
transportation of Doctors/Teachers/Helpers within villages in the Jungle.
Unfortunately most of the obstacles to achieving this are purely
political/Bureaucratic.

~~~
pc86
I'd love to get more information on this. Is it largely a lack of willing
pilots? What are the political obstacles you've encountered?

~~~
clueless123
In the Peruvian Amazon, the restrictions put on aviation because of the "war
on drugs" have effectively crippled any private/small commercial aviation
activity.

Some examples: It is illegal to transport or sell aviation grade fuel without
an (impossible to get ) permit.

The bureaucratic (permits/certifications/plain corruption) obstacles to
operate an aircraft makes it to expensive to operate. To certify a pilot or an
aircraft takes at least a year.. including flying an inspector to the US to
inspect the aircraft _before_ it can fly into the country.

I could go on for hours on this topic...

------
treehau5
I would love to be a performing artist. I can play various instruments, and am
recently really loving playing Piano. Would love it if solo pianists could
practice to virtuoso level and make a decent living, but sadly, they cannot.
Unless you have the magical combination of proper connections, prestigious
music school credentials, timing, and luck, you cannot hope to make the kind
of salary I am making programming. My sister, a Soprano who went to NYU taught
me this early on.

Funny story, her school call her a couple weeks back and I happened to be in
the room with her, and you could tell it was some undergraduate performing
some capstone research project, and he asked her "If you could tell students
now one thing, what would you tell them?" to which she cynically replied,
"Don't waste your time if you hope to make a living." and "Only .05% of you
will go on to have successful music careers." Brutal.

------
thasaleni
I'm currently a software developer, if I'd change I would go into genetics,
more like what CRISPR is doing, from programming computers to programming
living beings :D

~~~
_Wintermute
Be prepared for 10+ years of training to get paid the same as a call center
worker.

------
p333347
Indie movie maker (with story, screenplay, editing, cinematography, directing
and money all being mine so that I am in total control of creativity). Making
movies has been a long time dream for me. I will do that when I am older and
have enough time and finances to experiment, more than what I have been able
to so far. And when I do that successfully, I would be simply swapping
software & moviemaking for what is profession and what is hobby.

~~~
thenomad
See my comment above -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13336068](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13336068)

You can make a feature on your smartphone. Time is more of an issue, but you
_really, really_ don't need much cash. And you can make a short film in a
weekend on a zero budget, comfortably.

See this article on "Layover" \- made for $6k - and remember that you could
shoot for much less.

[http://www.thewrap.com/redefining-micro-budget-filmmaking-
th...](http://www.thewrap.com/redefining-micro-budget-filmmaking-
the-6000-layover-guest-blog/)

Hell, Sundance sensation "Tangerine" was shot on an iPhone.

Turning that into a full-time profession is a different animal, though. If you
really want to do that as a career, I'd advise learning a lot about the
realities of the indie filmmaking life before jumping. It's not a great time
for that move.

------
brooklyndavs
A USATF certified coach, probably focusing on distance running with one-on-one
training for adults. There are apps with algorithms that create personalized
training programs for things like marathons and 1/2s but they aren't there
yet. Plus, nothing is like in person human interaction for on the fly
adjustments to training and for motivation.

[http://www.usatf.org/Resources-for---/Coaches/Coaching-
Educa...](http://www.usatf.org/Resources-for---/Coaches/Coaching-
Education/One-Box.aspx)

OR

Somehow get into climate science. I almost went to school for meteorology in
the early 00s but on a tour of a college atmospheric sciences department when
I was 17 an old professor told me it was a hard career to get into with very
limited job prospects. :(

------
edw519
Stand-up comic.

I would never have to write a thing. After all these years in enterprise I.T.,
I have enough material for life.

I'll just tell them stories from real life at work. I doubt I could write
anything nearly as funny as what actually happened.

Example:

    
    
      Jimmy: I closed 7 tickets this week. How'd you do?
      Kim: I had a bad week. I opened 2.
      Boss: We have too many open tickets!
      Kim: Don't blame Jimmy and me. We closed 5.
    

(I'll be here all day, folks.)

------
khedoros1
I imagine that I could be happy building wood furniture. Or maybe becoming a
car mechanic. I think that I'd still like to either make or repair something,
if I wasn't going to be a software developer.

~~~
scrapcode
I got into building up my arsenal of tools about 4 years ago and have found
that there are quite a bit of programmers and engineers into the hobby. It can
also be a decent source of side income, even starting out (cutting boards for
myself)

------
eel
I would love to get into structural engineering. I just can't justify the cost
of school, and the end salaries are not even going to be better than a
software developer's.

Or maybe be an auto mechanic. Or a woodworker/metal worker/welder. Or a farmer
(seriously).

Part of me wants to embrace the city and "book" knowledge to further my
career, and part of me wants to abandon it and go back to a rural life and
just make/repair things.

~~~
Breefield
Same. I'm a software engineer who's been going down the metal fab/welder
pathway for the last 1.5 years. It's highly rewarding, but also the overhead
continues to grow and grow. Probably because the scale continues to grow as
well.

I need to be happy making small physical things instead of huge physical
things... [http://www.breefield.com/projects/prodigal-
swan](http://www.breefield.com/projects/prodigal-swan)

I've also looked into the timeline involved in becoming a PE. Not only do you
have to take 6 years of school but you have to work under a PE for 2 years to
become one. The pay doesn't seem to justify that much training (considering my
anecdotal interest in the field).

Call me new-school, but I continue to enjoy working on systems that can't kill
or maim people.

~~~
eel
I've wondered if I could shortcut the school requirement on the basis of
already having an ABET-accredited computer engineering undergrad. My state
does not seem to distinguish the type of engineering education required to be
a PE. I would think that a computer PE is not quite the same as a
civil/structural PE though.

As for welding, certifications and or even training seems to be very
expensive. E.g., a single one-semester (4 credits) welding class at the local
community college is $847. I'm tempted to buy some welding equipment from
Harbor Freight and just try to learn from YouTube videos (which is basically
what I did to teach myself car repair).

------
simonebrunozzi
I am tempted to partially abandon my career in cloud computing to start a
business that... well, has the aim to build better (new) cities.

I wouldn't start with a city, though (disclaimer: I'm not a multi-
billionaire), but probably with the individual building. I want to
dramatically change the "footprint" of the building in terms of :
ecology/sustainability, cost, value for the people investing in the real
estate property.

If that's successful, I'd like to then up the target to changing whole "new"
cities.

I fully appreciate how crazy and over-ambitious this might sound. Curious to
hear any feedback or comment/questions about it.

~~~
dillchen
I'm curious if you've thought thru actual locations for building said city
(especially if site is in US). I just finished "Triumph of the City" and it
really echoed this.

I definitely think it's possible.

Have you been keeping up with Sidewalk Labs, YC Research and their attempts to
reshape cities?

Also, would look at Tom Currier's stuff (although he is no longer actively
working on this) [https://medium.com/@tomcurrier/build-something-people-
want-1...](https://medium.com/@tomcurrier/build-something-people-
want-1ee5ed57db0#.97dfbva9l)

------
SteveNuts
Something outside. Maybe work in a state park, doing tours and educating
children about the outdoors.

I have fond memories of going on field trips to state parks in elementary
school.

~~~
joss82
I have fond memories of programming a "guess the number" game in basic as a
kid.

Let's become a professional software developer!

~~~
RUG3Y
Come on, giving educational tours to children isn't anywhere near as rigorous
as being a software developer. What point are you trying to make?

~~~
OJFord
My reading was that if there's any regret about choosing professional SE, one
should be careful not to think something else would be better for a reason
similar to that the choosing SE.

~~~
SteveNuts
I'm not a software engineer. I also didn't say I regret it, I do plan on
retiring to something where I can work outside.

------
morgante
I wish I'd had the opportunity to work in finance/IB for at least a little
while. It's something I was always interested in, but would have taken more
work to break into (vs. getting great-paying jobs for tech pretty much right
out of high school).

Or consulting. I think I'd pick up interesting skills there. I might still
follow this path by getting my MBA.

My biggest frustration is that professionally it's very easy to top out in
tech. I'm still quite young and already make more than most developers. Really
the only way to significantly level up professionally is to take on more risk
(by founding a company).

------
sidcool
Physicist. I love applied math. I love to explore and understand how everyday
things work. And I love Richard Feynman.

~~~
quantumhobbit
I went in the opposite direction mostly because the academic job market sucks.
I would love to get back into scientific computing in some sense. I miss all
the math.

~~~
kburke
Neuroscience PhD student here, looking at how to transition out of academia
and chuckling to myself about all of the people who want to "study the body"
here....

------
meigwilym
I live on the edge of a national park. In summer they advertise for Wardens to
help with patrolling the park, on a voluntary basis.

If I could afford it I'd happily code for 6 months of the year, then be a
warden for the rest.

~~~
snicky
Try this first: [http://www.firewatchgame.com/](http://www.firewatchgame.com/)
:)

~~~
ngokevin
Makes me want to do it more.

------
zbuf
Lawyer. With years of building and debugging code I find the logical aspects
of the law rather interesting. Though the amount of reading, less so.

~~~
arethuza
My wife was a litigation lawyer for many years (she now works in-house) and
while I can see the similarities with coding & debugging I think it would be
the most frustrating thing imaginable.

Imagine having code where the people writing it _never_ run it (the people
writing contracts often aren't the people who would run litigation) and where
you would spend months arguing with other people what you think the code would
do if it was run and only very rarely actually "run" the code in court and
when you do it's difficult to predict what will actually happen!

------
fredley
Painter (of canvasses, not of fences). It does occur to me sometimes that I
could sink everything into a small cottage somewhere and live very simply,
trying to make it as a small-time, local artist. It usually occurs to me
shortly afterwards how quickly I'd (probably) get bored.

~~~
crpatino
What I coincidence; Painter, as in fences, was the first thought I had by just
looking at the title.

Probably not a trade I'd take on for the long term, but if I'd be leaving my
programming career for good today, I'd definitively need some activity that
would allow me to remain active and earn a modest cashflow while I figure out
what to do with the rest of my life. Painting is something I am more or less
competent at, is relatively safe to do, and therefore would be at the top of
my list.

------
randcraw
If we're really dreaming, then I'd like to go back in time 30 years to write a
monthly column for 80s/90s era tech fanzines like Creative Computing, WiReD,
or InfoWorld.

I'd describe the science behind a different technology each issue and
interleave an interviews with pros in that space about why it's hot or not --
like "Mathematical Games" a la Martin Gardner, but set in a a more cultural
context that made the most of the gogo enthusiasm that infused those heady
days.

Computing was a blast then.

------
NumberCruncher
I would never leave the tech world entirely. I would shift focus from coding
and solving bullshit issues generated by business people to dealing more with
real people solving real problems. I have ideas how to do that in a fun way
but I am not there yet.

I think coding is really fun and creative occupation if you can decide what
you code and when you code. I know if I would make my dream come true and
would teach teenagers self defense I would end up spending my nights coding
the website of my dojo by myself...

~~~
Ocerge
This is where I am as well. In the end I think I would enjoy my profession
more if I stopped working on bullshit invented problems. I then remind myself
that pretty much everybody hates that their jobs are ultimately not
contributing to the greater good. Get in line, essentially. I think a good
compromise may be finding something in bio tech, not sure. One of my goals
this year is to do some market and tech research to see where I could feasibly
become employed to do something worth a damn.

------
quizzas
1\. Guitar player in a band, either rhythm or lead 2\. Study and compose (not
lyricist!)

I can spend all day playing my guitar and jamming with other passionate
musicians from all walks of life. I would love to take the time to explore
jazz, blues and classic rock. I have guitars and I just don't seem to make
enough time for them.

Unfortunately, I don't believe I'll make any real money in this space, so my
assumption is that food and board is paid for by a patron so I can play music
publicly in return.

------
palerdot
I'm actually thinking of switching into video editing career slowly, just as a
backup for my current programming profession. The reason is I'm not sure
whether I can survive as a competitive programmer in my late 30s and also I
think I kind of like editing.

~~~
PaulRobinson
Dev in his late 30s here.

I went up the management chain for a while (startup CTO, etc.), and it kind of
burned. Switched back to dev for a larger (200 headcount) e-commerce.

My experience is valued very, very highly. I look at designs from younger
developers and help them shape it a bit, and it's normally appreciated. I am
willing to bet I am a better developer now at 38 than I was at 28. I expect to
be better still at 48.

The "young people are smarter" thing is a myth. This is not a competitive
sport built out of hours worked: it's about being able to write good code, and
that takes experience and practice. Keep crafting, good luck.

------
gwbas1c
Build high-end speakers. I really enjoy it and I like the idea of high-end
speakers that you can just plug into your TV and they "just work" without
juggling remotes.

~~~
Natales
That's my hobby. Anyone who enjoys creating and building speakers and sound
systems, should absolutely spend the time and build a pair of Linkwitz
speakers" [http://linkwitzlab.com/](http://linkwitzlab.com/) \-- I yet have to
hear anything better anywhere at any price point than the LX521.4.

------
pc86
Flight instructor/local commercial pilot. The pay is garbage compared to
software development but if you're an independent CFI there is as much time
freedom as there is being a remote dev, and the pay is still good enough to
cover all the necessities.

~~~
zeroc8
I used to flight instruct in my twenties. Couldn't make a decent living in
aviation and had to switch to something else. Software development has its
benefits, but having an office in the cloud beats everything else.

------
milge
Metal Fabrication. I've actually been taking metal classes for the last 6
months and just finished my first pair of motorcycle foot pegs on the CNC
machine last night.

------
ultra-jeremyx
I would become a full-time MUT runner (mountain/ultra/trail) and adventurer
like Kilian Jornet ([http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/adventurers-
of-t...](http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/adventurers-of-the-
year/2014/kilian-jornet-burgada/)) or Karl Meltzer, who broke the fastest
known time on the Appalachian Trail this past summer here in the U.S.

~~~
Humdeee
How would your outlook on income be? I'm sure you're quite familiar with Sage
Canaday and his girlfriend then. I'm simply a filthy marathoner, but there's
so few great personalities that vlog/blog/do social media in the running
community. Opposed to our profession where no one is short on opinion about
the pros and cons of each and every technology.

I feel like getting sponsored is a must, and even then, it's likely living a
minimalist lifestyle (which is fine!). Unless you can compete with the East
Africans for prize money or the top dogs in US road races, the money in
running is very scarce.

It seems the niche in competitive MUT is conquering the few popular 100 miler
races that are put on annually.

------
stevekemp
Plumber. Locksmith. Similar.

Jobs that you can do at your own pace, and with the kind of SEO skills I have
I'm sure I'd do well. Plus these kind of jobs cannot be out-sourced.

~~~
taway_1212
Witnessing a plumber literally taking a flow of shit falling on his face from
a pipe, I think I'll pass.

~~~
logfromblammo
Having experienced that same situation _metaphorically_ too many times to
count, I think getting it _literally_ would actually be a refreshing change of
pace.

------
collyw
Civil Engineer. I love the scale of huge projects like dams and the challenges
that they bring. Watching a documentary the other day about the new Chernobyl
Safe Confinement shelter was fascinating (they couldn't use wheels as the
structure was to heavy for ball bearings).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_New_Safe_Confinement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_New_Safe_Confinement)

------
kageneko
Since early in college, my 2nd choice has always been psychology -- so much
that I went back to school to finish up a BA in Psychology. I would focus on
either cognitive or industrial/organizational psychology. With cognitive, I'd
focus on motivation. With two children, I'm always wondering what motivates
them to do the things they do. In I/O, I'm looking at workplace optimization
and comfort -- mostly comfort.

~~~
sjg007
On a related note, there is huge world wide need for BCBAs in developmental
and behavioral psychology to help expand ABA and other early intensive
intervention programs.

------
tmclaugh
I moved to product marketing. I have the benefit of working for a company that
makes a product for ops engineers which was my previous role as well as
exposure to marketing concepts from working at a marketing tech company
previously. I understand the product audience in ways that traditional
marketers do not and I understand our marketers in ways that most engineers do
not.

It's fun and it's a nice change of pace. I've retained some engineering
responsibilities. So what might be a passion project for someone on an
engineering team, I develop something and then start writing blog content to
help educate our audience around the subject. Our product has the ability to
fire a JSON doc at an endpoint which gives you the ability to integrate us
with other systems... To many ops engineers can't write a web service to
bridge us with that other system. So, I'll write a small service and then
after it's up on GitHub I'll write a tutorial and walkthrough of the service.
If you just download what I wrote and run it, awesome. I've helped solve a
customer issue. If you take my blog post and learn to write your own service,
that's even better!

------
towndrunk
Homebuilder building unique semi-modern homes not the typical 5 4 and a door.
I have remodeled several homes doing everything myself including electrical,
plumbing and even structural. I love working with tools and heavy equipment.

------
david927
Film maker. I'd like to write and direct short films (initially -- maybe
moving to feature length later). Maybe also write and produce plays.

Until that happens, I think the next step is to write and produce a play at my
local theater.

------
jenkstom
Very easy... finish paramedic school. EMS is the perfect antidote for a
lifetime of sedentary computer programming. Plus, you get to work with people
- or at least you'd better learn how to work with people.

~~~
JshWright
What's stopping you from getting your card?

I am a full time developer and part time paramedic. I generally pick up one
shift a week (usually a weekend day, but also the occasional weeknight). I'm
sure there are agencies in your area that would hire a part-time/per diem
medic.

------
OkGoDoIt
I mostly left tech last April to help run a performance theater and a
speakeasy. I do everything from lighting/wiring, ticketing, marketing, bar
tending, helping as a stagehand, running spotlights, etc. I get to hang out
with magicians, circus performers, burlesque dancers, and all sorts of
interesting people with interesting stories. It's been a lot of fun and
fulfilling in a way, especially since I've never had a public-facing job
before. Definitely uncomfortable the first time you sell concessions or deal
with upset parents due to someone else's failure to include mature content
warning on event descriptions. Overall it's been an amazing experience.

But also I make peanuts compared to what I used to and I'm basically living on
savings, so I'll probably end up going back to tech eventually. My best friend
with less development skills than me just got a job for over $200k, so I can't
help but feeling I've fallen off the track rather than made a positive life
change.

------
euroinexile
I would choose to be a physical therapist. You get to actually move around all
day and also help people and interact with them. Also great potential for
research as this is a developing field. Sure would beat starting at a screen
all day long, takes about 5 years to train though, 3 full time in school and
then would take several more years to match software engineer salary.

~~~
kvcrawford
Me too. I've been going to physical therapy for 2.5 years now, and I really
love it.

Unfortunately it would take me 7 years of schooling, and they make
significantly less than a software engineer.

------
dark_ph0enix
Baker. Been baking as a hobby for a few years now and it's the one thing that
I keep coming back to, no matter how much life changes.

~~~
hkhall
I came here to say this, what do you like to bake?

I am a becoming a bit of a sourdough fanatic and am starting to see some
results [1]. Thinking about building a wood-fired oven and baking a little for
the farmers market this year to see if it could be a sideline I enjoy (in
gradschool).

[1][https://imgur.com/a/skH9O](https://imgur.com/a/skH9O)

~~~
dark_ph0enix
Looks great, a very nice rise to it (although a bit too blackened for my taste
eheh).

How did you manage to get those bubbles? Double kneading? Wood-fired oven
gives a nice taste to the bread (to whatever you cook in it anyway) but
controlling the temperature is a challenge.

With all of that said, when I said baking, I meant cake baking. (although I
dab a bit with bread (and can make a nice loaf)). I specially enjoy taking
recipes and iterate over them adding twists in terms of flavour to them (last
year I went through my vanilla pods phase, currently on a nuts phase[1]).

[1][http://imgur.com/W5oXz67](http://imgur.com/W5oXz67)

------
satysin
Therapist/counsellor. I love technology/coding/hacking but what gives me the
best feeling is helping someone on a personal level. I have realised (from
having been told) I am a good listener and I think I would have done quite
well in some kine of mental health role. Not a full on doctor but someone who
listens and helps a person during difficult times.

~~~
Arubis
I firmly believe that this -- really sitting down and listening to an
individual and holding the microsystem that they live in, giving time and
space for someone to trust and to heal -- has a far more beneficial and long-
reaching benefit to society as a whole than anything that we can ever "scale".

------
ainiriand
I am slowly working towards becoming a fiction writer. At the moment I am a
software engineer and I feel I can make it if I put enough effort into it. My
specialties are psychological terror and sci-fi.

~~~
arethuza
"My specialties are psychological terror"

What about moving into project management?

~~~
livatlantis
... it hurts from laughing too much. Wow.

------
johnhenry
Politics. I feel like the world is in a state such that I need to try to
change it personally. Incidentally, is it safe to assume that most hackernews
readers are developers? I'm a developer, but I wonder what other readers do in
their day to day lives? Perhaps people from other fields looking to transition
into development?

------
hydandata
I do not think there is a single field more interesting than programming
today. I do not mean Developer, as in Java Developer, I mean programmer,
somebody who uses computers to do what was not possible before. So I would
still do programming, but more meaningfully.

Speculation here, the Einstein of this century will be a programmer.

~~~
ramblerman
> Speculation here, the Einstein of this century will be a programmer.

Programming is a means to an end. It's like saying, the Einstein of this
century will be a writer.

More than likely it will be someone who makes amazing advances in AI, or
biology/health. They may also be a programmer, or merely leave that grunt work
to their team.

------
anotherarray
Something that doesn't have a process or technique.

Something that can be done out of my heart.

~~~
gglitch
I upvoted this for its sincerity, but I'm having a hard time thinking
of...anything, really...that doesn't reward process or technique; by
disposition, I also really embrace process as a psychological circumstance
that almost inherently creates meaning. What are you thinking of that comes
from the heart but doesn't get processed? Process for me implies art, craft,
care, learning, documenting, participating, communicating.

------
rcazangi
I always liked the idea of being a small farmer. In particular, a tea farmer.

Most recently I have enjoyed doing physical therapy with my dog -- so that'd
be another option.

------
heurist
Artist - currently trained in code, oil paints, and poetry (to a lesser
extent). At the moment my creativity is bounded only by time, money, and a
certain lack of technical expertise that would be gained through focused
practice.

Scientist - researching complexity and complex systems, my longest-standing
passion. I hope to one day contribute significantly to the study of cognition
and artificial intelligence.

Politician - after thoroughly studying mathematics, economics, and law. I have
strong opinions on humanity's direction and my views are not well represented
in US government.

I haven't ruled out any of these for a future life. I'm hoping
entrepreneurship will earn me enough cash while I'm still young to fund my
future escapades.

------
mkrajnak
Rocket scientist. My brother is a propulsion system engineer working at ULA,
over the years he's been on the Delta III, Atlas V, and now Vulcan. We compare
jobs all the time, both have lots of politics and stress, but he wins hands
down on sheer awesomeness.

------
mathw
Not that I'm saying I'm capable of it, but basically I'd want to move into
doing my hobbies for a living.

I'm an aikido instructor already, but making a living from it is not very easy
(and incredibly poorly paid compared to programming). Also I'm not sure I'd
like it so much if it was my entire career.

I'm also a musician, but I'm not good enough to make a living performing or
teaching. I might be able to if I had funds for two or three years of
intensive practice, training and bloody hard work beforehand I suppose.

But yeah, in dreamworld I would make my living from a mixture of aikido, music
and some code on the side, because honestly I'd never want to give it up
entirely.

------
readme
I did. I'm in the military. I was a linguist but I'm switching over to a cyber
security role now. When I get out I'm going to work in the industry again, but
with a focus on security. Previously, I just worked on web/mobile apps.

------
PascLeRasc
Definitely theater tech, especially audio work and sound design. I loved it
all through high school and it was fixing old sound boards that got me into
electrical engineering where I am now. But I'd love to do theater sound full-
time forever.

------
patryn20
Focused, neighborhood context-sensitive and environmentally conscious real
estate development. The goal would be to replace the typical boring stick-
built midrise, minimal setback, blank sided commercial and residential you see
being built in most cities. With a stated goal of providing space for existing
businesses being displaced by the new development as well as public spaces
when possible.

Yeah, my returns wouldn't necessarily be as high, but at least it would
improve the neighborhood without unduly displacing the things that made the
neighborhood desirable in the first place. Or being a generic, overpriced pile
of blank like most modern pop-up construction.

------
soundwave106
Craft beer brewer would probably be the first choice. I already homebrew, and
I actually think it's possible to envision a profit-making craft brewery (even
as crowded as the marketplace is these days).

I'm also a musician (synthesizers / piano) with enough skills to play in cover
bands in the past. But that's a _very_ difficult market to break into, and the
types of jobs that actually make good money either aren't usually the type of
music I'd really want to play, and / or are a market that I'm too old to
enter, and / or are well beyond my current skillset. It's a good hobby to pass
the time with though.

~~~
scarecrowbob
IMO, "breaking into the market" as a musician isn't tough... the problem is
that the market pays so little.

I know (and gig with) a lot of folks who play music as their primary or only
source of income, and it's doable if you are never going to retire and don't
mind living out of your car. Or possibly have a spouse that makes better
money.

------
frenchman_in_ny
Such a timely question -- not in the tech world (banking/finance), finding
myself fairly dissatisfied & feeling like I've been doing the same thing in a
loop for the last 10 years, and I have _no_ idea what to do next.

------
jharger
I find this question kind of hard to answer, because there are so many things
I'd love to try. Though I'm an introvert, I'd love to try bar tending or
waiting tables for the social aspect of it. I'd love to try out really small
scale farming or herding goats to get away from tech entirely. Law (tax or
business law, not something like criminal) is fascinating to me too.

If I was really forced to choose, though, it would be art or writing. The idea
of capturing ideas and feelings, or creating worlds, characters and stories in
visual or word form has a lot of appeal to me. That's probably why I make
video games as a hobby.

------
creeble
8th grade science teacher. In a private school, where I can use lots of fire.

I figure if I can inspire one or two pupils into truly understanding
thermodynamics, maybe -they- could change (or save?) the world. Doesn't seem
like I'm going to.

------
paulrpotts
This sort of depends on whether I had the "money problem" solved or not.

Assuming I magically had enough saved to pay for all my family's housing and
food and assorted expenses with passive income, then I would probably work on
the following:

\- Several book projects that are in the pipeline, one near completion

\- Podcast production projects, maybe a business like Dan Benjamin's 5x5

\- Work with homeschool groups to teach classes on electronics

\- Possibly run a small maker space

\- Maybe go back to school (at nearly 50) and study some things I'm interested
in: architecture, some upper-level mathematics?

\- Teach again at a university level (with guaranteed income, I could afford
to be an adjunct and teach programming)

------
jdmoreira
\- Film director or screenwriter

\- Electronic musician (Just hardware, no software involved)

\- Cartoonist / Illustrator

I lack the skills for all of them but at least I'm allowed to fantasise :)

I don't regret being a programmer though, computers are probably my favourite
thing.

~~~
thenomad
There has never, ever been a better time to be an amateur film director. And
the best way to learn the skills is by making films.

I was a professional filmmaker for almost 20 years before my move into VR, and
I can assure you I didn't have a lot of cinematic skill when I started :)

You can cheerfully shoot a festival-worthy film on a modern smartphone. If you
want to go a bit higher-end you can rent all the kit needed to outfit a
professional two-week shoot for a few grand. You'll still need to find people
to cast and crew, but that's a solvable problem.

It's a _terrible_ time to be a professional filmmaker, because of distribution
woes, but if you want to make films and you have another job (and you're not
terribly worried if they don't get distribution beyond some festival
showings), there has never been a better time in the history of the medium to
do it.

~~~
smprk
Very helpful words from someone who has been there and done it. I am not sure
if distribution woes are as bad as I hear they are. With transparent platforms
like [https://studios.amazon.com/](https://studios.amazon.com/) it seems to me
(from far) that ease of distribution is at its best too. I don't think it is
still easy, but is it not easier than it was say 10-20 years ago?

~~~
thenomad
It's trivial to make your content available to purchase. It's very, very,
_VERY_ hard to get anyone to purchase it.

One of the main issues is simple: there are over 10,000 feature films made a
year. How many feature films do you _watch_ a year?

Generally it is considered a remarkable achievement - considerably beyond
"noteworthy" \- in the indie world (and I get this from various communities of
indie filmmakers) if your independent films manage to make you minimum wage,
never mind any more.

------
Frondo
Musician. Knowing what I know about marketing and outreach, and seeing how my
musician friends falter at getting the word out and getting the money, I would
have no problem making a decent living playing music for cash.

------
bjelkeman-again
I started on a journey towards sustainable agriculture, working with dessert
coast greenhouses. But got sucked back in to work on data systems for
international development, which has been quite a success so far.

------
bpyne
I'd like to teach Music and CS somewhere in grades K-12. I'm not sure which
age group right now. During Summer breaks from school, I'd gig, write code,
and try to refine my teaching skills.

------
spicytunacone
I must say right now I'm pretty envious of even semi-prolific broadcasters.
For example, stream 4-6 hours regularly of me massing ladder in a competitive
game while interacting with other prominent members of the community (who
probably have their own streams so we essentially advertise for each other)
injecting the occasional few hours of variety streaming that I can even
utilize from time-to-time to develop personal interests, e.g., play guitar.

Of course, the best strategy here would be make it on a proteam and become a
personality. This has the added pros of my daily needs and equipment being
maintained for me while in the roster (and probably better health benefits
than I have now if I get a gym membership to regularly exercise and, also, no
team wants an "injured" player). Whether I win a big prize pool or not, I then
secure some momentum for my stream. I don't see my stint lasting for more than
2-4 years for either some external or intrinsic reason, but options are pretty
open from there. If I made near the amount the top, say, 30% make, then I
estimate I have a healthy cushion for at least a couple more years given my
relatively modest desires. I can go back to the tech world (honestly I'll
probably still contribute to open-source projects even during this period),
become a content creator of a different kind or use my clout/connections I've
built to find my way in a similar scene.

More than I expected to type for this prompt.

------
geff82
While I am happy with being in IT... If I could try something completely
different, I would do "Iranian Studies" at the university of Marburg, which is
nearby as I have some unexplainable love for Iranian culture and language (to
the point I found a girl from there and married her). I'd try to work in
research at university or as a consultant for businesses that are interested
in the country.

The other boy dream not come true (but still dreamed): being a pilot,
preferably for cargo planes or other mid-sizes special missions.

~~~
fegu
I would also prefer cargo planes. Less people :)

~~~
geff82
Seems to be a thing for nerds :)

------
contingencies
The "what job would you do" question suffers from framing problems. I have
always been interested in multiple domains, and have found ways to explore a
lot of the responses others have given here (photography, film-making, music,
cooking, writing, entrepreneurship) to varying levels. Right now I am trying
to learn about physical product design, manufacturing processes and mechanical
engineering, re-stringing a sitar, organizing an exhibition of my regionally
focused antiques prints and photos collection with a commercial sales element,
about to go cycling at 2000m in the Himalayan sun,[0] pick up a German loaf
from a friend who did the (also mentioned by others) open-a-German-bakery
thing here in southwest China. Yesterday I discovered a mislabeled antique
photo online, researched the hell out of it, determined it to be an early and
very rare panorama of a major city (after detailed research on three major
regional cities in the 19th century), and decided to bid on it, scan it, then
re-sell it for cash to a museum. Life is good... for me personally, though
it's not always easy taking a less safe route, especially sporadically
returning to see friends and family with the play-it-safe approach, nice
comfortable investments and cashflow (but absolutely a fraction of life
experience) ... once you embrace it you can't go back to 9-5 - except that in
the worst case, you can.

[0]
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=weather+kunming](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=weather+kunming)

------
galfarragem
Related reads:

[https://sivers.org/futures](https://sivers.org/futures)

[https://sivers.org/hsu](https://sivers.org/hsu)

------
shawnmgoulet
I would do good. I would build homes for veterans or work for my local non-
profit that supplies dogs to support veterans having a tough transition back
to civilian life. Or I would work with the diabetes type 1 JDRF so that my
wife would no longer have to worry about her glucose levels. I would support
teachers the right way, supplying them with proper training for 21st century
skills so that kids are inspired to learn, learn, learn. Because I believe
that doing good is very much needed right now in our world.

------
dorfsmay
Accountant! The only use of pure math in real life!

No pesky real world to mingle with your results, if a cent is missing it is
because somebody took it. Also, when 0 = 0, you know when you're done!

------
drcross
Doctor. Since no one has said it yet. My fascination of machines has turned
inwards as I've gotten older and the mysteries of our bodies are still waiting
to be discovered.

------
mnemotronic
Glassblowing. I've been doing software professionally since 1978. When I first
started learning programming I was amazed how easy it was, and how hard it
seemed for everyone else. 35 years later I tried glassblowing (hot-shop, not
torch) and had the same experience.

Unfortunately I can't afford to pursue my hot glass dreams. My second job is
providing palliative care for my wife. That takes up more than my paycheck and
most of my time when I'm not writing code.

------
JDiculous
Entrepreneurship. It's a lot of upfront work, but you've got the ultimate
upside in terms of money, control over one's lifestyle, impact, and
fulfillment.

But more realistically, I'd probably pursue product management because it
seems interesting and isn't hard to transition into as a developer.

If I didn't have to worry about money, then I'd be trying to make the world a
better place, doing things like spreading awareness of and advocating for a
basic income.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I've been running my own business for 19 years now, financially I would
probably have been better off with a job.

------
lyricwai
I would like to be a painter.

I used to learn to paint during the whole my childhood, but I gave up to be a
painter and switched to be a tech guy.

I really like paint and I do some doodles in the weekend now.

~~~
fredley
You and me both. I still paint, and it's one of the most enjoyable things I
do. Although I do wonder if I switched to it full-time if it would lose its
lustre.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I think it's when you start doing things for money that they loose their
lustre.

------
mtberatwork
Astronomer, if we are talking about quitting completely. It's what I wanted to
be as a kid. If we are talking about quitting for a "little while", then I'd
just go travel the US with my mountain bike and hit up any and all trails I
can get my hands on ala Craig Bierly [1] and become some kind of cliche bike
blogger.

[1] [http://runutsadventures.com/bike/](http://runutsadventures.com/bike/)

------
taway_1212
I wonder if asking such question (and inspecting answers given) is not enough
to refute the idea behind basic income - that it allows people to retrain into
their desired profession, thus making the society more productive. Seeing that
most people desire only a relatively small subset of careers (and almost no
one want to be for example a dentist, an accountant, not to mention
telemarketer or toilet cleaner), I don't think it's going to work.

~~~
div0
Interestingly I actually want to be a bathroom cleaner. Nothing dismays me
more than walking into a dirty bathroom.

~~~
taway_1212
Would you be happy if your days were filled with the smell of urine, shit and
chemicals (used for cleaning)?

------
Stoo
Writer for roleplaying games. Either as a game / setting designer or writing
adventures.

------
Tasboo
HVAC. I love figuring out proper air flow for some reason and have made
modifications to the ducts at my house. I could see myself doing that stuff
for a living.

~~~
OJFord
For the unacquainted, is the purpose of the modification to improve
efficiency, and thus get to temperature faster or reduce costs?

~~~
Tasboo
Both, sort of. I installed dampers on certain vents to reduce the amount of
air that goes to certain vents. This causes my heating and cooling to run a
bit longer when it comes on, but it now runs much less frequently and my house
has a more even temperature from room to room.

I also did modifications to some ceiling registers because they were never
installed correctly and were leaking air into the ceiling of my basement. That
helped with the temperatures down there without really affecting anything else
in the house.

------
dvcrn
Something creative while at the same time completely opposite to what I do
now. Probably become a presenter, video content creator or entertainer.

I'm shy, suck in presentations and am not very funny. Plus I work all day from
my laptop without talking much.

So naturally I really really want to do the opposite, work creatively on a
show to tackle that, talk in front of big audiences of people and entertain
people. Maybe YouTube.

~~~
alexhutcheson
You should try taking some improv classes. You might surprise yourself.

------
tdy721
Advanced Cash Crop Agriculture.

I've also always liked the idea of being a welder or machinist. Whatever it
is, it must satisfy my need to tinker and experiment.

~~~
tdy721
I changed my mind! Professional RC Drone Pilot looks like a heap of fun.

------
tomtompl
Car mechanic / electronic

~~~
a1studmuffin
Yeah I second this. I could diagnose a PC problem, pull it apart, swap
hardware out, put it back together again without a second thought. But
something goes wrong with my car and I'm all like "car's broken, better call
the mechanic". Can anyone recommend a beginner's guide to mechanics? I feel
like even some basic knowledge would go a long way.

~~~
LeonM
Buy a cheap car (i.e. a MX5/Miata) and go racing (on a racetrack). Stuff will
break and you will have to fix it, since it's not your daily car there is no
pressure in having it fixed on time, just take your time and figure out how to
fix whats broken. Youtube is a great source for instruction videos. Even if
the car does not break, you will still need to wrench on it to upgrade the
brakes, engine, transmission, suspension etc, make it more suitable for
racing. In the end you'll have the knowledge, a racecar, a great new hobby, a
lot of fun and meet a lot of cool people.

~~~
Jeema101
Or next time you buy a new car, just keep your old one as a project.

That's what I did when my old car died. I was originally going to sell it for
parts on Craigslist, but then I got the crazy idea in my head to buy some
tools and attempt the repair myself over the summer. Got it back in working
order and I've been wrenching on it ever since.

Like you said, no pressure in having it fixed on time if it's not your daily
driver.

------
crucini
I notice that many of the "entreprenurial" dreams in here would work better if
individuals banded together. Of course there are downsides, such as handling
unequal investment of money and time.

But take the dream of a brewpub. At first glance, it takes a lot of capital,
and you don't want to run an undercapitalized business - very stressful. You
need runway for some beginner mistakes. And if you've never run a bar or
restaurant, you'll make lots of mistakes.

But imagine five engineers teaming up to open that brewpub. Now we have 5X the
capital and a bigger "brain trust" to bounce ideas off of. It's harder for the
staff to steal with 10 eyes watching them. Problems which a single owner might
overlook (cleanliness, service, pricing, competition) will get addresssed. The
chance of failure seems much lower. Of course the return per person is also
much lower - but the partners could open a second pub if successful. You have
the luxury of putting a lot of brainpower on each major business problem.

------
gkya
I'm a 24 yrs old humanities student which spent two years self teaching
programming, but decided to pursue sth. else as while programming is fun, the
industry for the most part very boring. If I could, I'd become an architect. I
love buildings, I often get tripped on the street because I'm watching the
houses, the shops etc. And in my childhood I had the chance: my parents begged
me to go to the architectural schoo (a vocational secondary), then they forced
me, but I was stupid and I went to the normal lycée. I just love buildings,
but in the other hand, I know that I wouldn't be able to work with the kind of
them I adore, masonry beauties. So I'm kind of happy that I didn't become an
architect given I'd have the same situation as my software attempt: big
contrast between the ideals that drive me and the economic reality. I would
love to do interior design though, I guess I'll try my luck in it after
graduating from uni next year.

------
projectramo
I love to watch the "grass is greener on the other side" effect.

Other jobs always seem easier, more rewarding, more exciting till you try
them.

------
curun1r
I'd be a SCUBA instructor. I almost decided to take a few years off to do it
so I could dive full time and put in as much time around live coral while
there still is some, but an injury sidetracked me.

There's really nothing like living in some beautiful, tropical place where you
get to spend a ton of time in nature. And diving regularly makes me feel 10
years younger.

------
robinhood
If I were to quit technology, I would try to find something that keeps me as
far away of a screen as possible. For instance, quitting the tech world to
become, say, an accountant, where I would still looking at a screen all day
long, seems useless to me.

This would therefore probably be a profession where I either see a lot of
people (doctor?) or use my hands (carpenter).

~~~
beachstartup
doctors stare at screens all day now also.

------
innot
The world seems full of possibilities that would be interesting to check.
Doing all forms of art, travelling without destination goals, learning
chemistry and making my own boat. I'd change my name to Alexander Shulgin. Or
perhaps Genesis C-Ereal. If the technology revolution stops happening, we
should move to the original path.

------
d_burfoot
Political philosopher and social critic, in the spirit of Taleb and Moldbug.

Our civilization desperately needs _independent_ thinkers of this type. The
problem is that the people who get paid to do this for a living are all
hopelessly compromised by the institutional structures they inhabit
(universities, newspapers, right-wing think tanks, etc)

One idea I would promote is geopolitical _vacation_ as a third-path way to
deal with refugee and immigrant crises. My claim is that geographically large
countries like Canada, Australia, the US and Russia have no serious need
whatsoever for the vast lands they have claimed. So they should take some of
that land and _vacate_ it to make room for refugees and immigrants. It doesn't
need to be a lot of space: city-states like Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai
prove unquestionably that prosperous and wealthy societies can be built in
physically small territories.

------
nathan_f77
I've thought about doing something like Lester from American Beauty, where he
just quits his job and works at a fast food restaurant. Maybe just for a few
months. I've never worked at a cafe or a restaurant so I want to see what
that's like. I think I will start a cafe with my wife one day, so it would be
good for me to have some personal experience.

I don't think I could contribute much to an NGO if I had to leave my technical
skills at the door. But that's certainly a domain that I'm interested in.

I would also love to do something in the film industry. I would start as an
assistant, and eventually do something with special effects. I also enjoy
editing.

Maybe writing. I don't think I'm a very talented writer, but I might try to
write a novel one day. I've tried to write a few screenplays for short films,
and so far they've just been awful. It's a lot of fun, though.

~~~
therealdrag0
I'm also thought about that bit from American Beauty. Personally, I'd like to
do either a cafe or a brewery bar, since those are beverage I personally
enjoy.

I've also been working on a novel, but am finding it pretty tough. I've gotten
decent at non-fiction writing when I have something to say, but I'm not great
at creating things whole cloth for fiction.

------
fapjacks
I'd be an astronomer. I worked in an observatory once and it was far and away
the most interesting and awesome job I ever had. But I have no degree, so I'd
spend some time in school first. If that didn't work out, I'd like to assist
the effort currently underway in Mosul. That's just me being honest.

------
pcsanwald
I've worked professionally as both a musician and a technologist since my
teens, I'm 40 now. I used to want to be a musician, but I realized that, like
technology, there's really a zillion different kinds of careers you can have
as a musician, and I was really only interested in a few of those.

Some people love music so much that they are happy making their living any way
they can involving music, including teaching, playing weddings, and other
functions. I've done a lot of this, and ultimately am not happy doing it.

Even though I loved touring as a musician, most of my friends that made their
living touring have retired from it and gone on to do something else, as the
road life makes it pretty difficult to have a "normal" family life.

I've often asked myself what I'd want to do if I weren't a technologist, and I
always come back to doing something with my hands.

------
ndstephens
Interesting. I see a lot of interest in woodworking/carpentry. Also read a
surprising number of people talking about film. I started in film. Evolved
into carpentry/metal fab. I'm now starting my career in programming. I'm
excited about all the ways that programming is NOT carpentry or film.

------
ramonvillasante
Sustainable development,
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_development](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_development)
choosing topics and skills you are passionate about. It's fantastic for
people, planet and yourself

~~~
therealdrag0
I'd like to do software relating to this. But most of what I've seen is low
level or hardware/mechanical.

------
byoung2
Travel writer/photographer: I travel enough for pleasure as it is, I could
probably do this as a side gig, but doing it full time would be interesting.

Indy rapper: My favorite artists are all YouTube stars (Futuristic, Devon
Terrell, Kyle KiD), and I have some talent for music and I've been freestyle
rapping in my car for decades. I could bring a unique perspective to rap as a
black software engineer turned rapper (from python to gettin my rhyme on?).

Motivational speaker: My first career was teaching so I have experience with
public speaking. Specifically I'd like to create a series of seminars that
teach people how to negotiate pay raises. I'm horrified when I hear about
people who don't negotiate, or accept 3% raises. I have averaged an 20%
increase annually over the past 10 years and I think I can teach others to do
the same.

------
swasheck
Though not a developer (I'm a production DBA), I'd like to move toward a
career in sustainable development in developing nations. I think that water
and sanitation would be what I'd like to focus on, though I'd wager that
social policy would need to be a large part of it as well.

------
8draco8
A truck (lorry) driver ideally in the states. I found something oddly relaxing
about driving, full throttle, 18 wheeler down the road through Rocky Mountains
or Alps. I actually have lorry driving licence (C class here in EU), I need
only one class higher (C+E) to drive a proper 18 wheeler.

------
mindcrime
Good question. At one time I considered going back to school and getting a
degree in Exercise and Sports Science and doing something related to athletic
training. And I wrestled in high-school and have always thought I might one
day want to do something with coaching wrestlers or something. So maybe some
combination of that stuff.

I also spent a lot of time in my life as a volunteer firefighter and was an
instructor with qualifications to teach Firefighter I & II certification
classes, as well as Incident Command and LP Gas Firefighting. I love that
world, especially the teaching part. So something related to teaching and
emergency services could be appealing. The problem is, there's not a lot of
money to be made doing that stuff, except at the higher levels.

------
rodolphoarruda
I would run a "wellness" center with various activities. I'm a Aikido black
belt, so giving classes would be my "technical contribution" aside from
running the business. I have a special attraction to wellness topics:
meditation, massage, therapies etc.

------
jwtadvice
Private intelligence to help journalists disclose and report on corruption and
abuse around the world.

------
ohstopitu
build modern versions of classic cars.

It's a passion of mine (and probably something I'd do for fun in the future)
to get an old mustang (preferably ~1964) and convert it into a modern car
(electric, heated/cooled seats, power windows etc.)

oh and build competition grade racing drones.

and be a tech reviewer.

------
Fnoord
An appropriate lyric about this would be Nick Drake - One Of These Things
First [1].

I'd love to be a farmer, a painter, a philosopher, a writer, a chef, or a
combination of that. However since the world is changing so much due to
technology, I'm not sure how feasible or enjoyable those jobs would be in the
21st century.

I find it a bit pointless to think too much about it, since its unrealistic,
unless you're interested in changing. For good or worse I'm gonna stick to
development for the upcoming years. Who knows what's next though.

[1]
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nick+drake+-+one+of+these+things+f...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nick+drake+-+one+of+these+things+first&ia=lyrics)

------
msoad
Same thing, maybe more machine learning.

Our jobs are amazing! Every minute we're solving a problem that probably
hasn't solved before. It wasn't solved in our work context for sure. I can't
imagine doing a job that is repetitive. Even teaching seems repetitive.

------
preordained
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu competitor/instructor. I'd need some years back to be
anywhere near the level I should be for that. I don't think I could switch to
anything (significantly different) right now with a realistic chance of
keeping afloat.

------
tuananh
I will be a farmer.

I love farming and growing stuff.

------
yellow_viper
I am doing this right now...I've been a graphic designer/web developer for 10
years. Half way back at my first year at uni to get my CS Degree and
(hopefully) end up working with AI.

You guys are not instilling me with a lot of confidence however.

------
jhwhite
I'd like to be a teacher. That's what I wanted to do originally but I gave in
to family pressure and majored in computer information systems. I've enjoyed
the career, but I sometimes I really wish I had gone into education.

~~~
mafribe
Many countries have a serious lack of qualified IT high-school teachers.
Depending on where you live, it might be easy to branch into teaching this
way.

------
xedarius
I like creating things and I like entertaining people, that's why I originally
became a games programmer. I love cooking, mostly for the same reasons. I
think I would be a chef at a fancy restaurant or maybe a restaurant of my own.

------
krrishd
I'd be interested in working in media and/or politics given how significant
their impacts are (and how rapidly things are changing).

It'd be far less likely to work out but I'd also love to be able to
professionally produce music.

------
nojvek
I would go into manufacturing. My dad has a stake in a steel mill. Heavy
industries and robots fascinate me.

But right now even though I'm in tech, I can't afford my rent or be able to
afford a house. I feel very unsuccessful hitting 30s.

------
kem
Weird to read this, because I'm thinking of switching _into_ software
development.

But if I were going to switch into something else, it would probably be
something involving the outdoors, with a tangible physical aspect to it.
Surveying?

~~~
ganley
A colleague and good friend of mine was a surveyor before he went to college
in CS. He said the surveying was very pleasant, but the job also involves a
lot of driving.

------
PeanutNore
I'd build semi-custom vacuum tube guitar and bass amplifiers and effects. I've
built a few for myself and it's fascinating and rewarding. I enjoy the
technology, the theory, the process, and the finished product.

------
jdc0589
Probably a custom/bespoke leatherworker. I sell stuff as
[http://www.vulcancrafting.com](http://www.vulcancrafting.com) on the side
now, I'd love to do it full time.

------
rocky1138
I've always thought being a dictator would be an easy way to get things done.

------
JDDunn9
Urban planner. I'd love to try to create my version of a utopian city (no non-
essential vehicles allowed, built for the pedestrian/cyclist/subway) the way
they are building new cities in China or Dubai.

------
ZeroFries
Run some kind of a brick and mortar: a place to relax. eg: Float tanks, hot-
cold spa/sauna house, kava/kratom bar, ASMR type stuff, meditation, massages.
Anything which has been shown to help people relax.

------
truebosko
Would love to open a classic diner.

Not a grease trap, but quality, but familiar breakfasts, great sandwiches,
home-made pies. Superb diner coffee.

A place welcoming to anyone, young, old, family, friends.

Software Development is great. It's been a fun ride, and I've made some
amazing friends, learned many skills, and of course, took in a salary that
helps pay bills.

Eventually, it'd be nice to try this. There's a rush, and a large challenge to
running a restaurant, but a diner brings a simpler focus. It might be a pipe
dream, but since I'm not planning to execute on it any time soon, I will
continue dreaming :)

------
rglovejoy
I would move to Wyoming and become a cowboy.

------
planteen
I'd love to work in an underground hard rock mine. Being under the surface has
always fascinated me. One of my favorite hobbies is caving. I live in Denver,
so the Henderson mine isn't too far away...

------
eastbayjake
I'd run for governor or be a lawyer. My favorite part of software engineering
has been systems thinking and either of those professions give you ample
opportunity to design and explore systems. (I wanted to be a lawyer in college
but the Great Recession -- and an astoundingly high number of lawyers saying
it's a terrible idea to become a lawyer -- scuttled that idea. Software
engineering exercises the same *STJ personality type proclivity for rules and
systems.)

And I know it's not a "career" but being a gentleman scholar would be even
more fun...

------
tluyben2
I invest the money I earn as a programmer into what I would like to do after;
so far a brew pub/restaurant since a few months which also contains my
computer museum. I am adding a pizza oven which is the thing I am most
interested in; making the best possible pizza. And yes, during the summer here
(which is long) that is competitive with programming pay if done well. Not
that this would be a money thing; I just want something else to do if I ever
start hating code. I love coding so I am sure that after it I will move back
to it but who knows.

------
wyldfire
I've thought about the concept of a business in private education for (older)
kids for software/computer science.

And I've never spent any time with music but I think it would be a really
enjoyable endeavor.

~~~
creativeembassy
I learned programming from small private classes when I started the 3rd grade.
It drove me to found a hackerspace a few years ago, and I finally got to start
teaching other kids how to program and do robotics. I highly recommend it,
education is very fulfilling.

------
cprayingmantis
Well a couple years ago my answer to this would've been very different, but
now I have a wife and I have to give her some consideration. I'd probably just
go back to the family business of farming. I would probably only make 60-80%
of what I do now but it'd be debt free and I'd be on my own terms. I'd have to
become a morning person all over again but I know how to do the work and I
find it particularly enjoyable. Plus maybe I could tinker with my dream of a
self driving electric tractor a little more.

------
svanderbleek
Research Mathematician. I'm going to try anyway but I doubt I'll even make it
to grad school and the career prospects for an average mathematician to do
research near full time are dim.

------
drakonka
I would work with animals; maybe at a cat shelter, or have a pet "hotel", or
maybe a dog daycare or walking service. Animal welfare laws are very strong
here and dog owners aren't allowed to leave their dog alone for more than four
hours at a time. This means there is a lot of potential business for dog
daycare and walking services since not everyone can take their dog to work
with them or come home for lunch. But basically anything involving taking care
of or helping animals would do.

------
echelon
Anybody in Atlanta interested in film?

I use almost all of my spare time to pursue my hobbies, and this year I want
to get started learning filmmaking.

I'd like to incorporate programming with filmmaking, too. I've had an idea for
programmatically switching between several cuts of a scene based on user input
and other variables. With enough shots and a clever enough script, one might
be able to turn a film into a game.

If there's anybody locally into film, I'd love to buy you a coffee and see if
we might be able to work together.

------
phaus
I'm a security analyst. I love my job, but if I thought I could make a decent
living doing it, I would focus on calligraphy, the restoration of vintage
writing implements, and art.

------
Balgair
Surf-instructor.

Surfing all day long could be a lot worse. You'd have to teach mostly
tourists, but then you get to talk with people from all over the world too.
Read the rythm of the waves a

------
johnward
Something physical. That's the one thing I miss in the IT world. Being chained
to my desk for 60 hour weeks is putting a toll on my body and mind. I'm only
30 and I feel wore out from this field. The money is OK but It provides
happiness to my family. The construction workers I know can make more on a
good year. Plus they get laid off for weeks or months at a time. I've never
been off for more than two weeks since I was 14 so that sounds amazing to me.

------
Disruptive_Dave
Possibly a combination of two things. I'd like to teach meditation to children
and young adults. I'd also like to pursue stand-up comedy and other comedic
efforts.

------
bassman9000
Philosophy or history if salary wasn't an issue. Something mechanical/physical
if it was. Mechanic sounds good. Who knows, from there to CNC master, 3D
printing...

------
astrange
I always wanted to do translation - but video game translator is another job
that doesn't pay well since everyone wants to do it, so this pays better.

Other issue is how much thinking about code has ruined my creative writing
skills. There were no sign of humanities at my school, not that anyone
would've had time for electives, and the "tech writing" class I tried was more
interested in how to use styles in Word than anything else!

------
eliasbagley
I'd still want to create. Maybe something with my hands. Being a luthier or
cordwainer sounds attractive. Assuming money were no issue, perhaps a
musician.

------
gambiting
I work as a C++ programmer. I wouldn't mind being a professional driver, even
driving a taxi would be fine for me. I could work as a professional
interpreter(I speak two languages fluently and have some official
qualifications). I would love to have a bike and/or car repair shop. I would
like to try being a park ranger and doing physical work outside.

Basically, anything that doesn't involve staring at a screen all day long.

------
matzhouse
I would like to be an astronaut. It has the physical and mental aspects I'm
looking for. The skills learnt during training are also super interesting.

------
koevet
Photography (fashion/portrait)

I gave myself a target: to have my first paying client by end of April 2017. I
have been photographing for 20 years, did some paid work here and there, but
never found the cojones to move 100% to photography as a job.

I'm very comfortable doing my 8-5 job as dev/architect in a large financial
institution. I have lost pretty much any interest and I want to do something I
like. I hope my plan works out :)

------
wastedhours
Chocolatier. Nearly went into it before taking this job, but the numbers
didn't add up and wanted to try a different city. Whenever I've had a hard day
I was wonder what if... It's easy and therapeutic, and a great conversation
starter. A few examples
[http://stevefarnworth.com/channel/taste](http://stevefarnworth.com/channel/taste)

------
Detect
Carbon farmer. Figure out ways to sequester carbon in soils while providing
nutrient dense food to the local community and making a profit doing it.

------
jchendy
Lawyer. With those skills and credentials, there are lots of clear and direct
opportunities to help some of society's most vulnerable people.

------
jbrown
Open a CrossFit gym or be a tango dancer/teacher.

------
raindev
I'd be a fashion designer. Oftentimes I feel like software engineering doesn't
give me an opportunity to fully realize my creative self. Mostly because of
people, not because of technology. Creativity is not valued for its own sake
in software development and you cannot just say "that's the way I see". I feel
it narrows down my life perspective too much.

------
euroinexile
I would choose to be a physical therapist. You to to actually move around all
day and also help people and interact with them. Also great potential for
research as this is a developing field. Sure would beat starting at a screen
all day long, takes about 5 years to train though, 3 full time in school and
then would take several more years to match software engineer salary.

------
return0
\- Architect (of buildings)

\- Farmer (been there; my fallback option)

\- That person who works in the IS18 infrasound station that detects nuclear
explosion sound waves in Greenland
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vULUkp7Ttss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vULUkp7Ttss))
or something similarly monk-ish. I could be a monk but i cant stand religion.

~~~
andrei_says_
About the monk thing you might be interested in Zen meditation. As non-
religious as it gets ;)

------
number_six
If I could go all the way back I would study astronomy. I would love to have a
job looking at the stars and doing really difficult math.

------
MiddleEndian
I would like to be the mayor of my city. I would focus on improving
infrastructure (transit and internet) and supporting the arts.

------
samstave
I want to get into the legal marijuana business.

------
OliverLassen
In the summer I would just like to work outside.

------
relics443
I'd probably go into a medical or bioscience field. It's always fascinated me
(and I read medical journals as a kid).

------
cosinetau
To me the only answer is: asteroid field miner.

------
gol706
I took a bunch of urban studies and GIS classes in college for the hell of it,
and might have done it as a major had they not just started offering it my Jr
year. I think I would enjoy urban planning or map making.

On the more creative side I'd love to take my Arduino hobby to the next level
and build interactive art installations for museums.

------
pkamb
\- Picker/Seller of antiques and vintage items. Fun hobby and comes easily if
you're already sourcing for your own home and collection.

\- Historic building salvage crew and/or restoration of historic buildings.

\- Bed and Breakfast / AirBnB / wedding venue proprietor with healthy dose of
the above history/restoration work on the side.

------
dragonorta
Motorcycle mechanic or astronautical engineer

------
pmtarantino
I'd love to open a bookstore and a publishing house. But I also would love to
be art curator, or something related to art dealing. I read a lot of books
(fictions, too) about collecting, fakes, etc. I find that world quite amusing,
but I think it is impossible to do a career there without money or networking.

~~~
dilemma
I'm doing this.

~~~
stevenj
Are you an art curator or dealer?

~~~
dilemma
Publisher and gallerist/bookshop owner.

------
plinkplonk
(Fiction) Author.

It is _very_ difficult to get published, and till you do, it is very hard to
make 'rent and food' money (leave alone serious money) out of it (and
sometimes not even then. Most non bestseller authors have day jobs), but if I
couldn't be a developer for some reason, that is what I'd do.

------
amorphid
Development is my dream job. The day to day is completely different than I
imagined, but a good fit for me overall. Learning how to be content in spite
of all the blockers to "just coding" had not been trivial, but doing anything
well is always hard.

If I had to pick something else, I'd probably get bored.

------
odammit
Archaeology. I was really interested in the idea as a kid but my mom pointed
out you might not get to bathe that often (and I was/am a neat freak) so I
quickly lost interest.

Now I find most of my vacations are centered around traveling to ruins or
going to live in small towns with interesting cultures.

Way cooler than software. FML.

------
bjd2385
I'll approach this from a different direction. I currently work cleaning a
meat room in a local market; machines,floors, scraps and such. It's a dirty
job.

But if I could have any job in the world, it'd be what I spend every other
hour not on shift doing, and that's programming and solving problems.

------
denzil_correa
I'd be a lawyer - specifically in the common law system. I like making
arguments based on past cases.

------
callesgg
Something in film.

I can sit for ages thinking about how movies and TV series are cut and edited,
i think it is fascinating.

Surgeon would be interesting.

It is however not a big leap from the fundamental reason i am in tech.

I like to figure out how stuff works and fit together. I don't feel it maters
that much if it is a computer or a human body.

------
petewailes
Doing this in a few years when we've sold. Going to found a company building
mid end speakers.

Prototyping this year.

------
ignorantguy
I would like to become a farmer. I think producing something physical would
make me feel good I guess.

------
dnqthao
I would want to become a researcher in a theoretical field such as applied
math, physics or economics.

------
Natales
I'd become a full-time startup advisor. I already do this part time with a
couple of startups here in the valley, and I really enjoy those deep
brainstorming sessions about the present and future of technology. Helping
shape possible futures is really exciting for me.

------
ddorian43
I would try to be a martial arts teacher (i always try to teach others at my
kickboxing gym, why not get paid).

Also, any hobby/sport that gives you big addrenaline rush + makes/keeps you
fit but doesn't slowly kill you (example: (kick)boxing kills your braincells)
?

------
loocsinus
Dentist. I was a software developer for 9 years before dental school. This
year I am doing my residency. Last week, I did fillings, root canals,
extractions, implants, IV sedations, and seeing medical complex patients in
hospital. It felt like it's a dream.

------
joeblau
I would start a coffee shop. I don't even really like coffee that much, but
the thought of literally selling the same product day in and day out seems
calming after working in environments where the formulas for everything are
changing literally every day.

------
Overtonwindow
I would move to the Carribean and open a beachside bar with pinball machines
and a large jukebox.

------
ChemicalWarfare
I'd open a brewery. It's a pretty saturated market but from whatever little
business planning I've done break-even point is at about 2 years which would
be fine if I was running it as a side business. The problem is it's a full
time job :)

------
xemdetia
I would build robots to facilitate AI construction that I would move back to
when I moved back to tech. Really though, animatronics/movie work sounds the
most fun to learn from right now though. Practical effects making a comeback
just feels exciting!

------
knicholes
Pornographer.

------
nvarsj
Games. It's what got me into tech in the first place - developing MUDs,
building games in QBASIC when I was a kid, playing board games like Hero
Quest. It's the only thing that really excites me. I especially love
roguelikes these days.

------
jitix
Mechanical engineer specializing in guns - guns are quite impressive works on
engineering.

~~~
jimbokun
Yes, but wouldn't you feel like Tony Stark in the first Iron Man when you see
video footage of terrorists brandishing weapons with your logo on them?

------
alexander-edge
Constructing bespoke Scalextric circuits [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
england-nottinghamshire-3851885...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-
nottinghamshire-38518856)

------
dmode
I would really like to become good at mountaineering - spend a lot of time in
high altitude places, get better physically, get trained on high altitude
trekking. Then I would like to take people in life changing hikes in the
Himalayas

------
jusuchin
Landscaping designer, worker/Handyman. I get such joy from it and the
creating/design aspect stems from my programming ability. Also, anything
weather/meteorology related, as it's a side passion.

------
prograhammer
I'm a web developer now. If I could switch, I'd absolutely love to be one of
those forensic science technicians. To use science to put away the bad guys
(or exonerate the good guys) sounds so gratifying.

------
babyrainbow
I want to become a toy maker.

------
npmanor
Designing and building automobiles without all the gadgets and gizmos present
in modern vehicles. A vehicle designed to embrace the visceral experience of
motoring and minimizes interference to that experience.

------
russelluresti
I'd probably go into academia, honestly. I'd probably want to be a researcher,
though I'm not sure which field of study I would focus on. Either cognitive
psychology or linguistics, I imagine.

------
yesimahuman
I'd probably try to start some kind of non-tech cashflow business. Beyond
that, writing or photography. Hard to answer because in reality I'll just want
to start another tech startup :)

------
fbernier
I'd probably ride the beer brewing wave like everyone tells me I should do. I
love programming and live well off of it while having lots of fun homebrewing
so I don't think I ever will.

------
DrinkWater
Shepherd.

------
yellowapple
I'd love to get back into music. Unfortunately, it doesn't pay terribly well,
but maybe if I can get enough saved up (or perhaps hammer out a couple self-
sustaining side projects)...

------
surrey-fringe
Interpreter.

The feeling of learning a new word and using it correctly is like crack. I
still have pretty good memories of learning words like "however" and
"nevertheless" when I was a kid.

------
itomato
I'd be a Chiropractor.

The original reference architecture for the Human Body is still valid, save
for a newly-classified organ here and there.

No microservices revolutions, no development methodologies, no UI toolkits...

------
manmal
Designer. And I'm actually doing it this year, with a slow transition. I will
most likely not fully give up coding, but I hope for a 70/30 mix of
design/coding, if possible.

------
Mister_Y
I would choose an option in wich automation is difficult to apply, also,
something that I love to do (so maybe I had to be a pro player of soccer
haha).

You got a serious and a kind of serious answer :D

------
Paul_S
This is already my third career so it's not that unlikely. Maybe my last
career will be outside the system and not a career at all: the creator of a
new type of economic system.

------
mud_dauber
Run a dog sanctuary.

The more I read about how people in the US treat each other, the more I want
to work with innocents.

Screw the money. I've got enough saved to live simply but well. And yes, I'm
married.

------
mikecsh
I quit my job as a software developer to study medicine. Although I still work
as a developer for a medical education startup to pay the bills... perhaps
there is no escape ;)

------
ilkerburak
Lion Whisperer
[https://www.youtube.com/user/LionWhispererTV](https://www.youtube.com/user/LionWhispererTV)

------
rbur0425
Skip college, work a part time job and build SaaS products. With the recurring
revenue would be able to hire people to manage the product and then become a
digital nomad.

------
xavor
I would be a cook/barman in my own small establishment. I actually prefer the
work to dev (after 30+ yrs since childhood) but lack the finances to make the
transfer.

------
trumbitta2
From UX Engineer to Apprentice Woodworker on top of a mountain.

------
Normal_gaussian
Climbing and sign language instruction, supporting me just enough to enjoy
life and start writing. I'd try drawing as well, though I doubt it would be
profitable.

------
hdkmraf
Herder.

Most likely taking care of goats.

------
fma
Tennis coach. I am decent (rated as high as 4.5 in my prime) and I love to
teach. I have a 5 month old daughter, so I'll be able to do that within a few
years :)

------
eof
I've been fantasizing about getting into timber framing.

------
kakaorka
I'd be a physicist. I actually want to start doing that as a side job;
especially quantum mechanics seems very interesting and it needs a lot more
research!

------
dkns
Dancer / Dance teacher. I find dance and especially social dancing an
incredibly joyful experience after few hours of sitting in front of computer
screen.

------
Kluny
I'd like to be a workplace safety inspector or ergonomics consultant and help
people do their jobs better without risking injuring themselves as much.

------
rileyteige
Charter Pilot. Been working on that transition for 3 years now, getting my CFI
soon ;)

Love development, but I'd much rather do it on the side than 40 hrs/week.

~~~
JHof
If you're going to do it, I'd try to join the industry ASAP. It's a good time
to get in, though entry charter jobs can be pretty brutal.

------
nitwit005
Since I imagine you're looking for unusual answers that an engineer type could
conceivably transfer to:

Theme park design/engineering

Museum exhibit design/construction

------
draz
Epidemiologist or homocide detective. Both (at least from the outside) seem
like they require extreme skills at picking out a needle in a haystack.

------
Scea91
I would be a historian. I was always interested in history and reading history
books, but the career in computer science is much more perspective.

------
runevault
Novelist would be my initial attempt. Mind you I'm working on doing it as a
second job NOW (I'm about 80% done with my current novel)

------
beat
Record producer. I've been recording and producing music for years and love
doing it. It'd be nice to be able to make a living at it.

------
santaclaus
Start a crappy band, have a cool band camp page, travel around the country in
a van playing shows in DIY performance spaces and dive bars.

------
diverted247
Roast Coffee. Done.

------
anthk
from IT? Telecommunications Engineering.

Half of it is shared with CS, so is kinda the same but more fun.

C is still the main language for standards so I could find myself at home, as
I am a OpenBSD user and zealot.

[http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/](http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/)

No GNURadio here, sadly, but is WIP.

Hacking comm devices is funny.

Even something simple as SDR's are interesting too.

------
stillworks
\- Pilot

\- Fiction Author

\- Location Hunter for Cinematographers (basically get paid to travel to
wonderful scenic places)

\- Landscape Photographer (very hard to get paid for this I guess)

------
kevinSuttle
Farmer.

~~~
randomdata
That is the career I moved to after establishing a career as a developer.

Being around all the high tech machines on the farm has gotten me quite
interested in mechanical engineering of late, so if I were to make the switch
again, it may be in that direction. Especially, to bring things full circle,
with a focus on integrating my software experience into those machines; robots
and such.

~~~
kevinSuttle
I'm in 100% agreement. The first time I ever fixed anything mechanical was
when the pulley on my push lawnmower broke. I thought to myself: "If I can
write an iOS app, then this is nothing."

------
ngokevin
Tournament poker player or national park ranger.

------
kieranr
Play competitive tennis :') It'd be a miserable paying job at my level, but
the most satisfying life I could live.

------
EpicEng
Modern day blacksmith. Specifically, I want to make high end, historically
accurate swords for a living. I love swords :)

~~~
hackermailman
Look up Niels Provos' (OpenSSH/Google) youtube page, he works F/T and is a
hobbyist swordsmith
[https://www.youtube.com/user/mintwart](https://www.youtube.com/user/mintwart)

------
dagw
If I didn't have to worry about losing lots of money, I'd become a freelance
reviewer of skis and ski resorts :)

------
pknerd
Would love to become a theoretical physicist.

------
omar12
Music Curator/DJ: Not a Top 40 DJ but more like Gilles Peterson. Have a
collection of unique and eclectic playlists.

------
jinfiesto
Pianist, though if I'm being honest, I'll never be good enough to be A-list.
Which is why I'm a developer.

------
coldcode
I would write books except I hate working alone, I prefer being around people.
Maybe some kind of writer's workshop?

~~~
Chris2048
I overheard a guy on a plane once - old guy telling is life story.

He'd done various things, been a pianist, engineer, parent etc.

Now he writes, he says it's the most fulfilling career he's ever had; Though I
expect he's already financially stable.

------
dverma
Football(Soccer) Journalist.

Have been doing it as a hobby but would love to spend more time immersing
myself into the beautiful game.

------
samtho
Might be close to tech, but I would run a Makerspace/Hackerspace full time if
I could sustain myself doing it.

------
zappo2938
I'm the opposite of a lot of people. I was a private yacht chef now trying to
switch career to web developer.

~~~
pmyjavec
Not that I'm trying to discourage you, but why? Stability ? Money ?

~~~
zappo2938
At first because I had an idea for an app which I could not afford to
implement unless I did it myself. Now, for love of coding only -- trying to
make the switch has cost me everything.

~~~
pmyjavec
Good luck on your journey !

------
gejjaxxita
I would be a physicist. I studied it all the way to PhD and I often have a
vague regret that I left the field.

------
nanoanderson
Camera repairman.

 _edit_ : _Film_ camera repairman

------
innocentoldguy
I would write short stories and novels, and I'd also like to teach at the high
school or college level.

------
cmrdporcupine
Winery / cidery. More on the vineyard/orchard side of it, but would like to
own the business.

------
knieveltech
I'd open a shop and small school dedicated to archaic crafts like
blacksmithing and boat building.

------
ascendantlogic
Get into motorsports in some capacity.

------
jwatte
Creating music and writing. Things I did as a youth but didn't pay the bills
like computers!

------
josephv
Forest ranger

------
taneq
I'd take up a trade. Either be an electrician, or a machinist.

Edit: Or HV mechanic. I love big engines.

------
clishem
I'd probably become a monk.

------
aezell
Curator at an art museum and publisher of unique writing about music, art, and
humans.

------
teh_klev
Train driver. In particular, pootling around the highlands of Scotland in a
Class 37.

------
lanius
Tailor. I just sew as a hobby, but I enjoy being able to make clothes fit
better.

------
tmsam
Campground host. Camp all day every day. Be nice to everyone. Rest for
years...

------
franze
Yoga Teacher (for developers)

------
antoyo
In order of preference:

Yoga teacher

Professional chess player

Fantasy book author

~~~
TACIXAT
Meditation teacher is my FI goal, I'll probably get yoga certified because I'm
sure those businesses will be tightly coupled.

~~~
antoyo
Do you think we need to be in specific kind of cities (smaller vs bigger) to
earn a living doing such a job? Or do you think doing solely this is not
enough to earn a living?

~~~
TACIXAT
Location matters, but I also think it depends a lot on how you market
yourself. A small mountain town won't have enough clients interested with the
means to pay for those services. A resort destination (Hawaii?) could be
really good. I think that is why I want financial independence though, so I
can worry a little less about how much I can earn.

From reading it sounds like yoga teachers are plentiful since a lot of people
practicing naturally progress to getting certified. Starting wages can be very
poor because of this. That's where I think marketing can be the
differentiating factor. Travel around India learning, maybe write a book or
blog about yourself. Get on reality TV and become a minor celebrity. Have a
very well respected lineage. Just some ideas to bring in more clients.

Big cities are definitely the safest.

------
suyash
I'd be a magician traveling worldwide and performing for large crowds.

------
tinnet
something in the lines of fitness coach + nutrionist + physiotherapy (aka
"actually helping people") OR lumberjack in the far north (aka "i've had
enough of all this" :))

------
WalterBright
I want to be a Lion Tamer.

------
uptown
Residential architect or dog walker / doggie daycare operator.

------
abricot
I would become a teacher of some sorts. Probably secondary school.

------
knodi123
Teach, either software, or critical thinking, or language.

------
matthewhall
I would go into filmmaking or become a doctor. Maybe...

------
avisk
Open a used bookshop

------
lj3
Product designer. :)

------
mathattack
Teach martial arts.

~~~
roymurdock
Which discipline though?

~~~
mathattack
Jiu jitsu

------
orionblastar
Investment banking so I can help Startups IPO etc.

------
blazespin
Charter sailboats in Caribbean, Mediterranean, etc

------
max_
I want to be a Game Designer like Hideo Kojima!

------
newdayrising
Become a novelist and write adventure stories.

------
imsofuture
Distill whiskey.

~~~
jotux
I would love to open a distillery and make Rye.

------
EleventhSun
Living abroad and teaching english.

Or, teaching engineering.

~~~
JSeymourATL
Have you considered the Peace Corps? >
[https://www.peacecorps.gov/volunteer/what-volunteers-
do/#edu...](https://www.peacecorps.gov/volunteer/what-volunteers-
do/#education)

------
atmosx
Write plays, fairytales, poems and novels.

------
sssilver
Architecture Motorcycles Cooking/chef

------
prodtorok
FBI Agent. Any interesting crime work.

~~~
JSeymourATL
Turns out the FBI needs you >
[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160906/17042035450/fbi-w...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160906/17042035450/fbi-
wants-to-hire-young-tech-savants-has-no-idea-how-to-attract-them.shtml)

~~~
prodtorok
pay isnt there

------
AncoraImparo
I would buy a coffee shop if I could!

------
jsd1982
Audio engineer or full-time musician.

------
auganov
A cat nanny.

------
d1ffuz0r
park ranger or physics teacher

------
Heraclite
Philosopher

~~~
osullivj
Well I did a BA in Philosophy in the late 80s, and it's served me well as a
developer. Software development is just applied ontology really...

~~~
Ascetik
I studied Philosophy as well, with a heavy scholastic leaning, Thomism, and
object oriented programming makes the most sense to me. Although not a
programming language, that's probably why Powershell makes a lot of sense to
me because it is all very focused on concretes.

------
jshupe
osteopathic medicine, high problem solving to meeting ratio - must like
people.

------
html5web
Dentist

------
stevenmays
Writer.

------
logronoide
Gigolo

~~~
thecourier
what about a gigolo's funded winery? think about the possibilities

~~~
logronoide
Bizarre, but I will think about it

------
ardivekar2
Novelist.

------
Drome
Movie director, no doubts

------
losteverything
Retail. Work at Walmart.

------
steambap
I want to be an artist.

------
nraynaud
Mechanical engineering

------
astrostl
Pro event photography.

------
lucasnemeth
Primary school teacher

------
legohead
professional rock climber

assuming I could live on the crap money, of course

------
postwait
High school teacher.

------
switchstance
Surfing instructor.

------
bheinzelman
Fly fishing guide.

------
segmondy
Investment banker.

------
dsp1234
Executive security

------
logfromblammo
I'd design and build concrete shell homes with basalt reinforcement bars and
transverse light-transmitting fibers, for the rural and suburban markets, and
factory-manufactured home modules that are rack-mounted and transportable via
intermodal shipping containers and forklifts, for the urban market.

One of the disappointing things I have learned is that many municipalities
limit the visible height of residential buildings from the average grade level
to its highest point to only 30 or 40 feet. That means, in combination with
the depth of the frost-heave line, that spherical shells are not possible for
a family-sized home, and the only feasible tornado-resistant shapes would be
severely-flattened ellipsoids and toruses. I had a hypothesis that I really
wanted to test regarding the humidity problems experienced with geodesic dome
homes, but that one zoning issue makes testing it pretty much impossible.

I have been pretty disappointed with all of the stick-built homes I have ever
lived in, with regard to maintenance and infrastructure issues. In short, I'm
sick of paying through the nose for cheap, slipshod crap. If I'm going to pay
through the nose anyway, I'd rather get something that could survive a nuclear
strike on the nearest strategic asset, where I would _never_ have to use a
plunger in any toilet because the architect never talked to a master plumber,
and _never_ need to tack up visible wires because the existing wiring plan
stinks, and also never have to carry the laundry up and down two flights of
stairs because no one bothered to minimize the distance between that
particular appliance and all the bedroom closets.

I just want to rebel against the existing market conditions in housing.
Realistically, I would likely be an abysmal failure in that sector, and would
have to return to software development--with my tail between my legs--in less
than 5 years. But I'd also get a kickass house out of it, which would slowly
reveal its agonizingly severe problems over the following 10 years, which
would have bankrupted my company anyway, had it succeeded. Then I'd write a
book about my experience, which would sell 30 copies. I'd become a bitter old
geezer, and none of my co-workers would talk to me unless they had a question
about our crufty, legacy C++21 module that everyone else is afraid to touch.
My best friend would be a red Swingline stapler. I would be buried with it.
Then concrete shell homes would sweep the nation in a flurry of unexpected
popularity. I would get frequent reports about it in "The Special Hell for
People Who Don't Really Deserve It, But We Torment Them Anyway, Just for Fun",
which would be effectively indistinguishable from my pre-demise existence as a
software professional, except Special Hell gets 3.5 weeks of PTO, and Columbus
Day off, because even pure evil has limits.~

------
_98fj
Psychotherapist.

------
felideon
Photojournalist

------
upatricck
Be a musician.

------
elliotec
Charter pilot

------
languagehacker
Lounge singer

------
agjmills
Horse racing!

------
DrSarez
Elon Musk ^^

~~~
abledon
read the Ashlee Vance biography, his life.. its brutal!

------
jordz
Bar tender.

------
twodayslate
Bartend

------
shapath
Physicist

------
oe
Trains.

------
xseven
Professor

------
seanplusplus
Navy SEAL

------
greedoid
Podcaster.

------
erjjones
Architect

~~~
max_
FYI: Architecture student here, the field is not fairly compensated like
Software Development

~~~
OJFord
What makes it 'unfair'?

~~~
max_
Salary:Work ratio

~~~
OJFord

        fair  
        fɛː  
        adjective  
        1. treating people equally without favouritism or discrimination. [0]
    

You may not _like_ the salary:work ratio; that is not sufficient for it to be
_unfair_.

[0] -
[https://www.google.co.uk/?q=define+fair](https://www.google.co.uk/?q=define+fair)

~~~
max_
Sorry for the poor English. What I mean is that it is not financially
rewarding..

------
charlesdm
Tax law.

~~~
Chris2048
really?

------
agjmills
something with racehorses

------
kingkawn
I would be a dolphin.

------
findjashua
interior design

------
jmcgough
Was just there two days ago, that place is like an engineer's wet dream.

~~~
dang
We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13336987](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13336987)
and marked it off-topic.

------
67726e
I'm tired of busting my ass for a bunch of corrupt businessmen. I'd either be
a bartender and do music in my free time, or join the military[0] as I'd
rather let someone else make the decisions. Being "smart" is starting to feel
more and more like a burden on my well being.

[0] I realize the irony given the "corrupt businessmen" comment.

------
Pica_soO
Open a german bakery somewhere non-german.

~~~
NumberCruncher
As a non German living in Germany I think this is the best idea in this
thread. German bakery products are the best and can be sold everywhere despite
of their high end price.

~~~
livatlantis
That and I never understood why knödel never took off. I love knödel! I
actually brought some back the last time I was in Germany (before learning I
could buy them right here in Paris).

~~~
collyw
Too heavy. Its like lugging a brick around in your stomach after eating them.
And the liver ones?!?! Ewwww.

------
chintanshah24
I would get into the hotel business. Build a hotel on a fairly under
discovered tourist spot and work my way up this domain.

~~~
pc86
If you knew what spots were going to be big with tourists in the future you
could make money a lot easier than by running a hotel.

~~~
jderick
How? Buying property I guess could work but might be difficult in some foreign
locales.

------
batz
Train horses, perhaps at a reclaimed monastery that runs silent and teaching
retreats for guests who study math, classical philosophy, and martial arts.

Maybe start a barbell gym.

------
IChangedCareers
Porn star. No shit, either. I mean sex, drugs, and booze (or coffee) are
prominent and if you have that OCD type behavior you are MORE than built for
it. Why not, if you are gifted and shaved down .... Id do it

------
EJTH
CNC operator or something like it.

------
squozzer
Sniper. Then I could blow people's heads off at 1000m. But my eyesight isn't
20/20 anymore. So exotic dancer it is.

------
criveros
A professional pick up artist. If you get good at it, get a good following,
get good media presence (Youtube, Facebook groups), you will be able to sell
products and run bootcamps pretty consistently.

To make a lot of money you need to be really good at it, by that I mean having
slept with 100+ girls, having an amazing social life, and have people in the
community that can vouch for you. Building that can take years if you are not
a hot, white dude.

