

Ask HN: I'm tired of development. What should I do next? - bittired

(Edited: title changed to use the word &quot;fuck&quot;, which is a great way to get more visibility on HN. Also I tl;dr&#x27;d it.)<p>What would you recommend for someone that has fully resolved to change their career from developer to X, but has no answer to the question: &quot;What is X?&quot;<p>If there are career counselors that could help, how would you suggest finding one that would give good advice? What books and&#x2F;or tests would help for those that are in a similar situation, have fully decided that they are on the wrong path, and who have abandoned almost all hope?
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schrodingersCat
Do you like/tolerate teaching people? You could probably make a decent amount
of money teaching people to code while not actually doing much of it yourself.
If that's out of the question, you should ask yourself how physical you want
your new career to be. If you're not afraid of manual labor, self employed
plumbers and electricians make a killing and are always in demand (no sarcasm
intended btw).

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bittired
I have tried teaching in the past, but it isn't my strong suit. I enjoy manual
labor, but I'm not sure I could do it full-time and know myself well-enough
that I couldn't manage various teams, etc. to work my salary closer to what I
have now. I'm not very outgoing. Plumbing would be interesting, and I've done
some in the past, but doubt it would make enough, I'm not that handy, and
managing the team and business would be tough. I like the idea of being a
writer, but I don't write much before giving up for months and then starting
on something new months later.

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jrn
Consider pipefitting in oil and gas, similar to plumbing better wages.

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schrodingersCat
Nice. This is a great suggestion and timely. I hear that gas pipefitters in
the Australian outback make ~200K a year if you're willing to travel...

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jrn
Northern bc, or ab. 40+$ hour plus 150 a day loa.

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rdouble
The recommended books for a person in your situation are from Barbara Sher.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Sher](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Sher)

You can usually find them for a few dollars at a used bookstore.

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bittired
Thanks! I'll definitely take a read of those.

I'd also like to take the Strong Interest Inventory but already think I'm an
Artistic + Realistic:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland_codes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland_codes)

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totalforge
Logical paths might be connected to your development work. Clients, vendors,
or other related companies might know you and be interested in hiring you.

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bittired
Good idea for some. Unfortunately, I have not directly interacted with many
outside of my team at each company, and all of those teams are developers and
almost all still work in development.

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bittired
Looks like maybe PG changed the title to removing "fucking". Sorry for the
offense! Thank you for fixing it.

