
Ask HN: Web developer and looking for a career change, what are my options? - Rjevski
After a year at my job it seems like I&#x27;m no longer interested in programming - I am no longer excited about new frameworks, etc and I feel like my skillset (Python and Django) is slowly fading into irrelevance (everyone seems to be about machine learning and data science nowadays), and I don&#x27;t feel interested in learning those fields (ML looks like magic to me and involves lots of math, which I suck at). I also would like more interaction with people instead of spending my days in front of a monitor. Note that I am only 20 so I don&#x27;t have that much experience either, and finding a good developer&#x27;s job seems hard given the competition for all the good startups.<p>Anyone else feels that way? How did you solve this issue in the end, and if you did switch careers, what job are you doing now?
======
TamDenholm
I felt like that a few years ago. I didnt end up leaving my career, what i did
instead was use my skills in a different way. Instead of being a web
developer, i became a business consultant. Like you i didnt care about the
latest fashion in the space and in general my interest was no longer in
programming, however, 60%-80% of my time today is still writing code, but i'm
much happier.

What i do now is i work with non-technical businesses as my clients, they come
to me with a problem, not a spec. I gather requirements, give them my
opinions, tell them how to solve their problems, then deliver solution for it,
which 90% of the time is an internal web app.

For instance, a current client is a distillery that was using 2 pieces of
shitty software, one of which they originally got in the early 2000's. The
software was running their health and safety requirements for the staff. I
wrote an internal web app that replaced a old creaky system that didnt work
very well and they're absolutely flabbergasted that this problem could even be
solved at all. Its an extremely easy problem to solve, but to them, i'm
basically doing magic.

They dont care what i code it in, they dont care if i'm up to date on the
latest framework, they dont care how i deliver it as long as i solve their
problem and save them money, which is what i focus on. This is infinitely more
interesting to me than keeping up to date on the latest tech. Also, as a side
note, i'm now earning about 3 times as much as i used to earn as a contract
web developer.

Perhaps you could apply your skills in a different manner.

~~~
TamDenholm
Ok since in less than an hour i've had a few comments and 1 email asking about
this, i'll reply here.

So the headlines are: Be as boring as possible, Networking, Focusing on the
outcome, rather than the product and start studying business instead of tech.

Be as boring as possible

Tech to tech guy is sexy, i avoid the sexy, because thats where all the other
techys are, you know where they're not, boring businesses. When i say boring i
dont actually mean they're boring, i find them interesting, they're just not
considered fashionable and sexy and the "in-thing". If you go through life
like i do, as a customer wondering why a difficult process isnt made easier
using technology, then you already know what you can go after. I rent cars
quite often, car rental companies have to take my details EVERY SINGLE TIME!
Why dont they have a system that looks up my info for next time? The local
chamber of commerce runs free business workshops, you can even register
online, however after the workshop, they give you the slides on paper, ask you
to fill out a feedback form on paper and that paper asks for your email
address if you want to hear more? Why isnt the first part married with the
second part? My local council that does my refuse collection required me to
phone them, get a paper form posted to me, i had to fill it out, post it back,
then pay over the phone, then i had to go to the local office to collect my
trade waste bags? SERIOUSLY???

There are SO MANY boring problems out there that can be made better, its all
LOW HANGING FRUIT, why? Because most of the tech world is making a salt
dispensing centerpiece for the dining table that has an app for your iphone to
pick how many pinches of salt you need, oh and bluetooth!
[https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/smalt-the-world-s-
first-i...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/smalt-the-world-s-first-
interactive-centerpiece-health)

Networking

Go to your local networking meetups, don't go to any tech ones. Go to ones for
Oil and Gas, Construction, Local Government, Textiles, Motor vehicles, etc.
Find and talk to people there, be helpful, give away your knowledge for free.
Establish yourself an an authority on making business processes better. Join
your local chamber and volunteer your time to grow their membership, this will
not only benefit them, you can develop some software to make the process
easier, they get to use it for free and you get exposed to their membership,
also, you can sell this software to other chambers in the area. (We're doing
exactly this.)

Focus on outcome, rather than the product

Your business client does care about code quality, or test coverage, or
continuous integration, or git branching methodology. Just write the damn app
and make it look pretty. Write it well and secure, but dont spend time on shit
that wont ever be appreciated by anyone but you. Deliver it, show them you
just saved them £XXX,XXX per year now they use your software and they'll love
you forever.

Study business, not tech

Read business books, read Patio11's blog, especially the one about not calling
yourself a programmer, realise that what you are delivering is value, not
exchanging your time for money. Charge accordingly, I recently charged £16,000
for about 5 days of work from my junior developer and about 3 days of work
from me, why? Because it was for Kodak and the tool allowed their salespeople
to make more sales by displaying pretty graphs for their clients. The value to
them was easily 6 figures a year. This was through a middleman, and i know he
charged a lot more than i did.

Sorry for the wall of text, i could talk for hours on the subject.

~~~
Doches
Any chance you could move this conversation over to
[https://www.indiehackers.com/](https://www.indiehackers.com/) and maybe do an
interview with the folks over there? You sound...like someone I'd like to hear
a lot more from.

~~~
TamDenholm
I doubt i'm a candidate for indie hackers, i dont have a product, i offer a
service. But i'm happy to answer questions.

~~~
tnorthcutt
You'd still make for a great interview.

------
adpoe
You have a __ton __of time, don 't worry.

I changed careers more than once between 20 and 30. To/from radically
different fields.

Besides that, your skill-set as a programmer is _much_ more than your choice
of language/web framework.

You have skills in:

\- Building things

\- Decomposing and solving abstract problems

\- etc..

And don't let a perceived lack of math skills intimidate you. This stuff is
learnable, with effort and time. ML is most-decidedly not magic. You can learn
it, if you have an interest.[1]

That said, if programming is losing its luster, but you still enjoy software
-- try product/project management. Good pay, and it's a very social job where
your tech skills will be valued.

If you want something dramatically different -- the sky's the limit. At 20,
you could switch to Business, Law, Medicine, Journalism, Banking, whatever.
Biggest lesson I've learned: don't be afraid to try. Good luck!

\-----------

[1] (For context, I started studying math much later than you (~27), and have
worked on ML in a research lab, since then. But when I was 20, I barely passed
college algebra... Point is, you have time and can learn if you want.)

~~~
mistermann
> That said, if programming is losing its luster, but you still enjoy software
> -- try product/project management. Good pay, and it's a very social job
> where your tech skills will be valued.

Do you have an opinion on how much of product management is politics and
posturing, and how much is actually building good products? For example, one
doesn't have to look very far to find substandard software and features on
hundreds of highly trafficked sites or commercial products, yet I'm under the
impression that getting a job where one would have the authority to fix these
things would be next to impossible. (And yes, I absolutely understand that
decisions are, or at least should be, first and foremost economic decisions,
and subject to competing priorities. For example, just look at the positive
cultural change Microsoft has undergone relatively recently, they are a good
example of a company who has changed in respect to what I'm talking about.)

~~~
adpoe
So, I worked as a PM for about 3.5 years, in total. That was in the past, and
now I work as a developer (not a manager anymore).

My guess is that a lot of this depends on the organization, and
product/projects.

But as an opinion...

The politics/posturing & social aspects of the job are integral to shipping
products, making positive incremental changes, and "getting things done".

As a PM, I definitely was __not __the boss. (Even though the success of the
project was ultimately my responsibility.)

This meant I had to lead, persuade, and _negotiate_ very effectively -- always
arguing what's best for the product, or the end-user.

So I guess I'd say that these sorts of politics aren't separate from building
a good product. They're sort of the process for getting things done.

But again, that's limited & personal experience. My companies were relatively
small (20 - 50 people). In essence, I was figuring things out as I went along.
(These were small businesses, and we all were.) Big organizations with lots of
really established process may be different.

------
Tade0
> I am no longer excited about new frameworks, etc

To me this is rather a sign of common sense than a lack of interest in
programming.

You could try moving to a company that has its own product - these often have
interacting with customers or other companies listed as one of the
responsibilities.

EDIT: paragraphs.

~~~
ccdev
What is your opinion on companies that interview with requiring rote knowledge
on frameworks, or even put it on the job titles (eg. Senior Django developer)?

My city is full of these and there is the disconnect online I get from
interview prep guides on algorithms, but none of that benefits me in the local
companies I apply for.

A lot of these companies flat out ignore me, despite that I know OOP
development well enough for a couple of years.

So much revolves around taking in new tools and frameworks that it's become
fashion. That's a big reason why I want to head out of web dev too.

Along with that, it seems like most web dev jobs just are hooking up API
endpoints for applications that don't get a lot of traffic, so there are no
interesting speed/performance problems to solve.

~~~
Tade0
> What is your opinion on companies that interview with requiring rote
> knowledge on frameworks, or even put it on the job titles (eg. Senior Django
> developer)?

I know why they're doing this and IMHO it's a dead end. Among companies with
tight budgets(I worked for a few of those) there's a notion that you'll get
more value out of someone who already knows the required framework so you
should focus on that in the recruiting process. That may be true for small,
short-lived projects(3 months max.), but what matters the most in the larger,
longer ones is something, that can only be expressed as _the ability to
program_.

Basically it's a sign that this company is mainly occupied with doing the
grunt work for larger companies. A job like that sure, pays your bills, but is
also soul-crushingly boring.

> Along with that, it seems like most web dev jobs just are hooking up API
> endpoints for applications that don't get a lot of traffic, so there are no
> interesting speed/performance problems to solve.

Well, this is web development for you. Hell, most of the time this is software
engineering for you.

But there's a way out of this: Like I said before - a company with its own
product that does something fundamental(like e.g. a framework). I spent two
years in such a company and I can tell you this - I only dealt with
_interesting_ problems there.

~~~
ccdev
Some of the big tech companies create the frameworks that are used by a myriad
of other companies. These frameworks, incidentally are open-source and worked
on by a lot of people for free. But do they have paid employees working on
them as well?

------
DoctorProfessor
I was a web developer for a few years out of college, but I eventually
realized I got much more pleasure out of helping my colleagues solve
challenges in their own work (obscure bugs or browser compatibility issues)
than building my own assigned pages and apps. I transitioned to technical
product/developer support engineering which I've now done at two companies for
a combined six years or so, and it's been great.

There's definitely more interaction with people, as your day-to-day work is
more about helping people succeed than building things. But you still use a
lot of the same skills you've built up in development work - especially if
you've spent any time debugging code.

Whether this will appeal to you depends on what motivates you. For me, I
really like feeling like I've made a difference and one of the most powerful
ways to get that feeling is to solve a problem for someone, so this is a very
satisfying line of work.

Also, I've done a lot of interviewing of candidates for this role - and I can
tell you that at least on my team, lack of experience isn't really a blocker.
It's common to need to quickly learn a new product or feature to solve a
customer/developer's problem with it, so we look more for quick learning and
problem-solving instincts than built-up experience or domain expertise.

~~~
el_benhameen
I know this is a little direct, but how's the pay compare to your old jobs and
to your colleagues in dev?

~~~
DoctorProfessor
My pay increased when I transitioned from web dev at one company to product
support at another - but to be fair, the first company was in Dallas and the
second was in Palo Alto.

I haven't done a lot of comparison or asking my coworkers how much they make,
but the information I do have suggests that while developers are commonly paid
more on average, if you're at a company that actually values product support
(often because it's recognized as an important contributor to customer
retention) this difference can easily be dominated by other differences such
as willingness to negotiate. Support teams are also usually smaller so it can
be easier to demonstrate how much value you, personally, are adding.

But again, this assumes the company actually cares about support. There are
definitely places that treat it as a revolving door position and won't pay
much.

It's also worth noting that from what I've seen, companies are much more
willing to have distributed support teams than dev teams, due to the value of
having support availability in multiple timezones. I actually telecommute four
days a week in my current role.

------
Mz
_(ML looks like magic to me and involves lots of math, which I suck at)._

Math is taught pretty badly in most American public schools from K-12. Many
people have terrible math experiences in elementary school, in part because
the U.S. actively encourages women to go into early childhood education if
they can't cut it in other fields (a thing not done to men). So, there are a
lot of women who are basically math-phobic who are teaching it to our K-6 kids
and the primary thing they teach a lot of kids is that math is scary stuff and
you should hate it. It's really terrible.

I pulled my two sons out of public school at the same time. At the time, my
oldest was in sixth grade, and he hated math and had terrible, terrible
baggage about it. My ONLY goal for him for math while homeschooling him was to
teach him "math is your friend" and that was it. I didn't care if he actually
learned any math. I just wanted him to stop having fear and loathing of math.
He now sometimes does stuff like reads illustrated calculus books (which are
over my head -- I dropped out of calculus in college, due to having had a year
long math gap... it's a long story) when he runs out of other things to read
at the library and is bored.

If you want some pointers on how to get over your fear of math and how to
learn math comfortably, I and no doubt lots of other people here can give you
some pointers. Because there are people here who think math is cool and fun
and managed to get through the school system without becoming math-phobic, in
spite of how hard the school system actively tries to make most of us math-
phobic.

------
tpae
> Note that I am only 20 so I don't have that much experience either, and
> finding a good developer's job seems hard given the competition for all the
> good startups.

If you don't have a CS degree, then I would pursue it if I were you. I used to
be like you (I was 20, now I'm 30 with CS degree), and it's been the best
investment I've made.

> After a year at my job it seems like I'm no longer interested in programming
> - I am no longer excited about new frameworks, etc

Yes. This is because you've hit a ceiling with your learning. In order for you
to move forward, you should touch up on basics.

> I don't feel interested in learning those fields (ML looks like magic to me
> and involves lots of math, which I suck at).

If you played Diablo, you need to learn your pre-requisites before taking
these on. Once you have the basic fundamentals, it will come to you.

Right now, you are still too early in your career. I would focus on building a
strong foundation (CS degree). Everything else will come to you over time.

~~~
_kyran
If someone's not enjoying programming, suggesting to study CS doesn't seem
ideal.

Whilst CS != programming, there is a lot of overlap.

~~~
spery
Lot of overlap but lot of learning to in broad spectrum of subjects. Maybe
he'll be more into low level programming, maybe security. Or maybe once he
understands magic behind ML, he'll like it. To me CS degree was about
expanding views. I still sucked at programming after getting MSc.

------
navidkhn1
You’re facing the exact problem I am right now in my life.

I am 21, and work in the same Technologies you do. I founded a company in web
services a year ago ([http://Bigdrop.io](http://Bigdrop.io)) which is pretty
much self sustainable today. I don’t find a lot of interest in the domain any
more and tire of new projects easily.

I however realised that my true passion lies with creativity, and it isn’t
limited to the web or to programming.

I am currently working with India Accelerator (
[http://indiaaccelerator.co](http://indiaaccelerator.co) ), which gives me the
chance to interact with start ups, discuss and design products, play a high
level technical role, meet new people, etc.

We could possibly come up with something to help you out, you can reach out to
me. naved@bigdrop.io

~~~
Rjevski
Congratulations on actually having a profitable product, and thanks for the
help, I'll definitely drop you a line soon.

------
flash42
Programming is not about frameworks. Python + Django are just tools. I suggest
you learn more about the field in general otherwise you won't be able to put
new hypes in context and will get overwhelmed every year. Also learning the
basics (maths included) will enable you to solve an ever growing set of
problems. But of course you can start doing something entirely different,
luckily you didn't put much effort into programming yet.

------
WheelsAtLarge
You are very lucky that you are only 20. Look at other areas in tech. You
don't have to stay there but at least explore it. Try marketing and sales.
Companies are always looking for people that can expand their sales. This will
not change. I can almost guarantee that you'll hate it to start but as you
gain some skills you'll like it better. You might not stay with it but you'll
gain skills that will always be useful to you. Such as the ability to interact
with people in ways that advance what you want to accomplish. If you think
about it a big percent of the time at work is sales. You sell your ideas to
your coworkers and management.

Product manager is also a possibility but you'll need to work your way to it.
There is not one path to get there. But there is satisfaction in supporting a
successful product.

Your best bet is to try different things to help you decide. If you can,
volunteer in areas that you want to test out.

Since you are at it. Make a career and life plan. Start thinking now about
where you want your career and life to be 5, 10 years from now. The advantage
is that you'll be looking for opportunities to execute your plan. You'll be
happy you did. The last thing you want is to end up in a place you don't want
to be in in the future.

------
danschumann
What would I do if programming was made illegal overnight?

I'd probably look at urban gardening, harvesting little plots of land on
peoples' property. Maybe real farming, but make sure it's a niche that'll pay
my bills.

After that, I'd probably print t-shirts and sell them at urban centers, maybe
set up a stand. Then farmers markets, making little delicious things like crab
rangoons, with some hipster spin on it(that's also good tasting). I'd probably
work my way into the restaurant business somehow, but I know that the long
hours and stuff I couldn't do, so I'd need a niche.

That's just what I'd do. You have to ask yourself what are some of your most
triumphant memories and build on them.

------
katpas
If you're still interested in tech but want to move away from programming
there are definitely options. A few I've seen before: \- moving to a
product/project management role (more talking to people and a lot less coding)
\- a hybrid sales/engineer role on a technical product (helping the sales team
and customer figure out how the product can be most useful to them) \-
Developer support for a technical product (v.useful to have engineers who like
communicating externally in these roles)

Otherwise people career change entirely. E.g. I studied law at university,
realised I didn't want to be a corporate lawyer, then did sales/vc work at an
equity crowdfunding start-up, left there to learn to code, spent just over a
year building prototypes & on contract in some bigger tech co's, then started
my own co which I'm now a year into (I'm 25).

So try and work out what interests you and see if you can move within the
company you're at to start with to test it out.

I also wrote up the transferable skills from law > programming. It definitely
goes the other way too - [https://hackernoon.com/how-studying-law-helped-me-
with-progr...](https://hackernoon.com/how-studying-law-helped-me-with-
programming-6af88ac77a8e)

------
jayliew
I've been there: burned out from writing code, feeling like you've plateaued
on your particular skillset of choice, but not having another skillset that
you're particularly interested in acquiring.

I view software as means to an end, and that end is solving a real concrete
physical problem in the real world.

It's hard to look at a specific vertical / domain and try to guess what kind
of app you can build for them that would make an impact, as an outsider
looking in.

So, become an insider by getting a job and doing real hands-on work in an area
outside of programming. For me, since I figured I got the "hacker" part down,
I wanted to get the "hustler" part down, and I joined a very early stage
startup and did all things customer-acquisition, in charge of the singular
goal of bringing in money. A hardware company at that.

Then, military has always fascinated me, so I sought to get an insider's
perspective.

Now I've got additional perspectives that has been constructive in helping me
understand where else and how else software might be able to make an impact,
which is helpful when you're looking for opportunities to ... make something
people want.

------
danpalmer
I can't provide much help with advice for a career change, but I have some
thoughts on your current situation...

> I feel like my skillset (Python and Django) is slowly fading into
> irrelevance (everyone seems to be about machine learning and data science
> nowadays)

Machine learning and data science are certainly trendy, but there are still
100s of developers for everyone in those areas, and will be for a long time.
These skills are highly sought after and you'll likely naturally shift to new
technologies to solve problems as you need to.

> I also would like more interaction with people instead of spending my days
> in front of a monitor.

I think the best engineers get a lot of interaction with people. Building
something isn't worth much if it's not the solution to the right business
problem. I'm an engineer but I'm heavily involved in the product thinking
process, talking to "stakeholders", brainstorming ideas, liaising with
external companies, etc. I'd estimate my time is roughly 70% at a computer and
30% talking to other people in various ways.

There are many opportunities to do this sort of stuff if you're interested,
and you may even want to go into Product Management if you want to remain
close to technology but spend more time getting human interaction.

> Note that I am only 20 so I don't have that much experience either, and
> finding a good developer's job seems hard given the competition for all the
> good startups.

I'm assuming you're right at the beginning of your career, or only 1-2 years
into it. I would encourage you to find a different place to work, try more
companies of different types, teams that work in different ways, etc.

~~~
_kyran
What kind of pathways have you seen that lead in to product management?

I'm yet to see a job listing for a PM that doesn't require experience as a PM.

~~~
danpalmer
I've seen "early employees" do well as PMs. These are employees who started
out ostensibly in marketing, or operations, but at a scale where everyone in
the company still does a bit of everything. These people naturally grow with
the company knowing so much about the internal workings of the company and the
product that they are the perfect candidate for a PM role even if they have no
formal PM experience.

I've seen 2 people do this at my current company and have heard similar things
from other companies where it worked very well.

------
dialupmodem
The glory days of programming are over, mate.

When the masses discovered programming to be profitable ~5 years ago, it
became "cool" and was quickly gamed into the ground from both ends.

Look at what "cool" does to art and music. The "rockstars" get paid a lot, and
everyone else works for peanuts (or no nuts) or gets a "real job". 90% of the
work now is marketing yourself. So it is with programming. Programming is like
music now.

This is all thanks to the supply of programmers (and wannabes) increasing
tenfold thanks to boot camps, and a 400% increase in computer science majors
in the past 5 years.

The craziest thing about all of this is that you can be a complete novice, but
if you have a decent following on social media and are putting out somewhat
interesting content and are a terrible programmer, you will absolutely get
hired over the expert that isn't contributing publically. It's all about
visibility now.

My advice is find something you intrinsically enjoy so much, that doing all
the extra annoying stuff is at the very least tolerable.

Be happy you haven't invested 10 years into the industry like I have.

~~~
expertentipp
There is some truth to it. Everyone wants a developer with extensive public
portfolio (github/stack overflow/open source contributions) and ideally great
performance with algorithmic brain teasers, but don't realize that such people
are quite literally celebrities. Do you really need George Clooney for your
soap opera? Is the budget of your soap opera sufficient to hire George
Clooney? Another thing - for the dirty stuff the celebrity will need a
double;)

------
scrdhrt
A couple of years ago I was in a similar situation (not a programmer, but
devops), and ended up going in the marketing technology direction. More
contact with people, less programming but still relevant. Worked out well for
me, I run two businesses today - a martech agency and a software dev venture.
Might be worth checking out what martech jobs would fit you.

GL

------
wilwade
While I have not yet changed careers, I have thought about it a lot. If or
when I do, here is how I will likely go about it.

First save money and change lifestyle to handle the pay change. Coding pays
more than many careers, and you might want or need to move to an industry that
you have little experience.

Next, be open to moving. There are other places outside of the big cities that
can often be open to people from different backgrounds as they don't have all
the big city fun.

What do you like or have experience in. Making a slight shift is a lot easier
than a large one. Perhaps you coded something for a newspaper, that will make
it easier to get a job doing something else for a newspaper. This might mean
doing a double jump. Get a job coding for the industry you want to be in, then
move toward your desired career in that industry.

Best of luck!

------
legohead
I've been a web developer for 15+ years, but my favorite part of the job is
actually working with Databases. I even applied for a DB Admin position at a
big company and almost got it.

So my suggestion is to take a look at databases before you decide to move on
to anything too much different.

------
Pandabob
I'm pretty sure data engineering can be extremely lucrative, and can be easier
for a backend engineer to jump into. Think of it as backend development on
steroids, where you architecture and build the infrastructure for "big data".

Personally I'm also excited about Apples ARKit [1]. Some of the demos built on
it seem like magic to me [2].

[1]: [https://developer.apple.com/arkit/](https://developer.apple.com/arkit/)
[2]: [http://www.madewitharkit.com/](http://www.madewitharkit.com/)

------
baron816
If you're 20 and have been working for a year, does that mean you didn't go to
college? You could do that. It's a great place to explore and figure out what
you're interested in.

~~~
Rjevski
I've always been bored by education (in fact I left high school halfway
through) and college will probably be no different, not to mention there are
subjects where I am dumber than a tree (math for example) so I'd probably fail
most exams just because of that.

As far as my work experience goes I've been a developer for a year but was
working as a technical advisor for a mobile phone retailer before that - the
job was actually quite nice but unfortunately the pay was nowhere near enough
to sustain myself and the company had pretty scammy sales practices so I left.

~~~
eropple
I failed Calculus I twice and they basically had a B.A. degree just to
graduate me. You can do it, and it's worth it. A moderately priced state
school will have a decent-enough CS department, and what you'll learn there
will help (as a senior/staff-level engineer, albeit a consultant these days, I
_do_ use what I learned in school quite a lot), but what's more valuable is
the humanities and the general rounding-out-as-a-person that happens at
college.

"Oh, I need to go join a trendy startup" is a pretty good way to stick your
foot in a bear trap. There's more to life than a keyboard, as you have
seemingly realized--college is a very good way to find out what (and, if you
work in tech, there's no need to go broke doing it; I had my entire loan
package paid off from my university by 26 because I didn't go to some crazy
school).

If nothing else, you should explore it more seriously than "well, high school
bored me." The experiences you get at college are really hard to replicate
outside of it.

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pkalinowski
I've got some programming experience (developed few apps, some of them working
for few years now in production, although they are very amateurish), but did
not become "official" developer. It's not for me, and I went marketing with
focus on marketing technology.

Martech is pretty interesting field with almost no competition (you need to be
well versed in classic marketing, analytics and programming, also good to have
some domain knowledge). For me it's a balanced blend of soft and hard skills.

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tnecniv
> involves lots of math, which I suck at

How I got over this was actually through learning applied math. I thought I
sucked at it, too, but really I just never tried hard before.

What I liked about programming was formulating and solving problems. Not
normally the act of writing code in and of itself (though that can be fun,
too, every now and then). Learning more math lets you tackle more interesting
problems, and there are more applications of fancy math than ML!

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mendeza
Python is very relevant, keras, tensorflow, and pytorch are deep learning
frameworks that rely on python development. Also, many data scientist rely on
robust python frameworks. Maybe look into jobs that require python development
that support these roles. As you feel that data science is not for you, I can
imagine data scientist fear about software infrastructure and need people like
you!

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Bahamut
There are several options for you - you could switch focus. One way would be
to switch technologies/work on problems that interest you with development -
it helps broaden your purview, and maybe would give you a spark you didn't
have.

You could also switch roles into something more people - facing. Sales
engineering or solutions engineering might interest you.

------
pcarr
Ever considered working in France at a startup? We're always looking to
international talent and since you're young, why not try something new in
another country? We're a startup that's created a battery-less connected
indoor location system and always looking to recruit IT talent.

Let me know, email: career@uwinloc.com

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jeddf
I started TAing last year and moved up to teaching just recently at a coding
bootcamp after realizing I really enjoy working with people in that way and
that I have some aptitude for it. Really enjoying it, it's part time on top of
a dev day job at the moment but I know people who do it full time and make
good money.

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becga
am a DevOps guy and while I love programming, I am also looking at a career
change in the next couple of years. A book recommendation via a friend who
moved from Regional Store Mgmt into Financial Advising is the book, "What
Color is Your Parachute". Some good advice in there you may want to check

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dedosk
My former co-worked, software developer, became manager at the retailer
network Tesco :) It solved the interaction with people problem for him.

~~~
Rjevski
How's the pay there? My biggest concern about leaving IT is that the salaries
we get as developers are pretty generous compared to other fields.

~~~
wdb
Is the pay more important then your wish to have more interaction with people?

~~~
Rjevski
The issue is that from what I can see the people-oriented jobs I could get in
my area (as in, they don't require lots of experience or education) would
barely allow me to afford rent, so as much as I'd like to it's just not
possible at the moment.

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dejv
How about doing ppc/other performance marketing stuff? There is some skill
overlap and feedback loop might make it enjoyable.

------
aosmith
Have you tried any golang or devops stuff? Maybe you're just burnt out on
python / Django.

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weaveoftheride
I'm someone who really values other people's company and the outdoors but
maybe the reason I do so much is because I have mainly earnt money from
working as a developer for the last 10 years. E.g. the job has low levels of
this so I desire it more. I have, and still, would like to change career from
programming.

I've tried other things including: landscape gardening. Pros: \- Outdoors \-
Get fit \- Learn handywork skills

Cons: \- Poor pay \- Still low level of people interaction \- Not that
interlectually engaging

Mountain bike guide

Pros: \- Outdoors \- Exciting \- People interaction \- Nice landscape \-
Following a passion I have

Cons: \- Turns my passion into work \- Low interllectual engagement \- Poor
pay

I also tried running my own company doing this which was a good experience.
Problem with it was that it is difficult to make as much money comparing to
programming. Also above points apply.

Photographer

Pros: \- Outdoors \- Technical \- Creatively engaging

Cons: \- Loads of digital images you have to work with becomes a bit of a
burden \- Regularity of work \- Amount of competition

Writer / Blogger

Pros: \- Fun \- Built the blog so learnt web development \- Good for learning
content marketing

Cons: \- Difficult to make money \- Really competitive \- Lots of alone time
(I wrote a few books) \- Effort/ reward ratio can be quite low

Estate Agent

Pros: \- Met people \- Look round lots of houses \- Out on the road

Cons: \- Pay \- Image \- Office based \- Can be boring

Exhibition worker (technical support, building the stands)

Pros: \- Travel (I worked in UAE, Paris, London) \- Working with your hands \-
Money can be good

Cons: \- Can make a lot more money as the event organiser \- Long hours \-
Intense

Artist

Pros: \- Travel (residencies around the world) \- Meet interesting people
doing interesting work \- Intellectually engaging

Cons: \- Difficulty to make a lot of money \- Your lifestyle will be out of
sync with anyone else doing a normal 9-5 \- Snobbery \- Networking

Designer

Pros: \- Interllectually engaging \- Many different disciplines (eg visual,
service, UX, etc)

Cons: \- Need a portfolio \- Very competitive \- Lots of low level crappy work
if you cant get the interesting stuff

Teaching English

Pros: \- Meet people \- Command position of authority \- Interesting, engaging
work \- Lots of opportunities to mix tech and education

Cons: \- Money not as good as developer

That's my experience of other work, partly. Of course you can also try to make
your career as a developer more interesting.

Ways I have tried to do this:

\- Earn more money \- Remote working \- Change stack \- Change scale, size,
length of project, whether public or private sector \- Develop other things
not websites eg. a game \- Get really disciplined about your dev time. Eg.
work the way where you can be the more productive, get a pomodoro timer, go
outside, try different types of desks.

To conclude this rant, developer / programmer is one of the job roles of the
age. Douglas Adams said something along the lines, that each era has its own
new industrial revolution and you are lucky if you can make your living out of
it. However, it poses challenges but it is new and everyone is in the same
boat trying to make it work for them.

------
rubyfan
Solution Architect, Project Manager, Product Manager

