
Ask HN: What's your next career move? - mgadams3
I&#x27;m trying to get a sense of what people are striving for at various stages of their software engineering careers.<p>Location:<p>Title:<p>Years SE Experience:<p>Next Move: (do X so that I can Y)<p>-- I&#x27;ll go first --<p>Location: San Francisco<p>Title: Software Engineer<p>Years Exp: 4<p>Next Move: Build my technical expertize and &quot;brand&quot; through meaningful open-source contributions, blogging, and speaking at conferences (thought leadership) so that I can deepen my technical skills by working with the best people and attract better job opportunities at a higher level of contribution or have confidence that I could be my own start-up CTO.
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justinlaing
Location: Santa Cruz, CA Title: Sabbatical from startup life after selling my
company and completing contract. Years of SE Experience: 18

Next Move: Building another software startup. Go big. Apply the lessons
learned from my previous company, while trying something in a new space. Get
back to coding every day after being a owner/manager for years. Find other
awesome people to work with, as in my experience this is the single biggest
factor in happiness at work.

~~~
timothybone
What's your email? (mine in my profile) I'm interested in talking about doing
something great (I also live in S.C.)

~~~
justinlaing
I can be found here
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinlaing](https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinlaing)
I'm at NextSpace most days. I have an office in the back with "Crank Logic" on
the door.

------
japhyr
Location: Southeast Alaska

My father was a software engineer at DEC in the 70's, so I learned to program
at 5 on a kit computer. I've been a hobbyist programmer all my life, but I got
pulled into teaching. I've been teaching 6-12 grade math and science for 20
years.

Over the last four years I've started to build a second career in the
programming world. I have a couple open source projects that have shown
promise, and I recently published an introductory Python book that's doing
pretty well.

Next Move: I'm excited about the possibilities, all of which are pretty
appealing.

\- Write more.

\- Pick up development on two main open projects:

\- introtopython.org | An open introduction to Python based on jupyter
notebooks. Anyone familiar with notebooks can contribute a project.

\- opencompetencies.org | An open platform for building education standards.

\- Switch to teaching CS full time instead of math and science.

\- Pick up more freelancing work.

------
quickpost
Location: Denver

Title: Freelance Software Developer

Years Exp: ~12

Been doing freelance development for last 5+ years. Enjoyed the flexibility
and the freedom of being an indy dev. Started off with aspirations of building
my own SaaS on the side and bootstrapping with consulting, but got sucked in
by nice hourly rates and cushy lifestyle. Can’t complain too much though!
Getting the itch to do something new now, though. Trying to decide between

1\. Trying another startup as a founder or very near to it - before
freelancing I worked in a few startups, one was successful (as an employee).

2\. Re-joining corporate america to see if I can make a big impact with a
relatively high and predictable income + benefits. Eyeing health care IT as
one potential area of impact where there’s seemingly lots of opportunity and
change right now due to health care reform (and it’s a distinct area of
interest beyond coding).

------
willholloway
Location: A tiny seaside hamlet in the northeast megalopolis

Years SE Experience: 7

Next Move: Use my extensive experience in conversion optimization and web
performance optimization to increase profits for clients. This cash will fund
the next phase of my open source projects.

------
gravypod
I'm currently at college to get proof that I know how to write software.

I've been programming since I was 12, so it's fun helping my friends through
our CS classes.

My next move is to find a job... anywhere.

~~~
dozzie
It will be fun to watch all of you learn how to write software, not just bunch
of throw-away programs. But that's after you each get a job, not at
university, as university with its short semesters is not suited for learning
that.

~~~
gravypod
Trust me, I have made many of the mistakes of long-term software development
from personal projects. I've been programming, at this point, for most of my
life.

Check out my github page to see some of the spaghetti I'm responsible for:
[https://github.com/gravypod/](https://github.com/gravypod/)

I've learned my lesson, I swear.

~~~
dozzie
> Trust me, I have made many of the mistakes of long-term software development
> from personal projects.

Oh, I don't doubt it. I just think you still need to learn how to spot them
and how to avoid them.

> Check out my github page [...]

Did that before responding.

~~~
gravypod
> Oh, I don't doubt it. I just think you still need to learn how to spot them
> and how to avoid them.

No doubt about that from my end.

Also, if you have any leads on work please feel free to direct me to its
location.

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mindcrime
Location: Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

Title: Lead Consultant (Mammoth Data) / Founder/CEO (Fogbeam labs)

Years SE Experience: ~20

Next Move: (do X so that I can Y)

Continue building Fogbeam Labs so that I can eventually make that my full-time
thing, hire employees, and build a real company. As part of that, we just
started working on a new product that I'm really excited about. I don't want
to say too much about it just yet, but it's going to be a gnarly Machine
Learning / AI project.

------
dvainsencher
Location: Princeton, US

Title: ML postdoc, formerly software engineer

Years Exp: >5, depends how you count

Next move: Finding a job in industry (tech or finance in NYC or Bay area),
solving hard problems using ML, so I can wrestle with the world instead of
with reviewers, and be part of a team again.

------
MalcolmDiggs
Location: NYC

Title: Lead Engineer

Years SE Experience: ~12

Next move: Stop coding within a year. The gameplan is to lay solid technical
foundations for our MVPs, then assemble a team of devs who are better than me,
and get out of their way. I'm not going to retire by any means, I'd just like
to move to a management/executive role.

------
eecks
Location: Ireland

Title: Software Engineer

Years SE Experience: 2-3 years professionally

Next Move: I'm not too sure. I am keeping an eye on the job market to see if
anything comes along that I feel would be a great move. I'd love to start a
company but I don't think I'll do it yet.

------
thejteam
Location: Southern Maryland

Title: Computer Engineer

Years Exp: 12

Next Move: Open up a bookstore with my wife. Hope to open later this year.
With luck, it will be successful enough that I can take a stab at starting a
software business.

