
Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else? - dvrajan
What would you do?
======
david927
I currently work in a good environment where I'm appreciated and paid well.
Not many people in the world can say that, so I have a lot to be thankful for.
Programming has done good by me.

But I don't love it. Alan Kay is right, it's like building "an Egyptian
pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural
integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves". There's no
elegance and no higher vision. It's an Asperger profession; smart but artless.

I would prefer, if I could retire, to make short films and maybe to write
plays. But I can't retire yet. So I'll push stones. It pays well.

~~~
cyberferret
> It's an Asperger profession; smart but artless.

Sorry, but I would have to disagree with you on this. I've been programming
now for over 35 years, and really cannot see myself doing anything else. I
find I can channel my creativity into programming in many ways, and writing a
good piece of code gives me the same satisfaction as writing or recording
apiece of music. Yes, I am a musician too, and while they are very different,
I see a lot of similarities between them too.

ANY job can become a task of 'piling bricks via brute force and slavery' at
some point in time. Every good friend who has had a seemingly dream job has
broken down and despaired at some of the drudgery involved over a beer.

One of them does, in fact, write plays that do very well in the UK theatre
scene and he also writes TV shows that do well locally - but he often speaks
of the interminable problems dealing with promoters, agents, crew and
transport.

Another good friend tours the world as a physio with an international cricket
team. First class flights and hotels everywhere, rubbing shoulders with
celebrities. Many of us (thought we) would kill for such an opportunity, but
he says he is tired of living out of a suitcase and having to check the local
papers under the door every morning to remember which city he is in.

It is all a matter of perspective.

~~~
amelius
But at least those jobs don't have the stigma of being (in the words above)
Asperger professions. This makes it difficult to share your problems with
other people, and of course, also because people in general would, I suppose,
find the problems that musicians or theatre writers have more interesting, and
more approachable than the problems of a software developer.

Also, this makes that a musician can be a "musician" in normal life. He or she
doesn't need to change their identity. Developer culture does not blend with
the normal world, and as a developer I believe you really have to switch
between two worlds. That can be tiring.

~~~
terminalcommand
As a law student, I experience this a lot. Computers and programming were/are
my only passion and obsession. My life is dedicated to computers, but
professionally I have to be a lawyer.

I just had an interview at an IT Law Firm, and made a fool of myself. That's
why I completely agree that, we as "people who are good at computers" need to
keep seperate identities.

Because if you go full Aspergers, you make yourself vulnerable. Once people
realize you're "different", you get the "poor boy treatment" and that hurts.

PS: I am still trying to get over the interview, sorry if I don't make any
sense.

~~~
digler999
> and made a fool of myself.

Good. you got out there and made mistakes. Now you can learn from them and you
wont ever be that bad henceforth, hereunto. I made a total ass out of my self
the first few programming interviews I went to. First one, recruiter called me
(woke me up at ~10am) and I thought I'd show "initiative", I said "sure Ill be
there in 2 hours". Went totally unprepared, didn't even bring a copy of my
resume. They even lectured me about improving my interview skills.

Second one, I made the mistake of asking my potential coworker "what college
he went to", thinking anyone in an engineering profession went to college. The
manager interjected that he was 'self taught', this wasn't a total faux-pas on
my part, but it created an awkward moment where I didnt really know what to
say. I further erased any possibility of getting the job by getting too
relaxed/comfortable and blurted out that I'm really groggy in the morning
(cringe). I learned quickly, eventually got good at interviews, and ultimately
got a job at bloomberg, which is fairly difficult to get past their interiew
process.

So dont take it out on your neck, pick yourself back up and make a list of
things you can take away from your experience. you have no other direction to
go than up.

~~~
Grishnakh
>I learned quickly, eventually got good at interviews, and ultimately got a
job at bloomberg, which is fairly difficult to get past their interiew
process.

Bloomberg, where it's just one giant open noisy room? Doesn't sound like much
of a reward to me.

Personally, I wish I had never gone into programming. I wanted a profession
where I could sit in peace and quiet and work on interesting intellectual
problems on my own. Little did I know that programming would not be like that
after the year 2010. If I had known this, I would have chosen a different
profession, probably something involving medicine, since at least there's lots
of women in those workplaces.

~~~
digler999
The point of my comment was not that bloomberg was an awesome reward. I only
stayed a year, and yes it was noisy as hell. The floor sounded like a drum
when people walked on it. My point was that I went from a blundering buffoon
in an interview to passing a notoriously difficult software engineering
interview in 8 years (with a few jobs in between).

~~~
Grishnakh
Good point. Was turnover high there? Did you manage to find a place with a
better working environment?

~~~
digler999
I think turnover is pretty high there. People dont want to get locked into
BB's proprietary (or in some cases antiquated) technologies. However, there
are tons of departments, many of them are modernized, and you can really learn
a lot for your first few years out of school. If you stay and are faithful you
can go up the ranks.

I am doing fine. I went contractor, and currently in healthcare / imaging. I
dont even sweat interviews anymore :)

------
clentaminator
I think about leaving programming every day. I love programming, but I'm not
sure I enjoy software development as a career.

I enjoy coding and understanding how computer systems work, but I don't care
for the constant changes in tools and techniques in certain domains of
development. I'd rather practise with and improve my existing knowledge of a
subject, instead of constantly playing catch-up with someone else's tools and
workflow. I also don't care about waterfall, agile, scrum, kanban, scrumban or
any other development methodology that I've missed. I hate that my job has me
chained to a desk (sitting or standing) instead of being able to use my body.
All of this makes me think that real-world software development doesn't really
suit me.

I'm about six weeks into a new job after leaving a company I worked at for
just over five years. Amongst many other reasons for leaving, I thought that a
new environment would change how I felt about continuing a career in software
development, but I'm not sure that it has. I'm aware of how lucky programmers
have it, but I can't help feeling like I just want something else. Grass is
always greener, etc.

What are the career options that allow one to work mostly by oneself in one-
to-two week stretches without having to play the development workflow game
with the daily standups and so on?

Sadly I'm not sure what I'd do if not programming, but music is a big interest
and I'd considered teaching music.

tl;dr Woe is me ;)

~~~
m0nty
> without having to play the development workflow game with the daily standups
> and so on?

It never used to be like this. I think management has reacted to the traits
they _perceive_ in programmers - get distracted too easily, work on things
that don't need doing, take too long, cannot provide work-time estimates, etc
- by putting in place this micro-managing approach: "only do it if it's on the
kanban and tell us each and every day what you have done and will be doing". I
know agile, etc, weren't designed to do that, but that's what they've been
used for whenever I've been subjected to them.

Programming and dev-ops used to be fun, self-directed, creative work which
kept me interested for a couple of decades. Now the pace of change (much of it
unnecessary or over-sold) and the constant micro-management have me looking
for other things to do.

~~~
Clubber
I believe Agile (at least as thought of by management) is designed to make
programmers interchangeable. If programmers are interchangeable, they are
easily replaceable.

We just started doing "by the book" Agile with daily stand ups. Now that you
mention it, it does feel like I'm being micro managed. Put in your time every
day so we can email everyone the burn down chart. Lets add some more pressure
to the job if you are behind a day. There are no milestones, just an endless
grind. I don't know why programmers don't push back against that stuff.

~~~
meddlepal
Push back and you'll just be replaced by someone younger or more naive or
willing.

At the end of the day programmers are mostly just factory workers of the 21st
century. The best ones are perhaps closer to the mechanics of the industrial
revolution.

~~~
d0lph
Except with amazing pay, serious benefits, and better working conditions.

~~~
Grishnakh
Compared to factory workers of 50+ years ago? Certainly.

Compared to programmers 25 years ago? Absolutely not. The pay is worse
(inflation-adjusted), and the working conditions are far, far worse (see:
open-plan offices).

~~~
mikestew
_(My apologies for crappy formatting. All I wanted was a bulleted list. Wasn
't that doc'ed in the FAQ or something?)_

Let's see what I was doing 25 years ago:

    
    
        * Private office with a door that closed.
    
        * Status updates mail to $SOMEONE once a week that were mostly auto-generated from the tools we used. Took 30 seconds.
    
        * Sat down to a chunk of work uninterrupted for long periods of time because no one was micro-managing me or bugging me on Fashionable-Chat-App-of-the-Week.
    
        * Used development tools that had a half-life measured in years, not months.
    
        * Got to really, *really* know my tools because they weren't swapped out for the new hotness every six months. Man, the ways I used to abuse FoxPro bordered on criminal. I can't do that these days since the tools get swapped from under me so often.
    
        * Was paid well, and treated with professional respect. Sometimes a collared shirt was required, but I didn't mind when everyone else had to wear ties.
    
        * Was provided with good equipment, often without asking. "I have a quad-core server box with an assload of RAM for a...mikestew?" "That's me, but I didn't order it." Boss: "oh, thought you might need that for multithreaded testing." Thanks, boss!
    
        * Went in at 9:00, went home at 5:00. Every day.
    

Today:

    
    
        * Today I'm sitting in a retasked storage room because I refuse to sit at the "hotel desks" (note that I'm currently a consultant, so it's not *as* egregious. But 20 years ago, clients that wanted me on-site provided a desk or sometimes an office.) My last full-time position was in an open office plan sitting next to people that literally (and I use that word literally) spent more time talking about the fucking Seahawks than they did working.
    
        * Daily stand-ups to justify my existence.
    
        * Treated like an interchangeable line worker.
    
        * Working on the cheapest Macbook Pro that Apple would sell the client. With a 120Gb drive, I spend at least a billable hour a week trying to free up space what with Android/iOS dev environments and the multi-gig simulator images. But, hey, at least they saved $100 on the cost of the machine!

------
themodelplumber
Thought about it, and then tried it. I followed my dream and started a
creative project that had been dogging me for a long time. EVERYBODY wanted me
to do it. Family, friends, people on the street with whom I discussed it. I
expected it to be a big moneymaker. And it didn't work out. Not only that, but
it became very clear that it was a really poor fit for me on a fundamental
level.

I'm glad for the experience, though.

Going back to programming, here's what I figured out:

\- I was working on stuff I didn't enjoy, with people I didn't particularly
care about.

\- I was taking on new work projects without any particular selection
criteria.

\- I wasn't thinking about the kinds of work that got me excited about
programming and chasing it down.

So I recently nailed the first two back into place. I'm working closer to my
values system rather than paychecks. In exchange, I'm just saving more money
so I have more freedom.

Anyway, burnout is real. I thought I was done for sure and that my interest in
programming and computers was a thing of the past. But that was just the
burnout talking.

It helped to keep a journal during this time. Not a chronicle, but a thought-
dump process in which I asked if my life was actually improving daily. That
made it pretty quick to pinpoint my frustrations, as you can only write about
the same pains a few times before you start to really zoom in on the causes
and potential solutions.

Good luck to you, however it turns out.

~~~
asmosoinio
Care to elaborate on what kind of creative project? How long did you do it
until you saw that there was no money in that?

------
JaumeGreen
I left programming for dancing.

I'd been working at the same job for about ten years, and I started to work on
a different group that made the same product with a never technology. I hated
that, I found it hard to work in that and I wasn't that productive. Also I had
some burnout, some depression, and not much to look forward to...

Except for dancing. I had begun some years prior and I became somewhat good,
and I even began to teach.

Then an offer came, resign from the job for money was offered to all, I
accepted.

For about two years I just gave classes and worked as staff. Unfortunately the
money was not enough.

Then I started helping on the dance school's webpage. The money wasn't enough
yet.

So I got a programming job and resigned from most of my job in the dance
school. I just teach one hour a week.

I really lost my dream job because of money and not being good enough earn
enough to life with that.

~~~
truth_sentinell
You could save money from your programming job and fund yourself a dancing
academy. Or even better, find a way to mix the two. Never stop dreaming!

~~~
gcatalfamo
I'm sorry but dancing is definitely not one of those professions where "if you
believe you can do it".

Depending on the specific dancing style there are strict body types and
features that you need to have, and not all of them can be acquired by
training. So yeah, nature is not fair but feel-good comedies don't always
apply to real life.

~~~
JaumeGreen
You have it right.

Others have pointed to you that to dance you only need to be able to move, to
that I agree. But between dancing and have a profession out of dancing there's
a big difference.

There are lots of reason why now I can't base my income in dancing, I'm
telling them as to give a data point as to why it's not allways as easy as "if
you want you can".

First: I don't live alone anymore. Married with some obligations. My income
needs have grown, even though there are two sources of income.

Second: Physical activities require discipline, that I lack, and time, which
is now spent on my "new" job, my partner and housework.

Third: There are several possible incomes for dancing. None of them make the
cut as a great source of income. * Payed exhibition dancing is usually done by
younger and more talented people, also it's inconsistent income. Done a bit,
enough not to find it feasible. * Competitions don't pay that much, lots of
politics in there. * Teaching (which is what I love) doesn't pay much unless
you have a name, with low salary you'd need lots of classes, but names
teachers get most of them. * Staff work pays less than teaching, necessary for
the school to function, but boring.

Fourth: compatible schedules. Being with someone that lives in "the real
world" means that working 15 to 23/24 is not seeing them
(staff+classes+parties). That and money where the primary causes for my change
of career. Priorities matter.

Fifth: People tend to prefer tall, fit, young, handsome male dancers and
short, fit, young, beatiful female dancers. Each point where you diverge it's
a handicap, I have several.

So yes, I could have kept on my dream job, but I would have to leave behind
too many things that I need, like my SO, and would have to go back to living
with flatmates. All that, in my early 40's, is not what I want of my life.

"Never stop dreaming!", "if you believe you can do it" are nice phrases to
throw at people, but you can cause them to lose their grounding in reality,
where sometimes dreams have to be crushed for the greatest good.

~~~
marktangotango
In the end, you gave it a shot, you chased the dream, and have good hard
reasons why you gave it up. Be consoled with the knowledge that you tried, you
would have never known if you had not tried!

------
WalterBright
I did consider a career as a lion tamer, but the vocational guidance counselor
said I was an appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in
initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company
and irrepressibly drab and awful. So I decided to stick with programming.

~~~
kristianp
Have you considered chartered accountancy?

~~~
chkywiz
This is funny without even realising it's a Monty Python reference.

~~~
namaemuta
For anyone wondering about this particular sketch:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azkFz1ZbXyU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azkFz1ZbXyU)

------
JDiculous
Yes, I want to do something more meaningful than build and maintain web CRUD
apps. Despite the media perpetuating this notion that there's a shortage of
engineers, I actually feel that this field, particularly the web space (where
most of the actual jobs are), is starting to get really saturated. And from a
job security perspective, the barriers to entry are fairly low.

These days I'm most interested in economics and politics because I believe
that our most important problems right now are in this realm (eg. poverty, job
automation, healthcare costs, housing prices, college prices). The Javascript
framework wars are laughably insignificant compared to these problems, yet
unlike web development, there aren't enough logically-minded people really
tackling these problems. Unfortunately there's probably no job out there that
I could realistically obtain that would pay me to work on these problems, thus
I'm just saving money for retirement and learning on the side.

~~~
ljw1001
This is an economic problem at heart. If you could find a way to make
investing in, say, peace, or hunger, as tempting to investors as software we
could solve the really important problems.

~~~
tim333
I'm kind of working on that stuff. Onwards...

------
oftenwrong
Yes. I love programming, but I really dislike how inactive I must be to work
as a programmer. I don't like sitting/standing all day, and being chained to
the computer. Short activity breaks, and workouts in the morning and evening
don't cut it.

When I'm outdoors and active, I am so much happier. If I am on a multi-day
outdoor trip to hike or rock climb, I feel like a completely different person.
This is especially true on long trips that last more than a week. I have much
less stress. I smile compulsively, instead of baring my usual strained
expression. I have more energy. You might think at first that is simply
because I am on vacation and I don't have to think about work obligations, but
when I am on a normal (non-outdoor) type of vacation, I don't get the same
feeling at all. I think it has more to do with the outdoor environment and
physical activity.

I recently met someone who works as a park ranger, and I became envious of her
job. I would love to patrol the woods all day as a ranger, or to be a mail
carrier walking from house to house. I make much more money as a programmer,
but "money cannot buy happiness", and I wonder often if I should change
course.

~~~
clentaminator
I've considered both of those career switches (ranger and mail carrier) myself
for those exact reasons. Deliveroo too, as the idea of being able to cycle
around all day seems quite appealing.

------
SyneRyder
I'm mostly happy with programming, but I often think I'd like to try working
in a coffee shop, especially a Starbucks. I spend so much time in cafes as a
customer, and I really appreciate the difference that a barista's smile or
greeting can make to my day. I'm curious to experience that from the other
side for a while. I also read books about retail businesses & brands &
Starbucks & customer experience for enjoyment, but I'm sure practice is wildly
different from theory, especially at ground level dealing with customers for
long hours.

But I've never tried applying, because I have no retail experience, and my
work experience is mostly as a lone-wolf remote developer or indie developer
(also I'm middle-aged now). Always thought I'd be laughed out of the
interview. But I still think one day I'd like to try.

~~~
tantivy
Barista-turned-programmer here. I was fond of it much of the time, and it was
a good experience for me, and I think you would also like it based on what
you've written. But keep in mind what you often don't notice from the outside
is a lot of standard bullshit like mopping floors, keeping composure toward
rude customers, worrying about food-handling/health provisions, etc. And, of
many differences between the occupations, no longer being frequently treated
like I'm dumb sticks out.

Nonetheless, I say go for it. You would learn a ton and probably become the
best kind of coffee snob, one who can back it up with chops ;)

~~~
tehwalrus
I quite enjoyed working at Starbucks as a teenager, because it gave me a cool
that a nerd like me hadn't had before.

Careful about the drudge work though (especially cleaning floors/toilets at
the end of the day), and if you're not used to spending all day on your feet
you'll feel pretty sore at the end of the first few days!

------
karmajunkie
I got kind of burned out after I got laid off at the tail end of the first
dotcom implosion—I'd stayed in a really toxic environment for a couple of
years too long because things were rough for a junior/early-mid-level
developer back then, at least in my market. So I spent several months
depressed and unemployed before deciding to go back to school which ultimately
led me to preparations to go to med school.

Ironically, I took a semester off and took a contract gig for a few months to
pay off some bills and save up some cash, and that turned into a full time job
writing software in the public health sector. I never did return to finish the
undergrad, and have doubts I ever will, as my career in software has been
about as good as medicine would have been when you balance the ten extra years
of earnings against a slightly higher salary. The only reason I'd do it now
would be to pursue a masters in something interesting.

I think if I had it to do over again I'd have probably just stayed in the
market a little longer and skipped out on the student loans. I loved biology
and medicine but i'd love to not be paying off the student loans too.

------
sprocket
I graduated with a degree in CPSC in the early 2000's and worked in the field
for about 10 years before my wife and I moved to a more rural locale, bought a
small herd of dairy goats, and started making cheese. It's a very different
and difficult life, but on the whole is very rewarding.

The money will never be the same as working in tech, and you'll almost
certainly have to scale back your lifestyle expectations. I still do remote
freelance work in slower periods to keep cash-flow flowing, and to fund farm
expansion as we grow.

Here's a fun video of my non-tech lifestyle:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb0ur8cdOfY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb0ur8cdOfY)

More recently, I've been applying my past development experience to farming
automation using Raspberry Pi's. I built an automated greenhouse controller
last year and this year am working on a device to automatically mix and
dispense milk replacer for all of the goat kids we have born each year. (You
can of course purchase commercial versions of the projects, but it was a fun
application of programming, while learning about the RPi and automation, which
I'd never done before.)

~~~
digler999
random idea: why not open a hostel/retreat for programmers to come work on
your farm for weeklong increments. Free room/board in exchange for 8hrs labor.
Post videos of exactly what kind of work is awaiting them, and interviews of
people who have tried it. You get free labor on your farm, and a passive
"income" source, they get to step away from their burned-out, fluorescent-lit
cubicles and actually get to try living as a farmer. A lot of people have this
fantasy, so I suspect there would be a good-size market of people who would
love to try it.

~~~
sprocket
Honestly, I'd rather hire someone at a reasonable wage, train them, and turn
them loose without my supervision, or spend 10k and automate part of my
production, than have to supervise people. It's likely a bit different in
dairying than it would be for something like vegetable production - I don't
have lots of repetitive, low-skill tasks (sorry, vegetable farming people!)
like weeding or harvesting that I could safely unleash untrained people upon.

I have a hard enough time finding reliable paid help (and we're well above
minimum wage); managing people with even less incentive to put in a day's work
isn't that appealing. :)

------
abawany
After a particularly terrible period at a large e-commerce company that
comprised of endless and useless meetings, stupid product plans to nowhere,
psychpaths galore, brutal waste of shareholder vale, and enough process to
make Hell seem desirable, I decided that maybe I was not cut out for the
original passion of my life, i.e. development. I started to take evening
classes in accounting etc. with the aim of getting a CPA. I also left the
above corporate Hades around that time and found a situation at a quirky
startup, where I realized that software development is truly what I love,
particularly when unencumbered by process feces. Off by the wayside went the
CPA plan and I went on to learn more things in a year at that startup than I
had in many years at other places. I also realized that leaving something that
I have loved and lived since I was 13 is a little difficult and that the
things that were causing my disillusionment were not related to my passion but
to various unfortunate diseases that have come to afflict my industry.

------
pjmorris
As we were driving to lunch one Friday, another programmer and I saw a backhoe
in use, and started favorably comparing 'backhoe operator' to 'programmer':
you get to work with heavy equipment, you can see the results of your work,
when the day is done you go home and don't have to think about it. We laughed
and cringed, as backhoe operator sounded like a better job by the time we were
done.

For me, I can't do anything else. I'm sure I could learn something else, and I
certainly get burned out from time to time. However, I find the whole
development process fascinating, I still get a kick out of solving the puzzles
and making things work, I am deeply gratified to see something I made help
someone else solve one of their problems, and code is affecting more and more
of the population for better and worse. There's no place I'd rather be.

There's a scene in 'Heat' where De Niro's criminal and Pacino's cop characters
are talking about why they do what they do over a cup of coffee at a diner,
and it turns out they're both compelled and couldn't do anything but what they
do. I'm not sure what I'll do when the Butlerian jihadists or the twenty-
something Angular developers come for me, and I have to go find something else
to do, but I think I'll keep at it until then.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Wish I could remember where I saw it (reddit?) but just last week I read a
comment from a backhoe operator that said basically, "it's fun for the first
four or five hours then it's hours of tedium making sure you don't kill
someone who's stupid enough to stand in the wrong spot."

~~~
mrfusion
I'd love to create some kind of career swap service someday. Can you imagine
signing up and trying all sorts of different jobs.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Gotta say that would be cool!

------
jamez1
Left to work in equities after 5 years of software dev. I find the work much
more stimulating mentally, as you learn about the world and how business
works, not just abstractions.

Luckily there is still a lot of use from my old skill set, and I suspect there
will be more as time goes on.

~~~
jxm262
Can I ask how you got started in the field? I actually began my career in
Accounting (my undergrad is in it), and still find the world of finance pretty
interesting. Somewhere along the line I ended up in Engineering and have been
a Software Dev ever since. But I do still think about getting into trading at
some point, but not sure how to transition.

~~~
CyberFonic
How does an accountant end up in "engineering" without going back to Uni and
doing an engineering degree?

~~~
herdrick
The scare quotes are pretty condescending. How about removing them?

~~~
CyberFonic
Condescending? Please explain why you see it like that.

When you go to a doctor, you expect that they completed training and are
certified to practice medicine. It is the same for the engineering profession.
Would you want to work in a high rise building that was designed and built
some self-titled engineers who have never been appropriately trained?

~~~
jchendy
> It is the same for the engineering profession.

In some countries it is that way. I know Canada is very strict about who can
be called an engineer.

In the US, it is not that way. AFAIK, there's no legal definition of an
engineer, and anybody can call themselves an engineer.

~~~
jasonkester
That's incorrect. In the US, you take the Engineer In Training (EIT) exam when
you graduate university, then require 4 years of industry experience before
you can sit the PE (Professional Engineer) exam. If you pass that, you can
call yourself an Engineer.

But that's only for actual Engineering disciplines. We in software don't need
to take an "Engineer" test for the same reason we don't need to take a "Rock
Star" test or "Ninja" test. We use the title as a courtesy, not an indication
of qualification.

~~~
mbrock
What would you call someone who's self-taught and mentored in the typical
engineering practices (construction, repairs, engines, etc)?

Why would some national laws about certifications prevent you from referring
to such a person as an engineer?

~~~
jasonkester
For four years, my business cards read "engineering". As in, does engineering
work but cannot sign off on documents and thus is not an Engineer.

I left for software before sitting the PE, so they'd read the same were I to
return to doing Mechanical Engineering work.

But of course it's silly to stand on principal on such things, so I've never
taken offense to anybody calling themselves whatever they like. If the janitor
can be an engineer, certainly anybody else can too.

I imagine Architects feel the same way. And Cardiologists will as well, when
we start appropriating their title.

~~~
Grishnakh
You don't need a PE to call yourself an "engineer". Every working engineer
calls himself an "engineer" on his resume. What you people are forgetting is
the Industrial Exemption. Companies are allowed to call their employees
engineers and use that word in their job titles because of the exemption.

The PE thing really only applies to stuff like civil engineering projects.

------
mimming
After years of software, I discovered that my favorite part of the job was
teaching stuff to my peers.

I started by dabbling in teaching:

\- Mentored some high school robotics teams in the evenings \- Taught night
school / weekend classes as adjunct faculty at local universities \- Shifted
my day job from developer to developer advocate

And then a few months ago I took the plunge... sort of. I went on sabbatical
for a semester to teach CS 101 full time at a small university across the
country.

It's been a great experience, but it made me realize how much I miss
programming. I really miss the intellectual growth that I get from working
with professional software developers. I suspect I'll resolve the conflict by
going part time in my day job, and picking up more classes as an adjunct.

~~~
tmsam
For contrast, I went the other direction. I taught middle and high school
math, then got an MS in math (really enjoyed TAing) and started programming. I
really appreciate the intellectual stimulation; I love the fast pace with
which ideas evolve in the community. But I miss being that teacher who helped
someone "get" math.

One of the coolest experiences I've had: one of my students managed to end up
in my class for 6th, 7th and 8th grade math... Then 7 years later I hired her
as an intern! She totally crushed the internship. Meaningful relationships
with students like that, where they still check in occasionally and give me
updates on how they are doing and tell me how I changed the way they see
things... that is something I miss a lot.

~~~
paganel
For what it's worth I still think pretty often of my high-school math teacher
who helped me "get" Calculus, almost 20 years ago. I wouldn't have my current
programmer job and interest in abstract things if it weren't for him.

------
Kiro
No, I started my programming career late and have had many different jobs
before that. Programming is the only job where I don't loathe being there and
constantly watch the clock for the day to end.

I think you should experience how horrible 99% of all other jobs are. Then you
will truly appreciate what you have.

------
dbjacobs
Was a programmer and researcher in AI and security for 20 years. 15 years ago
was feeling burned out and started looking for a financial planner for my
family. I fell down the rabbit hole learning everything about the field and
with the birth of my third child 14 years ago, I quit my job and opened my own
business as a financial planner.

Programming and computer research went back to being a pure passion. And I
haven't looked back since.

~~~
shostack
How do you like it? Have a relative just starting in that field.

Is it mostly sales because you are a service based business? And how does the
fee structure work out? Better part than programming?

------
subinsebastien
I have been mostly happy with programming in my early days. I’m now 28 years
old, and been a programmer for the past 5 years. I mostly code Android apps,
and sometimes server side code in Node/ExpressJS. For the past 1-2 years, I
really want to change my career into more unique/niche fields of engineering.
Programming, as I see it now, does not need a computer science degree or any
degree at all, to do effectively. And people from other domains are getting
into programming, and doing it a lot better than I do. I considered getting
trained in Industrial Automation (PLC/SCADA/LABVIEW) and get into more mission
critical domains, where I can work with lot of other Engineering domains as
well. Another option I consider is to go for a masters in a niche engineering
field. But as I analysed my thoughts, what I really (really) want is a unique
engineering job, where the entry barrier for others is high. I don't have any
idea if I could be a success in the new field. To conclude.

    
    
      - Programming is boring after a number of years
      - Programming is more of an art-form rather than engineering
      - Entry barrier for programming is low, so you don’t have to be an engineer to do programming
      - Your programming skills plateau after a certain age
      - Your engineering mindset will be lost if continued in certain type of programming jobs.

------
dcw303
About ten years ago I took a year off to teach English in Japan. Within a
couple of months I was dying to go back to development.

Trust me, even compared to other white collar jobs, you would _not believe_
how cushy we have it.

~~~
romanovcode
Well to be honest teaching English in Japan is one of the worst careers you
can choose. Competition is super stiff and pay is super low.

I don't know what you was expecting.

~~~
dcw303
I never said career. But it pays better than other common working holiday
jobs, like bartending.

------
gandolfinmyhead
Sadly yes. It's been very frustrating at times. I thought of becoming an
environment artist for videogames instead.

Though OP hasn't asked for the following here goes, I feel the IT field has a
lot of people wanting to change career paths, more than any other field
because of the following:

1\. Programming is an art, if not done right and assuming the product is in
continuous development, will come back to bite you in the rectum like there's
no tomorrow.

2\. 99 percent of the industry is about shoving products out without any care
for proper architecture or refactoring of any sort. Result -> feature
addition/ bug fix times grow exponentially with time.

3\. The IT field has no concept of overtime pay

4\. 1 + 2 + 3 => loads of burnt out devs :-> people wanting to switch jobs
regardless of how high paying programming can be

~~~
throwanem
Points 1 and 2 can be a good thing, if you have the mental fortitude and cast-
iron gullet to specialize in cleaning up other people's messes. There's a lot
of money to be made that way. It doesn't tickle the artistic urge the same way
greenfield development often can, but that's what creative hobbies are for - I
write - and you can derive considerable satisfaction from the knowledge that
you're bringing order from chaos, and being quite well paid and appreciated
for it besides.

~~~
rfrey
This is surprising and interesting... how do companies who do not value
quality when the code is first written come to value quality later?

I'd expect a pattern where the original thrower-of-spaghetti-against-the-wall
has left, and management assumes the later devs - who can't go as fast, or get
more bugs because of the holy mess of the codebase - are just not as good as
the first guy.

~~~
throwanem
> how do companies who do not value quality when the code is first written
> come to value quality later?

Not for nothing is it said that the burned hand teaches best.

It also helps to avoid organizations where immediate management is
nontechnical - not an absolute guarantee of sensible behavior, of course, but
at the very least it's a good baseline to set. And it's hard for any manager,
especially any manager accustomed to being on the hook and under the gun for
the myriad problems with unmaintainable code, to get too upset when people
start saying things like "wow, this is amazing, this never used to work before
and now it does exactly what we need, thank you so much, you guys are
awesome!"

------
cygned
Call me crazy but I have always had this exit plan. If my business completely
fails, I'd give away my stuff and live in buddhist temples, would visit Tibet,
travel around and spend my days meditating and helping people.

Sounds like an insane idea, but as a Buddhist that would be a fulfilled life
for me.

~~~
awkward_yeti
Me too, although I don't know how to go about doing this if need be, any tips
?

~~~
cygned
I have a good five digit amount of cash prepared. That's enough to buy plane
tickets and pay drivers to get where I want.

I live in Europe and not far away from me is one of the largest European
pagodas - even the Dalai Lama has been here. I'd just go there to start my
journey. I could stay there for some time.

Actually, I think it's like it is always with the Buddhism; the plan is not to
have a plan.

------
segmondy
A bit too late, but if I could do it all over again, I would have gone into
health care. I have lot's of friend in the industry.

Ask them about their day, they just saved lives - heart surgery, brain
surgery, trauma stabilization in ER, just saw a toddler through cancer
treatment, and so on and so forth.

What did I do? Oh, I wrote code.

~~~
cloverich
I came the other way -- I quit medicine (completed Medical school then did not
do residency) for programming. I very much enjoyed the material and rigor but
the day-to-day work ultimately left me feeling extremely bored and depressed.
What I found in the field was it was incredibly bureaucratic, inefficient, and
quite frequently unprofessional feeling. Depending on the hospital, many
patients were sick because they outright didn't take care of themselves.
Surgery is _much_ less precise than you'd imagine and depressingly impersonal.
In the six week rotation I did in the pediatric ER, I saw extremely few cases
where the treatment was actually urgent and made a difference (like I can
count on one hand). I don't want to bash it too hard, because ultimately I
just wasn't a good fit for it. It has its good parts and the social perception
you get when you say "I'm a doctor" is real. But you are very much a cog and
if you ever think you want to change (and you can, if you want) -- make sure
you spend some real time shadowing the profession you think you'd go into.

~~~
digler999
I was interested in radiology after doing a contract development work for an
X-Ray manufacturer. I thought "Hey, I'm young enough, lets check out the field
and if its something that I really like, med school isnt completely out of the
question", come to find out, the one slice of medicine that seemed appealing
to me is among the top 5% of the most elite and selective practices to get
into. Really disappointed me. Like, I get it, you have to be good enough to
read films accurately so as not to kill anyone, but I disagree with the
elitism. I mean, a bus driver also has hundreds of peoples' lives in his hands
each day.

~~~
cloverich
What's going on there has a lot to do with lifestyle. Some of the most
challenging specialties (cardiovascular, neurosurgery) are understandably
selective. But others (Radiology, Dermatology) have more to do with people
wanting a good lifestyle. Those specialties which _may_ already have short
hours, then strategically limit the amount of Doctors they let in to keep the
supply low and the salaries high. Thus you get highly competitive specialties
because of short hours and high pay. So if you've ever needed a Dermatologist,
but struggled to get an appointment less than 6 months away... its not because
nobody wants to do derm. Its because they don't _let_ many doctors do it. Its
sad.

~~~
digler999
That is sad. So now the patient's $2000 MRI bill is at least partly due to
Comcast-like monopolistic practices with both the equipment owner and the rads
reading the films. And the dr's are incentivized to create their lucrative
cartel to payback their $300k student-loans, which only cost that much because
of...a cartel in medical schools (or at least certain residency specialties).
I guess I wont feel too badly when Watson takes away all the rads'/ GP jobs
(edit: GP's are good people, underpaid and overworked, I think it will be good
when Watson liberates them to pursue more rewarding practices)

------
danaliv
Constantly. I considered shepherding. (Seriously.) I spent some time on a farm
during lambing season, which is busy, and I enjoyed it. But it's incredibly
hard work, and you really have to be 100% dedicated to it. Plus I like
traveling, and it's extremely difficult to leave a flock for any appreciable
amount of time.

I've thought about teaching (programming) too. My dad is a retired professor,
and I entertain no delusions of present-day teaching careers being anything
like those of his generation. Still, there's something appealing about even
just teaching as an adjunct once I no longer really need the money.

------
Entangled
Code is clay. What you do with it can make you a Michelangelo or a bricklayer.
Sometimes it can make you good money, sometimes it becomes tedious in the
wrong job. Still if you pursue other economic means of production, code is
always a way to express your imagination, a nice hobby to have.

------
Jeaye
I'm slowly working my way toward park ranger, though I've considered
paramedic. Wood working also sounds interesting, and I'm great with my hands.
Certainly, programming is my passion; having to do it under someone else's
terms can spoil the deal though.

~~~
palerdot
> having to do it under someone else's terms can spoil the deal though

Exactly. This is my main gripe about programming. I will still be programming
at some level as I age, but I don't see myself doing programming competitively
after 35 considering the cut throat business needs of a 3rd person/entity for
whom I will be programming. My best bet is to program for my own business, and
then again money and profitability is a matter of concern and there is no
better way to know than trying it out.

------
lucaspiller
I like programming, but I don't really feel satisfied working as a programmer.
While in college I worked in a supermarket, I found that a lot more satisfying
that what I do now - I don't really know why, but I think I just like dealing
with people (although I'm quite an introvert, I can do it if my job requires).

As others have said programming is probably the lesser of all evils compared
to other jobs though. I don't think there is any other profession where I
could so easily get paid as much as I do, and work from pretty much anywhere
on the planet.

My mid-term goal is financial independence. I'm 28 and should achieve that in
the next few years (I'll probably take short-term contracts and then a big
break between rather than quitting completely). I don't really have any other
hobbies, so I'm not sure what I'll do then though. I wouldn't mind going back
to university to study physics.

------
amerkhalid
I love programming especially solving difficult problems. But sometimes I
fanatize about being a professional photographer or a writer. These 2
professions seem perfect to me. Perhaps because they provide freedom to work
from anywhere, and be creative. When I was pursing these professions semi-
seriously, almost everything around me was an inspiration or a creative idea;
movies, driving, conversations, food, advertisements, etc.

About a year ago, I started portrait photography semi-profesisonally. I really
enjoy photography but didn't enjoy the business aspect of it. And it was hard
to coordinate with clients when you have a fulltime job.

A few years ago, I got serious about fiction writing, wrote a lot but could
not write anything that I felt was good enough for anyone to see.

Now I am just focused on programming and enjoy photogrpahy when I have free
time.

------
stunthamsterio
Writing. I love writing, I've published a couple of technical manuals and I'm
currently submitting to various short story anthologies whilst working on
another (Self published) manual. Writing leaves me happy and fulfilled and
generally free of stress.

Trouble is, it does not pay the bills. I'm currently working very hard to pay
off all my debt and once that's done I'll be taking up writing full time and
leaving the tech industry behind.

~~~
luxpir
Share what you've written! Hats off to you. Can't quite make that kind of leap
myself, but trying to get a body of work made up for business and pleasure.

~~~
stunthamsterio
The two technical manuals are Puppet Reporting and Monitoring, and the DevOps
automation cookbook. I had fun writing the puppet book, but the second was for
various reasons not as fun to write. That being said, it was still more
enjoyable than my day job!

------
santaclaus
Mechanical Engineering -- I work through a different mechanics textbook once a
year, or so, for fun. I think I enjoy the theory of how the physical world
works more than the practice, which keeps me where I am. :)

~~~
akhaku
I sort of went the other direction. Went to school for mechanical engineering,
near the end of it I realized that software development was kind of fun too.
As much fun as it is to work with free body diagrams and simulate control
systems in Matlab (SimuLink), the development and iteration cycle with
physical product is a lot longer, and you end up spending months designing eg
a ball bearing. On the other hand, with software, you can get a lot further a
lot faster, and it becomes a constant cycle of near-instant gratification.

------
manoj_venkat92
I love programming and am also part of a start-up developing a cutting-edge
computer vision tech.

I have learnt a lot of concepts by learning programming that can be applied to
many real world problems as well.

I desperately want to work in Renewable energy sector like Solar, Wind.

And the best part, my idol, Elon Musky Musk has applied the concepts that we
programmers deal with in day-to-day life to producing machines that produce
machines that are currently some of the best solutions to the problems like
Global Warming, Energy storage & Electric cars manufacturing etc.

This part really gives me kicks. Even though, I think about leaving
programming may be in 10 years(I'm currently 24), but the concepts I learnt
are going to come in super-handy what ever Engineering things I'd like to do.

------
skykooler
I'd like to do something that does not involve looking at screens all the
time. As it is, I'm stuck with my one skill that's highly valued until I can
finish paying off my loans.

~~~
pimlottc
Yeah, this is a feeling I have as well. Unfortunately pretty much any
professional career involves long hours in front of a screen these days.

------
iamthepieman
Teaching. But the money difference is so ridiculous that I would have to go
back in time and make every financial decision differently for the past ten
years including having less children in order to afford it. Instead I have
taken second jobs coaching at a gym, volunteered for hour of code and other
programs at my local library and started teaching Sunday school at my church.

~~~
alphydan
If you are willing to teach and relocate a few years there are international
schools which pay 80k - $90k (Asia, Middle East, certain rich islands). Don't
underestimate how demanding it is though. I've done both and coding is a
breeze compared to teaching.

------
no_protocol
Anything involving pragmatic problem solving. Keep the mind occupied with
varied tasks and satisfied by frequently delivering solutions. Skip the
intricacies and subtleties of dealing with software.

There are so many people performing repetitive tasks who could benefit greatly
from relatively small optimizations. I would be able to directly witness the
impact of my work and make a difference on a personal level. It's hard to do
this in software because the landscape changes so quickly.

It would also be super fun to practice apprentice-style learning in multiple
fields and document/share everything.

------
mindcrime
A few years ago, I briefly considered going back to school, getting a degree
in Exercise & Sports Science, and getting into athletic training. But in the
end, I could never quite convince myself to do it, and the moment passed. I
also flirted with the idea of becoming a private detective a couple of times
in my life. I actually still find that idea somewhat interesting, but I doubt
I'd ever make the money doing that, that I make in software. And here in NC
the training requirements to become licensed are somewhat onerous, so I doubt
I'll ever pursue it.

~~~
CyberFonic
Private investigators with a good grasp of IT are very rare and white collar
crimes, etc are rife. As for the training, much of it is common sense and not
above the levels required to get a degree in any other field.

~~~
mindcrime
_as for the training, much of it is common sense and not above the levels
required to get a degree in any other field_

Arguably true, but at my age, it's more effort than I'd be willing to put in
at this point. Had I done it when I was younger, it might have been a good
thing, but I think the time for that has passed.

Of course I could always move to a state that doesn't even require a license
to be a PI. There are a couple of them out there.

------
stevekemp
In moments of madness I've considered both locksmithing and plumbing. Both are
jobs that cannot be outsourced, and which SEO can be useful for.

That said I'm a sysadmin rather than a programmer, and I have no immediate
plans to change.

One thing I would not do is become a photographer; that's my hobby (well that
and rock-climbing / gyming), and I've seen too many people be burned by trying
to become professionals. I charge money to shoot old ladies, hookers, and
pets. But having to make a living from it would change how I viewed the
subject and not in a good way.

~~~
shostack
Somehow I feel like locksmithing and plumbing are metaphors for aspects of
programming.

BTW, photography is a great hobby, but doing it for a living entails very
different skills, mostly of the sales and marketing variety.

~~~
stevekemp
Indeed that's exactly why I'd not want to do it full-time!

I do it frequently enough to make me happy, and I'm lucky enough to get paid
for it, in my small niches. But I've no interest in the rest of the stuff that
I'd have to do if I needed to fund my life (rather just fund new camera-
toys/lighting gear every month or two.)

------
uniclaude
I believe a lot of us here on HN would consider leaving programming for doing
business. A lot (including myself) already did.

Programming being very often about solving business needs, sometime in your
career, you might be in a position to realize that it could make sense to go
higher up the chain and build a company.

~~~
dvrajan
Indeed. Having started a business yourself. What do you think programmers
should learn/know before make this feat.

~~~
uniclaude
IMHO, that will depend on the type of business, but getting basic
understanding of sales (like, actual deal closing), marketing, and hiring are
crucial no matter what.

Even if you plan to bring co-founders on board, understanding the basics of
what they do goes a long way establishing trust.

Another thing, which is not a skill, is to understand that techcrunch is not a
fair representation of the tech world (& neither is HN), and that building a
business is not about making the frontpage, it is about bringing solutions to
problems so painful that people are willing to pay you for it.

------
gnclmorais
Every day. I’m a bit jealous of all my friends with professions that don’t
require any of their free time. They can have all kinds of hobbies and spend
their free time doing whatever they want.

~~~
HelloYouPerson
Seriously, change company.

------
j1vms
Want to know really the _only_ thing all of us have in common today? We're all
alive. Think about it. Tomorrow for at least one or more of us, that may not
be the case.

Despite many great comments from those in the profession or not, go with your
gut instinct. When you get to the point where you are thinking of leaving what
you do for something else, it doesn't matter whether or not other people got
to the same point.

Trust your gut and go with it. Usually, it knows what's best for you.

------
nathanvanfleet
I always wanted to make films. Probably specifically small documentaries about
people and sub cultures. But I never really saw that as a profession or much
of an option. And ultimately I never really put a tonne of effort into it. I
had talked to a few people who I thought were interesting subjects, but they
backed out and I realized I didn't have the skills to try and rope them in and
get them to do it (in a nice way). Maybe it's just because I don't have very
many friends in that field that would support me.

On top of that I think I'd like to own a cafe or roast coffee or something.

But ultimately I got into development work because I was so motivated that the
time it took to build experience on my own came easy. And doing the work day
in and day out comes _pretty_ easy as well.

Though of course sometimes your interest wanes a little. But I know that it's
a lot more satisfying than any job I've ever had. And I haven't thought much
about others that I hear about.

In addition to that I just honestly don't think I'd make as much money
anywhere else. So as long as I'm into it and it's the best place to make
money, I don't see why I wouldn't keep at it.

I just hope I can try to do my other interests in my off time, which over time
has become a lot harder than it felt previously.

------
wanda
I love programming. Even if I still had to use Perl I still wouldn't give it
up.

Admittedly that's because I _like_ Perl, but I also freely admit I'm more
productive with full-stack JavaScript.

That said, I wouldn't mind writing about programming, but I can't afford to
stop my day job.

I'd love to write an ebook on JavaScript, a spiritual successor to Marijn
Haverbeke's _Eloquent JavaScript_ but using ES6/ES7.

Maybe also a book effectively about making your own JavaScript framework —
beginning as a way to build a simple website or MVP without jumping on a
framework bandwagon. The book would later develop into a cautionary tale,
warning against reinventing existing frameworks like Angular or Ember. All
culminating in a sober recommendation to choose vanilla JavaScript and direct
DOM manipulation for simple websites and MVPs; later upgrading to React and
Redux for a large-scale, client-side applications, esp. if a team is involved.

I'd also like to write an ebook about CSS and how to use it effectively — not
as in "pure CSS solution to problem _x_ which is actually in JavaScript's
domain" rather "CSS doesn't work like that, it works like this, see?"

Maybe also a series of primers: CORS, React, ES6, CSS, 60fps animation/UI on
the web, web accessibility...

~~~
weavie
> That said, I wouldn't mind writing about programming, but I can't afford to
> stop my day job.

What's stopping you getting started in your spare time? Even an hour a day in
the evenings will add up.

You have a lot of good ideas, but they aren't going to write themselves! :-)

~~~
wanda
I'm married. What spare time I do have is inevitably eroded by wanting to
spend time with my partner. What remains is not easily used for writing a
coherent book.

------
tobz
I've thought about going back to school to get a Mechanical Engineering
degree, or Chemical Engineering degree.

I grew up with my father being a machinist, and eventually going on to being a
QA specialist for a large defense contractor, so I've be lucky enough to be
able to learn a lot when it comes to machining and designing. Spitting out a
3D design from a printer is really cool, but nothing beats slapping a chunk of
steel into a Bridgeport and ending up with a precisely-milled widget.

My wife is also an engineer at one of the largest (probably largest) physical
testing companies in the world, and got her Chemical Engineering degree as
well. There's constantly stuff she's telling me about, problems at work,
custom things she's doing, and we get pretty deep into conversation sometimes
about how to best solve the problems.

The money just isn't there compared to being a software engineer, but like a
lot of people have said in this thread, maybe this is just a "grass is
greener" thing: these problems that I can't work on just seem that more
tantalizing than being the person who is actually dealing with a backlog of
them. Vacationing in other people's jobs is fun and easy, and ignores actually
being that employee.

------
clarry
I've had programming as a lifelong hobby, and in my teens I thought it'd be my
profession. But then I realized I don't really care for what the industry is
doing, figured I'd have a very hard time finding a software job I'd like.. so
I went on to pick up a new skill. I became a machinist. In hindsight, I regret
it, because most machining jobs are too simplistic and repetitive to satisfy
my intellectual curiosity (simply doing the same thing over and over again
fast and making few mistakes matters more) and the good ones are hard to get
into. So now I'm looking to get into software, where even the average job will
probably suck less for me.

Problem is it's hard to sell myself to an employer with no degree, no job
experience, no portfolio of projects done using the fashionable tech that is
in high demand (and which I have no personal interest in). At this point I'm
at a crossroads, but the best way forward seems to be to start building my own
business. Of course, there are plenty of unknown intersections ahead in going
that route, and I have no prior experience from running a business, so where I
end up is one big question mark.

~~~
nogbit
What exactly are you programming then? There must be something somewhere using
the domain and language that you know.

------
Tiktaalik
I definitely have. I enjoy programming and I think I'm pretty good at my job,
but I can't help but think that maybe there's something out there.

A lot of my most compelling business ideas I've ever come up with haven't been
apps or anything I could start programming right away, but rather have been
totally different brick and mortar retail businesses. Opening a retail
business is something I've thought about doing for a while, but I looked into
some of the details and was somewhat turned off by the extremely high startup
costs. I simply wouldn't be able to afford it without some partners.

One of my largest interests nowadays isn't software, but rather cities and
urban planning. The idea of designing city features that would have a real,
dramatic impact on people's every day lives is really compelling to me. I've
thought about taking a break from software and working in this area, but at
this point I really don't know if going back to school for this stuff is worth
it at all. It's unfortunate that I hadn't discovered I was so interested in
this topic when I was in highschool or early university.

~~~
Synroc
I feel the same pull towards cities and urban planning. I've been thinking
about how best to combine programming, data analysis and urban planning, but
apart from data visualization of city data, it's quite difficult without being
actually involved with the local government.

I've thought about potentially starting a consultancy for cities, in which I
could work with cities, by analyzing their data for insights and future
projects.

------
dotdi
I am in a similar position as david927, working in a good environment, good
colleagues, good pay.

I actually have a degree in molecular biology and have transitioned to
computer science and an engineering degree, which I think was the right choice
for me. I thoroughly enjoy being an engineer but lately I can't help but being
drawn towards the arts - music in my case. I have been eye-balling a music
academy that offers a state accredited professional guitar degree. According
to their information material, their alums are quite sought after because of
the hands-on approach, studio skills, etc. I looked at the requirements for
admission and I am pretty sure I can get admitted with some preparation,
having played on and off for quite a few years now.

The catch here is that music industry is __actual shit __to work in, as I have
heard on multiple occasions. And I cannot afford making less than a certain
amount of $$ because I have to /want to provide for my wife and two kids.

On the other hand I started having the (completely irrational) fear of being a
complete failure if I don't become a professional guitarist.

------
tixocloud
I started off as a software engineer for 2 years but began to explore the
business side of things. I moved into designing/building systems for business
analysis (i.e. data warehousing, reporting, analytics, etc.), did strategy
consulting for insurance and financial services as well as studied for my MBA.
I'm now in charge of leading the analytics initiatives for our credit card
business.

I'm still in touch with my programming side through my side projects but the
experience I gained through my software development years have been extremely
helpful both in dealing with business & technical audiences as well as in
solving problems logically.

The main point is that the programming skills you've learned can be useful in
another setting. Starting off as a programmer doesn't mean that you will have
to do it for the rest of your life. You have many different choices and it's
up to you to shape your career the way you want it.

------
wkoszek
It's interesting how many of you guys have other interests, but stick to
programming since it solves a paycheck problem.

~~~
cycomachead
On the whole, I think a lot of us really do enjoy coding and it's hard to
overestimate how freeing financial security is. It's that security that
enables other hobbies, too.

I personally enjoy having at least some interests (mainly coffee and
photography) that I can pursue without having to worry about costs. If I ever
leave programming, I'd probably take one of those up, but I'm afraid the
financial support requirements would diminish my enjoyment some. (Sometimes, I
want to work on side projects but after programming for 40 hours a week,
enough is enough...)

I am though considering opening a coffee cart -- but not to make money.
Opening a coffee cart sounds fun precisely because I wouldn't need to worry
about profitability and I could just focus on providing something tasty and
meeting people.

~~~
wkoszek
Your coffee idea, I'm scared to admit, might be both a good business and fun
project. Good coffee place across the street is next to my company. They have
decent donuts. I go and spend $3.65 there, most of the working days. This is
basically like getting $70/mo subscription service--the thing, the most of
SaaS startups would kill for. And I now it's not wise monetarily, but I still
go there.

------
fastcars
I hate programming as a job. Spending all day sitting at a computer with
little human interaction outside of the person next to me and having to
concentrate for hours on hard problems is really bad for my mental health.
Most programmers seem to either burn out, or spend their day trying to avoid
programming by going to meetings and so on.

There is also an extreme amount of micromanagement at my current job. I just
get very specific issues and then resolve them. There is no autonomy. The
project manager just sees me as a typewriter for his novel.

Jobs where I have been physically active and interacted with a bunch of
different people that I don't work with have been much better in terms of my
mental and physical health.

I am thinking of dropping down to part-time as I could manage 4 hours per day
of programming, and maybe getting a physical job as the other 4 hours.

~~~
VLM
My father never really retired, he just took longer breaks between shorter
jobs. In between he toured national parks.

Obviously for financial/economic system reasons this isn't open to people
anymore, think of the cost of medical insurance or cost of real estate, it was
much easier to be independently wealthy in the 80s/90s (for a small enough
value of wealthy of course). But something similar could probably still be
arranged today, somehow.

Another thing to think about is not all programming jobs are excruciatingly
boring. Boring jobs should pay a substantial premium to be staffed such that
you can afford mental health vacations each weekend of arbitrary expense, to
recover.

Also in my starving student days I worked some physical labor jobs that were
as excruciatingly boring as your description implies for programming. You feel
physically better and more energized if you move more, but you'll be just as
mentally bored.

------
JshWright
I'm a part-time paramedic. I'd go full time in a heartbeat if it paid well
enough to feed my family...

------
niclupien
First time I quit programming, burned out, went working on a friend's farm.
After some times, I felt much more valuable helping them with
computers/website/payment processing problems. Didn't took long, I was back in
programming.

Second time, I took some time to execute on a non profit to help our local
community. Being good with data really help organizing event people really
liked so I tried to spin that into a startup and failed. Like other commenters
said, I was doing stuff I didn't really like.

I'm back to programming but I'm really glad I tried different things. Not
everything was a failure, I eat fresh organic food from my friend's farm and I
have an impact on my local community.

------
biztos
I enjoy programming, and I count myself lucky to have a good, well-paying job
in an industry that is unlikely to run out of work for the likes of me.

However, I originally set out to become a visual artist. While I doubt I'd be
able to pull that off as a career now, I would still much prefer to be doing
something in that world rather than instructing machines for the Man. I often
think about "transitioning" but so far I haven't found a path (you pretty much
have to self-finance), and remain an "artist with a day career."

If anybody is seriously thinking about another profession, and is under 30, I
strongly encourage you to give it a shot. It gets exponentially harder once
you pass 40.

------
aiokos
Writing, honestly. I get absorbed into stringing words into entire worlds,
complete with flowery descriptions and characters of my choosing. I find that
I can write anywhere, be it on laptop or paper, so it affords me more movement
than programming.

It's not that I want something more creative than programming, I consider
programming to be equal parts art and skill. I want something more flexible,
not tied to a company that requires me to work in ways that I don't find
productive (looking at you stand ups). However, for now I'll be following the
money and writing on the side, although it does get draining to split most of
my day's effort into two creative professions.

~~~
wkoszek
I like to write too, but most of non-fiction authors don't really make $$$.

------
jimcsharp
Every day of my working life. I am not sure that's not just my depression
talking though - maybe I won't be happy in any job.

------
mgarfias
If I could earn what I do building things with my hands, I would do It in a
heartbeat

------
ninjaroar
Yes. My goal is to reach $10 million net worth (so I am no longer dependant on
income to survive - yes, I can live more cheaply, but my favorite cities
happen to be the most expensive).

Then, I would retire from the industry and focus on doing computer generated
art and sculpture.

That would let me stay in software, but let me be creative (I don't want
'creatives' to design thing, as if they were a different species - I'm
creative myself!). No scrums (aka micromanagement), no testing, no
bureaucratic processes or anything like that - I would just spend all my time
creating.

~~~
jyriand
$10 million sound a lot to me. How do you plan to reach you goal if you don't
mind me asking?

------
iends
I think about law school or an MBA at least once a week.

The opportunity cost is extremely high though. It's pretty hard leaving six
figures of income in a low cost of living (and the grass is always greener I'm
sure).

~~~
ryandrake
Did the MBA thing, didn't manage to land an MBA job so I'm back in tech, six
figures poorer. It's not a slam dunk by any means, and yes the opportunity
cost stings as much as the sticker price.

~~~
wkoszek
Which MBA program did you do?

------
Delmania
I think about this a lot. I truly enjoy coding, it's definitely a fun
activity. What I don't enjoy the most is the belief that your work experience
is secondary. If you can't pass a coding interview, you don't have an active
Github account, and you don't blog regularly, some companies won't take a
second look at you, even if you have a proven record of success. I personally
admire what jwz did, turning his technically skills into something that
supported a venue he really enjoys (DNAPizza and DNALounge).

------
jitix
Back home in India I used to work for one of the big IT services company in a
support/maintenance project. Due to the bureaucracy, lack of innovation and
the general self-righteous attitude at the company I used to think that all
software development jobs are like that. I wanted to get out of the entire
industry once my two year bonded term was over.

Once I left and ended up joining a small startup, I then realized that all
programming jobs aren't like that and working on even enterprise software can
be fun. Never looked back.

~~~
bjornlouser
"I wanted to get out of the entire industry once my two year bonded term was
over."

Can you give any details about the terms of the contract you signed? IT in
India is not 'at-will'?

------
geekster777
Yes! I'm graduating school in a month, and I've already considered this. I
have a couple years of prior industry experience, though. I love the
challenges, but I ultimately feel unfulfilled by writing code. It's something
I can do happily for five, maybe ten years, but not for thirty-five.

So recently I've been planning to fund a creative life by saving like a
college kid for a decade. The prospect's actually led to a heavy side interest
into finance. There are tons of resources on early retirement and financial
independence floating around, as well as other ways to create passive income.
Based on my starting salary, I'll likely be able to supplement a new career
within a decade.

As for what I would do, I'm looking into making music, writing books, and
chemistry. Been keeping a journal of book ideas for a few months - challenged
myself to write a new one every day - so that I can choose the best ones to
practice writing once I get some downtime. I've been playing guitar for over
ten years, and I love the production of music. It would likely be
recreational, but I want the ability to produce professional quality songs.
And chemistry is the moon I shoot for. It's what I've enjoyed learning most in
school, so learning and understanding as much of it as I can will bring me
great satisfaction.

~~~
oriel
I recently flipped off my code-as-hobby switch and went into writing myself.
It was a gradual thing, but after a few months of dumping ideas I moved to
writing prompts (like those in /r/writingprompts). I challenged myself to
write one a week. then two. Now I find myself participating in NaNoWriMo,
which appeared out of nowhere, and the writing comes almost naturally.

Best lesson I've take from it is to push through and finish something,
starting with smaller bites (blurbs, then stories, then books :)

------
brighteyes
If I could make a good living off my music, I'd seriously consider it. But
that's unlikely.

~~~
julioneander
I'm on the same boat. Music is my main passion, IT is my second passion.

I simply had to start working with IT. My parents were unemployed at the time
and things were rough. My first job offered good pay and allowed us to survive
the storm.

After my parents got re-employed, I continued working and advanced my career.
With the money I bought a car (my other passion), built a home studio, and now
I'm rebuilding the whole house.

I guess I became too attached to having financial security and the nice things
it brings.

But I don't plan on letting my main passion die, I still have a rehearsal
scheduled today after work!

------
Unbeliever69
I came from the complete opposite direction. I actually learned programming in
BASIC on an Apple II computer in a community education course at my local
middle school back in 1980. Programming was a big part of my life for the next
5-10 years, until I fell into other career and education opportunities. It
went something like this...

Drafter --> Teacher --> Education in Industrial Design --> Ux Designer -->
Teacher --> Ux Designer --> Programmer.

During this timeline of about 30 years I never stopped programming as a hobby.
I HATED the politics of teaching (which I did for nearly 20 years) but it paid
the bills. Ux...well, everywhere I designed, I felt expendable and, like
education, it was highly political. For many decades I felt like there was a
big hole in my life. I wasn't happy. Then...I decided "F it!" and dropped it
all to pursue programming as a career. While it hasn't been bliss, I am much
happier. I am not inclined to slave away as a hired gun. Programming has been
a way to express my ideas in a way that I was never able before. At 47 years
old I feel like I'm preparing for a trip to the base camp at Mt. Everest. I
figure that by time I hit the summit I'll be ready to retire, but I WILL
retire on such a high note. Maybe I'll die on the summit :)

------
manyxcxi
If I could make a much money as I do now, I still don't think I'd choose
something else. If I did it would probably be, in order:

\- Robotics (more on the hardware side)

\- Woodworking

\- Custom motorcycle/classic car building and restoration

The common theme for me is the creative problem solving, building things in
general, and attention to detail/craftsmanship specifically that maintain my
attention. As it is those are all hobbies of mine, so I still get to dabble
while making a good living doing another thing I really love.

------
bbarn
Like some dozen others here, if it weren't for the money.. sure, I'd run a
bike shop, with a frame building shop in the back room.

As careers go though, what we do is interesting, ever changing, and an
exercise in learning almost every day. Oh, and the pay kicks ass. So, yeah,
I've thought it. Lots of us think it all the time, but really, we've got a
great job, so while the grass may be greener over there, it's pretty green
here too.

~~~
dvrajan
I agree. The grass is pretty damn green here. I think programming has taught
us to think and solve problems. I cant wait to see a world where programmers
apply their problem solving skills in other domains and make great leaps.

------
JeanSebTr
I did not stop programming but I got a dramatically different job of what I
had before. You didn't say why you're curious for that question, that might be
like me simply for the need to change.

Even with a gratifying job full of technical challenges, I feared I was
becoming a 9to5 zombie. So, I got a new job a few weeks ago. I joined a non
profit offering free WiFi in the city as the one man army tech guy. Instead of
just software/web/mobile development, I also have kind of managerial type of
responsibility and more public relation to do. It's something like a safe
steady job with nearly startup mindset.

There's still a bit of programming involved, but it's so different from what I
know that it's a real professional challenge. And for that I had to accept a
big salary downgrade.

It really depends on what's your motivation. Is it salary, challenges that go
in pair with your personal growth or simply working in a different context /
mindset?

That may be the tasks you do that aren't fulfilling? For some people, manual
work is really gratifying. Last week I was setting new cables in a patch
panel; there's nothing challenging about it but it's simple and you can be
proud of a cleanly done job.

------
baccheion
Not really, but it could easily be the case that most programming jobs suck.
That is, it was clear to me from a young age that programming was my favorite
thing to do, but the mundane, backward, pointless, political, and/or stupid
nature of most jobs can make things unbearable.

My solution was to eventually either become a consultant/freelancer, or create
my own startup. When I then realized that a tech lead (Staff Software
Engineer) spends about as much time doing manager-related tasks as they do
developing software, and that a Senior Staff Software Engineer or Principal
Engineer is essentially a manager (almost no coding), I knew my days dealing
with corporate world BS were numbered.

My plan didn't really fall into place, as I became a Targeted Individual
(likely at the hand of one of the idiots managers I had to deal with) 2-3
years after graduating from college. That BS left me sitting in this room for
the last 5-6 years being harassed all day long.

After a few years of the torture, I was pretty much done working, as I was now
unemployed for too long a period of time, my intelligence and reasoning
ability were waning away, and the harassing/intrusive thoughts were still
present and were still getting in the way.

~~~
NobleLie
Would you mind explaining what you mean by targeted individual? Did you do
something to attract someones attention in a really negative way? How did this
come about through programming?

~~~
baccheion
[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=targeted+indi...](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=targeted+individual&defid=8477443)

Most end up saying I have some sort mental illness (Paranoid Schizophrenia,
usually) and am imagining everything.

I'm not sure what was the cause of me being in this situation, but I had to
deal with enough idiots and idiot managers along the way that I'm not entirely
surprised.

Based on information available online, it seems TIs are usually
whistleblowers, activists, minorities, LGBT, women, and/or people with good
morals. They are also usually smart. That is, it seems to be something done to
people out of jealousy/envy, or because they seemed like a threat.

At the end of the day I'm not sure what started it all, but I strongly suspect
it was the idiot manager I had while at my first job out of school (the place
was rated one of the 50 worst companies to work for by Glassdoor).

The puzzling thing was that the workplace harassment portion continued at the
next job. I don't know how anyone would be dumb enough to keep it going like
that.

~~~
digler999
> the workplace harassment portion continued at the next job

Occam's razor: Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions
should be selected.

------
robynsmith
I'm a huge fan of this essay:

Don't Call Yourself A Programmer, And Other Career Advice | Kalzumeus Software
---> [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-
pro...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/)

I prefer not to call myself a programmer, although it's a decent way of
describing what I do.

I create [value] and solve problems. I used to this by fixing hard datacenter
problems as an IT/Ops person, and now I do it as a Full Stack Web Developer.
The creating things / solving problems mindset is what is really important to
me. Programming is just one interesting "medium" to do this in.

I could see myself creating things and solving problems in other profession.
One that I thought heavily about is medicine, law, and writing. I think there
are many possible places you can do this in life - it's just a matter of
picking a medium you enjoy.

If you need to work on something else, then you can always pick it up as a
side project or hobby. I used to find philosophy fascinating. I spent probably
a decade of my life reading it as a hobby. Part of me wanted to go back to
school or somehow figure out a way to learn it/do it professionally...but I
honestly got what I needed out of the hobby. Now I've moved onto other things.

ANYWAY.

If programming made me miserable, I'd consider getting a second degree in
psychology and perhaps doing a ph.d eventually. Or maybe go into management.
Or maybe go into medicine. Go with the flow or something.

------
20years
Yes and did to some degree when I left a captive software dev position and
started my own business. Still involves lots of programming but mixed with a
ton of other things.

I sometimes day dream though about doing something outside of software such as
landscaping or remodeling houses. Something I can do away from the screen &
keyboard. Something that still involves creating and being able to see the end
results of your creation.

------
rurban
I did it a couple of times and always came back.

I started as programmer in school, but decided you don't need to study it.
It's easier to learn it by your own. Then I became architect, but mostly
automated my problems and solutions. After architecture became tiring, without
enough pay, I went to more engineering jobs.

Survey, civil engineering, city planning and finally stage design and film.
This was all fun and got well paid, but I ended up as director of SW
development soon after. After this was not fun anymore I went into hard core
engineering, Formula 1 HW/SW simulation and support, but in the end I did more
SW development than HW support. HW is always tricky and unreliable. SW is much
more logical and reliable, much easier to analyze. And you are not that
dependent on others. In SW it's easy to solve everything by yourself on 10x
less time than waiting a year for someone else to approve something or until
this piece is replaced.

So I went to full time SW work again, even if I still do work a lot on movies
also. This is just for fun, helping out, going to festivals and such.

------
danso
I went into college for computer engineering but immediately double-majored in
journalism (my first love in school) and didn't even bother looking for an
engineering job after graduation (though I did fail a Microsoft interview).

Today I do both but I'm _extremely_ thankful I stuck with programming. Not
just as a useful job skill but as a different, powerful way to see the world.

------
kidmenot
I thought about it so many times I lost count.

My dream is writing for a living, and I'm currently writing the first draft of
a novel. I'm about 1/5 of the way there, began a couple of weeks ago. I've
tried a few other times, but couldn't get past the first few chapters. I'm now
at 18k words and going strong, I hope this will be the one.

------
rmathew
Jamie Zawinski[0] gave up professional programming[1] to manage a lounge[2].

0\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski)

1\. www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.html

2\. www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/1998-1999.html

Edit: jwz hates HN; made the links non-clickable. Thanks @Jtsummers.

~~~
Jtsummers
Be aware, jwz.org used to (accidentally verified a month ago) have a rather
NSFW image that it would redirect you to if you were linked to the site from
HN. Copy/paste that link, don't click on it.

------
benjismith
I always wanted to be a full-time fiction author.

Eventually, a few years ago, I started a company to make software for fiction
authors.

Best of both worlds!

------
magpiefabric
The thought flashes by every now and then. I haven't been doing this for very
long (~2 years professionally) but I've already started to see little glimpses
of burnout on the horizon and plan on working in a proper break from work at
some point.

I can't say for definite what I'd do. Music's always been a side passion and
I'm attracted to the idea of getting back into music production. I studied it
briefly back in college (UK, so I guess high school?) but I don't think my
heart was really in anything back then so I let it slip through my fingers.
For some reason I also sometimes get these day dreams of working in a market
food stand. I can't see how i'd enjoy it considering how disdainful I was of
my youth working in retail, but cooking is another little passion of mine so
maybe i'd dig it, even if it felt a bit like an step down.

------
rifung
Yes and I still do. Nowadays I mainly just want to do research in
Math/Theoretical Computer Science, but before I also considered becoming a
chef or piano teacher.

I should have realized it back then but I enjoyed CS in college much more than
software engineering in industry and I miss the difficulty and rigor of the
problems.

------
hermitcrab
No. I have been programming professionally for the last 30 years and I still
enjoy it. I did get a bit fed of working for other people though. So I set up
as an independent, selling my own software products
([http://www.perfecttableplan.com](http://www.perfecttableplan.com) and
[http://www.hyperplan.com](http://www.hyperplan.com)) 11 years ago and never
looked back. It was financially hard for the first 12 months, but now it pays
better than I ever did in a permanent job. I probably spend about half my time
programming now and the rest doing marketing and support. I don't have any
meetings and no management BS. The biggest downside is having to take a laptop
on holiday. But that seems a small price to pay for the freedom and lifestyle.

------
mellett68
I think about it often, but I assume it's some kind of burnout. None of my
hobbies would translate into even my current pay level.

There's that nagging idea of the 'real programmer' who is getting paid big
money to solve interesting problems. Almost certainly a myth but still a
frustrating idea.

~~~
biztos
Depending on what you think big money is, and what problems you find
interesting, I'd say that's probably not a myth.

If that's what you aspire to I suggest getting involved in solving interesting
problems -- there are a lot of them in the open-source world too -- and once
you have a reputation in the interesting-problem world you stand a pretty good
chance of getting offers from the big-money people.

------
porker
I did [0], but after that I reassessed, relaxed, decided not to push so
hard... and raised my rates.

It's a job, and like any job it sucks (hugely) at times. It also provides
money to keep my family, and I get to work on interesting, brain-teasing
problems (sometimes! Damn web development).

Frankly, I'm not good at thinking what I'd do until I'm doing it. If I did
something else it'd be one of:

    
    
        Research scientist
        University lecturer
        R&D
        Psychologist
        Photographer
    

I already had the option of a career as a photographer (back before the market
tanked, which I saw coming) and classical musician. I'm (mostly) glad I chose
neither.

0\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10169937](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10169937)

------
gressquel
Yes, Yes and yes! I consider myself a quicklearner. I am 28, been working as
.NET consultant but know the other languages such as javascript/node, php,
swift, java. Paid well, but I cant help feeling like I was meant to do
something else. I wish I could use my brain capacity to help other people.
UNICEF, UN or other NGO. I believe technology can have massive impact on
countries which lags behind the "western" standards. I wish I could be part of
a program to help out people with the use of technology. This feeling is so
intense, I wouldnt be surprised if I quit my job tomorrow. I am not scared of
leaving my country (Norway) if there was a great opportunity to work abroad.

Dont really know where to start when it comes to tech + UN. If someone knows
please give me a pointer to start.

~~~
dasboth
Just the other day I saw a data analyst position at UNICEF. Probably not the
job you're after, just wanted to let you know those jobs are out there!

~~~
gressquel
thanks, will try to find it.

~~~
dasboth
I think it was this one: [https://jobs.theguardian.com/job/6407065/senior-
data-analyst...](https://jobs.theguardian.com/job/6407065/senior-data-
analyst/)

------
mataug
I've considered it a couple of times. Being a chef or someone researching
climate change are the two things that I've considered. I have no background
in either (I can cook up a decent meal but nothing impressive) and the thought
of having to start from scratch bothers me a lot.

~~~
piotrjurkiewicz
> someone researching climate change are the two things that I've considered.
> I have no background in either

Don't worry. In case of so-called 'climate science' the most important is
whether your results are 'in line with', your background and the way you
obtained these results are secondary.

------
skypanther
I almost did. I earned my black belt in karate and was teaching a few classes
per week. I had frequent conversations with my sensei about working full time
for him or starting a dojo of my own. We had a location picked out and
everything.

Martial arts can be incredibly fulfilling. I got to help people improve their
physical and mental fitness, gain confidence, overcome anxieties and fears.
There were constant opportunities for fun, new friendships, and doing good in
the community. Plus it was really cool knowing I could do some of those Bruce
Lee / Chuck Norris moves I'd see in the movies.

At the time, I was the sole income for our family (wife & 3 kids). The income
possibilities were just not there. We could not have made it work financially.
Now, I'm an old out of shape desk jockey.

------
nickelbagz
If I had the money I'd stop being a coder, but still use a computer for music
composition and production. I'd play the piano and also write about
social/political/historical things. I had this luxury once a while ago, and am
now working hard again to get back there!

------
dver23
I took a year off in my 20's for spiritual pursuits and volunteer work. Best
thing I ever did, it wasn't well planned and on a shoestring. If I could do
over I would have done the finances differently. I cam back to software, but
with a much different outlook and world view.

~~~
dvrajan
Interesting, could you share how your views have changed after this experience
please?

------
SFJulie
I had a lot of fun being a mover: just be at embauche at 7:00am, no BS
required, no love of the job, being outside, seeing awesome landscapes ...
being tired at the end of the day, with your job let behind and able to enjoy
a simple life.

It was a simple life, but fun. And now season is over. So I look for a job in
the IT.

It really changed my life.

I also learned doing bread, alcohol (wines and ciders), playing more music,
and did some gardening, illegal picking of (common) plants in the wild ...
brawling (movers are no angels) and winning. I grew a spine and a pair of
balls.

Don't be scared, life out of programming is quite awesome.

In fact, life is amazing as long you don't feel like in a jail that sometimes
is only in your head. I now live with my true colours ; I love to be dirty,
mean and sweaty.

Raaah. It feels good to finally be yourself.

------
Radeo
After master and 3 years experience I was a trader in a prop firm for one
year. And this was...

Best experience in my life, I have learned a lot about myself and that world
outside pure IT can be even more astonishing and challenging. Psychological
leap I would say, advancing to new level. Despite my friends who couldn't
understand with I sacrificed my top salary (yeah, I had it best among my
programming friends).

Though I failed (yeah, can admit that proudly, because I tried) and I am back
in my profession, with even higher salary then before 1-year challenge I got
much better perspective now. I try to widen my horizons more often and in
different ways. Oh, and after few months break aiming to jump back into
trading on my own account... Real fighters never surrender, right?

------
keithnz
my thoughts of other work are often fanciful, I keep thinking cancer cures are
taking too long and I'm sure my debugging experience would sort that field
out. Nuclear Fusion power reactors are taking far too long to sort out, and
I'd kind of like to get stuck into that problem.

Then I sometimes wish I was a full time philosopher.

Other times when I've moved between countries and thought I'd take a break
from programming to refresh myself.... I end up thinking about ideas around
coding and end up coding anyways. So I think I'm a lifer. Not quite sure what
role I'll take if there is a zombie apocalypse though, however I have played
through a lot of computer simulations of such events and I seem to be a kick
ass warrior

... as I said, fanciful ideas of other jobs :)

------
Archenoth
I love programming, though I have thought that if it didn't exist--I would
probably go into archaeology.

I have always enjoyed discovering things in subtleties, and learning the
reasons behind strange things with research. There are still plenty of things
that we have yet to figure out.

However, regardless of whether I did archaeology or programming, I'm sure I
would get burnt out every once in a while. That just happens, and it isn't
necessarily a bad thing. (Even if it is annoying...) It helps me to remember
that this sort of thing passes as my inspiration swings back and forth, and
that I don't actually dislike my profession. And until I am back into it, I
just do things to force myself to be productive.

------
wheaties
In general, when those thoughts crossed my mind it was when I was working a
job I should have left already. There are good companies that value developers
and/or give them a reasonably good balanced work environment. Generally the
two go hand in hand. For places that don't, frustrations and poor practices
tend to push us into less fulfilling lifestyles.

But if pressed... Corporate pilot comes to mind. I've spend I don't know how
much money on training and aircraft rental. Most piloting jobs for corporate
clients have you working only 2 weeks out of the month. That is, you only fly
about ~250hr a year. The rest of the time can be spent hacking or doing
whatever else you'd like to do.

~~~
dvrajan
oh wow! I have been on a Boeing 737 simulator once and it was a unforgettable
experience. Hoping to earn enough money to fly real aircraft atleast once.
Life experiences is what matters.

~~~
kobeya
You could also enlist in the air force and get paid to do it.

------
dadro
I bought a small commercial fishing boat and occasionally do that on the side.
I make no money but love every minute of it. I'm working on getting my charter
license so I can take folks out fishing and hope to do that p/t when I retire
in 20 years.

~~~
bebop
Sounds like a blast! What are you fishing for?

~~~
dadro
I have commercial licenses for Striped Bass and Blue Fin Tuna.

------
biztos
So nobody's interested in sales?

It's a job that solves a lot of the problems people complain about in
programming, like spending all day staring at the screen or not interacting
with people or doing things that might be pointless.

The downside of course is that you eat what you kill.

~~~
jkosinski
I'm interested in sales, particularly enterprise software sales. As a software
engineer, I find it alluring: generally a higher income potential than
programming combined with the social aspect.

Like the the other commenter, I'd be interested in hearing from those who work
in sales.

------
nstr007
I love programming, I feel I can express my self threw code. However, I wish
my wife and others could appreciate what I do like I do. If I could do it
again, I think I'd like to be a carpenter or something that can be appreciated
in the physical world.

~~~
VLM
Work to live not live to work. You're at least the 4th programmer/woodworker
on HN I know of. One thing I enjoy about programming is the pay and free time
and lack of physical exhaustion such that my fine woodworking tools are
proportionately cheap compared to most woodworkers.

I've been doing this awhile and my first dovetail joint was pretty cool... but
the hundredth is just sweaty labor, eh. My first whatever is always fun, but
the dozenth or hundredth gets pretty boring.

Be careful with the table saw. I'm not a big fan of binary comparisons but
there's only two sets of people, those who are terrified of table saws and
treat every use as some kind of lion tamer trick and those who have missing
fingers.

------
galfarragem
Enjoying doing something as an hobby is completely different than enjoying it
as a career.

What people like is the 'creative part' associated with a skill. When you do
something as a career, most of your time will be used dealing with the 'boring
part'.

------
FullMtlAlcoholc
I absolutely want to be done with coding by the age of 40. Coding is a young
man's game. It'll always be a passion and hobby of mine, but it wouldn't
fulfill me to still be primarily writing code for someone else's company.

I was an athlete in a former life that allowed himself to get woefully out of
shape. I went on a health kick a couple of years ago, got into better shape
than I was in college. Now I do personal training on the side, just finished
my first triathlon, and am now training to compete in American Ninja Warrior.
I really wish American Gladiators was still around though as I would've much
rather preferred that.

------
pryelluw
Not really. I use programming as a tool not as an end goal. I enjoy
programming because it gives me the ability to do things I otherwise could
not. I also like the deep technical side of it but there isn't much to do
there for me.

------
baybreeze
For 10 years programming has been my thing, but for a while now I have been
getting the feeling that programming won't be big in 30 years. If all my eggs
are in the programming basket and I can't keep a programming job in the
future, I would be out of luck. (presumably because it's a blue collar
profession by that point).

With that fear in mind, becoming a M.D. actually seems like it would be a good
decision. Even this late in the process, doctors have been well paid and
relatively rare for thousands of years; a tried and true profession. Plus it
will sate my curiosity about the function of the human body.

~~~
jdgiese
I am curious as to why you don't think programming will be big in 30 years?
One of my partners (we studied Biomedical Engineering together in undergrad)
completed medical school, and then he decided it wasn't for him, and that he
wanted to go back to technical work and in particular programming. A big part
of his reasoning behind the transition was that he felt a large fraction of
what doctors do is very repetitive and could be replaced by computers. I
suspect he could give much more detailed reasoning than I can, but I can say
that he felt strongly enough about this that he ate many many thousands of
dollars of debt to go into programming instead of medicine.

Anyway, I certainly don't mean to discourage your pursuit of becoming an MD--I
am just very curious to know your reasoning.

~~~
baybreeze
It will be big, but there will be so many other programmers that our worth
will go down. It seems that our Silicon Valley salaries are extremely high
compared to other professions, and only recently went up (what was a 90s
programmer paid?). It seems like a flash in the pan, but on the order of
decades.

------
herbst
Yes. But honestly most jobs i think are interesting too would get boring
pretty fast and are badly paid in comparison.

The only reason i even thought about that is to have more joy in programking
after work.

I fixed it by quitting my job and going digital nomad.

------
Beltiras
I can't imagine myself wanting to leave. We are defining the worlde for
everyone else. The amount of power over the course of human affairs is
staggering when you think about it. A fullstack can be toiling away on some
CSS layout problem today and come up with a better design of some widget or
other which leads to a breakthrough in UI/UX approach. Several months later
nobody is using webpages in the same way. A novice can innovate things that an
old hand would not think of and turn the whole world on it's side. The reach
and breadth of computing makes it too exciting to forgo.

------
pinouchon
Computational cognitive science.

I'm in the process of going back to studying. My employer knows this, as well
as most my friends and peers. I plan to spend the next two scholar years
(starting in 2017) to take a master in cognitive science. I have worked for 3
years in web development since graduating and have enough money stashed to
make the transition.

I'll likely write a lot less code, and more maths and english.

My primary motivation is that I believe that breakthroughs in AI and cognitive
science at the computational Marr's level are going to have a huge impact, and
I want to be a part of it.

~~~
raverbashing
Too bad modern AI developments have absolutely nothing to do with "cognitive
science"

~~~
rfrey
Not true. Geoffrey Hinton is _only_ interested in cognitive science (he said
in a speech I heard that he thinks it's delightful that there are practical
applications that lead Google to pay for his research, but he doesn't care at
all about them, only about understanding the brain), and Rich Sutton started
there and continues to actively follow and think about cognition.

~~~
raverbashing
To what it relates to neuroscience I agree, but in the end it's mostly
mathematical models that don't connect much to (physical) reality

~~~
rfrey
I guess my point is that to some of the top researchers, the current
developments are a means to an end, and the end is understanding cognition.

Totally agreed that if you're into the deep learning/CNN development,
especially the practical side, the connection to brains is only through the
"neural" analogy.

------
tluyben2
Tried retiring. Opened a brewery (beer & cider) and going to run a
bar/restaurant; brewery runs well but I just like programming too much.
Combining them works well and keeps me fit.

------
asteli
I'm an electrical engineer via a nontraditional path. Like software dev, it
still involves large swaths of time spent staring at screens while inside a
box.

I've been mulling over the possibility of some kind of work that would be more
conducive to my long term sanity. My imagination has me developing and
deploying instrumentation for environmental science. 1/3rd screen time 1/3rd
workshop, 1/3rd fielding instruments.

I'll figure something out. Probably when 12 hours of daily screentime becomes
unbearable.

~~~
geomark
Sounds a bit like my story, although I suspect I'm a bit older. I wanted to
bail for several years and then one of the recessions led to my department
being downsized. Took the opportunity to move abroad. Missed some of the tech
work but having a hardware background made it hard to do much where I live.
Then with the rise of MOOCs I was able to pick up software skills and do some
projects. And now with so much cheap hardware and components coming out of
China with free shipping to my location I can do all manner of hardware +
software projects. Currently into creating robotics projects for young kids.

------
keviv
Yep. I was working in a startup (which eventually went public) for close to 6
years. Life became monotonous there and I really felt burnt out. I finally
decided to quit and wanted to do anything but programming. 2 week later, I
started missing programming again but this time I decided to freelance. I'm
getting paid decently while I can do a lot in my free time. I've started
reading books and working on small side-projects which I wasn't able to while
working full-time

------
partycoder
Not all people like programming. Some people do it only for the money. I
internally call them "paycheck zombies", and I try to just stay away from them
since they're a bit draining at times, and rarely lead to learning something
new.

Some other people are more career oriented and seek professional growth. There
are various lines of professional growth, in each stage of the SDLC. Even if
someone is new to the industry, a good attitude will eventually lead to
growth.

------
parr0t
I've only been programming professionally for a year but can't see myself
wanting to get out of it anytime soon, maybe ask me in 10 years to see if that
view changes. But at the moment am thoroughly enjoying learning as much as I
can - coming from a job I didn't enjoy as a full time baker to having my
weekends back, normal social hours and just having more spring in my step by
doing something I have a genuine passion for is a great feeling.

------
michakirschbaum
I became a programmer to avoid being pigeon holed professionally. Programming
has strengthened my critical thinking ability for other creative endeavors,
and I could leave for actual engineering (e.g. electrical), applied
mathematics, music, art, design, entrepreneurship.. basically I chose
programming to leave the door open for any of these activities. I feel that
this isn't a flexibility as easily afforded to say, physicians or lawyers.

------
SeriousM
Yep, going to be a police officer. But I would get a lot less money and very
bad work schedule / vacation policies. So I stay with developing awesome
software.

------
du_bing
NEVER, programming is best work ever, giving me much freedom.

------
ohstopitu
One day....when I have enough to live comfortably, I want to get into gaming
(Youtube and Twitch or whatever is the main medium for games then).

I LOVE gaming (and transferring my skills learnt from programming & the
startup world to the gaming/streaming world).

Apart from that...I've wanted to try and be an investor/trader but I don't
know if it's really something I'd get into given the commitment & resources
they require.

------
_mikelcelestial
I did this just recently. Before I went to a middle east country for an SEO
job, I am a PHP dev for 7 yrs and my last work made me realize that I'm not
growing or something and this new environment would make me do this change.
Unfortunately, after working for only a few months, I was sent home due to
health reasons and dev jobs are hunting me again which I think because of my
qualifications in the past.

------
o2l
I pretty much enjoy programming most of the time. But there are times when I
feel, only if I could take a small break and do something else without
worrying about money.

I would like to

\- Work at a General Store \- Be involved in a full movie / tv series making
process ( Because movies have always had a deep impact on me, and I would love
to contribute my ideas in that domain ) \- Invent new food recipes \- Research
on Ancient History

------
mikelyons
After nearly 10 years as a web developer I've left the field and moved to
south east asia to be a SCUBA diving instructor. Nice change of pace.

------
skoczymroczny
Not really. For me programming isn't something I do for money, but something I
like to do, which just happens to make good money. I do semi-boring stuff for
money, but do fun stuff (game development) at home. I don't see myself burning
out any time soon and looking for something else. Also programming fits my
personality type, allowing me to avoid too much contact with people :)

------
drivingmenuts
All the time.

I'd love to change to working in 3D, preferably with Rhino (which I have a
license for). But, that's not what a career is made of and lacking any
practical experience pretty much means I'm stuck.

I'm not opposed to starting over at the bottom, as long as the work is
engaging. Unfortunately, there's not much call for people with only minimal
experience in Rhino3D, that I've found.

------
BWStearns
Law has always interested me. Unfortunately the cover charge is such that I
would only be willing to give it a go in the event of an equity lottery win or
something similar.

Another thing I've been toying with is prop trading. It's not entirely
separate from programming, but the industry is pretty isolated in terms of
expertise so it might be considered separate.

------
exabrial
Quite often! But it pays well and my co-workers aren't terrible. Most
efficient way to have job security and make a good bit of $.

Id always be inventing -something- though, recently I got into designing and
building high voltage distortion prone vacuum tube hybrid solid-state
instrument signal drivers: aka guitar amplifiers :) analog electronics is a
lost art!

------
vbezhenar
I fell in love with programming, when I was about 13, and I love it now (29).
Commercial programming (e.g. what I'm paid for) is rarely fun for me, but not
bad either. And I have a lot of fun doing programming as my hobby, some
experiments, etc, when I'm not constrained with anything. I don't think I
would ever change my profession.

------
navs
Oh lord yes, I've left it behind only to take the next job offered to me and
becoming a Business Analyst. Not enjoying it so far.

I'm putting more focus at the moment on exploring issues of Mental health in
the IT industry as it's something I've dealt with and continue to deal with.

That seems to give me a degree of fulfilment. Doesn't pay the bills though.

------
inopinatus
I left it for ops and then management and then went back to development.

Cycle normally repeats every few years.

Currently doing all three at once because startup.

------
iopq
I recently started playing a game that I haven't played in a long time. I miss
the feeling of being engaged like this. Programming just doesn't do it for me.

I want to love what I'm doing, but unfortunately there's few things that
tickle my brain like this. What should I do, take ADHD meds and go to work,
like everyone else?

~~~
ktRolster
Mindfulness.

------
wineisfine
Yeah I wonder what our dev skills be worth when we are 60. And still need some
years do get to a pension. And meanwhile you have 21 year olds without a
mortgage, kids or wife... with all the time in the world to work and learn new
things.

Take for example current js webdev, with a new hot tech every week.

We can't all become IT managers (nor want to)...

------
gmac
I thought I was leaving programming when I went back to school to do a Masters
and then a PhD in environmental economics. I'm now a lecturer (assistant
professor) ... but programming is so useful in academia, and such a rare
skill, that I hardly do any less now than I did before. And I'm OK with that.
:)

------
epynonymous
i did actually leave programming (almost 10 years ago) for a job as a people
manager (of programmers/test). it's a lot more fun to write code as opposed to
dealing with all the nuances of personalities, politics, processes, etc. i do
have a few side projects which have allowed me to stay as a pretty effective
coder, but at the end of the day, i'm also doing a lot of non-development
things on my side project like go to market definition, managing people,
project management, and slideware.

there are definitely very tedious things that programmers have to deal with
like unmarshalling and marshalling data across backend to frontend components
or test automation (think of having a multi-tier system with ios app,
database, email service for forgotten password and having to automate all of
that). but at the end of the day, the thing i like most about programming is
the ability to see the things i create doing something useful. seeing the end
result that's of high quality gives me a sense of pride. i'm definitely a
maker, it's what i was born to do. but at the end of the day it's about
risk/reward and opportunity cost, at this point there's just too much to give
up, and the side project isnt panning out yet.

on a slight tangent, i have an electrical/computer engineering background and
was supposed to go into hardware like most of my classmates, but i ended up
liking the fact that i had something tangible after hours of programming, even
though it was virtual, and with hardware i'd have nothing to show for it, but
a pic controller lighting up some led's, a breadboard with a bunch of mixed
logic implementing some simple thing, or some vhdl state machine that
effectively did something simple. no offense to all the engineers working on
this type of thing, but it just wasnt as exciting to me.

i find that there's some balance to it all, like getting paid well, but also
having hobbies on the side that you can soak yourself into. but then again,
i've heard many a story about people doing what they love and for lots of
money.

------
emodendroket
My original plan out of school was to become a Japanese translator and I still
enjoy Japanese-language stuff. But honestly I couldn't deal with the
vicissitudes of being a freelance translator while at the same time never
making much money. I enjoy this too and it's much more stable.

------
gambiting
I would try doing anything that doesn't involve sitting in an office. Fixing
bikes and cars, I would love to have a garage and do things with my hands,
there's something incredibly satisfying about getting an old car to work,
comparable excitement with getting your program to work.

------
jmunsch
fwiw, I graduated with a degree in painting. Got into an ecommerce shop.
Figured out how to automate my position. And felt a big draw to programming.
Went back to school via a bootcamp and have been a "developer" for the last
two years. Mostly CRUD but recently ML and the tools to shuffle data around to
input into the ML. I have been in a slump lately, decided to pick up doing
part time bicycle messenger/delivery work on the weekends and for an hour or
two after a few times a week. There is something satisfying peddling items
around the city for people. Tangible and visceral with immediate feedback.
I've found it helpful, it has rebalanced my priorities in a sense. Being out
in the world, as opposed to continuosly being in an abstract space all the
time.

------
SixSigma
Yes. And I did. 30 years programming.

Then I got certified in Autocad, got a qualification in Manufacturing
Engineering at part-time school, used that to start a degree in Supply Chain
Management in the UK. I'm now on an internship in Miami and I already did a
semester on exchange in Finland.

Worked out well so far.

------
telesilla
I've been working for almost 2 decades and have recently rearranged life to
study part-time. A combination of luck and good timing let it happen. It's
done wonderful things for me in all aspects of my life, professionally and
personally, and is opening new doors.

------
sanatgersappa
Yup. Trading futures.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Trading options!

------
d1ffuz0r
Park Ranger in Alaska or Siberia. Will probably be enjoying more than my
current engineering career

------
wingerlang
The thought has crossed my mind, but only in the line of "What would I do?" to
which I have no answer.

I also love programming (since maybe 12/13 year old me read HTML books and
Flash actionscript to make games) and I don't really want to do anything else
anyway.

------
nickelbagz
I would do what I love, which is playing the piano and writing about cultural
and political things

------
BucketSort
Yes, mathematics. After studying computer science problems for a while I fell
in love with math.

~~~
mpfundstein
functional programming then? if you are into javascript, check fantasy-land

~~~
pathsjs
That has really little to do with mathematics...

~~~
mpfundstein
I don't agree. Did you ever take a good look into FP? Start with Functors and
Monads and wander deep down the path to category theory...

But beware, you won't be able to function anymore in a JAVA OOP store :P

~~~
pathsjs
Well, I am actually a mathematician. I knew cateogry theory well before I was
even able to hack a web page with php and jquery. :-)

And still, I find that most of the abstractions that appear, say, in Haskell
have little mathematical content. Even less so their imitation in Javascript.
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

------
pragone
Did. Currently in medical school.

------
yitchelle
I left programming to do ProjMan work so that I have more time doing my main
project of giving my family the best life possible.

I found that SW engineering is too taxing on my time at my stage of my life.
My wife and I are mid 40s and the kids are growing fast.

------
boggydepot
I'd go historian. After spending sometime reading/watching about Marxism,
Ancient Greek Philosophers (Epicurus and Socrates) and Confucianism.

History is probably something that will really give you context on a lot of
things. Philosophy is great too.

------
stepvhen
I got my undergrad in CS and am now pursuing pure math in grad school. Not
exactly what you asked, but the time i did spend in the industry was enough to
make me want to do something other than programming for money.

------
drvdevd
I often fantasize about leaving programming for ... programming. It's amazing
the sheer number of things that _aren 't_ programming a job in programming
might entail (depending on where you end up).

------
AUmrysh
I left programming to get into application security, and I love it. There is
still some programming and a lot of reading code, but it's a million times
more enjoyable than writing endless REST APIs for me.

~~~
aquadrop
Seems to me you didn't actually left programming :)

------
snuxoll
If it didn't require such a huge time commitment I'd consider becoming a PA or
MD, but once you already have a family and bills it's practically impossible
to get through the required schooling.

------
jtms
I have been a professional dev for 12 years but have often considered other
paths. Just a few: Placer gold miner (yep, like the TV shows), Brazilian Jiu
Jitsu instructor, metal sculptor, mechanical engineer

------
reitanqild
I actually have worked as a more or less pure system engineer for three years.

It was interesting and a bit painful to not have access to source code and to
be completely dependent on a slow process.

------
uptown
It was some of the motivation behind this post:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12782151](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12782151)

------
bebop
I have always wanted to become a full time wookworker. The problem has mostly
been the fact that programming pays much better, especially if I were to start
as an apprentice.

------
Giosk
Everyday I think about leaving my job, but then I figure out that the problem
isn't being a programmer, but working for customers that have no idea of what
they want.

------
cottonseed
I left to get a PhD in math. Now I'm back, sort of.

~~~
dvrajan
Just to follow up. How did your day to day work change after PhD? I am sure
you would have gotten a chance to work on more interesting things. What are
they?

------
Aitizazk
Well the next best thing for me would be teaching programming. still couldnt
forget the awesome feeling when I made a calculator in a cs101 course :D

~~~
jventura
That's what I'll be doing in two weeks.. I started my working career as a
teacher, but didn't like it that much as I was teaching smaller kids learning
MS Word, Excel and similar tools. Eventually I worked as researcher, finished
a PhD and start working as web developer.

But doing crud apps all day got boring pretty fast, and I think my current
expertise on web and mobile development will be great for my classes as I'll
be teaching older students (MAster's degree). Since I have some freedom on the
way I get to teach those students, I'm really looking forward to be really
practical (teach them over the command line, etc.), instead of being highly
theoretical.

~~~
Aitizazk
That is exactly what we need in the Education sector I guess. teachers with
experience in working on real world products. I completely agree CS overall is
very practical field and too much theory should be avoided

------
JoshMnem
I haven't thought about it yet. If I ever do something else, it would probably
be another application of programming, like math or data science.

------
Jach
Shoveling pig shit.

The only other alternative I've considered is to teach English in foreign
lands, but I'd probably still do programming on the side.

------
raverbashing
Yes

And in a way, leaving lower-level programming for the sake of it and focusing
on nicer things more connected with the end user kind of feels like it

------
aethertron
Academic computer science or mathematics. Or writing (about technology,
videogames, and humans). These are stuff I do as hobbies now.

------
ohgh1ieD
Actually yes, every day, I'm counting the days till med school.

I'll probably write code as long as I am alive but not under those conditions,
not CRUD apps, not to make someone else rich.

I'd actually say that there are only 4 reasons to write code:

\- To learn

\- Temporary ( cash )

\- To create something which becomes eventually a company

\- To solve your own problems

Obv. I don't want to attack someone, that's just how I think about it.

When I entered SE I already knew that I'm not going to do that for a long
time, it's on my list, I had to learn it. It's time for the next topic.

------
SticksAndBreaks
I actually thought about going into the alps mountains shepherding cows on a
Alm. Its peacefull and less lonly then programming.

------
jalayir
Either a chef or a lawyer. Maybe both.

~~~
alexhakawy
Why chef? sounds interesting and fun

~~~
Matthias247
It might be fun and interesting. But for most persons it has not a good salary
and really bad working hours. So it depends on what you are looking for.

------
sriram_iyengar
hand-made board games

~~~
dvrajan
interesting choice!

------
seanlane
Picked up metalworking while in high school, always figured it could make a
decent backup plan.

------
nnd
Music. Maybe it's a burnout, but I find it difficult to use my creativity in
programming.

~~~
meowface
Same here. There is room for creativity in programming, but it's very
constrained and there are always a lot of hurdles you have to jump over before
you can express your creativity. With music, you have a lot more freedom and
can dive right into it.

------
Lawstudent004
I'm 25, I finished my bachelor of laws last year (started in 2010) and I'm
doing my master of laws atm (it's a 5 year programme where I live, bachelor is
3 years, master is 2). I've always wanted to do something in IT and lately
Infosec has really started interesting me.

Last year I took up some programming classes (java) and I actually liked it,
however I kept convincing myself that despite that, I was going to finish law
school. Mainly to keep my job prospects open, maybe even get a management
position in an IT firm faster that way. But honestly, aside from the pragmatic
things that law teaches you, it sucks. It really does. Everyone I know either
aspires to pick up notary or fiscal law, just so they could satisfy their own
prospects of a well paid, highly regarded profession. It's a fairly depressing
field to study and to work in.

I did a summer internship during summer vacation this year at a fairly
prestigious firm. I hated that job, it consisted of looking up the latest
jurisprudence about i.e. 'higher power', it made me read law books that were
too boring to even want to comprehenend. I read an M&A template contract,
which was interesting, but I couldn't imagine doing that for the rest of my
life. All the lawyers there aged 27 and up were anything but living the dream.
They worked their ass off from 8am to 10pm to bill enough hours per month just
so they could keep their respective partners happy. The partners were well
dressed, hardworking and very prestigious people. They were nice to be honest,
they weren't assholes like you would expect. They actually made me, and the
lawyers that worked there, aspire to become one of them. But then you hear the
dark side of things. One of the partners had 2 kids she hardly saw, she
actually had a babysitter/cleaning maid who took care of them all the time.
Another one was divorced and spent his time harassing every hot secretary he
met. Actually many of the male part ners thrived on exploiting their prestige
to flirt with the fairer sex. Which I can't help but feel a bit jealous of,
having such prestige must be awesome.

Except that's all it is really, prestige. It's the main reason people study
law, to my knowledge.

As I'm writing this, I'm contemplating quitting my master's and enlisting in a
bachelor of IT focused on cybersecurity. I'm aware that it won't give me the
same prestige, or the nice suits (I really like suits), but maybe I'll stop
feeling miserable.

Just wanted to give you guys a view from another perspective, law school and
law in general aren't all they're cracked up to be. They're miserable places
to study and work. Just google the words law and depression in the same
sentence.

~~~
marktangotango
I've worked with a couple of JD holding developers over the years. So there is
precedent from what I've seen.

------
Matachines
Study history and/or industrial design even though I'm horrible in the latter.

------
theparanoid
Physician Assistant. It pays well and doesn't have the youth skew of
programming.

------
imode
as a hobbyist, I don't think I would ever do anything else.

as an employee/employer, become a technician. everybody needs repair work, and
very few can call the result maintainable and sustainable. focusing on
residential areas helps, too.

------
petewailes
Not leaving, but augmenting, sure. I'm a programmer by day, and also a writer.

------
adultSwim
Teacher (community college / high school) Therapist Commercial plant nursery

------
oe
I'd like to drive a train. Train Simulator will have to do for now.

------
yoyobird
I think automation will replace the need for SEs. Sites like weebly, jeenka,
snapmobl eliminate the need for a programmer if you want to build your own
website. If I were a programmer, I would start thinking about exit paths
within the next 10 years

~~~
marktangotango
FYI people have been saying this since the 50's. Symbolic assemblers were
supposed to make 'programming' obsolete; there's a relavant quote by Richard
Hamming I can't be arsed to look up.

------
neom
Fun reading this as I very frequently wish I was a programmer. :)

~~~
noir_lord
I wasn't a full time programmer til 2010, been programming since I was a kid
in the 80's, didn't think I was good enough at programming to do it for a
living (confidence issues) so I spent 8 years working for Staples and
gradually mostly by accidents of the "I can build that for you" sort built up
a customer base, one of those customers offered me a full time job as a
programmer on double the salary I was on and I jumped and never looked back,
these days I run my own business doing contract work for SME's and while it
has its moments I generally love it, mostly the freedom of starting and
stopping when I want.

~~~
ketpat
I'm 34, only got into programming this year after completing a boot camp. Got
my first full time job in July. I always wanted to be a programmer but also
had confidence issues. When I changed my mindset from over thinking to not
giving a fuck and going for it, my whole life changed for the better.

------
davidw
Not really. I love solving problems with computers!

------
zappo2938
I regret trying to program for a living.

------
vladimir-y
Piano player, in a brothel.

------
qazpot
Yes, writing and painting.

------
shove
Every. Day.

------
known
Farming

------
s1gs3gv
learn haskell

------
sean_patel
Programming is a creative art, and when I say that to my non-programmer
friends, they laugh it off, but if you think about it, it is true.

Just like artists, the programmers, coders, developers all design and create
new things that didn't exist before, and no 2 programs or applications or
completely functioning code will be identical for anything other than a
fizzbuzz type test.

So it is natural for the creatives to experience burnout and falsely interpret
that as having lost interest in our craft / art. I went through this too at a
fairly young stage in my career as I had accomplished a lot in 5 short years.
I had the pedigree and training -- internship at Magnum Photos in New York --
so I tried being a War photographer like my Grandpa and traveled to Iraq in
2008. 1 week in there and I came running back. It was a fairly freaky
experience.

You think you are there to document something big and consequential to the
world and initially it is exhilarating leaving the cube and CRUD applications,
but all it is for most part is an online newspaper or blog paying you a few $
per shot. Totally not work the risk. Plus the Radical Islamic Jihadis (ISIS)
crossed a new line and started kidnapping and beheading journalists.

I also realized I didn't truly have the stomach for it. Imagine actually being
on the scene at 1 of these photographs, and having the courage to shoot, only
to find out the media (AP, Reuters) won't publish it. =>
[http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/the...](http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/the-
war-photo-no-one-would-publish/375762/) ( When Kenneth Jarecke photographed an
Iraqi man burned alive, he thought it would change the way Americans saw the
Gulf War. But the media wouldn’t run the picture.)

Like someone else has stated here, we have it really cushy indeed. So don't
get used to it and "itch" for something else. Just work on your side-projects,
or learn a new language, or simply stop by to smell the roses and live a
little.

Your passion will soon come gushing back and you'll start to wonder why you
ever thought of leaving this creative, immensely satisfying craft in the 1st
place!

~~~
JDiculous
Programming involves very little creativity compared to actual art, so to call
it a "creative art" is a gross exaggeration.

A programmer is given a very specific set of tasks (eg. send data from A to B,
fix bug, implement X), and his problems are mostly technical. This doesn't
even compare to the creativity involved in a real artistic endeavor like
designing your own videogame, writing your own screenplay, or composing a
song. The latter is totally open-ended, and chances are that whatever you
create will be way more unique than the 10,000th CRUD app written in the
hottest web stack (React/Redux/Sass, or whatever the cool kids are into these
days).

Lack of creativity is actually one of my biggest complaints with this field.

~~~
nostrademons
Perhaps I've just been lucky with jobs, but my daily work hasn't been "send
data from A to B, fix bug" since my first job before college (except for ramp-
up time when I was just starting at Google, and even then my manager was like
"Do you _really_ want to just be fixing unit tests?". It was "Give quants a
development environment where they can quickly write algorithms that will run
on our parallel-processing cluster", "Visualize violations of Reg NMS for the
SEC", "Let teenagers build their own casual games through a WYSIWYG interface
and share them with their friends", "Redesign the Google Search Results Page",
"Figure out who wrote what on the Internet", "Make webapps perform as well as
native ones", and "Fix unemployment" (along with some newer startup ideas I'm
not ready to talk about yet). There's been plenty of creativity in all of them
- sometimes too much, since with creativity comes risk and the possibility
that it won't actually work as well as it did in your mind.

~~~
JDiculous
I want to hear more about this "fix unemployment" thing

~~~
Kliment
I'd be more interested in ideas on how to fix employment - job dependency is a
huge problem.

------
berntb
Regarding all discussion about creativity and programming, I heard a usability
expert that had been painting for 30 years say this about GUI engineering:

Usability as a subject is the opposite of art, it is kitsch. You actively try
to make simple and obvious; to have just one possible meaning.

She also said that art/painting was the best of hobbies, but would have been
the worst possible of jobs. Too little money and too many interested people,
so it was a rat race.

Personally, I've found hundreds of subjects I love to learn about. But it
seems only one thing I really love doing. So they'll have to break my cold
fingers off the keyboard. I love to teach about subjects I love, but sadly
lack all pedagogical talent. (Maybe I had liked art if I wasn't color blind or
so unmusical that I can't clap hand to most of my favorite music. :-) )

~~~
biinui
it's interesting to see outputs of colorblind artists :)
[https://www.google.com/search?q=colorblind+artist&ie=utf-8&o...](https://www.google.com/search?q=colorblind+artist&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-
b-ab)

give it a shot perhaps?

------
dschiptsov
Already did.

I have switched to be a guide for Tibet tours (Lhasa, Kailash-Manasarovar) and
high altitude trekking and motorcycle tours in Nepal, Sikkim and Ladakh.
Customers enjoyed my guided tours in Jokhang and Potala.

Better demand and much more tolerable life than in a coding sweatshop. For
everything else there is literally no demand for anything except Joomla
websites and Android apps outside the valley, which is already saturated.

And, of course, I have zero interest in things like React or Node.

The sad truth is that indie and small shop IT is already dead. Unless you are
a _young_ CS major in US there is no demand for programming jobs. Otherwise
there will be a market, not just a few brokers like Toptal.

------
amirbehzad
I always wanted to be "the Nose", the professional that smells perfumes for a
living. I have the talent, and high-end equipment for that.

------
gnipgnip
Farming and/or studying philosophy.

~~~
randomdata
I always figure that programming is the only thing that allows me to farm.

~~~
gnipgnip
Eh ? Care to explain what you mean ?

~~~
randomdata
I was referring to the capital intensive nature of the business. My fairly
lucrative programming career is what keeps my farm operating. Being able to
leave programming to farm is a long way off for me yet.

If you have family willing to hand down the business or already independently
wealthy, then maybe leaving programming to farm is more realistic.

~~~
gnipgnip
Good point; farming definitely is not profitable these days (without the large
holdings/mechanization ...).

~~~
randomdata
I have noticed that the agriculture market has seemed to settle on an average
of about 2-3% ROI. Meaning, for every $1 you invest in your farm business, you
can expect to get 2-3¢ back each year profit-wise. On average. Some years you
will make more, some years you will pay to get rid of your product. Right now
is closer to the latter of those two.

If you come to farming with $2-3M cash in hand, you will typically be in
pretty good shape (~$60K average yearly income based on the above
assumptions), assuming you have figured out the management aspects. But most
don't have $3M lying around doing nothing, and that's the real challenge. The
way forward seems to be to hold another job (programming in my case), and take
all you can from that job and put it into the farming business until you have
built up enough capital that the farm becomes self-sustaining.

It's a long road, but hopefully worth it. As they say, if it were easy,
everyone would be doing it.

