Ask HN: What to do after years of being a hikikomori?

[throwawayhiki]

Hi HN,

The last few years I have been living as a hikikomori in a tiny apartment in my parents' house, using my savings to invest in the stock market. However, in a few months I will be broke. And I don't know what to do to prevent it...

Some background: I have been a loner since my early childhood and never had any friends. Somehow I was never interested in others; legos, and later books, were far more interesting. And there has always been this feeling of not fitting into "systems" like family, school, or workplace. Maybe I am somewhere on the autistic spectrum.

At first, my "career" followed a traditional path: school, IT apprenticeship, CS bachelor at a university of applied sciences, job as a web dev. This entire time was characterized by constant struggles dealing with others, and boredom, starting with the apprenticeship. The break came after I got fired from the job after less than a year. What followed were months of depressions. Somehow I stumbled upon "The Intelligent Investor" during those dark times and that probably saved me. I started with investing and have been doing so since then. The firing also turned me into a hikikomori, however, in practice not much changed. In my spare time I have already been a "part time hikikomori" since the end of my apprenticeship, when I moved into the apartment.

With the dwindling of my savings, I thought getting a job as a dev would have the highest probability to avert the financial troubles. But so far I didn't even manage to get a single interview. I guess it is because of the outdatedness of my tech skills and/or the long time since my last job. Combined with my low success rate with interviews in the past, it now looks almost impossible for this approach to work. Two other approaches I currently follow are learning/reading about solopreneurship and option trading, though the outcome of both is uncertain. Are there other approaches I miss and could try?

[WalterSear]

I don't think that solopreneurship or option trading make sense giving your starting point. You are better off refreshing your skills and looking for jobs most downmarket.

Another alternative to look into would be a coding boot camp with good follow-on support. You'll breeze through the technical stuff, get up to speed, and have help getting introductions to companies.

[throwawayhiki → WalterSear]

Thanks for your answer. Do you mean most downmarket in the IT sector, or the market in general?

Good idea about the coding boot camp, I have to check whether there exists such a camp in the region.

[WalterSear → throwawayhiki]

Sorry, I meant 'more downmarket'.

Obviously, you'll be at an advantage if you can leverage your existing skills and passions. While that could be in tech, I am sure there are also situations outside of tech per se, where you might find appropriate work - pretty much every medium sized company needs an active website these days.

When looking for bootcamps, A) talk to graduates and find out where they are working. Many bootcamps are ripoff and B) look for the ones that have industry pipelines in place, since this pipeline is the actual value they bring you. Some are so well set up to place graduates, that they don't even charge you until you get a job.

Good luck.