Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Have you ever thought of leaving programming for something else?

388 pointsdvrajan548 comments

What would you do?

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.

> 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.

> smart but artless

This is why it's so important for me to work on something people use.

At a previous job I'd sometimes hit a wall. I would log into one of the production API hosts and tail -f the access logs, where I'd see many different people and applications using a piece of software that I'd help write. I'd grab an IP address and geolocate it and see where the person was from.

The humanization of work can be extremely powerful. It reminds you that you're providing value to the world, that you've created something useful even if it sometimes feels so pointless.

> smart but artless

This depends entirely on what you're working on - programming is just a tool to make something after all. As an example, I'm a video game programmer who specializes in gameplay (characters, weapons, metagame, other mechanics), AI, and user experience. This means I'm also part game designer, so there is a ridiculous amount of creativity required for my role on a daily basis (which I absolutely adore). It's really nice not working to a hard spec, a lot of my job is trying different approaches and seeing what's fun.

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

Your point was good, it didn't need this poor stereotyping.

Programming is a creative endeavour. Why can't you put any art into it?

Are you suggesting that you've learned everything there possibly is to learn, you're already brain dead (and getting paid for it).

Wait a minute...you don't work for the government, do you?

I would also like to make short films and plays, as well as improv and acting in local theater. I think it's something you can do in your evenings and weekends. I started doing it recently and realized that I'm not good at it, and it's going to take a lot of practice before I get better. It's important to stay active and keep practicing your hobbies, even while you're working. Because if you wait until you're retired, you might have forgotten how to do things. Or even worse, you might have lost your interest.

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

No worse than any other profession. Sure, most days I do more of the same, build reports for finance/corporate problems. It's rolling stones up a hill every morning, but that has nothing to do with programming itself. The issue you're describing is that you're working to haul someone else's stones. Fine, all well and good, pay is good. Wouldn't be any different if I was a musician or a painter... all they ever request is that I play Piano Man.

For me the art comes in doing it a different way each time. Maybe it's a function of my inexperience, I've only been doing this for a few years so far but the horizon seems so far away and there's so much to learn that I can't imagine getting bored anytime soon. Everything is amazing and I can't learn it all! In the meanwhile there's stuff to learn outside of tech. Like gardening or baking. Baking bread is a series of simple tricks (temperature of the yeast, bowl type, kneading techniques, etc.) that people do in order to produce an outcome (a certain crust or flavour). I'm struck often by how similar I find it to writing code.

Try rolling the stone with one hand tied behind your back.

Well, I have an opposite problem. I work in a different industry, but completely adore programming and solving variety of problems that involve data processing or connecting various systems together.

> "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"

True for outsourced departments of big corporations (Java chicken farms). Not everywhere creating the software is at this stage of development though. There are many creative and agile (not necessary "Agile") businesses and places where creating the software evolved. They are at the stage of XIXth century civil engineering - a lot is being built, plenty of experimenting, people are getting hurt, and most of it collapses. Only couple of magnificent monuments will survive but the rest will be discarded.

> smart but artless

So, it's just not for you. You fail to see art in it, That happens, it's ok. Maybe you need to think about gradually moving to the movie business, they need programming too, you know.

>> "I wanted the reward and not the struggle. I wanted the result and not the process. I was in love with not the fight but only the victory. And life doesn’t work that way." << The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson

I learned to pick struggles I love, to pick processes I love and to pick fights I love. Writing code a.k.a. "programming" is a part of struggles I have chosen for myself and I am fine with it. What I learned through the process:

- Do "programming" if you love to pile bricks on top of each other, with no structural integrity, done by brute force as one of thousands of slaves, building a pyramid for someone else.

- Do "programming" if you love to pile bricks on top of each other, sometimes with structural integrity, sometimes with elegance, as a lone wolf or a part of a small team working on its own business. Just remember Derek Sivers.

- Do "programming" as a part of solving your own problems you would otherwise solve by boring manual work. Don't tell about your programming skills to your boss. Make a short day and have a beer while others are solving their own problems with boring manual work! Cheers! Credit goes again to Derek Sivers.

But if you care about "working on the next pyramid" and you are not the pharao... well, to cite Mark Manson, you "are giving too many fucks where fucks do not deserve to be given".

Sorry for the offensive language, blame Mark Manson for it, if you want to.

> 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.

Please don't stay because of the pay. You won't look back in 25 years and say "I'm so glad I bought a new iPhone in 2016, but didn't do the things I wanted to in life"

The last company I worked for was full of people only staying because retirement was "only" 10-15 years away, and they were not a healthy/happy lot.

You'd be giving up your life "now" in the hopes of a good life "then", which is insanity.

I have left Software twice now to pursue my goals - the first time I spent two years driving Alaska->Argentina more-or-less on vacation, and right now I'm spending two years driving around Africa. I'm exploring my passions while on the road for writing, photograph, videography, languages, etc. etc. I have less money now, and a lot more happiness.

Yes, I use Alan Kay's pyramid image[1] in my talks about software architecture[2][3][4]. But then I compare it to the Cologne Cathedral, which encloses a vastly larger space with vastly more light using 1/50th the material, yet it's the same kind of material: cut stones piled on top of each other.

So there is hope, I think, and that hope, I think, is improving our understanding and practice of software architecture[5].

And it's not like there we don't have examples in software. Let's take Bentley's challenge[6]: Don Knuth with 12 pages of (literate/web) Pascal, Doug McIllroy with 6 lines of shell. Or Nile/Gezira, a modern graphics subsystem (think Cairo or Quartz) in ~500LOC. Yes, 500LOC.

So we need to figure out what makes these examples work so much better and how we can apply what we've learned to make our lives better. That's what I am doing, care to join me? [5]

[1] http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1039523

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5hGmXFHQS4

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKY-0atLDAo

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OAtHOLIg84

[5] http://objective.st

[6] http://franklinchen.com/blog/2011/12/08/revisiting-knuth-and...

> There's no elegance and no higher vision. It's an Asperger profession; smart but artless.

I guess it's not for everybody. There's always going to be people that whatever they do it's just going to be a job.

While other people find it to be an art. You can say this of finances, music, programming, accounting, anything, really.

I'd say that's job specific. My engineering role feels very artful, elegant, full of vision. And bruh, the whole "slaves built the pyramids" thing is a myth. Easily Google-able.

> an Asperger profession

could you, please, elaborate on this meme?

And that pyramid, well, it definitely is the way how a corporate and enterprise Java software has been and still being made. Java itself is an ecosystem for creating coding factories - to parallelize the process of coding (one cannot honestly call this programming) among teams of easily replaceable, uniform (in terms of abilities) cheap workers. Every manager will tell about this ideal.

For programming look at PAIP or the lisp code supplement to AIMA - this is programming. Take a look at Plan9 - this is programming. People who have created Erlang were engaged in programming. Code that runs Google's AI is programming. This is an art, same as writing poetry, composition of music, writing symphonies or complex novels.

But there are very few slots available, because demand for programming is very low - it is still difficult and very expensive. Conveyor belt coding, on the other hand, is indeed fits the Kay's pyramid metaphor. And the result of such process is crap - everyone have seen "enterprise code" made by such sweat shops..

The crucial difference between an art and merely piling up more crap is that art means an attempts to approach an ideal, an optimum, perfection - it is, ideally, a reduction process with eventually converges to the closest possible approximation to an ideal. Something like this:

   []     ++ ys  =  ys
   (x:xs) ++ ys  =  x : xs ++ ys

While in the in the second case is just a process of production. Not in the sense of Japanese perfection of every move and detail, but in the sense a hipster produces yet another narcissistic blog post.

BTW, Asperger is this. And it is not that bad.)

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 ;)

> 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.

Look for older development companies, where the developer staff is all over 40. The work tends to be in C/C++, you'll find none of the modern programming fashions (Agile, whatnot...) and they expect you to be a mature adult capable of self managing. They don't care how one works, as long as you own your work, can fix if issues or bugs are found, and can generally operate as a respectful peer to the other developers. The work you'll be given will be significant, you won't be able to slack off, but if you're an individual that appreciates honest, hard work that includes machine learning, advanced math and stats, 3D and GPU programming, plus responsibility for the entire UI, software documentation, and support of your development - its a dream situation. But ya gotta be capable of deep self directed research plus the entire development cycle yourself, as these older development companies tend to have deep libraries of past projects you'll need to learn for the core of whatever they task you to create.

I'm in an eerily similar situation. Been doing software development for about 5 years (though at different places, doing primarily Android development), am just over 6 weeks at a new job and I'm beginning to feel that software development's just not for me anymore. I don't feel passionate about most aspects of it - constantly playing catchup with the latest frameworks, the development/management methodologies/processes, wrestling with the Android framework, pushing pixels, UI/UX...

There are still elements that I enjoy. I still love the creative, mathematical problem-solving aspects, but those moments feel few and far between.

I also feel at times I'm taking my position for granted - I'm not sure what else I'd do besides programming. I've always had a casual interest in security, so I'm thinking I might look into that. Being a "bug bounty-hunter" seems like a dream, though I'm not entirely sure how realistic that would be!

I also love music, but I think that's even less feasible. I'm not proficient enough to be able to teach it. But I would like to be able to dedicate more time to learning/producing it.

Good luck - here's hoping we find something more fulfilling :).

The money is hard to pass up, regardless of area.

As I've mentioned before I own a gym business (multiple locations) with my wife and some other business partners. Part of the purchase process was financial disclosures of everyone so we all know what each other makes on paper, what we actually take home, household wealth and assets, etc.

I'm 30, younger than my business partners by multiple decades, and am the only one not in a strictly management position. Two of the partners are PEs and I make more than anyone else.

I say this not to brag but only to point out that it takes a lot to leave programming simply because the money isn't there is a lot of other professions. I almost went into civil engineering and I'm glad I didn't, because apparently I would've had to bust my ass to make it into management only to be 20 years older and making less money to boot.

I'm aiming for Quant development since I read quantjob.blogspot.com/2011/12/how-to-avoid-quantdeveloper-black-hole.html

Software dev is less about enjoyable hacking, and more about "housekeeping", or a million yak-shaving data management tasks that you are paid to care about.

I'd sooner do something else that merely involves software, but has some other domain of knowledge, and keep the majority of my coding as off-work hobbying.

I think it depends what kinda code you write. Also, what kinda management structure you find yourself in.

Sounds like you're writing code with hard specs (enterprise company?) where you just feel like a cog in this vast code outputting machine. In that case, it's totally natural to feel like you're dying inside. That's natural. We're creative beings, and you either need to find a different job or calibrate other dimensions of your life to meet that need (physical fitness, start a family, serious hobbies, be part of a community).

You might consider digging deeper into other professions where programming experience/systems knowledge would be essential.

You might also dig deeper into discovering what you like and don't like about the programming profession: Do you prefer going to meetings? Do you like solving new problems constantly? What drives your satisfaction? What do you not like about programming? What do you like about programming?

What one person considers to be a lucky profession may not be the same view shared by another :)

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.

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?

This speaks to me. Career curation; making sure it means something. Burnouts can sometimes afford to be selective in their work. Illness is very expensive.

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.

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!

Hey, shameless plug but, my SO runs danceweekly.org. Check it out and let us know if you like it.

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.

Have you considered chartered accountancy?

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.

Oh man, 1000x this. This election season in particular has made me consider how we could get more smart, rational, self-less people into positions where they could influence the overall outcome positively for the vast majority of the population. I don't think our current political system achieves that outcome.

I'm smart. I think I'm rational. I'm not self-less enough to give up my and my family's financial security to leave the field to tilt at these particular windmills. (I'm unconvinced that any single politician, even the President, could change the systemic problems our system is facing, to say nothing of the likelihood that any individual would be cast aside at some point during the election tournament ladder.)

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.

Well said. If sectors like teaching, journalism were as rewarding as software. We could evolve a bit faster.

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.

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.

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.

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 ;)

You should make this happen! I ended up getting a part time over the weekend gig at a San Francisco coffee shop - it was super satisfying to be on the other side.

I made the effort to befriend the baristas since I see them every day anyway. Eventually asked one of them to teach me during slow hours and I started to make my own drink each time I came in. One of them baristas ended up referring me to a different cafe (allowed me to avoid the awkward conversation of a weird looking resume) and I passed the interview by making decent drinks.

> I'm mostly happy with programming, but I often think I'd like to try working in a coffee shop, especially a Starbucks.

This line is beautiful. :)

I've really thought about this as well, I'd love to work a couple hours in a coffee shop on a weekend. It's mainly the fact that you get to interact with somebody, make them something, and see them enjoy it immediately.

Sometime's it's difficult for me to get motivated to push out code when it's just for myself.

Apparently, there are quite a few of us who enjoy the idea of a coffee shop. I doubt I'll ever do it, but a year ago, I did a cost analysis spreadsheet of opening my own shop, but now a coffee cart seems like a fun side project. :)

Why Starbucks? It's the McDonald's of coffee. Pick a local cafe you like and see if they'll hire you part time for weekend shifts. A place that takes pride in their work.

I've often thought about that, too, but it seems unaffordable. The pay for baristas seems too low to sustain family life. Am I wrong?

In a small town there is less of an age barrier to working as a barista or waiter or similar service jobs.

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.

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

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.)

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.

My wife and I often joke that my exit plan is to become a goat farmer. I'm not sure she realizes I'm at least half-serious.

Good to hear that someone successfully did that!

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

Interesting. I actually had the opposite experience. I majored in Economics and worked in commercial banking for a number of years, then moved to Chicago and took a job at a proprietary trading firm, mostly trading Grain contracts intra-exchange. It was incredibly fun, extremely lucrative, but also pretty stressful. That being said, it was great trading from 9:30 am to 1:15 PM, then calling it a day, heading to a ball game, taking in sun. Then of course, 2009 came along, I and a bunch of my peers were laid off by 2010, some of us (including myself) were actually profitable on the year. The firm as a whole really took it on the chin, and a few years later I found out they closed shop. Probably some errant trades in Treasuries or Eurodollars.

In any case, I'd already moved on. I started dabbling in web development in 2008, but by 2010 the Chicago startup scene was taking hold. I got involved, taught myself how to code mostly in Ruby. I had learned QBasic and VBA when I was a kid, and plenty of Matlab at the trading firm, so you could say I had some knowledge, but nothing career worthy at the time. I did the Michael Hartl tutorial for Rails. Started working on an overly ambitious startup idea that went no where. At some point I stopped applying for trading jobs. It occurred to me that I've never been so passionate about anything in my life. I could spend 24 hours straight trying to solve a problem like it was some kind of puzzle that needed to be solved. I redid my resume and quickly went from getting 1-2 hits on my resume a week for trading, to 6-7 hits a day for programming. Ruby on Rails had taken off and demand was soaring. I took a bunch of contract jobs, making $40 an hour. I still remember reporting that I worked on something for 4 hours even though it really took me 12 hours or more. I faked it until I made it. And it worked. Now, I know some 6-7 different languages quite well, and I'm respected by all of my peers.

The thrill of solving a problem still hasn't gotten old for me. Maybe some of the juvenile bro-ish culture has, but the challenges are getting more and more exciting by the day. I'm experimenting with home automation and AWS lambda on my free time, dabbling in hardware.

Now, 6+ years later I have the title of Senior Software Engineer. I've been a lead, I've mentored other developers. I work from home, have the flexibility to live and travel anywhere I please. I couldn't ask for a better career. I've made it a point to learn as much about all the little things that graduate students like to lord over us non CS wielding engineers' heads. I can hold my own and I'm proud of the choices and dumb luck that got me here. To me it is an incredibly rewarding and creative endeavor and I'm still as curious to learn as I was when I started some 6-7 years ago.

That's really cool. Could you describe what work in equities is? What's a day-to-day like?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

So do you still program, recreationally?

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.

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.

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.

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

I feel the IT field has a lot of people wanting to change career paths, more than any other field

This feels like a bold claim. Is there anything to support it?

I would also dispute "The IT field has no concept of overtime pay" as being a meaningful reason - many "white collar" professions don't really pay overtime. (I will say that as a contractor, I managed to negotiate a higher rate for working at weekends a few times, but as a permanent employee, the best I ever managed was "time in lieu", which at least a few times basically meant a lie-in after working late.)

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.

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

this very much depends on the location. The US seems to be lax on overtime laws, whereas in europe its more strictly defined, and I have not worked for any company in europe where we didnt get overtime pay/compensation

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.

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.

I see where you're coming from but I'd hang myself over the bureaucracy. Give me the code.

Not to mention, it's just as possible to positively effect the world as a developer as a doctor (easier without the red tape, actually.)

But could you do a surgery without squirming? I couldn't (though I suspect there's some getting used to needed)

They also saw that patient that barely made it, that kid with inoperable cancer or that person with lots of potential that attempted suicide

Its never too late. May not be easy, but its never too late.

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.

Ha, another one. I'd do the same! Except for the travel part, I'm too broke for that. Perfect for a samana, I guess.

Count me in! Have an exact exit plan.

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

Create career and life goals in reverse from your exit plan. You start focusing more on things that matter in life.

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

Sounds like you'd be much happier at a place like Bloomberg, where there's just a big open room and a lot of noise and zero privacy and lots of talking and "teamwork".

There's no shortage of workplaces like this. Go apply for new jobs and look for ones that use "Agile" and have "open-plan offices".

I'd love to have a programming job where I have little human interaction and have to concentrate for hours. Those jobs are very rare these days thanks to the open-plan office.

Sounds like a bad workplace. You should try finding a place that fits the type of programming work you'd enjoy.

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.

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.

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.

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. :)

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.

Really nice to know that someone shares the same sentiment as me!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Not sure about your location, but in Australia there are fairly accessible courses to help people get into personal training. I imagine that falls short of full, accredited athletic training.

However, could you not get some lower-level qualification and set yourself up doing training 1-2 sessions a week? Gives you something different on the side without needing to make a full income or quit what you already know.

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.

I charge money to shoot old ladies, hookers, and pets.

That sentence really, really needs to be kept in the appropriate context to avoid some fairly serious misunderstandings.

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.

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.

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

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.

Seriously, change company.

Go into the defense industry. There's no overtime there (except on very rare occasion, and you're paid for it).

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.

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.

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...

> 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! :-)

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

Google fails me now but there was a survey/study that showed most polymaths are ending up in CS or engineering.

All I can find via the google is a harvard business review article by the ifixit guy claiming its common knowledge/everyone knows the above and now boring suits can have this secret knowledge, which is not exactly rigorous proof.

Famously there was a clustering in the 70s where the Venn diagram of hobby photographers, ham radio guys, and home computer guys was ridiculous near perfect overlap. Obviously, the guy wire wrapping a Z80 board carried a Pentax Spotmatic whenever he went outside (that was the thread mount, not the K mount variant, my dad had a spotmatic I had a K1000) and spent the occasional weekend working DX on 20 meters probably CW. If you were wealthy enough to own a floppy drive in 1982 you had a minimum of 3 interchangeable lenses for your SLR and at least two ham radio antennas on your roof. If you had a compuserve account in '84 then you almost certainly were capable of developing your own black and white film. Also you probably either wanted to, or did, sail or pilot general aviation aircraft or both. That's just how it was back in the old days. It all intermixed too, my dad built a large box of SSI TTL logic to implement a timer for his darkroom enlarger, back then that would have been, I donno, a 20 hour project maybe.

I would theorize that whatever genetic "something" makes programmers able to problem solve also makes them polymaths. Or polymaths naturally drift into programming as an easy source of cash.

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.

Programming? Flipping burgers? The choice is easy. I can't do anything else!

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

> The idea of designing city features that would have a real, dramatic impact on people's every day lives is really compelling to me.

Maybe you might want to go into urban water management? It is done both at an academic level (environmental engineering), governance level (the city's sewer and water supply planning organizations) and private level (e.g. companies building special-purpose solutions for urban water management).

Although you said you want to get rid of programming, keep in mind that your programming capabilities get you miles there. Most stuff is still done in Excel, etc. but the field is getting more and more technical, and cities start to plan and simulate their sewer and water supply systems with sophisticated simulators (e.g. SWMM or Epanet), so your knowledge might be well received.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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).

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.

A lot of companies support their employees getting an MBA while they still work. It takes a little longer, and it pretty much devours your life while you do it, and you usually have to keep at least a B+ for the company to support you, but it's doable.

I know a guy who did this at UC Berkeley. Took him a while to get an "MBA-ish" job afterwards but it seems to have worked, and anyway he got as far as the MBA itself without quitting his job.

Leaving a high paying job isn't very hard if you don't have many commitments.

I left a decent paying job to attend grad school and so far its been rewarding.

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).

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.

"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'?

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.

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 :)

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

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!

what did you try to make it happen? No offense, but I know a lot of talented musicians that don't bring it to anything because they only 'business'-like thing they do is to upload their stuff on youtube/soundcloud....

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 :)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

0. 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.

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.

Another example: Paul Lutus (of Apple Writer fame and @lutusp on HN), gave it up for solo circumnavigation of the world in a small boat and photographing bears, among other things[0].

0. http://arachnoid.com/administration/

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!

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.

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.

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 and 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.

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

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.

> 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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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?

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 :)

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.

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.

I met a pilot recently with one of the best jobs I've ever heard of. His job is to deliver private jets, and once there, train their would-be pilots. So not only does he get to travel around the world, but also stay in these places for up to a month or more while training. And since there are pretty strict laws about how many hours he can fly in a given period, he has plenty of downtime to enjoy the places he's at.

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.

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.

Sounds like a blast! What are you fishing for?

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.

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.

As I understand it -- and I could be way off here -- the path from Software Engineer to Sales in the corporate world goes through Sales Engineering.

So if you really want to get into that, I would recommend finding some sales engineers in your company or another friendly company and ask them for advice.

Another closely related thing AFAIK is "Solution Architect" jobs -- in abundance at places like IBM and SAP. There you'd normally be in contact with the folks in Sales as they would want to make sure you're doing the required nerdy stuff to keep the customer happy and open-checkbooked.

I have a software development background and am very interested in software sales, but it's been surprisingly hard to make the transition. I can't make it past a resume screen at most places. And coming from a development background, not a lot of my connections are in sales. I reached out to the ones that are and they said they'd keep me in mind.

A recruiter friend reached out and I'm considering working sales for his staffing agency.

I'd love to hear from people that made the dev -> sales switch!

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.

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.

You can still take night classes and be a carpenter quickly enough if you really want it!

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'.

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.

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.

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.

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.

30 years? You may be retired by then.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

That sounds like a smart plan your imagination has. In the coming global climate catastrophe there will be a whole lot of instrumenation needed, and I bet you could build an awesome lifestyle/niche business on it.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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 :)

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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?

Mindfulness.

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)...

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. :)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Yup. Trading futures.

Trading options!

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

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.

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

Did. Currently in medical school.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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

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.

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

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.

It was some of the motivation behind this post:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12782151

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Either a chef or a lawyer. Maybe both.

hand-made board games

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not really. I love solving problems with computers!

I regret trying to program for a living.

Piano player, in a brothel.

Yes, writing and painting.

Every. Day.

learn haskell

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... ( 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!

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. :-) )

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.

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.

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

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.

Farming and/or studying philosophy.

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.

Farming

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