Ask HN: I need career advice to get out of tech

As for BS, currying favor, stepping on others, disgusting politics, ... it will be everywhere, doesn't matter tech or any other field, doesn't matter for-profit or non-profit organization, doesn't matter paid or volunteer positions, doesn't matter whether you are employee or business owner....

IMO, trying to run away to something else where none of these "faults" may exist is fool's gold. Learn to play it or ignore it or live with it, that is the only way to keep your physical and mental well being.

Sick of politics? Work for tiny companies or consult. Tiny companies don't have enough "slack" for non-contributors to hide their inaction without the effects being seen. There is also a small team dynamic that can be quite pleasant. the last company I worked for as an employee consisted of 3 people, all engineers.

> I have a lot of skills...without going into a Napoleon Dynamite quote or listing them all off, just assume that I can do almost anything in tech (architecture, marketing/branding, design, business, project leadership, team leadership, support, some dev, etc but not so much on finance, etc.). I have a lot of philanthropic experience using my skills to help people outside of tech. I'm persistent, intelligent, sociable and extremely hard-working.

Nearly all the skills you listed are wishy-washy and the only concrete skill you listed was some dev. In the immortal words of Napolean Dynamite: Girls only like guys who have great skills. I guess that goes for companies as well.

Throwaway as well here...

Wow- this is a really close fit for me as well. My resume has started to look like I used it for target practice because I've been jumping around trying to find a better fit.

~12 years of programming here for various companies large and small.

I don't have any advice for you but I would love to work with you on something (not that I would expect that to happen).

Burnout and fatigue is real. Maybe someone else will respond with tips on how to make this more tolerable in the mean time?

My wife and I are thinking about having kids and I'm wondering if that will help me with the "legacy" desire (which is a VERY real thing for me.

Good luck in any case and I look forward to seeing the replies this gets...

If your going to start some kind of business do it before you have kids. I can't promise success but I can tell you'll become a lot more risk adverse.

Not to mention having WAY more time for it (assuming you're the type that believes once you have kids, they deserve your attention & care more than other things).

I hear you, OP. At my job, I work on building marketing software for large insurance/utility/telecom companies with similar...shall we say disenfranchisement.

Firstly a word of warning - as the user akg_67 has said, there is no escape from the workplace politics. My girlfriend works in non-profits and currently works at one that is trying to clean up supply chains in manufacturing outsourcing countries. A commendable initiative, I think, but her workplace is still full of the same petty stupid games as anywhere else. Her previous one was about teaching girls skills and leadership, but you guessed it, there too she was part of the same crap you're trying to escape.

But if you can overlook that, and want to work for a worthy cause, you will need to network and meet other people who already work in this field. You will need to surround yourself with those people and get into that.

Here's what I would recommend for that, something I am doing myself. Join an org like ImpactHub (there are some in cities all around the world). It's a nice co-working space but also exists to foster sustainable enterprise and bring the community together of social entrepreneurs. They typically try to find connections when you join based on your interests.

Speaking of interests, figure out what you're actually passionate about and what you care about. If you really want to get out and do something worthwhile, then figure out what you consider worthwhile.

Is it the environment? Privacy? Education? Fighting corruption?

Whatever your cause, if you narrow down what you are passionate about perhaps it would be easier to find orgs or people that are like-minded and that share in those causes.

I think there's opportunities in manufacturing high quality goods, "made in USA", even in small quantities. Tools, knives, furniture, machines... things that will last. Check out reddit's r/BuyItForLife/ -- a forum for people looking for the best quality stuff. Read "Shop Class as Soulcraft" -- with the skilled trades there's a lot less BS, a lot less politics, because there are honest objective standards for good and bad performance.

This is what I've been thinking about for my own life, anyway. YMMV.

https://vimeo.com/31455885

Thanks for the link, that's just the kind of thing I've been gobbling up lately.

y, there are politics involved at every company/office. It's part of "that's why they call it work".

I would recommend settling in at your current job and use that to fund your future startup and support your family. If you're working toward your own thing you won't be as worried about promotions, climbing the ladder and office BS.

Don't advertise to others this is what you're doing. And check your employment contract and make sure you would own the IP of anything you do outside of work/work hours/work equipment.

To start I would work on something small to start building revenue that would eventually replace your day job. Work on something changing people's lives as something you can work on ideas for along the way and start once you have something in place supporting your family allowing you to leave your day job.

It's still hard, so test out and see what you can do working on things part time, building up small wins and increasing your side project revenue, getting more and more focussed on getting to the level where you can leave your day job.

startupsfortherestofus.com is a great podcast, go the archive and listen to all the episodes in order.

This is my favorite talk to get/stay inspired, @DHH at startup school 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY

If you want to feel like contributing to society, you could consider working with a non-profit like: https://learningequality.org/ or https://www.khanacademy.org/

I'm sure there is still office politics, but the altruistic mission generally keeps it down, as opposed to the pure-profit motive of corporations.

The real trick here is lower pay. I don't find meaning in my work life. It exists just to fund my art life.

A close friend left his job to start his own tech consulting company. He loves working for himself. Even if it's the same pay, he gets immense satisfaction knowing all his work is for his company.

What would you consider changing people's lives? Teaching? Solving problems in your community? Inventing a life-saving medical device?

A couple of Stanford Professors have a good framework for thinking about this very thing, Designing Your Life: Build a Life that Works for You.

NY Times review > https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/fashion/design-thinking-s...

Work as a contractor, charge a lot of money - more than you feel comfortable saying out loud but say it anyway. That way, you can work for shorter spurts and just focus on getting shit done. Then, take the minimum amount you need to sustain / enjoy life and donate the rest to either a well-regarded charity or re-invest it in your community.

You can be a contractor. This way politics will not matter/touch you since you are on-off type of employee anyway.

Even if you build your own company there still will be a lot of politics. And I don't really see how it is "get out of tech" related. You can hate and ignore politics all you want, but the politics won't ignore you.

Obligatory link to The Gervais Principle: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

Literally millions of people are in similar position. If there was a universally applicable solution to this, it would get flooded and quickly become not so good anymore (see: the indie apocalypse in game development). In my opinion, the best approach is to cultivate some passion and hope it will, years down the road, grow into a something that brings income. If it works out, you'll be a very happy man (getting to sustain yourself with your passion), if it won't - well at least you'll be amazing at what you're passionate about.

If you are planning to bootstrap something, you might be interested in joining this group:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/business-bootstrappe...

If you want to do something in the health tech space, you might be interested in joining this one:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/health-techies

Start a community garden and try to be self sustainable.

You could work on permaculture, terra preta, open source ecology and what not.

Build a community teach your knowledge. This propably changes a lot for the local community.

If you're looking to start a business to avoid corporate politics then boy are you in for a surprise.

Smaller companies have less politics.

Unfortunately, that's not universally true. But a smaller environment MAY have less politics and, even if it does, those politics may be easier to navigate.

Skills are useless without a bit of creativity. You should look into that.

I know creativity and corporations don't get along very well but it'll provide you answers to your questions above.