Hacker News Reader

Comment by calt | Hacker News Reader

After my dad's manufacturing related engineering position moved overseas he got told by an automaker that he was over-qualified for line work. However no one was interested in his engineering skills even after he tried to pivot to quality-control engineering.

The pay and work at the automaker would have been great for him. Instead he ended up carrying mail until retirement.

I constantly think about him and remind myself to not get to comfortable in an industry.

View on HN

> I constantly think about him and remind myself to not get to comfortable in an industry.

What are the practical outcomes of this? Side projects?

Save enough to retire early, or at least enough to be able to survive on a lower salary later in life.

If you work in an industry in which jobs are likely to be outsourced, or where ageism is a significant factor, you should not assume that you will be able to work until the normal retirement age. It's just not realistic.

Unfortunately, most industries are rapidly becoming ageist if they aren't already. And if you work in a job with lower general compensation (most of them... except finance which has major discrimination problems too) It's impossible to make enough money to retire at 40, which is exactly what most of us are now being asked to do, at the prime of our expertise, due to "overqualification"... ahem... ageism, I mean.

Unsorted list of things you could do: Grow your network, read books and learn new stuff, get jobs with great sounding titles, get jobs, where you are exposed to key stakeholders in your industry, give talks, setup a „coffee date“ every other week (meet people for 30min, don’t ask for a job, just mention you’re always interested in oppurtunities to grow, they will reach out to you when something opens up).

As wonderful as those things on your list are, the issue is about earning enough to pay rent.

The vicious cycle doesn't end for the vast majority of us. We have to keep working to keep up with expenses.

Keep learning new things. If you can't think of something substantial you've learned in the last year, switch something up. Start a company, give some talks, or switch jobs and industries if you have to.

When I hear about getting too cosy in an automotive industry my brain screams "modern day Germany".

Why is that? Automotive in Germany is generally a high pressure high turnaround job. If you're not at one of the big car manufacturers themseves chances are your employer has closed in 10 years, or fired 50% of their employees or something ridiculous like hat.

Additionally, nowadays you don't get hired by car manufacturers but by third party companies that loan their workers to them. In the lower levels (factory work) there is some pushback against that, but in the higher levels its generally accepted

Reply on news.ycombinator.com