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Comment by atonse | Hacker News Reader

I suppose anyone leaving Apple's ID team (especially Jony Ive's inner circle) would get the equivalent of Jony Ive's job at any number of companies around the world. And companies would be happy to have that calibre of talent on board.

Some of it might be better career prospects, and some of it might really be "I've been at the pinnacle of my profession, I think I'm done"

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Or something as human as, "I'm tired of designing laptops, phones, and peripherals. I want to try designing something very different for a while."

Life is fleeting. Go start new careers every 5-10 years if you have the luxury of that option. You decide what "career" means. Maybe you go become a stand up comedian. Maybe you just go program something different than you have been.

Just wanted to say I love this advice.

Yup, that's the best thing about working in this field - every 5-10 years you get to reinvent yourself so that the job doesn't go stale

When you say “this field”, do you mean design or tech more generally?

tech in general, I've variously: ported unix kernels, designed graphics cards, did low level chip design, chil design tools and a cloud startup, cable/satellite crypto, embedded RF/voip .....

How did you make these jumps?

In a commencement speech, Jeff Hoefer goes a little bit into why he left the team four years ago and how he's changed his job each year since:

https://youtu.be/a7cJHTpW4Tg (jump to 49:00 or so for the more relevant bits)

Note also that he had a quarter century of experience before Apple, having worked on anything from the (RotJ?) Darth Vader helmet to the Oral B CrossAction, which is, a bit surprisingly, the product he thinks defines his career.

That's what I'm going to try to do. After being paid to code for over 10 years, I simply don't want to do it anymore.

I'm going to start an aerospace company and try something radically different.

I'm single, I have no kids, and don't own a home. Why not? You know?

I know. Do it! You don't have anything to lose.

I mean, know what you're walking into, but if you have that, then yeah. My family makes me risk averse. No complaints. Happy as is, you can chase after whatever, as long as you're vaguely relevant in the field.

Very interesting. I'm just beginning my dev career (still in college) but I've always fantasized about doing something in aerospace. I'm in no position to start up something like that now, but maybe (hopefully) in a decade or two.

Would you mind expanding on what your goal is with your company?

Eh, I don’t really think I want to do that. I like my job, where it is comfortable and familiar, and I can do it easily 9-5. They pay me well, keep giving me more money and incentives to stay, and they like me.

I like having an easier time at work, and then being able to spend my hours and brainpower relaxing with my kids and wife.

Yes, life is fleeting. I don’t want to spend all my creativity and brainpower on work.

I like my work & field (including subfield), and even aside from not wanting to make my life about work I enjoy the incremental improvements as I hone my skills year after year. And honestly there is so much to learn that I dont think I'm anywhere close to hitting the skill ceiling.

At the same time, Apple quietly opened a design centre in Shenzhen half a year ago.

It felt to me that they wanted to do this with the least publicity possible. They don't even have their company name at the index at first floor.

Yet they’ve been there forever. People don’t simultaneously decide that they’ve hit their peak. They do get pissed off in clusters though.

The more straightforward guess is that perhaps there are problems with some aspect of working on this team.

“People do get pissed off in clusters” is the best description of a team/company meltdown that I’ve ever seen.

As long as they don’t try to replicate their Apple-specific tactics.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2013/04/09/ron-john...

I'm sure most of these people have exceptional career options but there really isn't an equivalent of Jony Ive's job at other companies.

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