Ask HN: How can I move away from engineering?
I want to switch careers but I'm not sure what I can possibly do. I have been in the field for 11 years. Anyone changed fields? How did you do it? Was it worth it?
* Technical Trainer (usually requires travel)
* Sales Engineer
* Project/Product Manager
These would assume you're reasonably good at public speaking and/or have solid interpersonal skills.
I've been in IT for 15 years and recently started learning to repair and shine leather shoes, as in my city there are only 2 places that do this and they don't speak English (Europe), so they're missing out on the expat population. I'm not sure if this will be my long-term plan, but I'm making money on the side and it's something I don't need a storefront for. Hoping to retire from full-time IT in another 5 years or so, so maybe this will be one of the ways I generate income.
I recently (Dec. 2020) switched to Engineering Manager from Engineering Lead, and it's been a pretty welcome change over all. I was pretty weary about stepping away from code (it's been my life's work for 20 years), but it has opened the door to learn a whole host of interpersonal skills that I had not previously valued that much. It has also put me in a position to help mentor and guide my direct reports (all devs) in our 1:1 meetings that I have not previously had as much of a chance to do even as lead. It's been very rewarding, and if you're looking for a way out of the day to day code itself (but still in the ecosystem), it's a great option to try.
When I'd started college a long time ago, I couldn't decide between Computer Science or pursuing a legal career. I went with CS, I didn't love the CS program, so I switched to Electrical Engineering and eventually got my masters.
As it turns out, I ended up in a software career, but about 5 years in, I wondered about the road not taken, so I looked at what it would take to get into a legal career. Many law firms hire Engineers to do patent work and will pay your salary AND pay for you to attend law school, so I applied for roles and got one at a big law firm. I ended up not pursuing it all the way for personal reasons, but it was definitely a possible path to switch from Engineering.
I am VERY interested in your comment regarding law. Thank you. Can you give me any references on some firms I can contact?
My experience was a while ago, but having actual work experience and an EE degree made me VERY employable. My firm had about 25 people in this role, and only two of us had work experience, and I was the ONLY one with a degree in something other than bio or chem. The world has changed a bit since then, so YMMV.
With an Engineering degree (CS doesn't count), you'd also be eligible to sit for the Patent Bar and become a registered Patent Agent as well. As for the job itself, it's helping the patent attorneys understand inventions, search for prior art, draft the patents and claims, etc.
It's not a very team oriented job, which is why I left. I did have my own office with a great view and a secretary (patent secretary is a well-paid, specialized job), which was nice.
That's my problem, I don't want to sell my time, I want to sell a product/service, but do not sell my time as a consultant.
This is a great read on switching.
https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-get-into-product-m...
whereas 'Product Manager' would generally require more experience/expertise, imo -- tho there are 'Junior Product Manager' roles out there.
imo, if you know how to run a standup, and can talk semi-intelligently about how to prioritize user stories, can use Jira, etc., you can get hired as a product owner, esp in a contract-to-hire situation.
Just to collect one random datapoint, do you work for an enterprise-focused tech company? And how much travel do you do outside the pandemic? What would be the “FAANGs” for a SWE turning into a sales engineer?
> Just to collect one random datapoint, do you work for an enterprise-focused tech company?
Yes, B2B company in the enterprise space primarily.
> And how much travel do you do outside the pandemic?
My team's role is a bit odd. Think it as a super technical / strategic overlay team. Rather than being assigned to a set of sales reps or to a region, we're attached to the entire US. As a consequence, we're brought in to help with high-end use cases where an individual sales engineer might see the use case once a quarter at max. We also moonlight on strategic discussions around product strategy.
That being said, pre-pandemic, we'd generally travel on-site with customers 5-10 times a year. Travel for more normal sales engineers is a bit more. Maybe, on average, 1.5 full days every 2 weeks. It'll vary by geography. New York / New Jersey focused folks 'travel' more since there's a higher density of customers. For example, pre-pandemic, I traveled down to NY a few hours by train and stopped by 4 customers 6 hours. This is the first software company that I've worked for but based on chatting with departed colleagues, this varies wildly. Some sales reps are, for lack of a better term, abusive of their engineers' time. Think being told on Monday that you need to fly for 3 hours for a meeting on-site on Wednesday with a marginally qualified prospect (aka it's not clear they want our software or have the budget to purchase it).
Feel free to ask if you have other questions.
I work as a sales engineer for Databricks. As a SWE I had built cloud infrastructure like the equivalent of AWS S3 for the companies I worked for. So the technical nature of the product and customers appealed to me and made my skillset valuable to the role.
> how much travel do you do outside the pandemic?
I have not had this job outside the pandemic. I'm NYC-based, and my understanding is that I would have traveled by subway to meet clients quite often, but plane travel would have been only a few times a quarter.
> What would be the “FAANGs” for a SWE turning into a sales engineer?
When figuring out who you want to work for, I would suggest selling a product that you like to customers you would like to work with. If you like the product and the customers the job can be a joy. If not, it can be a slog. You have a huge leg up if you already have experience with the product or came from the industry that will be using the product. Another important thing to look at is the sales culture of the organization. Some organizations have aggressive sales cultures where the "win" is what matters regardless of all else. Other sales organizations are more focused on making their customers successful. As a former SWE, the customer success sales culture appeals far more to me.
One thing I really like about working for Databricks is that, while we do make commission, it's a pooled commission. So I get compensated on the performance of the team, not just myself. So it fosters a very collaborative atmosphere. We're always jumping in to help each other out. Individual commissions can make for a cut-throat sales culture. I probably make less money than I would with individual commissions, but I'm much happier. So that's another thing to look at: how people are compensated.
I got bored pretty quickly, mainly with doing demos.
I continue to look at Sales Engineer-type roles because part of me likes the idea of SELLING LIKE A * FIEND, but I can't seem to get past the idea of becoming a 'demo monkey' again.
Even if there was plenty of stuff to do that was not demos, a single demo each day felt like, 'Why am I doing this and not the sales rep?'
It kind of made me think of the infamous Adam Smith quote -- doing the same one or few tasks over and over would lead you to become "as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become."
Some stuff was very technically sophisticated/nuanced, but most was not. I wonder if the orgs I worked for had just not optimized things, but I didn't see any obvious flaws in the process. POCs were all well-qualified, etc. Maybe the 'problem' was just that I might really only be needed to answer one or two questions during a sales presentation/demo, but you had to be there for the whole 30/60 minutes, paying attention, doing the demo, etc.
If a sales rep was late to a call I'd think, "Well I'm just gonna do the whole call because at least then i won't be just a demo monkey."
It just seemed like you had to be ok with saying the same thing over and over, even if you had customized demos/POCs, etc.
I think my ideal role would be split between at least 4 functional areas -- e.g. 2 hours of my day to sales, 2 to sales engineer, 2 to devrel, 2 to customer success -- something like that.
To OP: I've switched to Project/Product Manager/Owner, and that was great-ish, back to tech support and such, and currently about to start doing a TAM role.
One option that never really appealed to me, but which seems to be a viable option if you've got some cash/equity, is doing the whole 'investor' thing. You can start buying/flipping houses, do the Airbnb thing, or find folks to invest with -- e.g. you can put $50k into a real estate/atm/etc-type fund, get ~20% return per year, paid out monthly, 7 year limit, etc.
There's also the idea of buying some existing business and running it. Small coffee shop. Small online shop. etc.
A few years back I got a job at a university cancer center doing bioinformatics. It required a massive paycut (I had savings), but was super fun to be on the steep part of a learning curve again learning a new domain and being a key part of a good team (I brought a decade+ of software engineering experience to a team of mostly biologists). 100% worth it. But did require saving a lot beforehand.
As a case study of one, I transitioned from engineer to being a technical writer last year. I now run a small agency, but I could have stayed employed in the field just as easily.
The money isn't quite as lucrative as in software engineering, but it's very livable, unlike many forms of writing.
You also don't have to limit yourself to dry documentation. Companies hire technical writers to do blog posts, case studies, and even marketing copy for technical products.
I've also had friends transition into fields like product management and network security, which might also be a nice change of pace. I wrote more about this here: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/alternative-career-paths/
I am basically just trying to suck it up until I can "retire" in 19 years, or get fired. Moving to a different role in the same company can help temporarily.
On the network side study for the CCNA to easily slide into jobs. You might take a temporary pay cut for that move but should be back to normal once you become a senior with a CCNP. Once you can write automation to configure switches or write automation improve routing table you will be worth far more than your peers.
Using your software experience to forensic tools, footprint automation, and better reports is huge and takes more experience than you would think from the outside looking in.
I'd look into jobs that allows you to either work less or make engineering some sort of side activity, like in finance they need people that can write python, technical writing, law, biotech, product management etc. I believe in those areas you can even attain a similar compensation.
I did move away from IT after a burnout. I did volunteer work during that time, and since a while I'm working there. It's not IT related, but of course I'm the IT guy there now. No problem btw. It's a small part of the job and I like doing it.
Was it worth it? I don't know, it's too early to tell. I'm considering going back to IT, but in another role, one with more human interaction.
If you want to remain in the industry, but just switch job to something non-Engineering, like management, an MBA could work.
If you want to try something completely different, you may need to re-educate yourself, if it's a different professional job / licensed profession (nursing, medicine, accounting, etc.)
If you want to try something that doesn't need a new degree, well, try reaching out to your employer of choice, and explain your situation.
and maybe that would actually require being in a physical corporate classroom-type setting at some point post-covid.
down here in Phoenix, a lot of (high?) schools seem to be hiring. i suspect it might be due to a mix of factors -- covid and charter schools being the leading two.
Took a long time I guess to fully transition over, but was totally worth it as far as I'm concerned, and I was learning and growing over the whole period. Probably could have done it faster, but wasn't an issue for me.
The main thing I think is to figure out what really interests you or what kind of change you want in your work.