Tell HN: From bartending to managing cloud infrastructure

Your story confirms what I have often thought, life is about connections. My own tumbling into IT with no education was a series of connections. My three main jobs over the last thirty years were through my wife's friend husband, a teenage friend from church and a teenage friend from working in a supermarket. I'd had the opportunity to give others a go myself down through the years. I had a nice moment recently when a young guy, now a senior dev, thanked me for giving him the opportunity. I interviewed him for work experience as a favour for a friend. A colleague and I could see during the interview he was a bit special, though he had no idea of this himself.

So let's hope for more people like yourself willing to have a go, and more people looking out for others.

I've committed to the process of passing it on; I did a similar thing for a friend , who's now on that last third of the journey.

I've become really interested in the whole concept of an apprenticeship - I think that it could be a great solution for a lot of folks, like it was for me. I intend to do more mentoring, and I'm always on the look out for more mentors.

edited to add: What I got from my mentor was almost not at all technical, and he didn't help me find a job when the time came. Mostly, he helped me feel like it was something that could be done (because he said so and had the credentials to be an authority on the matter), and he got me a little unstuck occasionally. If one could just "make up their mind" that it was a doable thing, they could make it happen without the mentorship - but like I said in the post, it's an emotional journey first and community is super important for that. None of us is an island.

> I've committed to the process of passing it on; I did a similar thing for a friend

I've done the exact opposite, I am super lucky in all sorts of ways and the last person I want to help is someone with a similar background to mine.

I don't mean this as a criticism, but more a counterpoint. It isn't what you know it is who you know is still true today. I do not think that is a good design.

what I meant by that was, I had a friend who was hitting Rock bottom and I had him stay with me for a bit while I coached him to learn to code. he's continuing the journey on his own recognizance at the moment.

Will it work out? only time will tell. but he's built some really cool shit so far and any team would be lucky to have him as a junior

Yeah. I am the exception, but once I got into the industry I have gotten luckier due to connections.

Counterpoint. I grew up as an Army brat with a lot of siblings so I have few long term older relationships. I worked my way into tech by way of ITT tech and landing a helpdesk job after a couple months of unemployment. It was low pay, but better then the warehouse and data entry jobs I did before (circa 2000). I've changed jobs every 3 or 4 years; going from helpdesk, to PC tech, to Network Analyst, to System Admin, and finally to Linux Administration. I've been doing Linux for the last 10 years.

I have landed every job through public job listings. I've maintained some contact with previous colleagues, but never had any real job opportunism pushed my way. I'm sure their good recommendations have helped, and I believe I interview well.

Just putting this out there for people who have smaller social networks or feel shut out.

Similar. End of 2008. Decided I didn’t want to do back-breaking work anymore. Always loved and used Linux and decided I must be a NOC tech in a datacenter. Got onto SLUG (Tampa) irc, found out about a local hosting company that owned a DC, relentlessly called/harassed the NOC Manager until he let me intern/work for free. Been in tech ever since.

All I have been thinking for years is, I would rather do anything, even bartend, than keep doing this fucking tech job thing for the rest of my life. I don't have the savings built up for retirement so I stick with it, but I really just hate how fucking horrible everyone is at their jobs, how every company is basically just bad for the planet and humanity, and how we keep building the same stupid bullshit, keep making the same mistakes, all for basically no benefit to humanity. At least a bartender is like a cross between a psychiatrist and a drug dealer. People can take a breather at the bar, you can help them relax or treat themselves. Me? I help other people get rich taking advantage of people selling them stupid shit they don't need that's built like a kindergartener made it. But it's a paycheck, whoooo.

I am glad you are able to build yourself a more stable career though, seriously, kudos. I really do hope you enjoy it, unlike my dumb ass. Maybe anything you do for 20 years can make you sick. shrug

Man, I can feel it from here. I had that same feeling when I was in the service - moral hazard is real, y'all.

at the risk of sounding like a plug, there were a bunch of folks at recurse who were in your position and specifically went to 'get the magic back'. Something to consider; take a sabbatical, focus on some fun stuff. I'm sure your presence and experience would be appreciated.

> I would rather do anything, even bartend, than keep doing this fucking tech job thing for the rest of my life.

So why don't you? Anyone can get a bar job.

Amen Martech in a nutshell.

For what it's worth, I had the same growing concerns over my tech career though I have to be honest, I wasn't as down on it as you seem to be. I totally get the idea of doing something to make yours (and maybe someone elses) universe a little better,

I started in tech in the late 90's making websites, that lead into design and development, I ran a company for a bit doing consultancy from 2007 to 2013 and then took at job at a start up as the first technical and design person. I stayed there for nine years, moved into the CTO role, then the CIO role and then last year I quit the industry to go back to a local rural college and study arboriculture and forestry. I now spend my days learning about trees and doing chainsaw work. By the time summer comes around I'll have all the qualifications I need to actually work as a climber who can use a chainsaw up a a tree or as a forester to go into plantations and fell timber stock. I also got pretty interested in woodworking in 2018 and I've spent a few years slowly self renovating my (very small) garage into a workshop capable of small scale production of "craft" items. Between the tree work and the creative sales I'm hoping to get a modest income up and running by the end of the year. It'll never be a tech salary, but that's fine because I'm out in the woods and in nature and that's a price tech could never pay. Even when the weather is cold, wet and grey there's still something to being outside and working (though I'm sure that will wear off after a few years)

People often congratulate me on quitting to get "my dream job", or because I'm "following my passion" and neither of those things are true. My dream job is to work on whatever I want without having to worry about money. What I'm doing now is something I'm prepared to do for money because a) it is great fun and b) I'm doing something that at the end of the day leaves the planet in a slightly better state than it was at the start of the day.

My unsolicited advice to you is to turn some of that cynicism into harnessable energy. It's not easy for sure, but that's kind of the point. If you stay with that easy pay check everything will be hard because you don't want to be there. Turn that around and do the hard thing of finding or up-skilling into something else and then you'll find most things will be easy because the simple act of changing your life will give you some wind in your sails.

If it's important - I'm in the UK. Northumberland to be precise.

I had a very similar experience.

I spent the first chunk of my working life (>10 years), working in bars, night clubs and restaurants. I was good at getting jobs and frequently quit them. All I cared about was taking drugs, chasing girls and playing with technology.

I ended up getting married and my wife supported me for 9 months whilst I learned Drupal and PHP. During that time I started a Drupal meetup and met lots of other developers.

One of those developers told me her company was looking for a contractor, so I applied for the job. The same girl took my resume from the bottom of the pile and put it at the top. I was invited to interview. Two of us passed the interview and were asked to do a test. The other guy was a very experienced contractor, but he refused to do tests on a matter of principle, leaving me as the only candidate.

I went from £6.50 an hour (minimum wage) to £300 / day. It was utterly life changing.

Still working as a developer 12 years later.

> (minimum wage) to £300 / day. It was utterly life changing.

so much this. I read other folks around here talking about how low the pay is at a startup and just think how it's all relative. I'm not buying Porsches or anything but my life is leagues different. My first job in tech was ~75k and I was ecstatic.

As someone who went from being a barback to ~10 years now as a software engineer this is great advice and applies to many :)!

Holy crap, three of us so far! Maybe there's more to restaraunteuring than I give it credit for...

The latest thing I've learned in software engineering is that people skills matter way more than anyone has told me. Most SWEs think they're working with code, but mostly they're working with people through code (esp APIs). SWEs tend to lack the skills to listen to their colleagues/customers and respond in an understandable way. Myself included. I've seriously considered part-time bar-tending jobs before.

In other words, I think there are parallels between serving food and serving data.

Started as a barback and worked long shifts overnight while still attending music college during the day. Made £5.05 per hour before taxes. Had to use my arm to sweep under the bars — the detritus mostly consisting of broken glass, lime wedges, and general dirt. The wounds on your arms would only be superficial, but the bits of vodka and citric acid made it sting.

Had to run up and down stairs carrying cases of beer and armchairs.

Slept very little. Consumed a load of sugar and caffeine to try to stay alert.

Switched to software. Wasn't very good at it. Still not very good at it, but I'm proud to have built a really great company full of lovely and talented people around the world. We're making some real waves now too[0].

[0]: https://www.globalreinsurance.com/home/over-24-billion-premi...

That's so cool. It's stories like yours that kept me going when I started to question my sanity.

Counterpoint here, i spent some years trying to get away from the bar and into tech, and eventually gave up as I both didn't enjoy it and still felt like a failure after 4-5 years of self teaching. I can blame that partially to not having a mentor or much of a community as you say, but also to mostly just getting remote gigs via upwork where I was supposed to churn out a bunch of work without guidance (very anxiety inducing for a noob), and to my background in arts which put a constant nagging voice in my mind that asked me is this bullshit really what you want to do?

I went back to bartending where I've been quite happy ever since even if poor - it also gives an outlet to my artistic side, as you're partially a performer behind the bar. After a while i started getting more and more into digital art tho and as i turned 40, i realise i need to make that my main thing and eventually leave the bar behind. It's a tougher jump as there's not nearly as much work as in tech, but I'll have to make it. Knowing how to code is a big advantage though (mostly doing VR and animation in Unreal Engine these days) and when it's just one part of the job i actually find it enjoyable :D

Here I am, a network security consultant, dreaming of quitting and being a bartender or owning a hookah bar.

How would you recommend going in the other direction (technologist to bartender)?

Edit: Thank you!

Quit, learn how to be a bartender.

In my experience the best bartenders are those who can code switch between customers. Sure it's important to know how to make this or that drink, but that can be learned or looked up pretty fast, and the subsidiary duties (inventory, cleaning, cash/credit management) are basic skills almost every service industry worker has to grasp to survive.

You might say "customer service" is the key to success, but I prefer "code switching" because, although they are complementary skills, you can have great empathy and compassion yet still be incapable of communicating that to the customer in a way that works.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean put on accents or use unnatural slang. Instead, listen. Match cadence as best you can in your own accent. Become familiar with various subcultures you might encounter so that you can be a better (active) listener. Learn and remember which regular customers can tolerate banter and to what extent. Develop thick skin (within reason).

Remember your regulars, but avoid assuming what they want.

Be consistent with your schedule.

Lots more but that's initial suggestions from one who has been on both sides of this.

I consider my time behind a bar my real education. Imagine a wide eyed 22 year old from a pretty quiet area thrown behind a bar with a clientele ranging from Nobel laureates to homeless people taking a shower in the bar toilet. You learn to get along with and enjoy all sorts of people and take them for what they are. You learn to deal with people that love you and people that hate you with the passion of seven suns. You learn to handle people at their best and their worst. You learn to convince belligerent people to do something they don't want. You develop empathy and see people with lifestyles completely different than your own. You learn to have a conversation with anyone and I mean anyone. There's so much more but that's a start

> behind a bar with a clientele ranging from Nobel laureates to homeless people taking a shower in the bar toilet

Berkeley?

good guess but farther east.

Honestly, get good at doing a quick sub-rosa google to find a drink recipe when you don't know it, practice making a few until you figure out that most drinks are variations on like, three, and the rest is being personable.

You could become a bartender without ever having mixed a drink and hack it - much more important to understand people and how to keep the vibe lively.

Oh, and every bartender has lied on their resume at least once.

Bartending is 90% social skills (and to a certain extent restaurant/hospitality management especially if you want to evolve in that field) and 10% actual drink-making.

Bar jobs are easy to get. Just keep applying and something will turn up.

All managers really want is someone who is reliable, turns up on time and doesn't steal. Bars (especially night clubs) have a high staff turnover so people are always needed. When I needed a new job I would print out a CV on nice paper and walk round every bar in the city handing them in - that gives staff / management a first impression of you. Don't email or post. Be there and hand it over. Also, I found it much harder when applying for advertised jobs - more competition.

The work itself is not complex but is very physical. Be prepared to work unsocial hours and get called in because someone else has has phoned in sick (it happens a lot!). Be aware you're going to have to diffuse arguments and stop fights at some point. Tips tend to be garbage in the UK unless you're waiting tables. Be careful of your alcohol consumption -- the industry breeds alcoholics.

to add to this; do your job hunting Monday-Wednesday between noon and 5. That's when you'll catch the manager with the time to talk to you.

I have the same question, but with a catch: how to move the other way without halving your income?

Buy the bar. No joke, this is how you turn bartending into a career. I have friends that did it from bartender -> manager -> owner, all at the same dive.

Oh, and you want it to be a dive bar. Or craft beer. Food is a pain in the ass, fancy cocktail bars are hyper competitive and not always profitable.

Dives get the best crowds/most dedicated regulars, and you can make a mint with high-turnover beer/shot specials.

And make sure to install a pinball machine.

Find out what local user groups are in the area and offer space to host a post-meetup party.

I think this post is brilliant (really cool) for more than one reason.

You give hope to the underachievers that they can better themselves (related: my GPA was lower than yours :)).

You give great advice on mental illness (if I may editorialize: seek help if you think you may need it; it changed my life like I think it changed yours).

I see so many posts from FAANG employees... I don't think that I could pass the IQ test for being a janitor at those places. /shrug. So happy to see "regular?" people here.

My "Grass Is Greener" syndrome says that I almost wish I was still bartending...

that "underachiever" thing .. I've begun to see how woefully inadequate our systems for learning are for leveraging the potential in some folks, like me, and I imagine yourself.

Because I'm not dumb. I'd bet you aren't, either. But our social sorting hat is opinionated and we're not it's favorite.

Thank Cerf for the Internet, or I'd have been SOL. I don't do well in classrooms, but I've managed to learn every bit I might have needed and more. I think that we're about due for a competitor to the traditional school model.

Power to the regular folks.

Nice, always love seeing fellow bartenders turned software. I had a totally different, arguably more [cliche and less well-written story](https://www.helloim.dev/blog/posts/Bartender-Perspective-On-...) and am always rambling on about the weird ways bartending prepped me.

Yeah, it's weird, but the more I think about it the more I realize that if it weren't for the social skills I built at the bar, I likely wouldn't have made the friends I did who gave me the support I needed along the way.

There's a spooky kind of power in being able to curate a vibe and be easy to socialize with. It looks a whole lot like just fucking around, but there's probably not a thing in my life it hasn't improved.

My story time! Shortened tho..

In mid 2010s I was fresh college dropout with little perspective in life but had lots of self-thought skills in general IT field. Worked odd jobs as a student, labor jobs, fixing computers on a side, being jack of all trades but master at none. Then decided to emigrate from my southern European country into NW Europe. Within two weeks I got entry position in major cloud provider, a job I was dreaming to get in a span of 5-10 years, but there I was. 9 years later I am managing couple of said cloud provider facilities, have direct reports under me, and my current life is unimaginable compared to where I was ten years ago. Every single year since I emigrated was substantially better than previous one. There was a promo or at least solid salary increase every 12 months, did some side moves to different teams and eventually navigated to what I am and have at this moment. Imposter syndrome still kicks in from time to time and kicks hard, but that's something I need to live with. Lack of college degree doesn't help a single bit

Yup, there's really something to the jack of all trades thing in the ops world, isn't there?

it just feels natural to wake up every day with a totally different class of problem than yesterday.

When I owned and operated a computer store about 30 years ago I ran into a lady that had an interest in computers. She was a bartender at a local dive. Knew nothing of technology. I taught her what I knew and gave her some experience out in the field for a couple of years. She’s now the Emergency Manager for a pretty populous county. At first it’s all about connections then it’s up to you.

What sort of startled me about my experience was that the connections were important, but not in the way I had always assumed they would be.

I had this model of cronyism in my head, where you make the right friend and you get a job because they're rather work with someone they have a personal relationship with.

Maybe that's a real thing in some places, but my connections were all about making this huge difficult thing easier to manage (that is, learning how to do it and believing it could be done).

Most of the study was my own, and all of the job seeking was with no connection whatsoever to my network.

So I will be voluntary unemployed in about 5 months. Nothing bad just been walking through the same door for 20+ years and decided a change would be good for my inner me. Anyhow after a few of interviews where the difference being that there was a connection on some and not others, I find I am much more comfortable at the former as I know that they have already talked to someone who is familiar with me and I am there interviewing because they already had an interest. Makes me more comfortable for sure.

Wow, this story sounds familiar to my own. Moved to NYC 15 years ago and worked in Service (Server, Bartender, Manager) after about 8 years in, I applied to college at CUNY. Went to engineering school part time for 4 years while still working at a bar (6pm-5am 3 nights a week) until I finally just took out loans to finish the last two years.

Graduated with a degree in computer Engineering at 33. During and after school I worked in web doing frontend, then full stack engineering. Now I'm senior at a cloud HPC company designing and implementing things beyond my imagination.

I can 100% testify the soft skills learned from the service industry give me a competitive advantage in tech.

I don't have any questions, but a comment.

Your story isn't too different from the struggles many feel when they do it the traditional way and get a bachelor's degree in their early 20s, or whatever age they do it at. This is very relatable. Thanks for sharing.

You know, I hadn't even considered that. I appreciate that perspective. Thank you.

OP here; I remembered that I had asked a relevant question on HN before. For those figuring stuff out: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24325548

What was the recurse center like?

Any anecdotes of something you've learnt there that has helped you?

It is amazing. My batch was a mixed bag of incredible insights from brilliant people and awkward social dancing over zoom. I worked really hard because I felt like I kind of owed it to the others in my batch to give it my all, and that was really helpful.

Funny enough, probably the most helpful thing I got out of my batch was seeing the folks with a lot less domain knowledge than me simply kill it and make awesome stuff. I had the thought - "If they can do it and they just figured out how to fizzbuzz, what the hell is my excuse?". I learned a lot about what kind of energy it takes to just get the job done from them.

Mostly, though, it's the ongoing support that makes it incredible. Once you're connected with that community, you're never wanting for advice or just someone to talk shop with. I highly recommend it to anyone of any skill level. I'm considering doing another batch when I have the time off work.

Not OP, but a Recurser (I suspect there's a lot of us on here!)

If the idea of a self-structured sabbatical appeals to you, Recurse is great. It's definitely (and deliberately) not a bootcamp of a traditional sort, so it attracts a certain type of person. I definitely learned stuff there that has helped me (I spent my batch going deep on WebAssembly and the WGSL shader language), but the bigger thing it gave me was a reset from working in industry nonstop for ~10 years and a chance to remember why I like programming in the first place.

You're a hero. I don't have more to say than that.

Thanks! Didn't think of myself that way but feels good to hear it

"Seek out information greedily"

That's the biggest problem for me. I spend so much time *reading* about tech stuff/programming but it rarely sticks until I force myself to write code/work on project, that's when the knowledge *incorporates*, else I am just a erudite bag of wind. It really helps to know what you are doing, but it's useless if you are doing nothing, or scrolling through HN comments :)

that same problem has gently corralled me into mostly working on projects that are useful to me. Some lisp to make my editor do better things here, a mnemonic keychord database there. It can really help to motivate when you have a deep and intuitive understanding about why you're building x y or z thing.

The most recent thing I'm hacking on is a gui to sort through and rank stable diffusion outputs. it's not technically complex or advanced but it'll solve a problem I have so I keep coming back to it.

I am all for "a deep and intuitive understanding" of whatever I do" but it tends to be a bit extreme to the point where I don't do anything because I feel it won't perfect the first time, and it never is.

well, it won't be. Matter of fact, I haven't made a perfect thing yet! Loads upon loads of failures, though. I get prouder of them every time.

The way I try to look at it is that it's all practice. Every scrap of code I write is a prototype of a better version.

Homeless to senior mech eng here. Do you also find yourself dealing with imposter syndrome or struggling to account for survivor bias in your advice?

I deal with imposter syndrome by asking tons of questions and being totally up front about what I don't know - it helps that I have a sense of pride for what I know I can do - I'm a better lateral mover than most and that's helped me be useful where others struggle so it's okay when I'm struggling and they have the answers. Eliminating ego is a constant piece of the work.

The survivor bias is one that I think on pretty frequently. A friend that I mentored is a lot better than I am in technical ways but struggles in some of those areas that have nothing to do with tech - emotional regulation and people skills - and it's made the journey very difficult. I wonder frequently how I could have better taught those skills.

Edit to add: Homeless to senior eng? Holy cow! I wanna hear that story!

Well done, that kind of introspection can be hard to keep up.

Did you have a passion for computing when you started? I always come across people who ‘want to get into tech’ because of the perceived salary or lifestyle. I’m assuming most would be bad or fail in their objectives, but would support people I think could achieve their goal - trouble is I’m not sure which characteristics would differentiate the two groups.

Being a musician apparently, if I remember the google study!

I always thought computers were super cool, but tbh I don't think I really knew enough to have that passion until I learned what code really was. Maybe I was lucky that it fit into my interests, or maybe I sniffed out what was under the surface without really knowing, but not really.

When I think really attracted me at first was, I liked the idea of a job that would keep me intellectually engaged and allow me to work remote. This quickly evolved into a deeper love once I realized how code really works - the way that it allows you to think. It feels a little like I've rewritten my own mental source code after learning the stuff. I for sure think differently about the world than I used to.

I have always had a weird obsession with systems thinking; perhaps that helped.

If it were just about the money, Id've quit. Money's not interesting enough to do something I hate.

Thank you for sharing your story. Good luck with your newfound career in tech!

Thanks for sharing your story. I feel like I’m in a similar situation, but have been studying the networking / security side of things. Recurse looks incredible!

Apply for a batch! There's a bunch of folks there who specialize. There's a running cryptopals group IIRC

Did you target cloud infrastructure from the beginning, or fall into it by chance? Do you think that's an easier entry point than general programming?

It's a different beast, for sure. My primary role is the resident Ansible/terraform guy. There's overlap but it's less about knowing the best algorithms and more about being able to piece together a broad swath of disparate parts. There's a significant amount of figure-it-out-make-it-happen, which I enjoy.

I knew the tools, because in the course of learning I had to build projects end to end and managing stuff manually while also working on the code was just not on.

While knowing both of those definitely made a lot of interviewers perk up a bit, I think what really lubricated the process was that I had focused really wide - I had entry -level competency in a ton of stuff so it was easier to find a good fit.

I guess the takeaway is to learn a little bit of a lot rather than a lot of a few things. That will also be helpful after you specialize, because it's never a bad thing to know how your systems interconnect.

Nice. The recurse centre is something I would be tempted to do but don’t want to leave family. Doing it remote is an interesting concept.

they went remote for COVID and afaik they still do remote. was all remote last I checked but it may be hybrid

What are some of the common skills? Things that you learned as a bartender that give you an advantage in the new job?

People skills. I can hold a conversation about a topic I know nothing about without bullshitting - it's all about asking the right questions to get the other party talking about something that fascinates them.

Also, and I don't think this is bartending but just having survived to 30, I have an understanding that no matter how hard something seems, or how lost I am, it's never quite so drastic as it feels. Also that _thinking_ like it's drastic is a surefire way to make sure it becomes so.

I've had some amazing conversations with people at the bar. I had an economist that used to come in an he'd talk about whatever research he was working on, I think I got a c- in microeconomics, but I really enjoyed listening to him talk. I always felt like I knew so much more after he left and he was so passionate about his topic I think he was just thrilled to talk about it and I was happy to listen. Maybe that's it, people are just happy that when they say something someone listens. Listening goes a long way.

Great story. How can I contact you?

My emails in my profile.

I'll reach out when I'm back at a keyboard

Genuine question, out of curiosity cause not many can make that comparison: do you sometimes miss bartending?

Sort of. I get my fill of what bartending gave me by attending social gatherings, mostly. I don't miss the hours, and I don't miss having to deal with the more inebriated patrons.

Also, it's a thing you can always just sorta do so long as there's one other person around.

That said, I also don't drink hardly at all anymore. There are better ways to have a good time that come with less literal headache.

Well done!

Did you do recurse in person or remotely?

remote. it was during quarantine, so everyone was remote.