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I like this response very much. I'm in my mid-40s now and worked in many different sectors and positions before ending up in my current career. Even negative experiences, such as washing out as an air traffic controller after 2 years, have been beneficial in my current position. First, they provide some humility and empathy toward people who are struggling and, secondly, they give me alternative lenses toward viewing problems that I'd not have had otherwise. It's one thing to model a logistics problem and another to have driven a tractor trailer or worked as an air traffic controller and understand the practical implications of a solution.

> First, they provide some humility and empathy toward people who are struggling and, secondly, they give me alternative lenses toward viewing problems

... and third, they give me a kick in the backside when I feel whiny and complacent. "Oh, so you're pissed because your bonus was 2k instead of 2.5k? Well, if you were still washing dishes like back then, there would be no bonus at all..."

Sounds like an interesting path you’ve taken. Do you have any memoirs or blog post about it?

Thats a good question, and no, I haven't written them up yet. I probably would title it "Adventures in ADHD". I grew up in a rural region and so ended up in university for agricultural science, but midway through my second year I was accepted into the Air Traffic Control school.

My best friend was driving long-haul tractor trailers across the USA and since I had a half year waiting for my ATC school to start I went to truck driving school and got my license so I could team drive with him for a bit.

After graduating ATC school and training on site for a year I was unable to meet the increasingly-difficult requirements to progress to the next level. After a while it was evident to both me and my instructors that I wasn't going to be happy even if I managed to pass those barriers as my brain wasn't wired for continuous focus (I hadn't yet been diagnosed with ADHD).

I applied to return to university and while waiting for my application I worked as a construction supervisor. I had spent my teens working for an industrial construction company and they were delighted to take me back on a temporary basis as they were very busy and the market for experienced supervisors was tight.

Finally got back into university but before I had graduated with an agricultural science degree one of my professors asked me to do a Masters graduate program with him. So I eventually graduated with an M.Sc. in agricultural economics and business. I worked as an analyst/lobbiest for five years but disliked reading government documents so took a position as a Market Analyst.

While working as a market analyst I discovered that Excel was a terrible tool for handling all but the simplest data, and in my search for a solution I encountered Python and it's data analytical ecosystem.

While I would never consider myself a programmer, I loved the increasingly complex solutions I could create with Python and, inevitably, ended up learning Linux servers so I could host my data, scrapers, and visualization web servers.

And now I'm wondering what's next, but since my kids are teenagers I'm pausing here for a bit until they move out to avoid unnecessarily disrupting their lives by uprooting them and moving away to a new position.

How was your ADHD diagnosed and how did you deal with it, I have just been given a questionnaire to by my psychologist to see if I have it.

That was similar to my experience. I had gone in for some counseling with a therapist and she forwarded me to a psychologist. After a few weeks he diagnosed it.

I'd love to say it was magically fixed by pills but it will always remain a struggle.

"If you don’t have [nice things], they can mean a great deal to you. When you do have them, they mean nothing.

To me, the unhappiest people in the world are those in the watering places, the international watering places, the south coast of France and Newport and Palm Springs and Palm Beach. Going to parties every night, playing golf every afternoon, then bridge. Drinking too much, talking too much, thinking too little. Retired. No purpose.

I know there are those who would totally disagree and say, ‘If I could just be a millionaire, that would be the most wonderful thing. If I could just not have to work every day. If I could be out fishing or hunting or playing golf or traveling, that would be the most wonderful life in the world.’

They don’t know life. Because what makes life mean something is purpose. A goal. The battle. The struggle. Even if you don’t win it."

-- Richard Nixon

Sounds good, doesn't actually mean much. It's just an extended version of "money doesn't buy happiness".

Money buys the ability to do whatever you want. It buys you the ability to take what would normally be big risks. It also buys you the ability to live a sad but otherwise comfortable life on a beach.

Money bought the person you responded to the ability to travel the world and study math, instead of worrying about getting food on the table or taking care of family.

Denying this is one of the most ignorant things people with money can do. It's the core of many problems in society, as it's directly related to the inability for many in power to empathize with people who are less fortunate.

Agreed. Money buys choices, simple as. What you do with those choices, and how much meaning they bring to your life, is entirely up to you.

Or, to put it another way, everyone has choices, but the choices of the poor are all bad.

He’s not saying it’s good to be poor, he’s saying it’s not good to be stupidly rich.

I think a better way of putting it is "Money alone doesn't buy happiness." You can be happy with or without money, sure, but it absolutely helps. Either too much or too little of it can negatively affect your life satisfaction

Money doesn’t buy happiness, but for the things it does buy, it has no substitute.

This sounds like a total win. You studied what you wanted, didn't completely wipe out your finances, and successfully re-opened a door you thought may have been permanently closed. I view self actualization as a far more important component of a life well-lived than your savings balance.

but he's back to where he started in the beginning. I didn't sound like there was any more self actualization, after he went back.

Right, but these sort of narratives are rarely linear. In either case they would have been working compilers. At least in this version of events, they got to take a shot at a passion. They could also try again and have a roadmap and the courage to take a leap like that.

Or it opens up a third option that would not have been available otherwise.

Going on an adventure and finishing back where you started is not a bad result.

Probably not a fair judgement to make based on 4-5 short paragraphs in a HN comment.

Beautiful answer -- why would you just accumulate savings without using them for living an interesting life? It's worth taking risks. I'm considering doing something of the sort, probably much less risky actually.

>why would you just accumulate savings without using them for living an interesting life?

Having kids. Not that you have to do this with kids, but it is a reason

I don’t understand Americans POV on this subject.

Other than providing tutors and making sure their children are in the best secondary schools, I don’t understand the American obsession with paying for college.

The best way to prepare your child is to let them experience reality not coddle them.

- A luxury university diploma will not guarantee a good job

- There are other educational opportunities besides an expensive university

- Acquiring internships and work experience is far more valuable to establishing a network and getting your foot in the door

It is unrealistic to expect parents to go into crippling debt to pay for your entire time at a luxury university when a regular school and internships will suffice.

Why are you talking about college? Having kids in general is very, very expensive. More so if you want to provide them with opportunities and activities as they grow up.

Having kids is not terribly expensive everywhere. Not all need to have super expensive hobbies either. I guess there is a huge regional difference - starting from cost daycare.

That may be, but I can only speak as to my reality. It is not actionable to me that in X country things are cheaper. I don’t live there and I’m not moving either.

Also, I’m not talking about “expensive” hobbies. Almost all sports need some sort of equipment and time investment from the parents. Summer camps for some parents are a necessity because they need child care during summer months. Vacations for kids are also expensive and people typically save all year long to take them. I could go on.

Good preschool is $10k+. In large swaths of the country decent schools only exist where housing is prohibitively expensive. The combination of camp and afternoon care in the summer is thousands of dollars a month.

It all adds up and while you can get clothes at goodwill there are some expenses that are unavoidable and scale linearly with quality.

Holy smokes that is expensive.

In my country preschool is free and it’s all around good. I don’t think we ever had to use any summer care either. Kids are now 12 and 15… the only necessary thing that is more expensive is the house since it needs to fit more people but that is just about the size, not location dictated by a good school as such.

For us all expenses related to quality of life just scale linearly with headcount.

Having kids isn't that cheap even outside the US.

I estimate I spend about €1000 more per month for having one baby. It's pretty significant in a country where the average employee earns €2000/month after tax (and a senior engineer is at €3500/month roughly).

I’m American and I don’t really understand where you are coming from. Except for some of the elite universities I don’t think the main reason is networking.

My college experience was at a regular school learning and gaining experience through work. No debt, no loans, and state scholarship that paid 100% tuition if I went to a public school in my state. The scholarship required a 3.0 in high school and thereafter. Most of my high school friends who went to college did a similar thing.

Sure some went to Ivy League or other expensive networking type schools but it was the exception.

Not sure if you know but things in the US are outrageously expensive. Childcare might cost 4k per month, a private tutor is ~50-100/hr, the best schools are generally either public schools in the richest suburbs or private schools that cost 50k/year. College even at a State University is going to cost $10,000 per year and at least as much for living costs so you are looking at ~$80,000 for a 4 year degree.

>- A luxury university diploma will not guarantee a good job

Maybe not guarantee but it can certainly make a difference. All else being equal a job candidate with a degree from University of Florida is going to get passed up for one with a degree from Yale and one with a degree from University of South Florida is going to get passed up for the one from University of Florida.

I’ve lived in some of the most expensive cities in the U.S.

Childcare at 4,000 is upper quartile of expensive cities. You’ll find many places where it’s half or less of that price. Private schools at $50k a year are either going to be boarding or some of the more expensive country day schools. Even Sidwell, where Obama sent his kids, is cheaper than this.

And finally we get to university education. There are many schools with merit based scholarships. Treating living expenses as unique to college is also wrong.

Nothing is stopping a kid from getting a job in college!

>Childcare at 4,000 is upper quartile of expensive cities. You’ll find many places where it’s half or less of that price. Private schools at $50k a year are either going to be boarding or some of the more expensive country day schools. Even Sidwell, where Obama sent his kids, is cheaper than this.

Most of the people on this site aren't farmers living in Rural Iowa so idk how relevant the cost of living in places like that are.

>And finally we get to university education. There are many schools with merit based scholarships. Treating living expenses as unique to college is also wrong.

Not everyone is getting scholarship. Obviously that changes the calculus.

>Nothing is stopping a kid from getting a job in college!

This is pure boomer sentiment. I had a job every summer in college and through grad school, this was only ~10 years ago and it paid for exactly 0% of my tuition. It was enough to survive the summers and pay my rent during grad school that was it.

> I had a job every summer in college and through grad school, this was only ~10 years ago and it paid for exactly 0% of my tuition.

It also digs into time that you could be socializing, or as professionals call it "networking". Having a job during school also is downward pressure on your grades, it makes it very hard to have top performance in your classes. Which excludes you from most scholarships.

Anecdotally I had two jobs most of my time during university, one on weekends one on evenings.

I wound up with less debt (note, not NO debt, just less) than most of my classmates but the tradeoff was that I basically entered the workforce basically already burned out and that was a seriously negative impact on my early career.

> I’ve lived in some of the most expensive cities in the U.S.

> Childcare at 4,000 is upper quartile of expensive cities. You’ll find many places where it’s half or less of that price. Private schools at $50k a year are either going to be boarding or some of the more expensive country day schools.

You either have not lived in expensive cities in the US or at least didn't have kids while there!

For example in this list nearly all schools are over 50K:

https://www.niche.com/k12/search/best-private-high-schools/m...

I would say it's not so expensive as it more deprives you from the time you would otherwise spend climbing the corporate ladder, networking, and starting a company/side project.

Kids aren't the huge bill that people seem to think they are unless the parents have a spending problem or don't really want to raise the kids and lease out the education, child care, and transportation duties to other people/organizations. Then it can be really expensive to pay someone else to raise your child.

Childcare is a pretty large expense. Whether you have two working parents and use daycare, or one stay at home parent (single income instead of double), there's a significant cost associated with each.

The average amount spent on a child per year is 17k [1]. It may not be that much if you're making $200k+/yr, but on the median household income of $71k/yr [2], it's a pretty significant chunk — about ~24% of your income for just one child.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2022/cos...

[2] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2022/demo/p60-27...

Yes, that was the point I made. Either opportunity costs or it costs for if both parents work full time.

I do think that families that figure out how to at least have one parent home for the kids seem to have better relationships with them. I like the idea of families that can swap each parent having a year or something with the kids, the issue is that most careers don't support that model. You can't have multiple year gaps in your resume nor do both spouses often make the same income.

I don't know what you think a "luxury" university is- even government run colleges in the U.S. can be expensive.

A local 4 year degree at my city's state run university is around 18,000 to 22,000 per year for tuition. And that's without room and board.

In comparison a private liberal arts school near me is $65,652 per year for tuition alone.

To me the state option is still pretty darn expensive especially if you are also paying for the kids room and board.

Does the money for the college fees have to come from cash? University fees (in the UK) can be paid for by a student loan which is paid off once the student starts working. Parents don't have to pay for it

starting one's life with the (emotional/financial) weight of "just" $80,000 to $100,000 in debt is not a good strategy, in my opinion.

The interest on those loans are pretty low. To the extent that people recommend you max out your 401k before paying off your loans. College graduates have lifetime earnings of 500,000 or more over non-degree holders. If 80-100,000 is prohibitively expensive then something is going on where universities are failing to deliver valuable and education, and the solution is those students stop seeing university as a good investment and stop propping up failing schools on credit.

"The interest on those loans are pretty low. To the extent that people recommend you max out your 401k before paying off your loans. "

You say this like this is normal advice.

People make all sorts of wild recommendations during a bull market, it wasn't that long ago that people were trading stories of buying Bitcoin with the money their grandparents gave thrm for college.

i think it has to do with the vast oversupply of labor (at least for white collar jobs). employers generally pick people with degrees of people without because there's just too many candidates.

> I don’t understand Americans POV on this subject.

Long-term, the American style meritocratic striving is probably unsustainable and harmful in innumerable ways. But it is _rational_ at least in terms of the choices parents make. Numerous metrics point to increasing economic disparities; the rungs on the ladder keep getting farther and farther apart. How can I as a parent best position my child to negotiate that climb? Parents, who as a rule worry about such things on behalf of their children respond by taking various interventions on behalf of their kids. One is spending money to buy merit, however distorted the concept is in the U.S.

An expensive education doesn’t guarantee a good job? True. But if they have the means, it’s reasonable to anticipate that parents are going to play the probabilities. The problems that arise for parents, their driven kids and the broader society are significant; and I would prefer the circumstances to be otherwise; but that’s going to take an enormous cultural change in the U.S. One that’s more systemic than that of parents choosing to send their kids to less costly universities.

> An expensive education doesn’t guarantee a good job? True.

Exactly right. The OP set up a ridiculous straw man. Avoiding smoking doesn't guarantee you won't get lung cancer.

The returns to education are well documented and large.

https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2021/data-on-display/educa...

Then that's what 'interesting life' means to you, which is ok

Even with the ending of your story being "it didn't work out", i can't help but feel envious.

The longer I live, the more I subscribe to this view. My uncle was a trucker. He lived a weird life full crazy adventures and he loved it. Yes, it did bring pain, loneliness and eventual breakup of his family unit, but I always found him in high spirits. Bad things happen, but he was able to shrug those off partially because he knew what he was doing let him enjoy life a lot more despite being somewhat unstable.

I'm not sure I follow.

Me, an interviewer: "so you know compilers, great start on monday"

Also me: "so you know compilers and have studied math on top, sorry son thats a no from me"

Tech interviews expect esoteric minutia to be on the top of your mind and easily recallable. You also must be able to talk about past projects in great detail as if you worked on them yesterday.

If you take more than a few months off interviews become insanely hard.

Frankly that's an insane expectation. I've done a ton of stuff and don't remember all the details of projects that I've worked on

That’s why interview prep is so important. You need to sit down and remember things you did in previous roles and how they apply in the role you’re applying for.

Your competition for the best jobs do this. If you don’t, that’s up to you, but you’re asking for a five or six figure annual commit to you, it’s reasonable that in an hour or two you can talk about what you have done in the past in enough detail an interviewer can see how that experience applies in the new role.

I've taken over a year off now than once and haven't found this to be true. Things generally change less than it feels like, and you can get caught up on any new coding practices pretty quickly.

I followed the inverse path: first academia in non-CS and then tech engineering. And though it hasn’t been that many years after academia, I wouldn’t be able to do it again after my gap. Granted, academics will probably don’t care about my experiences doing something else, but personally I have forgotten so many things that I’d have to start with master-level courses to refresh my memory. And then spend months to catch up with the advancements in the field I was working on.

But then again, I might be comparing oranges to apples here.

Interviewer: we got 3 great candidates to the final stage we need to pick one. This chap is strong but he will need 3 months to get up to speed after the hiatus. Let’s go with the others.

Depends alot on the supply and demand of compiler engineers though.

Could be interviewer: finally a competent compiler engineer! Handcuff him to that gold bar!

>I'd be out-of-touch with compilers

Why?

Ive always thought that those jobs are like: every company does it a little bit different (tools, processes, architecture) but theory, parsing and LLVM stay the same.

So what changes in e.g year or two? new CPU instructions? Architectures?

How does your job look like? You are doing more frontend or backend work?

It's less a question about what changes, and more a question about how well you can recall your past experience (I had the big picture, but forgot the details of several optimizations I'd written in the past, as well as certain CS fundamentals), and how well you can do online coding interviews (I've only written Coq, at a glacial pace, over the last three years).

I will mainly be working on the middle-end and back-end for RISC-V.

OT but if your French is decent and in a few years you get tired of city life maybe keep the French countryside in sight, outside of Paris it's a different country.

Hehe, perhaps when I'm older. My collaborator on the LICS paper also tells me that the countryside is very beautiful. It will take time to get used to, as I've lived in big cities for the entirety of my life, and participate in activities like book clubs.

I had always thought you were just switching to a focus on formal methods! Otoh we had only interacted a teeny bit / little to none while you were in nyc I think

I initially kept that option open, yes. However, there are surprisingly few available positions in formal methods outside of academia, and Coq is very very hard: my ability to prove things with Coq is quite modest.

Probably worth noting that I did have an PhD offer earlier, to work with Coq. However, since it was in a small village in Germany, I had to turn it down.

On a more general note, I don't know if formal methods is that promising today: proof assistants are very immature, and proving even little things involves a lot of trial-and-error and is very time-consuming.

Yes, I recall interacting with you!

I would have gone with the small village in Germany! But yes, formal methods will likely be eclipsed by machine learning applications due to the investment in skills required and time consuming nature of the activities.

It's a beautiful paper, even if the significance of sections is lost on me. Very clear and concise and beautiful illustrations. I learned a few things from it (I like how you describe planar trees as trees that can't be reflected about the y-axis).

Your story brought me joy! I am really happy that you had the opportunity to follow your passion, and did! And that you are happy with the decision you made while still seeing the negative consequences.

To me that is a truly a life well lived.

Every manager I worked with gets impressed by origin stories like this. I would guess it is even easier in Europe.