Ask HN: How do I find a new career?

This is a question I’ve been grappling with for a while.

The biggest challenge for me is what a coworker once called the “golden handcuff”, it’s pretty hard to find similar salaries and if one has grown to need a tech salary to keep afloat, well, it would require major life changes to get out of there.

With that said here are a few of the things that I’ve seen

1. Medical Coding (has nothing to do with code as in programming) This is an interesting one because it seems that one can get in with a few months of training and a $200 certification exam. The initial salary is not horrendous but it can grow quite a bit.

2. Federal jobs (USA based) (usajobs.gov) I was surprised to find such reasonable salaries for such a big variety of roles! Things like administering programs or approving grants or mathematics statistics for the IRS easily and routinely make it to the 6 figures.

3. Completely different career:

I came across a fascinating masters degree in Coursera which allows me to earn a masters in a field I have no professional experience although I’m quite interested in. There was no requirement for a bachelor’s degree in that field nor the general tedious process of admission to a graduate degree. It simply required that you’d be able to keep up with the course work, like complementing knowledge you don’t have from a bachelor in that area by yourself. This is certainly a longer term commitment but for me sounds fantastic to get to a place where I could match software salaries without ever looking at a software company again!

> The biggest challenge for me is what a coworker once called the “golden handcuff”

The one silver lining is that this market seems to have broken the golden handcuffs on me. I’m not incredibly driven by money, and would gladly take a job I enjoy for less money, but oddly enough, until recently it was always easier to find money than a job I didn’t hate.

> I came across a fascinating masters degree in Coursera which allows me to earn a masters in a field I have no professional experience although I’m quite interested in. There was no requirement for a bachelor’s degree in that field nor the general tedious process of admission to a graduate degree. It simply required that you’d be able to keep up with the course work, like complementing knowledge you don’t have from a bachelor in that area by yourself. This is certainly a longer term commitment but for me sounds fantastic to get to a place where I could match software salaries without ever looking at a software company again!

I’ve wondered how this would look on a resume. “No I don’t have a bachelors, but I have a Masters in X. Wouldn’t this lead to some always conversations that would confuse and raise suspicion?

Are you sure that’s a real Masters degree? Can you link it?

Any masters I looked at on Coursera had the same application process like a real university, including application + requirements

Try the trades, especially electrician work. It's tech-adjacent but doesn't require high level math and the training programs are very inexpensive.

I'd also make sure that your current negative feelings RE: the job search aren't being transferred to programming as a whole. The right tech job may make you love programming again.

> I'd also make sure that your current negative feelings RE: the job search aren't being transferred to programming as a whole. The right tech job may make you love programming again.

Possibly, but if I can’t even get a job doing what I have experience in, what chance is there of finding the “right” tech job.

Personal shopper, executive assistant, quality control/assurance, factory work, personal assistant? Look into getting a trade license, maybe? I hate the idea of you posting this and not getting a response, so hopefully this one spurs more (and better) responses.

"I’m decent at figuring things out ad-hoc, but that counts for nothing."

That counts for a lot. You shouldn't discount it. Some of the best programmers I every worked with didn't have a degree. However, having said that you need the passion for it. I'm assuming you still like tech, since you are posting on HN?

If you do want to give software a try again, maybe try working on an open source project. Most projects need all kinds of things besides programming. Writing tutorials for example or other developer advocate type things can lead to a different career.

> That counts for a lot. You shouldn't discount it.

Hasn’t done me any good yet. It doesn’t get me through applications, and it doesn’t help when interviews just want you to regurgitate things with perfect accuracy/timing. Plus it’s hard to put it on a resume, when a lot of the more impressive things I’ve managed to do don’t fit in with my work experience.

I’ve wondered about dev advocate roles before. I don’t see them as much as I used to though. I guess I’m just not sure how to write a resume for something completely different then what my work experience says I’m qualified for.

Are you capable of doing physical work for a living, or (to be blunt) are you only suited for office-type work? You can make a decent living as a UPS driver or postal worker, tradesperson (requires apprenticeship, but you get paid during it), or plenty of other careers. Competition in the white-collar business fields, where you're competing with the whole world, is much stiffer than competition in the local blue-collar fields, where you're competing with other people in town.

> Are you capable of doing physical work for a living, or (to be blunt)

Maybe, but it would take more time than I’d like to get into shape. I do hear a lot about trade work, but the only jobs I ever see for it want highly experienced people. I even see entry level/experienced jobs ask for a year or two of experience (yeah it’s a big meme, but like I mentioned, I get rejected for fast food/retail jobs that are ostensibly entry level)

Maybe make a list of fields or areas that interest you... and then see if anyone in your social network or friends group are in those fields? Buy them a cup of coffee or a beer and pick their brains. See what the like or don't like about it, how they got started, what they would do different, etc.

Unfortunately most of my friends were in a worse position than me prior to the layoffs. Most are more educated than me, but work menial office jobs that don’t pay well.

I remember talking to someone working in insurance claims processing, offering that their company was hiring, but apparently you need a degree to do that.

> enterprise crapware for internal business processes: a lot of legacy stuff, and low effort, low priority, poorly organized projects.

Maybe this could lead to consulting or freelancing. Maybe call them all up and see if they need help, even only part time / temp?

I actually had some people ask me to consult for them earlier this year, but they ghosted me faster than many full time jobs have.

Sorry to hear that. Maybe chase up with their managers and coworkers? You might get the job or they might have another job in mind and impressed that you called and chased up, and they know you or know of you already.

This is impossible to answer without more information. How much money do you need? What’s your personality like? Were there any programming adjacent roles you thought were interesting?

> How much money do you need?

Obviously this is a tough question because CoL can vary a lot, but I just want enough to live a middle class lifestyle covering living costs and having some spending money to enjoy, but preferably not something that will eat up all my time (a friend of mine was a nurse which pays well on pepper but she was desperate to get out because of hellish hours)

> What’s your personality like?

I’d like to think I’m easy to get along with, and moderately sociable, but I don’t have outgoingness for something like sales. I’m still a tinkerer/hacker at heart, but I’m just not good enough to be competitive on a job market.

> Were there any programming adjacent roles you thought were interesting?

Yes, there are still even programming roles that I think would be interesting, but “interesting” seems mostly out of reach. I’ve always been interested in security, but not the sort of positions I could get. Occasionally I’ll still see a programming job that I think would be interesting, but they’re usually highly technical senior positions in domains I wouldn’t qualify for anyway.

Obviously giving life advice based on a couple paragraphs is a little suspect, but it sounds like you have some technical skills and are interested in security, so why not just go in for that? Some thoughts:

- security is really hot right now, my last role was a PM for security, many many companies have serious challenges in this area right now

- people who are in it really love talking about it, it would be pretty easy to talk to some people in the field and see what’s a good fit

- speaking of security, there are so many roles it’s hard to imagine that there isn’t a role for you. Some are really technical, some have 0 coding at all (like program management)

- nobody wants to hire a downer, so work on your confidence game. Or learn to fake it

- consider some certs or some other LinkedIn bait to get recruiters to contact you, applying directly seems like a waste of time generally

- think about your narrative, e.g. you aren’t lost, while you were working you realized that you were really into security and have spent the last X amount of time skilling up on it

- don’t worry about comparing yourself to others, just try to get a little better everyday

- think about how you can get 1% better today in security, and do it, then repeat

- same as above, but for interviewing, attracting recruiters, and also working on your headspace

- nobody ever follows this but use Anki to build skill mastery for everything

- if you are weak in an area but consistenly add in 50 cards a day then you’ll get good fast

That’s my take on it anyway. Good luck. The universe wants you to succeed. Hiring managers are hoping that you are the one that can solve their problems. Recruiters are rooting for you so they can get their bonuses, managers are rooting for you to make them look good. I’m rooting for you and I don’t even know you! And so on.

I would try to intersect things-you-like _with_ things-there-is-a-need-for _with_ things-that-pay-decently (according to you and nobody else) and give whatever comes up a try. Good luck!

> give whatever comes up a try

I wish I could, but whenever I see jobs like this, they always require years of experience I don’t have or years of education I don’t have.

What about going independent like starting a YouTube channel?

This seems like a good way to burn out while making no money.

Hah - yeah. There is no money in YouTube - trust me.