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Comment by farmeroy | Hacker News Reader

I spent my twenties riding freight trains across the US and cycling across Europe and Asia, living off of music. I'm not sure I would recommend that to anyone who is looking for career advice - Now I'm trying to build a solid career for myself as a software developer and I have no idea if it is easier with all that behind me or not. While I'm hoping that the soft skills and self knowledge I may have acquired over the years pay off on this new path, there is no guarantee. But there generally isn't. I certainly agree with this interpretation of Treyf and I'm glad that I have at least Moxie to look up to as freight hopping software engineer who has tried avoiding a lot of the same futures that I have, but it certainly is a path less traveled.

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My gf asked me to apply for a big company job (she’s worked for all of FAANG). The second time a recruiter asked me to explain to them what the “narrative” was in my resume cause they couldn’t see it, I figured I had good reason not to work for one of those places.

They were looking for a simple A -> B -> C while my life has been more A -> G -> B -> -> -> Q...

I haven’t worked for a big company in 35 years, and I can’t imagine they are any more interested in me than I am in them. Even my own companies...by the time they get to a couple of hundred people they are too big for me.

Thing is though, they're literally just looking for that - a narrative. Could be as difficult as layoffs or as easy as just that you were bored.

They're just looking for a compelling reasoning behind it. Source: interviewed for FAANG companies with a similar resume

I think if you're engaged with what you do, you will learn and develop more than if not.

OTOH there seems to be a developmental window for some specific skills, e.g. phoneme acquisition 6-12 months; (human) language acquisition < 7 years.

Alternative biography: "Concerned I would never know my authentic self, I left home at the age of 5 to live in the wilderness. Now, I am struggling to begin my career as a software developer due to my failure to acquire human language - all thanks to your 'career advice', Moxe."

But I mean, yes of course we can learn and grow and be many things in life. I think that it's always easy to follow well defined, structured routes, and easier to know if you are succeeding at it. But if you feel you have a calling to do something else, something unusual, there isn't much anyone can advise you on, and most people will probably tell you not to risk it.

I wouldn’t necessarily expect that you gained some discrete skills that will help you in software. Probably what you gained is something more valuable: perspective, and peace.

Now when you are 45 or 50, rather than a crushing feeling of having wasted your life behind a desk you will hopefully feel happy that you spent your good years living life.

45? Wha... these are still our good years!

In a way after 45 the rush and ocd of younger, inexperienced years subsides you do see life at a slower pace, take more in and that can be a satisfying thing. For me personally the quality vs quantity thing that came more into focus in my 40s.

for me personally my 45 have been a full throttle. Lived in 4 countries in the last two years, learned tons of stuff and met super cool people. The "45 years old's salary" enabled that. In the last two months I've been learning surfing in my spare time. Total woah. Looking forward to the years to come, it's not true that quantity doesn't have quality :)

Woah indeed :) You seem to have figured out how to have tons of quality time.. I mostly was thinking about my personal happiness being in less and me discovering that in my 40s after other things slowed down a bit in life - having a partner and kids you kind of don't always have total control over your life.

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