Ask HN: What's your next career move?

[mgadams3]

I'm trying to get a sense of what people are striving for at various stages of their software engineering careers.

Location:

Title:

Years SE Experience:

Next Move: (do X so that I can Y)

-- I'll go first --

Location: San Francisco

Title: Software Engineer

Years Exp: 4

Next Move: Build my technical expertize and "brand" through meaningful open-source contributions, blogging, and speaking at conferences (thought leadership) so that I can deepen my technical skills by working with the best people and attract better job opportunities at a higher level of contribution or have confidence that I could be my own start-up CTO.

[justinlaing]

Location: Santa Cruz, CA Title: Sabbatical from startup life after selling my company and completing contract. Years of SE Experience: 18

Next Move: Building another software startup. Go big. Apply the lessons learned from my previous company, while trying something in a new space. Get back to coding every day after being a owner/manager for years. Find other awesome people to work with, as in my experience this is the single biggest factor in happiness at work.

[timothybone]

What's your email? (mine in my profile) I'm interested in talking about doing something great (I also live in S.C.)

[japhyr]

Location: Southeast Alaska

My father was a software engineer at DEC in the 70's, so I learned to program at 5 on a kit computer. I've been a hobbyist programmer all my life, but I got pulled into teaching. I've been teaching 6-12 grade math and science for 20 years.

Over the last four years I've started to build a second career in the programming world. I have a couple open source projects that have shown promise, and I recently published an introductory Python book that's doing pretty well.

Next Move: I'm excited about the possibilities, all of which are pretty appealing.

- Write more.

- Pick up development on two main open projects:

- introtopython.org | An open introduction to Python based on jupyter notebooks. Anyone familiar with notebooks can contribute a project.

- opencompetencies.org | An open platform for building education standards.

- Switch to teaching CS full time instead of math and science.

- Pick up more freelancing work.

[quickpost]

Location: Denver

Title: Freelance Software Developer

Years Exp: ~12

Been doing freelance development for last 5+ years. Enjoyed the flexibility and the freedom of being an indy dev. Started off with aspirations of building my own SaaS on the side and bootstrapping with consulting, but got sucked in by nice hourly rates and cushy lifestyle. Can’t complain too much though! Getting the itch to do something new now, though. Trying to decide between

1. Trying another startup as a founder or very near to it - before freelancing I worked in a few startups, one was successful (as an employee).

2. Re-joining corporate america to see if I can make a big impact with a relatively high and predictable income + benefits. Eyeing health care IT as one potential area of impact where there’s seemingly lots of opportunity and change right now due to health care reform (and it’s a distinct area of interest beyond coding).

[willholloway]

Location: A tiny seaside hamlet in the northeast megalopolis

Years SE Experience: 7

Next Move: Use my extensive experience in conversion optimization and web performance optimization to increase profits for clients. This cash will fund the next phase of my open source projects.

[gravypod]

I'm currently at college to get proof that I know how to write software.

I've been programming since I was 12, so it's fun helping my friends through our CS classes.

My next move is to find a job... anywhere.

[dozzie]

It will be fun to watch all of you learn how to write software, not just bunch of throw-away programs. But that's after you each get a job, not at university, as university with its short semesters is not suited for learning that.

[mindcrime]

Location: Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

Title: Lead Consultant (Mammoth Data) / Founder/CEO (Fogbeam labs)

Years SE Experience: ~20

Next Move: (do X so that I can Y)

Continue building Fogbeam Labs so that I can eventually make that my full-time thing, hire employees, and build a real company. As part of that, we just started working on a new product that I'm really excited about. I don't want to say too much about it just yet, but it's going to be a gnarly Machine Learning / AI project.

[dvainsencher]

Location: Princeton, US

Title: ML postdoc, formerly software engineer

Years Exp: >5, depends how you count

Next move: Finding a job in industry (tech or finance in NYC or Bay area), solving hard problems using ML, so I can wrestle with the world instead of with reviewers, and be part of a team again.

[MalcolmDiggs]

Location: NYC

Title: Lead Engineer

Years SE Experience: ~12

Next move: Stop coding within a year. The gameplan is to lay solid technical foundations for our MVPs, then assemble a team of devs who are better than me, and get out of their way. I'm not going to retire by any means, I'd just like to move to a management/executive role.

[eecks]

Location: Ireland

Title: Software Engineer

Years SE Experience: 2-3 years professionally

Next Move: I'm not too sure. I am keeping an eye on the job market to see if anything comes along that I feel would be a great move. I'd love to start a company but I don't think I'll do it yet.

[thejteam]

Location: Southern Maryland

Title: Computer Engineer

Years Exp: 12

Next Move: Open up a bookstore with my wife. Hope to open later this year. With luck, it will be successful enough that I can take a stab at starting a software business.