Ask HN: What job did you leave IT for?

[JerryMouse]

I've recently been diagnosed with an illness that has left me little to no concentration and a very low level of comprehension,as such I will most likely have to leave my job as a software engineer as it's becoming overwhelming. So my question is, if you have had to leave your IT job, what was/is your new job.

[walterstucco]

When I stopped in 2009, I went tourign Europe with bands for four years, doing mainly roadie/driver/merch guy stuff.

It's been a relieving experience, I went back to thinking only about today, what we had to do for today's show and nothing more, eventually planning tomorrow's trip, but without much stress.

No planning, no meetings, no standups, no due dates, just load/unload the van, mount the stage, check check check one-two-one-two, waiting for people to show up at the merch stand, with a glass always filled with something.

I was in charge of checking that the venues were respecting our rider, so my job ended up being counting beers and having fun with friends while having party every night.

It has also been cheaper than living in my city, everything was already paid: meals, sleeping accommodations, booze, even drugs most of the times.

Then the band I was working the most stopped for a couple of years to write the new album and I went back into programming, learnt Elixir/Erlang, and now I am consulting for different kind of companies (including banks, video games and insurance companies) to eradicate Java from this planet :)

p.s.: during this awesome times I also had the pleasure to work at an EOTM concert with Nick, their merch guy who was brutally killed in Paris at the Bataclan.

He truly was a great guy, may he rest in peace.

p.p.s.: I think I should add that I left because I had been working home for too long, I was stressed, almost burnt out, plus I was having big problems getting paid on time (if paid at all).

It's been one of the economically lowest moments of my life, I barely had enough money to buy cigarettes, but absolutely one of my greatest and funniest achievements.

It gave me the boost to rethink my life in terms of working better and do less, not more.

I was absolutely no kid anymore (I was 30 already) and still doing it from time to time, when i need to take the steam out.

[philbarr]

> little to no concentration and a very low level of comprehension

This might sound like a flippant response but it's not: could you move into management? You don't need to know the finer details, but you'd have the experience required to empathise with the developers in your team.

[SmellTheGlove]

Disclosure: Am manager.

Bad idea. Managers need to know a different set of finer details, not none at all. While individuals on a team have to get deep into the details of what they're doing, managers need to work at the edges - where what Team X is doing integrates with V, Y and Z; and longer term, how what all of those teams are doing now fits in with the work lined up 6-24 months down the road. That's a full time job, even before we've actually done any managing of our individuals. Maybe this gives you some insight, but that's actually why (in my opinion) the first things to fall off with poor managers are 1x1s, meaningful coaching, etc.

Managers also have the stresses of accountability and expectations. There are days where I wish I was still an individual contributor.

[TallGuyShort]

I had a manager like this. Didn't know the finer details of what I worked on, had the experience to empathize, but was primarily a resource manager / ran interference for distractions.

I liked him at the time, but once I had a new manager I was blown away at everything I was missing from a more fully-qualified manager.

Now that I recognize that kind of manager - I see a lot of them. OP probably could make it as a manager - and I say that from having seen so many of these managers move up the chain. But I think other commenters are right: managers shouldn't believe they don't need to comprehend details.

[yeukhon]

I think this may backfire even more. Sure there are stories about how one can get by as a manager without knowing much or doing much, but that's rare. As a manager you have to answer to your boss and make sure team delivery is met. You will need to do budget and stay current with what's happening at work, so that you don't become clueless in meetings. This can be stressful at work since politics is inevitable.

[danschumann]

As Elon Musk put it, ~"Managers receive the greatest distillation of all the problems. They have the worst job" They are the ones expected to solve the hardest problems. If someone can't figure it out, it gets pushed up the chain.

[arethuza]

You might have something there - I've seen quite a few people over the years try and move from a technical role to a managerial role fail because they can't cope with not being allowed to focus on something to the exclusion of other items.

[chrismealy]

Maybe your health problems would prevent you from being the best manager but there's no shame in being a good enough manager.

[stankot]

Sorry to hear that.

Personally, if I ever get to leave IT before retirement, I plan to equip a workshop and start making electric guitars. It connects various craftsmanship skills with some engineering and art. And the best part is, end product is a instrument.

Unfortunately, this is not the best career choice where I live in (Eastern Europe). Although if you are good, you could make a living out of it. At least I would have better website then the competition :) Backup plan is to build modern/minimalistic furniture where there is no guitar orders.

Another direction would be to create a hub for amateur craftsmen. Well equipped workshop where you can rent a space to make things on your own, or take a course.

As you can see, I would pursue something related to making things as that's something I really love, and I'm doing as a hobby (IT takes a lot of time though). So, my advice would be to find something you love and see if you can make a living out of it.

Good luck!

[mpfundstein]

with your it skills you can easily go global. make a great website with a customization widget or twitch the making of a guitar. lots of possibilities to distinguish yourself

[rectang]

Here is an inspiring story of a Hacker News contributor who was once in a similar position (though he has since recovered):

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/we-made-it-our...

    “What product could I, in my mentally addled state,
    come up with making?” he wondered. That’s when he
    remembered his longtime love of ice cream.

[shk88]

Inspiring, but it looks like the business failed sometime around 2013 for violating health code / zoning laws. Disappointing, as someone who likes the idea of leaving tech to run an ice cream shop.

[spazziam]

I was a power engineer for utilities. I now work on ERP systems for fortune 500 companies. SQL from one bad implementation to another.

[tylerlarson]

Become an artist. Don't make art based on your expression of your feelings or whatever. Take it on like you would a startup. Create things you think will sell and based on what works iterate quickly. Make lots of work, sell it at cost and increase your price as you refine your process.

You can involve computers in the process of creating work. Things like conceptual art doesn't even have to involve any artistic skill necessarily, but there are many other areas that do if you want to try it out. Paintings from unknown artist can sell for $5K and if you have the energy and space to make sculptures, they can sell for much more.

Always keep in mind who the buyers are, it isn't always directly to customers (galleries, governments, large corporations). Only make work that sells. In the process your pitch will need to be refined. It can't be simply that you want to make money, it has to speak the the audience.

There are many different customers out there looking for different things. Keep in mind there are very few people who devote themselves to this and few of these people have any sense of business, branding, marketing, or even creativity as deep as what is available in technology today. Sure many people can draw or whatever but this isn't want makes a successful artist.

Success comes from all of the same stuff that every other industry focuses on.

R.Mutt QED

[tedmiston]

> Success comes from all of the same stuff that every other industry focuses on.

Sure, but a major difference is that art is highly subjective and typically bought with arbitrary disposable income as opposed to a value-based purchasing decision. The kind of art that large corporations buy isn't what any artist actually wants to make.

[cousin_it]

Great perspective! If I ever go into art, that's how I'll do it. That wouldn't even feel like selling out, because what makes my teenage self's taste (which defines what I'm driven to create by default) any more valid than other people's tastes today?

[snarfy]

Honestly, depending on your age you should think about applying for permanent disability (ssdi).

[emodendroket]

That sounds a little more realistic than a jump to management or skilled trades for someone with the difficulties the OP describes.

[erikb]

Well, there is another group of jobs that is not yet outsourced to machines and doesn't use concentration and comprehension as much: detailed, complex manual work that requires years of training. For instance high quality wood work, soldering, fine grained painting.

[rectang]

I like this suggestion because it allows for the application of learning techniques and discipline that a developer would typically have honed throughout a software career, yet the accumulated skills do not require the mentally taxing global awareness of many factors at once.

[Arizhel]

Soldering? Soldering for electronics is almost all automated now, and with most electronics being surface-mount it's mostly done by stenciled solder paste and reflow. The exception is for the few remaining items that can't be done that way, such as when wires need to be soldered to PCBs (though here for high-volume stuff they usually use connectors because the wires can be assembled with connectors elsewhere, and then the wire harnesses simply plugged in during final assembly).

Are you talking about some other kind of soldering, such as for stained glass or plumbing? Stained glass with real lead and real glass is pretty rare these days, much more rare than high-quality woodwork, and mainly for hobbyists. Plumbing soldering is done with a blowtorch and isn't all that difficult, but worse, copper in plumbing is being replaced by plastic which doesn't use soldering, but rather press-fit connectors. So don't count on that as a long-lived profession either (the soldering part I mean; plumbing itself will be around as long as humans have biological bodies and need to use water for cooking, hand-washing, toilets, and bathing, it'll just be easier as new technologies replace legacy ones).

[yardie]

I "left" IT to travel for a year. When I resettled in another country I took different jobs (waiter, bartender, air traffic controller trainee). Software development was always my passion so I got involved with a lot of social causes by building and hosting websites and forums for them. Which eventually led me back to working in IT.

I'm not sure what your symptoms are but if this is a degenerative brain disease you may wish to use that time to visit family, friends, and experience new things.

[technologia]

I hate to say it, but sometimes corporate IT support in mid-size companies might be the way to go if you are dead set on staying in your lane. Depending on the company, it could be as simple as going through a binder for answers, logging in requests into a ticketing system, rinse & repeat.

I am sorry to hear that you are suffering such an illness, it definitely sucks to lose physical abilities and it takes great personal strength to get through it. I wish you all the best to still keep your intended career path, but if not I wish you all the same in finding an ideal worksite for yourself.

[shubb]

There are other roles like that in large organisations. Release management, standards compliance in regulated industries, maybe scrum master jobs.

[hl5]

Depending on your location and political views, a marijuana trimming job could work out.

[hanxue]

Quit my job as a system architect / software engineer and pursuing martial arts and spiritual cultivation full time in China.

I don't plan to give up IT for good. Having been in the industry for 10 years, I know I must follow my heart to be happy and be a well-adjusted person.

[yeukhon]

I would take a break and perhaps work in animal cares or something that would give you a break from human politics. Call it therpay if you want. For me I might eventually get a master and teach in university but in your condition this is probably a bad idea. The best thing right now is use up your vacation days and sick days and quit if you can support for a while before look for a new job.

Banking teller job is also a good option that makes decent money without having to work extremely hard all day long. Museum Tour guide is also a good one but I imagine the pay will be quite low.

[balabaster]

My side project is an organic farm school.

I raise pigs, cows, goats, chickens, ducks, rabbits and grow organic produce. It doesn't require much concentration. You might think this is a huge reach from I.T. but it still requires a lot of problem solving skills and discipline. It doesn't require the same kind of concentration, but you find out very quickly that the concentration it does take is engaging. It holds your attention because like the ocean, if you turn your back on it, it'll get you.

A lot of people's response to this has been "wow, that's my dream, but I could never do that because X, Y or Z"

3 years ago, I lived in the city, no land, no first hand experience rearing animals, could barely keep a tomato plant alive long enough to get tomatoes off it. I grew up in the country, I had some friends whose parents were farmers, my Dad had horses and we had 2 cats - that was the extent of my experience.

Anyone saying "Oh that's my dream but I could never do that because I have no land, I have no experience, I don't know where I would start." Neither did I. I found a place I could rent that had enough land to make a start that was within my means. Enough to learn how to grow fruit and vegetables and raise chickens, then by the time I ran out of room, I had a pretty good idea that I could do this and rented a place with more land. The side bonus is that the kids now have 100 acres to run around on and be kids without having to micromanage them like I did in the city, they can find themselves and grow like we used to as kids, learning their own limits and building confidence with no parents helicoptering over them making sure they don't hurt themselves - and they love it.

I also don't have to put up with the marketing bullshit that we're bombarded with about how awesome our manufactured food is, which it may be, but probably not. I know where my food comes from, from my land to my plate. I know what they've been fed, I'm happy with how they've been treated. I can see they're happy before they go to the freezer. I know my produce isn't treated with harmful pesticides and herbicides.

It's not for the feint of heart though, I knew it was going to be a lot of work going in, but I had no comprehension of the fact that it's not like a job you can put down when you're not feeling up to it. There's no "I just don't have the motivation to get out of bed today" or calling in on your depression because you just can't face the world. It's there, day in, day out, come rain, come shine, come mosquitoes, come drought, come blizzard, come flood. It's there and needs tending to. There's no days off or vacation without arranging someone to cover for you.

Animals have their own behaviour and their own way of doing things. They have their own motives and desires. They will show you very quickly that you cannot control the world around you and that all you can do is learn to harness and exploit their behaviour against them to keep things working. If you're not already, you will quickly learn to be adaptable, you will quickly learn to improvise with the things you have to hand right now, you will quickly learn to do whatever it takes or you don't have food on the table.

There are many days when I wonder what the fuck I've done and want to go running back to the safety and convenience of the city where I can be lazy without any repercussions. But when the sun comes out, the animals are behaving and happy and you've got a full harvest in front of you, you smile to yourself and you know why you did it. That's a level of satisfaction you just don't get anywhere else.

When I finally decide that programming is too much for me - which seems like a long way off yet, this side project will become my main gig. I have other ideas that will become side projects to complement this, but for the moment this is taking a fair portion of my free time and energy.

[PaulRobinson]

I have considered farming in the past, quite seriously. I think bringing an engineering/scientist mindset to it might be a distraction, but it might also actually help me stay interested in what looks like otherwise very tough work.

Farmers have moderately high suicide rates: isolation, hard work, long hours, and the inability to just stop, as you state.

I read your account - and have read many others like it - and immediately start to think of farming more like Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea": hard work, rewarding, but there's little choice in getting on with the work.

Maybe one day. Maybe.

[jcater]

Could you expand on the "school" part? This sounds fascinating. Are you training other would-be farmers on organic methods?

[thefhjhdfc]

I did not. There is not much work outside IT. Also alimony...

Solution for me was to change a lifestyle and sell myself much better. I work remotely a few hours a week.

[sirsuki]

>change a lifestyle and sell myself much better.

What is this magic?! Please enlighten. I, like many IT folks, loathe sales. As such I can not sell myself out of a paper bag. Do you have any resources to help in this matter?

[angelofthe0dd]

Technical writing/Technical Communication. Throughout my IT career, I've always been "the guy who documents everything". It's actually my favorite part of my job because I feel like I'm adding a layer of structure and peer reference to what is otherwise chaos and tribal knowledge.

[srednalfden]

Does it pay well? Availability of jobs? :)

[tka]

would love to know your path into it. part of my job now is to mitigate the frictions between views of devs and users but not nearly enough for me. instead i have to code a lot (which i am not too good at).

[Jemmeh]

My dad left and does Heating and Air work now-- but that still requires being analytical with the electrical work. He owns his own business.

Others in my family do concrete, which is physically hard but they also seem to make good money. Again they own it themselves.

Hard to get jobs that compare to IT money though without being management, sinking time into school, or starting your own business.You'll probably have to try a few things out to figure out what you can actually do. I know that might be frustrating, but hang in there. You'll find something that works at some point.

If you have the ability to do so, maybe you could make some apps at home? You could pace yourself. You might have to change the way you work, using a lot of written organization, but it depends on how your mind works.

[dangle]

I left my job to help people quit their jobs. Seriously. Even though I was writing code and managing teams for big clients (Google, Starbucks, P&G) I found people's individual careers more exciting.

Really sorry to hear about your illness and struggles. That sounds pretty tough. Would you say that IT feels like "your calling?"

I've had friends and clients leave tech for more fulfilling, but lower wage work in cooking, farming, design, music, art, after-school work, and non-profit work.

There are a lot of good ideas on this thread, but it would be easier to speak to your situation if I had some more details.

Email me if you're up for sharing more, I'd be happy to help if I can:

[email protected]

[detnext]

Not so many good responses to an evergreen question. I left my best IT job ever to be FT caregiver for my folks, years longer than I'd intended. If you a diag of early stage dementia,cardiac, diabetic etc, fix those 1st. Nothing works if your brain doesn't. Your choice is IT, in or out. You offer the same skills in lesser potions in law, real estate, or where contracts are written. If you are truly going out, know that's what will happen. No insurance, no bennies. If you have a progressive chronic disease, take what stock you can today. Pre-existing conditions are back. If you have migration route, take it.

[BorisMelnik]

I left my original job (not in IT)so that I could pursue my passion in this field. I've seen many people leave IT for more pure careers such as teaching, food service or farming.

the answer lies inside of you, not in HN. what are your passions and interests other than IT? if its say "farming" you may not be able to go start a farm, but maybe you can go work for Home Depot in the garden center for 6 months, and start "farming on the side" (ppl do this) from there.