[robodale]

Walked away from 20 years of software development last year. I've been day and swing trading stocks for last 2 years. I'm now trading full time and doing great. I don't miss the daily stand-ups, scrum meetings, planning meetings, "quick chats", one-on-ones with management, weekly department meetings, monthly company meetings, and late night critical support calls one bit!

[sandoze]

Here’s the thing. If I could just code without being a slave to a scrum master or being product micromanaged.. I would never leave the industry. I worked five years in mobile gaming when the Apple Store first opened. Released 13 titles, had my hands in a half a dozen others, three teams in two countries, 15 employees at our height (95% remote). Never had a standup, planning meaning, grooming.. etc.

[y-c-o-m-b]

> If I could just code without being a slave to a scrum master or being product micromanaged.. I would never leave the industry.

My current job has zero planning meetings and a standup twice a week with 20 people attending that lasts about 7 minutes on average; standup is literally "what are you working on and are you blocked?". If the person rambles in standup, our boss cuts them off and has the next person go. It's been this way for at least a year and a half (when I started). We're given wire-frames or high-level designs of what needs to be built and the target goal date. Developers are then left to code with nearly full autonomy. We always deliver the product early. I've worked in so very many places over the last decade and a half - from huge corporations to small startups - and if all of them took this approach, they would've increased their productivity at least 10-fold.

[closeparen]

There do exist corporate positions with a high degree of autonomy and as-needed coordination. I have one of them right now. I will be sad to ever let it go.

[2bitlobster]

What were your main means of coordination and planning?

[JKCalhoun]

I'm surprised you made it 5 years. It seemed like the App Store collapsed to free within a year or two.

[matsemann]

Sorry for the blunt question, but how does it feel to go from something where you make something valuable to ...that?

(At least I feel what I do give me meaning)

[goncaloo]

Most developers work on meaningless, "make the rich richer", products anyways

[PerilousD]

When I first started out I actually got to develop, write and deploy complete applications as opposed to endless updates or tiny sections of some larger project. It was an amazing feeling seeing something you write being run by dozens or even hundreds of users around the world. If the code you write today is meaningful to you that's great but its been a LONG time since I could look at something running that I wrote and feel any sense of ownership in the deal. I used to tell my team - when we have a bad day something crashes or doesnt work right. When my wife has a bad day somebody may have died literally (she's a nurse). Perspective!

[taormina]

Hey, if you were working in advertising or crypto, you’re probably about breakin even in the “meaningfulness” department

[dageshi]

Mastering something like trading to the point where you can earn a living from it is probably pretty meaningful to a lot of people.

[tonmoy]

Don’t know about GP’s details, but IMO trading brings quite a lot of value to society especially compared to at least some non-sense tick the box software jobs. Trending brings liquidity and makes resources available to where it is needed.

[JKCalhoun]

My guess is that you do the more "meaningful things" in your spare time. Likely day trading affords you a little more of that?

[emteycz]

Providing liquidity to the market is valuable too, as well as rapid reallocation of capital where it's needed.

Not to say there aren't differences, of course. But I feel like your comparison is condescending. These people do valuable work too.

[Cloudef]

Tbh, i dont really feel i ever do anything valuable with software either

[kirso]

Have been thinking a lot about this.

There are more ways to make an impact, such as earning a good salary and re-investing / donating to build trees, renewables or serve any of the UNDP goals that are helping society.

In fact that is probably more impactful that personally picking fruit in the garden.

I guess it just depends on the place itself not being generally net negative to society compared to the impact you can make with it.

Here is a good primer: https://80000hours.org/

[usremane]

The term valuable is subjective. What really matters is whether you are happy in whatever you’re doing. People who make good money in trading are mostly going to spend some too somewhere which indirectly puts food on table for others.

[55555]

Giving back to the world is just one way to be satisfied. Being great at something, or even just learning, are often sufficient.

[city41]

In my twenty year dev career I can count the meaningful projects on just a few fingers.

[ryandrake]

Good luck to you! I remember back in the late 90's / early 2000's when The Stock Market Only Goes Up, and 1/4 of my software peers quit to "become day traders." Well when the bear market inevitably came, I started seeing them back in scrum meetings... Do your due diligence and and preserve your capital :)

[shoo]

It can be very difficult to look at the realised outcome and disentangle how much of that outcome was driven by decision making, and how much was due to variability of factors entirely outside of your control, i.e. "luck". What if your decision making is poor and over-fitted to current conditions that are not guaranteed to persist, but you keep (temporarily) winning anyway?

Taleb writes about this kind of thing in Fooled by Randomness. Poker player Annie Duke's book "thinking in bets" also goes into it.

I reckon to some extent public market conditions in recent years since GFC have approximately been "stock market only goes up" with a few small fluctuations from covid, negative oil price weirdness, etc. Lots of investors trying desperately to invest cash in recent years pouring money into variety of highly speculative areas -- SPACs, crypto, fraudulent EV companies (Nikola rolling their "truck" down the hill to make it look like it was self propelled, lol).

At some point the music will stop.

[hutrdvnj]

A good day trader is able to shift gears in case of a bear market e.g. knows when to short. Very few days traders are actually good, most lose money and quit after some months.

[JKCalhoun]

I remember. So easy to day trade when everything was going up, ha ha.

[dplgk]

I've been exploring day trading recently and have not yet found the angle that works for me and also fits my lifestyle/budget. It's hard to find reliable sources of education on the topic because it seems like so many materials are teaching hindsight technical analysis that looks good on paper but is really just BS to sell a e-book or Discord subscription. I'm still exploring what time frames I want to trade and if I should go with option strategies or stock scalping. Do you have any advice for learning materials?

[hutrdvnj]

The best way of day trading is to exploit a market inefficiency that nobody (or very few) are aware of. As soon as this inefficiency is know to public it will disappear, that's why there is not much sensible material for day trading to learn from, maybe except for the psychological aspect, which is very important. Try to find a system that works for you and be quiet about it. Unfortunately, 95%< of day traders didn't find a system that works and quit after some time.

[nigerian1981]

That’s because it’s a fancy word for gambling

[telcal]

For about a year I've been watching a guy on Twitch (in the background while working my real job) who day trades everyday. I thought TA was BS but I was wrong. I've learned a ton from just watching/listening and after paper trading for 8 months I'm now comfortable using real money. You're right though almost everything out there is BS selling a book/newsletter/chat room. (Twitch streamer = StockJock)

[pid-1]

The best way to learn trading is to work for an investment bank / hedge fund and learn from folks who already do that successfully.

Anything else is likely BS.

[mancerayder]

That's brave, given the odds. Having gotten into options recently myself, I'm curious if there was some research or reading materials that you found particularly helpful in your ramp up to trading full time. Also do you try to close out every position by close of business each day or is there a longer term approach?

[RickJWagner]

I wish you great luck, but please be cautious.

I'll never forget the great crash of 2000. Among the signs I should have seen-- I knew a guy from my bowling league who quit his job to day trade. I don't know what your qualifications are for this line of work, but this guy had no discernible skills. He was doing fine 'till the big crash, then he was wiped out.

Please be safe.

[k8sToGo]

How much did you need to make day trading worth?

[lazyeye]

Sounds lika fun way to earn a living.

Just dont be this guy

https://www.reddit.com/r/fatFIRE/comments/ti1jg8/i_owe_nearl...

[billsmithwicks]

What would you need to get into day trading, properly, as a full time job? I'm certain that bank defaulter lists are filled with mediocre day traders, so without asking what's your secret, what's your secret?

[akulbe]

I would love to talk with you more about this. You open to conversation?

[barbarbar]

How do you deal with the stress related to trading? Isn't it hard mentally when it goes "not your way"?

[iamgopal]

Day trading doesn’t work. What is your secret ? You can make millions selling your book.

[filoleg]

Well, that's the catch.

Those who actually consistently make money daytrading (averaged out over a long enough time period) don't have a need to write those books (and potentially put themselves at a disadvantage by doing so) to make money.

While those who write "daytrading secrets" books typically make heavy majority of their money from those books, because they cannot make money from actual daytrading.

[telcal]

I thought so too but it really can work if you have the right emotional mindset and stick to your game plan. There are streamers who do it live to prove it.

[55555]

What are some of the resources and communities you use for trading?

[kimsant]

Sad to hear that top minds just give up on humanity and accept money as a goal by itself. I do have long term investments (5 nanometers, extreme litography, electric vehicles... just what I love), I make money, but is not something I need to live.

Last month, when war started I told my team, Aerovironment stock, is gonna double (war drones) but I'm not gonna be part and I want you all to feel how calmed I'm about that and undertand (I don't need those 100k). I now undertand the difference between being Socrates or a 'sofist' (greek philosophs both, one for pleasure, the second as a job). Investing shouldn't be a need, is what's best for humanity. I think Elon musk already refered this way