Ask HN: Devs/data scis who pivoted to a new career in 30s/40s, what do you do?

[throw9078686]

I see posts every once in a while about engineers or data scientists choosing to leave the space to a new one.... I also often hear how hard it is to do so.

For those who made a successful transition, what did you move to? What advice do you have in hindsight?

[lr4444lr]

As someone who has obligations to provide for a family in the USA, I can't imagine leaving dev work without an absolute clear passion and burning drive to do something specific. Giving up a six figure income I use to feed and house my family that demands I use my brain while sitting in a comfortable indoor environment, doing nothing more physically taxing than use a keyboard? Sure, I have fantasies from time to time about doing something with more dynamism in meatspace, but let's get real: it's a fantasy. I can't imagine recommending anyone with a stable career in data work upset that apple cart unless they already have a clear aim in mind, which they think about day and night - not with the unsureness of this post.

[ryandrake]

I think some people must have some romantic view of manual labor, like it is more noble or pure than moving protobufs from one API layer to the other. Combine that with the very real problem of burnout and stress from an emotionally abusive work environment, and you have people thinking they want to quit and do farming or something. A lot of my peers in the office quite obviously (it's hard to hide) grew up quite well off and have no idea what it's like to work a mind-numbingly dull service job or how much daily manual labor wrecks your body.

I've had the pleasure (/s) of working retail, being a janitor at a McDonalds, working in a plastics factory that wrecked my sense of smell, and hauling shingles up onto a roof in 100F+ summer temperatures. I will take my sit-down, climate controlled, fingers typing job over any of them, any day, no matter how much those meetings and status updates annoy me.

And, none of the above even touched on salary or standard of living...

[nippoo]

I'm glad you love your career! I found myself getting increasingly unfit, sad, daylight-deprived and in need of doing something - anything! - else that involved me moving my body. (Bandaids like a standing desk or regular breaks or gym work or a SAD lamp couldn't really detract from the fact I was spending 8 hours a day (the brightest daylight hours too!), in the prime of my life, cooped up at a desk. After a career in live sound, I now design and install high-end A/V hardware and I love it.

[nextworddev]

Think you are overestimating stability in data work, especially going forward

[Kon-Peki]

> Giving up a six figure income I use to feed and house my family

I'm getting ready to do a pivot and have set a hard deadline: if my income is going to take a very large hit, it needs to be reflected when I fill out the FAFSA for my oldest child. I'm pretty sure that I have 2 years to pivot because I am filling out the FAFSA in 4. If I can't make it happen by then, I'll need to stick it out for a while.

Other than that kind of thing, I think you dramatically overestimate how much you need your 6-figure job.

I'm still trying to figure out what my pivot will be. All I know is that if I have to work with people that don't care, it has to be a job in which not caring is totally fine for the work they do.

[hpenvy]

If you have savings, it's easier to imagine. Also, it's probably not career-ending to take a few year break but I don't know much about this anecdotally.

[wnolens]

It's not always about burning passion, but sometimes about escaping a toxic environment that you bring home everyday or follows you like a dark cloud.

[brcmthrowaway]

Do you not have a partner than earns?

[apwell23]

why do you consider leaving though? just for variety?

[ocular-rockular]

"You will have your golden handcuffs and you will like it!"

[jackdawed]

I got burnt out as a SWE at a startup from stress and health issues. Bought a cafe and turned it into a bookstore cafe. Annual revenue is around 600k. Seller's discretionary earnings is around 220k. In hindsight, I should have done this earlier. Not having to deal with office politics, insane on-call rotations, stress. On top of that, it helped me qualify for E-2 investor visa, which is far less of a headache than OPT/H-1B. It was a major help having an experienced business broker/commercial real estate agent.

[kdiego]

Interesting.

I'm a vegan and I've thought about opening a cafe that serves exclusively plant based drinks and food without explicitly/overtly advertising itself as "Vegan" (I find that even in progressive places like Bay Area, it brings out the worst in some people).

Branding it as a chill fun place to hang out and work, collaborate, etc.

I'm not hurting for money, so even if it can cover costs (hopefully returns some profit, but really just need to cover costs) that's fine with me.

Anyone down to try it out if they're on the same page as me? I'm down to commit at least $100k with 3-4 others, low key really serious.

Would be even more dope if we can get a building with a few studio apartments above it that we can turn into a 24/7 hacker cafe.

[coffeecloud]

220k earnings on 600k revenue? Does that mean your profit margin is 36% or am I missing something? I was under the impression that a successful coffeeshop runs like a ~3%-7% margin.

[RobertDeNiro]

Im surprised that owning a cafe and operating it is less stressful than doing dev work.

[miketery]

Can you share more about how you went about this? How did you learn what’s needed to go through with this? Beyond knowing things like time value of money and the goal of making more revenue than costs.

[throw9078686]

WOW, this is beautiful. Have you written publicly about this?

One of the things I am upset about is grocery prices and the fact that people buy unhealthy food to offset rising prices... I ask myself what an "open source grocery store" would look like.

Have you thought of "open sourcing" your business model so others can do something similar? Or learn from it? Either way, I'd love to hear more if you have anything public.

[kkukshtel]

Like other commenter said would love to know about how to do this. I've had a similar idea for opening up a boardgame store but it's hard to find any public numbers about expected operating costs/expenses to know how to plan or budget for things and how much of a loan I'd need to take to make it happen.

[the_real_cher]

Just buy a cafe!

[focom]

Awesome man! I am curious to know more about it though. I am thinking to take back my grand parent hotel but i am worried about the small town life

[tarsinge]

Adding to others wanting to know more! Maybe just the kind of city? I’m curious if that’s only viable in a big city.

[nicbou]

I run a website called All About Berlin now. I help people figure out life in a new country and navigate German bureaucracy.

It was a passion project that kept growing. Eventually I figured that I could live from it. It didn't pay as well, but I would no longer have to set an alarm in the morning or attend all-hands meetings.

This was about 4 years ago. I have no regrets. I had not realised how programming for a corporation utterly destroyed my passion. A few months after leaving, I started coding for fun again and never stopped.

[throw9078686]

As I get older, the idea of "coding for fun" is very much akin to "being an author" or "artist". I appreciate those who appreciate the craftsmanship of it all.

Kind of the difference between writing blogspam versus short stories, maybe?

Either way, great site + thank you for sharing.

[spacemadness]

Coding for a corporation makes me feel the same. It’s a lot of theatre and politics. It’s constant pressure for some unexciting feature you have no choice but to make and then they just lay everyone off to celebrate when it’s finished. Meanwhile the dev ops team is busy changing things to get promo and breaking everyone’s tools in the process while PMs trying to get promo pull their hair out trying to make everyone go faster. It can feel like hell on earth at some companies. And the only winners are the executives who are on another plane of existence from the average employee.

Anyway, congratulations on moving on and having some success.

[thiago_fm]

You are living the dream. Compensation is pointless if you make enough and is satisfied with what you have.

Working like this can bring a lot of satisfaction because in the end you help a lot of people, like me (also a Berliner!).

In a big organization it's very unlikely that you'll get that kind of satisfaction.

[2color]

Thanks for making it Nicolas, All About Berlin is an immensely useful resource and has made the lives of so many newcomers to Berlin much easier.

[moralestapia]

If you don't mind, how does All About Berlin make money?

I don't see any ads or affiliate stuff in there (... and that's awesome, btw).

[toddmorey]

I love your site & it’s a fantastic resource!

[cosiiine]

I decided to leave the world of engineering 1.5 years ago to pursue my passion as an artist.

Although my salary was a very good, competitive US rate at senior level, my artwork brought in more income for 2 years straight. I decided that it wasn't worth burning my candle at both ends any more, especially with a young child at home. Something had to give, and it was the job.

Now I still work like an engineer. I spend 4-5 hours a day programming and 2-3 hours managing my commitments and social media. My artwork is generative, so I use Javascript to build elaborate systems which yield visual artworks.

The stuff I do is much more diverse now. I just spent an hour totally leveling a table I built recently. I needed a custom table for my Axidraw pen plotter, which I use to draw generative artworks.

The pay is nothing, then a lot, then nothing. I'm white-knuckling it. At times it's very scary to not have a steady stream of income. But it allows me to be happy, and that's worth more than any amount of comfort.

[headcanon]

Are you the artist from https://lostpixels.io/? If so I really love your artwork. I just got a pen plotter myself and I've been working on some original stuff, and yours is a big source of inspiration to me. Kudos!

[chucksta]

I have been fascinated with generated art drawings recently. Care to share any tips that's led to your current situation?

[Delmololo]

Wow.

I like your art but how do you make money with it?

[beauzero]

Bought a farm and went to work for a state government. Still doing dev but having a lot more day to day impact and when I leave at 5 I am done. Went on a contract and decided I liked what I saw from work life balance. Has let me step aside and let my wife and kids pursue their career while I focus on keeping animals inside fences and doing the laundry because everyone else is working 60-70 hour weeks. And no, none of them are in dev. They saw, or didn't see because I was never around, why it was a bad life choice for them I guess.

[throw9078686]

Very cool. Do you run a farm or has the purchase turned more into a rural home?

[PheonixPharts]

I left a another career to get into software in my 30s, but since you mention age, one thing worth recognizing is that very few careers are as age biased as tech. I worked in an industry were 40 was considered "young" and ever since I hit lates-30s in tech I've been the "old guy".

I also knew plenty of people in my previous career that came from tech, and seemed to have no trouble transitioning (but that was post-dotcom). It may be "hard to do so" now because increasingly the white collar job market is getting tighter which means people aren't looking to hire non-traditional candidates since they can usually find an equivalent candidate with more experience.

As other have mentioned, I think for most people the "hard" part is the change in income. Even with the decline in the tech space, tech workers still tend to get paid notably above other industries.

I think the real question boils down to: why are you transitioning? If you're sick of tech, or can't find a job it's going to be harder. If you're passionately obsessed with a new career and can't sleep at night without being compelled to study that area, you'll probably do fine. It also, of course, depends on the market for that job. If you're interested in a space that niche and packed with people then it will be hard, if you're interested in a new booming industry then it will be easier.

[jvanderbot]

You mean leving programming? Can't help you there.

But if you want to change subfields...

I only know data scientists who come into my workplaces from other fields, and rarely know folks who move out into other fields. So these anecdata are heavily biased based on where I've worked.

1. Robotics has a huge gob of data every test, and parsing it is basically Sisyphean. Someone who can learn about, and educate others about, building proper observers and reporters into C++ codebases, and building proper dashboards with data coming out is always really valuable. From there it's a short hop into roboticsy systemsy things itself. But beware, large shops will have these silo'd. Think smallish labs for large companies. You do not want to get stuck building reports for product teams - stick to engineering teams.

2. Manufacturing, at the highest levels, is metrics driven, so again, getting in and helping to establish data-driven process refinements, then moving "down" the stack into the software is a good way to make your pivot into embedded systems or industrial IoT. But beware, large shops will have these very much silo'd.

3. Science / academia. A good analyst for a research lab is impossible to find, because of pay differentials. But if you can take the hit, and are willing to grovel a little, you can easily become the most valuable person in a large enough academic lab. The ones I've been adjacent to are Geophysics, Planetary Sciences, and Astrophysics. All really tough data problems.

[larsiusprime]

I left video game development for statistical mass appraisal of real estate for property tax purposes when I turned 40. No regrets.

Completely the opposite of game development in every way.

[gmcerveny]

Early 40s and I've been sort of backing into music with this 20 year arc:

  - Full Stack Dev
  - iOS Dev
  - 2x Music Tech Startup Founder
  - Music Tech Freelance Developer
  - Currently: Studying music theory, composition, and piano.

I might go to grad school for music/media, continue to study art/music independently, or explore professional arts careers.

I'm just constantly seeking alignment between my professional work and intrinsic motivations.

[nurple]

Been thinking of going back to college (maths) myself in my post-40s age, but I'm struggling a bit to convince myself that it's going to be the best way to meet my learning goals. The degree itself, at this point in my career, isn't all that important to me, but the social and networking aspects could be quite valuable.

I'm curious if you've made similar considerations.

[savorypiano]

Do you think a university music program is needed to learn composition, or are there enough info out there to piece it together yourself (pardon the pun)?

For reference, I am an employed self taught software engineer (learned from MOCs) and have played piano many years along with theory basics already.

I haven't found many great resources yet, at least not in one place.

[mlyle]

Left a career as a developer/entrepreneur/executive for teaching at a private high school.

No real advice: it wasn't intentional; something that I just drifted to. It's really fulfilling but not lucrative.

[ItsBob]

In my case it was the opposite: I went from building infrastructure (mainly Windows servers and related tech) to becoming a software developer at 45.

I lost my job at the start of the COVID stuff (Feb 2020?) and couldn't find another. No one would take my calls and I found out from some recruiters that eventually spoke to me that they were getting thousands of applications per job: one got over 5000 for a £300 a day contract!

I got to the point I'd ran out of money, gov wouldn't help, was getting money from my parents to survive so I decided to lie on my resume.

Now, don't get me wrong: I'd been programming since the 90s. I knew SQL server like the back of my hand and could programme .NET with the best of them but I'd never done it as a primary job (partly fear - didn't think I was good enough but turns out I was pretty fucking awesome at it :D) so I changed my resume to make it look like I had been doing it for years in various roles and got a job in 2 weeks!

I'm now an architect and couldn't be happier... the money definitely helps.

I'm looking to do my own thing though as I'm done with the corporate life.

However, I can't knock it too badly: In 4 years I've gone from being in serious financial shit to paying off my mortgage a month ago :)

[apwell23]

I tried teaching skiing for a while but pay was low and living conditions weren't good for my family.

I am back to the grind being a software engineer but I don't have passion for it like I used to. politics at worked killed that. Recent AI hype like DevinAI are repulsive to me but i don't know what else to do.

[snakeyjake]

The thought of staring at an IDE window (it was Eclipse back in the day) all day made me want to start sniffing glue so I learned SolidWorks and relearned linear algebra and used my amateur radio experience to fake my way through conversations about RF and became an engineer working on synthetic aperture radar systems.

Instead of shoveling frameworks on top of each other I started building real things that flew in pods on aircraft and got launched into space.

Now it's been a while so I've transitioned into doing more meetings than engineering, but I get two months off per year so I go scuba diving in warm places a lot and that makes up for it.

My only advice is to invest in yourself and never take a leap unless you can see what you'll be landing on. Both metaphorically and in the real world.

[DustinBrett]

I went the other way and pivoted to being a dev when I turned 30. Before that I was in IT which basically meant fixing computers, which meant replacing power supplies and reinstalling Windows.

[johndavid9991]

It was not a complete transition, but I decided to build my own Software Development company instead of working as a software engineer for another company.

I started this company along with 12 other co-workers. We are in our 30s, I am turning 34 this year. In the last three months, we have focused on training people. We have a team of 45 people now from overseas.

The main reason for building this company is for me to have more control on my own time, that's the idea at first, but somehow my passion for software engineering has been rekindled. There is something about training people, I enjoy working with our developers and seeing them grow.

I find it hard to switch to another industry or field of work at this age. Having your own family, with the kids and other responsibilities, makes it hard to reinvent yourself. You are not as free as before when you are still single and have complete control over your time.

[makeitshine]

I transitioned from software in my mid-20s to teaching and am now looking to transition back. Personally, I'd like something at the intersection of education and tech. I'm currently working for a startup doing backend dev, and it's ok, but I miss some elements of teaching.

[rapfaria]

It's crazy how prevalent this is among my peers. Do any other careers have so much pivoting?

[WarOnPrivacy]

> about engineers or data scientists choosing to leave the space to a new one

You mentioned leaving space and leaving career. In my mind these could be different things. What are your thoughts about potential destinations?

[dr_kiszonka]

I have no advice, but I am curious what new careers you are considering. (One successful transition I have seen was getting an MBA from a prestigious school and moving into leadership.)

[cwiz]

Hard science?