Ask HN: Has anyone started over outside of tech?

I used to work as a compiler engineer in the US for several years, before deciding to try starting over at the age of 30, in pure mathematics. I moved from the US to Paris in pursuit of an affordable mathematics education, and spent two years in a Masters program. I did have a considerable amount of savings, but it was very risky nevertheless: if it didn't work out, I'd be out-of-touch with compilers, and it would be hard to interview again, with a considerable career gap in my résumé.

For various reasons, mathematics didn't work out, and I was forced to interview again. Fortunately, I did manage to find a job as a compiler engineer again, and will be moving to London soon.

Now, the price of my adventure was quite steep. I uprooted my life when I moved from the US to Paris (especially because I didn't know French at the time), and the upcoming move to London will once again be difficult. I nearly halved my savings, by studying mathematics at my own expense, and will be back to earning the equivalent of my starting salary in the US.

However, I'm an adventurous person, and view my experience in positive light. I'd been wanting to study Jacob Lurie's books for the longest time, and I finally did it. I worked on a mathematical manuscript, which is now up on arXiv [1], and on a type theory project which has been submitted to LICS '23 [2]. I've had a good life in Paris, and my French is decent.

There's the larger philosophical question of "What is a life well-lived?", and for me, the answer is to pursue those things that you're truly passionate about, even if it doesn't work out.

[1]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.09652

[2]: https://artagnon.com/logic/νType.pdf

The greatest such story I've ever read is this one from a GitHub issue comment:

https://github.com/docker/cli/issues/267#issuecomment-695149...

> Sorry I missed your comment of many months ago. I no longer build software; I now make furniture out of wood. The hours are long, the pay sucks, and there's always the opportunity to remove my finger with a table saw, but nobody asks me if I can add an RSS feed to a DBMS, so there's that :-)

Dropped out of tech, arguably more by force than choice. My lifestyle, finances, social life, even country of residence (and by extension my love life) were all balanced on top of that little MacBook Pro. Used it for work, used it to socialize, eventually my brain refused to let me mediate my entire life through a computer any longer and I burned out. Now I work at a hotel! Receptionist, barista, waiter, even some maintenance and housekeeping when there’s a need for an extra pair of hands. It covers my needs financially and I get to interact with dozens of new people on a daily basis, which has proven absurdly healthy for me. Still “do tech” in my spare time, but now there’s no pressure, only desire. It’s better for me, but I would hesitate to generally recommend this model of “become sustainable outside of tech and then dip your toes in as you like” - it probably only works because I have previous tech experience, and I am far less productive now as well. But maybe it is not a bad idea for techies burning out.

Teaching. I moved from a big tech company to teaching. Teaching is the hardest job I’ve ever done, and requires entire new skills. Teacher pay, depending on where you are, can be real low compared to FAANG money, but damn do I sleep well at night knowing that I help people. There is nothing like watching someone struggle and then suddenly understanding the subject.

But seriously, it is a hard job. You learn quickly that just because you understand something doesn’t mean you can explain it to someone.

I did this 15-20 years ago. I had a small internet/consulting business that I ran out of my house, with a full T1 mind you lol. Got tired of staring at the walls and tired of the f'king servers that chained me down.

An error message from a server while in the car going on a small vacation triggered the change. I had enough. So on the spot I thought of my options and decided on becoming a trucker.

My first aim was to do long haul but I never went that way. I got hired to do local LTL deliveries/pick ups and I loved it. For me it's hard to beat driving a truck when it's nice outside. Winter can be a bitch but you learn manage.

Constantly going in and out of the truck got me and keeps me in shape. I lost 100lbs and feel much better than the fat slob I used to be, tied to the keyboard. It also help that I bike to work (not in winter though).

Took a real pay cut but I would never go back. I don't think I can anyway. I started programming again a couple of years ago on personal projects and I love it. I realize that my skills are greatly diminished but it's still fun to find solutions to problems, fix the damn bugs lol, and be proud of the final product.

Every job I ever had in tech was basically terrible and I was never diagnosed, but I suspect was clinically depressed for the 13 years or so I was in tech.

I did not have the savings to do it, but I eventually quit and became a bicycle mechanic. I actually enjoy what I do now, and the work environment doesn't have me constantly jumping back and forth between panic, undirected rage, and extreme listlessness like tech always did. That being said, I'm now broke and probably going to lose my house, so there is that.

If you want a cautionary tale, here it is:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3134322

The coffeeshop fallacy (2011)

It‘s easy to get blinded by how incredibly privileged the tech bubble is and have had a better experience so far just trying to find a great non-toxic spot in there. YMMV, good luck!

It is important to understand that everyone has sometimes escape phantasies (teachers, therapists, baristas, founders, medical doctors, professors, developers, etc., they all do) because something is making them truly unhappy in their day-to-day job and they assume other people happier. Finding about the root cause what makes you unhappy will usually lead to more satisfying results than just running after to become a farmer or woodchopper because it has nothing to do with "computers". Sometimes the answer is to switch roles but more often than not you still haven't tackled the underlying issues and the misery starts again.

Not exactly. I'm still in tech but I sold everything and bought a sailboat to sail the world after I got sick and tired of sitting at a desk. I have starlink now which makes it possible (before it was hunting for 4G/5G signals like I was the crocodile hunter) and sailboats can be pretty affordable if you want to sharpen your trade skills. I've "re-kindled" my love for woodworking, fiberglass, diesel engines, electrical, plumbing, home renovations, tax law, federal law, and even got some fishing in.

I think the expectations that you sit at a job for 40 years before you can live is old corporate propaganda to keep people working. The objective of working is to earn money, money to be spent living. Work to live. Don't live to work.

If you keep your skills sharp, you can always return when you have that passion again. Burn out doesn't last forever.

As someone who's tried/trying, here are some thoughts from my experience (DevOps -> Jazz Musician)

- The general pay and flexibility of a tech job is too good, it's easy to forget how privileged it is to be in a position holding a tech job. A lot of people out there are struggling, the fact that we can imagine starting over (and maybe have the time and means to do so as an option) says it all

- It's hard to escape the curse of tech. Even when I stopped working in tech, I have to use a computer and the internet everyday...and old habits come back, enticing opportunities arise, savings are disappearing...

- Money is not everything, but a day's tech work of pay equaling a week's worth of gigs or teaching really makes it easy to say no, especially when you live in a expensive city with expensive rent. For two years I working harder trying to doing both at full throttle and it drained me. I think with the current capitalistic system, by design it's really hard for people to pursuit multiple professions without a large sacrifice, e.g., for the majority of jobs you need to work full-time to make ends meet, not leaving one much focus time for other pursuits

- I felt guilt that I was "wasting" my tech skills, given tech industry really helped in my upward mobility. I don't have lifestyle creep (I'm okay with descaling), but not being able to save money for situations where I could help my parents and whatnot in the future definitely made me feel at unease

- I did learn that I was pushing myself and it's much better to only work a few days a week, or take a few months off a year (if you're contracting). Prior I would never take a day off and wouldn't think twice about it, now I get more FOMO about all the things in life I do outside of tech

- Success in some fields outside of tech is different, and in some cases arbitrary. Say in the arts, the competitive culture is very much there, and there isn't a shortage, but weirdly I didn't care and do my own thing (even just making ends meet is often considered success)

I took early retirement from an office-based software consultancy job (aged 59) and started volunteering at a Raptor conservancy two days a week. It gave me a level of social contact - with the staff and other volunteers - that I liked and also meant working outdoors in all weathers, sometimes dealing with the general public. As I spent more time there I learned the ropes and could essentially just pitch up and find something to do. I was also trusted to work with the birds: not just de-pooping aviaries but helping to fly them in displays. And to monitor work experience students, and help host 'VIP' experience days, where paying members of the public (amazingly) saw me as having some expertise with the birds.

The downside was that I lost money doing it (transport costs and no pay) and some of the tasks were mundane and / or physically uncomfortable (e.g. cleaning waterbowls on a cold rainy January day). But overall I loved it, partly because the birds and environment were so appealing, but also because compared with my old life, when I went home at the end of the day, I had no keep-you-awake-at-night responsibilities to worry about. I was also really pleased to have progressed in a new 'career' where my old status and technical skills counted for nothing, and I had to earn trust from the much younger bird team by pitching in and doing physical stuff. This was for me the best thing.

I'm on a hiatus from tech after nearly 20 years at a FAANG, I'm now an airline pilot.

The money sucks and the hours are long, but somehow the simplicity of the mission (go from A to B, don't bend any metal) appeals to me. Being able to switch the phone off after work, not having to worry about stupid office politics, planning, or performance reviews is quite liberating. The view from my office desk is unbeatable!

I'm sure this job will lose its lustre soon enough, and maybe I'll return to tech, but for now it's fun.

In some ways I feel lucky that tech was an early career change for me. I was trying to get a career in the arts off the ground, and it was going poorly. I was a recent grad millennial in the economy of the 2008 recession.

The decision to turn my back on what I thought was my passion was a profound spiritual experience. The decision to change came from outside of me. The decision of what path to follow was up to me though.

Tech was hiring and hiring like crazy, and I wasn't going to do an unprofitable degree twice so CS it was. I had a job before I graduated making 4x what my mom was making at her non-profit admin job.

If I hadn't pursued my art career first and had the chance to get deeply disillusioned with it, I would definitely be sitting at my desk trying to write code and thinking "what if... I'm not made for this... there's something else..." The truth is that I'm not cut out for the arts industry. I like stability, I like being salaried, I like having the upper hand in the hiring market (I know Big Tech is doing layoffs, but try spamming applications for a year to everything you can think of until the only place that calls you back is a cashier position at a grocery store. I have skills that are in demand now.) I like work that is decent and stimulating enough but which is definitely not "my passion" because that helps me keep boundaries on it.

I feel for folks who didn't get that chance to try out that other thing, who went straight into this career maybe because they wanted to, maybe because they didn't have the safety net I had that allowed me to do a second degree, maybe because life has held them down and change doesn't feel like an option. I've been out there with my chosen field and gotten burned hard by it so I'm content to stay put. It's definitely one of the cliche sayings about how the lows make the highs much higher.

I have no useful advice for anybody beyond their very early 20s facing this question. I know I would be eaten by this question if I hadn't already gotten my answer at the start.

I tech fast for 25 hours a week. No computer, no cell phone, no television, etc. It's amazing how much this sustains my motivation and enthusiasm. You can "switch" right now, at least 1/7th of the time. Not exactly what you're asking for but immediately actionable.

After working full time in a wide variety of tech since 1983 (embedded systems work on medical equipment and commercial fire alarm systems, hotel reservation systems, ramp and fuel delivery systems in aviation, multiple startups in Silicon Valley, etc, ad naseum) I’m currently taking a break and working as a pin setter mechanic at a couple of local bowling alleys. The work is physical (running up and down the back of the 40 and 64 lane alleys, climbing up on the machines) and challenging in its own way: the machines were designed in the 50s and are a complex assortment of pulleys, belts, gears, cams, levers, etc. There is even a mechanical “computer” that acts as a state machine directing the operations of the machine. I still get to use my problem solving skills but in a much more tactile way. Also, no pointless meetings, conference calls. Downside: the pay is terrible. Fortunately I’m in a position in my life where that is not nearly as important as it used to be.

I was an early boot camper around 2012, taught myself the basics of web dev and did some contracting for about a year. I had some job offers but I didn’t feel right about the people and just the whole industry, so I moved back to the Midwest and ended up working in a factory. I’ve kept up with HN the whole time. I work very hard and my base wage isn’t that impressive but I can make 6 figures if I put the overtime in. It’s a tough but honorable way to make a living and I’m stronger mentally and physically that I ever would be in any sort of office environment. When I come home I’m totally guilt and worry free, I’ve done my part and earned my relaxation time. I plan on staying busy physically until 55 and making as much as I can. After that I’d like to consider doing something less physically demanding. My choice has its trade offs but I’m doing better every year and IT seems to constantly boom bust so I feel pretty confident in my choice.

Yes, I have gone back and forth. I always miss the money but not the stress. I've been a junior dev at Bank of America, then a contract dev salaried through robert half, and after than a lot of odd end jobs, then a dev for a small manufacturing tracking software company, then retail, now I'm teaching computer science in high school. This is probably the best job I've had. It still has stress and burnout, but summers and breaks help mitigate a LOT of that. That and never being called at midnight because of a prod issue is a plus.

I used to work in the industry for 9 years, got disillusioned working in tech and I moved to food, I've been working as a cook for the last 2 and a half years, it's something i wanted to do when i left high school and i always kept an avid interest in cooking while I had a tech job. Overall I think it's become more stressful for sure but I have found more meaning to my work, status and finance wise i would say its a completely different story, It's been very difficult trying to run my business and survive but i am trying my best, the economy hasn't been good. Also with regards to status, it's something that i never thought about previously but it has affected my dating and social life, people treat you very differently..

I quit my software dev job last April. Burned out and in a rough spot mentally. I worked as a dev for 8 years and it was great but changes to lifestyles and work life from Covid were taking a toll on me.

I hoped to become an electrician but that didn’t really work out due to circumstances outside of my control.

I work as a security guard now and have been doing this since October. Honestly never saw myself doing this job before but it turns out it’s a pretty sweet gig.

It’s low stress and low anxiety which is just what I needed. The people I work with aren’t your stereotypical security, maybe it’s because of the city I’m in but everyone is very nice and open minded.

I get to chill and read books for hours while I get paid. It’s the mental vacation I needed from programming.

I write about it occasionally on my blog.

Other than some long-term entanglements I’ve basically retired from tech and started over as a music producer/touring DJ. Living the dream, but definitely feels like starting again from the bottom

https://soundcloud.com/obie

I’m still in tech and absolutely still love AI / ML research.

That said, I’ve started a farm. Mostly because:

(a) I enjoy being independent and growing the majority of my own food enables that

(b) its very satisfying to provide for yourself and family

(C) there’s a very real possibility that AGI takes away many jobs; having land, your own resources, etc is real wealth

(D) I can work 100% remote and hire someone where I’m at to do much of the farm work ($20k out here is a good part-time job).

I’m into growing niche items (working on getting a registered highland cattle herd), organic honey, ginseng root, expensive flowers like snap dragons, etc - haven’t made a profit quite yet, but farms are tax deductible. So, if you’re still working, you can write off the losses. Once it’s up and running you then pay taxes, but you have a profit. Takes typically 3-7 years to make a profit though

Most profitably small farms focus on niche stuff. One of the neighbors runs a co-op selling raw milk at $15/gal and specialty pig meat.

I don’t think it’s super profitable by any means. That said my property value has doubled in the last few years and cows reproduce (literally growing in wealth).

Got fired without warning from my first real programming job. It was probably personality differences with the company owner, but it did teach me that I am not built to work collaboratively on software.

Became a school bus driver. Quit when the school district was asking me to drive in an unsafe way. (Too fast for my experience level.)

Tried to become a helicopter pilot. The FAA grounded me for life.

Now trying to start a software business with software I wrote alone from scratch. It would be a professional services business, not selling the software, which will be FOSS.

I have a few backup plans if that fails. For example, I've already written a book when I was a teen, but didn't like it, so I deleted it. I'm trying to write another now.

I can only do this because my wife has a job. Thank goodness for her and her patience.

I'm currently finishing my second year of what was supposed to be a two year term (but was recently extended to three years) as the organ scholar [1] at one of the larger churches in the U.S. The director of music and I are the only two organists on staff, so I get to play for thousands of people and accompany/conduct a professional choir every week. I left the tech world to do that because I knew I wanted to at least try working in music at some point in my career. I am still working on several open source projects, so I haven't taken a complete break from software development.

I'm technically 3/4 time at the church, so I've been looking for a part time tech job to augment that for the last two years, but have found getting one quite difficult since there are so few available. I always assumed this foray into church music would be a break from technical work and I'd go back after I was done, but my two closest mentors are strongly encouraging me to go to graduate school for organ performance after I finish my term, as my undergraduate degree is in math. I'm also somewhat concerned about my viability as a candidate trying to re-enter the tech world after being away for a few years.

I'm not yet sure what I'm going to do next year. I'm definitely happier than I ever was working in tech, although I struggle with feeling like I'm looked down upon for "just" being a musician. I also worry about the long term financial impact (retirement) if I do stay in church music, as the pay is obviously much, much lower than I'd expect otherwise. Unlike most people in this thread, I took my break early in my career, so I don't have a large pile of savings to fall back on.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_scholar

I am in the process of exploring a switch to become a vicar/pastor, which would obviously be a complete change!

It's not clear from your post what it is about tech that is demotivating you and without that it is hard to give good advice. But I'd caution against just leaving without having some clarity about what is next - i.e. discerning a positive pull. It may well be that your challenges/frustrations are only tangentially related to tech itself - could it be social, mental health, team/company, etc?

Flexible or part-time working is also something to explore - especially as you are not struggling financially. I've done variously 4 days or 9/10 days for the last 5 years or so and that's allowed me to do some volunteering on the off day, which has been a great change from sitting in front of a screen - as it's been physical and people-focused.

A sabbatical is another option. Take 3 or 6 months off, do something different, and you may rediscover a bit of passion for tech or otherwise figure out what you want to do next.

I also recommend chatting to friends/people you trust who know you well and might be able to give some wisdom/help you understand where the frustration is coming from.

And of course, if you do leave tech, you can always jump back in!

I started a business outside of pure software and ran it from 2012-2023. It's probably still considered tech because we were making and selling electronic devices that had microcontrollers and still had software.

I also have a YouTube channel which I focused seriously on for a year or two. I decided I wasn't really enjoying it or making enough money to continue doing it seriously. I still publish videos and make about a thousand bucks a year.

I am now running a software startup which I founded in 2020. I plan on using the profits to buy a farm. I could probably buy a farm now, but I still want to build the startup and continue on with my current lifestyle for the time being. If that doesn't work out, I will farm in my backyard like I am doing already.

You might be able to "retire" now if you cut your expenses. My yearly budget for all expenses (medical, taxes, food, housing, transportation, vacation, hobbies, entertainment, etc.) is $32,000.

My budget margins are thin, but if nothing drastic changes, I should be able to continue at my current lifestyle in perpetuity. I am keeping my tech skills active if I need to go back to work at a "real job" at any point, but the plan is for the startup to be generating some revenue this year.

Very early in my career, I briefly took a non tech job to get out of one I hated.

I say briefly because I quickly found myself in a job that surrounded by 100 problems easily solvable with simple tech solutions, and started to do them- either because it saved me time or it was painful to watch other people do something painful slow when simple tools would do it— things like stitching together data files (basically a join) with a small C program because the ancient mainframe reporting system was limited in max char lengths from columns.

It was very fulfilling to be in a non-tech environment where my impact on things was so immediately tangible and useful, instead of a place where direct benefits were rarely apparent.

I left tech ~6 years ago to pursue medical school. I'll be graduating and starting residency soon. A significant number of my classmates express regret for choosing medicine, and a lot of them fantasize about pursuing a career in tech, instead. I feel pretty well inoculated against this, having had a varied life and a collection of very different work experiences before med school.

I'm happy with my choice. My work still involves the computer, but I certainly don't spend most of my time on it. I get to interact with a wide variety of people, and sometimes I can make their days and lives a little better. My work is challenging and involves a lot of thinking and dealing with imperfect information. If I want to fold in skills gained from tech work in the future, there is no shortage of opportunities. Leaving tech for medicine was about the worst financial decision I could have made, but I would absolutely do it again. It's been a long road, but it was the right decision, I think.

You could join the resource industry, there's a labor shortage and there's all sort of vocational training. Some jobs require minimal training others more but you can be up and running in as little as 3 months for something relatively skilled. It's a refreshing feeling to have a job where the deliverables are very specific and day to day like you need to move this crap from here to there and that's it, no thinking about tickets or infrastructure or having to liaise with 8 stakeholders, nah bro supervisor said you need to help the guy move the drill cores, that's it for the next 5 days.

I know I’ve considered this, and though it’s at times felt irresponsible or impulsive, I can’t help but come back to this Emerson quote from Self Reliance:

> the finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed in an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened, and in complaining the rest of his life. A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always, like a cat, falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days, and feels no shame in not 'studying a profession,' for he does not postpone his life, but lives already.

I've moved from the private sector (consumer tech) to government research (contractor who works with many FFRDCs).

The cultural shift is, frankly, seismic.

The problems are no less important or impactful, but the timescale we're working on is years or even decades, so much of the all-out, balls-to-the wall constant stress you find in the startup/scaleup/consumer tech sphere is not there.

I still get to do impactful work, that I find more interesting at a consumer tech job. I took a ~10% pay cut (I'm not a SWE, so YMMV considerably on the size of pay cut you might take), but I'm super happy with the choice I made.

There are tons of federal research labs and opportunities out there hurting for software talent if you enjoy the practice but not the culture of most consumer software shops.

It sounds like you're feeling inclined - I would recommend it. I had a great experience.

I knew I wanted to do another entrepreneurial role but not do so immediately. I didn't want a tech job.

I spent a few years in construction project management and it was a great experience. A huge change from the tech business world. Initially the money was pretty tragic. But it was fun! And it improved. Moving from high tech to construction is a little bit like entering another world. I found it fascinating.

During that period I also read Ray Kroc's (founder of McDonalds) book which includes him saying "When you're green you're growing. And when you're ripe, you rot."

I prefer to be green and growing. In my career I've encountered many people in a fairly robotic non-or-minimal growth mode. Each to their own.

My experience left me thinking the world would be even better if career switching was easier (for those that want to). I also theorised how I might include this in my next startup (time will tell…). During that period I progressed my vision and plans for my next startup. The period was invaluable. My new startup has been underway for some time now.

Good luck with your plans.

My girlfriend had a small coffeeshop. As time passed I found a passion to help her out with wares, logistics and even ideas. We bought small coffee roaster and started our own small local coffee brand recently. I feel a great motivation about it, but still stayed as an part time tech advisor for 2 startups/friends.

I've been passionate about coding since I was 14; I self-taught myself to code on school library computers during my lunch break, went to uni, was involved in some startups. I still enjoy coding (I'm 32 now) but I hate coding as a day job because I'm forced to do everything in ridiculously inefficient ways. I often think to myself; surely, if they force me to use these insanely wasteful, over-engineered tools, they shouldn't mind if I also add a little extra waste on top by watching cat videos during work hours or going extra slow... But the problem is that employers demand results in spite of simultaneously creating hurdles for you which make it harder to deliver those results.

Imagine that your job is to pick an apple from a tree. The tree is 100 meters from you, just as you are about to start walking towards the tree, your boss tells you "Not like that, you need to walk on your hands..." You try to explain to your boss why it's not the most efficient way to pick an apple but he tells you "You are mistaken because this is the industry standard; that's how all the big apple pickers are doing it" So you start walking on your hands... Then the boss insists that you need to climb onto a unicycle with your hands and traverse a pool of crocodile-infested water while juggling with your feet all while being suspended on a tightrope... But the whole time, the boss insists, and he is dead serious, that his only goal is to simply to pick the apple from the tree... But every time you try to point out that juggling upside down on a unicycle is not an efficient way to do it, your intelligence is called into question. That's what it feels like to be a senior software developer these days. So yes, I've thought of quitting.

I was a software developer for 3 years and decided it wasn’t for me as I enjoyed the outdoors much more. I had enough savings to take 6 months off where I took time to read books and try and discover something else I was excited about. I had a short stint in writing, and ended up very interested in agriculture. I then spent the entire next summer working on organic farms and traveling.

I eventually was running short on money, so started contacting as a cloud developer. I make more in six months as a contractor than I did as a full-time employee. I do not have benefits, but happen to be married to someone that does.

I have a greater appreciation for software after taking a six month break and working hard labor. I also realized how much I enjoy being an engineer. My plan now has been to contract six months on six months off for the inevitable future.

It’s been absolutely fantastic and am now exploring different types of engineering that fit my personality more. I also completed my career “flower” which taught me a lot about myself and my potential livelihood. I highly recommend that activity and got the idea from a book called “what color is your parachute?”

I have a friend I just met recently who was a programmer (mostly CAD software, he says) back in the 80s-90s, but 19 years ago he married into a fishing family and has been a commercial fisherman ever since. You can do whatever you want, especially if you have a nestegg to bounce off of.

I have done many things, but I went from IT into being a Technical Director for animation. In my case my income went up, cause reasons, but I think for many folks in pure tech it would be a significant cut. But my coworkers are awesome, my work is fun, I'm pure remote from the shore of Lake Winnipeg. Life is great.

I can't generalize my experience onto the entire labour market, but from what I can see, the whole "gaps in your record" matters a lot less now than it did. My record is abysmal from that perspective, again because reasons, but in animation at least that really doesn't matter. I'm one of many autodidacts here.

You need to manage loneliness. Almost no-one can do what you’re about to do, unless they had a similar tech career.

It might ironically be easier to start a company. At least you know half of the stuff (tech); and the other half you have to learn from scratch. But knowing one half is a bit like being talented when you learn the other half - it gives you a head start over all the MBAs.

I'm currently in the nascent stages of transitioning from software engineering to practicing as a (Christian) spiritual director. I went through a two year training program a few years ago, and spent roughly 5-20 hours a month working with people (5 hours represents the number of individuals I see a month, 20 hours when I facilitating some group retreats through my parish). I'd love to move out of engineering completely in the next few years, but I'm still figuring out how to grow my practice enough to provide enough income. Much of my parish-related work is still done on a volunteer basis. I suspect I will need to find other part-time work to supplement income as a director.

There's also the not-so-small matter of providing good health insurance for my not-yet-adult kids. That change is probably another three to five years down the road.

Currently switching to agriculture with a 2 year part-time study. Only want to use my computer to do administration and code for hobby purposes. But source of income lays somewhere else. 25, no savings.

I tried to switch to a different career twice:

1. Full-time musician. Too hard even if you are extremely talented and good at self-promotion. I am good at what I do but I am not a first-call instrumentalist or a charismatic frontperson.

2. Mental health field. I found that the starting pay was too low, didn't relish the idea of going to grad school again, and I found that the training process was too intense for me -- I require a lot of alone time and recharging time.

In both cases I wanted to switch because I had let myself burn out. A key to preventing burnout for me is finding a role where I don't have to sit in multiple meetings a day and where I can work less than 40 hours a week.

I did for 2 years. Than I realized how much more tech pays. Then I went back.

Countrary to the popular opinion, I believe people tend to underestimate how much money they really need, until they (or their family) need medical care.

This isn't advice for anyone, but I quit my job when I decided that I'd rather die than keep working there (state government). That was July 7, 2005. I haven't worked since either. Somehow it happened to turn out OK.

You can take a look at the following (might find some ideas): www.bumfuzzle.com

"A couple of Minnesota suburban kids with a world-view that extended all of about twenty miles. It was big news when we upped and moved all the way to the big city of Chicago. Bigger news still, when we announced to the family just a couple years later that we were going to sail around the world. For four years we circumnavigated the globe aboard Bumfuzzle, our 35′ catamaran, returning a little more world-wise." And whole bunches more: "Bumfuzzle—twenty years under our keels and wheels. A life this good, we’re happy to have shared it all this time, and to have made so many friends over the years."

If I had actually been smart enough, I would have at least tried to go in their direction (starting in the 1960s, when I was young). Anyhow, me, I'm retired in Cuenca, Ecuador, living in an apartment right behind this place hotellosbalconescuenca.com/?lang=en , and things are not bad at all.

I'm spending my time learning how to think better, and studying whatever seems most interesting today.

Get a hobby (woodworking), something physical where you work with your hands (woodworking) and is easy enough to start but has near infinite depth (woodworking). Could be anything.

I had a burnout from tech about 15 years ago, took a year and a bit off for traveling.

Then had to go back to tech but did set clear boundaries like never doing unpaid overtime. Always clocking out at 5pm and not taking any shit.

That made a huge difference and I started enjoying tech again.

I switched from DoD to biotech.

It was a long journey, and a lot of hard work, and a lot of luck. But I've managed to 'make it' just fine. I'm much happier with the choice.

One tip is to really make the choice, don't have a foot in the 'old world', so to speak. If you decided to change, you've got to put in some barriers to going back, because when the new thing gets tough, you're going to want to go back.

In 2007, I was done. I joined the military and went to Interrogation School. Those four years were some of the most insane years of my life. I wouldn’t do it again, I’m not even sure if I would recommend it.

I still “did tech” while in the military though. I bought a satellite dish in a war zone, and sold internet to my colleagues. I learned so much about networking, proxies, dealing with fair use problems, … it was kinda fun sometimes. Except when I just wanted to go to sleep.

Then this one time, I made some prank calling websites (using Skype under the hood, of all things. Twilio really made life easy!) and that shit got me in so much trouble. I was glad to shut it down.

Eventually, I bought a sailboat and worked at startups for a couple of years before meeting my wife. But man, than 5-6 year break was great for me. I highly recommend some kind of break if you think you need a break. As they say in sailing, “if you think you might need X, you do need X. Don’t wait until it’s too late.”

Yes. I've been in tech for almost 5yrs though the salary is suitable for a living. But I felt empty each day. I've been bored and lack energy. I can't do what I must like. And then I finally found what a job is for me. I feel free, and I love what I'm doing. Been almost 2yrs here for fruit picking. I enjoy my job, and it gives me peace of mind.

Take this example: I really really want to be a rotary wing pilot and run search/rescue. Unfortunately the number of flight hours to get to that level requires 5-10 years of experience.

It truly would be a restart, and unlike software development, I'd have to move to where the job is, not the other way around like we're all used to.

Just something to consider.

I left a very toxic job where I was the only dev 11 months ago. Kinda been on sabbatical and living off savings.

I've done several other things outside of dev (farming, art modeling, rideshare and deliveries, clinical trial, retail, and am actually working as a dishwasher tonight)

Harsh reality has set in that I need to return to work though.

The thing is...for most people there's not much you can do that will even let you make close to half of what you'd make in tech.

I also found that I was stressing myself out at minimum wage jobs too (not even close to as bad as tech).

So I kinda concluded that you should make as much as you can if you're gonna be stressed (to an extent of course).

I don't have family or any big payments, debt. I live below my means. Just turned 30 and one thing I'm considering is working for next decade in tech and investing everything to retire in early 40s

Currently I'm doing a residency in diagnostic medical physics. It's a weird mix of physical labor to check out equipment, mathematical modeling, consulting with physicians, and reading regulations.

I left the tech industry in 2017, got into an MS in 2019, and now I have a year and a half to licensure — hopefully! I'm basically happy with the change, but it was a long road out — I had saved up $50k, which is all gone now.

There's a snag: I was diagnosed with cancer in 2021. Life comes at you fast. I might have a long career ahead (I'm 31) or I might not. I certainly could have done a lot more skiing in the past six years if I had just kept plugging away at the text editor. But I'm glad I went for it. Don't assume you have forever.

No, but I increasingly feel like becoming a farmer or just work picking fruit or something like that. I would like something different... maybe tourism, wine production... literally just anything but computers and especially code.

A friend of mine from Apple, a capable programmer who wrote one version of Apple's linker and also some books and libraries for Modula 2, left software development in the 90s and became a full-time painter and distiller, as well as a practitioner of Vajrayana Buddhism.

She passed away in the summer of 2021.

Her distillery, Delaware Phoenix, gained some positive reviews.

There's a memorial page about her here:

https://www.thegreatawakening.org/cheryl-lins-memorial-page

I did that by moving from a full-time tech job to teaching at a local classical-model high school part time and doing tech consulting work part time.

If you're feeling burnt out or bored by tech, you may want to try something similar -- tech was becoming non-fun for me at 55 hours/week, but is fun again at 10-15 hours/week. Plus you get to try out new things without waiting for retirement.

From a financial side, just make sure you've adjusted your expenses to be in line with what you're likely to make doing less tech (since most fields pay less), and implement those expense adjustments before you make a career change.

You know, there are lots of roles that involve all day communication in tech. If you need the social energy from your day job, this is also possible to find in tech as well by switching company and/or roles.

I've founded multiple startups (that have failed or had moderate success) and currently am bootstrapping at $5M ARR+. burnout is real and I've found a racquetball group out of my local fitness connection that plays 3x a week consistently and many players will coordinate in a whatsapp group to play even more.

The consistency and challenge of personally getting better/more skilled while being able to yell at the top of my lungs when I miss a shot helps relieve almost all of my pent up stress from work, family, life.

when I exit one day, i'm going into food truck business.

I didn't, but a few friends have.

One now runs a couple of Airbnb places, one inherited and one bought - making the same money they used to make in a low/mid IT role in the UK - and working far far less. In fact they are starting to get bored but not yet too worried about that.

Another friend started a cupcake business which I thought was a poor idea as the market for cake in London was pretty saturated. 5 years in they have a few employees and are making great money - BUT they work so damn hard, as many or more hours as when they worked in IT. but for now they still love it.

In general it's bosses and customers that constitute the difference between a job and a hobby.

If you get extremely lucky, good customers and good bosses can make a job more satisfying than a hobby. You're doing something for the greater good, rather than just for yourself.

But mostly it works the other way. You're working on what your customers and bosses tell you to do rather than what you want to do. Customers and bosses are the reason you dread going in to work.

Very few fields let you make a living without customers or bosses.

Yes, I started my career outside of the tech industry as an English teacher for IT employees. However, I became increasingly curious about Blockchain and its applications, which eventually led me to transition into this field. I'm now happy to say that my curiosity has paid off, and I'm working in a job that I truly enjoy. While it was a challenging shift, it was also incredibly rewarding. In fact, I'm now happily employed at Rather Labs, a company that has been instrumental in my career development.

You can check them out if you or anyone else is interested: https://www.ratherlabs.com

I don't know if it counts. I was a programmer, worked for SaaS companies, and hated everything about that job, and sort of hated myself for doing it. Selling $60k/yr "solutions" to companies with the value proposition that they could lay off several people on their staff and replace them with our product.

I also hated being a front-end developer, because of the constant churn of new frameworks and techniques — "article driven development", where somebody releases a shiny new package or writes a neat article, and all the lemmings run in that direction for six months, before running in a different direction. I like programming, and still do it for fun, but it's such a different experience when you don't have to do it "at scale" and in a team environment.

I switched to doing design, which I sort of did already, and now work for a non-profit. My work is something I can more or less describe to my family and they don't have a glazed over look in their eyes. Still technically in "tech", but in a different corner of it, working in a different capacity (for less money...)

I left tech about 20 years ago and moved into marketing. At the time, I facing the classic individual contributor (architect) vs management track dilemma. I’d chosen the latter and pretty much immediately regretted it. However, rather than switching back to a more hands on tech role, I jumped even harder into the world of marketing. I am entrepreneurial by nature and it was a lot of fun.

I’ve stayed tech-adjacent the whole time though. So, despite some very exciting times and decent compensation, I’ve always wondered what might have happened if I flipped back to tech or even jumped way outside the world of regular business entirely.

In any case, I can’t say I regret the change. I made it for the right choices. As you work your way through this decision, think about where you want to be in 20-30 years. Really try to see the day to day life you are living. What gets you excited in that future state? If you can see that, then go explore it.

From what you’ve said it sounds like you have a great opportunity to explore something new. Just remember that sometimes there’s no road back… and that’s 100% ok.

Has anyone tried freelancing part time as a developer while starting their new career?

I am considering freelancing so I can focus on making and selling shoes. I don't need to go all in on making shoes right off the bat, but having an extra 4 hours a day to do the non-tech thing I enjoy doing would be great. I would still be making enough money to cover the bills while I work on the new career.

I’ve had 7 careers (art teacher, financial advisor, owned an insurance brokerage, marketing director, intrapreneur, product manager, and a venture lead/interim CEO at an AI venture studio).

After my last job I wanted to quit tech. I spent 18 months trying a bunch of different things (no-code, podcasting, illustrating, creating info products and courses, E-commerce, and micro-coaching). I now do a variety of things including co-founder for hire where I not only advise but roll up my sleeves to get first customers and put together a data backed go-to-market strategy. The beauty of the co-founder for hire gig is it’s 10 hours a week. I get to focus on the things in tech that I love without the mad hours, politics, and stress.

The thing is, you can always go back to tech. Taking a mid-career gap year/sabbatical is an amazing experience. You’re sure to learn a lot about yourself. Tech isn’t going anywhere.

I taught myself coding during high school in the mid-1990s, built a lot of my own web projects, and I worked for a series of startups. I've loved web dev for over 25 years.

A long-term coding contract recently ended for me, so I have been looking for some new full-stack web dev work. Everything I encounter now is tangled in over-engineered dependency hellscapes. Simple sites that could be vanilla HTML/CSS/JS are instead built and rebuilt on whatever tools and frameworks are currently trendiest. Technology is selected because it is cool instead of appropriate. I don't mind learning new tech if it's useful and fitting, but I loathe the 'disposable skills' of dumping frameworks every 2 years.

I've watched this tendency gradually growing in web dev circles for about a decade, but in just the past few years it's gone bananas. It's so much unnecessary faffing, it's got me looking into other fields for new work.

Technology is not the problem the industry is the issue. Find somewhere with a low cost of living and other things you enjoy and do that while thinking about what tech you like for its own sake and try to figure out an entry point. I enjoy working with my hands and making things and what I have decided is that I will pursue the 100 year form factor of a computer. It seems plausibly that nobody really wants to use a pointing device, keyboard, and display all day. I doubt I will get anywhere but manufacturing is so cheap that I have built a small run factory and will try to produce parts using current parts combined in some form that can be maintained 100 years. An individual in USA can totally fabricate their own reality and not engage in the hot conversations but producing gratifying work in technology. Some states like Vermont will kick start your reality with $10K for moving there. I find HN interesting because it contains content that transcends the Tech chatter of media.

I'm in the same boat, but as a contract engineer in science.

I have some cash savings, hate my day to day job, and dream of having a small machine shop producing aircraft parts (I'm a pilot and sell some aircraft parts on the side).

I think I'm too big of a pussy to turn down $150 an hour and find happiness (my current industry sucks and is is a cocktease).

I realised that I would always feel like I needed just a bit more. So instead I cut all my expenditures, and moved somewhere with a very low cost of living.

I did the 'café / tea room / barista / baker' dream for a season, hard work but fun! and since the lock-down nightmare, I am back to playing around with some tech ideas.

Maybe my next project is a farm renovation, and some local up-cycling services, something towards 'save the planet'. Just fixing up an old espresso machine, great fun!

Anyway I am not sure I could go back to freelancing, I cant stand these modern tech stacks :( Am I the only one that feels like I need to write my own language, or even OS? Although Zig is looking good so far... and some unikernals have promise. All this CPU/GPU power and things seem to run slower than ever.

But yeah, I sympathize and would only say, dont wait to start living your dream.

Not me, but I used to work with a software developer who quit and became a train driver. As far as I know he's still driving.

I also know a guy who quit and became a Methodist priest, though I'm not sure he worked as a software developer much, he started at the seminary pretty quickly after finishing his first degree.

Non FAANG brick and mortar company with need for IT and software is the most likely destination for SV departees.

Network Engineer > Front end Engineer > Hotel owner.

Retrained last year as a horticulturalist after 30+ years in IT and communications. I am fitter and healthier than I have been in decades. Pay rates in the industry are low but I am building up my own business and enjoying the lifestyle benefits. Thoroughly recommend it.

Yes, I started my career outside of the tech industry as an English teacher for IT employees. However, I became increasingly curious about Blockchain and its applications, which eventually led me to transition into this field. I'm now happy to say that my curiosity has paid off, and I'm working in a job that I truly enjoy.

While it was a challenging shift, it was also incredibly rewarding. In fact, I'm now happily employed at Rather Labs, a company that has been instrumental in my career development.

You can check them out if you or anyone else is interested: https://www.ratherlabs.com

I'm in the midst of creating a financial planning firm serving tech professionals looking to take sabbaticals and mini-retirements (i.e., my former self).

Probably too early to give you an informed opinion but I've enjoyed the ride this far. I have professional excuses to continue learning new things and I get to feel like I'm helping people while occasionally building useful tech tools for my practice.

My colleagues are generally kind nerds, which fills my soul, and I've really enjoyed connecting with them over the past year and a half. Admittedly, I've been exceedingly fortunate in having a large buffer and low personal expenses.

Hello! I've been transitioning out of tech to psychotherapy! http://glench.com/WhyIQuitTechAndBecameATherapist/

Driving in to the office to my software support and development role I would see roadworkers and pray for a brain dead job where I just needed to do simple things to help people and could enjoy the sunshine and outdoors.

After a downturn in my contracting gigs I trained in traffic. It is NOT as well paid as you think! And standing for 8 to 10 hours is physically damaging. And the boredom is not brain-dead it is soul destroying.

I am back in IT and very thankful!

I feel like that a lot and I think it can happen with any profession. When you turn your interests and hobbies into a profession, you are bound to reach a point when you don't enjoy it anymore. I think a better, and a more balanced, approach is to keep some distance between your work and passion/hobbies.

This allows you to enjoy your hobbies without being bogged down by usual bureaucracy/pressure that you might deal with at work. So, continue working in tech (maybe reevaluate your role, amount of responsibility etc) and take music lessons, volunteer, join sport leagues, take pottery lessons etc.

The folks who dunnit successfully are probably not reading your question though.

Not me, but a friend: did a PhD at UCLA, went to Canada to teach, got deep into STEM and other stuff. He loved the field but hated the job.

Started making cheese on the side, and he later turned that into a full-time cheese consultant business. Eventually worked for restaurants and local providers, few gigs with large dairy concerns, travel to areas to help set up literal cheese caves, etc.

Almost certainly makes less, way less, money than before but seems happy. Dude has a lot of connections and knows like every kitchen in the city, can rock up to restaurants and knows half the staff, etc.

I went back to school to get a teaching certificate and taught middle school for three years, a couple of summers at a high school, and three more years as a college lecturer (aka adjunct).

I'm back in tech now, which took hard work getting up to date. I was out for ten years and basically missed a whole lot, such as containers, cloud as the path of least resistance, and React. On the other hand, Linux and Python haven't gone out of style.

I enjoyed my time teaching and the perspective gained. I don't regret it, and I did learn more about my own strengths and weaknesses.

A few years ago I was similarly burned out. A friend invited me to interview with his tech deployment team. I spent a really fun 18 months on it before coming back to coding.

The job entailed flying on site to warehouses (Amazon), different ones every week, and installing, integrating, or upgrading on site hardware with new control software.

The hours could be brutal sometimes. I was away from home M-F most weeks. But it was fun and it was a great team of people to work with.

All this to say: there are jobs out there that will let you do something new, but will take advantage of your technical skills.

I guess everybody that DID go ... aren't around here to tell :D

Public services announcement:

GO fishing, do not pass GO and collect USD200 going into I.T., go straight to fishing!

My perfect spot: a damn on a winefarm, angling there would be.... blish

There really aren't many (if any) other career paths that will pay so well that you could upskill in and reach pay parity in a few years.

You could try something like a PM/BA role, orientated more around the user and stakeholder management. It's less tech focused and more time communicating with others but probably equally stressful.

I have a friend that bought a coffee shop in a midsize affluent town. Long days, always something going wrong beit staff sickness, stock shortage or maintenance. Kept it up for about 5 years, sold it on and went back into sales.

Personally, I used to be very passionate about coding. but over time I've realized that I'm more excited about products/design and working with great people. I know that going into management is often frowned upon among engineers, but I personally love it because I can continue to work on products without constantly banging my head about compiler errors or annoying bugs. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that it's possible to be passionate about building products without having to sit and code all day.

I took a job making gears (no experience required), and while it was less than half the pay of the IT admin job I had previously, I left feeling like I accomplished something, and didn't worry about things at night. Then Covid hit, and I've had long Covid ever since.

It was not a wise financial decision, but I'm fortunate that we've got a very low cost of living worked out.

Making gears was very rewarding, but the commute and the pay sucked.

yep my wife and I. we retired from tech ( startups) at 50. In order to keep out minds working AND make a buck we decided to both trade options. Luckily for us we have chums who own a trading environment that teaches people, like us, how to do this effectively and so we set off on our adventure. Very quickly into this I decided to code up a trading analysis dashboard which gave us guidance as to the REALITY of our approach. This coded in Python and Dash based on the math taught to us by a good chum who is a retired floor trader from the Cboe. Pretty successful one I might add. We read the financial times ONLY twice a week ( Fri and Sat) to find out what others are thinking but our REAL trading happens in the math. So I suppose it's an amalgam of tech and new adventure. The trading takes about 20 minutes a day and for the rest to the time we are out and about having fun in Chicago. I'm looking at a language called Julia to move to from Python but that is NOT going well and I am planning on chatting to the Carbon people next month. Hope this helps a little

If you have the means, volunteering is totally choice.

No but I know a c++ guy who burned out, bought a sports accessories shop, went bankrupt and now he is refreshed and back at coding again :')

I'm in the process of switching careers _again_. I come from a different background and I moved to Software development ~10 years ago. I'm a skydiving instructor and also a commercial pilot and trying to find out which kind of pilot I want to be (avoiding the airlines, looking for bush flying, firefighting, etc). Life is too much fun to have only one career

Some really great stories here. Mine is really boring. I was a software dev./architect for 23 years and have been a bus driver for three.

You should try branching out hut don’t lose your networking and don’t let your skills slip until you know for sure you don’t want to go back. (or perhaps can’t go back because AI is doing everything for us)

Didn’t quit my tech job but I’m a (very very low level) pro Muay Thai fighter on the side. Honestly tech has quite a few benefits in terms of work though I think on its own it can seriously induce burnout.

Personally I think that having any kind of balance is a good idea. Even if engaged in another field I can imagine I’d have something to complement whatever it was.

This is basically my FIRE plan. I want to be a mechanic on high end cars / folk’s toys. I made an attempt, but I had to relocate which stopped this plan from succeeding, and I now need a lot more capital to FIRE.

I look forward to wrenching instead of sitting all day. Which I know is ironic because I know a lot of mechanics who feel exactly the opposite.

Laid off from a tech job after 20+ years. Retrained as a teacher, which was something I was also interested in. Lower salary and more hours but both OK. Went back into tech (not FAANG like) after 5 years, partly because I missed out on always working on something new (only so many ways to teach Pythagoras to Year 9 pupils).

After a decade as a software engineer I became a nurse. It has its pros and cons. The defining difference is shift work vs project work. In California the pay is similar to tech which is a plus. Also watching all my previous teammates get laid off during the tech downturns is a motivating factor.

I have a friend who gave up a very good salary to be a baker. He baked a lot during COVID and loved it. He seems very happy -- and is living with the money he gets.. he wasn't/isn't rich, was in the start of his tech career (5y in I think)

I am finishing my masters in clinical psychology this year. Not 100% sure where to I'll bring it from there, but it definitely broadened my thinking and helped to be more open-minded. I guess a takeaway is, consider a non-STEM education if you have an inclination for it.

You can learn programming and get a lucrative career without a CS degree.

Are there other fields where that is possible?

I moved to a non tech company a few years ago. I run the phones and file server and program a few machines we sell. Its nice having a physical product to be proud of, and its enjoyable doing helpdesk for a very small company.

I used to work at web hosts and such.

Well, I considered leaving everything and doing a circus degree but then I got injured and that's it.

I probably wouldn't have left the sector fully though.

The money is too good and I enjoy the work. The only problem is dealing with corporate culture.

A former boss of mine shut down her web development company, sold her house in the city, moved to the country and started over as a stone mason. Last I heard it was going pretty well.

Almost every industry has the same pressures as tech but pays less.

If my tech career fizzles out, I'm going back to roofing.

Standing on top of buildings with a flamethrower (for commercial roofs) > sitting at a computer all day.

Move to Arkansas. Buy a farm. Raise Chickens, Cows and pigs. Plant a BIG garden.

Learn something new. Apply what you know to the the new thing that you learned.

Have FUN!

I have literally been thinking about this today. Probably suffering from boredom and some burnout in current role.

If I started again outside of tech I would probably be reading “Farmer News” or “Juggler News”

Maybe not Hacker News.

I would actually like to be a doctor but it’s not really feasible starting down that route in my 30s

I accepted an offer to switch from my first engineering job to what would have been my 2nd with a 25k+ pay bump. With some help weighing hypotheticals via the question "what's the worst that could happen?" with my therapist, I realized I could give in to my frustrations (with myself) and face my (unfounded) fears and pursue music as a career full-time. I am, and have been, financially able to do this. So I told job #2 I was changing course but maintained the course of leaving job #1. Turns out, taking the new job offer was the impetus I needed to make the break from job #1.

I just turned 37 and I've been playing guitar and writing songs since I was around 15. I studied music in college and then lived in Hollywood for a while where I studied guitar and audio engineering, played one-off gigs with people and played as a member of a few other bands (in some of which we wrote original music) --- but I never thought to pursue the songs I WROTE solo. They were a different style than what I played in the other bands and I thought they were "too sappy" and that I wasn’t good enough. I was paralyzed by feelings of unworthiness, inadequacy, and the fear of judgment.

Eventually I left the bands, moved back home to Chicago, did some part-time work and then got a sales job. I got sick of that, learned to code, and got a coding job, which I actually REALLY enjoyed (finally! Something I enjoyed doing that I was good at and that paid really well!). But something was STILL nagging at me. I went on a week-long retreat called the Hoffman Process. There I realized there was POWER in vulnerability and that my fear of vulnerability was keeping me from pursuing my music. Like magic, after turning my phone back on after the retreat, I received a message from a very close friend of a video he, for whatever fateful reason, dug up from Facebook of me playing a song I wrote back in 2009, this was 2019. I probably cried in that moment. It felt like the universe sending me a message. I watched and listened to the video of a 22-year-old me playing an original song and realized - my songs were GOOD! I found it so sad that I had written such good songs over a decade ago and let them fade into oblivion rather than honoring them, and myself, by recording and releasing and sharing them!

I started digging up all my old songs (turns out there were a lot!) and even writing NEW songs! I re-learned the old songs, practiced them, and after a year when I started getting anxious again, I started recording demos. When I started getting anxious once again a year or so later, I quit my coding job. I found a local studio and engineer and I've been recording for about a year. Now I'm mixing my first single and working on finding the balance between practicing music, studying music marketing, doing all the other work to "make it" as a musician, and general self-care. But one thing is for sure: no more wavering. I’m not going back to sales, coding, or switching to anything else. I am a musician, songwriter, recording artist, and whatever else this develops into.

On one hand, I regret and grieve the time I "wasted" being too scared to take this path. And on the other hand, this is my story. My story is now my "brand". It's my message. I want to inspire others, through my music and my voice in general, not to live in fear. Maybe saying "to find their passion" is too cliché, so I'll say to listen to their true, authentic selves and to honor that. To own their truth and empower themselves to stand up and have the courage to be vulnerable, different, potentially judged and even ridiculed or "canceled"! (You probably won’t be canceled.)

In recent years I've experienced chronic low-back pain, which is a story unto itself - yet it's 100% related. When we suppress our true selves, our true selves fight to come out, and that can translate to both psychological and physical manifestations. (I’ve also experienced depression and anxiety.) If I lost you here I'd strongly encourage you to keep an open mind. You don't grow as a human being by writing off anything that goes against your current paradigms - when I began to discover all of this, it certainly ran against mine. I expect most of this crowd to lean open-minded. If you're new to ideas like this, or curious to learn more, I would STRONGLY encourage you to read The Myth Of Normal, a very recent book by Gabor Maté. He is my current spirit animal.

I'm SO SO grateful to be on the path I'm on now and I have SO many people and experiences to thank. Not to mention the gratitude I have towards myself for getting myself to this point, for facing my fears, for honoring my truth. Maybe the transition from coding to music I described above sounded easy, but I assure you it was not. I was 36 and terrified to tell my parents! But they were super chill about it, and my dad even followed up to tell me how proud of me he was (happy tear)! NOBODY CARED. NOBODY TOLD ME I WAS AN IDIOT (one friend expressed some skepticism, but THAT’S GONNA HAPPEN! You need to have just enough confidence in yourself and can’t rely on the whole world to cheer you on! Both internal and external doubts are guaranteed, the secret to success is to plow ahead anyways! I am very well acquainted with doubt by now. Doubt comes to my parties uninvited and can’t be forced to leave. I have accepted this and I continue partying anyways.)

We all have fears around infinite things in our lives. When fear, anxiety, depression, chronic physical ailments, or even illness arises in you, I encourage you to take some time to reflect on what's happening in your life and in your thoughts, often well beneath the surface (this is rarely easy). Journaling is a great tool for me. Find your tools and use them. Honor yourself.

You don't have to "do something great," but I believe you should deeply and constantly examine your beliefs, the expectations you have for yourself, and the expectations that you believe others have for you. What do your parents expect for you? What does your partner expect of you? What do your friends, colleagues, children, or siblings expect of you? Is that even true? Is there evidence? What do you expect for yourself? Why??? Think about what you have wanted for yourself at different times in your life, especially when you were younger, before the pressures of our society began to disguise themselves as your own desires. If you’re looking for more inspiration, I suggest reading the book Mastery by Robert Greene. Sounds like OP has some other skills and interests which, if pursued, may lead to a source of potent intrinsic motivation which makes for great potential for eventual monetization.

Once you have an inkling of some path you think you might like to take, or that you wish you had taken years, maybe decades, ago, reflect more on that path and ask yourself "what's the worst that could happen?"

I've met many who did:

One guy who was so into classical piano that he went back to grad school and got his degree in music. Now he gives lessons, last I heard.

Another guy who became a piano tuner. There's good steady, if not spectacular money in that.

Two people who became teachers or teachers' aides. The teacher had a fairly unhappy experience, while the teachers' aide said it was the best job he ever had.

One of the Xerox Star 6-person functional spec team (the one who's completely disappeared and no one knows where he is) became a homeopathic doctor.

Edit: another guy became a kitchen cabinet installer.

Those people are people less likely to be reading HN, no?

I have heard some people talk about leaving for woodworking and stuff like that, but most people in my circle who get burnt out just stop doing government contracts and get regular jobs when it gets bad. Or go on vacation, have kids, etc.