Ask HN: Get a job with my CS degree, or start my dream business?

Option 2: Use your cs degree to start some tech thing. If it succeeds you can fund your coffee project; if it fails, your resume should be good enough to get a different cs job. In your hobby time play around with embedded software.

Option 3: Do your coffee thing, you will probably go broke and your resume will not have any programming experience on it. But if you really love it and you do 10x effort you might make it. It really depends on your risk tolerance and your safety net and support structure.

Have you ever worked for a coffee company? Have you ever worked a full time job at all? Have you worked at a startup? If the answer is mostly no, I think some real world experience is going to be invaluable to eventually starting a coffee company.

I'd suggest a couple possible paths:

1. Apply to jobs, hopefully get a lucrative tech job. Maybe you like it and coffee becomes a hobby. Maybe you hate it, but you know you can save up even more for an eventual business. Remember, money now is worth more than money later . If you can stash away 100k beyond your current savings by working a boring tech job for a few years, that can drastically change the trajectory of your life. Makes buying a house easier, retire easier, more capital for a business, etc.

2. Apply to jobs, you don't get a lucrative tech job, but you get an easier job (maybe government, maybe a boring company). So then either start a business on the side to flex those entrepreneurial muscles (resell coffee, roast coffee and sell online or etsy or something). Alternatively, work at a coffee shop or roaster part time to gain some experience.

Not entirely what you’re asking but if you decide to go the job route try applying at all of the major defense contractors (Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop, Raytheon, etc). I work for one and the embedded software skillset is highly desired and hard to hire for. You will likely have to be okay with relocation and working onsite in a classified environment at least part of the time but the job prospects should be much better than tech companies and the work very applicable to your focus

Either answer is fine, but you should be looking more at where you will land in the long term, not the short term.

That said, Food service has famously thin margins. I don't know a lot about coffee, but I'm willing to bet that it is not the exception to that rule. You really have to have a deep passion for doing this, because the money will probably not be enough.

If you're super ambitious - why not both? Start a coffee company and start prototyping a coffee machine that does things the way you like. The Coffee machine market is massive, and ranges from ten bucks to thousands of dollars.

Congratulations on your degree, and on graduating without debt. Good luck. If you feel like sharing in the future, I think we'd love to know what you chose.

1. What work you do.

2. Where you live.

3. Your technical interests.

Coffee can be your job and programming your hobby.

Programming can be your job and coffee your hobby.

You can live anywhere you want. Realize that for you relocation might be much larger unknown than running a coffee shop. Or a bigger risk. Or just not what you want to do. Some people are from somewhere and relocating is harder than for people who are not from anywhere in particular.

Grad school is probably another option. Kick the can down the road. Do some internships, extend your professional network, make yourself more attractive to employers, etc.

Good luck.