Ask HN: Anyone pivoted from SWE/mgmt to a different career in your 30/40s+?

3 pointsmactavish885mo ago2 comments

Having been coding for nearly 25 years now and being in engineering management for the past couple of years (still actively coding 30-50% of my time), I'm feeling increasingly tired of tech. Software development, more specifically. I'm quite capable of both producing software myself _and_ managing teams producing software.

Have you pivoted from software engineering/engineering management into a different career altogether in your 30s, 40s or beyond? I'm keen to hear your story, and perhaps glean some ideas/suggestions.

I'm more than happy to go back to school or do training courses part-time to learn whatever I need to.

2 comments

blowsand5mo ago

Similar background and weariness with tech, but I’m a bit older, and I’ve actually left and returned to tech a couple times.

A question I’d ask you is, are there other things that really call out to you? If you could do anything as a career, or at least in a phase of your career, do you have deeply felt answers?

I’ve made the “anything but tech” move before and regretted it after a period of decompression and perspective reset.

mactavish88OP5mo ago

Yeah I've gone through bouts of "anything but tech" several times in my career, and each time ended up stuck in software development because it pays the bills.

I'm possibly somewhat burnt out - not entirely sure - but the reason I say so is that it's hard to tell what actually calls to me right now, whereas 5-10 years ago I felt I had a much clearer picture. Nowadays I'm skeptical of the idea that following any passions of mine would result in a better overall quality of life.

It's tough to find something that's both fulfilling _and_ pays the bills. I'm nowhere near "rich", but I'm fairly certain being poor will decrease my quality of life substantially - regardless of how fulfilling my work is. Right now I'm stuck leaning more in the direction of the thing that pays the bills.

In your experience/journey, what tech-adjacent careers have you become aware of? I'd imagine it's easier to pivot into something "tech-adjacent" than something completely different when one is in their 40s/50s.

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