Comment by SamWhited | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SamWhited | Hacker News Reader

I've got the opposite experience from a lot of people on this thread: I've hated every dev job I've ever had for the last 10 years or so (I'm also 30) and have recently started working retail (which is fine, I can't pay the bills with it, but I don't hate my life every morning at least) while I try to figure out how I can stop working for terrible tech companies that just build garbage as quickly as possible no matter how much they screw over the users doing it. Unfortunately, most of the tech I've worked on that I think could actually help people also doesn't pay the bills.

I haven't come out the other side, so I can't help you there, but you're not alone. Lots of people change careers after a few years. It's going to be hard, but I'm sure we'll figure it out.

I've worked as a software developer for smaller non-software companies (manufacturing more recently). I make half of what FAANG pays (still well compensated though) and I used to feel bad about it. But recently I've started to think that maybe not unravelling the fabric of society is worth something?

My customers (machine operators) are right outside my door. I can cut the time it takes to process a production order, the code ships by the end of the week, and I can go out on the floor and get feedback whenever I want. I generally only work on stuff that improves the primary business of the company, so there's very little "garbage" being built.

If you don't mind sharing, how do you go about finding these kinds of jobs?

MSPs (managed service provider, basically outsourced IT) are a great source of leads, and they often have customers in widely different sectors. They seem to get a constant trickle of software development work. Maybe one out of ten of these could turn into something big. MSPs will want 33%-50% of total for finding the lead so be up front about how long you pay them that finders fee (first $X thousand). Eventually that small project could turn into something full time. So pre-covid, you could go to Spiceworks (or similar) meetups, not sure best way to reach out to them now.

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