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Honest question, what is a great career pivot for someone that's been in development all their life? It seems that nothing pays as well as building software, un

Honest question, what is a great career pivot for someone that's been in development all their life? It seems that nothing pays as well as building software, unless you go into management which most developers would enjoy even less than digital plumbing.

kls 6y ago
I have a cousin who is a travel welder, he is young and single. He is making over 100k but he has to relocate for work about every 6 months. It's a great gig for a young man, but ones lifestyle would have to fit how the work comes to them.
kilbuz 6y ago
Perhaps something software-adjacent, such as a statistician.
- niemandhier 6y ago
  Most programmers I met do not have the skills needed to be a statistician or a data scientist
- buddhiajuke 6y ago
  Or dentist.
- bart_spoon 6y ago
  As a statistician now working as a machine learning engineer, my response is “definitely not”. It’s all the frustrations of software development, but on top of that you are now frequently dealing with clients/colleagues whose requests are now not simply impractical, but usually defy the laws of mathematics and probability, and an ever present pressure to put out work that amounts to fraud. Analytics have a lot of value to provide many organizations, but it requires planning, foresight, and a willingness to sacrifice a little now for the sake of a payoff in insights later, which very few organizations have, in my experience. So it essentially becomes a buzzword and people throw worthless data at you to wave a magic wand over so you can tell them what they want to hear. Doing so would essentially require lying, so instead, we would perform the awful, worthless analysis, it usually didn’t provide much insight, and we would include a litany of disclaimers about why the little insight it did provide wasn’t al that trustworthy, which would just disappoint and infuriate the people we were working with. We would also provide detailed guidance on how to execute moving forward to make the process much more valuable the next time around, which without fail went in one ear and out the other. So essentially we became figureheads. Our work rarely was used in any significant way or provided much value, but we were kept around because the company wanted to be able to tout its “data driven” culture. It was so bad that at one company I worked for, they had the data science/analytics department start putting on a yearly intracompany conference on analytics that became a huge deal. One year they got Stephen Levy, the author of Freakonomics, to be the keynote speaker. At one point he shared a story about how he was consulting with a company on their marketing, and they found that they had accidentally not been running ads in a particular metro area, and were able to leverage this to act as a control to assess the materials effectiveness. But when asked to intentionally do something similar moving forward, the company balked. It was so close to home that my colleagues and I wondered if the head of our department had fed him the need to talk about it. And yet, not a single thing changed at the company during my time there. I currently work in a role much closer to software engineering, and I have all of the same problems described by the person in the original post and that many are describing here. But I consider it a strict upgrade over my time working as a statistician.
  - kilbuz 6y ago
    Thank you for sharing this, these are fair comments. My experience has been more positive, but I see the truth in many of your points. For what it's worth, I have always been involved in controlled experimentation, and never anything related to ML or modeling. Our biggest issue is usually ensuring we are getting accurate counts of events, and when I see all the challenges in that, I wonder how anything more advanced ever gets done.
    - bart_spoon 6y ago
      I suppose, as with anything, your mileage may vary. And in this case, your mileage will depend largely on your organization. In my experience, most organizations are not equipped or prepared to do what is necessary to make most analytics efforts worthwhile. But in the instances where this is not true, working as a statistician is very rewarding. If you have had a more positive experience than I, more power to you, and kudos to you and the people you work with/for.
  - xab31 6y ago
    Seconded. I work as a data analyst in medical research (bioinformatics postdoc). I am often introduced as a statistician, even though I'm not, because I can do a bit more than a t-test. The situation in research is exactly as you describe -- we are figureheads who are put into place and highly pressured to confirm whatever hypothesis a PI wants for their latest grant or paper. They would never ask us to commit fraud, only perhaps to "double check" an analysis 10 times until it shows what they want to see. If I were working for a company, this would at least be understandable, as companies don't even have a theoretical commitment to truth and scientific integrity, and there are no real consequences to a faulty analysis. But it is immensely galling to see in research. Here we are, paid by the public to supposedly pursue truth and improve human health, and instead the job is to constantly be finding ways to avoid fraud and fabrication without pissing off the collaborator. The result is, as you say, useless analyses if the analyst is honest, and fabrications if they are not. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this is one of the key reasons the ROI on science has declined drastically in the last few decades. It makes me laugh bitterly every time I see (increasingly frequently) political exhortations for plebeians to "trust the science".
Angostura 6y ago
The actual business analysis and requirements discovery? Meeting users, finding out about their problems and working out how software can solve them?
- jordache 6y ago
  UX researcher? That doesn’t pay as well
  - burntoutfire 6y ago
    Business/System analyst is a very different role than a UX researcher. In the agile world, the analysts were basically replaced by product owners, but I assume there are still places where they exist. I've done it for a while, it's quite cushy job if you're good at talking, writing, presenting (same as product owner but without the "ownership" part, so much less stress).
vanviegen 6y ago
Does it need to pay as well?
non-entity 6y ago
It seems like the only realsitc pivots are going to be adjacent business type positions, and even then there's a chance of a payout depending on company / position, etc. Like you said though I would hate these more than I do the software jobs.
nicbou 6y ago
I run a website that helps people. I still deal with software, but on my own terms. If I put the same content on a cookie cutter WordPress site, no one would care. Now, programming feels a lot like woodworking: a deliberately inefficient way to do something, just because it's fun.
- 52-6F-62 6y ago
  > Now, programming feels a lot like woodworking: a deliberately inefficient way to do something, just because it's fun. Now that is a standout line right there. It perfectly describes some of my own personal projects. Sometimes—oftentimes—they go nowhere but I had fun. One such task was developing a secret Santa system in python with an auto mailer and “paper” backup while in Hawaii last year. It took me part of a morning during breakfast before we went out for the day. I refined it when we got home. There were others already out there and it did nothing more then putting names in a hat, but it was fun. And it’s reusable. And it had the added benefit of needing no moderator—nobody in on the secret. The metaphor of a wood working project just seems to fit so well. Nice one.
mikro2nd 6y ago
A very common pivot I've observed and am part of is to brewing craft beer (with the caveat that maybe that's a local/regional thing). It sure as hell doesn't pay as well as development, the hours are longer, but... you get to drink plenty of great beer! Something about brewing seems to draw the same sort of personality as development - there's a fair degree of technical knowledge and skill demanded, an attention to detail, and yet a creative aspect, too. Then, too reformed/recovering developers can always find a small refuge in automating some/some aspects of the brewing process. Oh, and it's real plumbing...
mcv 6y ago
Start your own company and build something you believe in. Few other professions are as well equipped to start their own business. Except for real plumbers, maybe.
jnwatson 6y ago
I pivoted tomorrow sales engineering for 8 years, then a technical BD role, then back to SW engineering. You get to talk worth a bunch of people in sales and still exercise your problem solving skills.
- seattletech 6y ago
  Sales engineering is a great place for being able to tinker, interact with a wide range of clients/prospects, and plus being a revenue center...
  - EVdotIO 6y ago
    How does one break into this? I've tried getting into the sales side of things, but it seems to elude me.
    - seattletech 6y ago
      Find a smaller enterprise system integrator in the field you're familiar with. Titles such as Sales Engineer, SE, Solutions Architect. Usually the compensation plan is a 70/30 or 65/35 split between base and commission. Once you cut your teeth and are building out your professional network, then looks for an ISV to be on direct sales...
- jnwatson 6y ago
  Yikes. Apologize for the autocorrect.
CydeWeys 6y ago
My plan is to bank enough money from software jobs to be financially independent at a high standard of living (I'm well on my way to that). Then afterwards, just retire and do all sorts of hobbies without trying to make them into a career or earn career-equivalent amounts of money from them. If you're currently on that trajectory (i.e. you're able to save a large percentage of your income every year) then I'd recommend it. If not, then yeah, you might need a second career if you want to get out of development soon. My plan is not to need one.
samatman 6y ago
It's a trap! Hate your job? Maybe it's the job, not the profession. Developers have an enviable amount of mobility; use it. Maybe you aren't taking care of yourself in some other way? Sleep, diet, exercise, possible clinical depression: these are all things to try. Perhaps you're burned out? It's 2020, that's a very real possibility. There's a whole literature on what to do about it, and "abandon your career" is dead last. Both of the preceding paragraphs have a "talk to your boss" component. Don't think that's a good idea? Great, you definitely have the wrong boss, GOTO LABEL "Hate your job?". Good reasons to stop developing software: a) there's something else you really want to do, and you have rational confidence you won't starve, and b) you're ready and able to retire. Bad reasons to stop developing software: literally anything else.

kls 6y ago

I have a cousin who is a travel welder, he is young and single. He is making over 100k but he has to relocate for work about every 6 months. It's a great gig for a young man, but ones lifestyle would have to fit how the work comes to them.

kilbuz 6y ago

Perhaps something software-adjacent, such as a statistician.

niemandhier 6y ago
Most programmers I met do not have the skills needed to be a statistician or a data scientist
buddhiajuke 6y ago
Or dentist.
bart_spoon 6y ago
As a statistician now working as a machine learning engineer, my response is “definitely not”. It’s all the frustrations of software development, but on top of that you are now frequently dealing with clients/colleagues whose requests are now not simply impractical, but usually defy the laws of mathematics and probability, and an ever present pressure to put out work that amounts to fraud. Analytics have a lot of value to provide many organizations, but it requires planning, foresight, and a willingness to sacrifice a little now for the sake of a payoff in insights later, which very few organizations have, in my experience. So it essentially becomes a buzzword and people throw worthless data at you to wave a magic wand over so you can tell them what they want to hear. Doing so would essentially require lying, so instead, we would perform the awful, worthless analysis, it usually didn’t provide much insight, and we would include a litany of disclaimers about why the little insight it did provide wasn’t al that trustworthy, which would just disappoint and infuriate the people we were working with. We would also provide detailed guidance on how to execute moving forward to make the process much more valuable the next time around, which without fail went in one ear and out the other. So essentially we became figureheads. Our work rarely was used in any significant way or provided much value, but we were kept around because the company wanted to be able to tout its “data driven” culture. It was so bad that at one company I worked for, they had the data science/analytics department start putting on a yearly intracompany conference on analytics that became a huge deal. One year they got Stephen Levy, the author of Freakonomics, to be the keynote speaker. At one point he shared a story about how he was consulting with a company on their marketing, and they found that they had accidentally not been running ads in a particular metro area, and were able to leverage this to act as a control to assess the materials effectiveness. But when asked to intentionally do something similar moving forward, the company balked. It was so close to home that my colleagues and I wondered if the head of our department had fed him the need to talk about it. And yet, not a single thing changed at the company during my time there. I currently work in a role much closer to software engineering, and I have all of the same problems described by the person in the original post and that many are describing here. But I consider it a strict upgrade over my time working as a statistician.
- kilbuz 6y ago
  Thank you for sharing this, these are fair comments. My experience has been more positive, but I see the truth in many of your points. For what it's worth, I have always been involved in controlled experimentation, and never anything related to ML or modeling. Our biggest issue is usually ensuring we are getting accurate counts of events, and when I see all the challenges in that, I wonder how anything more advanced ever gets done.
  - bart_spoon 6y ago
    I suppose, as with anything, your mileage may vary. And in this case, your mileage will depend largely on your organization. In my experience, most organizations are not equipped or prepared to do what is necessary to make most analytics efforts worthwhile. But in the instances where this is not true, working as a statistician is very rewarding. If you have had a more positive experience than I, more power to you, and kudos to you and the people you work with/for.
- xab31 6y ago
  Seconded. I work as a data analyst in medical research (bioinformatics postdoc). I am often introduced as a statistician, even though I'm not, because I can do a bit more than a t-test. The situation in research is exactly as you describe -- we are figureheads who are put into place and highly pressured to confirm whatever hypothesis a PI wants for their latest grant or paper. They would never ask us to commit fraud, only perhaps to "double check" an analysis 10 times until it shows what they want to see. If I were working for a company, this would at least be understandable, as companies don't even have a theoretical commitment to truth and scientific integrity, and there are no real consequences to a faulty analysis. But it is immensely galling to see in research. Here we are, paid by the public to supposedly pursue truth and improve human health, and instead the job is to constantly be finding ways to avoid fraud and fabrication without pissing off the collaborator. The result is, as you say, useless analyses if the analyst is honest, and fabrications if they are not. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this is one of the key reasons the ROI on science has declined drastically in the last few decades. It makes me laugh bitterly every time I see (increasingly frequently) political exhortations for plebeians to "trust the science".

Angostura 6y ago

The actual business analysis and requirements discovery? Meeting users, finding out about their problems and working out how software can solve them?

jordache 6y ago
UX researcher? That doesn’t pay as well
- burntoutfire 6y ago
  Business/System analyst is a very different role than a UX researcher. In the agile world, the analysts were basically replaced by product owners, but I assume there are still places where they exist. I've done it for a while, it's quite cushy job if you're good at talking, writing, presenting (same as product owner but without the "ownership" part, so much less stress).

vanviegen 6y ago

Does it need to pay as well?

non-entity 6y ago

It seems like the only realsitc pivots are going to be adjacent business type positions, and even then there's a chance of a payout depending on company / position, etc. Like you said though I would hate these more than I do the software jobs.

nicbou 6y ago

I run a website that helps people. I still deal with software, but on my own terms. If I put the same content on a cookie cutter WordPress site, no one would care. Now, programming feels a lot like woodworking: a deliberately inefficient way to do something, just because it's fun.

52-6F-62 6y ago
> Now, programming feels a lot like woodworking: a deliberately inefficient way to do something, just because it's fun. Now that is a standout line right there. It perfectly describes some of my own personal projects. Sometimes—oftentimes—they go nowhere but I had fun. One such task was developing a secret Santa system in python with an auto mailer and “paper” backup while in Hawaii last year. It took me part of a morning during breakfast before we went out for the day. I refined it when we got home. There were others already out there and it did nothing more then putting names in a hat, but it was fun. And it’s reusable. And it had the added benefit of needing no moderator—nobody in on the secret. The metaphor of a wood working project just seems to fit so well. Nice one.

mikro2nd 6y ago

A very common pivot I've observed and am part of is to brewing craft beer (with the caveat that maybe that's a local/regional thing). It sure as hell doesn't pay as well as development, the hours are longer, but... you get to drink plenty of great beer! Something about brewing seems to draw the same sort of personality as development - there's a fair degree of technical knowledge and skill demanded, an attention to detail, and yet a creative aspect, too. Then, too reformed/recovering developers can always find a small refuge in automating some/some aspects of the brewing process. Oh, and it's real plumbing...

mcv 6y ago

Start your own company and build something you believe in. Few other professions are as well equipped to start their own business. Except for real plumbers, maybe.

jnwatson 6y ago

I pivoted tomorrow sales engineering for 8 years, then a technical BD role, then back to SW engineering. You get to talk worth a bunch of people in sales and still exercise your problem solving skills.

seattletech 6y ago
Sales engineering is a great place for being able to tinker, interact with a wide range of clients/prospects, and plus being a revenue center...
- EVdotIO 6y ago
  How does one break into this? I've tried getting into the sales side of things, but it seems to elude me.
  - seattletech 6y ago
    Find a smaller enterprise system integrator in the field you're familiar with. Titles such as Sales Engineer, SE, Solutions Architect. Usually the compensation plan is a 70/30 or 65/35 split between base and commission. Once you cut your teeth and are building out your professional network, then looks for an ISV to be on direct sales...
jnwatson 6y ago
Yikes. Apologize for the autocorrect.

CydeWeys 6y ago

My plan is to bank enough money from software jobs to be financially independent at a high standard of living (I'm well on my way to that). Then afterwards, just retire and do all sorts of hobbies without trying to make them into a career or earn career-equivalent amounts of money from them. If you're currently on that trajectory (i.e. you're able to save a large percentage of your income every year) then I'd recommend it. If not, then yeah, you might need a second career if you want to get out of development soon. My plan is not to need one.

samatman 6y ago

It's a trap! Hate your job? Maybe it's the job, not the profession. Developers have an enviable amount of mobility; use it. Maybe you aren't taking care of yourself in some other way? Sleep, diet, exercise, possible clinical depression: these are all things to try. Perhaps you're burned out? It's 2020, that's a very real possibility. There's a whole literature on what to do about it, and "abandon your career" is dead last. Both of the preceding paragraphs have a "talk to your boss" component. Don't think that's a good idea? Great, you definitely have the wrong boss, GOTO LABEL "Hate your job?". Good reasons to stop developing software: a) there's something else you really want to do, and you have rational confidence you won't starve, and b) you're ready and able to retire. Bad reasons to stop developing software: literally anything else.