4 ms·

Ask HN: What kind of programming jobs involve some travelling?

Hi friends, Canadian here. I have experience in Cloud Ops + ETL engineer but would like to introduce some travelling into work. I know consultants tend to work on a lot of different projects so they travel a lot. What other choices do I have? Is there any non-tech industry that I should reach out to? By saying travelling I mostly mean out of city travelling (e.g. Toronto<->Edmonton).

version_five 4y ago
Lots of on-site work, companies like Accenture or Deloitte will have jobs like this, but my impression is they don't treat developers very well (ie see them as very junior to the businessy folk). The shots are always called by someone who doesn't understand the technology side of the work. You could also try e.g. BCG or McKinsey (quantum black) but the same will apply. The challenge is, it may be hard to turn it off and on, like you'll get assigned to fly to Minneapolis every week for 6 months, not just the occasional client visit. With the fancier (McKinsey) type firms you're more likely to get variety, but you'll travel every week You could also consider looking at solutions architect type jobs. Especially at startups there may be some that let you go to client sites and do software work, but it will focus more on configuring for the client (at a startup that may still mean fresh coding). Some may be closer to just pre-sales, you'll have to ask a lot of questions in the interview
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- hnthrowaway0315 4y ago
  Thanks a lot! I gathered consulting is probably a bit too heavy for my situation. A few days in a month is one thing but a few days every week is gonna drive $wifie crazy :D
  - tstrimple 4y ago
    I can't speak directly for Accenture or Deloitte but based on my experience in a top 10 consulting firm, consulting practices have drastically lower travel required than a few years ago. There are still opportunities if you're interested, but "forced" travel has been pretty light. This may vary quite a bit by region however. I'm speaking of consulting in the midwest specifically.
    - hnthrowaway0315 4y ago
      Thanks. Is that because of the general WFH climate? Do you think it's going to keep that way? Sorry for additional questions.
      - tstrimple 4y ago
        Yep! For the most part clients are dealing with their own Covid protocols and WFH environments. We have a couple client who still like people in, but the vast majority of this work has stayed remote.
cratermoon 4y ago
I've seen titles like sales engineer, product support engineer, technical support engineer involving lots of customer travel. The down side is that you're not usually involved in much new work, mostly providing technical expertise alongside a sales pitch or going in after a sale to hold the customer's hands. I remember the time at a job long ago that IBM sent two sales people and a tech guy to try to get my employer to not only buy the product they probably needed, but a whole lot of other IBM products that the layered on in the sales pitch. Worst case, you'll end up being asked to draw the Seven Red Lines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
- hnthrowaway0315 4y ago
  Thanks, this is interesting. We also have support engineers coming from say Looker or some SaaS companies but they are probably full remote now. That said, maybe a lot still do onsite as you mentioned.
  - cratermoon 4y ago
    Yeah, in the age of covid lots of things have changed. Add to that the skyrocketing costs of flying, companies are trying to cut back on non-essential travel for the rank-and-file. (The C-suite still goes on "business" trips on the company's dime, of course)
pabs3 4y ago
Open source companies often require their employees to present their work at conferences, along with a yearly or more often conference for the company. For eg, Igalia and Collabora do this. Some resources for open source jobs here: https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources
larrykubin 4y ago
Developer Relations / Developer Advocate jobs involve a lot of travel.
_448 4y ago
The term you are looking for is TME i.e Technical Marketing Engineer.
dev_0 4y ago

version_five 4y ago

Lots of on-site work, companies like Accenture or Deloitte will have jobs like this, but my impression is they don't treat developers very well (ie see them as very junior to the businessy folk). The shots are always called by someone who doesn't understand the technology side of the work. You could also try e.g. BCG or McKinsey (quantum black) but the same will apply. The challenge is, it may be hard to turn it off and on, like you'll get assigned to fly to Minneapolis every week for 6 months, not just the occasional client visit. With the fancier (McKinsey) type firms you're more likely to get variety, but you'll travel every week You could also consider looking at solutions architect type jobs. Especially at startups there may be some that let you go to client sites and do software work, but it will focus more on configuring for the client (at a startup that may still mean fresh coding). Some may be closer to just pre-sales, you'll have to ask a lot of questions in the interview

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hnthrowaway0315 4y ago
Thanks a lot! I gathered consulting is probably a bit too heavy for my situation. A few days in a month is one thing but a few days every week is gonna drive $wifie crazy :D
- tstrimple 4y ago
  I can't speak directly for Accenture or Deloitte but based on my experience in a top 10 consulting firm, consulting practices have drastically lower travel required than a few years ago. There are still opportunities if you're interested, but "forced" travel has been pretty light. This may vary quite a bit by region however. I'm speaking of consulting in the midwest specifically.
  - hnthrowaway0315 4y ago
    Thanks. Is that because of the general WFH climate? Do you think it's going to keep that way? Sorry for additional questions.
    - tstrimple 4y ago
      Yep! For the most part clients are dealing with their own Covid protocols and WFH environments. We have a couple client who still like people in, but the vast majority of this work has stayed remote.

cratermoon 4y ago

I've seen titles like sales engineer, product support engineer, technical support engineer involving lots of customer travel. The down side is that you're not usually involved in much new work, mostly providing technical expertise alongside a sales pitch or going in after a sale to hold the customer's hands. I remember the time at a job long ago that IBM sent two sales people and a tech guy to try to get my employer to not only buy the product they probably needed, but a whole lot of other IBM products that the layered on in the sales pitch. Worst case, you'll end up being asked to draw the Seven Red Lines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

hnthrowaway0315 4y ago
Thanks, this is interesting. We also have support engineers coming from say Looker or some SaaS companies but they are probably full remote now. That said, maybe a lot still do onsite as you mentioned.
- cratermoon 4y ago
  Yeah, in the age of covid lots of things have changed. Add to that the skyrocketing costs of flying, companies are trying to cut back on non-essential travel for the rank-and-file. (The C-suite still goes on "business" trips on the company's dime, of course)

pabs3 4y ago

Open source companies often require their employees to present their work at conferences, along with a yearly or more often conference for the company. For eg, Igalia and Collabora do this. Some resources for open source jobs here: https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources

larrykubin 4y ago

Developer Relations / Developer Advocate jobs involve a lot of travel.

_448 4y ago

The term you are looking for is TME i.e Technical Marketing Engineer.

dev_0 4y ago