10 ms·

I used to work as a compiler engineer in the US for several years, before deciding to try starting over at the age of 30, in pure mathematics. I moved from the

I used to work as a compiler engineer in the US for several years, before deciding to try starting over at the age of 30, in pure mathematics. I moved from the US to Paris in pursuit of an affordable mathematics education, and spent two years in a Masters program. I did have a considerable amount of savings, but it was very risky nevertheless: if it didn't work out, I'd be out-of-touch with compilers, and it would be hard to interview again, with a considerable career gap in my résumé. For various reasons, mathematics didn't work out, and I was forced to interview again. Fortunately, I did manage to find a job as a compiler engineer again, and will be moving to London soon. Now, the price of my adventure was quite steep. I uprooted my life when I moved from the US to Paris (especially because I didn't know French at the time), and the upcoming move to London will once again be difficult. I nearly halved my savings, by studying mathematics at my own expense, and will be back to earning the equivalent of my starting salary in the US. However, I'm an adventurous person, and view my experience in positive light. I'd been wanting to study Jacob Lurie's books for the longest time, and I finally did it. I worked on a mathematical manuscript, which is now up on arXiv [1], and on a type theory project which has been submitted to LICS '23 [2]. I've had a good life in Paris, and my French is decent. There's the larger philosophical question of "What is a life well-lived?", and for me, the answer is to pursue those things that you're truly passionate about, even if it doesn't work out. [1]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.09652 https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.09652 [2]: https://artagnon.com/logic/νType.pdf https://artagnon.com/logic/νType.pdf

bshipp 4y ago
I like this response very much. I'm in my mid-40s now and worked in many different sectors and positions before ending up in my current career. Even negative experiences, such as washing out as an air traffic controller after 2 years, have been beneficial in my current position. First, they provide some humility and empathy toward people who are struggling and, secondly, they give me alternative lenses toward viewing problems that I'd not have had otherwise. It's one thing to model a logistics problem and another to have driven a tractor trailer or worked as an air traffic controller and understand the practical implications of a solution.
- toyg 4y ago
  > First, they provide some humility and empathy toward people who are struggling and, secondly, they give me alternative lenses toward viewing problems ... and third, they give me a kick in the backside when I feel whiny and complacent. "Oh, so you're pissed because your bonus was 2k instead of 2.5k? Well, if you were still washing dishes like back then, there would be no bonus at all..."
- barefeg 4y ago
  Sounds like an interesting path you’ve taken. Do you have any memoirs or blog post about it?
  - bshipp 4y ago
    Thats a good question, and no, I haven't written them up yet. I probably would title it "Adventures in ADHD". I grew up in a rural region and so ended up in university for agricultural science, but midway through my second year I was accepted into the Air Traffic Control school. My best friend was driving long-haul tractor trailers across the USA and since I had a half year waiting for my ATC school to start I went to truck driving school and got my license so I could team drive with him for a bit. After graduating ATC school and training on site for a year I was unable to meet the increasingly-difficult requirements to progress to the next level. After a while it was evident to both me and my instructors that I wasn't going to be happy even if I managed to pass those barriers as my brain wasn't wired for continuous focus (I hadn't yet been diagnosed with ADHD). I applied to return to university and while waiting for my application I worked as a construction supervisor. I had spent my teens working for an industrial construction company and they were delighted to take me back on a temporary basis as they were very busy and the market for experienced supervisors was tight. Finally got back into university but before I had graduated with an agricultural science degree one of my professors asked me to do a Masters graduate program with him. So I eventually graduated with an M.Sc. in agricultural economics and business. I worked as an analyst/lobbiest for five years but disliked reading government documents so took a position as a Market Analyst. While working as a market analyst I discovered that Excel was a terrible tool for handling all but the simplest data, and in my search for a solution I encountered Python and it's data analytical ecosystem. While I would never consider myself a programmer, I loved the increasingly complex solutions I could create with Python and, inevitably, ended up learning Linux servers so I could host my data, scrapers, and visualization web servers. And now I'm wondering what's next, but since my kids are teenagers I'm pausing here for a bit until they move out to avoid unnecessarily disrupting their lives by uprooting them and moving away to a new position.
bawolff 4y ago
Even with the ending of your story being "it didn't work out", i can't help but feel envious.
martopix 4y ago
Beautiful answer -- why would you just accumulate savings without using them for living an interesting life? It's worth taking risks. I'm considering doing something of the sort, probably much less risky actually.
- shigawire 4y ago
  >why would you just accumulate savings without using them for living an interesting life? Having kids. Not that you have to do this with kids, but it is a reason
  - jollofricepeas 4y ago
    I don’t understand Americans POV on this subject. Other than providing tutors and making sure their children are in the best secondary schools, I don’t understand the American obsession with paying for college. The best way to prepare your child is to let them experience reality not coddle them. - A luxury university diploma will not guarantee a good job - There are other educational opportunities besides an expensive university - Acquiring internships and work experience is far more valuable to establishing a network and getting your foot in the door It is unrealistic to expect parents to go into crippling debt to pay for your entire time at a luxury university when a regular school and internships will suffice.
    - elteto 4y ago
      Why are you talking about college? Having kids in general is very, very expensive. More so if you want to provide them with opportunities and activities as they grow up.
      - fsloth 4y ago
        Having kids is not terribly expensive everywhere. Not all need to have super expensive hobbies either. I guess there is a huge regional difference - starting from cost daycare.
MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
I'm not sure I follow. Me, an interviewer: "so you know compilers, great start on monday" Also me: "so you know compilers and have studied math on top, sorry son thats a no from me"
- bilsbie 4y ago
  Tech interviews expect esoteric minutia to be on the top of your mind and easily recallable. You also must be able to talk about past projects in great detail as if you worked on them yesterday. If you take more than a few months off interviews become insanely hard.
  - kevviiinn 4y ago
    Frankly that's an insane expectation. I've done a ton of stuff and don't remember all the details of projects that I've worked on
    - PaulRobinson 4y ago
      That’s why interview prep is so important. You need to sit down and remember things you did in previous roles and how they apply in the role you’re applying for. Your competition for the best jobs do this. If you don’t, that’s up to you, but you’re asking for a five or six figure annual commit to you, it’s reasonable that in an hour or two you can talk about what you have done in the past in enough detail an interviewer can see how that experience applies in the new role.
  - mind-blight 4y ago
    I've taken over a year off now than once and haven't found this to be true. Things generally change less than it feels like, and you can get caught up on any new coding practices pretty quickly.
- barefeg 4y ago
  I followed the inverse path: first academia in non-CS and then tech engineering. And though it hasn’t been that many years after academia, I wouldn’t be able to do it again after my gap. Granted, academics will probably don’t care about my experiences doing something else, but personally I have forgotten so many things that I’d have to start with master-level courses to refresh my memory. And then spend months to catch up with the advancements in the field I was working on. But then again, I might be comparing oranges to apples here.
hardware2win 4y ago
>I'd be out-of-touch with compilers Why? Ive always thought that those jobs are like: every company does it a little bit different (tools, processes, architecture) but theory, parsing and LLVM stay the same. So what changes in e.g year or two? new CPU instructions? Architectures? How does your job look like? You are doing more frontend or backend work?
- artagnon 4y ago
  It's less a question about what changes, and more a question about how well you can recall your past experience (I had the big picture, but forgot the details of several optimizations I'd written in the past, as well as certain CS fundamentals), and how well you can do online coding interviews (I've only written Coq, at a glacial pace, over the last three years). I will mainly be working on the middle-end and back-end for RISC-V.
carterschonwald 4y ago
I had always thought you were just switching to a focus on formal methods! Otoh we had only interacted a teeny bit / little to none while you were in nyc I think
- artagnon 4y ago
  I initially kept that option open, yes. However, there are surprisingly few available positions in formal methods outside of academia, and Coq is very very hard: my ability to prove things with Coq is quite modest. Probably worth noting that I did have an PhD offer earlier, to work with Coq. However, since it was in a small village in Germany, I had to turn it down. On a more general note, I don't know if formal methods is that promising today: proof assistants are very immature, and proving even little things involves a lot of trial-and-error and is very time-consuming. Yes, I recall interacting with you!
  - haskellandchill 4y ago
    I would have gone with the small village in Germany! But yes, formal methods will likely be eclipsed by machine learning applications due to the investment in skills required and time consuming nature of the activities.
tarsinge 4y ago
OT but if your French is decent and in a few years you get tired of city life maybe keep the French countryside in sight, outside of Paris it's a different country.
- artagnon 4y ago
  Hehe, perhaps when I'm older. My collaborator on the LICS paper also tells me that the countryside is very beautiful. It will take time to get used to, as I've lived in big cities for the entirety of my life, and participate in activities like book clubs.
A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
The longer I live, the more I subscribe to this view. My uncle was a trucker. He lived a weird life full crazy adventures and he loved it. Yes, it did bring pain, loneliness and eventual breakup of his family unit, but I always found him in high spirits. Bad things happen, but he was able to shrug those off partially because he knew what he was doing let him enjoy life a lot more despite being somewhat unstable.
ewhanley 4y ago
This sounds like a total win. You studied what you wanted, didn't completely wipe out your finances, and successfully re-opened a door you thought may have been permanently closed. I view self actualization as a far more important component of a life well-lived than your savings balance.
- sleton38234234 4y ago
  but he's back to where he started in the beginning. I didn't sound like there was any more self actualization, after he went back.
  - ewhanley 4y ago
    Right, but these sort of narratives are rarely linear. In either case they would have been working compilers. At least in this version of events, they got to take a shot at a passion. They could also try again and have a roadmap and the courage to take a leap like that.
    - AdamN 4y ago
      Or it opens up a third option that would not have been available otherwise.
  - MR_Bulldops 4y ago
    Going on an adventure and finishing back where you started is not a bad result.
  - 000ooo000 4y ago
    Probably not a fair judgement to make based on 4-5 short paragraphs in a HN comment.
resource0x 4y ago
"If you don’t have [nice things], they can mean a great deal to you. When you do have them, they mean nothing. To me, the unhappiest people in the world are those in the watering places, the international watering places, the south coast of France and Newport and Palm Springs and Palm Beach. Going to parties every night, playing golf every afternoon, then bridge. Drinking too much, talking too much, thinking too little. Retired. No purpose. I know there are those who would totally disagree and say, ‘If I could just be a millionaire, that would be the most wonderful thing. If I could just not have to work every day. If I could be out fishing or hunting or playing golf or traveling, that would be the most wonderful life in the world.’ They don’t know life. Because what makes life mean something is purpose. A goal. The battle. The struggle. Even if you don’t win it." -- Richard Nixon
- whateverman23 4y ago
  Sounds good, doesn't actually mean much. It's just an extended version of "money doesn't buy happiness". Money buys the ability to do whatever you want. It buys you the ability to take what would normally be big risks. It also buys you the ability to live a sad but otherwise comfortable life on a beach. Money bought the person you responded to the ability to travel the world and study math, instead of worrying about getting food on the table or taking care of family. Denying this is one of the most ignorant things people with money can do. It's the core of many problems in society, as it's directly related to the inability for many in power to empathize with people who are less fortunate.
  - stochastimus 4y ago
    Agreed. Money buys choices, simple as. What you do with those choices, and how much meaning they bring to your life, is entirely up to you.
    - TuringTest 4y ago
      Or, to put it another way, everyone has choices, but the choices of the poor are all bad.
breck 4y ago
It's a beautiful paper, even if the significance of sections is lost on me. Very clear and concise and beautiful illustrations. I learned a few things from it (I like how you describe planar trees as trees that can't be reflected about the y-axis).
auselen 4y ago
Every manager I worked with gets impressed by origin stories like this. I would guess it is even easier in Europe.
maCDzP 4y ago
Your story brought me joy! I am really happy that you had the opportunity to follow your passion, and did! And that you are happy with the decision you made while still seeing the negative consequences. To me that is a truly a life well lived.

bshipp 4y ago

I like this response very much. I'm in my mid-40s now and worked in many different sectors and positions before ending up in my current career. Even negative experiences, such as washing out as an air traffic controller after 2 years, have been beneficial in my current position. First, they provide some humility and empathy toward people who are struggling and, secondly, they give me alternative lenses toward viewing problems that I'd not have had otherwise. It's one thing to model a logistics problem and another to have driven a tractor trailer or worked as an air traffic controller and understand the practical implications of a solution.

toyg 4y ago
> First, they provide some humility and empathy toward people who are struggling and, secondly, they give me alternative lenses toward viewing problems ... and third, they give me a kick in the backside when I feel whiny and complacent. "Oh, so you're pissed because your bonus was 2k instead of 2.5k? Well, if you were still washing dishes like back then, there would be no bonus at all..."
barefeg 4y ago
Sounds like an interesting path you’ve taken. Do you have any memoirs or blog post about it?
- bshipp 4y ago
  Thats a good question, and no, I haven't written them up yet. I probably would title it "Adventures in ADHD". I grew up in a rural region and so ended up in university for agricultural science, but midway through my second year I was accepted into the Air Traffic Control school. My best friend was driving long-haul tractor trailers across the USA and since I had a half year waiting for my ATC school to start I went to truck driving school and got my license so I could team drive with him for a bit. After graduating ATC school and training on site for a year I was unable to meet the increasingly-difficult requirements to progress to the next level. After a while it was evident to both me and my instructors that I wasn't going to be happy even if I managed to pass those barriers as my brain wasn't wired for continuous focus (I hadn't yet been diagnosed with ADHD). I applied to return to university and while waiting for my application I worked as a construction supervisor. I had spent my teens working for an industrial construction company and they were delighted to take me back on a temporary basis as they were very busy and the market for experienced supervisors was tight. Finally got back into university but before I had graduated with an agricultural science degree one of my professors asked me to do a Masters graduate program with him. So I eventually graduated with an M.Sc. in agricultural economics and business. I worked as an analyst/lobbiest for five years but disliked reading government documents so took a position as a Market Analyst. While working as a market analyst I discovered that Excel was a terrible tool for handling all but the simplest data, and in my search for a solution I encountered Python and it's data analytical ecosystem. While I would never consider myself a programmer, I loved the increasingly complex solutions I could create with Python and, inevitably, ended up learning Linux servers so I could host my data, scrapers, and visualization web servers. And now I'm wondering what's next, but since my kids are teenagers I'm pausing here for a bit until they move out to avoid unnecessarily disrupting their lives by uprooting them and moving away to a new position.

bawolff 4y ago

Even with the ending of your story being "it didn't work out", i can't help but feel envious.

martopix 4y ago

Beautiful answer -- why would you just accumulate savings without using them for living an interesting life? It's worth taking risks. I'm considering doing something of the sort, probably much less risky actually.

shigawire 4y ago
>why would you just accumulate savings without using them for living an interesting life? Having kids. Not that you have to do this with kids, but it is a reason
- jollofricepeas 4y ago
  I don’t understand Americans POV on this subject. Other than providing tutors and making sure their children are in the best secondary schools, I don’t understand the American obsession with paying for college. The best way to prepare your child is to let them experience reality not coddle them. - A luxury university diploma will not guarantee a good job - There are other educational opportunities besides an expensive university - Acquiring internships and work experience is far more valuable to establishing a network and getting your foot in the door It is unrealistic to expect parents to go into crippling debt to pay for your entire time at a luxury university when a regular school and internships will suffice.
  - elteto 4y ago
    Why are you talking about college? Having kids in general is very, very expensive. More so if you want to provide them with opportunities and activities as they grow up.
    - fsloth 4y ago
      Having kids is not terribly expensive everywhere. Not all need to have super expensive hobbies either. I guess there is a huge regional difference - starting from cost daycare.

MrBuddyCasino 4y ago

I'm not sure I follow. Me, an interviewer: "so you know compilers, great start on monday" Also me: "so you know compilers and have studied math on top, sorry son thats a no from me"

bilsbie 4y ago
Tech interviews expect esoteric minutia to be on the top of your mind and easily recallable. You also must be able to talk about past projects in great detail as if you worked on them yesterday. If you take more than a few months off interviews become insanely hard.
- kevviiinn 4y ago
  Frankly that's an insane expectation. I've done a ton of stuff and don't remember all the details of projects that I've worked on
  - PaulRobinson 4y ago
    That’s why interview prep is so important. You need to sit down and remember things you did in previous roles and how they apply in the role you’re applying for. Your competition for the best jobs do this. If you don’t, that’s up to you, but you’re asking for a five or six figure annual commit to you, it’s reasonable that in an hour or two you can talk about what you have done in the past in enough detail an interviewer can see how that experience applies in the new role.
- mind-blight 4y ago
  I've taken over a year off now than once and haven't found this to be true. Things generally change less than it feels like, and you can get caught up on any new coding practices pretty quickly.
barefeg 4y ago
I followed the inverse path: first academia in non-CS and then tech engineering. And though it hasn’t been that many years after academia, I wouldn’t be able to do it again after my gap. Granted, academics will probably don’t care about my experiences doing something else, but personally I have forgotten so many things that I’d have to start with master-level courses to refresh my memory. And then spend months to catch up with the advancements in the field I was working on. But then again, I might be comparing oranges to apples here.

hardware2win 4y ago

>I'd be out-of-touch with compilers Why? Ive always thought that those jobs are like: every company does it a little bit different (tools, processes, architecture) but theory, parsing and LLVM stay the same. So what changes in e.g year or two? new CPU instructions? Architectures? How does your job look like? You are doing more frontend or backend work?

artagnon 4y ago
It's less a question about what changes, and more a question about how well you can recall your past experience (I had the big picture, but forgot the details of several optimizations I'd written in the past, as well as certain CS fundamentals), and how well you can do online coding interviews (I've only written Coq, at a glacial pace, over the last three years). I will mainly be working on the middle-end and back-end for RISC-V.

carterschonwald 4y ago

I had always thought you were just switching to a focus on formal methods! Otoh we had only interacted a teeny bit / little to none while you were in nyc I think

artagnon 4y ago
I initially kept that option open, yes. However, there are surprisingly few available positions in formal methods outside of academia, and Coq is very very hard: my ability to prove things with Coq is quite modest. Probably worth noting that I did have an PhD offer earlier, to work with Coq. However, since it was in a small village in Germany, I had to turn it down. On a more general note, I don't know if formal methods is that promising today: proof assistants are very immature, and proving even little things involves a lot of trial-and-error and is very time-consuming. Yes, I recall interacting with you!
- haskellandchill 4y ago
  I would have gone with the small village in Germany! But yes, formal methods will likely be eclipsed by machine learning applications due to the investment in skills required and time consuming nature of the activities.

tarsinge 4y ago

OT but if your French is decent and in a few years you get tired of city life maybe keep the French countryside in sight, outside of Paris it's a different country.

artagnon 4y ago
Hehe, perhaps when I'm older. My collaborator on the LICS paper also tells me that the countryside is very beautiful. It will take time to get used to, as I've lived in big cities for the entirety of my life, and participate in activities like book clubs.

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago

The longer I live, the more I subscribe to this view. My uncle was a trucker. He lived a weird life full crazy adventures and he loved it. Yes, it did bring pain, loneliness and eventual breakup of his family unit, but I always found him in high spirits. Bad things happen, but he was able to shrug those off partially because he knew what he was doing let him enjoy life a lot more despite being somewhat unstable.

ewhanley 4y ago

This sounds like a total win. You studied what you wanted, didn't completely wipe out your finances, and successfully re-opened a door you thought may have been permanently closed. I view self actualization as a far more important component of a life well-lived than your savings balance.

sleton38234234 4y ago
but he's back to where he started in the beginning. I didn't sound like there was any more self actualization, after he went back.
- ewhanley 4y ago
  Right, but these sort of narratives are rarely linear. In either case they would have been working compilers. At least in this version of events, they got to take a shot at a passion. They could also try again and have a roadmap and the courage to take a leap like that.
  - AdamN 4y ago
    Or it opens up a third option that would not have been available otherwise.
- MR_Bulldops 4y ago
  Going on an adventure and finishing back where you started is not a bad result.
- 000ooo000 4y ago
  Probably not a fair judgement to make based on 4-5 short paragraphs in a HN comment.

resource0x 4y ago

"If you don’t have [nice things], they can mean a great deal to you. When you do have them, they mean nothing. To me, the unhappiest people in the world are those in the watering places, the international watering places, the south coast of France and Newport and Palm Springs and Palm Beach. Going to parties every night, playing golf every afternoon, then bridge. Drinking too much, talking too much, thinking too little. Retired. No purpose. I know there are those who would totally disagree and say, ‘If I could just be a millionaire, that would be the most wonderful thing. If I could just not have to work every day. If I could be out fishing or hunting or playing golf or traveling, that would be the most wonderful life in the world.’ They don’t know life. Because what makes life mean something is purpose. A goal. The battle. The struggle. Even if you don’t win it." -- Richard Nixon

whateverman23 4y ago
Sounds good, doesn't actually mean much. It's just an extended version of "money doesn't buy happiness". Money buys the ability to do whatever you want. It buys you the ability to take what would normally be big risks. It also buys you the ability to live a sad but otherwise comfortable life on a beach. Money bought the person you responded to the ability to travel the world and study math, instead of worrying about getting food on the table or taking care of family. Denying this is one of the most ignorant things people with money can do. It's the core of many problems in society, as it's directly related to the inability for many in power to empathize with people who are less fortunate.
- stochastimus 4y ago
  Agreed. Money buys choices, simple as. What you do with those choices, and how much meaning they bring to your life, is entirely up to you.
  - TuringTest 4y ago
    Or, to put it another way, everyone has choices, but the choices of the poor are all bad.

breck 4y ago

It's a beautiful paper, even if the significance of sections is lost on me. Very clear and concise and beautiful illustrations. I learned a few things from it (I like how you describe planar trees as trees that can't be reflected about the y-axis).

auselen 4y ago

Every manager I worked with gets impressed by origin stories like this. I would guess it is even easier in Europe.

maCDzP 4y ago

Your story brought me joy! I am really happy that you had the opportunity to follow your passion, and did! And that you are happy with the decision you made while still seeing the negative consequences. To me that is a truly a life well lived.