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I don't mean to come off as aggressive but shouldn't you have enough savings not to care about this? Generally specialized skillsets mean high enough pay to hav

by rsanek 3y ago

I don't mean to come off as aggressive but shouldn't you have enough savings not to care about this? Generally specialized skillsets mean high enough pay to have a significant portion that is discretionary savings / spending. I've tried to use at least a portion of mine to create a freedom fund (often called "fuck you money") that has enough to cover our expenses for at least a year.

kjellsbells 3y ago
Not necessarily, you could have specialist skills in a market that is unfashionable, and consequently doesn't pay well. Telco for example, or IoT, or (soon) VMware. Particularly dangerous for mid career people who need to decide how to pivot.
- blagie 3y ago
  I have one skill set which has been employable for the past 2000+ years. At least pre-AI and similar technology changes, it's not something which goes into fashion or out-of-fashion. Think doctor, construction, woodworking, teacher, lawyer, military, architecture, etc. That combines with math+SWE to make a nice bundle, at least for what I enjoy. That's a path I often advise. Intersect a skillset like that with SWE + math, and there's a very nice set of niches one can slot. For each of the above: - Doctor + SWE + math = medical imaging, computational biology, etc. - Construction/engineering + SWE = industrial robotics, CAD, etc. - Teacher + SWE = edtech, e-learning, etc. - Military + SWE = a ton of hard tech However, the air gets very thin as you specialize, and especially as you move towards the top. If you intersect the above with director-level or C-suite level positions, there might be literally just a handful of jobs out there. Narrow that by geographic region is you have a family, and it becomes more and more of a problem. What's interesting is that I've seen more than a 10x spread in compensation from jobs I've applied for (which is extreme, but not as extreme as it sounds; a research scientist at FAANG might earn $600k, and $60k at a university or a non-profit for the same qualifications). The higher-paying positions also weren't better, holistically.
blagie 3y ago
I will give a list of reasons for why this might not be the case: 1) Specialized skills often do not necessarily equate with high-pay. For example, a school social worker specializing in a specific disability, or a laboratory glassblower (makes custom instruments for chemistry and physics labs) are almost irreplaceable, but only command slightly higher pay (if at all) 2) Many sectors (such as non-profit) do not have high pay 3) Many people don't have savings for other reasons (e.g. recent immigrant from a low-income country, recent divorce, major medical issue, graduate still paying off school debt, etc.) Etc. I thought about providing more background about my specific situation, but I prefer to remain anonymous. As a footnote, if you have a 1-2 year F-U fund, being laid off (or quitting) and being unemployed that long means your life savings are gone. That's not good. Until and unless my fund is enough to retire on, I would still rather work than not work, even if that's writing documentation, handling IT tickets, or debugging someone else's code.

by rsanek 3y ago

kjellsbells 3y ago

Not necessarily, you could have specialist skills in a market that is unfashionable, and consequently doesn't pay well. Telco for example, or IoT, or (soon) VMware. Particularly dangerous for mid career people who need to decide how to pivot.

blagie 3y ago
I have one skill set which has been employable for the past 2000+ years. At least pre-AI and similar technology changes, it's not something which goes into fashion or out-of-fashion. Think doctor, construction, woodworking, teacher, lawyer, military, architecture, etc. That combines with math+SWE to make a nice bundle, at least for what I enjoy. That's a path I often advise. Intersect a skillset like that with SWE + math, and there's a very nice set of niches one can slot. For each of the above: - Doctor + SWE + math = medical imaging, computational biology, etc. - Construction/engineering + SWE = industrial robotics, CAD, etc. - Teacher + SWE = edtech, e-learning, etc. - Military + SWE = a ton of hard tech However, the air gets very thin as you specialize, and especially as you move towards the top. If you intersect the above with director-level or C-suite level positions, there might be literally just a handful of jobs out there. Narrow that by geographic region is you have a family, and it becomes more and more of a problem. What's interesting is that I've seen more than a 10x spread in compensation from jobs I've applied for (which is extreme, but not as extreme as it sounds; a research scientist at FAANG might earn $600k, and $60k at a university or a non-profit for the same qualifications). The higher-paying positions also weren't better, holistically.

blagie 3y ago

I will give a list of reasons for why this might not be the case: 1) Specialized skills often do not necessarily equate with high-pay. For example, a school social worker specializing in a specific disability, or a laboratory glassblower (makes custom instruments for chemistry and physics labs) are almost irreplaceable, but only command slightly higher pay (if at all) 2) Many sectors (such as non-profit) do not have high pay 3) Many people don't have savings for other reasons (e.g. recent immigrant from a low-income country, recent divorce, major medical issue, graduate still paying off school debt, etc.) Etc. I thought about providing more background about my specific situation, but I prefer to remain anonymous. As a footnote, if you have a 1-2 year F-U fund, being laid off (or quitting) and being unemployed that long means your life savings are gone. That's not good. Until and unless my fund is enough to retire on, I would still rather work than not work, even if that's writing documentation, handling IT tickets, or debugging someone else's code.