"..., talk to businesses. I could give you a vague fact pattern to ask about (a problem which is amenable to a solution with code) but people seem to get hung u

"..., talk to businesses. I could give you a vague fact pattern to ask about (a problem which is amenable to a solution with code) but people seem to get hung up on that so I'll give you something really specific: you are looking for a MS Excel spreadsheet which has ever been mailed by Bob to Cindy, had Cindy edit it, and mail it back to Bob. Every time this happens a SaaS app gets its wings. Now go out and find, in the actual physical world, ten firms which have that same darn spreadsheet. Offer to build them a software system which solves the business problem which that spreadsheet represents. Ask if they would pay (pick a number based on how big the firm is) $50 to $250 a month for it. If yes, ask them to commit to buying it when it is ready. If you get 5 commits, build it, sell to them (n.b. you'll lose some commits here), and then start trying to sell it in more scalable Internet-y ways." - patio11, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5904316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5904316 If you do go into programming, try doing what patio11 mentioned in that comment, but for the petroleum industry you just got out of. I think most entrepreneurs in the "software side" would tell you to go back to the petroleum industry and build a software business around it using your 9-years worth of domain-expertise/network as leverage.