For me - I can't see myself going back to an office. To teach kids is such an antidote to the self-loathing and looming pointlessness that I felt as a programmer. I'm not saying those feelings apply to any of you or to the profession as a whole - I just needed people in my life. And I guess I was tired of feeling like other people were using me for their projects - I want to use me for my projects.

I'm still in a bit of transition - do I continue experimenting in the classroom and attempt to release the apps I develop there? Or do I stay focused on teaching and improving my community? I think I'm set on the latter - I'm happier when I'm not chasing some impossible dream. But who knows - one still has ambitions that are impossible to repress anyway. Either way - it's great to have this kind of choice.

I still like teaching and still do it part time, but would not want to be a full time public school teacher again.

No - you're right, this is all still fresh to me - second year has been even better than the first. Let me know if you ever write up your feelings, I would love to hear about your full experience.

I am fortunate to work at a public school that gives me autonomy, so the only issue I share is the salary issue. Which I genuinely could care less about - thanks in large part to the autonomy.

The one overall guiding principle I have now is that if I am going to spend time on something using my tech skills, it is going to be something that leaves a positive legacy and isn't just in the pursuit of shareholder value or making a buck as its primary goal.

I will never forget the day a student gave me a handmade note saying simply "thank you for teaching me", and the many students who similarly thank me at the end of a class, or who simply show their passion by signing up for every single thing I do at the school over their 3 years in the middle school grades (roughly age 11 to 14). On the flip side there are parents who just sign their kid up for my after school elective programs so they can put it on the high school application (or, even worse, because we priced the activity fee too close to the after school extended daycare fee and they just see it as a little nicer program to park their kid in rather than paying the nanny), and the kid clearly doesn't want to be there or engage in the program.

I have a very high degree of autonomy over how and what I teach. I could tear up all of my curriculum every year if I wanted to, and I do make significant changes every year. I also get zero feedback or suggestions other than "you're doing great!" -- I would say I most miss working with other high performing technology professionals and the virtuous feedback loop that pushed me to achieve more.

The classroom can be a tough work environment, especially when you get just one or two students who really don't want to be there and are more interested in pursuing destructive rather than constructive activities. Both my parents were teachers so I already had a high regard for the profession, but working side by side with professional accredited teachers for a few years now I have even more respect for what they do. I feel pretty competent at the process of effectively teaching the subject, grading, making it fun, and providing feedback and encouragement, but I've become more and more aware there is a whole slew of skills I lack around classroom behavior management and cracking the tough nuts, the students who will just glide through with no engagement unless you really focus on their individual needs and situation.

His mother is happy that she can focus on her career while leaving him in my care at home, although it's harder than she imagined because she does miss us dearly while away from home and is counting the hours at work... probably because we're two very cool froods (wink). After the infamous initial "post-natal bumpy ride" our relationship is back where it used to be - at 100%.

I'm the happiest man ever and wouldn't want it any other way.

The down side is I work 10-12 hour days, but I get a performance bonus between 400k and 800k every year. I'm hoping I can retire in my late 30's, but I do miss out on a lot of time with my son and I always ask myself is it really worth it... Who know's though, I'm going to ride out the HFT route as long as it exists.

Also anecdotally I know several people who planned/hoped to retire in their late 30s/early 40s. None of them did and are still working now in their 50s and even one in their 60s. Mixture of reasons from health problems in the family to financial issues to just not knowing wtf to do when not working now their kids are adults and living their own lives.

I wasn't able to stop. Applied my savings in day trading, everything went well until 2009 happened and most of it washed away. Applied what remained on the tuition of a top university to up my academic credentials and then went on try other tech industries (e.g. aerospace). Today have a small startup (Europe). Life is hard (empty bank account at the end of the month) but the plus side is that your brain keeps active.

If you really like writing technology, in my opinion it gets difficult to stop doing what you naturally enjoy doing.

You could develop software to largely automate the municipal bureaucracy of a village in your nation. It takes a surprising amount of paperwork, and manual labor, to perform even the minimal amount of compliance work to maintain a village.

You could work with leaders in each tax levying jurisdiction to agree to publish tax data in a standard online format.

You could develop a backyard automated chicken coop, Creative Commons the plans and see what improvements everyone else comes up with.

You could develop a vanadium redox battery-powered lawn light, and save landfills from the garbage disposable lights the big box stores inflict upon us today.

There is simply an endless sea of opportunities to imbue life around you with increased cognitive density.

My head fills with an idea or two every day (usually about improving something I run across in daily life), that acts like an earworm, which I have to write down to "purge out of my mind". It got much "worse" with the advent of search engines; when I was "stuck" with school/university libraries, I would often run into dead ends researching ideas, and could quell the earworms with the thought that I gave an honest effort to run down a thread of an idea. I thought everyone thought like this, but was just better at focusing upon the task at hand and banishing these idle thoughts. I much prefer the situation today with search engines: I'm much faster at running down enough of an idea and putting it into writing to purge it out than before.

"Man's Search for Meaning" by Frankl graphically illustrates the importance of having a sense of purpose, which I think a lot of people lack when they retire to live the dream of doing nothing.

I think the key is to be able to choose not to have to work for some asshole boss, or do work you don't generally enjoy.

I've become very disillusioned by the dream of insane wealth and the ability to retire early. Instead, I want to work on something I feel will make a difference and that interests me for the foreseeable future.

"The habit of thinking in terms of comparisons is a fatal one. When anything pleasant occurs it should be enjoyed to the fun, without stopping to think that it is not so pleasant as something else that may possibly be happening to someone else.

With the wise man, what he has does not cease to be enjoyable because someone else has something else. Envy, in fact, is one form of a vice, partly moral, partly intellectual, which consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations. I am earning, let us say, a salary sufficient for my needs. I should be content, but I hear that someone else whom I believe to be in no way my superior is earning a salary twice as great as mine. Instantly, if I am of an envious disposition, the satisfactions to be derived from what I have grows dim, and I begin to be eaten up with a sense of injustice.

For all this the proper cure is mental discipline, the habit of not thinking profitless thoughts. After all, what is more enviable than happiness? And if I can cure myself of envy I can acquire happiness and become enviable. The man who has double my salary is doubtless tortured by the thought that someone else in turn has twice as much as he has, and so it goes on. If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon. But Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I daresay, envied Hercules, who never existed. You cannot, therefore, get away from envy by means of success alone, for there will always be in history or legend some person even more successful than you are. You can get away from envy by enjoying the pleasures that come your way, by doing the work that you have to do, and by avoiding comparisons with those whom you imagine, perhaps quite falsely, to be more fortunate than yourself."

[0] http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51783.The_Conquest_of_Hap...

My aim is not to work for someone else, so I can decide to spend my limited time doing what makes me happy. When I'm getting paid peanuts there is no prospect of being able to have that choice.

I find it very difficult to just try to be happy with whatever "the man" has decided he wants me to do today.

But you're absolutely right; it's not enough to "just try to be happy." I may be reading too far between the lines - apologies if I am, but it could be that you need to start looking for new opportunities. That said, even if you are mostly happy where you are, the best way to get a substantial raise is to have another job offer in-hand. It's the clearest signal there is to your employer what the job market thinks your value is (as opposed to what you think it is). This is where networking comes in.

Ultimately, it comes down to the question, "What can you control?" You can control how much value you provide (how hard you work, what you work on, how much initiative you take, ...). You can control your living expenses (cheaper rent, home cooking, no partying, no tv/video games, ...). You can control how you spend your free time / what you learn about in your free time (How much do you know about investing? Tax law? Corporate/economic/governmental trends?) Anything you can't control, is not worth fretting over.

At the end of the day, beating the system is hard fucking work. Sometimes it seems like the universe conspires against you, and others, if you have the mental clarity to see it, it hands you golden opportunities. I'm not "there" yet, but in my experience, confidence and positivity are the first steps. (I quote "there" because as Emerson and others have said, "Life is a journey, not a destination." And that applies equally to happiness.)

Anyways, hopefully there's something in there that's helpful :)

> You can control how you spend your free time / what you learn about in your free time (How much do you know about investing? Tax law? Corporate/economic/governmental trends?)

Good advice, there is always stuff to learn. It feels like my problem is that work drains so much out of me that I am too tired/unmotivated to do anything else when I get home. I know it's a discipline issue but that doesn't make it easier. It's hard to come from a day spent working "for the man", straight into more work for yourself at night.

Good luck, I hope we both end up beating the system.

Without really knowing what you want in the long term to make you happy, it's gonna be a struggle to figure out how to get to that point in your life. :)

I'm not 100% sure, because I haven't lived it, but I'm pretty sure I don't need that much. I like quiet and space, the city's not for me. I need a very quiet property quite far from the hustle and bustle (and goddamn leafblowers!). Also a couple of thousand per year for gadgets/technology. I'm a people person but I hate the fakeness and superficial contact with people that seems to come with jobs in the city ("how are you today?" grrrr), so I feel like a sour puss most of the time, which is actually not my personality so it feels dissonant.

At the end of the day I've just kept the machine running for another day. I work in an important industry, so my job is indirectly important, but I can't ever point to a physical thing that I've created or a particular person that I've helped, and most people don't even understand what I have achieved. I think that makes me feel a bit empty. It's just other people's problems all day with a lot of irritating bureaucracy and "professionalism" but a bag of money attached.

Maybe I'm just lazy but I don't want to work as some people seem to. I have many hobbies that could easily occupy all my time, so I don't feel I need work to be happy. I have heard about studies that say that people are happier working but I really don't think that I am (or maybe I just haven't found the work that makes me happy yet).

Unfortunately I haven't worked out how to make an income away from the city yet, but I have thought about quitting and getting any menial job I can find in the country because the rents are cheap in rural areas. Just can't bring myself to pull the trigger, my current job has a lot of pluses and good pay, and I'm not sure if I could come back to the IT industry if I did ever want to after leaving and getting behind.

But who knows? Maybe after a couple of years with a quiet rural lifestyle I'd miss the city. I don't think so though...

I hope you found something else to do that you enjoy/get paid appropriately for.

See, even though I love doing the things I'm skilled at (Linux/BSD system and network engineering) I felt ambitious due to the extreme pressure I felt society had on me; like "if you don't have a job, stable income, lots of friends, and great social profiles, your life does not count and you are a useless eater." Almost everything I did was to not let this be so.

When my gf who was then still at med school said that she had no problems with the idea of her being the one to provide for us while I'd take care of our personal lives (and kid(s) later on), and that she loved me for who I was and not for what I'd do, it was like this huge weight was lift from my shoulders and stomach. With tears from being relieved I asked if she really meant it because I almost couldn't believe it. And indeed she did. She wasn't against the thought of me having a career. it just wasn't important for our relationship. All she wanted/wants is for me to be happy.

When all of this sunk in, it was like my whole future outlook recalibrated. For the first time I felt safe, and like my MO turned from 'surviving' into 'living'. When she became pregnant I immediately knew that I'd made the right choice.

It's nice to think about all of this. Thank you for asking.

I took a break from "everything" at one point and became a nightlife photographer in a large urban area. It didn't pay much. It mostly involved drinking and doing drugs, on someone else's dime, until the early morning. It was a great time for the most part, and I met lots of interesting people. After about 6 months I got tired of it and went back to tech. Note: having a professional camera in a club is a great way to meet women.

I'm considering leaving tech again, or at least ending my engineering career. I no longer find it personally enjoyable to build systems. Building systems that other people want, instead of ones I'd want to build, has jaded me. I've worked at several companies, large and small, over the years. And I've found that as a tech shop matures, that exciting feeling of creating a product dulls. It dulls to the point of becoming anesthetic. The longer you stay, the worse it becomes. I wouldn't mind staying in the tech field. I just don't want to spend all day in front of a monitor anymore.

Don't you have much more freedom in academia on what you want to pursue though since it doesn't have to make money or am I mistaken? I'm considering going into academia because I'd like to do research more on the theory side for which there don't seem to be (m)any industry positions.

Long answer: Yes, if you can find a PI/project that's solving the exact problem you want to solve.

The work doesn't have to make money, but it has to make papers. And if your publications aren't landing in high profile journals, your funding (and career) will dry up.

If those things match up with your desires, it will be great, otherwise you're going to be seriously miserable and feel penned in by the work that you're "allowed" (for on-campus political reasons) to do. In a lot of ways industry actually affords more opportunities, depending on the field.

Also in academia there's less ability to pivot when a project isn't working out -- if the results will be "novel" (i.e. you can get a paper out of it), you're pretty much stuck continuing in a line of work until you publish it, even if you've already concluded it won't be useful in the real world.

In industry, as soon as I determine that a piece of work won't be useful, I can drop it and work on something more useful. Personally, I much prefer the criteria of "usefulness" as a reason to continue a project, rather than "novelty". Other people may differ on that preference.

I'm currently trying out management, but the management atmosphere at my company is pretty bleak. None of the managers seem genuinely interested in launching products. They just kind of kick cans down the road for a few years hoping to fail upward. Over the past two years I've seen effective managers leave the company while the mediocre ones stick around. I probably just need to explore companies whose work ethic suits me better. However, it's hard to know beforehand if the company/team you join is going to fit you.

The other option is starting/founding a company. To explore that I've been going to monthly alumni events to network. There's so much money being thrown around in the Bay Area, I might as well try to tug on the brass ring. And it's not entirely the money that's the attraction, but the opportunity to call the shots.

Never heard this one before. Really made me laugh. Thank you

I know a couple people who've done it but they always knew a former co worker who got them jobs.

I was thinking sales or sales engineer.

but ... i mean, if you can't sell yourself into a job, you're not going to be doing much sales.

I did photograph for one night and it was pretty hard to prevent people from spilling theirs drinks on my camera :S how did you handle that ?

I became a photographer because I had some friends who were socialites and had VIP access to clubs. Their various club owner friends liked my photography, so I just started showing up with my camera all the time and I'd get in free and drink all night.

I'm working while on the road, writing for magazines, selling photos and filming a YouTube series.

I am having the time of my life, and am extremely happy I made the decision I did. IMHO, sitting at a desk is just not worth it. Life is too short. I'm meeting a ton of people who agree, and are living the kind of life people spend their lives dreaming about.

If you're interested in my trip:

Facebook: https://facebook.com/theroadchoseme

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theroadchoseme

Twitter: https://twitter.com/dangrec

YouTube http://youtube.com/c/theroadchoseme

And my website: http://theroadchoseme.com

My research says Burundi is pretty stable.. I was planning to go there. Do you recommend otherwise?

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hubb/ride-tales/democratic-...

Update: Ah, I take you're going to cross north to south, meaning you only have a (comparatively) tiny slice to go through. Then you'll likely survive, good luck getting the Angolan visa though...

30 day Tourist visa seems to be issued to about 50% of people that ask.

I have no idea if people would actually be into that, or stay away because I'm nuts.

Serious question - would you go for that if I offered it?

let me know if you ever try that.

Ripe for disruption. It'd probably look just like a tour company but with less insurance and amateurs at the wheel.

I found that I was very good at the work, thirteen years later I woke up one day really wanting to actually use my humanities degree (PoliSci and Public Policy) and that my joy of doing computers for other people was gone, and I didn't have the patience to keep up with where tech was going to stay competitive.

That, and the current state of affairs for people in my social group (African-Americans) compelled me to go back and do what I wanted to in college: fight for better laws and fair access to public resources.

nb4 "The legal profession isn't what it used to be, you [probably] wont become some rich attorney" to which I say "Good. Because that's not what I want to be. I don't want to be rich, I want to be good at what I do and give my kids something to be proud of come career day that isn't "he fixes computers at the local call center".

tl;dr - I have a humanities degree and I got tired of not using it for almost fifteen years.

I got complacent on the help desk because the position paid more than being a file clerk and just never really got back to the legal world. To be honest, I'm going-pure and simple because this is the track I wanted to be from the beginning. As time went on, my legal skills stagnated to the point where I couldn't even get call backs because it had been more than a few years since working in a legal services capacity and the only experience I had was a resume full of help desk work. At 23, I was chasing money and girls and not really thinking about building a career.

Ah. Youth. :)

Here I am now a lead DevOps engineer who is legitimately and thoroughly burned out on tech-although I love the company I'm with right now. They give me time to deal with school stuff, and I've been talking with our CEO who is more than interested in my career plans about changing roles to work under our legal council in a few months-who could really use a 2nd-hand.

I suppose I'm happy you aren't leaving because of discrimination (making the assumption your social group represents your heritage...)

Honestly, not terribly much or at least none of it overt; I did a reasonable job of learning to pick battles when 'those' sort of moments happened-but there honestly weren't enough of them for me to remark on as something that stands out in my career. There were definitely your obtuse, bloviating managers who thought they were God's gift to the workforce, but that's not unique to working in tech, and I've seen that type of attitude transcend race and ethnicity so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edit: I will mention this: I was VERY often the only black person at many of the companies I worked for, but Austin also has a crisis of African-Americans fleeing the city at astonishing rates.

That said, it's not like that very thought isn't something that's on my mind, because it is-every day. It's a leading reason for why I have my eyeball on the University of North Texas' Law School and their current struggles receiving an ABA accreditation-without this, even should I graduate with a JD, I wouldn't be able to sit for the bar. UNT has a very affordable program that so far has been receiving positive remarks from the legal community and her students.

Plus as an Austin resident with extended family in Houston, well it's more than an ideal location.

Nonetheless, the concern you highlighted is definitely a valid one and it is one that's definitely influencing decisions through this career pivot.

At 25 (4 years as an engineer, games, DTP) I felt pretty burned out so I took a year out to travel the world. I saw incredible places, had new experiences, met people from a wide variety of backgrounds who I'd never have encountered in a provincial 9-5 office job. It was amazing. When I returned I moved to a new city and got back into tech, my passion for which had been reignited during my time out. I hadn't missed it, but I was keen to get into a new job in a new tech area and learn new things.

Burn out it a common problem in tech. If it were possible/affordable, taking a six month sabbatical to do something entirely different – travel, charity work, teaching, writing, whatever! –might be the best thing anyone could do to keep their passion and enthusiasm for tech burning. Maybe it's something you do every 4/5 years.

If you're good at your job, valued by your employer and have saved a bit of money, it might even be easier than you think...

We had a guy come give a talk two years ago about his work, and it ended up being sort of a life/success story and it was absolutely fascinating: he had done a variant of exactly what you describe, on for a few years, off for one or two to reset and explore passions, rinse and repeat.

The applause he got from our graduating seniors was very telling.

I've considered a wide variety of things, but always come back to this: if I keep on saving at my current rate, I can not have to make any profit whatsoever, whereas if I start out now with something (a bakery, say), then I'll need to keep on making a profit, so that I can retire some day. I've got another 10-15 years in software and then I'm done and can do whatever. Check out http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-sim... to figure out where you land on that scale.

"1. You can earn 5% investment returns after inflation during your saving years."

In Investing, It’s When You Start And When You Finish http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/01/02/business/20110...

Another difficulty with this analysis is that retirees do not withdraw lump sums twenty years after they retire. They withdraw smaller amounts each year. I have created a spreadsheet to simulate a retirement starting in 1961 [2]. You were probably feeling a bit nervous in '81, with your nest egg down to two thirds of its original size. But even in this terrible, terrible scenario, by following the 4% rule, you arrive at the same amount of real wealth you started with after thirty years. If you were lucky enough to live for forty years of retirement, you're two and a half times as wealthy as when you began.

Please let me know if you see any errors in my calculations. I've made notes on how I arrived at each number in the comments on the columns starting in year 1961.

The actual worst year for early retirement was '65, when a pure 4% rule portfolio would have failed after twenty five years. But, if you build some engineering tolerances into your spending plans, then even that was survivable [3]. Engineering tolerances in this case are meant to refer to leaving yourself room so that you can spend less if you must.

[1]: https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return-calculator/

[2]: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VXYx12gBECG537mswqRM...

[3]: http://www.gocurrycracker.com/the-worst-retirement-ever/

I would suggest that if you are running out of passion, then find an unrelated but expensive hobby, or find something related to IT that you can get passionate about.

And if you're certain you want to leave, start planning now.

Why expensive?

After about two years of that, got fed up, and quit again, and went to grad school to get a PhD. After two years of that, I realized I was working 2-3 times as much for about a tenth of the pay I could be getting. I finished my masters, bailed from the PhD, and got a job back in tech.

My plan now is to use this time to make as much and learn as much as possible, and eventually pivot into something else at some point in the future, while always having the ability to fall back into tech if need be.

By pivot, I mean my end goal is to open a beach bar in the Caribbean.

Also my coworker wanna do that too! :D

I guess my advice is to do a bunch of things and see what you enjoy, new opportunities will happen as you do. Having an IT background is helpful almost anywhere, and more valued outside of core IT areas.

I tested this theory by getting an IT job at a food company. I was treated way better as an employee but the tech was too old (almost treated as the factory machinery). It was painful to leave that job but I felt I wouldn't be able to get a job anywhere else, that my skills would stagnate. I guess this constant anxiety is another argument for quitting IT.

Maybe working in non-pure IT setting AND being in charge of tech might be the answer. A small consulting company for non-IT companies comes to mind (if clients trust you, new exciting tech wouldn't be so difficult to introduce).

The actual sailing bit isn't really very difficult. If you have a basic understanding of physics, you'll soon grok it. Navigation is a bit more involved, but not for a programmer, especially if you've done any GIS coding and remember your basic geometry. Oh, I also had to do a very simple radio exam.

Now picking the right boat, that is difficult as hell ;-)

If you're going to quit, I think it's better to have clear goals and ideas of what you are going to do next and why you want do to those things. The act of quitting will give you immediate satisfaction, but long-term finding that thing that gets you up every single morning is more rewarding.

In retrospect though I'm glad to have done it. Glad I stuck through the contract, though sometimes I wonder if it'd have been better for the kids if I had bailed and let someone more qualified come in my place.

The one nice thing about it is when you're done for the day, you're done. (At least if you're not a very good teacher). With software you're always thinking about it even if you're not actively working on it (or at least I am), it just invades your whole life. So it was great having nights and weekends completely free to do whatever you want.

The one adult class I had was fun. But you've got to get lucky to get a position teaching only adult classes, and the hours can be worse.

All that said, I'm back in software now.

I ended up in debt but to this day it's still the best job I ever had and despite all the work I've had to put into getting my life back on track financially, I'm still glad I did it.

I came back to IT about 10 years ago, but now I have a whole pile of non-IT skills and interests that I can dive into whenever I need a break, so burnout is much less of a problem overall. Working as a climbing instructor and gym manager also helped me learn how to talk to people and have a little bit of fun now and again.

This time the exit is being more thoughtfully executed. While making a good salary, I am slowly buying rental properties. Up to 3 so far. Fingers crossed that the second time is a charm.

Many in the industry say an IT job comes with golden handcuffs. Most other professions don't pay as good. IT workers often times make what management from other departments make.

In 2008, when the subprime mortgage crisis hit, everyone thought that the crash would only affect residential real estate, but that turned out to be false—it also took commercial property down, since nobody was buying and selling. The civil engineering firm I worked for laid off all 12 staff surveyors, including me, on the same day. We all ended up down the road at a pub, and the senior surveyors were buying the drinks and we reminisced for a while. But that was effectively the end of two-man survey crews and traditional total station/transit instrument tech. Now it's all robotics and scanning which means one man operations.

I then travelled for a while. I went to Israel and a few other countries in the Middle East, met a new girlfriend there, and got married. Before getting married, I decided to go back into technology and become a web developer and slowly move back into DevOps. Unlike some of the people in this thread, I enjoy working in tech a lot more now than I did when I started. I find that working conditions (remote, &c) and pay have improved a lot, and public understanding of what developers do has increased dramatically.

If my parents didn't want to work there any more then we'd have to hire a manager type full-time and I'd have to go over there half the week at least. It's still profitable enough to live okay in the Bay Area though, so I can't complain!

If it wasn't a QSR I'd definitely have to sink more time into it. Most places need a lot more labor or specialized labor (especially something like sushi or finer dining) and the labor costs end up being so large that restaurants doing 2x my volume make the same profit for the owner while being more stressful... silly. I'd rather run two restaurants of what I already have than to run a bigger, fancier place. Working on paying off the last of the loans and replacing/remodeling this one before I look for a second, though.

Voice acting is one of the super rare meritocracies left. You can't sleep your way to the top or bullshit your way to the objective. Networking really helps (especially at the upper echelon of agent representation) but on your way there, you can either do it or you can't.

Im not looking to get into voice acting at the moment, but I do love what some actors are capable of doing with their voice. For example James Gandolfini, his voice is completely different as Tony Soprano from his real life voice. Granted, he has voice and dialect coaches, but ANY book or video that can help me even begin to learn how to manipulate, open up, free my voice etc would be helpful, thanks! And, good luck with your new career.

It's really the acting part that matters in the end. :D

I started a company with the mission of improving food systems. So I'm working on my second prototype app for this area. It's definitely a struggle to not have a salary and not be around a company of talented people every day, but I'm still enjoying it. I don't love writing software, but I just feel like what I'm working on needs to exist--so that's what I do now.

I have been programming for 49 years. I lost my government job in an agency downsizing, worked for a university for 3 years until I could buy into a small pension with health insurance. I bought a house in Mazatlan, Mexico for the winters and am a camp host for the Forest Service during the summers. I'm still hacking.

I didn't have the balls to leave the profession even though I wanted to. Now, I'm comfortable, but I regret not having done something adventurous and feel too old for an adventurous life now.

As far as what I'd do afterwards? I'm kind of at a loss. I've had ideas that range from opening a bar to buying a plot of land and farming it, but they all seem so crazy and out of reach.

Lots of people out there breathing who aren't living.

I took classes at a yacht club in March/April, so a little under a year.

> Is that what you plan on doing forever or is this a temporary excursion?

Who knows. Maybe forever? Maybe only for a few years? If you want to hear the gods laugh, tell them your plans.

I spent several years learning and improving sailing skills before heading off. 2-3 years of weekends and a few vacation weeks would probably do it if you started with that as your focus. It takes a lot of people that long to find a boat and get it set up the way you want anyway.

That doesn't sound like a bad thing to me. What a fun lifestyle if you can pull it off.

I'd love a Lagoon, but unless my options are worth >$100K at a liquidity event, its not in the cards.

http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/category/type/Beneteau/381

As far as getting out, I've put in my hat for an Air Traffic Controller position, and I'm crossing my fingers and waiting on that. I figure if I can make it there, it will pay well enough, use some of my critical thinking and tech skills, but hopefully free up the creative load to allow me to regain my drive for programming as a hobby. Plus, can't beat an early pension.

But I still wanted to keep working in IT.

Now I do consulting.

Maybe that's something you might like?

How was it? It was just great and it taught me about living on much smaller amounts of money, which is very helpful now that I have children and I work for a charity.

So maybe that's slightly off topic, and more of a career break than quitting the industry, but I'd still recommend it all the same.

I've done a good amount of gardening myself, and it is great fun (apart from being a good way to get fresh vegetables etc.)

May I ask what do you mean by evergreen apps? How did you pick what to work on? I'd love to read more on this subject.

So far it's provided a very relaxing pace of life giving me a nice break from the office grind every time I start to get fed up with it.

I figure sooner or later it will get hard to find jobs with a work history like that, but we'll see how this round goes.

I make way less than what I used to. However, I'm happier. I enjoy my job so much more. I still do tech stuff as sort of a hobby and I keep my small web hosting company, maintain some sysadmin skills that way.

Would I go back? Yes. Mostly for financial reasons.

I'm also certified as a firefighter, but at the age of 41, the chances of me getting on with a fire department full time are very low. I am frequently disqualified from jobs because of age limits (legal in fire service jobs, unfortunately) and that (like it or not) I am not a protected class that would be exempt. On paper, younger candidates are much more preferable. I work for a private EMS agency (not all 911 services are provided by fire based EMS) instead, but am still at least applying for part time smaller town fire departments.

I feel like my skills with server administration are kind of stagnant. A lot of places aren't self hosting things anymore. The big push to outsource and virtualize services cut into the market I was in substantially. I have been looking at some desktop support jobs, and they are not only more rigid with hours, but pay less than what I make now. And we don't make a ton in EMS, that's for sure....

I took what skills I had woodworking/web development and started a business. Its called Stump Crafters I build "stumps" to hammer nails in to its a pretty fun game and is not as dumb as it sounds. The game is in much the same vein as Cornhole, washers or other backyard games.

I even made a custom Node.js for a local meet-up group I go to often. https://stumpcrafters.com/pages/custom

I have not fully bailed on IT yet. But I don't think I will be touching any code in another few months.

Now I spend most of my time working in the shop and running the store. It's awesome.

Check it out at:

https://stumpcrafters.com

https://facebook.com/stumpcrafters

https://instagram.com/stumpcrafters

https://twitter.com/stumpcrafters

edit: Spelling

Those I know who have bailed out tended to go in three directions:

- Teaching public school

- Diving instructors

- Owning a bar/restaurant in some touristy location

From observation, the teachers seem most fulfilled, and the divers seem to have the most fun.

I was getting far too jaded and cynical about the constant reinvention of the wheel that was never better, just different. Along with the ever increasing crap masquerading as the next must have with added lock-in. We have far too much stuff and need to make less. The dissonance had me feeling part of the problem not the solution.

I'm less wealthy, but the dot com bust taught me to be frugal (or starve). But I'm spending a lot less too. I'm orders of magnitude happier and satisfied. I feel like I'm doing something substantive and feel good about what I do. I have more options and interesting choices in how the second career develops than I expected. I feel fitter and healthier, and I get to see daylight rather more!

The idea of side project or two to keep my tech neurons active appeals, and after 3 years or so out, appeals rather more. If it makes some extra £ so much the better.

Overall probably the best thing I've ever done.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13334774

Interestingly, I think coming from a software background, where things are (generally) predictable and orderly, can help establish some of the most important foundations of practicing medicine. In writing software, we generally have a good idea about what's going to happen when we run our code. In medicine, we follow the same blueprint when approaching every patient. This ensures that we're both better able to recognize patterns when they are present, as well as making sure we are consistently thorough in collecting all the information necessary for a diagnosis.

There are also tremendous differences - probably the biggest is what could generally be called variability. In software, we generally want the product to run identically for every user - it is quite frustrating when it works differently on every computer. In medicine, we don't end up with much choice on the matter - everyone is different. And so we need to take those differences into account when we are formulating our diagnoses and are when we decide to prescribe (or not prescribe) a medication for a patient. I enjoy the challenge that this variability brings to the practice of medicine.

As a paramedic for many years now, I've had the pleasure of practicing (albeit in a very limited manner) medicine. I think what I most look forward to in becoming a physician is being at the top, directing patient care on a larger level. I also look forward to seeing more of a patient, rather than just the hour or so that it takes me to treat them and transport them to the hospital (unfortunately, paramedics in the USA are not yet look upon as definitive care). I hope to stay involved in prehospital medicine as a physician and help it grow to be considered a true career and as a source of definitive medicine.

I loved programming, but it seemed like both the coursework and what programmers actually did for a living was pretty dull. Of course I wasn't exposed to the full range of possibilities, and it was just before the computer industry exploded, which nobody in my circle (parents, advisors etc.) predicted.

I went to college and majored in math. It seemed like the things that attracted me to programming were going on in the math and physics departments, so I was happy, and ended up with a physics degree. Today, I use programming as a problem solving tool, but have never held an actual IT job.

After many years of software engineering, I switched to part-time in order to dabble in board game design on the side. It was fantastic - enough money to live comfortably, lots more free time - but also a little bit like golden handcuffs: in order to switch tech jobs, I'd have had to find another place OK with me working 3 days/week.

After doing that for 6-7 years, I talked it over with my wife and quit my tech job to do househusbanding instead. It got her more time (fewer chores) and me even more time (household work didn't take nearly the 30 hours/week that 3 days work + commute had), which let me ramp up the board game design. My wife works in tech, so one income was more than enough for us, even socking away plenty for retirement. It took some psychological adjustment on my part, but she was really good about vocally appreciating the work I did, which helped a lot with the transition. (Plus, I got to give a big middle finger to gender stereotypes, which was a source of satisfaction. :)

Then we decided to have kids, and I became a stay-at-home dad. Help from family and babysitters means I'm still able to spend some time pursuing game design (note: this is not cost-efficient - either "I parent full-time" or "daycare" would be cheaper - but it works for us, for now), and parenting is fantastic. Also frequently exhausting and frustrating - there's a heavy tradeoff of immediate-gratification happiness for life-arc happiness - but very rewarding, and the sound of my kids laughing together is pretty much the best thing in the world.

I still love programming, I just don't do it much. (Little side projects for fun every once in a while, or simple tools supporting my game design.) And I think I enjoy it more when I do, because I'm doing it intermittently of my own volition. Once both kids are in school and I have a little more time, I'll probably start messing around with mobile development - I find it slightly disconcerting to look at a computing device and not have the bone-deep certainty that if I chose to invest the time, I could make it do just about anything I dreamed up.

With financial reasons as your main barrier to quitting the industry, much of my experience won't apply to you - my wife's salary is the only reason things work as they currently do. But if you can fix your budget so that you can live (and save!) on 40-80% of your current income, you can try to find/make opportunities to switch to part-time work. I found that when I did, the benefits of the extra free time made me more focused during my working hours, and happiness with my life situation made me more excited about my job in general.

One suggestion - look into new domains to apply your tech skills.

i don't regret leaving dev but i'm also glad i returned

I ended up going back to high tech. Teaching took too much out of me - emotionally. In no way do I regret the move to teach - it was a vital piece of my growth as a person. Plus, I am still in touch with some of my former students, including a young woman that my wife and I helped get through nursing school.

As I get older I tend to approach things differently - I dare say better? The passion I felt towards technology in my 20s has changed. What I bring to my career in my 40's is more personal and meaningful now. It's about doing good work that I can be proud of with people who treat one another with kindness and respect. It's still important for me to love the products I am are building, but my reasons for loving them are broader than they used to be.

He seems happy. He bought a house for his wife and son. At least from the outside, he seems to be doing well.

Maybe if they niche, wedding or something?

I love my IT brethren but not all of us do desktop installs and tech support for a living.

Do you have any recommendations for someone trying to get into tech engineering and out of Enterprise IT in regards to credentials they should seek out, groups in their city they should look into?

It's good you have the background -- that's what you can leverage. Maybe start playing around with a Raspberry Pi for a refresher on the HW and basic software, and go from there. I jumped into it by learning Android from the inside out (via AOSP), and was then fortunate to then be forced to learn it more deeply via client who needed a customized version for their new hardware. This was not according to a grand plan of mine though -- I was just so done with IT that it felt worth the risk. I lowered my hourly rates by 50% for one year in order to get a gig in that space. I looked at the loss as an investment in education. If I didn't make it happen within one year then I'd consider going back to what I had been doing. Paying for food+shelter is a great motivator (the carrot), but the horrible thought of "going back" to IT was even more motivating (the stick).

As for the above, YMMV of course. Good luck!

http://kokonautweathersensors.com/ https://www.instagram.com/kokonautweathersensors/

I think it's pretty successful so far, but it's all new territory in finding work in embedded systems and even harder representing myself (Been doing full-time and contracts for the last 6 years. Would like to fully represent myself as a development shop as soon as possible). Any advice?