Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Life After Software Development?
An anonymous reader writes "I've been writing database apps for various industries as the senior developer or tech lead on a given project for most of the past 20 years. The last few years have become particularly taxing as I struggle to reiterate basic concepts to the same technically illiterate managers and stakeholders who keep turning up in charge. While most are knowledgeable about the industries our software is targeting, they just don't get the mechanics of what we do and never will. After so many years, I'm tired of repeating myself. I need a break. I need to walk away from it, and want to look at doing something that doesn't focus heavily on the IT industry day in, day out. Unfortunately, I'm locked to a regional city and I've just spent the majority of my adult life coding, with no other major skills to fall back on. While I'm not keen on remaining in front of a screen, I wouldn't be averse to becoming a tech user and consumer, rather than a creator. Are there similar Slashdotters out there who have made the leap of faith away from tech jobs and into something different? If so, where did you end up? Is there a life after IT for people who are geeks at heart? Apart from staying in my current job, is there any advice for someone who can't really risk the mortgage and kid's education on a whim?"
If you have experience on a given subject, coding or otherwise, there is a market for books and teaching. I happen to like coding and plan on keeping at it till my mortgage is paid off. Then I'll retire.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Apart from staying in my current job, is there any advice for someone who can't really risk the mortgage and kid's education on a whim?
"On a whim" is exactly what you're talking about doing: leaving what I assume to be a well-paying job, with absolutely zero skills outside your current position, to find something new (which, incidentally, is a process you're obviously sufficiently clueless about to be unable to figure out for yourself).
My advice? Do the responsible thing and stick it out until retirement or mortgage/kiddo's schooling is paid off, then take your walkabout.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Can you say "do you want fries with that?"
Try a different kind of development? - maybe Game Development? You man still deal with the same issues - but at least it's more light-hearted and the business rules of the app are still arbitrary but more fun.
It's a series of rules. It doesn't take much intelligence or creativity and pays pretty well. It can be taught very quickly. Learn to like copying and filling out forms. Bonuys, as a developer, you probably won't forge anything due to your own inability to recognize what someone can or cannot prove via provided documents. As a PREPARER, you aren't 100% liable for validating these documents, so it's pretty much boilerplate.
It's what I intend to do once I lose an important sense/appendage (as long as it's not both my hands and both eyes completely, in which case I'm fucked)
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
If you put what you wrote on the heading of your resume and sent it to some startup companies (or VC of those startups) you'll get attention.
Now, if your tired of telling people basic concepts because you're an arrogant ass, well, you'll get attention and be shown the door. If you're a person who has passion for good work, have done good work, and are willing to try something new with a similar passion, entrepreneurs will notice.
Whether the attention is good or bad is up to your attitude but put what you wrote in the header and you'll show you have balls, which is exactly what's lacking but needed most in many of the applicants I see for a startup company.
Spend a tour of duty with the Dark Side.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'd offer advice, but you mentioned "I've just spent the majority of my adult life coding, with no other major skills to fall back on". That's your problem. If a developer is not continually growing skills outside of just cutting code, they only be cutting code until the day they grow obsolete. Which is usually pretty quick.
Have you learned an industry? Learned how to manage a project? Developers can move into product development consultant or general management. But if you have 20 years experience doing the same thing over and over again...good luck.
I've been struggling with the same problem myself. Any change is undoubtedly going to come with a decrease in pretty big income at least at first. There aren't that many jobs that pay as well as a programmer that you can just jump right in to. I recommend you find something you still have some passion about first. Ideas that have come across my mind are writing some books and opening a coffee shop. I've made minor progress towards both and realize its not going to be a change that just happens over night. Its going to take a lot of work for me to change my work but if I don't do anything about it now I'll end up stuck here forever. I like coffee and I like hanging out at coffee shops. Why not make coffee for a living? I like writing so I'm working on writing a book in my spare time to see how it turns out. Ultimately, if you aren't interested in what you're doing regardless of what it is you're going to find yourself in the same situation you're in now so find something you like doing and figure out a way to start a business around it. As a programmer, just think of it as yet another problem to solve and you'll figure your way out of the cage.
If you have been with that company for a long time, you might be able to take the position your boss has (well maybe not his exact position, but similar within the company). Being that you are tired of explaining things over and over to your revolving bosses, you could probably become one, and then you would no longer need to explain it anymore to him (though that doesn't mean you wouldn't need to explain it to the boss's boss... but usually at that level you start getting more into the "this is the problem, this is my solution, it will cost X amount of developer hours/$$$ and provides XYZ benefits").
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
If you're tired of listening to idiots, why not start a company. Then you're in charge. There are many downsides to this but it solves your immediate problem.
You could also get into mobile app development. That can be done as a solo gig.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
Been there.
Done that.
Now I raise pigs on pasture.
Shepherding pigs is more fun.
Love it.
Dear Slashdot,
I've spent my entire life doing one thing. I have no marketable skills except doing that one thing. I like doing that one thing, and that alone. I hate my job because it also involves doing something other than that one thing.
I want to stop doing that one thing, or anything related to it, but still make the same safe, secure, decent amount of money doing something else. But I have no idea what that something else is, and I don't want to take any risks finding out.
What do I do?
Answer:
You're fucked.
Seriously, open your horizons some (management or technical sales is where many geeks go when they reach this point), or be willing to take risks. But the magical safe, secure, job you are looking for does not exist.
You missed the part where he doesn't want to risk the mortgage and kid's college fund.
Up not out. You can be the manager who excels at the technical side of things.. And try to learn not to suck too bad at the social side of it.
I'm 55 and have been involved with software development since the late 1970's.
I'm done!
I'm thinking an ice cream truck.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
YOu arne't going tlo take a leap AND keep the mortagae and college..unless you have someone who is willing to support you. Rich uncle? investors into a private business?
In the mean time, take a pay cut, get a city or state programming job.
It's boring, the tech is boring, but I work 40 a week. This has finally given me time to pursue other interests. Currently I'm learning to play the bass with the goal of getting a gig after a year.
BY boring I don't mean I'm not doing anything, I'm actually quite busy but there isn't any real challenges since it's older tech.
Also, I get actual vacation time and sick time and no one whines that I took time off.
Alternatively, you can get a coding job in a completely different industry. I have worked in pretty much every major industry. Finance, health care, avionics, robotics, tape libraries, etc...
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
We are lucky that we have one that pays well! The grass is always greener. I bet your bosses deal with the same BS that you do, maybe a different day or different topic, same BS. The grocery kid at the store has the same problems, just a different set of glasses. Gotta make paper. I'd suggest that you go out and buy yourself a BMW, maybe that will cheer you up. At least you get to use your brain, unlike most of the rest of the working world.
I used to be an IT guy. Went from phone jockey to DB developer over about 8 years. After seeing what happens to people who are in IT for a long time, decided that I didn't want to turn into one of those people, so I dropped out, and started my own business. But with it came a tremendous amount of risk. I'm glad I did it, but with the qualifier, "is there any advice for someone who can't really risk the mortgage and kid's education on a whim?", I've gotta say that you probably should just stay put. Any career change is going to come along with a significant amount of risk.
Or, you could do what I did, and radically change your lifestyle, reducing your risk. If you're willing to give up the trappings of the typical consumerist lifestyle, you can get by on significantly less than most people in the US think they need to live comfortably. Get rid of the mortgage, fancy cars, overpriced gadgets and new clothes. Learn to be happy living with much less, and suddenly, the possibilities expand greatly. Of course, most people don't do it, but if you do do it, then you can really do whatever you'd like to do, and not worry about "risking" your lifestyle, since you would have already thrown that out the window.
I don't respond to AC's.
Been there, done that.
A few years ago I quit a good job because I was tired of the same thing, day in, day out.
Decided to try my hand at different things, collapsed economically, got depressed, felt I was useless and then...
I got me a job (lower paying) as IT Manager again. Guess what, I'm happy because I know what I'm doing, I feel good because I know the ins and outs of the job and it is, frankly, a piece of cake.
So take a vacation, cool off and get back to the good job you have.
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
Your post reminds me of this video. These 20-somethings are the guy on the right.
1) Move up the management chain. Stop moving up when you can't take the bs. You don't code anymore. You are still paid well. You have to reduce your reliance on technical skills and switch to people skills. It is messy. I find it hard because the goals are harder to understand. People don't act in their best interests and so doing something illogical (e.g. not allowing an employee to build a better solution because the current solution is owned by someone with more influence than you have) is the better choice if you want to keep your job. It is really hard to avoid becoming the dilbert manager when a dilbert manager decides your fate.
2) Move into sales or marketing. Again you have to tone down your technical skills in favor of people skills. If you move into writing white papers you can keep some of the technical skills but you will need to understand people well enough to influence them. It takes getting used to. I didn't like it at first but so far it has been easier than coding, a little boring but I feel my work is useful to the company and customers. If you move into technical presales you typically get a bonus but you also have to travel a bit more.
Dude, you're an adult, you're not going to like your job every day, and you're not going to like everyone you work with. I'm working on finishing a project I hate, for a client who is a complete dick right now. But, he's the dick that pays my bills, and I manage to keep the work interesting by doing it different ways, rather than repeating the same thing over and over again.
There's really no way around repeating yourself. It's one of the evils of this industry. The thing I've found that works is talking about things in terms of electricity and plumbing. Some of it doesn't really fit, but it's a metaphor that people can visualize. The problem with explaining software mechanics to people is that there's no pipe to envision, no wire to point to, and the guts of the thing exist in the ether where they're shielded from perception.
Another thing that works is to make yourself less approachable. Not being rude per say, but people won't ask you a lot of questions, if you're not forthright in answering them. Or, if you give them an answer in terms you know they'll never understand. At the company I work for, the team in England is notorious for doing things like that. Even to other programmers. When dealing with technical people, you're asking them, at that point, to rewire something without telling you. But, if you're talking about non technical people, they won't understand a word of it; which means they'll find you less useful for answering questions, which means fewer questions.
If they ask you to do something stupid, do it. If they ask you to do something that will break your product, do it. It's not your job to do the job right. It's your job to do what the idiots in management want you to do, even if they don't understand what they're asking you to do. This isn't art, it's production. And you're not a highly skilled person doing a job. No, you're a very expensive piece of software that delivers what they want. So there's no point in questioning it.
As far as life after software development... there's always entrepreneurialism. You probably know enough to make a fair amount of money doing it. But it's not the kind of thing you can just go out and do. You'll need to find an idea, plan, and execute it. So you've probably got time if you're not in a hurry.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
Apart from staying in my current job, is there any advice for someone who can't really risk the mortgage and kid's education on a whim?"
There's a reason the monetary system is debt based. You just found it.
Deleted
this guy needs a hobby something awful.
i think he needs to take a 'vacation to reality'.
step 1. try to live on minimum wage for 2 months. i give him 4 days before he breaks down and buys a pizza or goes to a movie or something else financially disastrous to the ordinary person.
step 2. fill out interviews for jobs in other areas, like, say, cashier at Target. make bets on how long he says in an exasperated voice "ive sent out dozens of resumes and nobody is calling me back!"
step 3. actually go to job interviews. see how the 'clueless idiots' in management seem like when they dont actually depend on you - when you are just some expendable blob for them to use.
after all that i think he might change his opinion. he might be able to get a job with less hours, but he is not going to run off without thinking.
Burn out is what happens when we keep doing the same thing without feeling like we've made a difference. What you are feeling is completely normal and it's not something that you can ignore and work through (without drugs). Those who keep doing something ineffective are less fit than those that try something else. It's the result of behavioral evolution.
I've been where you are (3 years past the burn out point in a testing job), so I know what it's like. Don't trivialize your feelings. Don't act rashly.
The first step is to take stock of your life and see what you really need. Think big and come up with several plans. E.g., what if you sell the house and move into a rental in another city? Can you get rid of one or more cars or downsize? How important is retirement to you? I know quite a few knowledge workers who are doing contracting and consulting into their 60s and 70s for a fat hourly.
The second step is to take stock of your skills and contacts.
* Making a good impression on people means that you are often welcome when they move elsewhere. E.g., my old supervisor, who wrote me a letter of recommendation, moved to a higher-up position in another company. Remember that people know people know people know people.
* Development skills are applicable to a lot of different jobs. You have to be analytical, understand and apply complex concepts, plan well, etc. These skills translate well to many different fields. E.g., one ex-IT worker turned these skills toward catering and did very well because his grasp of logistics and planning meant that he was more dependable and adaptable.
The third step is to learn how to run a business. Your skills could see you being a contractor, a consultant, or running a multi-person business, either in or out of IT. At the least, you can use those skills to fine tune your personal finances to save a little more money.
The fourth, and final, step is to start looking for something that will work for you. Most jobs aren't advertised. Some short-term contracts have an excellent hourly but require travel. A more fulfilling job may pay less. Working 6 months a year at twice your current hourly pays the same and leaves you with 6 months of free time.
Your skills as a developer will do a lot to help you make the transition. This is just another project you need to plan and execute.
While retaining your job. Scott Adams worked at Dilbert tirelessly until it was at a point where he could support himself with it, but that tipping point happened only after a lot of long days of hard work.
What do you do for passion? Whatever you do, be excellent at it and money will follow.
My advice: switch to coding in Javascript. You'll feel a lot more like a user and less like a programmer ;-)
Sure the work is less intellectually stimulating, but it is also less stressful. More likely than not you have the skill for it. You are less likely to have to pull long hours (QA has much more definable deliverables than development). Because you are older, you can brush off the egos of the younger developers who think of you as glorified IT personal. It's more utilitarian and less creative, but it sounds like you are sick of being on the hook for the deliverables. So the stage of your career when you thought of development as creative work has long passed.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
is there any advice for someone who can't really risk the mortgage and kid's education on a whim?
realistically, no. you are probably well paid ... you are in IT, which pays well compared to other trades, and a senior one at that. jumping into a new field and making anywhere close to that is a stretch of the imagination.
it's very hard to even switch specialization even within the IT field. i recently made the switch from enterprise middleware to mobile development. it was hard. i essentially had to spend a year teaching, and proving myself with self-published apps.
even if you are willing to take a large paycut to start as a newbie somewhere, you don't fit into well-defined categories. folks are looking for seasoned professionals that bring experience and knowledge with them, or young upstarts that will make up for their lack of experience with ambition. with your age (i assume) and existing knowledge base, you don't fit into the upstart group, and you won't have the exp if you switch specialization.
can seasoned professionals learn dynamically as younger folks? if a seasoned professional, if anything ... and i find myself coming to the conclusion often that java is the answer to all software development problems. there's one data point for you, anyway.
I was a database app programmer (remedy systems) for far too long. I burnt out just as you are doing. I now teach kung fu. Now when I try to explain something, I get to hit the audience. There is nothing quite so enjoyable as being able to throw the customer to the floor.
Getting back on topic....what about considering academia - assuming your town has a university nearby. The money you will make is not as good as industry - so expect some level of pay cut but the chances of losing your job are a lot less than industry, most of the time at least. However you will get to work with us crazy academics and get exposed to a huge variety of different problems and issues.
As an added bonus, should you find that you do not like it, most universities have very good training programs so you should get the chance to gain some different skills and leave.
I have been considering a move towards data analysis type jobs
Now that's a real possibility. "Big data" and the analysis thereof is a field in which there is high demand. A good way to start is to take the Stanford online class in machine learning. It's tough, but will give you an idea of what's possible and how to do it. You might be able to use the technology with your existing employer. Run a classifier to figure out which customers are likely to order something in the next month, and you'll have something they probably don't have now.
This requires math. At least calculus. It's not really that difficult mathematically, but you have to speak the language. (Personally I think the notation used by the machine learning people is awful. They have stuff like superscripts as indices, sometimes in the same equations that have exponents. Sometimes the math makes more sense in Matlab/Octave.)
My wife and I were very lucky on this. Her parents, ages 88 and 95, needed in-home care, and were willing to pay for us to move to their town to provide it, as we were nearing retirement, and I was transitioning to full-time tech volunteering. It turned out to be vastly cheaper to live here in Indiana than in Silicon Valley, especially with the jobs gone away in the current recession just after they started coming back from the previous recession. We now live in the inherited house and have a comfortable income, between retirement and inheritance.
The writer is in a very different situation, but also has options outside the conventional I assume that the writer has significant home equity after 20 years, and has some savings and investments socked away, some in tax-deferred retirement accounts. Consider, then, the option of moving somewhere vastly cheaper. Quite comfortable houses in our town are available for as little as $70,000. There is a university town nearby (Indiana University, Bloomington), and we have several colleges and university affiliates right here in Columbus.
If you would like a different challenge among the enclued, you could do much worse than to join my outfit, Sugar Labs (a partner of One Laptop Per Child) working on Free Software for education plus Open Education Resources for millions of children now, and ultimately a billion at a time. Our mission is to end global poverty and its many associated ills, using technology as infrastructure for everything else needed. But there are other options right around here. For example, the OpenMRS Medical Records System is being developed in part nearby in Indianapolis. Your database skills would be perfect for them, and they even pay. ^_^
The schools here are pretty decent, and I and my wife also have experience in homeschooling our son and daughter.
So there really are options. Look around, and ignore the naysayers who claim that it can't be done.
"A knot!" said Alice, ever ready to be useful. "Oh, do let me help to undo it!"
In addition to either allowing yourself to go into another part of IT (I mentioned management or technical sales), or risk-taking, there is a third option: Be willing to take a pay cut, and it may be a large one. If you are willing to take a pay cut, you can perform a career switch. It's not at all uncommon for people to switch careers entirely, but matching a good IT salary is usually not an option absent serious (read: expensive and time-consuming) training.
In fact, I don't know of too many non-management salaried fields, period, that match what a decently-paid IT "veteran" can earn that do not absolutely a degree in the field. (As in, accountants, lawyers, certain kinds of engineers, and the healthcare profession can make serious coin, but it takes years to make that switch.)
From what I saw the secret to keeping guys in line in the U.S. is getting every man shoehorned into a Marriage+Mortgage trap. They meekly fall in line and obey after that.
Night classes will allow you to keep paying your bills while you test the waters of a new career. Look through the class catalog of a nearby university or community college, and plan out what courses or even new degrees you'd need for an acceptably paying move.
You're past mid-career, so any major change at this point will require major retooling of your resume, contacts, awareness, and mindset. You're entrenched in your field right now, and shouldn't expect to become ideally informed about another field from your self-research alone.
It is possible that even at your age, a new degree, an internship, and/or considerable volunteer work will be required for you to get your foot into some new door. You will be much better informed, and probably better positioned, after at least a semester's worth of classes, job hunting, and resume & cover letter revision.