HN Explorer

What was the biggest mistake of your career?

15 points by flarg ↗ HN
A recent submission (a designer writing about changing his working style) prompted me to ask my fellow HNers the same question. My biggest mistake was turning down a very well paid job, because the employer's HR dept was acting irrationally and I lost my patience with them. I've ended up with a job paying £60k less a year. Not the best move I've ever made.

20 comments

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theoneone
My biggest mistake was choosing my already established carrier( I am a medical doctor). All I wanted was to write code and make cool apps. :(
DanBC
HN has a bunch of people with great advice about changing career. Moving from a doctor to programmer is definitely possible.
theoneone
I already code a lot for the past 10 years but finance obligations, lack of good programming positions in my country(Greece) and "obstacles" like family and age(I am 37) are making the turn a little bit hard. 3-4 months ago I started applying for jobs and didn't received a single reply. You see,when your whole life you study for medicine and residency it's quite hard to persuade others that You love coding and designing apps.Being a doctor and a developer don't make a good match in third world countries like mine.
T-A
3rd world or not, it's still in the EU, and free mobility still applies. Here's how the combination of medicine and IT looks further up north: http://frogleap.se/
lgieron
One thing to keep in mind - coding for a living and coding as a hobby are two VERY different things. To get a taste of what you can expect in the industry, see for example Michael O. Church's blog (https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/)
S4M
As a doctor, wouldn't you be in a really good position to work on a medical startup? I don't know that field at all, but I understand that lots of the work of a doctor can be automatized with machine learning, for example, writing an app that performs basic health checking.
su_yuen
You can try honing your skills by first taking on some freelance projects! Or still working on cool random apps on the side! Build something for the medical industry perhaps? :)
theoneone
I did coded a mammography scanner software (I am a radiologists) for analyzing the density of the breast and categorizing it according to how dense or fatty is. It's a wip but needs a lot of work, mainly on the scientific side.
jesseg17
As a high schooler who loves coding, I'm torn between these two fields. The problem is that I can code as much as I'd like now, but real medical experience is hard to come by.
runjake
This seems like a plus? Market interest in health tech/quantified self seems at an all-time high.
defraction
I am in a similar position. I am a med student who loves to program - I find eHEALTH really attractive!

health gnu looks really interesting. Have you guys any experience with its real world application?

jtfairbank
I'm working on a residency scheduling app (https://reschedulemed.com) and would love to talk to a doctor knowledgable about code. Shoot me an email? (the address is in my profile)
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drakonka
Waiting too long to quit a particular job and start contracting. I was in a job I didn't enjoy, working for people I didn't click with. I work in game development and took this unrelated job on after the first games company I worked for years ago went down. Being in game dev then and now I know all about long hours, stressful deadlines, and high pressure situations. That one non-game-dev job wasn't even as demanding in terms of those things than others I've been in, but it drained me so much simply because I wasn't passionate about the work and felt like I was walking on eggshells all day around management. I regret not going freelance sooner - I think it could have saved me a few trips to the doctor with what turned out to be stress induced chest pains.
turgunovm
My biggest mistake of my live, I still dont start a career...
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