Ask HN: How successful were you getting out of tech and where did you go?

I feel your pain. I've thought about dropping out for a bit, taking a good 6 months to a year off, helping with the family business, or even going back to school. But I've done none of these things. Many of us suffer in silence.

You consider something like IT or dev for non-profits or universities? Not as much money, but the working environment can be a lot nicer without the same pressures

I don't work in tech so I can't relate to you, but I'm not entirely sure you can avoid incompetent managers or assholes in any field.

Yeah, it's a bit of a drag. I'm four years in - but supposedly two job changes and one experimental year as a technical product manager at an early stage company seems to have nuked any modicum of hire-ability I had.

If I spend more than 3-4 months looking for work I'm just going to pickup a trade and not look back. Shame I wasted so much $$ and time on college but at least I'm not in debt.

> Honestly I feel more inspired to drive Uber than ever do another tech challenge or deal with another incompetent manager.

It's not the first time I am hearing this. "Driving Uber" could be plumbing, farming, woodworking, but gist the same. Here's the truth: six months of driving Uber ought to long you for the tech job back. Hell, I imagine even a few weeks is enough. The back pain, being on the road all the time, and having to work even when "you're not in the mood" is enough to make you realize that there's no better money than IT money.

This isn't to disagree with your complaints, but other jobs are arguably even worse—much, much worse. In fact, the best jobs are to be found in the IT world. You just have to try enough. You can try joining a small company that gives you more autonomy over your work. Or you can try joining NGO, if having a direct impact is your priority.

Or you can take a sabbatical to recharge. Focus on outdoorsy activities or hobbies that have made you happy in the past.

The root of the complaints is human tendency to think that there's a glimmering better world that's just waiting for you. There's none! This is life, and this is it.

I'm 2 years into "leaving tech" and it's been magnificent to not have to really think about the latest JS libraries, silly bugs, or misguided feature requests during that time. Got into psychedelics research, hardware projects, and other stuff but I'm increasingly thinking I should eat the cost and go back to tech to save some money to have a kid in a year.

Incompetent, even malicious, managers exist in every industry as do difficult co-workers. I would have thought that you may have had difficult to please bosses when you worked in the fast food industry or even at the non-profit. There are some rude and inconsiderate Uber passengers.

So getting out of tech due to experiences of interpersonal conflicts is unlikely to be a solution to your pain.

If you are willing to move to a lower cost of living area, and prepared to have lower income, and willing to do more physical work, then you could look at the many areas that are short of staff and choose one which aligns with your values.

My experience was to leave analyst/programmer job, work on house building for a couple of years. I then returned to IT as a network engineer and systems admin. So changing is feasible. The variety of experiences makes me grateful for what I have now. Spending far less than what I earn gives me peace of mind.

I switched to teaching at the secondary level and after a couple years teaching in the States, got into international teaching and it has been great. There's good and bad about specific jobs but my overall experience has been positive.

Daniel Vassallo (ex-Amazon) has a community full of people who have left or are wanting to leave tech. Several have been successful in creating info-products, courses, coaching, flipping micro-SaaS, etc

I got laid off from tech for the third time in August 2021. Decided I was done with it. Tried a bunch of things. Now I have my own “portfolio of small bets” (that’s the name of the community).

I take on 12 week co-founder for hire contracts where I do go-to-market work for 10 hours a week in exchange for base plus commission instead of equity. I learned to draw and have a couple of illustration contracts. I have a micro-coaching business where I help people get unstuck in 15 minutes with 3 questions. I’ve written some e-books. I also hold workshops where I teach founders and product managers how to put together their go-to-market strategies.

I love the flexibility. I own my time and can work on whatever I want. Downside was it was stressful trying to figure out what I wanted to do. In hindsight I wish I had enjoyed the journey more.

To see what’s out there check out the community. Look into creating courses and info-products. With your background you probably have a lot to teach. Also check out microacquire, Pencil Pirates, and Codie Sanchez’s YouTube channel. There’s a great book called Million Dollar, One Person Business. Follow Justin Welsh on LinkedIn.

I wish you all the best. Happy to answer any questions

Funny, I worked trades and wanted nothing more than to get into tech. You can make real good money if you're with the right crew on the right jobs with the right clients.

Yeah corporate can get passive aggressive and subvertly malicious, but have you had a shouting match with your boss in 95* weather in August? ... And have to go back to that same job like nothing happened?

If you've got that big of a resume you're in the top 0.01%. most of us street kids can never become corpos, the u.s. socioeconomic caste system doesn't allow for it.

You can go anywhere you want. You're not tied down by petty debt, litigation, lack of experience, lack of job history, employment, credit, felon status, etc.

A plane ticket sometimes is all that's needed to change your life.

Been teaching/tutoring. The pay is not great but it’s survivable. Much more flexibility with my time. I can basically just show up, though I can’t get away with coasting or not having energy when I do show up (which is actually good!). Much more freedom to pursue my interests outside of work.

Perhaps I will want to do software again in the future, but if I do, it will be something hourly, contracting perhaps. There are still things I’d like to learn/explore in software but it’s hard to find a job to do that where it doesn’t suck all my headspace (I think something in the nature of salaried jobs and promotion structures, etc are designed to not be 40 hours a week, rather all of the hours in a week, even if one can theoretically choose to maintain their “work-life balance”).

Try to optimize for free time. Work four days a week. Get a remote job where you can do some errands during the day or take a more extended lunch break, and you are now working four days 5-6 hours for six figures. Hard to beat in any other profession.

You sound severly frustrated. You don't need another job, you need a good coach or psychologist to treat your burn-out (which is a form of depression) I can only speak for myself: yes, corporate it teams can be mentally draining, but working there will make you money more easily than in most other professions.

I don't get it. Every job is stressfull (that's why they are called jobs!). Now, unless one is working for non-profit organizations or similars, the goal of any regular job is:

1. do a decent job (e.g., don't be corrupt, know your stuff, etc.)

2. get decent pay

Point 1 is just so you can sleep good at night. Point 2 is just so you can stop working for others as soon as possible (so you can start doing other more interesting things full-time).

There are assholes everywhere, even when driving Uber. Uber pays shit, though, so I don't think that would be an intelligent move.

Many people in other fields feel similarly. Bureucracy, bad managers, bad working conditions are not limited to tech. But, on the other hand, great salary is more or less limited to tech, and a few other sectors.

I took 2 yrs out. Does that count? Did plenty of travelling. Worked a couple of ski seasons in hotel. Hotel job really chill compared to working in tech, just check people in, take their bags up, hit the slopes between shifts. I used to feel very sorry indeed for the stressed IT guys who came to try to fix our systems. Been there done that, know its no fun. However... in the long run, while more chilled, it doesn't pay the bills in the same way and you can't raise a family on it. During the time I looked into alternatives to tech e:g retraining as an electrician since that was in demand and tech skills help with it. Lots of training and certs to get though. Travel, working in sub-optimal conditions not a comfy (albeit open plan s**) office, or nowadays WFH. Ultimately I returned to tech and glad I did. jobs outside tech are not all roses. Working in tech in public sector e:g government, academia, where the organisation isn't constantly trying to make more money, is generally better I found. After 20 yrs in tech, you might need a long sabbatical. In some ways it'd be surprising if anyone didn't really after 20 yrs, unless they do 4 days weeks, long vacations, some other kind of pressure-release perspective-reclaiming activity. Good luck :)

I used to be an English teacher, my classes were doing fine, my schedule was complete and money was good. However, I started to lose passion with teaching. Since I taught English to IT employees, I started to feel interested in Crypto and Blockchain, now I'm working as a Community Manager in Rather Labs (https://www.ratherlabs.com) The transition was good and now I feel satisfied with the changes I made.

Pursued FI.