Ask HN: Those of you who've left the SWE world, what did you transition into?
Right now I'm contracting to stay afloat, maintain flexibility and delve into entrepreneurship, but I truly don't know what the future holds for me anymore if building my own company doesn't work out. I have 0 inclination to go back to a 9-5 at a company coding for a living. I'm done. I've been an EM, which might arguably be the most miserable position that exists. I've been senior/staff at places, and honestly I just don't enjoy arguing about the structure of software anymore, I'm tired of the personalities, tired of the infantilization of the industry (frankly, it's embarrassing) but mostly, I just don't enjoy coding as much as I used to, unless I'm leveraging it to create an asymmetrical amount of value for me ($$$$) which is just not what a full time job is.
However, I don't know what to look into as an alternative if I need a full time position once my wife and I start having kids. My strengths revolve around people and strategy. I've been considering sales at a tech company because to me, working harder and having an unlimited cap in what I can earn sounds pretty fantastic.
Would love to hear any kinds of stories or tips from folks
188 comments
[ 95.7 ms ] story [ 705 ms ] threadRe: arguing and why not just avoid it:
During my brief (7 year) sojourn at one place that was not-my-company (Google), you end up with a mix of personalities, and it's very hard to convince people who believe there's a Right Way to do things that there is no Right Way, so you just sort of have to muddle through figuring out how to be productive without irritating people, or as an EM, leaving them thinking you're negligent.
Conversely, theoretically, it's hard to convince people who are slopping through and rushing code to slow down. (in practice, this wasn't a problem at Google, but it's worth mentioning for completeness.)
Case study: 6 person team. 1 EM who ended up doing 20% of the code, 1 me who did 60%, 2 who did 10% each, only do things when directly asked, and they couldn't find an excuse to kick the can down the road due to "ambiguity" that was product/design's fault, and then two who, in all seriousness, never contributed code to this year-long project: 1 who wanted OOP-to-the-max InjectedFoobarManagerFactory, another who definitely didn't want anything like that, but didn't really have an alternate proposal, they just loved explaining endlessly and authoritatively why anything else brought up was bad.
(what did they do if they weren't contributing? the first would write vaguely productive "experiments" for other teams, that obviously wouldn't ship, in the code repo they were used to. took them 18-24 months to make their first code contribution to our actual code repo, the other wandered off to some other random project in the org. EM was new and out 3/4 of the project for new child leave)
All the firing BS in from mid-2022 in this industry was poorly motivated, and a lot of the initial wave was used for settling political scores, and there's a lot still there. But I hope in the long run it engenders a stronger sense of needing to have some sort of shared reality and responsibility.
But where I work now, the biggest egos are easily the people around the SWEs - especially architects and product owners. Is that not the case where you work?
I worked with a guy who claimed they'd worked at Google (probably not you, fwiw). They were SO SURE there WAS ONE TRUE WAY, and I'm 90% sure the actual definition was "whatever way this guy [me] wants to do it is not the TRUE WAY."
I almost quit dealing with that guy, but I ended up wandering to some other random project in the org.
Dude was whack though. I'll never forget when we hired a guy and he was saying "if the hiring team thinks he's good enough, he's clearly not because they hired this guy [pointing at me]." Fuck that guy.
I might not be the best coder in any room, but I'm a pretty solid engineer.
You can have a fulfilling life out of work. It doesn't mean that you have to be miserable at work, but it's also important to realize that "being productive" is not the only way to live.
Those who make a fortune with software generally don't work on improving society; on the contrary they generally are bigger contributors to the problem. Whether they realize it and accept it in exchange for the cash or actually think they deserve that kind of money is a different question.
I have a job that is financially viable at a small, good, profitable firm… that has less stellar engineering management (not bad people wise)… and I care deeply about my craft. I’m a child hood coder with also a deep “Protestant Work Ethic.”
I have semi-checked out at work, it’s mentally taxing to know the systems could be better. I also know after 5 years my hard work and going the extra mile” will not be rewarded so I coast with my above-average reviews… but I feel guilt and mental anguish and stress and worry I’ll be found for a fraud (not imposter syndrome way, in a “I could do better and will be punished for not” way)
For some of us it’s a passion not a paycheck. Although the pay is nice.
Hopefully they'll be cured of that one day, perhaps the next performance review cycle will finally rid them of any remaining illusions.
Like, I have no problem with someone who is in the ticket flow, is conscientious about their work, tries to understand the business purpose, anticipates and asks some unanswered questions, and takes care to truly finish the work. Then, you know, sure, work your eight (or six), take your breaks, and leave it out of your brain all other times.
But the other style is all-too-common: Do only what's listed in the ticket, and the laziest possible interpretation at that. If something is undefined, well, that's their problem, if they realize it, they can schedule another ticket. Don't ask questions, don't collaborate, don't do anything extra and then if pressed, say phrases like, "Well they didn't say.." or "well, they didn't ask..." Take no ownership.
Those people suck.
I'm not quite at the level you've described, but I certainly have elements of it. I've been in the same role for ~10 years and have pretty much maxed out the expected raises/promotions of the role. It's not as satisfying as something brand new, but my pay to effort ratio is pretty ideal and I can work on side projects and learn new things on my own.
it's all meetings, design docs, fighting in PR comments, agile ceremonies, etc etc
building things / fixing bugs is maybe 10% of the work
One thing that I worry about is that there seem to be quite a lot of competition in the space and to give clients I feel I would have to go through an Uber of laser cutters. At least that was an impression I've got after ordering a few parts through something like that.
How did you start our transition to it? What is your specialty? Etc.
I think if you found a niche (like Shop Nation did on YouTube/Etsy) you could do quite well?
Do you find the lack of a boss and the BS of a typical corp job freeing?
My dream is alive, but no progress yet.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32141962
As an example, I created a modified level so that my wife could set tumblers up for full wrap laser engraving. I’ve been trying to figure out how to sell the tool but maybe there is not much of a market to sell to.
I’ve tried my own website, a free DIY version as an email collection tool, becoming active on laser forums, the finished level on Etsy, and now a DIY kit on Etsy. I can’t seem to sell them. I’ve met similar issues with other items I’ve designed. So, “scratch your own itch” doesn’t seem to create a market fit for me or I have trouble finding that market.
Halp!
https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dangrossman
https://improvely.com,
My advice is to just get a tech job where you can coast, work from home, and knock out a couple tickets a day. Have lots of flexibility to see your kid and take vacations while they're young. Some places offer 4 day weeks and you still take home 6 figures.
Sales Engineering or Customer Success would be an interesting pivot but you usually make less money and have less flexibility than SWEs
I'm still fascinated by the idea for some reason. Closing a big deal (and making that commission on top of a regular base salary) while understanding all the technical sides of a product sounds like a neat way to get that "dopamine hit" wave going. (you know, motivation -> work -> success -> enjoyment of success -> motivation) Building out big software features often seems like yet another lesson about ever-receding goalpost lines.
I will say that a work situation DID show me that I DO need the creative element though- I worked for Deloitte once, building out some enterprisey software for clients for a time and due to business reasons outside my control, they halted all new development on the product and switched to pure support/bugfix mode. My job satisfaction absolutely PLUMMETED.
Another side gig I found fun was... and I don't even know what the name of this job is because I only did it a couple times but it was fun both times... "objective technical performance evaluator". Basically, there are situations out there with nontechnical businesspeople who have hired offshore software engineering labor who end up jerking them around a bit to the point where they suspect they're being jerked around (you can't fool people forever) but they cannot point to anything in particular, so they hire YOU to sit in on calls and call out the BS. I can't tell you how shamefully fun it was to call out other SWE teams on their BS while the businesspeople on whose side you're advocating for are grinning next to you. Essentially, businesspeople hiring offshore SWE teams ALWAYS need an advocate on their side who "talks the talk". It basically works like this- you get github access, you sit in on some calls, you ask some very pointed questions, and then you write up a report about the code, the time things are taking, the designs being proposed or created, etc. With ChatGPT help, writing up such a report would be cake- you could basically just brain-dump a bunch of observed facts into a text file and ask it to create an organized professional report for you- you can even ask it to make it strongly-worded, etc. Easy money, everybody's happy!
Hi, former Sales Engineer/Manager here. SEs do not make more than their sales counterparts in salary/commission, and usually don’t make more in stock (although they often think they do.)
In my best years, I would make half what my sales peer made. In bad years, I could make more as a percentage, but only because sales people are usually more leveraged (50/50 base/commission vs 70-80% base for an SE.)
Beyond the mental aspects, SEs are frequently inserted, either officially or unofficially, in all manner of customer support processes like case escalation, managing beta software builds, arbitrating between the customer and professional services engineers, etc.
You're also right in that we get inserted into these wedge functions, but I haven't seen any of that bleed into my personal life like deals tend to do to AEs.
[0] BDRs are LITERALLY responsible for pipe, so this isn't entirely true. However, many AEs are hired for their Rolodex, so to speak, and when they miss their forecasts, blaming BDR doesn't go very far.
other than managing beta software builds, a lot of this stuff seems to be less impactful to the bottom line (of the business, and thus potentially to your salary) than just supporting the sales cycle from the technical side would be. I could see that happening though if there simply wasn't a constant stream of SE work to do. But I can't imagine that an hour burned on customer support, instead of an hour spent writing up how well the technical fit is to a particular customer in a big sales proposal, is making that company more money off you (and again, thus potentially impacting your salary ceiling).
These tasks impact the company bottom line (and an SEs compensation) in that unhappy customers don't buy product. Leaving your customers to fend for themselves when they ask for help - and they will ask for help - will quickly lead to an SE getting replaced, either due to their company getting kicked out of an account and replaced with a competitor, or the SE kicked out of their company and replaced with a competitor.
The general consensus is that SEs spend, on average, about 20% of their working time on "post-sales" tasks. I'm not aware of any published data in this area, but it tracks with my experience, both as an individual SE and an SE manager for 15 years.
Sales engineer average salary: https://builtin.com/salaries/dev-engineer/sales-engineer
Various pure sales salaries (I picked Tech Sales Representative but all of them seem lower except for senior titles like VP Sales): https://builtin.com/salaries/sales/tech-sales-representative
This is for software/technical sales, I believe, and not necessarily industrial technology sales
Perhaps your pure sales peers were just very good, or they undercut you, or you were in an industry that didn't correlate with this... Or my data is wrong, or something else is amiss to explain this /shrug
But, rather than admitting that you are out of your depth and showing some curiosity, you went with the "I spent five seconds googling this and you're wrong" shtick. Good job, or something.
As for me, I'm not extrapolating from a single data point here. I worked in the industry for 15 years. I was a hiring manager for 5. I spent a lot of time talking to a lot of people about their salary expectations, both at the company I worked for and others.
Is the job "fun"? (For someone's definition of "fun", when it comes to work, of course... A big payday may be "fun", entertaining clients may be "fun")
To me, this is what separates customer-facing engineering from product engineering: do you enjoy solving people problems in addition to technical ones?
If so, you'll probably enjoy SE & CS.
If not, then stick to product engineering.
Personally, I get a decent kick out of solving problems. Whether that's because I aligned 3 VPs or wrote a technical solution doesn't change the enjoyment.
That said, I definitely wouldn't enjoy solving problems without any technical component.
What's not outside your control is how many deals you currently have working, so that you aren't reliant on one particular deal closing so that you have income in the immediate next few months.
Obviously the hard part is what happens when things happen to go your way and 3 deals close at the same time. But if you can figure out how to deal with that, most problems with the ups and downs of sales are taken care of.
Bingo. We in this field are getting accustomed to extreme compensation. But do you know how many SMBs would love to have a capable "tech person" for $60-80k per year? If you're remote you can probably work half days.
This is my plan, after I finish the grind.
And SMB owners are not very good at determining what is an IT emergency.
Of course ymmv, just my 2c.
This is really important. You will spend your whole life aligning stake holders. If you can't stand that and started searching for meaning of life then eventually you end up quitting.
My soul dies when I try this. I can't look in the mirror and like the person looking back. I feel myself rot.
I need challenge. I need to be useful.
Most dev shops infantalise their devs and don't allow them to do actual useful hard work. So I'm currently attempting a bootstrapped startup. Because I want to work.
1. Taking a significant sabbatical (6-12 months) if you have runway for it
2. Meeting with people you trust (e.g. past colleagues) and discuss your situation openly
3. Switching role. People & strategy could lead to product management (but PM roles comes with their own suite of frustrations)
4. Finding a mentor or a coach and find what drives you. It's there, hidden somewhere in the pile of work that you left behind.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40720121
Founding a company isn’t great work/life balance no matter the field, but it is significantly more rewarding in deep tech imho.
If OP's wife is pregnant I would not recommend switching careers right now. That would be maximizing time away from home when you are needed most. But that's not how I read the OP:
> if I need a full time position once my wife and I start having kids
Sounds like they're still thinking about it, and maybe a few years off.
https://github.com/atomCAD/atomCAD
Not as important and pressing as the actual laboratory work to bootstrap the technology though.
Do you like what you do and not who you have to work with?
Perhaps you want a job in your field that's "good enough" where you take a pay cut for better quality of life (defense, govt contracting, big banking, life sciences, non tech companies that still have hard software problems).
Do you like building but you want to call the shots on something you want to build for a decade?
Perhaps entrepreneurship is for you. But, it's tough -- having made the transition, you trade off one set of people problems (and lack of agency) for another. Net-net it's more stressful and while the highs are higher, the lows are much lower.
Do you want a completely different field entirely?
I've seen folks purchase blue collar flavored "lifestyle businesses" (self-storage, landscaping, etc) and scratch the entrepreneurship itch "in the small". I've seen folks shift to building physical things (taking up welding or woodworking), but you run into the physical constraints of your body which can present challenges. But, this is probably the hardest path for me to answer or advise towards, in part because it requires you abandoning or at least closing the chapter you've build your career experience inside of.
Best of luck. I'd start with the first question; it sounds like you've worked at companies with "ambitious" technologists and found a common thread of misdirected ambition. That doesn't necessarily mean that you can't find a happy home inside technology. Technology is a big world.
I was born, raised and studied in South Africa. Living costs and salaries are cheaper. I worked in California. Instead of living a lavish lifestyle, I saved. In hindsight, I should have saved even more. The important thing I did was opting for cheaper housing. I worked hard, which opened doors. I landed up at a startup that's now doing really well.
I retired after just six years. Six more years later, I'm doing what I want. I've been cycling around Europe and Africa. Next week I'm flying to Canada to explore North America for the next two years. It's a pretty cheap lifestyle, but I get to experience life around the world in a way few people ever do. I'm working on building a presence on YouTube. I've met others who sustain their travels via YouTube. Even if I don't, I can keep going for quite some time living off of savings. I wouldn't be able to do this so easily if it weren't for stock.
I'm not advocating a travel lifestyle. Instead, I'm advocating for saving up while you're earning decent cash. Don't blow it all. Then hopefully you can leave for what you really want to do, and not be tied down due to finances.
And travelling is cheap as well, I have a friend who is travelling long term for like $300-600 a month, including all the transportation costs, etc. (The opportunity cost of not working is obviously much higher though.)
But I sure didnt enjoy it very much.
But if you lived on rice and beans in the cheapest place you could find while making a 6 figure salary... Saving a very significant sum every year would be possible.
This is in fact pretty unactionable unless you are planning on boondocking during your career and retirement - at which point - why bother with post secondary education and a white collar job in the first place, just boondock from the getgo.
I mean, I save quite a bit (more than a third after taxes) just because consumerism is annoying. But at the same time getting paid to write code and learn how computers work seems like a pretty sweet gig to me long term. Especially because there's a compounding effect, the more you know the easier it gets to learn new things
And big company bullshit isn't that bad, at least to me. It's a bunch of convenient things to complain about
I too am a saver, and over the past 20+ years we've been suckers. The problem is I grew up as a child when a savings account, essentially a zero-risk asset, paid well over 5% interest. That hasn't been true for a long time, with inflation & taxes grinding away at any marginal gains. I wish I'd financed and leveraged more, not consumption goods but investments. The other problem with being a saver is it's very hard to be one, then flip and be a consumer of your savings. The thing that makes you able to save is also what holds you back from spending. There are a lot of baby boomers who have a lot of assets yet still live very thrifty lifestyles; especially if they grew up blue collar when you could "save yourself rich".
The good news is, this is available to you right now!
The bad news is buying the best assets is hard, just like it was 5, 10, and 20 years ago.
Savings accounts weren't paying 5% for nothing. It's easy to look back at what could have been, but those moments are happening right now, too.
[0] https://xkcd.com/1827/
[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/02/08/for-valen....
White collar jobs used to be rewarding and highly paid but overtime it became a glorified day care for adults with Animal Farm dynamics. It's especially bad in Asian countries with strict social hierarchy.
It's no wonder more and more young men are ditching white collar jobs for blue collar workers.
But for some growing # of females (and even smaller number of men), it seems like they are opting to sell images/videos of themselves engaging sexually arousing or sexually explicit content while also engaging in legitimate white collar work. Again in Asia, this trend is even more rampant especially Japan, 40 years ago you couldn't dream of seeing 18 year olds standing on the streets of Tokyo but now they seem to everywhere.
I'm frightened by the whole thing. If young graduates are heading to workshop instead of office, it means they aren't going to be consuming like they used to. There is no need because there is no need to be seen with the stuff people covet here vs in office/startup environments where the rich/poor gap is not only in your face but for everybody else to judge.
For me, leaving the private sector SaaS world and working for a non-profit was a good decision, because it put me far enough away from some of the cultural bullshit I despised the most. Timelines aren't insane, growth hacking is a term nobody has even heard of, and I no longer feel like the harder I work, the worse the world is for everyone except the investors.
I'm just implying there may be ways to continue to be a SWE and change your situation.
Ditching it for building comes with a bunch of pros and cons. Pros, works interesting, massive demand, jobs last 20+ weeks instead of a few hours/days making it way less effort to chase a dollar. I've got a six pack again after being sedentary for 5 years, my health is the best its ever been and i dont spend a dollar on a gym.
Cons, wage dropped by about 50% until I get licensed. The whole industry in Aus is plagued with bad actors and shit businesses. It's rife with sexism, racism, bullying and just generally horrible people and companies. There are basically bugger all companies offering apprenticeships. The unnecessary hazing onsite is a pita too. Old fellas get grumpy watching IT workers pump jobs it took them 20 years to learn in less than a week. Turns out youtube builders will teach you more tricks than the grumpy old dogs have learnt in their lifetime. Age and experience do not always correlate in a positive fashion.
I still do IT on the side, it helps me fulfill some inner wants and needs (I really like helping folks get the best our of tech).
I would love to try get into building IT infra like datacenters. Mix the two job realms together.
Don't be afraid to make big changes, you got one life, might aswell "send it".
https://amit894.medium.com/ikigai-simplifying-the-intersecti...
The problem with contracting is people often end up locked into a perpetual support role, as IT market saturation drives down earnings.
Could look at a union job, and set yourself up for a soft landing into retirement. There is also the CS dream job of Plumbing... =3
Tried investigating the hacking and stalking and was met with a serious coordinated threat of murder. Was blackmailed to stay silent about the murder threat.
Couldn’t work on code much more.
Went homeless.
Media blackout on the trial (would have been a salacious headline in Hawai’i), perhaps due to my reports of receiving the coordinated murder threat and the status of the social circle who issued it.
Took the NSA’s college level codebreaker challenge and did pretty well. Bad idea. They call them spooks for a reason.
Met a wealthy man here in Haleiwa who gave me side work and pushed various hard drugs on me, so I tried getting away from him. Endured criminal violence, harassment, discrediting and defamation, obstruction of justice from a judge, and more shenanigans.
Tried getting back into coding. Even got a donor laptop from a nice ex Amazon employee here on hn to try to rebuild.
Took another NSA codebreaker challenge while homeless and while dealing with the ongoing violence, harassment and discrediting campaign from the wealthy party with a lawyer. Couldn’t handle it. Laptop gone. Sorry to the ex Amazon guy who donated it. It was a tiny little i5/8GB, enough to participate in the NSA CTF.
Met a guy into data engineering at the coffee shop who gifted me a brand new M2 MBP 24GB. Tried getting back into programming while homeless. Hasn’t worked. Gave it back to him new in box. Was being targeted yet again at the time due to being exposed homeless on a bicycle in public. Couldn’t handle it and can’t deal with the constant lack of dignity due to experiencing long term homelessness and destitution.
Still homeless seven years later and in a far worse predicament. Not very optimistic about my future. Scrapping for food money. I live on a bicycle with two backpacks outdoors on public assistance for food, which helps a bit. Bicycle has irreparably broken down today; trying to find a donor replacement locally so I can make it to my gardening job for food money tomorrow.
It’s bad enough to be ruined with lies while others enjoy lack of accountability. Far worse is to be discredited and met with skepticism about reports of criminal behavior.
Software development has stopped completely for quite a while now. Fighting off the dread of the entrenched, persistent desire to end, mid life. Failed career, non existent, now with a ruined rep and trauma.
Not really seeking help or a break. Just going with the flow until death. Just taking a bit longer than expected to get there.
Trying to get out of here so I’m not the problem any longer. It’s so fucking scary.
But I’m reminded by shrimp_emoji of the burden I’ve become, and I’m still resigned to die. The only way is by my own hand. Still trying. Hopefully it’ll get done so I don’t have to burden anyone with my problems.
Emailed you
My observation and experience in the transformation of society towards ubiqutuous technical surveillance, data hoarding and abuse, narcissism related to unnatural and unhealthy social constructs in the context of a global informational machine with hidden asymmetries and agendas is troubling. I’ve had to bear witness to totally unaccountable data abuse practices by all big tech companies. No accountability for malice. Lawyer-codified protection to cause harm and experiment on people. And total gaslighting and blackout upon any attempt to inquire, coupled with a hubris infused escalation of data abuse targeting, often mocking the victim.
Mocking life trauma events is normalized. And much more.
- Open an independent bookstore in a medium-sized midwestern city's downtown
- Get into the jewelry business (not sure if there was family business experience there);
- Open a coffee shop, this person had someone else manage it (must be nice);
- One past tech PM switched careers to become a traveling nurse and was loving it still ~5 years in;
- Wive's friend moved to montana and opened a dog grooming franchise
Note that virtually all require some money to either invest in opening a new business or re-train yourself in some new profession (college/grad school prob just means loans). Doesn't mean it's true for every option, but worth noting how often that's the case.
You can't really succeed in sales when you're dealing with all the drama you created by being slimy in the first place.
Eventually I realized I had to be as good as possible, and as responsive as possible, so customers would work with me for sure and not accidentally land with a bad salesperson elsewhere.
But drama does and will catch up with you just the same.
The first time I was car shopping, I was appalled at how unresponsive some car salesmen could be.
It was 2003. I was 20 years old, looking to buy something used in the $3-7000 range. I didn't have my heart set on any specific car, I just knew I wanted a 4-door sedan with air conditioning, and that I cared more about fuel economy and reliability than performance. I mean, I was only making $11/hr, and was probably going to be moving out of my parents' within the next year or two, so needed something that wouldn't cost me a ton of money.
I told each dealer that, and most of them took me to cars that met the criteria I was looking for, but one of them started off by showing me a $12,000 Pontiac Sunfire Convertible and started raving about the incredible Alpine stereo heat unit. 2-door, no A/C, and way above my price range. I was like "Uh...no, not at all what I asked for" and re-iterated my criteria, and added that while a nice stereo is nice, I'd also not spend the money on that right now. He then tried to sell me a PT Cruiser, which again was way outside my price range. I said "Thank you for wasting my time" and left.
I have no idea what that guy was thinking. My brother sold cars for a short period of time and said that either he thought "Psh, this guy is 20 years old, he doesn't know what he wants, I'm gonna sell him something he thinks will be a girl magnet", or it's possible, though very unlikely, that they didn't actually have something that fit what I wanted.
The dealer I eventually bought from, after telling him what I was looking for, asked "Manual or automatic?". I said I didn't care, and he showed me two cars that fit my criteria, test drove one of them, and drove it home.
Owned that car for 13 years and 120,000 miles.
Software sales are super high margin, and big money software always requires implementation work. Long-lasting relationships are ultra important. The sales process is much slower and longer, but you get stickier customers at the end of it that keep coming back. Sales people also don't need as many deals to meet their quota...at least at first.
Granted, there are still some, umm, characters, that sell software, but many of them are great people who work hard for their keep.
My only gripe with the industry is sports. I just can't with all that. That said, sales folks totally expect SEs to know nothing about the sportsball; another reason why this gig is awesome!