I worked nonstop for the past 20 years in tech / design space, and wanted a break. I also wanted to spend some time with family.
I'll take at least 6 months off.
But then I'd need to look for a job, but I really don't like the idea of going back to doing the same thing... i.e. web/app design/dev work for larger corporations.
So I'm open to doing something completely different, even if it pays 1/3rd.
Has anyone here made successful transition to field outside technology?
Any advice in general would be appreciated.
I teach computer science and programming. This is a good field to go into, because (a) it applies my knowledge acquired from my earlier life as a developer, and (b) is always in demand. If you want to teach this, you will have no trouble getting a job at a high school, community college, or university.
I would also argue it's not, strictly speaking, a technology job. Teaching is a people-oriented job, regardless of the subject.
Working at a place like this is totally doable, so many bakeries and cafes are desperate for workers that are more competent than high school kids. The work is busy and technical but much lower stress than resolving on-call incidents.
My wife has taught at the high school and community college levels for almost 15 years. Given ten years of her stories and experience (that's how long we've been together; DAMN TIME FLIES!), this is what I have to add:
1. Spend time at /r/professors and /r/teachers in Reddit. Read their stories. Ask questions. Warning: those subs are overwhelmingly negative for a reason.
2. I wouldn't recommend teaching CS at the high school level unless you have complete (and I mean COMPLETE) control over your schedule and curriculum and REALLY REALLY REALLY love teaching growing children. Because most school districts don't offer the former since they teach to national standards, the latter is much more important here.
3. Regardless of the level that you teach at, you'll essentially be casting a huge net hoping to catch a handful of fish. Lots of people only go to school because they have to. They don't care about learning and will suck up a LOT of your time, energy and patience. The only teachers/instructors/professors that universally get lots of love from students are the ones that give easy A's, which given the way that education as a whole is going, might not be a bad idea, unfortunately. (Much more profit-driven, even at the comm college level.)
This is less likely to happen if you teach upper-level courses, like CS2xx or 3xx courses. The students taking them are much more invested and want guidance. At community college, those students are almost-certainly trying to get into a four-year and want to improve their chances of a transfer. They'll be more receptive of your content, and you'll feel more fulfilled teaching it.
4. You probably won't be teaching CS2xx or 3xx levels.
At many schools, there are three rank levels: adjunct, staff, and full-time. Adjuncts are basically 1099s (contractors for the non-US folks) that get paid peanuts with no hope for career progression. Unlike tech, staff is essentially adjunct++. they take the schedules full-time faculty don't want, work as hard if not harder than them, and get paid less to much less for all that trouble. full-time faculty is where you want to be. you make your own schedule, get all of the time off, and get paid the best (though it's still peanuts relative to tech).
Academia is insanely gatekeeper-y about full-time faculty positions. Four-year colleges require Ph.Ds for those roles, no exceptions. Most large comm college networks do as well. Some smaller comm colleges are fine with just a Masters or Bachelors in a related course of study. As far as I understand it, colleges are often fine with hiring staff-level professors with industry experience alone, but you probably won't ever become full-time and will probably not have control over your schedule, courses, and students.
Also, most colleges relegate the upper-level stuff to full-time faculty only.
TL;DR: Do a LOT of research and ask lots of questions before becoming a teacher or instructor. Way more work than people think. Also, sub to /r/professor and /r/teachers on Reddit.
In British academia it is not impossible to get a lecturer position (equivalent to US assistant professor) without a PhD.
Simon Peyton Jones, who is famous for his Haskell / GHC work, got one and progressed all the way to full professor.
The OP might want to consider this. If one aims at CS positions that are mostly / fully devoted to teaching in not-so-prominent universities, it's totally doable. There is a shortage of good programming teachers because of the big pay gap compared to industry.
A lecturer will get ~£40-50,000 gross, whereas a good programming job in London will be more than 2x that figure. However, if you land a lectureship somewhere cheap, in practice the paygap won't be so dramatic.
If you've been working for 20 years nonstop, the idea of a break or not knowing what to do is probably utterly alien to you. Take some time to get comfortable with it.
In case my personal experience helps: I worked for a startup for a few years and it was an awful experience, I was totally burned out. I did some interviews immediately after because "I need a job" and it was a terrible experience for both me and my interviewers because I was resentful of everything and everyone. I ended up taking a few months off and realized that I still enjoyed technology, just not the startup and agency environments I'd been in. My career ever since has been focused on non-profit open source projects and it's been great.
I also live in a low cost of living area (small town Ohio) but work remotely, so that helps.
As such, helping worthy causes with their technology problems can be hugely rewarding.
Get a 4-day, too
* technical writing
* QA
* office manager (Put everything into a ticketing system with reminder alerts. Don't give anyone else access. Nearly everything an office manager does is a ticket with a deadline and a series of subtasks. The difference between an excellent office manager and a terrible one is their attention to detail. Outsource that to a computer.)
* Logistics/shipping management. (Everything I said about office manager, but with more phone calls.)
Often these roles are far less stressful
What did you have in mind specifically? I can’t think of anything myself that doesn’t seem just as or more stressful and with less flexibility.
Project Management can be fun if you are organised, Programme Manager if you want it to be a more senior role
Business Analyst can be great - and can get pretty senior.
In some companies the step out of programming and into architecture can be a very different pace, but all companies will vary. In my current company it seems full on but at the last it seemed a great role.
Strategy is really important and loads of people and companies do it poorly - great opportunities to do it well! Can be a lot of board papers and socialisation of ideas, but the pace will be very different, and while there can be some stress, will not be consistent.
Obviously ymmv - find a good company that you like and things will be a lot easier. Important jobs don't have to be high stress.
The stress turned out to be higher than a 9-5 job though, so think twice :)
[0] https://handmade-seattle.com
She now writes the customer-visible bug-fixed notes for a very large, very technical software product (with minor releases on the order of every 4 weeks, and major releases annually). A good bug takes 5-10 minutes to write up in an appropriate, customer-friendly, legally and security-appropriate way.
A bad bug might take hours of tracking down engineers who did the work, claimed they did the work, mis-tagged the bug entry, improperly closed the bug, improperly left the bug open, improperly merged the bug...
But at the end of the day, she isn't responsible for fixing the bug, just documenting it properly. The workday is essentially 9-5. And there's always another bug.
But I know a few co-workers did well opening up a pizza shop :). That was many years ago. In anycase, owing a business will even eat more time than working in tech.
Going for CFP certification in financial planning could improve one's chances, but the training will take some time & isn't free.
There's a lot of demand for good financial planners, but not sure about real estate sales now that interest rates are on the rise.
When I was a teenager, 25 years ago, I used to CNC my own bike parts and also worked as a local bike mechanic. I've only accumulated a lot more fabrication, software, and business experience since then.
Though of course I'd vastly prefer this particular industry transition to happen on the tails of https://www.auxon.io being wildly successful than not.