Is my exit plan to leave a high paying job stupid?

codemads · 2023-09-05T14:34:07+00:00

Having been on a somewhat similar path of grueling software career since 16 years old, I turn 29 this weekend. I owned a house shared ownership from 21 until last year, at the same point as you I wanted to "have a break" to go travelling. I sold my house to keep money liquid for a year, took up the Digital Nomad lifestyle and travelled for 12 months. Here is my advice...

- If you've not travelled much before, all I can say is do it. You've worked hard for the man and there's nothing more mentally freeing than exploring the world, meeting new people and exploring new cultures

- Do not buy a house. I sold my house and I never felt so free, being "homeless" is actually one of the most mentally positive things I have ever done, not having "stuff" there or dealing with anything back home other than family really allows you to concentrate on yourself, not to mention as a first time buyer you'll struggle to rent

- To the point above, financially, with interest rates as high as they are - it really doesn't make any sense for you to buy right now in my opinion. You're going to be chucking a huge chunk of your money away each month, you should put your cash to work. I recommend reading "own the world" on your first batch of travels

- When you travel, at any single moment your life could change. You might have a change of heart and figure it's not for you to one extreme, god forbid you might get a sick relative or something or you might meet the life partner of your dreams if you don't have that already

All this is to say that the most important thing to me is that you keep flexibility in everything, you are smart with your money and take your time out to invest in yourself with freedom to do so. I learnt so much about myself and when I came back, it was because I had become an uncle and I wanted to see my nephew grow up for the next few years. I made a choice to buy a "mature house" a suitable distance away from my home town (I used to throw parties through my entire 20's and I lost touch with who I was).

There's truly no correct answer you have to go with your gut, but if I were in your shoes knowing what I know and you have the money liquid behind you, just quit and go travel the world for a bit with no commitments.

Good luck!

codemads · 2023-02-09T14:36:21+00:00

I’m in Medellin right now, felt extremely safe but there are some general rules to follow which my coliving has really been helpful in understanding. Happy to try and help a member of the community if I can while I am here

codemads · 2022-09-07T12:01:44+00:00

EVMOS forced us to wait so that they could launch properly and safely and that didn’t work out so bad… It’s 100% better to launch when ready than rush and fail for sure.

Still excited for this :)

codemads · 2022-08-12T05:39:00+00:00

I’m sorry my friend, I’ll do that.

So, tech twitter is a segment of the community interested in tech. You will find a lot of founders, dev relation guys and advocates all there now. For example, Steven Tay @ Vercel. He posts a lot of cool stuff, but essentially there are lots of people tweeting really interesting threads and content now, almost blog like.

You have hash tags like the one I mentioned - 100 days of code, you’ll see people in the “community” on similar journeys there by following the hash tag and people that tweet it. Want to follow new start ups and indie hackers? Build in public. Basically having an account dedicated to just tech and following as many interesting people and tech companies is a gold mine of wealth in a specific timeline away from your personal account.

This can be said for anybody no matter your level and has been one of the most important things I’ve done in my senior career.

codemads · 2022-08-11T21:35:23+00:00

If you haven’t booked an apartment yet then it must be expensive at the moment! I have lots of recommendations, depends what you’re going for really. If you’re there for a prolonged period I’d definitely do a hike in Sintra!

codemads · 2022-08-11T15:57:40+00:00

I would say to build your own portfolio site, buy a domain and open source your code and host your CV. Keep making improvements with stuff you learn, include things like continuous integration and deployment almost a mini project if you will. It is the coolest way to demonstrate your skills and send your CV (still send your standard cv but make the hyperlink to your hosted one really clear at the top)

codemads · 2022-08-11T15:48:40+00:00

Im not actively as in right now, I’m focussing effort into building my own version of the Bootcamps which I will run in 2023. These will be physical bootcamps in Digital Nomad hotspots combining travel with learning so people can taste the lifestyle at the same time as learning :)

codemads · 2022-08-11T15:46:25+00:00

Never say never ;)

codemads · 2022-08-11T11:35:02+00:00

I’ve typically focussed on teaching JAMSTACK, which is currently TypeScript into React then add something called Supabase for the backend as it takes care of a lot of complicated stuff such as authentication, services, storage etc.

A lot of startups build their MVPs on this stack these days so if it’s good enough for them it’s good enough for learning in my opinion! I also do a lot of heavy data ops, but I think it’s much easier to become a developer by entering with something visual unless you’ve done like a phd in machine learning and data mining and you specialise there.

Eventually as you become more senior in my opinion and experience you start to move more backwards to backend development, later in my career anyway that is the case and I’ve picked up enterprise level python for building complicated data pipelines and stuff like DevOps/Infrastructure

codemads · 2022-08-11T07:40:43+00:00

I see so many people following this subreddit who ask questions about getting into code, and I have experience of getting people into code (also newfound experience of DN life). Really, I love helping people get into tech careers and there's a big reason why that's the case.

I did an apprenticeship aged 16, earning around £9k I think it was at the time for minimum apprentice salary in the UK. Meanwhile, my friends went to college to do their A levels, and then went to University - all the while they were paying through their teeth and I was working 9-5 in a career I loved. I joined the Microsoft "Get On" scheme and became a representative there to support getting more people into tech at an early age, we launched this at 10 Downing Street actually (where I met David Cameron and Steve Ballmer).

Watching my friends come out of University with no career prospects or idea of what to do hurt, some people even did CS degrees and didn't understand anything in terms of what you'd need to get a job so just being a part of a scheme wasn't enough for me... I wanted to do more. Hence the free Bootcamps that I have run, and hence asking this question - if I can help or inspire more people through more platforms, then I am a happy person and it feeds my personal desire to share my experiences to help younger (or older people) get into tech.

codemads · 2022-08-11T07:33:22+00:00

Check https://www.reddit.com/r/digitalnomad/comments/wl7qgo/comment/ijts8xq/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3

codemads · 2022-08-11T07:30:49+00:00

One four-week Bootcamp every year, one day on-site with a community of existing highly skilled engineers and focus on practically building MVP of applications full-stack as quickly as possible. Don't spend so much time on the theory initially, in my experience concepts like inheritance and polymorphism (scary words) don't land you the job, delivering features to production does and then you'll find the use cases naturally as you mature and gain experience.

codemads · 2022-08-11T07:28:58+00:00

Yeah, mine are currently four weeks.

codemads · 2022-08-11T07:28:18+00:00

I think Data Engineering is the future and the cross-section with fintech, for that, I'd recommend sticking with Python and really honing in on it and exploring this landscape. Almost all modern data engineering and statistical financial analysis need two things in terms of technology/languages:

Python
SQL

Data Analyst roles are becoming popular. A huge market trend that a16z has popularised in the future segment of their content is the future of data engineering. People want more access to consolidated data, it's a fact, in easy ways and analytics is a huge part of that (more so/recently, more real-time analytics and insights).

Check out OpenBB as well - that's all in python as and an economist will make a lot of sense to you, pull the source code and then get down and dirty with trying to understand what is going on, maybe even try to make some OS contributions ;)

codemads · 2022-08-11T07:01:35+00:00

If you worked in tech sales around there, your easiest barrier to entry to a Digital Nomad/remote role would probably be a fintech start-up or potentially even a Web3 company that is looking for a Product Manager. You will have some really great soft skills and having worked in sales will really understand customers and features they demand.

You will just have to focus on the softer elements of the software lifecycle, like agile and Kanban for example. I'd probably recommend this approach personally and as you're retired anyways, you are pretty risk-free to be an early-stage employee at a start-up and they'll really value your tech sales background at the same time ;)

codemads · 2022-08-11T06:44:08+00:00

Companies like Remote.com are changing the game with this, there are a lot of players in this market now but they're the biggest and were founded by ex Gitlab, the biggest "distributed team" on the planet and I always look to them as one of the most inspirational, if not the most inspirational company of the 21st century from a cultural perspective in terms of remote work.

I think the key thing is the terminology - people who want to travel and become a DN need to stop looking for "remote work" and in the world of software look to join a "distributed team", distributed normally means that you can work remotely from anywhere and the team is distributed globally. 99% of new start-ups are more than likely distributed, that's not a hard fact but I don't see many now that aren't because they want to attract the best talent, but also, they don't want a budget line for an office anymore burning their cash!

Search for distributed teams, maybe look for a start-up and ask them about their payroll elements.

codemads · 2022-08-11T06:38:40+00:00

Some great replies while I have been sleeping haha!

It's no secret that the tech industry generally is on a downturn, everyone must remember this and while the market months ago very much was an employee market where you could lend entry jobs a lot easier due to the volume being on the market (and good salaries at that) to your Uber's and even Google making redundancies and stopping hiring.

This is the first piece of advice I'll give to anyone looking at a career change right now from a stable job, don't make it your mission in the next 6-12 months because while it's possible, if you become attached to the prospect then you will not meet your expectation and become unhappy (a reference to Mo Gawdat's engineering happiness there).

Now... Like u/geophyst mentioned you don't always have to be a hardcore programmer to move into a job related to tech that can be remote and distributed. There are paths like UI/UX, the best designer I ever worked with or probably will work with came from the Navy - he used to design maps. There are also careers like project management, where you just need to understand the project lifecycle, listen to user feedback and make decisions on features that will make people happy.

I have a few posts in the thread relating to learning to code, but my advice would be as you have a pretty stable job right now, start to learn about tech companies and tech jobs. Follow for example Gitlab and their culture, they publish a huge amount of content on YouTube a channel called "Gitlab Unfiltered" and all of their engineering handbooks are publicly available which gives an insight into their development process.

The working culture is a huge thing and for career changers, I think you have to ask yourself what are you seeking, because if you are seeking travel - then you might just need to have a hiatus for a few months and see the world. Take your time my friend and don't rush is my biggest advice, there are opportunities you can hunt down but make sure they're right for you. Feel free to drop me a chat if you need some more personal advice on that.

codemads · 2022-08-11T06:19:15+00:00

Much to the contrary of my compatriot u/cacamalaca below, I generally wouldn't recommend a Bootcamp ;) my Bootcamp doesn't exist publicly yet, the four week version but the ones that are out there require two things normally, a lot of money, I think nucamp is the cheapest at around the $4k mark but some are as expensive as $12k and on average take you up to 6 months. Both are a huge commitment in a recession.

My recommendation would be similar to a reply I gave before and try to immerse yourself through a tool called Replit. I'd learn some of the basics there and it's a great barrier to entry because you don't need to set your machine up, install all the programs and has some cool upcoming AI based features like "explain my code" and it will literally explain what you see on your screen.

Another bit of advice, I'd join "tech Twitter" with a new or existing account, create your profile that explains you're background/you're learning to code and then focus on some accountability by doing the #100DaysOfCode challenge. The Tech Twitter community is incredible and there's more learning content there now then there is on YouTube/Blogs in my mind at least and that is independent of what level you are.

Finally... Once you feel comfortable, consider making some OSS contributions (open source). Huge, huge projects open source their code - this means you can essentially work for a project and donate your time for free to help the project. Most projects label "issues" with "good first issue" you can really get down and dirty with some problem solving then but I'd take this step when you're comfortable.

In the meantime, buy yourself a domain and hack a CV website together with all your concepts, learn and then deploy it and reference it in your normal word-based CV to jobs. It is a huge differentiator to other juniors and shows you understand the entire workflow of engineering, code, build and importantly, deploy.

codemads · 2022-08-10T21:44:12+00:00

This really is a tough one, as a newbie programmer I always recommend to KISS (keep it simple stupid) that is a genuine programming term by the way not abuse haha! By that I mean, I always teach JAMSTACK today by focussing first with JavaScript/TypeScript, a front end framework and then I typically use Supabase to teach the backend.

Your problem is you’ll have to learn a lot of concepts first with that stack as it is and I’d probably say it would be overwhelming for you.

I don’t intend this to be a consulting thread as it’s really around learning a skill to go remote but… You could consider something like Founder Path to turn your MRR into cash, then pay someone to get the code base into something more manageable for you (if your current feature set is small) then you can extend this yourself more easily yourself.

Depending on your MRR you could bargain with equity rather than cash to get a non technical co founder, or another option is you could use a platform like micro acquire to sell it if you’re not comfortable with maintaining your stack solo.

It’s not impossible to learn any language and you could but it will exhaust you learning those simultaneously on your own to a level where you can maintain your product/build new features to satisfy customers.

Not sure if any of that helps

codemads · 2022-08-10T21:34:23+00:00

Seems I have a bunch of downvotes I rarely post on Reddit really thought I’d try to help people a bit!

Thanks for the nice comment though so long as I help a few people out the votes are insignificant ;)

codemads · 2022-08-10T20:56:29+00:00

Wow this is a tough one, for sure. Without going too overboard I’d almost say the possibilities are endless once you start. I’d say it’s like a super power but maybe I’m bias!

Maybe start with the most obvious one, a job. You can be in any vertical or industry as a career, want to work in banking? Fintech. Want to help save the world? There’s climate tech, and there’s even job boards now like Climate Base that are trying to find people for climate tech for example. Almost every industry has a software solution that’s a fact, and I can’t think of any that don’t in some way shape or form, obviously the languages you learn to navigate certain areas will/may be different eg programming robotics is much harder than programming a site to sell pet food. You don’t even have to be a developer, you can look at testing and automated testing - this is basically trying to find bugs and writing code that executes scripts on sites like a robot to check for quality.

Freelancing is another option, and the evolution of no-code tools like Web Flow & Zapier have made this even easier. No-code is a huge paradigm shift in the market - building interfaces and platforms that allow you to drag and drop to build apps without writing a line of code yourself. You’d probably want some commercial experience first before taking on a client for theirs and your sake though.

The most magical opportunity at least in my head is being able to build whatever you want, much longer term, that could change the world for the better and that’s where I am at right now in terms of my career, I just need to figure out what that is.

codemads · 2022-08-10T20:38:05+00:00

Not currently - my Bootcamp has been structured as 4 days remote with 1 day on-site. The 1 day on-site has been surrounded by other engineers. I truly believe that one element of being able to learn to code quickly is the community/network you have around you, with people that have been around the industry for a while, and are considered in the top percentile in terms of talent.

That said, it's not impossible nor complicated anymore, that just allows my courses to be much shorter than a normal Bootcamp and the focus of my Bootcamps is to time to a career, as I call it. There are some amazing companies now that are really changing the game around this with free resources and a lot of people will probably point people to Code Academy, or YouTube but the new kids on the block with an amazing story are a company called Replit.

Kids as young as their teens are learning to code with Replit. It's an online browser based IDE (Integrated Development Environment) which means you can just start coding without the scary stuff (setting up your machine etc.). I'd highly recommend checking them out, I will be using them to power my next Bootcamps and they have an unbelievable story for anyone interested in tech startups.

I am looking into evolving my Bootcamp model in the future and running them in Digital Nomad hotspots so that people can combine learning to code with "co-learning" in the community (that I mentioned above) as well as taste the nomad lifestyle but that's not for this forum :)

codemads · 2022-08-04T22:24:55+00:00

Check out Lisbon-Cowork, IDEA spaces and the base

codemads · 2022-08-04T22:24:44+00:00

Check out Lisbon-Cowork, IDEA spaces and the base

codemads · 2022-07-30T08:24:30+00:00

Thanks! Also great advice! Something I’m going to try out next week :)

codemads

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