It's not that uncommon for folks to move into other careers after working as a developer. It can be a demanding job and the pace of change can be hard to keep up with.
While there is plenty of space to keep doing this forever, is anyone here thinking they will move away from this life before typical "retirement" age?
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Yes it is true that the software job is very demanding but it is highly paid job as well.
I am planning to retire early. Retirement as in where I don't have to trade my time and I should be owner of time as well as I should be able to work at my own convenience. Retirement would mean flexibility for me.
Not really. I can see myself quitting hands-on software development but still working with code as a teacher, consultant or in some kind of mid to high management position.
However, if for some miraculous reason I end up stupid rich in the next couple of decades, I'd definitely drop out of web dev and become a full time cook. 😄
I plan on working hard enough, living frugally enough, and save enough so that I can retire early, and start my steampunk coffee shop in a bus. Slinging espresso shots, and traveling around the US... Now that is a goal worth working for in my life
I am absolutely retired of this hacker shit called development... has nothing to do with engineering, complete everything in a hurry to "just work", introduce shitloads of bugs or even exploit them. I am rather into art even if I starve to death.
Exactly. You nailed it. It's frustrating...for so many reasons. Especially when you know that it doesn't have to be this way.
Financially, I hope to work hard to save money and invest (get into real estate, stocks etc) so I'll reach financial freedom someday--at least for the lowest standard I can realistically live on (ie. enough for simple food, shelter, utilities, health care, etc). Formally this could be considered "retirement" I guess?
Then I'll still do dev/programming/coding projects: part professional work, splitting the income to grow my investment and for tertiary needs (vacations, eating out, hobbies, etc); part pro-bono / charities / causes I care about or just plain fun. I genuinely enjoy working in this field, so don't see any reason to stop until I'm really unable to code.
This is exactly the type of life I’m looking for as well. I’m just starting on my programming journey (our of school) and I don’t plan to hit my goals soon (I still want to live) but this is exactly what I’m looking at as long term goals. I love to code and explore ideas without being tied to a single one for every hour of every day like being a cog in the wheel at the large large companies.
Well I guess it depends on what you call a full on early retirement.
As of right now, I have no plans to fully move away from the industry. Now that could mean that maybe later on I move into a different role, where I'm not so hands on creating software. Maybe some teaching roll or something like that.
I love this industry, and the fact that it is always changing is one of the things I enjoy so much.
I try to pile up as much cash as I can. My ultimate goal is to buy a small cottage in the wood, with a good internet connection, 3-4 dogs and my family. I will retire as soon as possible and I'm very lucky to live in a low cost area.
I guess, in a sense I've already done it, since my day to day these days involves very little code (I'm CEO of a growing company we bootstrapped 3 years ago, and spent years before that as a consultant and executive/dev manager).
My goal is and has been kind of actually the reverse of what you might expect for retirement, though. I'm hoping to be able to retire/semi-retire in the next few years to make it so that I don't need to work to pay the bills, and then go back to building software simply for the love of the game, so to speak. I miss making things.
I honestly don't see myself retiring anytime soon... Wanna be active ... But running a software development company , and as CEO i do codes like my employees or even work much more hours than they do... But overtime, I'd look at delving into areas and code a lil
From software? Perhaps. Retiring in general? Nope. That's when you get senile and die. I'll be doing something at least part time until I finally do croak.
No. I love building stuff on a computer since I'm very young, and I never really stopped loving it.
What I would like to do is having enough money to sustain myself and have the time to do whatever I want, aka helping other developers as much as possible.
As you said, it's a demanding job. We need to help each other.