The "eventually" part is a nod towards retirement and then joking not having a choice.
huh? TIL.
Most devs I know live in condos and have no chance of having a place to do woodworking.
Maybe it's a regional thing.
It intersects well with 3d printing and CNC stuff.
(mmmm 1910 manual on steel production.)
It's a copy of this: https://www.forgottenbooks.com/en/books/CompositionandHeatTr...
Mine is a dark red hardback, printed by McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1911.
I mean, I have a collection of very old engineering books, including one on Petroleum Refinery Engineering and a Reinforced Concrete Design Handbook printed when text books where $2. But I had no idea this was a "thing" among developers.
So, very very anecdotally: yep it's a thing.
Turned out I was just getting burned out from the feature factory work I was doing. I took a little break and did some fun hobby projects, and I instantly fell in love with programming again. I think making a programming career sustainable requires that we do work we actually enjoy.
A few decades later, I know what I do and don't want in a workplace. For me that means: No corporate gigs, no java, no barnacle coworkers and no jira. Yes to smart coworkers, projects I care about, technically interesting work, small teams, and a culture of responsibility taking and ownership.
In the back of my mind, I think of flipping houses as something to do if I ever get laid off from my tech job. I look at places coming up for sale on Zillow that were obvious flips and they all look like the parts all came straight out of Ikea / HomeDepot (and usually the most ugly stuff to choose from).
Your best bet is fixers - houses with obvious major issues that everyone is scared of but you know you can fix reasonably cheaply. This can mean buying a $500k house with major foundation damage for $100k because everyone is scared - but you know a whole foundation replacement will only run you $200k.
And it is not like you can find such disasters easily, nor that you can easily be able to make them into fixers, without years of previous experience.
The whole approach, "everyone is scared but you know ..." is based on the assumption that you know more than anyone else (possibly including many people dealing with this kind of stuff for decades), I doubt that anyone can learn what is needed in this field overnight, by reading a book, and should it be possible, everyone woild do it, not just you.
Anything that "anyone can do" is going to explode at some point.
keep assets instead of cash and you'll be a genius
The "somewhat specialized" knowledge can be explicited as four main things:
1) years (and I mean years) of experience in the field (to be able to quickly assess the non-evident potentialities of a building)
2) knowing a few good, tested, reliable technicians such as architects/engineers (to be able to get a valid project leveraging on these potentialities)
3) knowing (more than) a few good tested, reliable, capable firms (masons/carpenters/plumbers/electricians/painters/etc.) to actually execute the restoration
4) time to be dedicated to managing the project
If you think that - even if you actually happen to find a "gem" - that you can make money hiring people you find on the internet or on the yellow pages, or that the people involved will manage to do a good work at a fair price by themselves, you won't go very far.
The problem I see is that you need to find the fixer gem, but location matters. Certainly, you can buy a fixer in the middle of Ohio, but who wants to live there? There is just too much surrounding inventory with low desirability.
The thing that works in my eyes is to buy in areas that are extremely desirable, even pay a bit more for it, but very low inventory. That's where the insane appreciation comes in. Popular beach towns are a good example because they are land locked and can also be turned into short term rental properties relatively easy, which increases their perceived value.
It isn't easy to find such places and often requires paying in cash, but it is possible.
Millions of people. It's the seventh largest state in the USA, is home to three major cities and many large multinational companies.
The millions of people who live there, already live there. That doesn't increase demand. It is a large state, so there is plenty of space to build. Density is centered around three locations and the largeness of the state means that people can expand out to the suburbs.
What you want is somewhere with a high density, inability to add more property and desirable for vacations (like a beach with views). San Francisco was kind of a good example of this for a very long time, until it wasn't. There are other cities on coastlines that fit this model though.
Buy a condo that has dual use (STR), refurb it, flip it.
If so, please keep in mind that interviewers at big tech generally have to follow the HR script for interviewing. I have very little leeway as an interviewer in how to conduct the interview. I can select from a narrow group of problems, and I ask each candidate a couple of “soft skills” questions to gauge their level of experience, but the bulk of the interview still relies on their performance on the technical assessment.
Has your network been helpful?
- Wrote feature that saved the company X hours each time they do this process.
- Wrote feature that served X00,000 customers over the span of Y months.
- Managed X number of people on this project.
Instead of:
- Was responsible for making this software.
- I built this a website with a database.
- I had X, Y, and Z responsibilities at this company.
- I used X, Y, and Z technologies on this project.
Focus on bullets that show real numbers in metrics that companies care about (saving time, money, gaining customers, number of reports), wherever possible.
The others can be useful too, but shouldn't be what you highlight (list of tech doesn't hurt for hitting buzzwords, though).
After the program I worked in the industry for a while. When you are starting in carpentry it's a lot of grunt work. People won't care if you have any training. After a full day of vacuuming drywall dust I had enough. Quit and landed a programming job.
I still think it was a valuable experience. It shows you value of hard work. If there is time to lean there is time to clean is a very real thing. I was in the best shape of my life. I now have the skills to do most of my own Renos.
You are obviously an intelligent person who is entertaining some unhealthy thoughts. Many people have felt the way you feel-- it happens. But you need to seek therapy or the council of someone you trust to put your problems in perspective. Your life is precious even if it doesn't feel that way right now.
Do share what's up, though. Unhappiness isn't that uncommon. I am not very happy and have been oscillating between "I should quit first thing tomorrow" and "but I have to do the grind while I still can"
It is precisely due to my varied experience that I can point this out: the vast majority of startups and tech is dust in the wind.
If ephemeral codebases bother you, work on projects that will last longer. Things I expect will outlive us: Chrome, PostgreSQL, SQLite, LLVM, Linux/Windows/MacOS, Unity, Nodejs, Nginx.
I have a few small contributions in chromium and nodejs. There's something really delightful about looking at a strangers' laptop and knowing some of my code is in their machine.
FWIW, I found my last two jobs through third party recruiters, and still count them as friends. It's an industry with an oddly-poor reputation, but there are some real gems of people to be found in it.