This is the sixth bimonthly 'What are you working On?' thread. Previous threads are here. So here's the question:
What are you working on?
Here are some guidelines:
- Focus on projects that you have recently made progress on, not projects that you're thinking about doing but haven't started.
- Why this project and not others? Mention reasons why you're doing the project and/or why others should contribute to your project (if applicable).
- Talk about your goals for the project.
- Any kind of project is fair game: personal improvement, research project, art project, whatever.
- Link to your work if it's linkable.
I am interested in why you think transitioning to a career as a software developer is going to improve your life. I fear you may be a victim of the "grass is greener" bias.
I think programming is great, but I'm not sure I'd choose it as a profession if given the choice to do over again. And I definitely wouldn't transition into it from another career path. I think most programmers are undercompensated relative to their talents (this is especially true if you adopt a definition of compensation that includes more than just money). Note that society considers it entirely reasonable to import large numbers of foreigners to fill the supposed "shortage" of IT professionals, thus undercutting the market value of native-born Americans.
Perhaps it would be a good exercise to write up your reasons for making the switch and post it to LW. Often when one begins to write about an idea, one realizes that the idea involves problematic assumptions and arguments that seem good in far mode but fall apart upon concrete inspection. This would also give you some feedback from the community, which obviously includes many veteran programmers.
There are a lot of reasons, which I have been discussing on and off throughout my time on LW, and would take a while to compile and articulate. But on the matter of whether this is a "grass is greener" bias: I've been in aerospace engineering for almost seven years now, and the high point of any day for me is programming, on or off the job. I have very extensively seen the grass both on this side of the fence and the other, and I definitely do not want to be doing this for another ten years, even counting the status uplift I seem to get on tell... (read more)