This is a question I’ve been grappling with for a while.
The biggest challenge for me is what a coworker once called the “golden handcuff”, it’s pretty hard to find similar salaries and if one has grown to need a tech salary to keep afloat, well, it would require major life changes to get out of there.
With that said here are a few of the things that I’ve seen
1. Medical Coding (has nothing to do with code as in programming)
This is an interesting one because it seems that one can get in with a few months of training and a $200 certification exam. The initial salary is not horrendous but it can grow quite a bit.
2. Federal jobs (USA based) (usajobs.gov)
I was surprised to find such reasonable salaries for such a big variety of roles! Things like administering programs or approving grants or mathematics statistics for the IRS easily and routinely make it to the 6 figures.
3. Completely different career:
I came across a fascinating masters degree in Coursera which allows me to earn a masters in a field I have no professional experience although I’m quite interested in. There was no requirement for a bachelor’s degree in that field nor the general tedious process of admission to a graduate degree. It simply required that you’d be able to keep up with the course work, like complementing knowledge you don’t have from a bachelor in that area by yourself.
This is certainly a longer term commitment but for me sounds fantastic to get to a place where I could match software salaries without ever looking at a software company again!
> The biggest challenge for me is what a coworker once called the “golden handcuff”
The one silver lining is that this market seems to have broken the golden handcuffs on me. I’m not incredibly driven by money, and would gladly take a job I enjoy for less money, but oddly enough, until recently it was always easier to find money than a job I didn’t hate.
> I came across a fascinating masters degree in Coursera which allows me to earn a masters in a field I have no professional experience although I’m quite interested in. There was no requirement for a bachelor’s degree in that field nor the general tedious process of admission to a graduate degree. It simply required that you’d be able to keep up with the course work, like complementing knowledge you don’t have from a bachelor in that area by yourself. This is certainly a longer term commitment but for me sounds fantastic to get to a place where I could match software salaries without ever looking at a software company again!
I’ve wondered how this would look on a resume. “No I don’t have a bachelors, but I have a Masters in X. Wouldn’t this lead to some always conversations that would confuse and raise suspicion?
I'm on a slightly similar position and woke to a rude awakening when a few people in my company were layoff. Even though I'm not really afraid about my position in that company, that event really prompted me to look deeper into the financials of my company to try to understand why that happened.
I came to the similar conclusion that we see on NASDAQ, growth companies, i.e. dependent on debt, are struggling. But also, they seems to have been dancing all along at the edge of the blade, posting loses quarter over quarter, burning through cash and pilling on debt.
So with that on mind I decided that, not only based on the market, but on my personal concept of a healthy business, I didn't wanted to be part of such company. I have no doubt that the company I work at will get through this but I don't really want to stick around either way. So, I see the rescission more as a shaking and it has showed me things that I wasn't aware of before.
I'm currently talking to a couple of companies and the criteria is established companies that are posting profits, lean towards the "boring" side of "things are working and we just need to keep up" instead of "ready to revolutionize X industry with Y product".
The market for hiring is still really hot judging by the emails from recruiters that I've received over the past few days after my company's layoff came to light (~40-50 in a week) so is not a terrible time to explore options and find some place that you feel comfortable at
The comments in this post [0] where super helpful for me. TLDR; cash is king.
The biggest challenge for me is what a coworker once called the “golden handcuff”, it’s pretty hard to find similar salaries and if one has grown to need a tech salary to keep afloat, well, it would require major life changes to get out of there.
With that said here are a few of the things that I’ve seen
1. Medical Coding (has nothing to do with code as in programming) This is an interesting one because it seems that one can get in with a few months of training and a $200 certification exam. The initial salary is not horrendous but it can grow quite a bit.
2. Federal jobs (USA based) (usajobs.gov) I was surprised to find such reasonable salaries for such a big variety of roles! Things like administering programs or approving grants or mathematics statistics for the IRS easily and routinely make it to the 6 figures.
3. Completely different career:
I came across a fascinating masters degree in Coursera which allows me to earn a masters in a field I have no professional experience although I’m quite interested in. There was no requirement for a bachelor’s degree in that field nor the general tedious process of admission to a graduate degree. It simply required that you’d be able to keep up with the course work, like complementing knowledge you don’t have from a bachelor in that area by yourself. This is certainly a longer term commitment but for me sounds fantastic to get to a place where I could match software salaries without ever looking at a software company again!