Ask HN: Would love a physical job, any ideas?
in your experience programming, how much of that has been solopreneuring versus working for an organization in an office?<p>entrepreneurship can be energizing and empowering and liberating and all those great things, but it can also be isolating. there are certainly downsides when it comes to working for another company, but a few upsides too:<p>- more social by default -- especially if you&#x27;re actually in an office<p>- easier to casually experiment with moderate changes to job focus, e.g. &quot;hey manager i&#x27;ve been doing heads-down engineering a while and i&#x27;d like to transition into product management&quot;<p>- secure, compartmentalized base: $5k&#x2F;mo without much input is killer, but it&#x27;s not enough to obviate financial concerns (especially in southern california). you could easily be making more than double that on salary, and with that kind of base it&#x27;s much easier to finance even fairly expensive social and physical activities in your off time (which could include volunteer firefighting, tutoring, a couple shifts waiting tables on weekends, etc)<p>being a fisherman would be awesome, but is it conservatively worth seven figures over the next two decades? for some, yes. for you?<p>if you&#x27;re simply not going to be happy&#x2F;fulfilled&#x2F;&lt;insert personal success metric here&gt; doing work that leverages your current skillset, you probably have to find work that does. but your current skillset is quite high value, you&#x27;re young, and compound interest is no joke. i would make a serious effort towards finding a compromise between current earnings and social&#x2F;physical outlets before throwing the baby out with the bathwater and becoming a mechanic.<p>that said, spending a few months bartending on a tropical island somewhere might help you figure it out either way.