How did you transition from tech to teaching?

It was a bunch of factors, some forced.

I had a company I'd co-founded with a friend of mine, and Google would feed us work (in advertising, of course). It was getting old, and then Google terminated the program we were working under. I just couldn't get enthusiastic about searching for more clients in that field, so I floated for a bit.

During that time, I started doing ad-hoc free classes as part of a local meetup. And I networked with people at the local community college and state university. Taught a couple one-off courses as an adjunct (they always want adjuncts).

In the meantime, someone who was working for a startup bootcamp found some of my writing and reached out asking if I wanted to work there. So I joined that as an instructor.

And that worked for a while, but then the school and I began to disagree on the direction the curriculum was taking. And I decided it was time to move on. I resigned the position and floated for a bit.

Then, fortuitously, a 9-month contract (with benefits) instructor position opened up at the state university, and I went for it. And got it! I've been there 4 years now.

As for how I do teaching, I write a lot of tutorials. Hundreds of thousands of words of practice. I try to come up with effective plans, and I reflect on what worked and what didn't. I watch other instructors and copy the good stuff. I read books on instruction. I interview past students. I talk to people in industry.

I like programming because I enjoy optimization problems. And teaching is still an optimization problem. "How do I get students to realize durable learning with minimum instruction?" It's just that now what we're "programming" are squishy, non-deterministic humans. They don't always get it immediately right. :) But I love working on how to be more effective as a teacher. I think about it all day, every day.

Thanks for the great answer and practical steps involved in the transition.

And even more importantly, how do you make a living teaching?

Like the OP, I lived well within my means my whole life, so I'm doing OK overall. Not enough to retire today, but enough to work for less than my capitalistic potential, and I'm happy to trade 3 months off during the summer for not getting paid at this point.

I was also lucky to buy this house near market minimum so my mortgage is low. We buy virtually everything used and rarely spring for expensive fun stuff (except travel). My car is 27 years old (purchased new), gets 37 MPG, and I do routine maintenance myself. I commute on a $200 bicycle.

And I'm lucky to be GenX so I was able to navigate a relative sane economy during the majority of my work years, and my college was 5x cheaper than it is now (inflation adjusted). (When I tell my students my junior college charged $6/unit when I went there, their brains simply reject that information out of hand.)

Also, CS instructors can often command a higher salary since they're looking at a MASSIVE paycut to move out of industry into a college salary scale. And it was really hard to recruit near the COVID peak when I was hired. So I get paid pretty well for an instructor, probably 45% of what I could earn in industry. :) Part of that is made up for with a pension, good health insurance, and unpaid summers off. (That's actually a double-edged sword. Your entire time-off schedule is set from above every year with zero flexibility. I accrue zero days of PTO annually.)

Working for private schools pays more, but the salad days of the online school are behind us, currently.

What does it even mean to say you want to build something but you don’t know what it is?

Building is fun, but deciding what to build can be difficult. "Maker ennui."

I think it depends what they’re hoping to get out of it.

Imagine being able to afford a Ferrari and then buying the one that looks like a fancy Prius

It’s kind of surprising that diamonds still have appeal as jewelry at all given the rise of lab-grown. I always assumed that people liked them because they were rare and expensive.

Expensive because they were perceived as rare. Classic article: https://priceonomics.com/diamonds-are-bullshit/

Synthetic has pretty much eaten their lunch now.

People liked them because they’re colorless, sparkly, and hard.

AlphaFold has a shared technical ancestry with LLMs and many people believe that was a truly significant advancement of science that may lead to benefits for humanity and the planet. I don't think this was a one-off fluke, strongly generalizing pattern matchers will be useful in many areas of science even if LLMs turn out to be overblown.

“Comparison is the thief of joy.”

Do the math because you enjoy doing the math and if you do it long enough you may well do something of value to someone else. Same goes for most intellectual and artistic pursuits I think.

I’ve learned for myself that as soon as enjoyment is based on some future achievement or ranking my work against others the day to day satisfaction dries up.

and so how exactly are you supposed to provide for your family in this scenario?

By having a job. If that job is the same as your intellectual/artistic pursuit then you have to balance the needs of satisfying your employer and what keeps your motivation going over the long term. All I’m saying is that worrying too much about future achievement or “great contributions” are a recipe for burnout and disappointment.

Could work in a patent office or something.

I’ve been gradually reading prior Pulitzer winners for fiction and I have to say I haven’t hit a bad one yet. Maybe I’ll try and read this years before it’s several decades old.

every once in awhile I'm reading a Pulitzer winner (esp. fiction) and at the beginning I'm thinking "how did this win that year?" and then by the end of the book I think "wow, I've never read anything like this before"

Same – if you've not yet red Confederacy of Dunces it's as applicable as ever.

The bedsheet protest scene is embarassingly relatable and ... I think my pyloric is aching up again.

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I've only ever started one Pulitzer (non-fiction) that absolutely could not be finished: The Killer Angels (although it was recommended to me by a former soldier who loved it).

i used to read all booker prize nominations and winners. Those were the only fiction i would read.

I feel like all the oganizations have some of directive now to pick social justice theme books. I have no problem with it but i dont want to read books picked with a specific agenda.

> Drama > Liberation, by Bess Wohl explores the legacy of the consciousness-raising feminist groups of the 1970s

To be honest, I don't think I've ever found Booker Prize Winners that satisfying, for exactly the same reason you put your finger on. Pulitzer's however...!

I did the same a while ago and completely agree! They're always so good even if it's not necessarily my cup of tea

> the actual engineering

I was with you until the last three words. Craftsmanship in writing code is also “actual engineering”, it’s just not the engineering that people will pay a human to do now.

Retire earlier?