Career change with huge financial downside?
Over the past couple years I’ve been really interested in a certain field (can’t say because it’ll dox me) that is not very adjacent to “tech”. My gut tells me I should just give up my SWE career and jump in because life is too short blah blah blah. Words cannot describe how much I want to work in this field. But logically this is a terrible decision: - I need to take some undergrad courses, get an MA (2yrs, expensive), and then a PhD (5yrs minimum, low/no earnings) - The starting salaries for a PhD grad is like 1/3rd of what I’m getting paid now - I don’t have a safety net. My parents are low-income. - I hope to have kids at some point w my wife I’ve considered working as a SWE in the specific industry, but it’s really not what I want to do (it’s like being a social media manager at NASA when you want to make the rockets). I’ve taught myself a fair amount of the basics but I’ve reached the point where I need a professor or some sort of mentor and a physical space. What should I do?
Do you literally nwant to build rockets with SWE background?
No, that was just an example
So you want to be a quant
Definitely not, it has nothing to do with math, computer science, etc., and quant salaries are very high whereas even director salaries in this field are like new grad SWE level
Post your TC for starters.
$250k
We don't always do things logically. Talk to your spouse because you all will share the burden. Safety net is not your parents, it's you. Do you have enough savings if things don't work out? Like you said, life is short. Personally, I don't want regrets on my death bed and everyone changed careers all the time. We just need to prepare for it.
Wagie