Considering a career change

[CardinalFJ60]

Im certified change management guy. If ya wanna get weird and dig in, I’d be down for wheeling and radio/campfire talk.

I’ve also struggled with, “what do I wanna be when grow up” kinda thing. I changed my career about every 7-10 years until I figured out what loved to do. Failed aahhhhh ton!! Then burned myself out in the corporate world.

Here’s the best advice anyone ever gave me, and it changed my life. “Figure out what you lose yourself in, love to do, energizes you. Do that”

It went down just like this on a bus ride commute to Denver sitting next to the CEO(coolest smartest awesomely awesome dude) chatting on the way to work. Somewhat shortened.

BOSS: “hey Shawn, I’m gonna try a new thing at ReadyTalk (super cool startup). “

Me: “ok, lay it on me”

BOSS: “what part of your role do you sometimes lose yourself in? Like, you lose track of time, put off taking g a piss, and energized in those activities? “

Me: “onboarding new customers and training them to the shit, and use it right.“

BOSS: “ok, starting tomorrow that’s your new job. I want everyone doing here doing what energizes and fulfills them. You’re first. Thus could work really well or a give us an opportunity to learn ”.

It started a massive reorganization. The only positive one I’ve been a part of. In the next 7 years we went from 28 employees to 200 and was the best work environment ever.

 

[ScaldedDog]

Lots of good advice in this thread. I'll add my $.02, but with an eye toward what I believe to be the future of work:

This AI thing is real. At minimum, there will be huge structural changes in the economy in the coming years, and that's probably going to translate into a lot of blood on the floors of office buildings around the country. A lot of jobs that have been considered safe are going to disappear. Not completely, but we're just going to need fewer people doing them. Software engineers are living this now, and they will be joined by others. Whether one stays in their current field or moves to a different one, embracing this new reality will be a key competitive advantage.

But how to do that? I have two ideas, the second at least as important as the first:

1) Dive into it, today. Learn what others in your field are doing with the technology. Try using it to automate some of the tasks you do now. Be the guy on your team who elevates his productivity with the available tools before being asked. If you're looking to change fields, how is AI changing the work done in them?

2) Stay as close to the revenue stream as possible. "Back office" types will be first in the soup line of an AI-driven economy, but those who impact revenue - whether in acquisition or retention - will be last. In practice, this means staying close to customers. Technically oriented folks tend to avoid them, but a sharp engineer who can talk to customers in language they understand is gold above ground to most organizations, and they are difficult to replace with an AI agent. The great thing is, this is a learned skill. Matt, you seem to have a good relationship with your management chain, so find out how those conversations go when a customer goes over you to get to them. My guess is they are not talking about the technical details of the project, but more about the timeline impacts of issues and how they are being addressed. Whatever it is, learn those things and anticipate them. Always keep in mind that the higher one is in any organization, the less interest one has in the details. Talk about what does matter to them, though, and you'll have their both their attention and respect.

I was fortunate to learn item #2 by living it. A "self-loathing introvert" (a term coined by Phil Knight, to describe himself) by nature, talking to anyone was a struggle, and talking to groups was way beyond me. Somehow, I ended up as a math teacher for ten years, where my job was to get up in front of 25-30 people five times a day 180 days a year and talk to them about things they cared nothing about. Getting decent at it served me in good stead for the 29 year technology career that followed. It didn't get easier, I just got better at it. For example, I still remember getting great reviews on a presentation I gave to partners my first week at HP, after eight years in other technology firms. I smiled and said "thank you", but left out that I had thrown up at home before driving to work that day. I was 40 years old.

You can do this!!

Mark

 

[KC Masterpiece]

@ScaldedDog is absolutely right about the coming AI shift. Jobs will still exist. I do not think we are moving towards an immediate utopia with robot labor and UBI, but there is going to be a sisemic shift akin to the industrial revolution or inventing of the printing press. People will need to be ready to adapt as new fields are created, and many are eliminated entirely.

Call centers are going to be gone within a few years. My company is testing agentic AI platforms, and, in testing l, consumers prefer them over a live agent. I was very skeptical but after trying it myself I was blown away.

My brother is in copywriting, and I am worried that is going to shortly become a thing of the past.

Great comments in the post above about how to navigate the coming transition. There will be opportunities for those willing to seize them. AI is now doing about 20hrs of busy work for me each week. It does not mean I am working less, but I can focus more of my time on higher level tasks.

As an example I have an AI model that has all of the FSMs for my trucks loaded into it, and is setup to search iH8mud as an extra resource. It is astounding how accurate it is at diagnosing issues. They still need physical work to get fixed, but diagnostic time is dramatically reduced.

The worst part is that the next generation will have no idea how to write a basic email without AI.

 

[ScaldedDog]

As an example I have an AI model that has all of the FSMs for my trucks loaded into it, and is setup to search iH8mud as an extra resource. It is astounding how accurate it is at diagnosing issues. They still need physical work to get fixed, but diagnostic time is dramatically reduced.

Whoa! That's its own thread right there! Assuming you're not doing this professionally and care to share, I'd love to learn more about what you're doing. I bet others would, too.

Mark

 

[Cruisertrash]

Or #3: do something AI can’t do. Not that anybody has a desire to go back to the trades once you’re over 40 with a beat up body, but there are plenty of other things.