New Career; Renewed Vision.

[chambrse]

I've dreamt of being a liveaboard sailor for the better part of a decade. However, in my chosen career of aerospace engineering, and with my burden of student loans, it did not seem feasible. Eventually, I knew I had no choice but to change careers.

As of two months ago, I've successfully changed careers to software engineering. In this new career, there are many opportunities for remote work and the potential for money-making side projects that I could potentially do all from the sea. I made this change at great cost, but I'm back on my feet, and starting to save toward my dream.

My desired timeline is to set sail on my 30th birthday, in a little over two years. So, I've joined this forum to start learning and join the community!

Hello!

[Uncle Bob]

Originally Posted by chambrse

I've dreamt of being a liveaboard sailor for the better part of a decade. However, in my chosen career of aerospace engineering, and with my burden of student loans, it did not seem feasible. Eventually, I knew I had no choice but to change careers.

As of two months ago, I've successfully changed careers to software engineering. In this new career, there are many opportunities for remote work and the potential for money-making side projects that I could potentially do all from the sea. I made this change at great cost, but I'm back on my feet, and starting to save toward my dream.

My desired timeline is to set sail on my 30th birthday, in a little over two years. So, I've joined this forum to start learning and join the community!

Hello!

Hello and welcome. To make a change so dramatically different at your stage of life is to be admired and I wish you well.

[chambrse]

Thanks for the warm welcome, Bob!

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, chambrse.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by chambrse

I've dreamt of being a liveaboard sailor for the better part of a decade. However, in my chosen career of aerospace engineering, and with my burden of student loans, it did not seem feasible. Eventually, I knew I had no choice but to change careers.

As of two months ago, I've successfully changed careers to software engineering. In this new career, there are many opportunities for remote work and the potential for money-making side projects that I could potentially do all from the sea. I made this change at great cost, but I'm back on my feet, and starting to save toward my dream.

My desired timeline is to set sail on my 30th birthday, in a little over two years. So, I've joined this forum to start learning and join the community!

Hello!

Welcome aboard.

I have just gone in the opposite direction, 30 years of IT, most of it writing B2B software, now I am taking up teaching.

But software development on boats does seem reasonably practical (unlike teaching) if you can sort out the whole internet connectivity thing and maybe also have at least a reasonable power system.

I am not sure I could have done it though. I like working with people, and most of what I wrote was small stuff written in response to people's business needs, so a lot of back and forth with the stakeholders. Maybe it is different with big software projects, I don't know... I've never been part of those.

But good on you for following your dreams.

Matt

[chambrse]

Originally Posted by GILow

Welcome aboard.

I have just gone in the opposite direction, 30 years of IT, most of it writing B2B software, now I am taking up teaching.

But software development on boats does seem reasonably practical (unlike teaching) if you can sort out the whole internet connectivity thing and maybe also have at least a reasonable power system.

I am not sure I could have done it though. I like working with people, and most of what I wrote was small stuff written in response to people's business needs, so a lot of back and forth with the stakeholders. Maybe it is different with big software projects, I don't know... I've never been part of those.

But good on you for following your dreams.

Matt

Hi Matt,
It will definitely be difficult. It will require finding the perfect job. Luckily, in this day and age, more and more IT jobs are going remote, especially in enterprise web integrations using mulesoft, which is my specialty. (Similar to B2B stuff, if I'm not mistaken)

In terms of connectivity, I will either need to stay in range of cell towers or wifi during the work week (there is equipment to make this easier) or pay out the nose for satellite internet. Could be doable either way if I can make a comparable salary to what I do now, or if I can find a crew of other people who want to adhere to the same model, or both.

Haven't quite figured out power though. I'll likely need a pc powerful enough to compile code quickly and run it all day. It's unclear if any number of solar panels would be enough for this even if I also had a wind generator. Might have to just run a generator periodically to top up.

Anyway, thanks for the welcome and I'll see you out there!

[GILow]

Good luck with your new career. I enjoyed my time in IT but was ready for a change.

The whole power question has been done to death many times over here on CF, and you will NOT get a consensus. In short, it depends a lot on where in the world you live, as to solar vs wind vs whatever. Everyone will tell you something different, but have a chat to the people in the boats around you to see what is working where YOU are.

A PC with decent compiler performance is not too hard to feed these days.

I built a nice dev pc a few years back with a dozen solid state drives in critical rolls for swap space etc and it idled at about 75 Watts. Never managed to figure out what it was drawing when compiling, but that's such a small portion of the time, I figure it doesn't matter. Monitors, budget 40 watts each and multiply by the number of monitors.

It would help if you filled in your profile to let us know where you are. (If you are in Australia, then I'm going to suggest that internet cover on your boat will be the hard part. Almost as hard as finding somewhere you are allowed to LIVE on the boat.)

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Uncle Bob

Hello and welcome. To make a change so dramatically different at your stage of life is to be admired and I wish you well.

Ha ha, I was thinking it was better to do that in your late 20s than your late 40s as I have.

[chambrse]

Originally Posted by GILow

Good luck with your new career. I enjoyed my time in IT but was ready for a change.

The whole power question has been done to death many times over here on CF, and you will NOT get a consensus. In short, it depends a lot on where in the world you live, as to solar vs wind vs whatever. Everyone will tell you something different, but have a chat to the people in the boats around you to see what is working where YOU are.

A PC with decent compiler performance is not too hard to feed these days.

I built a nice dev pc a few years back with a dozen solid state drives in critical rolls for swap space etc and it idled at about 75 Watts. Never managed to figure out what it was drawing when compiling, but that's such a small portion of the time, I figure it doesn't matter. Monitors, budget 40 watts each and multiply by the number of monitors.

It would help if you filled in your profile to let us know where you are. (If you are in Australia, then I'm going to suggest that internet cover on your boat will be the hard part. Almost as hard as finding somewhere you are allowed to LIVE on the boat.)

I'm not in Australia, but on the east coast of the US. Hence my gigantic student loan debt! The plan would be, if I got my own boat, to travel up the coast for summer, and then down to Florida for the winter, hopefully accompanied by some island hopping!

[Uncle Bob]

Originally Posted by GILow

Ha ha, I was thinking it was better to do that in your late 20s than your late 40s as I have.

Ha, you're both still pups, bastards!

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by chambrse

I'm not in Australia, but on the east coast of the US. Hence my gigantic student loan debt! The plan would be, if I got my own boat, to travel up the coast for summer, and then down to Florida for the winter, hopefully accompanied by some island hopping!

Congratulations and a hearty welcome.


Energy. It's a well discussed topic, on ALL boating forums. You figure out what you need and then find a way to produce enough to cover it.


Kinda like your checkbook and student loan (those who created that should be...) I had one in 1968 @ 3%. Good old days. These days? Unprincipled.


Anyway, you might be interested in the stuff in here, and then buy a few books, also covered here:


Electrical Systems 101 Electrical Systems 101


All the best.


There are great skippers here who know electronics, programming and all that "behind the gui" stuff, and electrical gurus and links. Links - and to think they actually one or two days let me out on a golf course!!! Fools, the grass hasn't recovered and that was in 19.. you don't wanna know...


Enjoy the journey.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by chambrse

I'm not in Australia, but on the east coast of the US. Hence my gigantic student loan debt! The plan would be, if I got my own boat, to travel up the coast for summer, and then down to Florida for the winter, hopefully accompanied by some island hopping!

Well, if it is any consolation, I started university here in Oz the same year it stopped being free. We have a scheme called HECS (yeah, sounds like something from a Harry Potter book) that left me with a manageable debt, sort of in the range of half a year's salary, and with a way of paying it off through additional tax installments. Not sure how that compares to your system.

Anyway, the thing is, 30 years later, I am back at University, doing my Masters, and yep, I have a whole fresh new HECS debt, and by the end of my course it will equate to... about half a year's salary.

Some things just don't change hey?

Anyway, sounds like a fun plan, and I think if you trawl through the threads here you will find a few fellow programmers discussing their setups.

I would mention some names, but I won't in case:

a) I am wrong.
b) They don't want to be "outed" as programmers.

But enough of them wear it with pride so you'll find them.

Happy travels.

Matt