[robodale]

Walked away from 20 years of software development last year. I've been day and swing trading stocks for last 2 years. I'm now trading full time and doing great. I don't miss the daily stand-ups, scrum meetings, planning meetings, "quick chats", one-on-ones with management, weekly department meetings, monthly company meetings, and late night critical support calls one bit!

[sandoze]

Here’s the thing. If I could just code without being a slave to a scrum master or being product micromanaged.. I would never leave the industry. I worked five years in mobile gaming when the Apple Store first opened. Released 13 titles, had my hands in a half a dozen others, three teams in two countries, 15 employees at our height (95% remote). Never had a standup, planning meaning, grooming.. etc.

[y-c-o-m-b]

> If I could just code without being a slave to a scrum master or being product micromanaged.. I would never leave the industry.

My current job has zero planning meetings and a standup twice a week with 20 people attending that lasts about 7 minutes on average; standup is literally "what are you working on and are you blocked?". If the person rambles in standup, our boss cuts them off and has the next person go. It's been this way for at least a year and a half (when I started). We're given wire-frames or high-level designs of what needs to be built and the target goal date. Developers are then left to code with nearly full autonomy. We always deliver the product early. I've worked in so very many places over the last decade and a half - from huge corporations to small startups - and if all of them took this approach, they would've increased their productivity at least 10-fold.

[alexfromapex]

This is almost exactly what we do and I love it but there's one exception. We have sprint review meetings on the last day of our sprint where several product teams present what they accomplished during the sprint. It works fine for people in time zones where it's the end of their day but for others they have to present what they achieved during the sprint, while the sprint hasn't ended. It's been shocking to see how vehemently the scrum masters have fought to not move it to the first day of the new sprint. Cargo cult agile is probably the worst part about the industry.

[closeparen]

There do exist corporate positions with a high degree of autonomy and as-needed coordination. I have one of them right now. I will be sad to ever let it go.

[2bitlobster]

What were your main means of coordination and planning?

[sandoze]

As a footnote. Let’s face it, good devs are good communicators. We do it constantly with our team members. I’m blocked, I need help, why don’t you work on, what if we did..

Daily scrum and weekly grooming and quarterly planning. That’s for product. That’s counting beans and making sure no one goes rogue and accidentally innovates.

Daily scrum is nothing more than a product status meeting. If you’re a dev and you’re waiting for that meeting everyday to tell someone you’re blocked or need something.. then there’s a communication problem.

[sandoze]

We knew what needed to be built. Sometimes it was easy, we were doing a direct port, other times product and design would write it up in somewhat detailed documentation (can you believe no stories/tasks?!). Because they were games you’d start with the play loops and continually tweak them. Assets would come in from designers throughout the lifecycle of the project and they’d just document what they wanted to see (fonts, colors, animations, flow).

We had a product manager who would regularly play our builds and speak with the clients. If the clients were unhappy, had feedback, or found bugs, he would chat or hop on a call with the lead developer (usually me). We’d write it on a sticky note or put it in our mind palace as a Todo (or if you were a defensive programmer and planned that a certain piece of code needs to be flexible, you were fixing it while he was explaining the problem).

So, we had communication, but not in the form of formal meetings. Product set the delivery dates, we set goals/cadence as engineers around those dates, and based off of continual feedback we iterated on the design.

[JKCalhoun]

I'm surprised you made it 5 years. It seemed like the App Store collapsed to free within a year or two.

[dylan604]

You make it sound like there's no money to be made in Apps, but that's clearly obvious to not be true. Switched to freemium with In App Purchases is the model I see every where, and I am constantly amazed at the fact that $0.99, $1.99, etc are paid multiple times by the user to the point that they could have bought a AAA console new release with the IAP paid.

These apps also include ad sales to the IAPs. The money no longer needs to come from the initial download.

[sandoze]

We made the switch from paid, to ad driven, to freemium/IAP for our in-house games.

Zynga was one of our biggest clients. Hasbro came in second. As well as a few white label advergames (eg. Vans shoes). We rarely made more than a small cut on profits (if that) and were generally paid upfront and on delivery.

[matsemann]

Sorry for the blunt question, but how does it feel to go from something where you make something valuable to ...that?

(At least I feel what I do give me meaning)

[goncaloo]

Most developers work on meaningless, "make the rich richer", products anyways

[kimsant]

But you can find something meaningful (very easy), or start your own business (easiest moment in history to rise 1million), or teach in a bootcamp...

There are 100 options. Wasting a wonderfull mind just because... sad

[ac2022]

Sadly, there not many options if you want comfortable life and do good at the same time.

My fiends and I really wanted to do good when starting our careers and looked at many non-profits, all of them pay sub-market rates. And then we learned secondhand that most of these non-profits were run by narcissists leaders with worse office politics than regular offices.

We got jobs in regular companies building some of most critical infrastructure of the internet. We felt like we were contributing to advancement of humanity and freedom. But after 10 years, we realized we just made rich kids richer, divided humanity like never before, destroyed privacy, and made sure everyone is addicted to their screens.

I mostly helped in the building of the cloud, and I know what business most of our clients are in. Very few are doing something that is not harmful.

Teach in bootcamp? So that these rich-kids will have more workers?

Start your own business? Consulting? Helping other companies do evil? Another app to get hooked on? Restaurants? There is already obesity epidemic? Build new homes or rehab? I can respect that but it is capital intensive.

Anyways, I see whenever trading is mentioned people call it a useless activity while most of us are engaged in actual harmful activities.

[Fishkins]

> And then we learned secondhand that most of these non-profits were run by narcissists leaders with worse office politics than regular offices.

I've worked for a tech-focused nonprofit for the last decade, and know people who have worked for other tech nonprofits. My experience (direct and secondhand) does not match what you said here. There are lots of good mission-focused tech companies to work for (both non- and for-profit). If, as a sibling comment suggested, you want to bring clean drinking water to the world, I know people who have worked at charity: water and enjoyed it.

It's true the pay will usually be below market rate for software engineers. It still can be much higher than most people in US[0] will ever make, and not an obstacle to living comfortably (by any definition of "comfortable" I consider reasonable). It's possible it could make it more difficult to buy a nice house in a central location in one of the more expensive cities, but that's true for most people and needs systemic changes to address it.

0: I assume we're talking about the US, since that's where the really high tech salaries are (and it's the place I live and have experience)

[mgh2]

Ethical healthcare? There is not much you can bs when faced with your own mortality.

[ctvo]

What a load of shit. This is the same mindset folks who pop up to yell at some Google engineers have. Why are you using your skills to collect data for adtech! You could be helping bring clean drinking water to the world!

People value what they value, and should be able to work in fields that bring them happiness and don’t break the law without your judgement. Who are you to tell anyone what’s meaningful?

[tux3]

It's unfortunate that adtech enjoys less popularity than bringing clean drinking water to the world. That's really a tragedy and the main thing wrong with the world.

I wish I could do wildly unpopular things without people criticizing me.

Who the hell is everyone else, to dare judge me?

I am above judgement.

[ctvo]

Or you know, do the polite thing and keep quiet?

The sentiments from you, and the original post I was replying to, have inherent privilege baked into them. A South Asian person with family who depends on them for remittances is ignored. A family with a child with special needs that require specific health insurance coverage is ignored. There are so many reasons people do the work they do. Presumably you think people who work in adtech, for example, are somehow morally inferior. It's this sophomoric view of the world that's bothersome. To tell anyone they should consider teaching at a coding bootcamp instead of what they're doing ... I have no words.

I'd love to hear how these folks are changing the world for the better. It's much easier to tell others what they should do with their time and money.

[bmitc]

I think that is a little harsh. A huge amount of tech work is not meaningful. Almost none of what tech companies output is required for a meaningful or happy life. It’s just that humanity is addicted to growth and things and just “doing stuff” thinking it all matters. Just look at the several meaningless companies YC supports.

Some meaningful tech work can be found in healthcare, social work, some portions of national security work, environmental research, teaching, and other places, but they are the exceptions. My definition of meaningful is that it either helps people, in a real way, or furthers knowledge or adds to the expression of humanity (i.e., art).

In my opinion, if someone can siphon off value from the human constructed rivers of the financial markets, and then use that value to live a good life, then I don’t see the problem. Some loose arguments about market liquidity could be made.

[sam_lowry_]

Dunno, finding something meaningful to work on has been really hard for me, personally.

It's either a big drop in revenue or bullshit projects

[PerilousD]

When I first started out I actually got to develop, write and deploy complete applications as opposed to endless updates or tiny sections of some larger project. It was an amazing feeling seeing something you write being run by dozens or even hundreds of users around the world. If the code you write today is meaningful to you that's great but its been a LONG time since I could look at something running that I wrote and feel any sense of ownership in the deal. I used to tell my team - when we have a bad day something crashes or doesnt work right. When my wife has a bad day somebody may have died literally (she's a nurse). Perspective!

[taormina]

Hey, if you were working in advertising or crypto, you’re probably about breakin even in the “meaningfulness” department

[nerdponx]

I'd argue that daytrading is less of a net negative for the world than working on ad tech software.

[mgh2]

ads and fake news fuel daytrading, same side of the coin

[dageshi]

Mastering something like trading to the point where you can earn a living from it is probably pretty meaningful to a lot of people.

[tonmoy]

Don’t know about GP’s details, but IMO trading brings quite a lot of value to society especially compared to at least some non-sense tick the box software jobs. Trending brings liquidity and makes resources available to where it is needed.

[JKCalhoun]

My guess is that you do the more "meaningful things" in your spare time. Likely day trading affords you a little more of that?

[emteycz]

Providing liquidity to the market is valuable too, as well as rapid reallocation of capital where it's needed.

Not to say there aren't differences, of course. But I feel like your comparison is condescending. These people do valuable work too.

[einpoklum]

Stock traders don't "provide" anything, they're just playing a part in a poor, and exploitation-buttressing, system of exchange and resource allocation.

[swalsh]

That's a very shortsighted view.

[amelius]

Shortsightedness is exactly the problem with daytrading.

[emteycz]

Well don't daytrade if you're shortsighted, for sure. But if you think daytraders can afford to be shortsighted, you're very wrong - it's one of the most exposed professions in this regard, the market will react weeks or months in anticipation of an event.

[Cloudef]

Tbh, i dont really feel i ever do anything valuable with software either

[matsemann]

Fair enough, and probably more people feel that way? Not all tech is good tech, especially not if one follows the money. But I feel the stuff I've done in my career have had a direct impact on people's lives, but perhaps it's because I self select for those kind of projects because that matters to me?

[kirso]

Have been thinking a lot about this.

There are more ways to make an impact, such as earning a good salary and re-investing / donating to build trees, renewables or serve any of the UNDP goals that are helping society.

In fact that is probably more impactful that personally picking fruit in the garden.

I guess it just depends on the place itself not being generally net negative to society compared to the impact you can make with it.

Here is a good primer: https://80000hours.org/

[usremane]

The term valuable is subjective. What really matters is whether you are happy in whatever you’re doing. People who make good money in trading are mostly going to spend some too somewhere which indirectly puts food on table for others.

[55555]

Giving back to the world is just one way to be satisfied. Being great at something, or even just learning, are often sufficient.

[city41]

In my twenty year dev career I can count the meaningful projects on just a few fingers.

[ryandrake]

Good luck to you! I remember back in the late 90's / early 2000's when The Stock Market Only Goes Up, and 1/4 of my software peers quit to "become day traders." Well when the bear market inevitably came, I started seeing them back in scrum meetings... Do your due diligence and and preserve your capital :)

[shoo]

It can be very difficult to look at the realised outcome and disentangle how much of that outcome was driven by decision making, and how much was due to variability of factors entirely outside of your control, i.e. "luck". What if your decision making is poor and over-fitted to current conditions that are not guaranteed to persist, but you keep (temporarily) winning anyway?

Taleb writes about this kind of thing in Fooled by Randomness. Poker player Annie Duke's book "thinking in bets" also goes into it.

I reckon to some extent public market conditions in recent years since GFC have approximately been "stock market only goes up" with a few small fluctuations from covid, negative oil price weirdness, etc. Lots of investors trying desperately to invest cash in recent years pouring money into variety of highly speculative areas -- SPACs, crypto, fraudulent EV companies (Nikola rolling their "truck" down the hill to make it look like it was self propelled, lol).

At some point the music will stop.

[hutrdvnj]

A good day trader is able to shift gears in case of a bear market e.g. knows when to short. Very few days traders are actually good, most lose money and quit after some months.

[JKCalhoun]

I remember. So easy to day trade when everything was going up, ha ha.

[neilv]

I remember this too. I decided I'd only try it with $1K. Soon, I'd tripled my money (despite trading fees), decided that I'd proven I could do it, and then put it all for long-term into a company I liked and believed in (Red Hat).

Later, I learned that winning being easy was the nature of the market at the time, rather than it being a personal achievement worth proving.

I also was lucky that I didn't discover a compulsive/addictive weakness for the activity, which could've turned a $1K experiment into personal ruin.

[dplgk]

I've been exploring day trading recently and have not yet found the angle that works for me and also fits my lifestyle/budget. It's hard to find reliable sources of education on the topic because it seems like so many materials are teaching hindsight technical analysis that looks good on paper but is really just BS to sell a e-book or Discord subscription. I'm still exploring what time frames I want to trade and if I should go with option strategies or stock scalping. Do you have any advice for learning materials?

[hutrdvnj]

The best way of day trading is to exploit a market inefficiency that nobody (or very few) are aware of. As soon as this inefficiency is know to public it will disappear, that's why there is not much sensible material for day trading to learn from, maybe except for the psychological aspect, which is very important. Try to find a system that works for you and be quiet about it. Unfortunately, 95%< of day traders didn't find a system that works and quit after some time.

[nigerian1981]

That’s because it’s a fancy word for gambling

[telcal]

For about a year I've been watching a guy on Twitch (in the background while working my real job) who day trades everyday. I thought TA was BS but I was wrong. I've learned a ton from just watching/listening and after paper trading for 8 months I'm now comfortable using real money. You're right though almost everything out there is BS selling a book/newsletter/chat room. (Twitch streamer = StockJock)

[pid-1]

The best way to learn trading is to work for an investment bank / hedge fund and learn from folks who already do that successfully.

Anything else is likely BS.

[mancerayder]

That's brave, given the odds. Having gotten into options recently myself, I'm curious if there was some research or reading materials that you found particularly helpful in your ramp up to trading full time. Also do you try to close out every position by close of business each day or is there a longer term approach?

[RickJWagner]

I wish you great luck, but please be cautious.

I'll never forget the great crash of 2000. Among the signs I should have seen-- I knew a guy from my bowling league who quit his job to day trade. I don't know what your qualifications are for this line of work, but this guy had no discernible skills. He was doing fine 'till the big crash, then he was wiped out.

Please be safe.

[k8sToGo]

How much did you need to make day trading worth?

[lazyeye]

Sounds lika fun way to earn a living.

Just dont be this guy

https://www.reddit.com/r/fatFIRE/comments/ti1jg8/i_owe_nearl...

[billsmithwicks]

What would you need to get into day trading, properly, as a full time job? I'm certain that bank defaulter lists are filled with mediocre day traders, so without asking what's your secret, what's your secret?

[akulbe]

I would love to talk with you more about this. You open to conversation?

[barbarbar]

How do you deal with the stress related to trading? Isn't it hard mentally when it goes "not your way"?

[iamgopal]

Day trading doesn’t work. What is your secret ? You can make millions selling your book.

[filoleg]

Well, that's the catch.

Those who actually consistently make money daytrading (averaged out over a long enough time period) don't have a need to write those books (and potentially put themselves at a disadvantage by doing so) to make money.

While those who write "daytrading secrets" books typically make heavy majority of their money from those books, because they cannot make money from actual daytrading.

[telcal]

I thought so too but it really can work if you have the right emotional mindset and stick to your game plan. There are streamers who do it live to prove it.

[55555]

What are some of the resources and communities you use for trading?

[kimsant]

Sad to hear that top minds just give up on humanity and accept money as a goal by itself. I do have long term investments (5 nanometers, extreme litography, electric vehicles... just what I love), I make money, but is not something I need to live.

Last month, when war started I told my team, Aerovironment stock, is gonna double (war drones) but I'm not gonna be part and I want you all to feel how calmed I'm about that and undertand (I don't need those 100k). I now undertand the difference between being Socrates or a 'sofist' (greek philosophs both, one for pleasure, the second as a job). Investing shouldn't be a need, is what's best for humanity. I think Elon musk already refered this way