"My favorite job was probably the year I worked at Apple retail in college, because I got to explain technology to people and change their lives in some small way."
I moved from programming to techsupport and ended up in marketing exactly because I liked helping people troubleshoot and/or make the most of our product, and now I like telling them a product exists that solves their problem. I feel great reading customers' emails with praise of our product, even though I have not written a single line of its code. (Full disclosure: I either wrote or edited most of the documentation.) I also do a bit of programming every now and then, either for our Web site or to automate my or colleague's work.
So can you think of some other job where you would change people's lives while still doing some programming? Maybe for some non-profit/charity? There are quite a few startups in this area too these days, like Watsi.
"My favorite job was probably the year I worked at Apple retail in college, because I got to explain technology to people and change their lives in some small way."
I moved from programming to techsupport and ended up in marketing exactly because I liked helping people troubleshoot and/or make the most of our product, and now I like telling them a product exists that solves their problem. I feel great reading customers' emails with praise of our product, even though I have not written a single line of its code. (Full disclosure: I either wrote or edited most of the documentation.) I also do a bit of programming every now and then, either for our Web site or to automate my or colleague's work.
So can you think of some other job where you would change people's lives while still doing some programming? Maybe for some non-profit/charity? There are quite a few startups in this area too these days, like Watsi.