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Let your next career move come to you.

what do you think about

taking a sabbatical from yr main job for a year, living overseas and doing a bit of freelancing to ride out the Brexit spasms?

thinking about doing this

not sure which country would work tho

am buying that 4 hour week book also

but not convinced it would work for a non-salesperson type

A friend is doing this (not avoiding Brexit as she is not British) but taking a year (at least) off travelling/living somewhere relatively cheap and freelancing to pay the bills/keep her hand in while she does it.

If you can be reasonably sure of the freelance work its a fecking excellent idea I reckon.  You might need to move countries a couple of times to avoid tax residency issues. A cheap off season airbnb apartment/villa on the med would be a great place to start in my view.

You should 100% do this. I have always said you should jump on a plane and go travelling. If you want to have a decent working week then try Scandinavia (Denmark specifically). Or go to Spain or France if you want warmer weather with easier languages to learn (Danish pronunciation is veh hard).

right now I am 200% confident of the freelance work (and I hope the market will stay buoyant but ofc you never know, the whole world is heading for a crash)

good point re tax res (I was thinking tbh probably couldn't stay in any one place longer than the usual tourist visa period)

I do like this plan, dusty

was just telling my friend this morning that we are freer than any women in the history of time (and most humans) and have a moral obligation to do things with that freedom

I’ve got obligations and dependents but I still did it. Well, kind of. I’m on long term sabbatical but the work I’m doing isn’t paid - it’s aimed at re-skilling me for a complete career change. I’m also only travelling selectively, not for the whole time, but there will be plenty of it.

yeah

I do worry about getting to 50 and thinking "o no I should have done that!"

but if I did I would get to 50 and go "fgs this is so dull" and I really really do hate children (their cocky noisy strutting about ugh!)

Well that’s something I have in common with them.

I think the only major non analogy between our situations is that your “normal job” lends itself to freelancing whereas mind doesn’t - which is one of my greatest frustrations with it. I am unwilling to give the commitment that law firms want and I resent not being able to pick work up then, at the end of a project, put it down for a while.

Ive also taught myself to code but it’s fair to say my software development skills are not professional grade, yet. I’d really rather just write - you can do it from anywhere.

Since it seems feasible for you to do this, I reckon you should. Not out of some presumptuous idea that it would be good for you, but just because it’s my idea of fun.

I have wondered about coding

you know how they make a big deal of teaching it to "disadvantaged women"? and I always think "if it's so easy to learn then why is their any value in the skill?"

Like law, it’s easy enough to learn a bit of but pretty hard to become practised at to professional level. Those rent-a-coder sites are full of indian kids quoting two quid an hour to write Python, and some of them can actually code. But there’s a reason anyone serious still hires a developer who turns up to an interview, can cite a portfolio of paid-for work and charges sixty quid an hour.

I like discovering new things so I’m quite interested in the academic side of computer science, and as with many of my side projects (which must number in double figures) I am puttering my way through a distance learning degree in it. However I suspect the experience of being a professional developer would have many of the same downsides as being a practising lawyer - except there’s much more opportunity to work remotely.

Anyway even I would recognise the need for some kind of focus and professionally my focus is on writing. Will this have changed in six months? you know it

R U in London definitely not Laz?

Clergs - just go to Asia for a year and move from beach villa to beach villa. It'll be ace. I know a lawyer who's working on a different continent and just hasn't told their clients.

 

if you're motivated/intelligent enough to qualify as a lawyer you a probably motivated/intelligent enough to teach yourself programming to a professional standard.

There is a bit more maths involved but rarely anything that goes beyond A-Level (depending on the industry you work in).

I suspect that work/life balance is also better (anecdotal based on friends' experiences of law) but the best paid lawyers are far, far better paid than the best paid programmers. Programmers pretty much have to start their own companies or go into management to get paid what bankers/lawyers get at the upper end of those professions.

I think the real attraction of coding as a career is the prospect of making something cool that you own, and starting a business to monetise it.

Just being a professional developer sounds like being a lawyer really - maybe a bit more interesting but it’s still just renting out your brain by the hour.

Yes that is true PNHB but the number of people who manage to do that successfully is very small - and cool interesting software projects often don't pay or make much money.

I have a friend who was in the Forbes 30 under 30 after doing this, but he is one of the most, if not the most, intelligent people I have ever met (also a really nice guy).

I tried to do this with a device and software for cattle monitoring, with a friend I used to work with. Getting funding from angels/VCs is very hard - I couldn't do it.

I just get sent somewhere new every couple of years. Apart from a couple of short stints it has mostly been good places overseas and I'm currently lobbying for somewhere awesome. Currently on secondment in Europe which is pretty good.

It’s a nice thought but I agree with Miss T. You’ve posted non stop about a career change, move to London, etc. But I think you are like many of my friends who do uni, training and PP in a couple of different cities yet long for a stint abroad. What BT said, if you are in a global org, you can get moved about easily enough if you’re good enough. I think you want to stay in Scotland. BT I’m the same, like to take opportunities and take up any decent secondment it is fab! 

fooking lol at all the junior hax0rz here.

Personally I intend to aim for a “coding” (lololol) career backed up by my internationally recognised cycling/skiing and a bit of freelance football journalism.

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