Viable Paths outside of CS? Sales? Trades?

[nicksaiz65]

I've hit my limit and I am basically sick and tired of Computer Science. It does pay well, but...

The horrible job markets. Having to study every second or your skills are outdated. Office politics. The constant threat of layoffs. Having to do personal projects on your own time on GitHub(work outside of work.) Leetcode. The multi-round interview gauntlets.

I was wondering if there was another path I could take that pays well (without going into boatloads of student debt) or if I should just suck it up and deal with it.

I had wondered if sales or a trade of some sort would be viable. Basically, just looking for alternative career options or deciding if I should just live with it since my degree is in CS.

 

[SW15]

The job market in 2025 is brutal in most office work type fields.

I don't recommend in most cases to get sales rep jobs. Sales rep jobs have a high failure rate. Corporate marketing is also a lousy path. Marketers get laid off all the time and often for the flimsiest reasons.

Sales and Marketing are complementary disciplines and the 2 worst disciplines for job security in white collar work. It's amazing that you are making these comments from Computer Science, a safer discipline.

It's difficult to transition into the trades after completing a bachelor's degree. You are young enough still to do a trade, but it would have been better had you trained in your teens/early 20s to do plumbing, electrical work, or any other trade.

You're likely stuck in CS.

 

[nicksaiz65]

The job market in 2025 is brutal in most office work type fields.

I don't recommend in most cases to get sales rep jobs. Sales rep jobs have a high failure rate. Corporate marketing is also a lousy path. Marketers get laid off all the time and often for the flimsiest reasons.

Sales and Marketing are complementary disciplines and the 2 worst disciplines for job security in white collar work. It's amazing that you are making these comments from Computer Science, a safer discipline.

It's difficult to transition into the trades after completing a bachelor's degree. You are young enough still to do a trade, but it would have been better had you trained in your teens/early 20s to do plumbing, electrical work, or any other trade.

Hmmm.. yeah, I figured. I'm basically stuck and I just have to live with it while taking precautions about the job market.

I disagree about Computer Science being a safe field. The layoffs are currently out of control. Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and others are cutting tens of thousands of employees. Government isn't much better with 20K employees being laid off overnight. I think you could argue that it is currently worse than private sector. The whole market is brutal.

So it looks like the answer is just the standard "6 month emergency fund, always have a side hustle."

I just wonder if I would have been better off in a different field doing something else. The "learn to code" influencers conveniently left all of this out lol.

 

[BackInTheGame78]

I haven't done a personal project outside of work in 10 years or more...

Sounds like you work for a company that has poor culture and you have some beliefs that simply aren't true.

 

[BackInTheGame78]

Hmmm.. yeah, I figured. I'm basically stuck and I just have to live with it while taking precautions about the job market.

I disagree about Computer Science being a safe field. The layoffs are currently out of control. Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and others are cutting tens of thousands of employees. Government isn't much better with 20K employees being laid off overnight. I think you could argue that it is currently worse than private sector. The whole market is brutal.

So it looks like the answer is just the standard "6 month emergency fund, always have a side hustle."

I just wonder if I would have been better off in a different field doing something else. The "learn to code" influencers conveniently left all of this out lol.

Part of the reason is because those companies drastically over hired for many years.

Get in with a bank or health care provider and you are golden.

 

[Chow Mein]

I work in IT engineering (heavily dependent on coding and scripting.). If you aren’t at risk of being laid off, there is added pressure of the field being outsourced to India at a fraction of the cost.

I strongly believe everyone should get their feet wet in sales to see if it’s a fit. A lot of money to be earned with the freedom of lifestyle.

 

[BackInTheGame78]

I work in IT engineering (heavily dependent on coding and scripting.). If you aren’t at risk of being laid off, there is added pressure of the field being outsourced to India at a fraction of the cost.

I strongly believe everyone should get their feet wet in sales to see if it’s a fit. A lot of money to be earned with the freedom of lifestyle.

Which always turns out to be 3x more expensive in the long run because they write garbage spaghetti code that is mishmashed together and then they have to pay American Engineers to rewrite it from scratch 5 years later once they realize it's a maintenance timebomb and there is no way to salvage it...

But companies never seem to learn from their or other companies prior mistakes. Been involved in 3 rewrites from scratch at different companies stemming from offshoring the work.

 

[Clockwerk50]

I’d recommend going into sales, as long as it’s B2B.

In my company, for example, you’re assigned a portfolio and a region with multiple accounts. Your job is to build relationships with the buyers, support them when they’re stressed, and handle issues as they arise. Some buyers can be *******s so you have to hug their balls a little bit. You’ll also follow up on unpaid invoices, manage promotions, and resolve account-related concerns such as pricing or technical details.

There’s also a business development aspect, you’ll be expected to bring in new accounts, which often means winning them over from competitors.

In return, the company provides a company car, insurance, gas, and opportunities to attend workshops, trade shows, and conferences.

You’re a young guy with time and energy to run quotes, meet clients, and be on the move. Expect to work around 50–60 hours a week. That said, some challenges are outside your control. For example, to boost revenue, my company frequently raises prices, and as a sales rep, it’s your job to explain and justify those increases to customers and keep them around.

At its core, a lot of sales is like seduction, building trust, reading emotions, and knowing when to push or pull back.

 

[nicksaiz65]

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The job market in 2025 is brutal in most office work type fields.

​

I don't recommend in most cases to get sales rep jobs. Sales rep jobs have a high failure rate. Corporate marketing is also a lousy path. Marketers get laid off all the time and often for the flimsiest reasons.

Sales and Marketing are complementary disciplines and the 2 worst disciplines for job security in white collar work. It's amazing that you are making these comments from Computer Science, a safer discipline.

It's difficult to transition into the trades after completing a bachelor's degree. You are young enough still to do a trade, but it would have been better had you trained in your teens/early 20s to do plumbing, electrical work, or any other trade.

You're likely stuck in CS.

I’m realizing that a couple of specific things are burning me out.

Every time I want to get a new job(or get laid off) the amount of studying that I have to do to get ready to take an interview is insanity. It burns up so much energy. It’s almost impossible to get those big sessions in because life won’t stop just because you want a new job.

Point is, if you wait until you are laid off or want a new job to start studying, it’s way too late. It’s disruptive to other life stuff. You can’t cram months of studying into a couple weeks.

Even 15-30 mins a day would be good.

You’ve mentioned that a lot of my issues have come from insufficient savings. This is probably another one of them. If I had more substantial savings, then I really wouldn’t care about layoffs like that. Interviews drag out so long these days that they say you might want closer to a year of savings than 6 months.

These are the things I’m thinking we can do about the bad CS Market right now.

 

[Divorced w 3]

At its core, a lot of sales is like seduction, building trust, reading emotions, and knowing when to push or pull back.

Yes it is.

 

[Divorced w 3]

Part of the reason is because those companies drastically over hired for many years.

Get in with a bank or health care provider and you are golden.

I do agree with that. Banks have multi billion dollar tech budgets right now. If you’re good you can easily get a 200k job at a bank between salary and bonus. A lot of the hires are Amazon, Microsoft, those types. Developers.

 

[SW15]

At its core, a lot of sales is like seduction, building trust, reading emotions, and knowing when to push or pull back.

Yes it is.

While it is true that sales has similarity to seduction, few sales reps are men who have sex with numerous women.

The typical sales rep is a monogamously married man with a lower lifetime notch count.

I know some good B2B sales reps that are not good as pickup artists and have settled into boring, monogamous marriages.

 

[Divorced w 3]

The typical sales rep is a monogamously married man with a lower lifetime notch count.

Two questions

is that not descriptive of most of society
Is that backed by any kind of research

 

[CoolWave1331]

Sales engineering brother.

I was bioinformatics major. Medschool seemed daunting but I was okay with math and playing around with data. I did see at the time threat of like AI & offshoring but an opportunity came up early on in medical sales and I decided to try. I still use what I learned to a degree but I do a lot front facing, relationship building which I like.

Just because did CS doesn't mean have to be like a programmer or something. There are areas like machine learning in demand currently (data science). This might be better bet and provide more safety than like tech support or something.

 

[SW15]

Just because did CS doesn't mean have to be like a programmer or something. There are areas like machine learning in demand currently (data science). This might be better bet and provide more safety than like tech support or something.

How much do you think AI can replace data analysts? There's discussion on the internet that AI can replace humans doing data analysis.

Data analysis and data science have overlap but are somewhat different.

 

[CoolWave1331]

How much do you think AI can replace data analysts? There's discussion on the internet that AI can replace humans doing data analysis.

Data analysis and data science have overlap but are somewhat different.

Well foundation of good decision making is like statistics. Some calculus too but is a lot of statistical theory. In order to really understand the data must have statistical knowledge to make inferences etc. I have a friend and we had this same discussion just other day. He said no need to learn econometrics, modeling, regression analysis, ml, familiarity in programming outside of python (R or matlab who cares), algorithms etc. He says just concern himself with Tableau or Power BI and like make dashboards or something. You do need people who can make charts, dashboards etc the people making the decisions generally don't care about the work involved just want to know what the conclusion is and if person can point to chart and explain. I told my friend yes you can make charts but if you cannot really understand the data or know how to justify your conclusion / verify that your data is even valid, the charts and dashboards are kind of meaningless. This is the part that relies on good understanding of mathematics.

The other thing to consider is if the barrier is low and easy for people "to do", this means there is not much protection/safety in career. I think big mistake is a lot ge into tech because of salary not necessarily because they "like it". Cannot expect to just learn one stack and think will be all set for next 30-40 years....is critical to stay ontop of trends, get the certificates etc. If just in it for pay not very likely to be motivated to stay current.

A lot of the different software and programming languages have packages built in or that can be downloaded to perform statistical functions on the data you're workig with. This simplifies things greatly but really helps to understand what you're doing.

I don't believe AI will completely make Analysts extinct but will be able to do a good deal of the work. You'll always need people who can present the findings. I just think if getting into this stuff should really "aim high" and not like just focus on minimum. There is a lot of competition now and talent can literally be hired from around the world.