Retired techies, are you still engaged in tech?

[CTRetiree]

20 years ago, I started a project for my hobby - ham radio. It has grown to be the most popular program in its category and, counting myself we have a team of 10 developing, documenting and maintaining it. We give it away.

I retired as an IT architect and never wanted to be a manager, so I'm pretty surprised to be here now. Fortunately, there are only seasoned pros on the team, so little management is needed. We have a Skype chat group to keep in touch. Each of the members of the team is an expert in the application domain, so we don't need any system analysts.

Code management (about 300k lines of code) is done in Team Foundation Server. We publish a build every Tuesday. It is used for ham radio competitions and during the season, 10,000 or more users will download the update.

It has been very rewarding and the user base is very appreciative. We accept donations occasionally to cover software and other costs, and generally have to stop them after 12 hours or we get more money than we want to deal with. We don't make any money at it, we do it for the intellectual stimulation and camaraderie.

 

[LastBoomer]

Yes, it’s Moore’s Law in action. I take on interesting work in my consulting business now being semiretired. I recently did a project using a Rasp Pi for an industrial Iot project. It’s amazing! And, a Pi is a very cost effective PC if you are mostly using web-based access.

 

[carty1]

Software Engineer for 41 years. When I retired I gotta little antsy and ended up writing a loan amortization application and then a tax computation worksheet application. Thinking of what to write next(?)

 

[hpnutty]

I was so very encouraged reading through this thread. My "fear" as retirement is now months away is that I would have severe withdrawals not coding and regret my retirement decision. Oh sure, you can always go back to w*rk... My story is so similar to this thread's contributors that I don't think I will miss it now and I'm less fearful. THANKS!!

 

[Gkk2001]

I thought any interest or fun in doing what I did for a living would be a function of age, cognitive retention, and eyesight (looking at a bright white screen for hours).
It has been for me and thus I do not want to do any software coding now. But I read there are many views on this site. I think many must be younger than me and still have the need to create. We all eventually loose that need.

 

[PatrickW]

Been a tech guy all my life. Was my passion in life, early on.
But I'm sick of all the non-tech stuff that goes with it (I have not yet retired).
I may keep some limited interest in Tech after I retire, but I don't think I'll be a participant.

 

[twaddle]

I think many must be younger than me and still have the need to create. We all eventually lose that need.

I'm not looking forward to that. Just curious -- at what age do you think that happens?

I took up guitar playing, and that was one of the reasons. I figured I could still keep myself entertained even if I were to lose sight, mobility, etc.

 

[jollystomper]

Microsoft is having their annual Ignite conference next week, all virtual, all free. I looked at the agenda and their were some interesting sessions for me, so I have signed up for it. Can't let go of that tech desire just yet...

 

[Retch The Grate]

I thought any interest or fun in doing what I did for a living would be a function of age, cognitive retention, and eyesight (looking at a bright white screen for hours).
It has been for me and thus I do not want to do any software coding now. But I read there are many views on this site. I think many must be younger than me and still have the need to create. We all eventually loose that need.

Fortunately I know a bunch of rather old people for whom this is not true.

 

[Retch The Grate]

Not retiring soon (and the recent house purchase pushed us back from being FI too), I. keep imagining that when I do, I'll totally work on some indie game projects of my own. However, the times I've been unemployed long enough to do that show that I don't actually do that with the time when I have it I'm wondering if RE rather than just being unemployed and having to job hunt, will encourage more effort.

 

[albundyz]

I spent my last 20 career years as a software developer. I hated it, but the $ was good and my job was mostly safe. sometimes, you gotta pay the family bills. I always found myself competing with people who went home and programmed in C++ and thought it was a fun hobby... I went home, played guitar, played softball, drank beer, and enjoyed my kids. I've been retired for 13 years. I still play guitar, play senior softball, and drink beer..... and enjoy my grandkids. never gave programming one second of consideration.

 

[digger1959]

Still at it part time

I worked as a programmer for almost 32 years with almost 30 of those in the defense contracting field--not very rewarding. So I quit that job and did nothing for 3 years when I was approached to do some contracting for a B2B company and I have been doing that for 6 years. It is a pretty good gig because I set my own hours and have no deadlines. I am only responsible for myself so no cats to herd. And since I am self employed, I can write off my cost of pre-Medicare health insurance for my self and my husband. I will likely retire completely when I am eligible for Medicare but right now, it is a nice pad working no more than one-third time each month. When I quit originally I was thinking that I was done with that type of work, but I have to admit and I still like keeping my hand in it because I do enjoy the challenge.

 

[habelsgtb]

I worked in IT for 25 years; mostly programming but also later QA and IT Security. No interest anymore but I’m glad I have the background to understand things. More focused on travel and renewing my home brewing hobby.

 

[hikerpoet]

I have been programming since '81, first one being a deck of cards written in FORTRAN for a mainframe. Last project was Single Page App in ReactJS and cloud. It has been a long journey. Software Engineer at various companies for over 30 years, never went to management, since loved coding more.

Retired 2 months back at 57, My skills are still very current and in demand, but the burnout has been real, and i have no desire to do it at-least for a long long time, if it naturally feel exciting again.

Planning to just chill, get a part-time fun job where i am using my body for a change.

saving my brainpower to read various books, write, also do some hiking, biking and travel.

 

[RASAP]

I was a software engineer for most of my career and am a real geek by most definitions. I started out in assembly language helping write code to control the Alaskan pipeline. Wrote code for nuclear power plant security systems. Moved on to real-time programming of cold rolling aluminum mills. After that, I started writing PLC code to control manufacturing processes for Kellogg and then got into controlling biotech manufacturing processes. That is when I lost passion as it became more about design documentation (FDA requirements) than the coding. When I retired I was glad to get away from it all. I still get the yearning now and then but don't act on it. My grandson showed some interest in learning how to code so I have been teaching him the basics of C++. That scratches my itch a little. Other than that, it's a thing of the past for me.

 

[target2019]

I was a tech writer and illustrator, and later an analyst. Worked for defense contractors, paper industry, healthcare, payment card and others. I went back and forth between software and hardware docs, and also had a long stretch installing systems and admin stuff.

I usually have a tech project going on, might be recovering an old system for someone, or investigating new hardware, like this: https://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f54/mining-days-are-here-again-109151.html