{"id":461,"date":"2026-06-15T15:31:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T15:31:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vineverything.com\/?p=461"},"modified":"2026-06-15T16:25:56","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T16:25:56","slug":"career-transition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vineverything.com\/?p=461","title":{"rendered":"Career Transition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It feels scary to admit out loud but sometimes you just have to be brave. For over ten years now I have been a software engineer, primarily focusing on backend engineering. Basically, I worked on the stuff that made the various sites I worked on work<\/em>. It\u2019s the data flows and data processing. It\u2019s the functionality of the site, how it works and scales when a lot of people trying to access it at the same time, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not sure why I didn\u2019t pursue frontend development (that\u2019s the actual look<\/em> of the site, how buttons work, etc) since that aligns a lot better with my interest in the visual arts. For the longest time I was intimidated or frustrated by the idea that I would just be writing code and fiddling with button. This did not appeal to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m tired of pursuing a career doing something I\u2019m not happy doing. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I want to include more creativity into my day job and I don\u2019t want to completely throw away all of my hard-fought-for experience. So in these months since I\u2019ve been laid off I\u2019ve been doing a lot of stuff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Co-founded a company with my partner<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Worked on my garden<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Worked on my art<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Read lots of books and continued to be a regular at my local library<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Lots of soul searching<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    Despite all that activity, I still need a full time job though. I\u2019m no longer satisfied with the idea that I should pursue comfort from familiarity. I want more for my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The time has come for a career transition to UI\/UX and product design. I think the term \u201cCreative Technologist\u201d also applies though I\u2019m not sure how I feel about that terminology at the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    direction validation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    I have been waffling on this transition for a long while. My anxiety is quite high at times (as one might imagine given that I have been unemployed for 5 months now). I know that I shouldn\u2019t be thinking Big Life Thoughts\u2122 after lunch but last night I had the realization that I should stick to backend software engineering because that is safe and I need to provide financial stability for my family right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    enter the landscape designer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    I had been all set on this thought at midnight but then I had a meeting with a local landscape designer this morning. The following series of events resulted in a confirmation that my career transition is actually the right choice for me. Validation!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    After my meeting I was all fired up about taking on some part-time gardening work, but in order to find that work, I needed to create a website to advertise my services. Nothing too complicated, just a static webpage with some vanilla HTML\/CSS that looks nice and allows people to get into contact with me about their garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I had previously started a bunch of other \u201csimple\u201d webpages using AI tools and often times reached a frustrating point where I have a clear vision of what I want it to look like, but no matter how I prompt an agent, the result always needs to be fine-tuned a million times before it begins to approximate the vision I had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    So today when I reached this exact same point of frustration it occurred to me that there has to be a better way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    and there is! <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    It\u2019s literally the job that I have been thinking about pivoting into: Design Engineer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The gist is that I would use design tools (Figma, etc.) to create the vision and then use AI tools to help build it using the design mockups. And voila!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It felt so validating to have this direction show up in a practical, real-world scenario. I love the internet and I think it too, like the real world, should look beautiful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    My exploration of beauty finds its way into all aspects of my life: art, home, garden. Why not work too?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    I\u2019m already not that far away from a Design Engineer so the pivot would not be so terribly difficult that it would make finding a job impossible. This feels right. I\u2019m getting more excited than nervous for the first time in months, and that\u2019s a nice place to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    It feels scary to admit out loud but sometimes you just have to be brave. For over ten years now I have been a software engineer, primarily focusing on backend engineering. Basically, I worked on the stuff that made the various sites I worked on work. It\u2019s the data flows and data processing. It\u2019s the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[122,119,116,117,118,121],"class_list":["post-461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design-engineering","tag-ai-tools","tag-beauty","tag-career-transition","tag-design-engineering","tag-frontend-development","tag-web-development"],"yoast_head":"\nCareer Transition - V In Everything<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vineverything.com\/?p=461\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Career Transition - V In Everything\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It feels scary to admit out loud but sometimes you just have to be brave. 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