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I took some time off to teach. Years later, I'm still doing it. I teach computer science and programming. This is a good field to go into, because (a) it applies my knowledge acquired from my earlier life as a developer, and (b) is always in demand. If you want to teach this, you will have no trouble getting a job at a high school, community college, or university. I would also argue it's not, strictly speaking, a technology job. Teaching is a people-oriented job, regardless of the subject.
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Bicycle mechanic. At least that's what I'll probably do next whether my current startup is a wild success or colossal failure. Either way... bike mechanic. :-)
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I've observed several people in my network leave tech and go into financial planning or real estate. I've also seen people go into teaching and/or into endeavors like small scale agriculture and custom furniture. Depends a lot on your personal skills, motivation, location, and savings.
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Consider: * technical writing * office manager (Put everything into a ticketing system with reminder alerts. Don't give anyone else access. Nearly everything an office manager does is a ticket with a deadline and a series of subtasks. The difference between an excellent office manager and a terrible one is their attention to detail. Outsource that to a computer.) * Logistics/shipping management. (Everything I said about office manager, but with more phone calls.)
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Become an entrepreneur. You can start your own business from scratch or look for local businesses for sale.
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Possibly not great for men: "One of my sons works in early education. He can talk quite movingly about the stigma that you'll face as a man. People will question your motives. At worst, some people will suggest, either jokingly or not, that you might be motivated by pedophilia. "What is it about young kids that appeals to you?" is the kind of question you hear. There are some quite nasty stereotypes around men in those professions." https://www.upr.org/npr-news/npr-news/2022-11-04/men-are-str...
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Early education --- preschool and perhaps early elementary --- is admittedly a tough place for men. On the other hand, someone who's spent a lot of time honing technical skills probably belongs not teaching preschool & kindergarten but in upper elementary, middle school, or beyond. And I've found that a perfectly welcoming place as a middle school & high school teacher (and running after-school programs for upper elementary). A dirty little secret, too, is that men often have a much easier time with classroom management, etc, because of cultural biases.
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A close friend just moved across the country and back because what he thought would be his dream teaching job turned out to be laced with dramatic and patently insane identity politics as described. He is himself a socialist passionate about helping poor working class people, but his coworkers were snotty out-of-touch liberals with no conception of class divisions at all. They were intent on dividing society along gender lines.
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How would you break in to this without going through school again to get certified?
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In almost every school district, there is an emergency rule that says that a bachelor's degree in an appropriate field is enough. That said, unless you have a passion for teaching and an enormous tolerance for people making mistakes, I would avoid this.
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Become a substitute teacher first.
I've heard good STEM substitutes are hard to find. (and frequently rebooked) It'll also a low bar way to test out whether you enjoy teaching, and which age range you prefer to teach.
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How does that pay though? I know OP mentioned they’re fine with a paycut, but I my understanding was subs tend to get a low per-firm pay that would probably end up much less than 1/3 of what they were getting in tech. Most subs I remember tended to be rather old and I imagine they were mostly supplementing other income.
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In the upper Midwest, somewhere between 100-200 per day is typical.
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Many school systems (in the US) will hire on a provisional basis, especially for STEM teachers because they are often so desperate for them. You usually get 1-3 years to complete some certifications and then move into the regular CLP style continuous learning after that.
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If you have the knowledge they might hire you as a teachers assistant helping the teacher with curricula and teaching the subject.
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As others said, teaching may be a viable option. But many teaching jobs require a Masters Degree even for grade school (which I think is nuts). But I know a few co-workers did well opening up a pizza shop :). That was many years ago. In anycase, owing a business will even eat more time than working in tech.
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If you have a ability to not work for a few months I would look at the Volunteer in Parks program with National Park Service.
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Start looking in how you do things rather in what you do.
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Health and fitness. Get certified (about $500, NASM or ACE) and become a personal trainer/group fitness coach/similar. I haven't done this myself but it's at the top of my list when the time is right.
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Content moderator for large corp. They look for ppl with more life experience apparently.
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You see some shit in these jobs. Horrific things you can't unsee.
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Did that.. and a postdoc. IMHO it's a waste of time and does not get you any closer to your goals. Exception could be when you end up on a project that could become a startup business idea, but that is not what OP is asking.
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The OP will easily get a tenured job in any tech related branch after a PhD, while just going directly for teaching (as others advised) would result in long term socioeconomic downgrade.
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I have a feeling that you haven't worked in academia. There are no tenured jobs that are easy to get, for the simple reason that firing tenured faculty is intentionally difficult. Tenure-track positions at any reputable university, and even disreputable ones, are highly competitive are require a history of research, in addition to the PhD. Mostly fresh PhDs need to do at least one post-docs in order to be considered for tenure-track. In particular, the offer of a tenure-track position is contingent on the expectation of future research output, which is not consistent with the OP's goal of taking a few months off.
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