I went straight into ID and wanted to pursue transportation, but after a chance to work on a project with Pre-Bankruptcy GM I realized that the industry and culture can be a bit toxic. I met several other designers who also worked in transportation professionally (GM, VW) and all of them left the industry to pursue careers in ID or computer graphics (as it turns out all those cars you see in games like GTA and Gran Turismo needed people who could model them). I spent 8 years in ID and then pivoted 2 years ago to User Experience & Management. Frankly I was becoming burnt out with hardware design and I was struggling to find new “products” that excited me as much and would still pay the bills. I also got married, and realized it was going to be hard to find a market where my wife could teach (teachers in NY are very well paid, but there is very little hardware design) and I could explore other opportunities in ID.
At this stage in my career it was more about finding a better work life balance (late nights, frequent business trips and early phone calls with Asia became draining) and the concepts that make for good design in hardware apply equally to software. It may not be the thing I’m most passionate about in the world, but realistically I’m passionate about beer, cars and traveling and I shy of jumping into auto journalism (which I don’t think pays very well) I’m happy with keeping the hobbies as hobbies and letting them be funded by the day job.
A favorite saying my old auto mechanic would tell people is “Just because you love pu**y doesn’t mean you should become a gyno” - finding the balance that works for you is the key.