Midlife Career Change

Between 2017-2019, I was caught in limbo, hesitating on the future and the urge for retirement haunted me. Since then, I was thinking of a career change. I did not really plan for it, often woke up in most weekends, aimlessly cerebrating what to do for the day. A laid-back Aussie life customarily ended me up with a soy latte and fancy brunch. I ran out of conception on where my current trajectory feeling that I have gotten most from it and solemnly thought that life should not be just like that.

In late 2019, I took the move. Switching career is certainly not my impulse decision but rather, I call it a determined vicissitude in life.

My experience goes with me

Transmuting careers should feel marginally frightening; things came too easy to me after my university degrees. I commenced my academic life the day after my degree was conferred. In my career life, I attended three interviews and all three interviews were successful, i.e. starting with a position in The University of New South Wales, then my expat life in Abu Dhabi before coming back to Sydney with Macquarie University. It has been fortuitous journey of mine, because I stood out among others in these positions with applicant ratio of 1:250 in average. I did not think that my first career path is tough. An engineering background, peregrinated to crypto finance industry. It sounds absolutely detached but in some senses, there are components of transferable skills.

I have years of experience as academic researcher, solving innovative engineering quandaries cognate to heat transfer and fluid dynamics, to go deeper it is microfluidics and nanofluidics. These problems solving adeptness has now converted to quant trading, data analysis and artificial intelligence. My supervision role for higher degree research students has now converted to management role in the company, being the managing director engaging multiple regional chief executive officers and strategising global business operation.

Crypto-blockchain finance industry might sound different to mechanical engineering, but I discern it as a vocation path that aligns with the trajectory of my background rather than going in a completely different direction.

I brace myself for challenges

Many successful entrepreneurs revealed in their memoirs that it is never too old to reinvent oneself. Among the trepidations of switching career is the possibility of massive pay cut, too old to learn, or may facing a transition period when it comes to finance, perhaps a housing mortgage and car loan commitment.

The immense challenge is the psychological toll of having to prove oneself all over again. What if you are no longer competitive?

A big gratitude to the abundant media contents available online these days and the advantages of pandemic session: Months of lockdown have equipped myself with diversified erudition in crypto industry. It is not necessary to take a few classes or complete a full-fledged certification or degree program to qualify in a field. Having spent my years in the university, I know exactly how to acquire knowledge.

I have several friends around me telling me the same things, they were taking a class but did not quite finish it and they gave up. I developed my skill and equipped the essential cognizance in crypto-finance all by self-study.

Just because you turn 40 doesn’t mean you have to stay put in your career until you retire. We owe to ourselves to spend the next couple of decenniums doing work that makes us happy. If changing careers has been up there on our to-do list, it’s an endeavour worth exploring.