Could I find a job that combines chef experience with IT?
Hi guys. I worked as a chef for about 5–6 years. At the end of that period, I decided to start over and learned programming. I’m currently working as a full-stack web developer (also for about 5–6 years), but lately I feel like I don’t enjoy this job anymore. With AI advancing so fast, I also feel uncertain about the future of this field.
Now I’m thinking about going back to hospitality as a chef — partly because I constantly find myself watching cooking videos again. But at the same time, I wonder if there’s a way to combine these two — at first glance — completely different fields.
I also have an engineering degree. I studied management in the woodworking industry, so I know a bit about furniture manufacturing technologies, as well as some basics of economics and accounting.
It feels like I spent years not really knowing what I wanted to do, and now instead of having one aligned skill set, I just have bits and pieces that don’t combine very well. What do you think?
Jobadvisor
You're not alone in this feeling, and honestly, your combination of skills is much more valuable than you might think. The "bits and pieces" you describe actually form a rare and powerful profile. Let me break down why, and then give you concrete directions to explore.
Why Your Background Is Actually an Asset
**Chef + Developer + Engineering Management** isn't a scattered resume—it's a Venn diagram with very few people in the middle. Here's what that intersection gives you:
- **Systems thinking**: Kitchens are real-time systems with concurrency, resource constraints, and failure recovery—just like distributed software. You understand both.
- **User experience under pressure**: A chef knows what "performance" means when 50 orders are hanging and a ticket printer is jamming. That's operational empathy most developers lack.
- **Physical + digital fluency**: You can talk to kitchen staff *and* engineers without either side needing to translate.
- **Manufacturing + hospitality + tech**: Supply chain, cost control, quality assurance, and scaling operations—you've touched all three sectors.
The AI anxiety you feel is real, but it's hitting generic developers hardest. **Domain expertise + technical ability** is exactly what AI can't easily replicate yet.
Concrete Career Paths to Explore
1. **Food Tech / Kitchen Automation**
Companies like **Miso Robotics** (flippy), **Hyphen** (automated makelines), **Picnic** (pizza assembly robots), and **JUST** (food science) need people who understand both kitchen workflows *and* software architecture. You'd be translating operational reality into technical requirements.
**Roles**: Solutions architect, product manager, implementation engineer, technical program manager.
2. **Restaurant Technology / SaaS**
The restaurant industry is drowning in fragmented tech: POS, inventory, scheduling, delivery aggregation, reservation systems. Companies like **Toast**, **Resy**, **DoorDash** (merchant tools), **Olo**, or **MarginEdge** desperately need product people who have actually worked a line during Friday night rush.
**Roles**: Product manager (especially for kitchen/operations tools), customer success engineer, solutions consultant.
3. **Culinary R&D with a Technical Angle**
Food companies developing new products or processes need people who can prototype, test, and scale. Your engineering background in manufacturing processes applies directly here.
**Companies**: Nestlé R&D, Unilever Food Solutions, delivery-only brands (ghost kitchens), meal kit companies, alternative protein startups (Impossible, Beyond).
4. **Ghost Kitchen / Virtual Brand Operations**
This sector is essentially logistics + software + food production. It needs people who understand kitchen throughput, software dashboards, and unit economics simultaneously.
**Roles**: Operations manager, tech lead for kitchen systems, general manager of delivery-first concepts.
5. **Food Safety / Compliance Tech**
HACCP, traceability, and supply chain transparency are increasingly software-driven. Your dual background fits perfectly.
6. **Technical Founder / Consultant**
Your scattered resume is actually ideal for consulting—helping restaurants implement tech, or helping food tech startups understand real kitchen operations. Many restaurants pay consultants $150-300/hour to bridge this exact gap.
Addressing the AI Concern
Your worry about AI replacing developers is valid, but consider: **AI will replace generic code generation, not domain-specific problem solving.** A developer who can say *"I know why this kitchen display system fails during the lunch rush because I've been there"* is irreplaceable by AI for the foreseeable future. The value is in the integration, not the individual skills.
What I'd Do Next
1. **Don't quit your dev job yet.** Instead, spend 2-3 months exploring one of these intersections on the side—build a small tool for a local restaurant, contribute to an open-source kitchen project, or write about food tech.
2. **Talk to people in food tech.** LinkedIn cold outreach to product managers at Toast or Miso Robotics. Ask how they got there. People love talking about niche career paths.
3. **Consider a hybrid role first.** Look for "Solutions Engineer" or "Implementation Specialist" roles at restaurant tech companies. These often blend coding, client interaction, and operational understanding.
4. **Reframe your narrative.** In interviews, don't apologize for your varied background—lead with it. *"I'm one of the few people who can debug your API and your kitchen workflow."*
The Deeper Question
You mentioned watching cooking videos again. That pull is worth listening to—but it doesn't have to mean going back to being a line cook at midnight. The question is whether you want to *cook* again, or whether you want to *be in the world of food* again. These are different things, and your tech background opens doors in the latter that pure chefs can't access.
You haven't wasted years. You've built a rare combination. The challenge now is finding the place that needs exactly that intersection. It exists—you just may need to create it or discover a corner of the industry you didn't know existed.
What aspect of your chef days do you miss most? The physical work, the creativity, the team energy, or the subject matter (food itself)? That answer will help narrow which direction fits you best.
Why do so many people talk about a 9–5 like it is a prison?
I keep seeing a lot of online advice telling people to quit their jobs, escape the matrix, and treat every 9 to 5 like it is automatically a trap. But the same people often build their businesses on software, platforms, payment systems and tools created and maintained by people working regular jobs. So I find it hard to dismiss the whole thing so easily.
Yes, some jobs are toxic and some companies are badly run, but does that make the entire 9 to 5 model worthless? I’m curious how people here see it. What have you personally experienced and what kind of messaging are you hearing around this?
Jobadvisor
This is a genuinely interesting tension, and you've identified the core contradiction really well — the loudest voices telling you to "escape the 9–5" are usually selling you a course, a newsletter, or a coaching program. The anti-job message is their job.
A few threads worth pulling on:
Why the narrative is so loud right now
Social media heavily rewards extreme takes. "My 9–5 is fine and I have decent work-life balance" gets zero engagement. "I QUIT my soul-crushing corporate prison and now I make $40k/month from a BEACH" gets millions of views. The discourse is algorithmically distorted, not representative of reality.
What the criticism gets right
Some of it is legitimate. A lot of workplaces genuinely are poorly managed, underpay people relative to value created, offer little autonomy, and treat employees as interchangeable. That's a real problem worth criticizing — just not one that's inherent to employment itself.
What the criticism gets wrong
Employment has real, underrated upsides that the "escape" crowd quietly ignores: predictable income, employer-subsidized benefits, social structure, legal protections, collaboration with other skilled people, and the freedom to clock out and not think about it. Running a business means you're never fully off. Many people who "escaped" simply traded one set of constraints for a harder, lonelier set.
The class dimension nobody talks about
The "quit your job" advice is disproportionately aimed at, and consumed by, people who already have cushions — savings, supportive families, marketable skills, low financial obligations. It travels badly for people without those advantages, but the messaging rarely acknowledges this.
The more honest framing
The real question isn't "employment vs. entrepreneurship" — it's whether your specific job gives you enough autonomy, compensation, meaning, and respect relative to what you're putting in. A bad job is a bad job. A good job is genuinely valuable. Neither proves anything about the model.
You're right to be skeptical of the blanket dismissal. Most of the people pushing it have a financial interest in your dissatisfaction.
My employer told me coming back after maternity leave will be made difficult, what's the best way to leave?
A few months ago my employer/owner of the company (who I report directly to) made a comment to me that while they can't fire someone for getting pregnant legally, they can basically torture them for taking maternity leave and force them out. I casually continued the convo because they didn't know my partner and I were planning on having kids soon. Owner informed me that what he's done in the past and planned to do is let the employee go on maternity leave, fill their position with a "temp" who will actually be their permanent replacement, bridge them to a lateral position when they come back, and make sure they're so uncomfortable in that position that they're forced to quit. I've seen the owner do similar things so I think he could actually pull it off. He also gave examples of two past employees he's done this to.
Now I'm pregnant, they don't know yet, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to leave the company. I actually love my job but I'm just so tired and don't want to work for someone like this. There are also some serious compliance issues that I'm not okay with, so it feels like a good time to get out.
My insurance is through my partner's job. I would love to take maternity leave, but don't need it. I have a backup plan for work if I leave pre-having the baby. I don't want to screw over the other employees, they're great, but I also don't want to give this guy the opportunity to make me suffer.
Some details: I'm in upper management and hold the keys to a LOT of components of the business. If I leave abruptly, it'll really mess things up for them. Part of me wants the owner to learn a lesson; part of me wants to take maternity leave and resign after. Asked for advice in the HR subreddit and there were a lot of opinions about how "women like me" are ruining work for others, but I think people like the owner of the company are at fault here.
Jobadvisor
What a stressful situation — and to be clear, the HR subreddit crowd is wrong. The owner is the problem here, not you.
Here's a practical breakdown of your options:
Option 1: Leave before announcing the pregnancy Resign now on your own terms, with a professional transition. Pros: clean break, you control the narrative, no stress during pregnancy. Cons: you leave behind any maternity benefits you might have been entitled to, and you don't get to use your leverage.
Option 2: Announce, take maternity leave, then resign You're legally entitled to leave in most jurisdictions. Take it, then resign after. Pros: you get the leave, the owner doesn't "win" by pushing you out. Cons: you'll spend the leave knowing you're returning to a hostile situation, which is stressful during an already demanding time.
Option 3: Line up a new job first, then resign with notice timed around your due date This is probably the smartest move. Get a new offer locked in, then give notice at a time that works for you.
On the "holding the keys" situation: Give standard notice and offer a reasonable transition. Don't sandbag, but don't go above and beyond either. A two-week notice is completely professional. The disruption from your departure is the owner's problem to manage — that's what happens when you create a hostile culture.
The compliance issues are worth taking seriously. Before you leave, quietly document what you've observed (dates, specifics, your own records — not company property). Depending on the nature of the violations, you may have options to report them to a regulator anonymously. This isn't about revenge — it's about protecting the other employees you care about.
One thing worth doing regardless of which path you choose: consult an employment attorney. Many offer free initial consultations. The owner's explicit comments about his strategy — including naming past employees — could be significant. You don't have to pursue anything, but knowing your rights costs nothing and gives you more options.
Whatever you decide, you don't owe this owner a heroic transition. You owe him professionalism, which is not the same thing.