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Ask HN: Burnt out from big tech. What's next?

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Re: Ask HN: Burnt out from big tech. What's next?

#131

Post by the_gastropod »

sieabahlpark wrote: post #42
shortcake27 wrote: post #18

When it comes to burnout, the general advice I received is take minimum 1 year off work. I left my job a few months ago as the burnout got so bad I wasn’t able to conjure up the motivation to tackle the simplest of tasks. First couple months I didn’t feel any better and I was getting worried. But I’m _just_ starting to feel better now. I’m finding myself more positive and less stressed. So what am I doing? I’m living…

Yeah I'm sure everyone can be unemployed for a year straight and live out of their car. That sounds completely reasonable and not absolutely, in any way, privileged or insane.

If you’re working as a software engineer, you are already privileged, yes. It’s trivially easy, when making an average software engineer salary to save a significant portion of your income. If you save 50%, you need to work 1 year to save enough for a year off.

Re: Ask HN: Burnt out from big tech. What's next?

#132

Post by oldspleen »

It's important to prioritize self-care and manage work-life balance to avoid burnout and finding ways to enjoy life beyond your computer screen.

Transition to contracting can provide a change of pace and allow you to have more control over the projects you work on and the clients you work with. This could give you the time and help you determine if you'd like to stay in the tech field or venture into something different.

Re: Ask HN: Burnt out from big tech. What's next?

#133

Post by 2-718-281-828 »

wrechen wrote: post #92

If you are able to, I'd recommend to take a sabbatical. I took 6 months off 9 years ago and I'm still super glad I did. Give your mind some rest and peace, disconnect and everything will follow. If that's not an option, why not join a smaller company where you can work fully remote and only 4 days a week? I have yet to meet somebody that went from 5 to 4 days/week and regretted it. There are so many profitable compan…

I'm on months 10 of my "sabbatical" (deliberate unemployment) and it neither recharged my professional ambitions nor did I manage to come up with any alternative ideas. Feels more like I lost the thread. Not all is bad, though. Learned a lot and matured but jobwise it didn't help much.

Re: Ask HN: Burnt out from big tech. What's next?

#134

Post by [deleted] »

sieabahlpark wrote: post #42
shortcake27 wrote: post #18

When it comes to burnout, the general advice I received is take minimum 1 year off work. I left my job a few months ago as the burnout got so bad I wasn’t able to conjure up the motivation to tackle the simplest of tasks. First couple months I didn’t feel any better and I was getting worried. But I’m _just_ starting to feel better now. I’m finding myself more positive and less stressed. So what am I doing? I’m living…

Yeah I'm sure everyone can be unemployed for a year straight and live out of their car. That sounds completely reasonable and not absolutely, in any way, privileged or insane.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Burnt out from big tech. What's next?

#135

Post by BizarreByte »

the_gastropod wrote: post #131
sieabahlpark wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I'm sure everyone can be unemployed for a year straight and live out of their car. That sounds completely reasonable and not absolutely, in any way, privileged or insane.

If you’re working as a software engineer, you are already privileged, yes. It’s trivially easy, when making an average software engineer salary to save a significant portion of your income. If you save 50%, you need to work 1 year to save enough for a year off.

A lot of us aren’t making average HN level salaries and many have a lot of responsibilities. Saving 50% simply isn’t feasible for most people, even in this industry.

It is not “trivially easy” to take a year off. It’s reckless.

Re: Ask HN: Burnt out from big tech. What's next?

#136

Post by [deleted] »

gardenhedge wrote: post #100
readingnews wrote: post #93

I am now going to be mean, pardon my early morning attitude: You spent > 10 years at a FAANG and you are burnt out. Oh-kay, if you played the cards even half way right, you have more money in the bank than any three of us, and you can just leave and figure out which one of those (good) ideas you listed you would like to do. Heck, you probably made a lot of good connections there, and could take your (deserved) abbati…

Do you have an idea that you want to turn into a startup? What is stopping you right now?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Burnt out from big tech. What's next?

#138

Post by daveguy »

smattiuz wrote: post #126
wrechen wrote: post #92

If you are able to, I'd recommend to take a sabbatical. I took 6 months off 9 years ago and I'm still super glad I did. Give your mind some rest and peace, disconnect and everything will follow. If that's not an option, why not join a smaller company where you can work fully remote and only 4 days a week? I have yet to meet somebody that went from 5 to 4 days/week and regretted it. There are so many profitable compan…

> why not join a smaller company where you can work fully remote and only 4 days a week? this seems to be what everyone is craving these days, saturating the job search market, sadly :(

Eventually companies will have to start hiring for a 4 day work week.

Re: Ask HN: Burnt out from big tech. What's next?

#139

Post by CatWChainsaw »

laszlojamf wrote: post #52
majikaja wrote: post #21

If I had $1m lying around now I would drop everything and focus on longevity/medical research. Who cares about making improvements to gadgets if we're all going to die in a few decades. The faster this tech bubble bursts and people stop flocking to engineering the better.

So once we all live forever we can spend our days improving gadgets just because it's fun?

My bet is a mass existential crisis.
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