Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026) • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

#151

Post by geekster777 » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 11:56 AM UTC

jimbo_joe wrote: post #150

geekster777 wrote: post #149

I quit in May. I'm a bit worried though. The gig was good, people were great, but writing on the wall was that management expected devs to be so bullish on AI that no handwritten code would exist moving forward. Simultaneously, deadlines were getting aggressive and OKRs more optimistic now that everyone can be a 10x engineer with Claude. I probably could have ridden it for another year if I really wanted to coast, bu…

Hey, how do you plan FIRE with children? My daughter turned one recently and we're planning to have at least one other child. While I can see myself FIRE and be able to live off savings at some point I feel that children costs (education, general upkeep like housing, food, and other stuff) x number of children for the next 20-25 years (roughly until they become self-sufficient) coupled with economic uncertainty are u…

Honestly, I've been hand waving this somewhat. We'll be on my wife's insurance for the next several years at least, and live in an area where public schools are quite good (Massachusetts). My assumption is that each kid will add ~$15k in cost a year, though I could be underestimating this. I'm planning a few layers of buffer here. 1) My wife wants to keep working past 6 years from now and has no interest in FIRE (this is huge, but 6 years is a long time for her to change her mind). 2) Once kids are old enough for elementary school, I can go back to work. If my math is wrong, 7ish years of overspending shouldn't set back our FIRE too considerably. 3) Being a stay at home dad to start should seriously eliminate the expensive childcare costs. 4) My FIRE numbers don't include my 401k/IRAs, which I can dip from (with penalties) if necessary.

Re: Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

#152

Post by AlexeyBelov » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 1:08 PM UTC

Longlius wrote: post #17

I quit last year and have just been chilling and working on side projects. The reason I left was because of mandatory RTO combined with a very steep decline in the engineering culture of where I worked. Got tired of having to talk to like five different people who barely spoke English to get anything done and the increasingly naked hostility from the c-suite about our value to the company.

> naked hostility from the c-suite about our value to the company

So true. A friend told me that at his company the higher-ups "joke" about replacing all the devs. But it's not a surprise honestly, we've been slowly moving towards this (treating devs and workers in general as some costly inconvenience).

Re: Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

#153

Post by munksbeer » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 1:30 PM UTC

Steltek wrote: post #144

pupppet wrote: post #110

Think about it all the time. Can’t stand how AI has made everyone at a company a pretend expert at everything and discussions are now just everyone’s AI responding back and forth to one other, and nobody seems to notice or care.

"Here's my analysis" followed by a clearly copy pasted Claude session that they barely read, let alone understand.

I am what you might call an AI enthusiast. I've embraced it for coding, and find it has refreshed me.

But the stuff you're talking about here drives me nuts.

Re: Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

#154

Post by eska » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 11:45 PM UTC

jongjong wrote: post #85

anonymoussuomy wrote: post #20

Not quitting just yet, but the culture is super toxic lately. Managers will promise things that are not feasible, set absurd deadlines, and then let engineers take the fall if they don't meet those deadlines. When engineers come up with good ideas, managers will say it's a bad idea, but then run away with the idea and take the credit. I wake up every day wondering if I should quiet quit or go for a clean exit.

You just shouldn't take anything too seriously. I used to resent being paid by the hour instead of based on deliverables. But nowadays, in the current environment, I am extremely glad that I get paid hourly. It's a different skillset. There's a lot of acting and sometimes drama involved but thankfully I'm good at both engineering and acting... Also, I kind of like drama. Anyone who cares about their work, in this eco…

This was so sad to read. I quit because I didn’t want to end up this dead inside.

Re: Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

#155

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 11:33 AM UTC

eska wrote: post #154

jongjong wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just shouldn't take anything too seriously. I used to resent being paid by the hour instead of based on deliverables. But nowadays, in the current environment, I am extremely glad that I get paid hourly. It's a different skillset. There's a lot of acting and sometimes drama involved but thankfully I'm good at both engineering and acting... Also, I kind of like drama. Anyone who cares about their work, in this eco…

This was so sad to read. I quit because I didn’t want to end up this dead inside.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

#156

Post by gcj » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 8:52 PM UTC

NDizzle wrote: post #75

I think about quitting every single day. I have too many little responsibilities running around the house in order to pull it off. Layoffs impacting us big time. Brain drain. Off shoring. 7,000 line PRs. 12 hour shift coverage. Project count tripling. Not sure how long I’ll make it before I have heart issues and become one of those late 40s guys who keels over and is forgotten by the company in 6 weeks. Stressful.

How offshoring affects you?

Re: Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

#157

Post by sshlocalhost98 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 11:25 AM UTC

I am working as a power engineer. Toxic culture at a Singapore government company. Usual bullying for non Chinese workers. Workers and bosses always talk in mandarin even in official settings and meetings.

Currently quitting and plan to chill. :)

Re: Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

#158

Post by doveylovey » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 4:58 PM UTC

nbaksalyar wrote: post #92

What a great and timely question! :) I quit a week ago to take a year-long sabbatical. > 1. What pushed you to do it? The pursuit of curiosity, for the most part. That's what makes quitting a lot harder when you have a good job and nothing to complain about: you feel like you're making a huge mistake on a whim. Doubly so when you consider the state of the job market at this time. That said, we don't live to work; we…

[dead]

Re: Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

#159

Post by catzapd » Thu, Jul 09, 2026, 7:09 PM UTC

Planning to quit by end of the year. That is if I dont get fired earlier.

Place is a shithole. CEO/founders not being honest. Chief architect in India.

Feel that current architecture is broken and will not work.

Privately working on a prototype to demo to CEO/founders. Plan to tell the CEO this is what is possible and changes need to happen. Otherwise it is "sayonara"

Re: Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

#160

Post by NDizzle » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 6:08 PM UTC

gcj wrote: post #156

NDizzle wrote: post #75

I think about quitting every single day. I have too many little responsibilities running around the house in order to pull it off. Layoffs impacting us big time. Brain drain. Off shoring. 7,000 line PRs. 12 hour shift coverage. Project count tripling. Not sure how long I’ll make it before I have heart issues and become one of those late 40s guys who keels over and is forgotten by the company in 6 weeks. Stressful.

How offshoring affects you?

Leadership asks us if we have friends who are skilled looking for a change. We do. We hire those people. They do great work. They then get laid off 8 months later. Leadership then asks (the few we have…) skilled people in India if they have friends who are skilled looking for a change. They say to find the job postings for the laid off people to use verbatim for the India roles.