21–30 of 111 posts
1. I left Microsoft to join a startup and took a >100k pay cut.
2. The startup was acquired, and I quit the parent company to go teach. Again, taking a sizable pay cut.
I’m happy with all the decisions (to join and to leave). After having a high salary for a few years, the happiness piece becomes far more important.
Then I spent 6 months doing nothing and decided to learn to code. It currently pays nothing because after a year, I'm only just on the cusp of starting to apply. I enjoy coding a lot more than recruiting, but my educated guess is that I'd enjoy entrepreneurship more than working at a company. Either way, it's exciting and challenging in a way that recruiting never was.
I took job that I thought it was going to be more fulfilling (for about 30% less than my current), and ended up regretting it massively... In fact I'm still here, but my work team is an absolutely hellish group of individuals, and my boss is the most crooked individual I've worked with so far.... so In retrospective, I've should picked the other job, the problem was that it was incredible specialized and involved wor…
would be pretty cool if i didn't have kids
While I'm annoyed about the money, I have an improved quality of life in Toronto. My wife and I were raising kids alone in Seattle whereas we have a village here to co-parent with. I also found much more cultural identity and roots here in Toronto compared to Seattle. I also prefer the climate and politics of Toronto more than PNW. I certainly miss the hikes, but we make that up with non-stop beach trips.
If I can achieve the same financial security here in Toronto that I had in Seattle, I would never move. Unfortunately, this has been difficult to achieve, but I'm confident I can get there.
I was working flooring making 12/hour, left it to work 25k/year salary in software with plenty unpaid overtime. Very good move long term
Was this with the goal of making more in the long term, and was it a drop in annual income at the time?
I could live even on basic income, my family not.
My best to all those out there pursuing peace of mind and happiness.
After decades in the software industry, I decided to just get a factory job within bicycling distance of my house and only do programming as a hobby. I can't take the hype cycle anymore. First it was big data this and big data that, now it's all AI. It's always about something other than crafting sensible solutions to real problems. A breaking point for me was getting scolded to figure out how to apply LLM technology…
I used to work for a SV company you've heard of. They treated me very nicely (and I them too I hope!) but it was too big an organisation which brought all the usual problems. Now I work part time for a small local Eastern European company started by my high school friends. We're around ten, I learn a lot, and I have potential for a lot of impact. My real hourly take-home pay is 20% of what I used to make and I work l…