Ask HN: Am I committing career suicide?

If you are risk averse (assuming you are because you have lived corporate life for 12 years) I'd recommend working for a small company first, for at least 6 months. There are many aspects of running the company and your own product which you don't see in a corporation. This will help you prepare for launching your own enterprise.

Some more data points and thoughts:

- I have 23 days of PTO per year, which is generous for the US. I did several two week trips the past years, mostly to Asia. My job is fairly low stress, I work less than 40 hours per week. But still, as soon as I set a foot into the office, it feels like all life energy gets sapped out of me. Maybe it's the fluorescent lighting? The crappy HVAC that oscillates between freezing and muggy? The open office plan we moved to last year? The constant sitting? As soon as I'm on my bike on the way home, I feel better.

- Worst case, if I do it: I get lazy and don't do anything during my time off, and won't have anything to show for at the end. But that's entirely in my control, and I won't have anyone to blame but myself.

- I read many blogs and comments about this. A recurring theme is people saying "I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to bring myself to go back to work after taking such a long time off." While I can see the point, aren't they implicitly admitting that there is something wrong with their current situation?

If you are a decent programmer, you should be able to find some sort of satisfactory-paying work even with the "gap" you describe. And if you truly have 5-10 years of savings, you have more than enough cushion to try working for yourself for a year. Try to retain some discipline as you go. If after a year or two you're not able to make anything work, consider looking for a boss again.

I could probably move to Ecuador or Cambodia and retire outright. Trust me, I've been considering it. But there's something about the developed world that I enjoy. When I traveled through Asia, I like Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea. But Singapore seems to be even more expensive than the US?

I only have 4 years of experience in the field. ~3 years at a big social network in europe. We got beaten by Facebook. Then I switched to Consultancy work, yes the J2EE weblogic corporate mangers-all-over-the-place kind of work.

But after a year I stopped and joined a startup in the mobile industry. I coudn't be more pleased.

To you: - Do it! - The gap doesnt matter, if you can explain properly - Dont start working fulltime alone, either have a companion, work somewhere were similar people do the same thing, or have a second job on the side. This is mostly for social reasons. - If you want to work in the startup world, try to do something apart from j2ee. But I see you want to do mobile dev, good choice!

You should think twice about what your motivaions are, do you want to become an entrepeneur? Or you just want to be happy with your job? Dont make the wrong choices for the wrong reasons.