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Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

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Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#11

Post by cerrelio »

I took two breaks from tech. One was for grad school, which I dropped out of after 3 semesters. Like some others in the thread I found academia to be pretty bad. You're paid shit and treated like a peon. The work was actually interesting, but I knew I could just go back to private industry and make 5-10x as much doing the same type of work.

I took a break from "everything" at one point and became a nightlife photographer in a large urban area. It didn't pay much. It mostly involved drinking and doing drugs, on someone else's dime, until the early morning. It was a great time for the most part, and I met lots of interesting people. After about 6 months I got tired of it and went back to tech. Note: having a professional camera in a club is a great way to meet women.

I'm considering leaving tech again, or at least ending my engineering career. I no longer find it personally enjoyable to build systems. Building systems that other people want, instead of ones I'd want to build, has jaded me. I've worked at several companies, large and small, over the years. And I've found that as a tech shop matures, that exciting feeling of creating a product dulls. It dulls to the point of becoming anesthetic. The longer you stay, the worse it becomes. I wouldn't mind staying in the tech field. I just don't want to spend all day in front of a monitor anymore.

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#12

Post by toomuchtodo »

mediaserf wrote: post #9
toomuchtodo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm buying a sailboat with my wife and daughter and sailing the world in 18 months (waiting for the last of my options to vest). Think about it! It's ~$60-100k to get the boat, and you can live on ~$24-30k/year doing it. There's a huge community out there of cruisers who do it full time.

This is my plan! What kind/size of boats are you looking at?

Originally, we were looking at a Lagoon catamaran, 38-42 feet. Due to personal circumstances around an elderly parent (can't sell our house, they'll need to live in it while we're out sailing), we're now looking at a Beneteau 381 (and a few others, needs to be blue water capable but would also like to have a lot of guests on during passages).

I'd love a Lagoon, but unless my options are worth >$100K at a liquidity event, its not in the cards.

http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/category/type/Beneteau/381

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#13

Post by potterboy67 »

I would think long and hard about leaving an industry you're established into, before doing it. I left in 2008 because, after two mergers, I had run out of steam and felt I wasn't wanted. I lost money because the crash caused the options I had to be worth less than I had hoped, but I attempted to make a living making wood-fired pots. I'd been making pots for ages, but they weren't good enough, and I didn't know how to build a business. I've been fortunate to have had a friend who employed me twice, but I now find myself living on dwindling savings but nine years out of date.

I would suggest that if you are running out of passion, then find an unrelated but expensive hobby, or find something related to IT that you can get passionate about.

And if you're certain you want to leave, start planning now.

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#15

Post by beachstartup »

cerrelio wrote: post #11

I took two breaks from tech. One was for grad school, which I dropped out of after 3 semesters. Like some others in the thread I found academia to be pretty bad. You're paid shit and treated like a peon. The work was actually interesting, but I knew I could just go back to private industry and make 5-10x as much doing the same type of work. I took a break from "everything" at one point and became a nightlife photogra…

have you ever tried technology sales? i can turn on the social charm like a light switch but it requires significant effort so i wasn't able to do it long term but it might be a good transition for you.

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#16

Post by voidz »

I became a full time father and results have been stellar. My boy is now one year old and turns out to be very clever... And very strong. He could crawl at seven months and started to learn how to walk at 11 months. His first word was 'hunger' (in Dutch, it sounds virtually the same) at two months, maybe it was imaginative but he was happy to eat after we we heard him say it, haha. Now he can also say 'mama' and 'papa', but it appears that he is deferring the rest of his vocal development until later because he can manage fine by using the Dutch equivalent words for 'that' ('die', sounds like 'thee') and 'food' ('eten', sounds like 'aitan').

His mother is happy that she can focus on her career while leaving him in my care at home, although it's harder than she imagined because she does miss us dearly while away from home and is counting the hours at work... probably because we're two very cool froods (wink). After the infamous initial "post-natal bumpy ride" our relationship is back where it used to be - at 100%.

I'm the happiest man ever and wouldn't want it any other way.

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#17

Post by ITLife »

Left the industry after 15 years, bought a garden store with existing customers and an online site. The freedom and family time was nice but burned through my savings and sold one of my paid off cars to pay the mortgage. Had a second child and needed to get back into the industry after 3 years. Sold the store, broke even, and went back to the 9-5.

This time the exit is being more thoughtfully executed. While making a good salary, I am slowly buying rental properties. Up to 3 so far. Fingers crossed that the second time is a charm.

Many in the industry say an IT job comes with golden handcuffs. Most other professions don't pay as good. IT workers often times make what management from other departments make.

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#18

Post by vkat »

globalgoat wrote: post #3

I'm back in the industry at the moment, but I did quit my job a few years back. I hired an allotment, grew a lot of vegetables, taught myself to bake bread and did a few other projects. How was it? It was just great and it taught me about living on much smaller amounts of money, which is very helpful now that I have children and I work for a charity. So maybe that's slightly off topic, and more of a career break than…

How does one go about renting a small piece of land for hobby farming?

Re: Ask HN: What did you do after quitting the IT industry and how have things been?

#19

Post by kickscondor »

I guess I should answer this one. I quit computer programming to teach public elementary school during the summer of 2015. I had been planning my exit for five to maybe ten years ago. The pay is nowhere near what one can make as a programmer - but I didn't really need all that money anyway. I teach a technology class - every kid in the school takes it for an hour - some of it involves programming, some of it is letting the kids explore tools like Twine, some of it is programming my own apps for the class.

For me - I can't see myself going back to an office. To teach kids is such an antidote to the self-loathing and looming pointlessness that I felt as a programmer. I'm not saying those feelings apply to any of you or to the profession as a whole - I just needed people in my life. And I guess I was tired of feeling like other people were using me for their projects - I want to use me for my projects.

I'm still in a bit of transition - do I continue experimenting in the classroom and attempt to release the apps I develop there? Or do I stay focused on teaching and improving my community? I think I'm set on the latter - I'm happier when I'm not chasing some impossible dream. But who knows - one still has ambitions that are impossible to repress anyway. Either way - it's great to have this kind of choice.

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