Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

I do feel it's OK to require new tech to prove itself though and I am quite happy to keep it at arms length until it's earned its stripes - while recognising it can take years for the hype cycle to play out.

Also I suspect the politics might be worse in SME's than a start up or a Big company.

Oh and big telco Is bigger than a FANG when I worked for BT we had more developers in a single division that Google had employees in total

In any case I know other people who left. One told me he went stir crazy and joined his friend's startup part time (because they can't afford him full time) but he doesn't need the money, just doesn't want to feel taken advantage of.

Another had enough that he mostly just enjoys is life with his wife. His kids are adults and live around the world so he travels to see then. Him and his wife attend investor meetups to invest in startups. He makes simple robots as a hobby (and possibly a new company but so far just hobby). They also left the USA, tried a year in Asia and so far 2 in Europe, a year in the first spot, and starting a year in the second, no plans to move but of course they have the means to switch.

I know for myself, looking back on my own happiness, I was happiest when working with best friends on projects I liked. There are at least 2 companies with close friends I could work with but their projects are not so clearly projects I'm interested in and both would pay low compared to FAANG (guess is 1/5th to 1/6th) so it's not an easy decision. Also not clear if it would pay out of they do well. I other words don't want to feel I'm selling them my life for their success.

I was also happiest when I was part of the core team helping to make the decisions of what ships, what the shape the product is. On at least one team I was "just an engineer" and found it so frustrating to watch the leads go have their meetings to decide everything and then just be told what the direction was. Not sure how to fix that except to start my own thing which is easier said than done.

Feels so stupid to be so worried about this spoiled engineer problem though.

Well, being more suitable for jobs is less a matter of being young than of having the right skills and a good CV. The reason I brought up being old is because I think it's harder to make a career switch when you're older than when you're younger.

"What languages did you write in?"

I'm actually going to refrain from giving any more details about exactly what I did. Suffice to say the tech I knew at my peak is, mostly, no longer in fashion and that I knew a variety of languages.

"I suspect I would have ran out of creativity or ideas, and I wonder if the same would have happened to you?"

That's certainly possible, but there are ways to keep oneself fresh.. like surrounding oneself with other creative people, who can be really inspiring, or to work on many different projects at the same time, so it's more difficult to get bored than working on the same thing over and over again. I do share your concern, however, particularly in the long term, but now, looking back on my life I wish I'd just tried more things career wise, and taken more risks... even if they didn't work out in the end, they would have provided lots of opportunities to completely change my life, learn new things, and meet interesting people.

"It's a shame about you hating it and dreading programming. I don't like some of the stuff I have to write but at least it is writing software - I try to keep in mind that's it's still "better" than other jobs I would have gone insane in (eg. basic administrative jobs)."

Yes, there are plenty of worse jobs. I dread those too.