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Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

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Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

#101
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have a PhD in Computer Science, one of the highest academic accomplishments in one of the hottest fields for the last 30-40 years. I want you to know how far ahead you are of people like me who just taught themselves to code and glue web apps together for 6 figures. Don’t want to be a buzzkill but OP can as well be a mediocre engineer, even with a CS PhD. It’s important to recognize your own strengths and weakn…

It can be even worse than that: be amazing at the theory, be an amazing engineer, but being unable to make something that can be interpreted by others makes you an unacceptable risk to any company (except your own).

I think just about any engineer can accomplish that feat, PhD or not.

Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

#102
I'm definitely very confused about point 4. Perhaps it's a UK thing, but taking a 2/3 paycut should not ruin your chances of retiring early, if you're living in a city as expensive as London. If you consider the cost of rent, and cost of living in general, your 2/3 paycut should end up being like a 95/100 paycut after accounting for CoL. In other words, it should hardly impact your retirement plans.

Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

#103
I spent a long time working alongside quants in the City, in several large and small companies. Some of the quants seemed to enjoy their work a lot, a few less so. It depends on the team and the company to a large extent I suspect.

If you really can't find any fun place in the City as a quant, consider eg a data scientist role elsewhere.

I don't think that I have yet paid myself (eg a CTO of start-ups, with an MSc) what you probably got as your opening salary. I worked in IT, but the money wasn't a motivator and so I never moved to trading as friends did, or into management...

Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

#104
Sounds like you've got a bit of burnout. I felt like this a while back, I got though it by working for a company I really felt I had an impact and enjoyed the work culture.

I'd counter argue that leaving London doesn't have to mean the end of a career. Have you tried looking at other places in the UK to live/work? I'm a bit bias but Bristol is a fantastic city to live in and the tech scene is really well developed. Lots of start ups, mid sized and large companies. Plenty of banks/fin tech companies are based here too.

One of the things that have helped me get though burnout was to do other things outside of work. Be that go for food, cinema or even visiting tourist sites.

Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

#105

I'm going to be the contrarian. Keep the job. Power through it and retire as early as you can, then you can do whatever you want. If you're in $finance$ or $FAANG$, don't go to a non-FAANG. Definitely don't quit your job unless you have another one lined up, and definitely don't take an extended leave to travel and find yourself. Don't believe "CS grads will always be employed." There are people on HN who graduated i…

There's definitely an argument for making hay while the sun shines. But retiring early exposes you more to future bear markets since the value/returns of your investment portfolio will go down. Being employed seems a lot more resilient in that case.

Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

#106
post #86
post #76

There's a couple of constraints here that seem to be dominating your decisions. One: early retirement Two: the idea that the recruiter was right about not being able to find the money elsewhere You have a PhD in Computer Science , one of the highest academic accomplishments in one of the hottest fields for the last 30-40 years. I want you to know how far ahead you are of people like me who just taught themselves to c…

> You have a PhD in Computer Science, one of the highest academic accomplishments in one of the hottest fields for the last 30-40 years. I want you to know how far ahead you are of people like me who just taught themselves to code and glue web apps together for 6 figures. Don’t want to be a buzzkill but OP can as well be a mediocre engineer, even with a CS PhD. It’s important to recognize your own strengths and weakn…

OP could be a lot of things, however, I'm going to go with OP being "likely employable in the future" due to having a PhD and being currently employed with a near-Google salary. Don't be an asshole.

Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

#107
I won't try to tell you how to live your life, but I did want to chime in on one thing you said: "I find it difficult to muster up any enthusiasm during job interviews, which is probably a red flag for potential employers..."

This is the opposite of my experience, and having worked as a consultant/contractor for the past decade I've done quite a few. It's a lot like a first date, in that an excess of enthusiasm is off-putting (why are they so desperate?), and appearing not yet convinced you're interested is a bonus.

Of course you want to be professional and courteous, but going into a job interview not sure if you want the job, is often the best way to get it.

No job is always fun, that's why they pay you instead of the other way around. But you shouldn't be in tears when you start the week. Start "fishing" for a job, and see what's out there, and because you are already employed, you can be patient and choosy. Good luck.

Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

#108
Personally I'd chunk these feelings down into bite-sized goals, and work to completing them one by one. For example, 1) Find a remote job 2) leave the city 3) own a home 4) travel 5) retire early

Each will have it's own complex requirements and take time to achieve, but I think taking some time to lay out your goals clearly, and staring to feel progress towards them will help make the trapped feeling go away.

Also, in my personal experience it's become important to separate my job from my hobbies. I used to spend all my free time on the computer, but these days it's my full time job and then some, and I've found it very refreshing to find other hobbies to pursue in my free time.

Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

#109
Seems like you should be able to work remotely with your skill set even if you have to change jobs. If you can convince your partner to also go remote, then you could both become digital nomads and get your travel in. Or, you don't have to go full digital nomad, you could both just leave London.

There's not much point to staying in a job you hate if you have other options. Money isn't everything and not everyone survives to retirement (even early retirement).

Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

#110
Many high paying jobs are meaningless for the reason they are high-paying: they (the company) needs someone to do the job, and the combination of required skill and meaninglessness means that nobody who can do the job really wants to do the job.

If a lot of people who could do it wanted to do it, the pay would drop. The other way around also applies: if a lot of people want it, and a lot of them actually can do it, the pay drops as well.

But now that not a lot of people want it (because it might be meaningless and/or unfulfilling) and it requires a specific skillset and isn't highly available, you get in exactly your position.

Instead of focusing on early retirement (which signals that working seems to equate 'bad'? and being free from the 'bad' is the ultimate goal?), focusing on what you actually want (instead of focusing of the negation of what you don't want) might get you much more of a direction to look for work/life.

In the end, money and by extension, wealth, doesn't really mean all that much. It's what you end up doing that has the meaning. And 'doing' doesn't always require a lot of money (or wealth in general).

Regarding technology, you'll have to find out what it is in technology that you actually want. Some people want to think about things and try things out. Others want to build things. Or perhaps you're in to managing people and enabling them to do the thinking/building/operating. All of those types of jobs can be done remotely (as in: fully remote). This means that you are neither bound to a specific city, nor to a specific office building to 'go to'.

The other part of the story, the city where you live, that's a different problem. If you simply don't like the city, then there is no way around it (like doing something with your job), you'll end up leaving the city so best to start working on that.

Retiring doesn't equate having fun. Neither does travelling the world. That's just an instagram crutch. Perhaps the problem lies in stress, top-down management or 'targets' or something. There is plenty of work where those don't apply. There is also plenty of work there those do apply. It's very easy to be stressed or getting 'managed' when you are retired and not working. The same applies to targets.

Perhaps it's my personal experience (or your personal experience) but there is a huge difference between the way 'work' can express itself in its various incarnations. Work that requires being managed, having some rate, ratio or target to hit, fight-for-your-bonus or work more than 35 hours a week no longer something I'd personally be willing to accept at this stage. Depending on what you have to offer and what the company has to offer, that is a choice you can make with plenty of options left to pick from.

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