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Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

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Re: Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

#311

Post by magicroot75 »

subpar wrote: post #211
setgree wrote: post #57

I quit in May, and since then have hiked the Appalachian Trail and just landed in New Orleans. I'll do a little part-time research work but my main goal is to write a lot and play music. Before I left, I was depressed, and now I'm not. IMO everything else is totally second order to not feeling so darn bad all the time. My plans extend to about the end of this current month, and then, we shall see.

Also quit and hiked the AT back in 2018. Plan was to take a whole year – hike the first half and travel the second, but a month after finishing the trail a unique opportunity came my way through a former colleague and I jumped back in to the working world.

Fellow '09 thruhiker here just chiming in.

Re: Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

#312

Post by roguas »

ryandrake wrote: post #252
mlac wrote: post #87

After skimming half the thread and only seeing one view (DO IT! It’s GREAT!), I’m going to throw this out there: - You will have heavy selection bias here (people who did not succeed might be working at a crappier job and unable to comment at this moment) - You will also have confirmation bias among those who willingly quit (“of course it was the right move”) - You are asking a very unique set of people with very val…

Both times I have quit my job with nothing else lined up have been stress-filled disasters with a dreadful financial countdown timer. I would never do it again. The second time, our savings left us about 1 month away from my wife and I living in our car. This thread has been unreal! I don't know who these people are who can just leave their jobs and go off to windsurf in Ibiza, but congratulations on how fortunate yo…

To add to the other side. I cannot imagine not having a capability to just gather my things and leave. All it takes is savings that can keep you running in modesty for 6 months. In my country, including health insurance, without mortgage/debt/kids its about 10k usd ("central" europe).

Its not much honestly. Peace of mind and poker plays you can swing towards shity employer are worth it. 6 months to find new SWE job, when I constantly pinged by HR and have generally good relations with previous employers(they would take me if i ping them), is plenty of time

Re: Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

#313

Post by roguas »

patchorang wrote: post #247
joenot443 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big tech companies rarely have a problem pushing a start date a few months in the future. At my last positions at G and Snap, HR had no problem accommodating my request that I not start until about 5 months after my interview. I was just upfront and told them that for some personal reasons, I'd be taking an extended break between positions, and wasn't interested in interviewing unless they could promise me a start da…

Good to know, I've mostly worked at startups/smaller companies so it's been a little less flexible.

At this point BigTech actually treats you as resource. So your scheduled, queued, have expected durability/longetivity etc. Its easier for them if they can plan ahead. Startups on the other hand are typically in "now" mode, more buddist not really.

Re: Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

#314

Post by osrec »

randomopining wrote: post #272
osrec wrote: post #12

I quit my investment banking job in 2017 and set up my own SaaS. Very tough for the first two years, making little to no money (but I had a good amount of savings). Four years since quitting, I'm better off (many times over), both financially and in terms of how much time I have to do the things I want to. Not for the faint hearted, but I definitely recommend it.

So SaaS is just some online app that does something that somebody pays you a monthly recurring fee for?

Yes, but not always monthly. Sometimes we have 1, 3 or 5 year contracts as well.

Re: Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

#315

Post by cushychicken »

jnguyen64 wrote: post #308
cushychicken wrote: post #55

So far, so good. I quit in July with nothing else lined up. I took about two months off where I was just reading and taking care of our new puppy. I've started a job board for FPGA/RTL engineers at www.rtljobs.com. The mailing list is growing at an appreciable clip and paid postings should be live early in the new year. I've also been doing some electronics consulting work. Not much. Only about 2-3 hours a day. I'm m…

Pretty cool website!! I'm working on a job board as well (completely un-related field) and would love any early insights you got as far as gaining traction and building up a mailing list. Also, for the filters, could you make it so that when a user clicks outside of the filter choices, it closes the menu that pops up?

I'm still figuring out how to build traction. I think the things I'd recommend at an early stage are:

1) get a mailing list signup (Mailchimp, ConvertKit, whatever) into your page STAT. Don't miss out on email signups because you think your page isn't "good enough". Let your users tell you whether or not your site is good enough - they will sign up if it is. I got on the frontpage of a relevant subreddit and probably missed 10-20 email signups as a result.

2) don't be afraid to talk about your project online, a lot. Tweet about it, blog about it, post to Reddit as much as you feasibly can.

I've been trying to fix that filter thing for weeks. Don't know the answer lol. Probably going to have to wait until I finish some backend junk and start transferring the frontend over to a React or Vue frontend.

Re: Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

#316

Post by edmcnulty101 »

josh2600 wrote: post #296
edmcnulty101 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you define as living 'paycheck to paycheck'? What kind of friends do you have that have loanable startup money? I think you and I come from totally different classes in life.

I was about one paycheck away from missing a payment on my parents mortgage. The friends I begged were people I had causally met at burning man. I grew up very poor, like don’t know where your next meal is gonna come from poor. I networked into the tech community by working day in and day out to be something the tech community wanted. That meant changing who I was in deep and fundamental ways. I grew up in the Bay Ar…

Congrats to you! Luck is where preparation meets opportunity, so some part of it is deff due to your work and plans.

My friends and I split the bill on a 30$ meal!

They deff don't have startup money.

The juxtaposition just threw me.

Re: Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

#318

Post by andi999 »

roguas wrote: post #312
ryandrake wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both times I have quit my job with nothing else lined up have been stress-filled disasters with a dreadful financial countdown timer. I would never do it again. The second time, our savings left us about 1 month away from my wife and I living in our car. This thread has been unreal! I don't know who these people are who can just leave their jobs and go off to windsurf in Ibiza, but congratulations on how fortunate yo…

To add to the other side. I cannot imagine not having a capability to just gather my things and leave. All it takes is savings that can keep you running in modesty for 6 months. In my country, including health insurance, without mortgage/debt/kids its about 10k usd ("central" europe). Its not much honestly. Peace of mind and poker plays you can swing towards shity employer are worth it. 6 months to find new SWE job,…

How does the number change when you kids?

Re: Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

#319

Post by pppppppppps »

After almost 3 years of work for huge marketplace I resigned because I didn't feel company goals. Took 2 months of vacation and after that, spent about month looking for job.

It was hard work to be honest. At first I scheduled interviews to "warm up" and get used to questions. It was for first 2 weeks. Then I felt that I was ready for real interviews. Have to say that I have list of companies where I want to work. Try to keep it up to date. It helped a lot, I knew where I should apply. Also Hacker News has great topic "Who is hiring". I had interviews for whole day, starting early for Europe and finishing late after meetings with North America. I admin, it was a challenge for me.

Currently I work for US based company that do good things for environment and have impact for many people lives. It feels good.

Re: Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

#320

Post by ornornor »

badtension wrote: post #222
andi999 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not speaking from experience, but I believe you should start every day with sales. Demo doesn't need to be ready, get potential customers, feedback etc. Even the big ones start sales before the product is ready. Also if you see there is interest it will help you to finish. You cannot skip the sales part, so instead of after finishing put it in front (it is also the hardest part for developers).

I have talked to a few people (yes, friends) that said it would solve some of their problems but nothing like selling up front or contacting random people. I am a programmer and have a hard time "inverting" the process. This feels like a fraud or maybe is just a part of the imposter syndrome. I want to start with something that is at least a bit "interactive" to see how people behave using it. I think this may show a…

You’ve probably already heard about it but “The Mom Test” is a pretty good read.
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