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I quit the tech industry

eev.ee

241–250 of 565 posts

Re: I quit the tech industry

#241
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did exactly this. Was contracting for 8 years in Dublin, commuting almost 3 hours daily. I was making good (but not amazing) money. Then the kids came, and that 3 hour commute became 3 hours that I could spend helping my wife or spending time with my kids. Got offered a full-time job in the tech industry with (gaaasp pension!) outside of Dublin, 5 minutes from my front door, with better salary, bonuses and healthca…

A pension? I've never heard of a pension in tech (though I am from a different country than you). I've never heard of companies taking part of their earnings to invest in the well being of their people. The most I have heard of are perks like ping-pong, a free beer once in a while, and conferences. They often even give you a computer to work on! And a chair to sit in! (I kid you not, these are often listed as perks i…

In the UK all companies (this is being phased in) have to offer a pension to their employees.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#242
I think it is great for the author that their career has allowed them to pay off their mortgage and sit back and examine what it is they are really passionate about. But this was a challenging comment for me from the article:

"I’ve only worked for two tech companies, in radically different fields. The only things they have in common are that their main products are websites with tertiary features that let you buy things. Yet both of them ended up scrambling to write their own payment platforms from scratch. What the fuck is going on?"

I'm currently working at a tech company that is trying to increase the survival rate for cancer patients. Others are working at companies that are providing medicine or support for folks who have no access to medical facilities. The point being that the experience of two tech companies is insufficient to evaluate the entire industry.

And the bigger point is that how you spend your time is your choice. Take the fact that you are getting burned out in your current job to inform your decision on your next one. That is the key to not getting completely burned out.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#243
Instead of quitting the tech industry, why not move to an existing smaller company, whose size gives you more freedom?

Wait and sit for a profitable idea doesn't look like a very good idea.

I'd go to AngelList and join an existing startup, rather than going on my own.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#244

Unfortunately the world is a cruel place, and this guy wants freedom from it. I know, I took the 3-4 months off after quitting a job to do my own thing. I did earn a few dollars but nothing like what a business was willing to pay for my skills. We'd all like to be free to do what we want to do, but in all honesty only a fraction of 1% ever get to. And even those people serve a master. Did I ever find the answer, no.…

It's great that you at least tried it. Takes guts to do so.

It's something I've always wanted to do, but been waiting for that next level of financial security before I do so. Problem is, every time I reach the target, I'm not satisfied with it and want to make a bit more money before I can back off. It's a vicious circle into an ever looming burn out.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wanted to make $200,000 or so from a successful personal project on the side, just so that I could pay off my mortgage so I didn't have to worry about it anymore. But when I think about really getting that money, I realize I wouldn't do that. If my mortage is $1200/month, I just bought myself 166 months, or ~14 years. If the idea is to quit your job and invest in a company, that's not the smartest move. Y…

While I agree with you on that point, just looking from a cash flow perspective if you were to keep working for a little while after paying everything off you'd likely be able to save a huge amount of money very quickly. Save, invest, relax on a beach...any of it's easier without that mortgage eating away at you. I remember when I finally got around to doing the math on my first mortgage and realized I was actually g…

> I was actually going to pay close to triple the sale price of the house if I waited the full 30 years.

Did you adjust for inflation? Even at today's inflation rates, the dollars you pay in 30 years will be worth considerably less than the dollars you pay today. There's also an opportunity cost issue. Paying off your mortgage means not putting the money somewhere else.

> you're really just throwing away money.

No... you're paying for access to a resource that you don't have yourself. There's more utility in that than in literally throwing the money in the garbage.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wanted to make $200,000 or so from a successful personal project on the side, just so that I could pay off my mortgage so I didn't have to worry about it anymore. But when I think about really getting that money, I realize I wouldn't do that. If my mortage is $1200/month, I just bought myself 166 months, or ~14 years. If the idea is to quit your job and invest in a company, that's not the smartest move. Y…

While I agree with you on that point, just looking from a cash flow perspective if you were to keep working for a little while after paying everything off you'd likely be able to save a huge amount of money very quickly. Save, invest, relax on a beach...any of it's easier without that mortgage eating away at you. I remember when I finally got around to doing the math on my first mortgage and realized I was actually g…

Even if you have enough cash to pay off a mortgage, if you can invest it with better returns than the mortgage interest rate (not hard these days), then it makes better sense to do that.

Even Mark Zuckerberg has a mortgage...

Re: I quit the tech industry

#248
I fail to see how this is quitting the tech industry. This is quitting Yelp, but the listing of the Patreon account is all "tech industry" work, just without having a boss or company to be accountable to. The post doesn't seem to insinuate that the author will quit writing software - "Eventually it would be nice to make a thing that actually makes money on its own." Someone who codes and makes money off that product is still in the industry, no?

The author isn't quitting the industry. He is basically going independent, with an undetermined business model.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#249
I empathize with the OP. I wanted to post a reply to probablyfiction explaining to him. Instead I will list the reasons why burnout could have happened to him.

Point 1 "unless X has a toxic work culture,it's likely the author brought it on themselves by pushing too hard."

An overstatement unless you know what he faced. You were hired for your problem-solving ability where pushing hard can be expected at times. In reality this could be he's not pushing too hard so much as the existing environment which leeches effort and adds burden to every step. Toxic culture is somewhat unlikely but what if he inherited a huge technical debt, this happens a lot.

Point 2 it's a terrible feeling to have to spend your most productive hours working on someone else's problems. He or she may find themselves drawn toward entrepreneurship

Wrong. IMO you can either work as a product engineer role building something new (hopefully) or as support role integrating products/fixing glaring bugs crappy code/migrating systems. The latter is not exciting. A developer MUST be capable of both and SHOULD be given at least an opportunity for both. It does not have to be in your own startup. I maybe a coder but I am not a horseshit shoveler.

Point 3 Office culture is draining. Some people aren't cut out for it.

Why ? It doesn't have to be. Even then why assume work culture is the culprit here and he is not cut for it.

Point 4 Additionally, programmers tend to push themselves too hard for too long out of a misplaced sense of loyalty to the company. They don't see that the work they do is extremely valuable in and of itself.

Translation the coder has to see the fine line of enthusiasm between "working already" and overzealous. Seems like a hypothetical problem unless you tell why is it relevant here. About the "work" you say, you should tell what "work" is. It is not just the stationary lines of code lying on repository, but the amount of effort that went to write it, debug it and will go to maintain it. A badly written project demands higher effort to keep it running than what you could imagine.

Point 5 a coder doesn't owe the company anything more than their agreed-upon hours of work.

I know that is the agreement. But I don’t know if you have seen places where boss wants work in a deadline and not hours a coder spends and wants it done. You should remind him that then.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#250
Not to knock on the industry at large but the day I gave up wanting to program "services" (for the lack of a better term -- things that work the data to produce an outcome that although convenient, is not a necessity of our lives) and apply my skills to tangible, real world problems I became immensely happier in my day to day. I went from loathing the next day of work and counting the clock hours until I ran out the door to happily thinking of the problems, looking forward to the next project. I think a lot of people in software could benefit from taking the time to take a hands-on hobby of sorts where you create physical output, a useful craft with purpose. There's a chunk of our lives that logic and algorithms cannot fulfill in the same way that a craft can.

It seems like hokum re-reading that last paragraph. I wish I was better with words to portray what I'm trying to get across but its just something that's been on my mind in the last month or so. I feel into another slump similar to what our article's author describes. You get caught in a cycle of "I'm tired because tomorrow will suck" and don't use that time to regenerate and recover. When my car hit the tipping point last week and I was forced to get my hands dirty it broke that cycle. I came out from under with a true sense of accomplishment; beaming with pride for what I had done and suddenly Monday's problems were on the wayside.

To swing back to what I tried saying originally though; having a job where I produce factories, networks, systems that clients look, touch, and interact with just gives the same feeling of pride that I never achieved when building services for IPTV products, billing software features or other data applications. I'm certain there's a whole host of people that drool at some of those domains but if that's not your "thing" then you'll never be happy. I wasn't, the author likely wasn't but that's not to say she can't find happiness anywhere in tech. And to believe that leaving it all behind for a mystery won't solve those same problems that put her where she is now. "The Grass is Always Greener" will wane and she'll miss being among peers and those who she can share her problems with. A girlfriend in the medical industry just can't converse on the same level as other tech's can, its where I reach out to coworkers, peers, friends to blow off some steam. I wish her the best, I just hope she figures out where the true problems lie or where her true calling is before she regrets distancing herself from an industry that she has obvious passion for.

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