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I quit the tech industry

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Re: I quit the tech industry

#271

Post by ionforce »

pjc50 wrote: post #130
fsloth wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" all software companies rush so hard." I suppose it depends on the business model the software is part of. If you want a pace that is compatible with proper engineering I would suggest looking into companies that deal with products whose lifetime is measured in decades such as CAD vendors or other highly technical software. All freshmen to software engineering have this weird idea that a piece of code can ship once…

just shipping as much code as much as possible is the best road to maximize productivity Just like juggling is a matter of throwing as many balls in the air as fast as possible ("What do you mean they come down again?")

Disingenuous comparison is disingenuous.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#272

Post by Kluny »

themckman wrote: post #257
lighthawk wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's likely the author brought it on themselves by pushing too hard. Don't fall into the trap of thinking this. It is the case some of the time, but not all of the time. When I first started working in tech in the mid-90s, it was only a year or two before I was considering going back to school in music or to get an MBA. Since about 2004, I've known that I would like to abandon the tech industry. It is now 2015. I h…

I've talked to several developers over the years that dream of being a groundskeeper. A little about this. I worked plenty of my summers at a country club (my dad is a superintendent) and there is something to the work. There's some really shitty jobs (how about weed-eating the the creek banks in 90 degree temps and 90% humidity?), but mowing grass can be really enjoyable. When working at nicer clubs there is a certa…

> It's funny how when we're young we'll look at a job like that with a sort of scorn as if we've got better things to do, but then as you get older you long a little for those nice summer days of cruising up and down the fairways, just you and your machine.

Totally... also, there are some places that hire summer students and pay kind of lousy money and have rough conditions. But there are other places that will prefer to hire someone older, stabler, long term, and recognize that they won't be able to hold onto such a person without at least paying a living wage. That could be alright. More like $15-20 an hour for relaxed, reasonably well respected work with plenty of exercise and outside time.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#273

Post by mvanvoorden »

xienze wrote: post #191
skidoo wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offense, but I disagree with pretty much all of this. We work more than our ancestors do, not to make an easier life, but for the sake of incorporating the ephemeral and inconsequential into our lives. And an agrarian lifestyle can be loads of fun, actually. I got more of a sense of accomplishment helping on my grandparents' farm than from any blue collar job I've ever held.

Yes the work can be rewarding but I'm really addressing the author's misguided point that all our modern work is to solve non-existent problems. In reality, it's to make our lives easier and more comfortable. The flipside of a completely agrarian society is very little safety net. Crop disease? Drought? Animal sickness? Broke your leg? Life just got a lot tougher. Like, life or death tougher.

Again, because you don't seem to read what I'm typing:

Not all modern work, just all the work that has directly or indirectly to do with money and jobs that come forth out of that (like the cleaning crew or receptionist of an insurance company or bank).

We do a lot of redundant, unnecessary work, just for the sake of working, without ever consciously asking ourselves what the use of this work is and who is actually helped with this. Unconsciously this question comes by a lot, and that makes people burn out in the long run.

Drop your assumptions and prejudice and read my posts again. We are actually able to make our lives easier and more comfortable, but instead we let ourselves be fooled and forced into doing robotic labor, never-ending jobs, and repetetive tasks. Just because we are told it's necessary and makes our lives more comfortable.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#274

Post by yebyen »

sbierwagen wrote: post #263
mootothemax wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't Ireland have a graduated tax system? According to Wikipedia, it does: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_Republic_of_Ire... "The taxation of earnings is progressive" Which makes the OP's post rather confusing. Does any country out there not tax progressively? I just can't imagine it - "Great, you got a pay rise! Now you get to take home less, until your pay rises by another $5,000!" Edit: On second…

Does any country out there not tax progressively? I just can't imagine it - "Great, you got a pay rise! Now you get to take home less, until your pay rises by another $5,000!" He's just whining. At no point under the progressive tax system do you get penalized for earning more: the first $35K of your income is still taxed at the lower rate. When you earn dollar number 35,001, that dollar is taxed at 53%, but your ave…

He's still paying a significantly higher tax rate on that dollar than if he didn't earn it this year.

If he is not hurting for cash and he could defer it until next year (or year after that) with no penalty at all and (arguably) negligible risk, thus paying the lower personal income tax rate on that dollar, why not do it?

I don't see what part is misunderstood. If you're being paid by your employer, obviously you want to take the raise regardless of higher taxes. If you are your own employer, both entities are paying taxes and each dollar of taxes paid is coming out of your own pocket.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#275

Post by stinkytaco »

mpdehaan2 wrote: post #144
xienze wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if it makes you feel better, he probably made a bad decision paying off the mortgage right away considering that he has no idea what he's going to do to earn money going forward. It would have been better to continue paying the mortgage for the time being (interest rates are absurdly low) and have a big cushion to fall back on if the whole "I don't wanna be part of the rat race, maaaan" thing doesn't work out.

I think you can probably do better investing than in paying off a mortgage, depending on when you got in on the mortgage rate. Plus, yes, you have that money more liquidated when you need it. (Plus mortgage interest is tax deductible).

Mortgage is tax deductible if you are itemizing, which most people in the US do not. He's almost certainly not going to be itemizing if he doesn't have an income any more.

Additionally, you probably can do better investing, but we don't know when he took out his mortgage. I got a mortgage in 2000 and the rates were much higher. A guaranteed 6.5% return on my investment? Not too bad. Refinancing can be expensive, and depending on what remains on the mortgage it may not be worth it.

So really, it's almost impossible to speculate on whether paying of the mortgage was a good idea until we know more of the details. I admit I would be inclined to pay it off just for the certainty and the immediate lowering of expenses. Investing can take time to return, possibly more time than he has.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#276

Post by downandout »

probablyfiction wrote: post #17

This is what burnout looks like. Unless Yelp has a toxic work culture, it's likely the author brought it on themselves by pushing too hard. After several months, the author will probably start thinking about work again, and begin the job search once more. Not to say that the author's points are invalid; it's a terrible feeling to have to spend your most productive hours working on someone else's problems. He or she m…

>Unless Yelp has a toxic work culture

Yelp's business model is quasi-extortionate. Even if the work environment itself was OK, writing code all day for that purpose would certainly leave me feeling pretty crappy about my job. That kind of thing doesn't wash off very easily if you have a conscience.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#277

Post by maccard »

reitoei wrote: post #218
maccard wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to get some links to these high-paying jobs in Dublin? Last I checked, IBM were offering sub 30k for graduates, and Microsoft weren't far off the same amount. In US terms, that's 34k USD, for a city where you'll spend 800 dollars a month of your salary on renting a room, and another 170 dollars on communting by bus.

> Last I checked, IBM were offering sub 30k for graduates You expect to walk into an 80k a year job straight out of college? Everyone has to start somewhere. If I was a graduate, I'd much rather be working sub 30k for IBM than sub 40k for Dublin's next Groupon killer/Airbnb for iguanas.

You just said: > there are plenty of really well-paying job in the tech industry.

And I can walk into an 80k job outside of Dublin. Considering the cost of living in Dublin vs the salary for tech grads versus... anywhere else in the world, you'd be crazy to stay.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#278

Post by saiya-jin »

lohengramm wrote: post #19

This post expresses exactly how I feel. I am currently under a 30 days vacation and it has been incredibly good. In only three weeks I have studied lots of things that were postponed for months or years, worked on a personal project, exercised my body, slept well, read books, disassembled every old electronic device that was lurking for years to clean and fix it, went to a medical doctor to fix health issues that wer…

Posts like these make me a bit sad, how far some people get detached from reality of this world as a whole.

I would hate it since i am part of this industry, byt maybe we really need some dev crysis, meaning 50% of software engineers unemployed, salaries plunge say to construction engineers level. Those fortunate to keep the job would be glad to be creative with what they have and maybe, but just MAYBE these pathetic rants won't surface as much.

As for you, simple advice - sort out your life, you know better than anybody else what you want, and you're the only one who can do it. it's quite easy, just that some decisions require sturdy balls, not moaning on internet forums :)

Re: I quit the tech industry

#279

Post by fideloper »

United857 wrote: post #247
brightball wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Exactly this.

General rule of thumb when deciding between eliminating debt or investing is to compare if the debt interest is greater than investment interest (investment rate of return).

If (debt.interest > investment.interest ), pay off debt first. Else, invest.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#280

Post by mvanvoorden »

gerbilly wrote: post #178
mvanvoorden wrote: post #115

We're not meant to do jobs, this is just some modern made up concept to keep people busy so they don't see they are actually analogous to cattle. So that you don't care about the virtual problems you solve for virtual company X, is perfectly normal and healthy. They are not your problems, they are not even remotely life-threatening, and so they are not relevant for survival. Jobs are just created to keep us busy, as…

>So that you don't care about the virtual problems you solve for virtual company X, is perfectly normal and healthy. They are not your problems, they are not even remotely life-threatening, and so they are not relevant for survival. Reminds me of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation

I never read any of his works, but from the parts that I've read, I think we could've been good friends. As he used to visit my home town every once in a while, I could've actually met him if I would've been born a century earlier :)
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