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I quit the tech industry

eev.ee

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Re: I quit the tech industry

#281

Post by avn2109 »

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…

>> "They're being paid huge sums..."

Everyone who works in finance just lol'd.

But seriously, relative to the value a good hacker adds to the business, "huge sums" is probably not an accurate characterization of engineer comp.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#282

Post by pjc50 »

ionforce wrote: post #271
pjc50 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, it was more of a joke.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#283

Post by jdoss »

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...

While the math doesn't really support paying off your mortgage first, I think for some people is more for the mental peace of mind that you don't have something hanging over your head. I can see why that would be the right choice for some people that are looking for a total change in their life.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#284

Post by rvdm »

I've been a tech consultant since my late teens but got out and passed all my clients on to a close friend so that I could focus on my own work about a year ago. It was a leap of faith for sure, but where there's a will there's a way. During my decade of consulting I set up some automatic income through a few different routes ( never put all your eggs in one basket! ).

I entertain the thought of selling what I'm working on some day for a big payout, but that's a completely optional scenario for me. Because of the simple fact that I've never been happier in my life.

I feel like my work I do now actually matters. And even if it never makes me a dollar, it brings me joy. And that's what life's all about in the end ( to me at least ).

I wish you all the best and in my opinion you certainly made the right choice.

One note: getting the combination of automatic income right was a learning curve, if you ever want to know what works for me, feel free to reach out.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#285

Post by avn2109 »

rdtsc wrote: post #233
sopooneo wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point about the overly aggressive golf-made deal: how do we fix that? I really don't have an answer, but if we, as developers, are really so smart, we should be able formulate the problem and find a solution. We will have to avoid imagined constraints and thinking the answer is related to producing more code, but it's got to be there. Is it related to playing the office politics game better? And if so, can that…

Company I work for tried to solve it using this rule -- don't hire any MBAs. Every manager, product manager, and even salesperson is (or at least was at some point) an engineer. This works in our context (and has worked for many decades apparently). But I doubt this scales to a large size.

IIRC Palantir subscribes at least nominally to this philosophy, too. And they're trying to scale it, so we'll get to see how that works out in the near-ish future.

(Unless you work at Palantir, in which case I feel silly).

Re: I quit the tech industry

#286

Post by udev »

This type of misery is common.

The author decided he needs a change in his life, there is no arguing there.

But what makes the author so confident that quitting the job is the solution?

Re: I quit the tech industry

#287

Post by ralmeida »

rvdm wrote: post #284

I've been a tech consultant since my late teens but got out and passed all my clients on to a close friend so that I could focus on my own work about a year ago. It was a leap of faith for sure, but where there's a will there's a way. During my decade of consulting I set up some automatic income through a few different routes ( never put all your eggs in one basket! ). I entertain the thought of selling what I'm work…

I'm interested in what you have to say about your automatic income. What can you tell us about it?

Re: I quit the tech industry

#288

Post by neverartful »

mpdehaan2 wrote: post #139
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…

While not burnout related, I found out a while back, and this is somewhat paradoxical, that if I care TOO much, I'm less happy. What happens is I notice all the stuff I can't fix, or need to fix, and other people get stressed out making them fix it. The end result is that I stop caring quite as much (I still care), get happy, and then start caring too much again. It's especially hard at times when you have a lot of e…

Having too much passion? IMO, passion is not sustainable. I believe that dispassionate works much better over the long term. Of course, ymmv.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#289

Post by pc86 »

brightball wrote: post #228
jlongster wrote: post #210

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…

> 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.

Except the money you spend on your mortgage is year 1 is worth a lot more than the money you spend on it in year 30. Especially with rates where they've been the past several years (our mortgage is 3.25%), cash flow is really the only upside to paying off a mortgage decades early.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#290

Post by jliptzin »

rvdm wrote: post #284

I've been a tech consultant since my late teens but got out and passed all my clients on to a close friend so that I could focus on my own work about a year ago. It was a leap of faith for sure, but where there's a will there's a way. During my decade of consulting I set up some automatic income through a few different routes ( never put all your eggs in one basket! ). I entertain the thought of selling what I'm work…

What do you do now if you care to share?
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