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I quit the tech industry

eev.ee

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Re: I quit the tech industry

#361

Post by probablyfiction »

avn2109 wrote: post #281
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.

Huge sums in relation to the average American worker. I'm being paid below average for a programmer of my caliber, but it still feels like a ton of money because I grew up in humble circumstances.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#362

Post by bowlich »

aaggarwal wrote: post #26
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…

I am going to start working soon. This makes me think if full-time work is really worth it. Wouldn't multiple short-term contracts with regular breaks be able to cut it in today's world? Isn't there people with experience on working on short-term contracts and still living well-off?

I wish there was more part-time employment gigs out there for programmers. I know I would jump on something like that, but I've never seen anyone advertise a position as part-time.

That leaves the contracting route. The issue there is you now end up a salesman. The people I know who are good contractors are businessmen first, software engineers second. They know how to close deals, attract clients,and have excellent "soft skills." They are mediocre developers. Not because they couldn't be excellent developers or were excellent developers before becoming contractors, but simply because their work day is no longer centred around engineering. This is fine if what you want is to run a business and be a businessman. Not so much if you're trying to escape the trappings of business to find more time to devote to focusing on just developing.

This is all anecdotal of course, I'm sure there are contractors who see a wide range of experiences that differ from mine.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#363

Post by jsprogrammer »

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #312
pc86 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 (o…

> cash flow is really the only upside to paying off a mortgage decades early. In my limited experience, the freedom of not having a mortgage and a car loan, or any other type of debt, far outweighs the benefits of just cash flow. We now have a sense of freedom we didn't have Before. I think it is going to be very individual how one reacts to it, but for us having a minimal mortgage or none has made a big difference f…

Unfortunately, because of the way monetary policy is structured, it is not possible for all, or even most, to live without debt. Debt is fundamental to our economy. You can only be without it if someone else takes on some amount of debt.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#364

Post by dbg31415 »

Ok, so... I agree with the author on a lot of points, but from what I've seen devs are the most pampered of all professions. Cut the most slack. Given the most pay. Extended the most deadlines. And rightfully so. But if you can't take it now... when things are "good" -- wow, I'd hate to be you in a down economy.

Lots of truth to this, but look we all have mortgages and what comes across as "asshole" is the complaining. We all have a mortgage, why are you a special special snowflake?

Re: I quit the tech industry

#365

Post by rvdm »

eevee wrote: post #353
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…

Thank you! I'm glad you found something simultaneously worthwhile and profitable. Here's hoping I can do it too.

I'm sure you will! This is something that has always inspired me: in the US small businesses are heroes, going out on a limb and doing your own thing is the definition of the american spirit. Becoming a job creator in the process is an incredibly rewarding feeling.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#366

Post by rifung »

Mahn wrote: post #125
jahnu wrote: post #43

"I had stock options, and I cashed them all in last week. I net enough to pay off the mortgage, so I’m doing that, which will leave the entire household debt-free and cut our expenses drastically." I'm happy for you. Even a tiny bit jealous. But it does in the end make the whole post sound like a humblebrag to me.

But that's how all posts like these go, HN loves to upvote them for some reason but they all boil down to "I'm quitting because I have enough money to do it".

I agree that the author of this post is a nice position to quit because he has enough money to do so.

I think the reason these posts get upvoted is more because the things that the author talked about are things many of us deal with. I've definitely had times when I stayed awake later than I should have just because I knew that if I went to sleep, the only thing waiting for me was work. I guess sometimes I feel like there just isn't enough time in the day and I don't even get to relax before it's over.

I like to believe that posts like these where the author isn't actually quitting would be upvoted as well. Of course, the issue is that those posts don't exist likely out of fear that the employers would find out.. So then we are left only with the people who have the luxury of leaving writing about these topics.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#367

Post by bwanab »

cstross wrote: post #310

> 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? * Raises hand * I was the first dev hire at Datacash and wrote their back-end servers. Datacash only came into existence because an earlier (circa 1995-96) startup trying to sel…

Sorry to say, I'm glad you burned out - otherwise no "Halting State",....

Re: I quit the tech industry

#368

Post by fragsworth »

esharte wrote: post #327
yc1010 wrote: post #11

I have been working for myself for last 8 years after completing my masters, in hindsight financially I did not do too badly (tho there was some great and ups and incredible downs!) and it is NICE working from home and watching your kid grow (tho there are quite a lot of distractions!!! says he who is procrastinating reading HN :D ) BUT if I was offered a job with guaranteed employment and steady wages and (gaaasp pe…

>~53% high tax rate with only about ~$35K in income I'm sorry but you cant just go on to HN and make stuff up. You pay 20% on the first €33,800 income and only 40% on income over €33,800 if single. You pay 20% on the first €42,800 income and only 40% on income over €42,800 if Married with one income. You pay 20% on the first €67,600 income and only 40% on income over €67,600 if Married with two incomes. You pay 20% o…

Maybe including City / Local taxes?

Re: I quit the tech industry

#369

Post by 300bps »

fideloper wrote: post #279
United857 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

I disagree with this tremendously. With your strategy, essentially what you are doing is buying stocks on margin. This magnifies your profits if things goes your way and magnifies your losses if things go against you.

Think about it this way - Interactive Brokers is an online brokerage with extremely low margin rates which are often half of current mortgage rates (see https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=interest&p...). Using your logic, the right thing to do is to leverage yourself to the hilt for every penny Interactive Brokers will loan you at 1.63% or less and cross your fingers you make the right investment choices otherwise you're bankrupt.

Buying investments on margin, no matter how it is done, is extremely risky. You might understand those risks and have a high enough risk tolerance but please don't pretend investing on margin is a general rule everyone should follow.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#370

Post by OneOneOneOne »

eevee wrote: post #345
mrgriscom wrote: post #140

I don't understand the desire to pay off the mortgage after a big windfall, especially with interest rates so low. I suppose you get a vague sense of security, as in "the bank can never take my house away now", but you just took a big chunk of liquid money that could have been used to pay any kind of expense, and you put it into very illiquid home equity that was being loaned to you at a long-term locked-in rate bare…

I understand the math, but I feel like debt is a huge weight on my shoulders. I grew up with parents who were constantly in more debt than they could handle and constantly reminding me of it. I would rather not be anywhere near that situation again, even if keeping moderate debt would've worked out a little better in the long run.

Thumbs up.

Too many people take on unnecessary debt (big house, new cars, toys, ...) It seems like many are at peace with their debt.

Going into debt for anything more than a modest house (rather than paying rent) doesn't make sense to me.

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