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I quit the tech industry

eev.ee

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Re: I quit the tech industry

#411

Post by fideloper »

300bps wrote: post #369
fideloper wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sure, if you enjoy pedantry, please go ahead and assume that I mean that's the one golden rule and I'm sitting here blindly buying up mutual funds with every spare dollar I have.

You make the world a better place.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#412

Post by seansmccullough »

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…

I totally agree. If I care too much about what I'm trying to do at work, I just get upset.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#413

Post by yc1010 »

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…

Way to ignore USC (Universal Social Charge) and PRSI (Pay Related Social Insurance), these two alone + income taxes add up to over 50% rate on every euro earned above about 32-33K

thats without even going into property tax which could also be taken out of your income (and probably water tax soon)

The government has deliberately made the "income" taxes so complicated with 3 major different variables, and plenty of other minor nuances dependent on the persons circumstance

In my case for 2014:

----

Gross Pay €32,876.69

Income Tax €4,941.44

USC €1,620.17

PRSI €1,315.08

Net Pay €25,000

----

Thats for tax year 2014 (wasn't married yet, own company director), any euros earned above this I would have had to pay a rate of 50%+ tax (income+usc+prsi),

This year it is a little less (few hundred euro) due to getting married and budget 2015 being a tiny bit more forgiving.

You have ignored PRSI and USC and ignored that company directors lose a good chunk of their tax credits (and to add insult to injury no longer qualify for full welfare when things go bad!) for bothering to start a company, I suppose you work for someone else and do not comprehend how toxic the tax regime is towards small businesses. Revenue views all small business and sole traders with absolute disdain the EXPECT them all too be crooked and ASSUME you are guilty of tax fraud and place the onus on you to PROVE you are innocent of any tax misdoings (which costs time and accounting money)...

Re: I quit the tech industry

#414

Post by ryandrake »

nostrademons wrote: post #320
serve_yay wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boy oh boy, that really puts a different spin on this post, doesn't it. I wish I had the cash to throw this kind of tantrum.

So go get it. A number of growth businesses - Uber, AirBnB, Stripe, Lyft, Zenefits, Slack - are hiring aggressively. Join one of them and in 4-5 years of slaving away at the computer you'll probably have the cash (and desire) to throw this kind of tantrum.

Too late. Each of your example companies are beyond the point where becoming the next employee has a high likelihood of returning a windfall in 4 years. Life-changing equity tends to go to early (single digit) employees.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#415

Post by thewarrior »

kamaal wrote: post #399
angersock wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author kinda hints at the key right here: "They’re interesting for a while, but they’re also the same self-inflicted wounds everyone seems to deal with — why is this slow? why is this broken? how can we keep this old code limping along indefinitely without having to rewrite it? how does this thing a former employee wrote even work? They’re cute puzzles, and I can get into solving them for a while, but I don’t car…

Fashion gets old, fast. Decisions which are made after much thought, planning and running things from a long term perspective turn out to last really long freeing your time up to pursue new projects. Jumping on to a new framework every few months because its trending on the internets is the reason why every one is in a hurry(to achieve a pointless goal) to do work which has already been done, over and over again.

Could you elaborate on this a bit ?

I mean , is it feasible for the ordinary developer to engage in a multi-year risky R&D project that might ultimately fail resulting in nothing ?

Most people barely have any time to code. It's just because Github is your Resume (TM) that makes most people crank out their own Javascript framework so they can have it on their resume.

Could you give any examples of any such long term one man personal R&D efforts ?

Re: I quit the tech industry

#416

Post by eevee »

makeitsuckless wrote: post #85

"I’ve worked remotely my whole career" Regardless of all the perfectly valid reasons for being unhappy in what most people consider a cushy job (the author seems perfectly aware of that), this could possibly be an important factor here. Working remotely means you only get a small slice of what most people get out of their job. Again, this is perfectly fine if you're not "most people", but if you've never known anythi…

I'm not exactly a social butterfly, so from my perspective I've been getting much more out of my job by not having to work in an office.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#418

Post by thomas943 »

cianchette wrote: post #7

After reading on HN about the miners in England yesterday, it's difficult to generate too much sympathy for your situation. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9677863 I hope that you translate your passion into using technology to truly help make the world a better place.

> I hope that you translate your passion into using technology to truly help make the world a better place.

I wouldn't hold out too much hope for that. It sounds like they quit because they would rather play with pokemons.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#419

Post by sjh »

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…

ys1010 is (accurately) describing the marginal rate which effectively applies to all income above a threshold (although the different taxes/charges have different thresholds). It’s quite the thing when it kicks in.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#420

Post by sbisker »

>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

The lead seems buried here. This isn't someone quitting, this is someone in a position of incredible privilege, essentially retiring (or at least going on "funemployment" for a little while).

There are far darker ways to make far less money, that are far more worthy of dramatic storm cloud drawings. Maybe once they see past their burnout they'll realize how incredibly privileged they were to even accomplish what they were able to (working remotely no less!) in the first place. Burnout really is a sad and scary thing.

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