I quit the tech industry • Hacker News Board

Re: I quit the tech industry

#421

Post by damoncali » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 6:16 PM UTC

aaggarwal wrote: post #229

damoncali wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do this, but it's not all roses. Getting and keeping those contracts continually takes effort and time. It's stressful when you don't have much line of sight into the future. And even though you can charge a high hourly rate, it's difficult to work lots of billable hours. I need time for context switching, administrivia, marketing. And the one problem I don't see discussed much: on-demand motivation. If you work a…

So, in a way, you are actually running a software consulting/development firm, however, in this case, you just have to manage yourself. Scouting for clients, deadlines are similar to a firm/agency running multiple contracts. I get that it requires pretty good networking and communication skills. Thank you for sharing your experience.

Basically, yes. Don't let it discourage you. It's a great way to earn a living, but it has downsides - so go in with open eyes. It's not a life for "I just want to code" types. They're better off with full time jobs.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#422

Post by xacaxulu » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 6:17 PM UTC

lsaferite wrote: post #393

xacaxulu wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is false, false, false. Please everyone, if you stay out of the US for ~ 330 days a year, you are untaxed up to about 100k (changes every year). I've done this 2 years and the savings are insane. Federal income taxes are a huge drain on your salary. Go abroad!!

How is it 'false, false, false' exactly? I mention that there are ways to avoid some of the taxes. I've BEEN an expat so I know how it works. I also know that I still had to pay taxes even when I stayed out of country long enough just due to income levels. Additionally, with all of my family in the US it was pretty hard to stay out of country enough to avoid taxes. Am I saying you shouldn't move out of the country? N…

Don't follow the rules to comply? Then you don't get the tax savings.

http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Forei...

Re: I quit the tech industry

#423

Post by yc1010 » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 6:17 PM UTC

rmc wrote: post #378

yebyen wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wan…

Sure, but 50c is better than €0.

The money doesn't appear out of thin air. It takes time and stress to earn each euro. Especially if you work for yourself or in a startup, you are probably working for someone else so you do not comprehend the perspective of someone who is trying to make his own way in the world.

The tax system here puts a huge disincentive to work hard and earn a lot, at least there is an option if you have your own company to defer and stretch your wages over longer period BUT that comes with all sorts of risk since IT IS NOT YOUR MONEY but company money and corporation tax.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#424

Post by kamaal » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 6:20 PM UTC

thewarrior wrote: post #415

kamaal wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

There is big difference between doing new things, and doing the same things(again and again) with new tools. Take the this whole big data craze for example, almost every body I see who wants to use these tools doesn't have a use case for it. The same with NoSQL. Or Twitter's Storm. When you subscribe to this way of software development, you start shoe horning your use cases into wrong design paradigms, leading to a lot of maintenance work.

This doesn't happen just in the backend. It happens even with FE frameworks. How many people have a use case for react or other jazzy frameworks?

A crude example I can give you is, this is like developing all your applications in awk or sed because that's fashionable currently. You are shoe horning your problems into solutions paradigms they don't belong to.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#425

Post by justizin » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 6:23 PM UTC

rifung wrote: post #376

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…

Is this really burnout? I feel like I've been burned out before but from what the author was saying, this doesn't seem like it. If anything it just seems like he has a lot of other things he wants to do and work prevents him pursuing them which made him unhappy. Of course, he still tried to pursue them in his spare time but then he just didn't have enough time to do them as much or as well as he wanted. Is this reall…

I think this post makes a strong argument for the industry accepting more of us as external contributors, or with incredibly flexible work schedules.

I don't mind inheriting other people's problems, and I don't mind coming into the office - I find it's helpful to swim with the school, so to speak - but sometimes I can better solve a problem out on a good bike ride or will have an epiphany about team dynamics while playing basketball, and after that, the next hour of work is worth more than two weeks of sitting around.

It's difficult to quantify, it's difficult not to get lazy, and when you _fail_ to achieve your goals, people feel better if they watched you toil. I think it's human nature.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#426

Post by chrismarlow9 » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 6:23 PM UTC

desireco42 wrote: post #390

This is not burnout, this is professional dead-end our industry became because... well he kind of explained it in his post. It is amazing that you have all this knowledge and you have to set it aside, because of all the same problems that are present everywhere. And I mean exactly the same legacy mistakes that are made in good faith supposedly and now you have to show professionalism and reason and as senior guy acce…

Heh. I've thought about this a bunch and come to the conclusion that it's why a startup based purely on ability to execute succeeds so often. It takes the right group of people in every facet of the company (sales, technical, etc) that have seen these mistakes over and over and refuse to let the company repeat them.

It's not often you get that group of guys together in the same room with a good idea and a VC, but when you do it's a fun thing to watch.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#427

Post by pbz » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 6:26 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #212

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…

This isn't burnout: " I stay up hours later than I mean to, not even doing anything, just trying to put off sleeping — because the next thing I experience will be waking up and going back to work." This is straight up depression. We need to stop using office-cliches like "burnout" and start addressing the very real mental health issues in the tech industry. Maintaining my mental health is like staying in shape, eatin…

It's not depressions. Depression doesn't go away for the weekend or after work hours.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#428

Post by michaelvkpdx » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 6:30 PM UTC

This wouldn't be happening if we had a true estate tax in this country, and if we didn't allow corporations to sit on piles of money while laborers slave away.

We in the USA are wealthy enough as a society that we all could thrive on 15 or so hours of work a week, if we didn't have to subsidize the fortunes of billionaires.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#429

Post by bbarn » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 6:31 PM UTC

eevee wrote: post #324

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.

I'm doing something with a huge financial impact, so I wanted to talk about how I was dealing with that. I deliberately left out actual numbers, but I don't know how to be any more tactful than that. Sorry.

Actually, that little tiny bit about your mortgage, etc., was what made me read the post more seriously. I see a lot of "I'm so done with tech, I'm gonna go surf!" type articles out there, and believe me.. it's a constant thought on my mind (replace surfing with biking), but the having a sustainable income/expense ration in the mean time part is crucial to actually doing that.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#430

Post by damoncali » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 6:32 PM UTC

aaggarwal wrote: post #219

mtbcoder wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't there people with experience on working on short-term contracts and still living well-off? This is just my opinion and I can only speak from a US perspective, but yes and no. The ones who are able to do this have already gotten a 10+ year head start and have built up a deep network from which to source work from. The ones who are starting out today are more than likely having a very tough go at it. Competitio…

You could be very right here, since most of the people I come across working on contracts are already in the market for at least 10 years. In today's market, for someone new starting out, I guess there will be cut-throat competition to get programming contracts, with people ready to work at a very low rate (e.g. on Freelancer, oDesk).

It gets easier over time. The first contracts are the hardest to get. Then, if you're any good, you start to get referrals. You just have to make sure every single client is happy. If you go out and network, you will eventually get to a point where you can stop trying so hard, but it's never what I would call "easy". The hardest part is making a living while you're getting started.

I would avoid oDesk type rates at all costs. You're better off going to small business networking groups and making simple brochure sites and wordpress installs for $1000-$2000 a pop.