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Quitting my job has been the best thing I've done for my career

joshuahu.io

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Re: Quitting my job has been the best thing I've done for my career

#161

Post by coldtea »

dorchadas wrote: post #50
watwut wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, most 18-25 years old can't. For starter, 25 years old without college tend to have kids already. Some have other relatives that they have to help to. Those without college degree have scrappy jobs if they have them and those with degrees as you said are in debt. Worst off are those with college debt but who did not finished college. Nevertheless, young people without degrees can't really reasonably abandon their…

> Nevertheless, young people without degrees can't really reasonably abandon their life. Maybe in America. But when I was in Spain this summer, I met some Aussies who do seasonal summer work then go blow it all on word trips yearly. Said it was decently common among a certain crowd of people.

Yep, it's quite common. And as you say (and I mention above re: temp jobs etc too), it's a "certain crowd of people" not in terms of money, but because of having the mindset to do it.

Re: Quitting my job has been the best thing I've done for my career

#162

Post by biscottigelato »

meuk wrote: post #142

After my graduation, I planned to have some months off to work on hobby stuff, and build a small portfolio with programming projects. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish my thesis in time (which is my own fault, but at my university it was also business as usual to take more time than planned for your master thesis). I already had a job and didn't have any time off between my thesis and working (in fact, I started…

I have trouble leveraging my portfolio for much to be honest. And they are fully functioning published app. Graphic design, marketing material, front-end back-end all that jazz...

Studying 'Cracking the Coding Interview' like everyone else. Nobody cares about specific technology either it seems like these days... Including Triplebyte. Sick of it.

Re: Quitting my job has been the best thing I've done for my career

#163

Post by __exit__ »

Thanks to the author for this piece, it was a nice and inspiring reading.

I cannot help but feel related to the author himself. My career, short in tech terms (2+ years at current job, similar durarion at previous job) has reached a stagnant phase, where motivation and professional growth almost do not exist.

As a consequence I'm thinking of switching jobs, but have no idea where should I aim for, for what kind of role and industry I would like to work for...Right now I'm lost regarding jobs lookup.

Maybe I should take a sabbatical period to think things over, but it's quite a leap forward, mostly economically.

Re: Quitting my job has been the best thing I've done for my career

#164

Post by csomar »

sizzle wrote: post #88
Cursuviam wrote: post #46

I've been treating my sabbatical time post graduation as basically summer vacation and honestly, it's been pretty nice. For the past 4 years, I've been researching, in school, or working an internship, so I haven't had a period of time to just be carefree for quite sometime. I'm very happy right now, but mostly that's because I have a roommate who's unemployed right now, so most of the time I'm not alone in the house…

1%'er you say? You've piqued my interest, mind sharing what your family did to get there? Can anyone guess how many 1%'ers are on HN?

My guess is that most HN'ers are 1%'ers. Those who are not are on the way to get there. The 1% is not really special and doesn't take much money/effort to get there. The 0.1% would be more interesting.

Re: Quitting my job has been the best thing I've done for my career

#165

Post by biscottigelato »

adamnemecek wrote: post #45

I recommend quitting your job even if you don't have anything lined up. Read those books you wanted to read. Contribute to open source (people contact me with consulting work thanks to this). Learn new frameworks. You'll figure out something. Go network. I sometimes contact maintainers of open source projects I contribute to. This is the best networking advice anyone can give you. 1337 h4xx0rz don't go to meetups. Ho…

I built these 2 and they didn't quite work out business-wise...

https://tastory.co https://swiftlightning.io

3 months in a job search to end this retirement funds burn... Still haven't gotten a single offer. Rejected post-interviews by Triplebyte, Google, Blockchain.info, Snapchat thus far. Plenty of mid interview ghosting by startups. And with technically only 1.5 years doing iOS, plenty of companies didn't even pick-up my resume...

And gosh are these processes super slow. Maybe cuz I'm interviewing mostly remote from Vancouver BC with mostly US firms...

Re: Quitting my job has been the best thing I've done for my career

#166

Post by [deleted] »

negamax wrote: post #136
bitexploder wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not 1%, but it tends to be some element of luck, risk taking, and a lot of hard work. Luck can be such a huge factor. Some times a lot of all three.

(You work hard -> get lucky -> take risks) => (fail, succeed); repeat Working hard part is important and is before. Because if you get lucky first, you will lose it all and likely won't know what areas to take risks in.

[deleted]

Re: Quitting my job has been the best thing I've done for my career

#167

Post by anotheryou »

Maro wrote: post #132
patcon wrote: post #129

I've taken a couple breaks in between jobs, and I've come to realize that I have my very best work-life balance while unemployed. It's uncanny. I work hard on my community projects, and then actually go out and socialize when I'm tired of working. Sometimes that's every night, but sometimes (if I'm feeling invigorated by a task), I will work nonstop for a week, before I need a social recharge. Obviously, that is a si…

Same here. The 1-2 months I usually take off between jobs is always super productive. I do a lot of reading, write blog posts, hack out stuff.

So you quit before you search for a new job? Most job offers I see are ASAP.

Re: Quitting my job has been the best thing I've done for my career

#168

Post by meuk »

biscottigelato wrote: post #162
meuk wrote: post #142

After my graduation, I planned to have some months off to work on hobby stuff, and build a small portfolio with programming projects. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish my thesis in time (which is my own fault, but at my university it was also business as usual to take more time than planned for your master thesis). I already had a job and didn't have any time off between my thesis and working (in fact, I started…

I have trouble leveraging my portfolio for much to be honest. And they are fully functioning published app. Graphic design, marketing material, front-end back-end all that jazz... Studying 'Cracking the Coding Interview' like everyone else. Nobody cares about specific technology either it seems like these days... Including Triplebyte. Sick of it.

Thanks for sharing.

Are you from the US? It is not in line with my experience. Employers here (in the Netherlands) care very much about experience with specific technologies. It is common that job offers demand a couple of years experience with very specific frameworks, libraries or programming languages, even for entry-level jobs. Anything having to do with data science is also out of question (even though I have a math background), since I didn't study data science and have no work experience (never mind that I am interested in data science and read stuff in my spare time).

This sucks if you want to switch jobs, because it dramatically limits your options.

Re: Quitting my job has been the best thing I've done for my career

#169

Post by csomar »

txcwpalpha wrote: post #34
dunkelheit wrote: post #17

Recently quite a few articles appeared on HN about escaping the rat race for a while and taking some time off. As someone who has a little savings and who is a bit burnt out I've been toying with the idea myself quite a bit. My biggest fear is that because I have only a vague idea of what I want to do with my time, I will fritter away my sabbatical, not accomplish much and end up pretty much at the same point (but wi…

I did this, and unfortunately your fears became reality for me. Like you said, I only had a vague idea of what I wanted to do (including traveling, starting my own company, continuing education, side projects, etc). Almost 2 years into it I ended up just barely dabbling in each. I traveled for a few months, worked on some side projects, and learned some new things, but didn't really do anything "big" or traditionally…

> but when I actually say the words "I don't currently work anywhere > and am taking some time off", those same people have literally picked up their drinks and walked away.

To me, this sounds like a good filter. In fact I have been using this sub-consciously with girls when they ask me about my day job. I don't answer with "serial killer", it is screaming "I'm unemployed and unsecure". But rather "I don't really work or have anything right now".

Start getting rid of useless people. The sooner, the better. It is very hard to get rid of people if they are opening discussions so this time they just disappeared away.

Re: Quitting my job has been the best thing I've done for my career

#170

Post by MaxBarraclough »

adamnemecek wrote: post #45

I recommend quitting your job even if you don't have anything lined up. Read those books you wanted to read. Contribute to open source (people contact me with consulting work thanks to this). Learn new frameworks. You'll figure out something. Go network. I sometimes contact maintainers of open source projects I contribute to. This is the best networking advice anyone can give you. 1337 h4xx0rz don't go to meetups. Ho…

> I recommend quitting your job even if you don't have anything lined up.

Devil's advocate: career breaks can be toxic to your getting hired. I recall once reading that it can be comparable to a criminal record.

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