Ask HN: Should I cash out my 401K and try to get my dream job?

Thank you all for the great advice. I think the cash out of the 401K idea is really a reaction to how miserable my current position is. The culture is terrible and I want out, now. So I'm going to use my vacation time to send out a ton of resumes, practice some coding puzzles, and hack away on some code that I can provide as polished, well thought out work.

I did apply for a job at Twitter months back, but failed miserably at the two 45 minute online "coding to solve a puzzle" interviews. I was nervous, and also was opposed to that style of interviewing, and it did not do well.

I realize I need to get over it, and just accept that some shops may interview that way. It may let me know that it may not be the place for me, or open a door to a good opportunity.

The number one thing for me is culture. That the culture works for me. For any company that I am seriously considering, I will request working on a small project with the team before I accept any offer. If I had done that for my current position, I would have never come on board.

I cashed out my 401k to start a company. I was in a unique situation where I started contributing to my 401k at the very bottom of the recession (luck). The returns on my 401k contributions were greater than 100% by the time I cashed out because the market had fully recovered. The company I previously worked for had 100% matching up to 15k. So, I looked at the penalty and figured since I had quadrupled my money, 10% didn't seem like a concern next to the possibility of creating a successful business.

Ended up working out. Was able to make that money back 5x in 6 months. It was a risky move and I could see it not panning out more often than not. But, to go against the grain here: there is no such thing as 'never'.

Not true

http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc424.html

Distributions received before age 59½ are subject to an early distribution penalty of 10% additional tax unless an exception applies.

> and the 3rd is my life insurance/savings account

I'm interested in learning more about life insurance. Did the book you recommend advise storing value in life insurance? Most resources I've studied suggest that any life insurance product other than "term" is not worthwhile, and that it's not worth getting until some stakeholder in your life depends on your lifetime earning potential.

The really big open source projects such as the Linux kernel or Hadoop generally are mostly done by paid developers. The interests of the companies and the interests of the developers generally align, and it works out well.

Smaller, personal open source projects may or may not help you get a job. To be honest, I've never been at a company where looking at Github pages was a big part of the hiring process. Maybe it's something recruiters look at? I don't really know. I have a bunch of stuff up on Github myself, but I don't know who looks at it, and I certainly don't rely on it to get me a job.

Similarly, I've never been at a place where the topic of answering questions on Stack Overflow came up. It's like contributing to Wikipedia-- something you do on your own time for the public good. Stack Overflow is a useful resource, but you also need to keep in mind that some of the answers there are kind of misleading or wrong.

Really, what any well-run company is going to try to figure out is whether you are a good fit at the company. If you have done some things in the areas they're interested in, that's going to be a positive. If it's just random stuff, then they are probably not going to have the time or inclination to look at it. I've done a lot of stuff that nobody has ever asked me about in a job interview. And that's ok.

If you are having trouble finding a job, the #1 reason is probably location. There just aren't a lot of jobs in some parts of the country, and most companies don't want remote workers unless they're rockstars. I wish I could give you an easy solution for this, but I really can't. You are probably going to have to choose between your career and your home town, like generations before you.

If you are somewhere in California, you can do open source work in your free time as long as it meets three criteria: 1. own time, 2. own equipment, 3. no use of employer trade secrets. It doesn't matter what they tell you... the worst they can do in California if they don't like your personal project is fire you. In other U.S. states (such as Washington), it's often pretty easy for them to claim your personal work as their own (a lot of employment contracts have this in it).