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I am retiring from tech to live offline

openpath.quest

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Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#531

Post by alephnerd »

Rover222 wrote: post #521
alephnerd wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you felt amazing living off US$1k/mo in Brazil - the average per capita household income in Brazil is less than US$450/mo and a salary of $700/mo puts you in the top 10% [0]. Basically, you enjoyed feeling rich in a country where the vast majority are getting screwed. And this is what I as well as my SO's family (middle and working class Vietnamese in VN) hate about digital nomads - y'all don't realize that…

oh please, get over it. I supported a local old lady who airbnb'd out her guest house. I shopped at the local grocery store. and I left. you would drop that buzzword 'colonial', as though Brazil isn't a former European colony, just like the US. And they... gasp... used slaves for much longer. I was in the southern cone of the country, first world lifestyles there. Brazilians are proud, they'd be insulted by your savi…

> I was in the southern cone of the country

Even in São Paulo the average household income is around $550/mo [0]. That said, I assume you live in Florianopolis but even then the average household income is around $520/mo [1].

> you would drop that buzzword 'colonial', as though Brazil isn't a former European colony, just like the US. And they... gasp... used slaves for much longer

I know. And clearly you're a bit thick in the head if you don't realize the ongoing political and social fissures in Brazil as a result of this.

There's a reason Lula retains such a cult following.

> I supported a local old lady who airbnb'd out her guest house

To even own a house that is Airbnb-able in a digital nomad hub in the south cone means they were better off socially and economically during the dictatorship and the messy transition back to democracy.

Nothing wrong with that, but assuming you are living a normal life there and not recognizing that your lifestyle is much better off than most people is douchey.

---

Alternatively, don't complain [2] when it's people like us or our parents who left, succeeded in the West, and are blamed for making life expensive for your types in America or Germany ;)

Being anti-immigrant yet being on an immigrant visa yourself (yes, a digital nomad is an immigrant), and while Brazilians are barred from getting a visa to the US.

Talk about hypocrisy.

[0] - https://www.metropoles.com/negocios/sp-tem-2a-maior-renda-do...

[1] - https://estado.sc.gov.br/noticias/renda-das-familias-de-sant...

[2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45158497

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#532

Post by tikhonj »

drnick1 wrote: post #427
sph wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in tech, especially from US, are so accustomed to spending $5,000/mo just to survive, that they cannot fathom one is able to live without having a tech job in San Francisco. It's a pretty sad state of affairs. I live in a first-world European country where the average salary is about €25,000 per year. My mortgage estimate is less than €300/mo. I'm not that afraid of having to supplement my income if I need to.…

> People in tech, especially from US, are so accustomed to spending $5,000/mo just to survive, that they cannot fathom one is able to live without having a tech job in San Francisco. It's a pretty sad state of affairs. Quality of life in suburban America is incredibly high relative to a "first world" country with such a low average income. From what I have seen, most families in the "European periphery" still live in…

Living in a cookie-cutter suburb full of parking lots and strip malls is not, in fact, a higher standard of life than living in a small town in Europe. The fact that we've somehow convinced ourselves that it is says absolutely nothing good about American postwar culture.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#533

Post by socalgal2 »

dhosek wrote: post #468
throwfaraway4 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked in food service, landscaping and factory jobs. You're right, the tech job does feel super cushy after gigs like that. But I'm about 25 years in on the tech industry now and I feel the same GP. At some point, you can't avoid the politics and corp BS and it wears you down. Everything is relative. Now that I have the means to say "I don't have to or want to do this anymore" I'll be checking out after this ye…

Not to mention that with AI, the pleasure is going out of it, at least for me. I enjoy the crafting of code at least as much if not more than the actual results of the code. For almost 20 years, I’ve been declaring myself ready to leave tech behind and buy a chicken farm, but now I’m pretty much there emotionally and financially. I likely won’t actually raise chickens (maybe a couple backyard chickens for eggs), but…

> I end up having to continue being a cog in the machinery of capitalism until I die.

Vs what exactly?

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#534

Post by jimt1234 »

siren2026 wrote: post #237

I have been at it for 20 years now and have started to feel my time is up as well As a lot of comments here highlights, the issue is not so much the tech but the politics, constant perf reviews, re-orgs, nonsense BS that is pushed top-down. This industry is taking a toll on you. My advice for anyone reading this that is starting your career: Live simply and save a lot. When I started my career I thought I would love…

I remember one of my first "tech job" interviews, probably around 1997. The interviewer liked me, and was basically trying to recruit me, telling me about all the perks of the job. One of the perks she kept talking about was the pension - if I "put in" 20 years, I could retire with a generous pension. She even broke down how the whole pension worked (I didn't even know what a pension was). I thought was crazy. Actually, no, I thought she was lazy. I was 26 at the time and took for granted all my energy and enthusiasm. I thought I was always gonna have that level of energy, and just couldn't grasp not working. I wanted to work until I died, and was proud of that.

Now in my mid-50s, I sometimes think about that interview and the energetic kid I was back then. I wish I would've understood that the future is gonna come, and I wasn't always gonna have that 26-year-old level of energy and enthusiasm for work. Plan for your exit, kid.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#535

Post by xp84 »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #258
xp84 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good for you. It’s so exhausting dealing with these people who are constantly chasing a fantasy that through some process, or through sheer force of will, we can achieve a system where all the feature work gets done super quickly and we never have to pause or slow down to handle engineering concerns because they simply don’t exist.

The only thing worse is when they expect you to do all the above after they cut your budget in half. I'm so sick of hearing "Do more with less." "Yes we want you to build a faster-than-light spaceship. Your energy budget is this candle." Why do we give managerial control to insane people?

I think they get that control because they promise this nonsense to whoever hires them. Essentially, they're flim-flam men. They low-bid to get the contract and then try to make their underlings make good on the promises they made.

I'd never be hired as a CTO because I'd probably tell them "Yeah, you can have 95% less bugs, just stop trying to ship 100 features a quarter. Maybe do half that. Or you can ship twice as many features as you do now, just put up with way more bugs and instability! Instant "Strong No Hire."

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#536

Post by bitwize »

I remember Chad Whitacre primarily as the proponent of Fair Source, a putative solution to the open-source free-rider problem and probably the best solution I've seen so far aside from just making your software proprietary which comes with disadvantages of its own.

To be honest, retiring completely from tech is something I wish I could do as well...

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#537

Post by eudamoniac »

HoldOnAMinute wrote: post #498
vostrocity wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MAID as in Medical Aid in Dying? Why would you do that?

To be able to leave some assets to my loved ones In my country, best we can hope for is a quick, painless death - many people are bankrupted by medical bills and end-of-life care

Dude just leave the bay area, the literal most expensive place in the world, and you'll be fine. You'd rather actually kill yourself than move to, like, Boulder?

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#538

Post by mancerayder »

saadn92 wrote: post #300
siren2026 wrote: post #237

I have been at it for 20 years now and have started to feel my time is up as well As a lot of comments here highlights, the issue is not so much the tech but the politics, constant perf reviews, re-orgs, nonsense BS that is pushed top-down. This industry is taking a toll on you. My advice for anyone reading this that is starting your career: Live simply and save a lot. When I started my career I thought I would love…

It comes down to perspective tbh. For someone who's worked hard labor throughout their life, the cushy tech job you get is actually worth doing forever. But for people who have never experienced that, I can see why retiring early makes sense, but honestly most of us get to work from home and do our jobs on the computer, which doesn't require much. It's still an amazing career to be in IMO

If you're mid-career it's good. You can get jobs really easily, you have the networking time, you're in demand, they trust you're going to be learning shit quickly, you have the right stuff on your CV.

Late career is a different story. Tech is Up or Out. A lot of people here are off-the-grid contractor types living in LCOL areas, fully remote, with varying degrees of financial comfort. Those people in HCOL areas who got used to expensive lifestyles - sometimes because, let's face it, return to office meant living in a HCOL area, and eventually buying when the rents got tiringly highter - well some of us have choices to make. You can be not wealthy enough to retire, but still trapped in expenses, and seeing how you can pivot to continue the high.

Then the planning begins to where you'll live in a LCOL area.

Some others in early career are really suffering. People who were laid off are having issues at the moment. It's K-shaped.

So enjoy your mid-career bump. Or, you're in the lucky few late-career types with googleable reputations, you accumulated FANG money/shares, and then you're golden.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#539

Post by eudamoniac »

dheera wrote: post #97
azangru wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> battling with AI, trying to get it do what I wanted What I am selfishly curious about is: is it possible to remain a software developer, and ignore AI? To write code the same way we did before 2022? I understand that there are many companies in which managers demand more of workforce — but are there still places where people are satisfied to not rush ahead and do business same way they did three or four years ago?…

> are there still places where people are satisfied to not rush ahead and do business same way they did three or four years ago They're getting outcompeted.

No, their competition thinks they're getting outcompeted, just have to wait 6 more months for the AI to really get going. Meanwhile no one is shipping anything good.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#540

Post by eudamoniac »

gonzalohm wrote: post #81
retired wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And many employers now require you to code faster, which is only possible with AI tooling. They don't understand that coding faster isn't always better.

How is that enforced though? At any normal workplace they will ask you "how long is this going to take"?

"How will you be leveraging AI for this task? Why can't the AI do it faster than that?"

These managers literally believe, or are made to pretend, that AI is better than you and faster than you. Any argument to the contrary is a CLM.

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