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

315 points by jhu247 8y ago

acconrad 8y ago
I'm happy for you but this is a super privileged viewpoint that most people can't really learn from. I'd be happy too if I could just take a year off and do whatever I want. Most people can't do things like traveling to different cities and trying out a new place for 3 months. It's just unrealistic and only reflects and incredibly tiny population. More importantly: has it really been the best thing you've done for your career? It sounds like you've had a great time but we don't know how this materially affected your career. What about your sabbatical has made your career better now that you've done it? All I've seen is that you've open sourced a Hugo theme, read a few books, and you worked on a side project. Sounds like something plenty of people do with 40 hour workweeks.
- themoonbus 8y ago
  I think a more accurate title could simply be "not working for a year is fun"... and then the immediate reaction is "no kidding".
  - jhu247 8y ago
    Ha, that would've been better!
    - themoonbus 8y ago
      Snark aside, it is good to take a step back and re-evaluate life priorities. And also importantly, to be more mindful of work life balance... and if you're in a position to do so, advocate for more positive balance between the two at your next workplace.
  - quickthrower2 8y ago
    Just due to fatigue (perhaps CFS not sure) I've taken 6 weeks off between jobs this year and last. The fatigue is probably why I'm getting crushed by these jobs. Watched all if breaking bad, did stuff like that. No achievements. Its nice to just rest. With kids there is still a lot to do. It feels like no job + kids is enough to keep me fulfilled if I had unlimited money.
- whack 8y ago
  > I'm happy for you but this is a super privileged viewpoint that most people can't really learn from. I'd be happy too if I could just take a year off and do whatever I want. Most people can't do things like traveling to different cities and trying out a new place for 3 months. It's just unrealistic and only reflects and incredibly tiny population. To be fair, he says the exact same thing in his opening paragraphs. I think there's value in people sharing their experiences, even if it isn't directly applicable to 99% of the population. I agree with your other points though. It sounds like he's happy with his decisions for personal-fulfillment reasons. He didn't do a good job of explaining how it advanced his career.
  - jhu247 8y ago
    Thanks for the feedback, @whack. Saying that it's the "best thing I've done in my life" is way too dramatic, but at this point in my career it has been the best thing I've done because of how much I've grown personally. I don't consider myself a good writer so your point is very helpful.
    - sctb 8y ago
      (Hacker News is a threaded discussion forum, y'all! The addressee is structurally implicit.)
  - bluto 8y ago
    Agree re not explaining how it advanced his career. I did something similar about 10y ago. Was burned out so skied all spring, hiked and went abroad during summer, did a small amount of contract dev then gradually decided it was time to get back to real work. Don't necessarily think it helped my career nor was I expecting it to. Had to explain to recruiters and companies the gap in my resume which not everyone could relate to ... but ... so what. I had a lot of fun.
- jhu247 8y ago
  Appreciate the feedback @acconrad. I understand that I'm extremely fortunate, and I try to point that out in the introduction of my article. Like @whack commented, I'm sharing my personal experience---both the good and the bad---and all the better if there's an element to it that a reader can relate to. As for your other point, does the best thing for a career have to make it _materially_ better? For me personally, the time off and self-reflection has been a better learning experience than if I hadn't quit, especially the ideas regarding agency and productivity, and these are things that will stay with me into whatever I do next. I don't doubt that people with 40 hour workweeks can do the little that I've done, but if you see the goals that I set out for myself these were just a minor aspect of what I wanted to accomplish.
  - newnewpdro 8y ago
    The jury's still out on if this was good for your career. The title is borderline clickbait due to this word choice. I don't doubt taking a sabbatical was good for you in various ways, but your career is probably not one of them as of now. I've taken numerous lengthy sabbaticals, and find them the only way to maintain anything resembling a fair work:life balance. But I am under no delusions of them being good for my career, they're practically explicitly anti-career - I deliberately walk away from the competition for extended periods of time. I've just chosen to not care, because I prioritize other aspects of my life differently than one who lives to work.
    - dougmwne 8y ago
      You both seem to be making the exact same point from different directions. Being a burnt out husk is terrible for your career and work performance. You both feel like the sabbaticals are restoring the life side of the work-life balance. Therefore taking a break is actually enhancing your career. Just like sleeping at night helps you accomplish more during the day.
      - newnewpdro 8y ago
        Sabbaticals are beneficial in all sorts of ways, and it's possible those benefits may confer benefits to your profession. It is not safe to assume those potential benefits will outweigh the substantial negatives of not participating in the competition while your peers continue without you.
- zzaip 8y ago
  @acconrad This response feels unjustifiably bitter and negative. Joshua acknowledges his privilege in the second paragraph. His privilege neither invalidates his experience or makes it useless to share. While I too would be interested to know how the time off materially affected his career, I suspect that this hasn't fully revealed itself to Joshua yet. Despite the misleading title, I still enjoyed the read.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >I'm happy for you but this is a super privileged viewpoint that most people can't really learn from. I'd be happy too if I could just take a year off and do whatever I want. Most people can't do things like traveling to different cities and trying out a new place for 3 months. Most people 18-25 can. First, tons of people at those ages actively burn tons of money on BS like a useless college degree (and not even the kind that lands you an actual job). Not doing anything would be an improvement for them (and cost less). Second, you can do that with no money at all (tons of people do it on $5 a day style, or getting some work where they travel to pay for the costs, or just using one of the several of networks where you can exchange places for free, etc.). I know lots of people at that age that work for a few months and live off that for the rest -- and I'm not talking about making a full yearly wage on those months, they just live on little. When you're young a futon and a few pieces of stuff will do. (I actually know older people living like that too -- in cultures where not following some career and making do with little is not considered "white trash" or "hippie", e.g. in the countryside in Europe and so on). Also, you seem to be harshly criticizing the author and what he done in this span, but how are your choices working for you? Not great from what we read in your comment.
  - debt 8y ago
    "tons of people do it on $5 a day style" Fallback is important though; that is the "if I run out of money, seriously, then what do I do?" There's a huge different between a $5/day lifestyle and a fallback to your parents basement vs a $5/day lifestyle and a fallback to, well, I guess I'll be living on the street. The difference in cognitive load and stress between the two is staggering. Having a fallback is a very privileged position to be in. Most entrepreneurs don't want to admit they can fallback to a parent's basement somewhere as it kind of kills their image.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      >The difference in cognitive load and stress between the two is staggering. Having a fallback is a very privileged position to be in. I dunno, in many cases I know (or used to know, not so young myself anymore) the fallback was either "back with the parents for a while to sort things out", "find some place to rent with/without a roommate(s) and get a job" (which could be waiting tables too). Nobody really has any "fallback" in the sense of money in the bank or family fortune. So not much privilege required. As said, when you're young and without spouse/kids.
- qaq 8y ago
  HN is not exactly most people it's very easy to get remote gig or save up money that would let you travel in Asia for a year. I bet if it was a priority for you you could too.
dunkelheit 8y ago
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 with less money). OTOH maybe my ideas about what I want to do are vague precisely because I don't have much time to flesh them out.
- wskinner 8y ago
  I was in the same place as you. When I started my sabbatical I had some vague ideas, but mainly just planned to drive around the western US and experience the outdoors. After a few weeks I realized I missed thinking about technology, so I started doing the CryptoPals exercises (https://github.com/wskinner/cryptopals https://github.com/wskinner/cryptopals). I learned a lot, at my own pace, and didn't come back feeling like I wasted my time. Those first few weeks of unstructured time were essential. Not framing the time as having to accomplish something is important - I found that my intrinsic motivation came back on its own anyway.
- freedomben 8y ago
  It's a serious risk. If I'm ever in this situation again, I think I will have an idea, and possibly even a very bare-bones prototype before I quit my job. Also, if you're going to use this opportunity to learn a new language/framework/etc, I'd dip the toes in the water now.
- surfmike 8y ago
  I've been in that boat. My situation ended up being similar to what you're worried about— wasn't able to develop any idea or business substantially. My advice from my limited experience is: if you want to go it alone enough, you should be able to create at least a very simple version 0.1 before you strike it out on your own. We often think work is what's holding us back, but lack of disclipine and direction could be just as limiting.
  - 8y ago
benburleson 8y ago
One thing I realized more recently is the value of building your nest egg early. Sure, you have many years down the road to earn money, but the later you earn it, the less time that money will be working for you. Put it away early, don't touch it, and it quietly grows. Burn down your reserves now, and you get no benefit of all the upcoming years of interest (or ROI, etc).
- omosubi 8y ago
  Yes you can wait a while to do something like this but a lot can happen in the intervening years - marriage, kids, house, medical issues, aging parents, etc that can hinder your ability to take time off and explore things you are interested in. If you've ever wanted to try something like this I would suggesting doing it young. I'm currently doing a smaller version of what Joshua describes and had to get approval from manager to get unpaid time off from work. His response: I wish I could have done the same thing. He later even admitted that he was living vicariously through me! That being said, do save as much as you can as early as you can. Just don't let saving get in the way of living your life
- usaar333 8y ago
  On the other hand, marginal tax rates are a thing. If you take six months off (across a year boundary), you might be only losing 55% of your salary or so, not the entire thing. (That is your marginal rate is much higher than effective) Say you get 5% real returns in stocks after taxes on distributions. After 15 years, you've lost about 10 months of salary at your effective rate. Having to work 4 extra months 15 years in the future to take 6 months off now seems like a reasonable trade. (It's a 3.5% annual discount rate on the future). PS: if you get into a situation where you have an income surge one year (say an IPO), it's a no brainier to do this. The tax rate differences on income now vs future can be high enough to match all stock returns.
juancampa 8y ago
I am currently doing something like this. I quit my job to embark in a the most ambitious project of my life and so far it's been quite the experience. One thing that I've discovered working on my own is the value of solitude. When I'm really alone, I can talk to myself out loud and I've found that it allows me to think 10X clearer. Maybe it's just me, but externalizing my thoughts without bothering about what others think it's great for creativity.
woohoo7676 8y ago
Good article, I did this several years ago (or rather I quit, got a part time contract job, then went full sabbatical). Definitely agree with the negatives, the procrastination and loneliness is very real when you're on your own. I tried to make my own app and started getting depressed when I associated its failure with my own (since who else do you have to blame). Still don't regret it though, I think it actually helped my career by forcing me to learn parts of running a business and programming I never would have done otherwise. But it's not all roses for sure.
shazam 8y ago
So how did it benefit his career?
- np_tedious 8y ago
  My thoughts exactly. Good article, well thought out, etc but the title is very bad. Jury is still out on impact to his career.
rb808 8y ago
If you've seen Europeans backpacking around Asia, Australians in Europe or Canadians in South America, its a common thing - with people from countries with a firm safety net. Its a pity Americans dont get that same security and have to work work work.
- johnomarkid 8y ago
  It's less about the safety net and more about re-entering your career at a similar level. In Germany you'd be hard pressed to explain why you took two years off of your career and now want to come back. Re Europeans traveling around Asia - Europeans tend to graduate university later than Americans and then embark on one or more internships before diving into their work contracts. It's not uncommon to take a break between those transitional periods to travel for a bit. But it is uncommon to leave your permanent contract to travel Asia for two years.
- bogomipz 8y ago
  I've backpacked around all of those places and can tell you there's no shortage of Americans backpacking in Europe, Asia and South America. It's nothing to do with a safety net, if you want to travel you just save up for it like you do anything else.
adamnemecek 8y ago
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. However they are very willing to talk to people who help them with their projects. These are the people you should be meeting. Take time off (I definitely needed it, my anxiety was through the roof, my sleep schedule was really fucked up). The days just seemed to be slipping away. Work was both stressful and boring. I'm actually pretty happy these days which is something I haven't felt in a long time. I've convinced two friends to do the same, they are both very thankful. My skills are 10x what they used to be. There is a lot of non-linear gains from working 10 hours a day at your pace, on shit you care about. There are days where in 2 days I do stuff that might have taken me 2 weeks previously. My confidence as a programmer has also really improved. Like few things are truly impossible given enough time. The thing to remember is that even if your thing doesn't work out, you'll be in a better position. Hit me up if you want to talk about your plans, my email is in my profile. Check out the project I'm working on if you feel like it http://ngrid.io http://ngrid.io.
- sleazebreeze 8y ago
  ngrid looks pretty cool! I've spent some time looking for something like this - combining structural editing with music. I'm not adept with music theory or production techniques, so I find many of the traditional tools do not work for me. I put my email in the form and I'd love to hear more about it.
  - adamnemecek 8y ago
    Yeah I hate all the daws. They are good for editing audio not editing music in the note space. Current music theory is kinda terrible. I’ve developed something that I like to think supersedes it and I’m beyond pumped to show it to the world. But it’s hard so it’s taking some time.
- biscottigelato 8y ago
Cursuviam 8y ago
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 and have another person to go on adventures with, as well as have most of my network of college friends and friends still in college around. On the con side, I've discovered that unstructured working at home descends quickly into distraction and browsing HN too much. I think I might try setting time each day where I go to a coffeeshop and work on coding projects, creative writing, and reading, as the change of scenery might help change my focus modal. Finally, I recognize that I'm incredibly privileged to be able to do this. Having well-payed internships and a 1%'er family is giving me an opportunity for relaxation and travel that most Americans lack. I'm planning on spending more of my hiatus time volunteering for local causes for what I wish I could say is the goodness of my heart, but is honestly out of guilt and boredom.
- trub 8y ago
  You are so f*ing out of touch. Sorry you are so tired.
  - Cursuviam 8y ago
    K
- jhu247 8y ago
  Thanks for sharing @Cursuviam. The unstructured working part is something that I've grappled with for a long time!
- sizzle 8y ago
  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?
  - 8y ago
filmgirlcw 8y ago
I appreciate that the author acknowledged his privilege (both economically and his support system) and that he said it’s not intended to be prescriptive (except that even with that disclaimer, the takeaway is still prescriptive — otherwise why write it this way?), but so many people — even from similarly privileged backgrounds — can’t do something like this, and I would argue shouldn’t. If you graduate with lots of student loans, aren’t making a salary that makes it easy to save (which is common even for high earners in expensive cities), and don’t have a network to get reliable freelance/contract work (assuming what you do could be freelanced/contracted out — engineering can but some jobs/skillsets are much harder to do, especially if you’re in your 20s), this is the sort of thing that might be good for your mental and physical well-being, but could end up causing more stresses in the future. As others have said, fair or not, having gaps on a resume can be problematic (and ageism in tech is a real thing) when trying to reseek employment. At the very least, re-entering the workforce at the same level (assuming you left at “senior” or a mid-level equivalent) might be tough. I suppose if you were a junior dev or just starting out, it would be easier to come back at the same level — but rob may not have the same burnout in that case. That said, I do think it’s very valuable to recognize what you want and what you don’t want out of life and a career. And that might mean not being in the rat race in your 20s and it might mean realizing you don’t aspire to have the lifestyle that comes with being a well-paid tech worker if it means you have no work/life balance and are slowly killing yourself. I used to dream about just quitting my job and taking a sabbatical. I was too scared that after the break was over, I wouldn’t be able to find employment the same way. Maybe that was unfounded, but that was my fear. I wound up switching careers and even though I make more money, I have a better work/life balance and I no longer dream of quitting. And for what it’s worth, the extra money is nice — but if I made what I made before and had the same lifestyle I have now, it would be worth it. I’d even take a pay cut.
- atentaten 8y ago
  Which career did you switch to?
stephengillie 8y ago
When I feel burned out, I take a contract position with a BigCo. The pay is still good, the problems are still relevant, and the slower pace is quite restorative. Plus it leaves merely a scar on your resume instead of a gap.
rvn1045 8y ago
Im doing pretty much the same thing since the beginning of the year. the absolute biggest thing thats helped me is meditating for 1-2 hours a day. when you don't have distractions and you have meditated for that long - you get laser like focus, super clear thinking, and ability to absorb and synthesize way more information. funny the article mentions self actualization - I did not start of with that goal in mind and starting to meditate introduced me to a lot of literature around religion - and you start looking at your life in a completely different way.
ian0 8y ago
If you want to re-enter the workforce without any ill effect from the break - it really helps if you do something! If your going to travel, travel. Travel around the world, drive the pan-american highway. Travel can be cheap as long as you can save up enough for transport to a cheap country: Go to mexico, learn spanish. Go to India, live on a mountaintop. Its actually fun to keep in the loop tech wise from a random location somewhere! And the hiring manager in two years time will be jealous, not suspicious. If you really want to work (during your only long holiday for the next 30 years!), then make that your focus. Make the side project happen, join an accelerator, make it a full time job - because it will be if its successful. If its to learn a new field (carpentry, art, mechanic) then take the time to be become an apprentice, don't just google youtube videos. Do something fun. Take a few chances. And I can pretty much guarantee you wont regret it at all.
rexarex 8y ago
This is sad. It sounds like he just stressed out the whole time about not being productive enough during an extended vacation. Sometimes it’s great going somewhere for a vague reason and doing absolutely nothing really that productive for a few weeks or more. I find it’s difficult for people to escape ‘living to work’ and subconsciously create tasks for themselves. In the backpacker community it’s definitely travel blogging, taking photos, journaling, etc. I’m very guilty of this. I enjoy it, but it’s really interesting to see the need to be doing -something- creep into your life, even at times when you most try to escape it.
lovelearning 8y ago
A "gap" seems to be almost like a crime no tech worker should dare do. I have seen otherwise rational coworkers reject resumes only for having a "gap". Most want to relax, but the same people also punish those who do just that. I thought it was a quirk of the society I live in, but from comments here, it looks like it's the norm in all countries.
- ian0 8y ago
  Just fill the gap with something relatively interesting and your ok. You will of course need to keep your skills in practice though.
- jhu247 8y ago
  In my own experience in SV, companies just want good engineers. If you have good experience and good projects recruiters will still find you, despite having a gap.
- projektir 8y ago
  I can't say I've found this to be that strong of a thing. Even big companies don't seem to mind my gap. I'm frankly confused as to why a resume gap would be relevant to anyone. If anything, my resume gap cleared up my head and I've dabbled in some things I don't usually touch so it made me a better employee, if we want to use that language. This just seems like a cultural holdover and one we could eliminate with more people taking breaks.
- 09bjb 8y ago
  This is the kind of mindset that discourages people from taking healthy risks. There are any number of legitimate ways to explain a gap, such as, "No, I was not actually playing video games and surfing reddit the entire time! I actually wanted to invest more time in ____. Can I share with you what I learned?" Disclaimer: my CV has often been a horrendous mess of 3-6 month "gaps" (during which time I learned many of my most valuable life lessons) and it never cost me more than a month of training myself up, networking, and interviewing. Another disclaimer: I've always been of the habit of saving my money so that long gaps feel stress-free and I don't have to take the first job I'm offered.
bradneuberg 8y ago
I've been in the industry nearly 20 years and I always take breaks between jobs. I've worked for startups, Google, Dropbox, non-profits, etc. Between jobs I've pursued personal growth, traveled extensively, re-tooled my CS skill sets in new directions, gotten healthy, done extensive open source work, and more. I highly recommend it to others in the industry if you have the ability to do so; it's only helped my personal and professional career not hurt it. Live your own life and don't let others tell you how you're supposed to exist.
- automatoney 8y ago
  I'm just starting out so I'm really curious how long the breaks you took between jobs were, and if you had the next job lined up before you took your break? Also off topic but what was it like working for non-profits, and what sort of work did you do?
  - bradneuberg 8y ago
    The breaks were anywhere from one month to a year. I never had the next job lined up before hand. All my work with non-profits involved doing open source in collaboration with them as a consultant. It was great :)
- biscottigelato 8y ago
  Any tips for companies to take your open sourced work as experience? I've mostly just been thrown the book at doing algorithm puzzles and such... Got rejected for not 'technically competent' despite polished complex app on both the App Store and on Github. It's insulting to the point I want to start cancelling processes with all Unicorns...
  - coaxial 8y ago
    > Got rejected for not 'technically competent' despite polished complex app on both the App Store and on Github. It's insulting to the point I want to start cancelling processes with all Unicorns... Because "how do we know you didn't copy paste it from a tutorial and claim it as yours?" It is insulting, and frankly discouraging. As if the only one true way to tell whether you know your stuff or not is to check if you can solve some silly riddle/puzzle under the gun. One solution is to only apply to companies without a broken hiring process, but sadly they're very rare.
09bjb 8y ago
Just came here to say that I think protecting your CV at all costs from any kind of "gap" is some of the most overrated career advice out there. Take risks, show some self-direction and self-respect. Companies and colleagues will help you, but only you can steer the ship of your career trajectory. Follow the currents underneath you at your own risk.
desdiv 8y ago
What do you guys think of the idea of companies giving their employees the option of taking (up to) one year long unpaid sabbaticals? It would cost the company next to nothing, and it would be a preferable alternative to the employee quitting due to stress or burnout. For the employee it significantly lowers their risk of unemployment. They can either 1. go to a better company, or 2. return to their old company. In the case of US companies, there's also the added benefit of the possibility of the employee and employer coming to a mutually beneficial arrangement on maintaining the employee's healthcare plan during the sabbatical.
- Puer 8y ago
  In what world would that cost the company "next to nothing"??? That person isn't going to be working for a year. The company either needs to hire someone else to replace them, which is an expensive process, or lose the productivity for that position for a year.
  - desdiv 8y ago
    I apologize if my suggestion was stupid. I'm just trying to get a discussion started here, that's all. It would cost the company next to nothing, in my view, because the steps the company has to take is almost exactly the same: 1. Employee quits. Company immediately looks for a replacement. One year down the road, when the company is expanding, they have to look for another worker. 2. Employee goes on sabbatical. Company immediately looks for a replacement. One year down the road, when the company is expanding, they first contact the sabbatical guy if they want to come back, and if not they have to look for another worker. In scenario 1, the company pays for the cost of two hirings with 100% certainty. In scenario 2, worst case the company pays for the cost of two hirings; best case the company only pays for one.
shurcooL 8y ago
Nice writeup. It's very valuable that you took the time to share a unique experience with everyone. I've also done a 1.5 year sabbatical, and I can relate. It's both very challenging (to pull off successfully) but also can be very rewarding.
curyous 8y ago
Where does it say it was good for his career?
jgamman 8y ago
in NZ (and Aus i guess) we call this an OE (Overseas Experience) and it is incredibly common for someone in their 20's to up sticks and bugger off to the UK (and others) for several months or years. They/we aren't, for the most part, privileged - they land in London with 50 quid, buy an A-Z at the airport and doss with friends under the kitchen table till they land a job doing whatever. Save and party until summer and then a long af van trip around Europe seeing the sights. Rinse and repeat if you've got the stomach for it. Variations exist. The leaving your country part is the important part. Even if it's English speaking you'd be surprised at the resilience you need to just get s* done arriving somewhere at midnight with no idea where you're going to sleep. Being punished for 'gaps' in your CV is a cultural thing. There are no gaps in your life, just... life.
- hex20 8y ago
  Very true. You also see it happening the other way around now, with people from Germany and the UK coming to NZ/AU to do an OE of there own.
turtlecloud 8y ago
Ya dude I feel ya. MZ was a sweatshop! Did the same - took a sabbatical. The main thing is to come up with a cool story of what you did.
JonasJSchreiber 8y ago
What you've written is incredibly mature, well-articulated, and insightful. I hope you succeed in your solo endeavors!
leksak 8y ago
Reading most of these comments, and the article itself, I can't help but think that the rat race is just replaced with another race as it seems imperative to work on something for a lot of you that have written here which I find curious, even though I can relate and understand it. At the moment, career wise, om not in a position to go down in hours but that is what I'll explore in the future. A 6 hour workday, working remotely more often and/or trying to split my workday up by going to the gym during work hours. This is tough though with meetings and all that.
patcon 8y ago
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 single person's perspective of it, but I feel like it would be comparable if I'd been in a relationship :)
- Maro 8y ago
  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.
  - anotheryou 8y ago
    So you quit before you search for a new job? Most job offers I see are ASAP.
    - Maro 8y ago
      I just tell the next company that I will join on date X. I don't care about their ASAPs.
lurcio 8y ago
The right to useful unemployment.
ejanus 8y ago
I have been without job for a while now ,and I won't mind to getting back. It has not worked out as I would have love.
amrx431 8y ago
Many paradigms of life don't apply if you are a citizen of a developing country with billion people in it and you happen to be the first person in the history of your family who doesn't work as an agricultural labourer on a landlords field.
meuk 8y ago
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 working before I even graduated). I should have spent some more time on job hunting, in retrospect. At my current job as a consultant I am back-end code-monkeying in a large team where most developers don't have a technical background - it's not very challenging from a technical perspective (even though I like the working environment in other aspects). My current employer pushes me to get certified for some front-end technologies, which I don't find interesting (and have no value for the gig I'm currently assigned to). My true interest are OSes, drivers, optimization, FPGA's, electronics, compilers, assembly, microcontrollers, graphics... But I can't seem to find a job in that field, mostly because I don't have work experience in those fields. I also have a tendency to be very humble about my experience, which I think is a good thing in general, but I think sometimes people wrongly classify me as 'very junior'. On top of that, everybody seems to be looking for C# programmers, but the pay seems to be a bit lower in more technical fields. I don't care that much about my salary, but right now I am the one with literally the best background (4 academic studies), and the lowest income (basically every time I talk about it with someone, he/she goes "hm, that's pretty low"). I have had some good offers (about 15% more than I currently earn), but they came with a traineeship which seemed not very challenging and would force me to stay with that company for 2 years. A very common scenario I end up in is that I'm talking to a very enthousiastic HR person ("I think you're a very good fit for our company!"), but the offer ends up very low ("Well, you're a junior after all."). I am thinking about quitting my current job to brush up some skills (mainly Python, Vulkan, OpenGL, and some OS API stuff) and build a portfolio, but I'm too afraid to be unproductive and end up in a worse situation than before (about 1 year of working experience and a giant gap in my CV after that). Has anyone been in a similar situation? Any advice?
- forcedefrappe 8y ago
  This sounds very unfamiliar based on my experience with the US job market, but does match with some experience of the European one.. Which country are you in? Maybe that would make for better advice.
blablabla123 8y ago
> Project managing my life Actually I started setting up a Redmine to pursue more complex goals that are usually not related to work. In the past I also used classical todo lists on a sheet of paper or Asana for some time. But I gave up both, what I observed happens after using this 'tool' after a while: indeed a lot gets done, it's even fulfilling check an item, especially on paper. So after a year or so, the things on the list end up being more and more difficult to do. The only easy tasks are the recently added ones but the list becomes more and more static. Problem with todo lists is that they are the end product of some ideas that happen at random times. But you lose the idea behind it, so a proper project management tool is worth it. (In fact when you look at how Asana developed over time, it converges into something like that...)
- thomasahle 8y ago
  Redmine seems like a very big tool for just one person though, with issues trackers and all. Something like trello seems more the scale. Personally I just wish it had TeX support. Does anyone know a good, personal project management tool that allows writing sections in latex?
  - thestephen 8y ago
    Have you tried, or considered trying org-mode? I found that once I got over the hurdle of learning emacs, the friction in managing tasks once you have learned the tool is nearly nil. Further, it definitely supports embedded latex fragments, exporting to pdf, etc.
i_made_a_booboo 8y ago
I'm pretty much coming to the end of mine now. Except I feel burnt out from the sabbatical whereas I generally always felt pretty good at work. I read a shit tonne this last 8 months and have noticed a big upgrade in my worldview. I shipped a couple of projects on my own which I'm proud of too. I grew immensely from the experience and a whole bunch of things I always toyed with the idea while working I actually got to try out and see how I really felt about them and not how I thought I was going to feel. The recruiters being suspicious about the time off thing is something I wasn't suspecting but I did get that vibe. I made a point to network the whole time I was taking off and have been invited to visit a small company I'm pretty excited about after an hour chatting to the CTO. Political savvy was one of my unexpected skills at my last job, so I feel like so long as I can get in a room I can get a job (provided I'm actually interested and think the company would be a good fit). So many lessons learned. Perhaps both good and bad.
- biscottigelato 8y ago
  I shipped 2 projects that I feel are highly polished. Been almost 3 months in the job market cuz i have since ran low on funds. Being in Vancouver it's just extra tough. The Unicorns doesn't care one bit of your side projects. The smaller guys just doesn't have the resource to relocate. Let alone getting in the same room with them for interviews (aka. fly you over). So far very disillusioned. Seems like if the projects didn't become million dollar businesses, then it's algorithm puzzles or working at McDonalds. Shipped products doesn't matter one bit...
  - i_made_a_booboo 8y ago
    For me it's about creating a personal connection and telling a good story. I dunno I just have a belief in my ability to do that from past experience. This is new territory for me though, so we'll see. I'm not in the US on, so I don't play the whole unicorn game. I imagine that's a whole different ball game.
    - biscottigelato 8y ago
      Unfortunately more and more companies are going the 'we don't care about your resume, we just want you to do algorithm puzzles'. way. Triplebyte, as listed on the Hackernews job board, is especially proud that they don't look at your resume and measure you only on the few things they deem important. Basically you can be good at a hundred things. But they measure you on ten things and don't care about any of the others, relevant or not. So if you so happen only have 6 things out of the 10, you are out, even if you have clearly demonstrated that you are capable of 100 things, and learning those 100 things in short order. I would say I learned more in the 2 years than I did 10 years as a Firmware Engineer. But if I stayed my course just lurking in my old job I'd have been a Firmware lead. I can't even get an intermediate development job now...
__exit__ 8y ago
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.
trycrmr 8y ago
Does anyone else see articles like this and think about how much money in retirement they're foregoing? By not maxing out 401k & IRA deposits each year in your 20s you're missing out on significant gains from compound interest later in life. A sabbatical like this makes sense to me when you're comfortable with the trajectory of your retirement. The other situation is where significant mental health issues that can't be sorted out by adjusting schedule & lifestyle around work are going to negatively impact your career anyways. It could be worth it to take the loss on retirement account deposits to sort things out.
ffanon 8y ago
I've managed to get myself into what some might consider an ideal situation: a half-time job at BigCo. It means my work at BigCo is more interesting and condensed, and of course it means I have all the time in the world for side projects. BigCo total comp is so incredible that half of it still pays the bills in ExpensiveCity. Except all the challenges echoed by others in the comments are real: overcoming procrastination and doing focused work. Actually the former I can manage, the latter is harder. All I have to show for side project time is a long list of smaller projects, I can't manage to take one of them and build/polish it into something significant. Somehow having the choice 100 fun project makes devoting time to just 1 super hard. Maybe half-time off to some extend is worse for procrastination than full-time, since I can always fall back on my work at BigCo as a sign of progress in my life. This situation should be ideal, I know the path I should take, the opportunity is there for the taking, but so far have not managed.
- abakker 8y ago
  Do your side projects have customers? I’ve found that there is no motivator like someone else’s support tickets or deadlines. Put another way, it is easier to find motivation when the needs of your project are immediately helpful to someone else, rather than theoretically helpful. Just a thought.
  - ffanon 8y ago
    I can imagine that would motivate, yes, but for me the point of side projects is to explore things that are less commercial, more researchy.. things BigCo wouldn't pay me to do. And to do something commercial while at BigCo would require quite some paperwork for BigCo to agree. And it is not like I need to be doing commercial work on the side for financial reasons.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
JDiculous 8y ago
Why is everybody so hung up on how it'll affect your career? As if everything in life must be rationalized by its impact on your career. Maybe he creates a successful business and never has to work for anyone else again, maybe not. Either way the author will have had the valuable experience of not only trying to build a business, but also living life on his own terms - something that we give up (often without realizing it) when we sell ourselves to the corporate world. I'm 10 months into my sabbatical and have spent the last 8 months living in countries/continents I'd never been to, learned about different cultures, improved my Spanish (now trying to learn Russian), met a ton of people, and grown enormously as a person. Career-wise and financially was this a good decision? Probably not (at this point at least). But I wouldn't trade any of this for the world. Had I spent another year living in the same damn city doing the same work that I was bored to death of, I might've jumped off a bridge or something (not really, but in hindsight I was depressed without really realizing it). I will now shift gears towards working on my own project(s). If it works out - great, I will be living my dream. If it doesn't work out - no problem, I'll figure it out - even if I have to return to the U.S. and find a job again. On my deathbed I'm not going to regret taking a year off to travel the world when I could've spent that year continuing to work a job I was no longer passionate about. One of the things I've completely internalized from my travels is that I have no interest in the corporate rat race. I don't care about "career ramifications" because that's not a ladder I want to devote my life to climbing. Last night I hung out with a 21 year old from the hostel who's making $6k/month from online businesses working 1 hour/day, and has spent the last 1.5 years living abroad (I never met these kind of people when I was working my 9-5). That is my dream - not being a tech lead at Google (I don't need $6k/month either, $1.5k/month and I'm good). In essence, the sabbatical drove home the point that I had been climbing the wrong ladder. So even if I have to eventually go back to the job market, I will be targeting totally different jobs, and my mindset towards work, money, and life in general is totally different. Before I was living in a permanent state of delayed gratification, saving money with no clear vision for what I was saving it for. Now I have a better idea of what I want out of life. Or maybe I just have more confidence to go out and chase what I want when in the past I would've simply fantasized about it. At the end of the day I'd rather try and fail then have lived a safe boring life slaving away in some job I don't care about being depressed and wishing I had the balls to live life on my own terms and go after the life I want.
octygen 8y ago
I'll be really honest. I haven't done it ever and I regret it. I AM planning what I call a monk year now. I also interview people that have done it so I've been on the other side. Conclusion: It's really all about a plan first, discipline about the plan's boundaries and self-confidence when you present your achievements after. Else you may be viewed as a lazy hedonist. E.g., My PLAN is to take year to train for an Ironman. That's about 4h a day on average. I'd also eat well, stretch and keep up with the ancillaries of such hard training to prevent injuries. Then I'd be studying 4 online courses à day in whatever I want. My goal would be to finish a few nanodegrees and a few specializations on Coursera. Courses would be about 5h per day. Every day, non-stop. At the end, I would have done one Ironman AND add a whole lot of skill to my arsenal. It's not cheap - calculated it to be about $40K so far with a mortgage and rent to pay but I'm working on creative ways to lessen this. Last but not least, I have three non-profit projects I want to do. One huge dream, one medium, one small. If I went to an interview à year after this starts having been disciplined enough to accomplish even 75% the above, I'm pretty sure not even the hardest interviewer would be skeptical. Basically, I view the monk year as the year where I still grind. But I grind to add value to yours truly NOT the corporation.

315 points by jhu247 8y ago

I'm happy for you but this is a super privileged viewpoint that most people can't really learn from. I'd be happy too if I could just take a year off and do whatever I want. Most people can't do things like traveling to different cities and trying out a new place for 3 months. It's just unrealistic and only reflects and incredibly tiny population. More importantly: has it really been the best thing you've done for your career? It sounds like you've had a great time but we don't know how this materially affected your career. What about your sabbatical has made your career better now that you've done it? All I've seen is that you've open sourced a Hugo theme, read a few books, and you worked on a side project. Sounds like something plenty of people do with 40 hour workweeks.

themoonbus 8y ago
I think a more accurate title could simply be "not working for a year is fun"... and then the immediate reaction is "no kidding".
- jhu247 8y ago
  Ha, that would've been better!
  - themoonbus 8y ago
    Snark aside, it is good to take a step back and re-evaluate life priorities. And also importantly, to be more mindful of work life balance... and if you're in a position to do so, advocate for more positive balance between the two at your next workplace.
- quickthrower2 8y ago
  Just due to fatigue (perhaps CFS not sure) I've taken 6 weeks off between jobs this year and last. The fatigue is probably why I'm getting crushed by these jobs. Watched all if breaking bad, did stuff like that. No achievements. Its nice to just rest. With kids there is still a lot to do. It feels like no job + kids is enough to keep me fulfilled if I had unlimited money.
whack 8y ago
> I'm happy for you but this is a super privileged viewpoint that most people can't really learn from. I'd be happy too if I could just take a year off and do whatever I want. Most people can't do things like traveling to different cities and trying out a new place for 3 months. It's just unrealistic and only reflects and incredibly tiny population. To be fair, he says the exact same thing in his opening paragraphs. I think there's value in people sharing their experiences, even if it isn't directly applicable to 99% of the population. I agree with your other points though. It sounds like he's happy with his decisions for personal-fulfillment reasons. He didn't do a good job of explaining how it advanced his career.
- jhu247 8y ago
  Thanks for the feedback, @whack. Saying that it's the "best thing I've done in my life" is way too dramatic, but at this point in my career it has been the best thing I've done because of how much I've grown personally. I don't consider myself a good writer so your point is very helpful.
  - sctb 8y ago
    (Hacker News is a threaded discussion forum, y'all! The addressee is structurally implicit.)
- bluto 8y ago
  Agree re not explaining how it advanced his career. I did something similar about 10y ago. Was burned out so skied all spring, hiked and went abroad during summer, did a small amount of contract dev then gradually decided it was time to get back to real work. Don't necessarily think it helped my career nor was I expecting it to. Had to explain to recruiters and companies the gap in my resume which not everyone could relate to ... but ... so what. I had a lot of fun.
jhu247 8y ago
Appreciate the feedback @acconrad. I understand that I'm extremely fortunate, and I try to point that out in the introduction of my article. Like @whack commented, I'm sharing my personal experience---both the good and the bad---and all the better if there's an element to it that a reader can relate to. As for your other point, does the best thing for a career have to make it _materially_ better? For me personally, the time off and self-reflection has been a better learning experience than if I hadn't quit, especially the ideas regarding agency and productivity, and these are things that will stay with me into whatever I do next. I don't doubt that people with 40 hour workweeks can do the little that I've done, but if you see the goals that I set out for myself these were just a minor aspect of what I wanted to accomplish.
- newnewpdro 8y ago
  The jury's still out on if this was good for your career. The title is borderline clickbait due to this word choice. I don't doubt taking a sabbatical was good for you in various ways, but your career is probably not one of them as of now. I've taken numerous lengthy sabbaticals, and find them the only way to maintain anything resembling a fair work:life balance. But I am under no delusions of them being good for my career, they're practically explicitly anti-career - I deliberately walk away from the competition for extended periods of time. I've just chosen to not care, because I prioritize other aspects of my life differently than one who lives to work.
  - dougmwne 8y ago
    You both seem to be making the exact same point from different directions. Being a burnt out husk is terrible for your career and work performance. You both feel like the sabbaticals are restoring the life side of the work-life balance. Therefore taking a break is actually enhancing your career. Just like sleeping at night helps you accomplish more during the day.
    - newnewpdro 8y ago
      Sabbaticals are beneficial in all sorts of ways, and it's possible those benefits may confer benefits to your profession. It is not safe to assume those potential benefits will outweigh the substantial negatives of not participating in the competition while your peers continue without you.
zzaip 8y ago
@acconrad This response feels unjustifiably bitter and negative. Joshua acknowledges his privilege in the second paragraph. His privilege neither invalidates his experience or makes it useless to share. While I too would be interested to know how the time off materially affected his career, I suspect that this hasn't fully revealed itself to Joshua yet. Despite the misleading title, I still enjoyed the read.
coldtea 8y ago
>I'm happy for you but this is a super privileged viewpoint that most people can't really learn from. I'd be happy too if I could just take a year off and do whatever I want. Most people can't do things like traveling to different cities and trying out a new place for 3 months. Most people 18-25 can. First, tons of people at those ages actively burn tons of money on BS like a useless college degree (and not even the kind that lands you an actual job). Not doing anything would be an improvement for them (and cost less). Second, you can do that with no money at all (tons of people do it on $5 a day style, or getting some work where they travel to pay for the costs, or just using one of the several of networks where you can exchange places for free, etc.). I know lots of people at that age that work for a few months and live off that for the rest -- and I'm not talking about making a full yearly wage on those months, they just live on little. When you're young a futon and a few pieces of stuff will do. (I actually know older people living like that too -- in cultures where not following some career and making do with little is not considered "white trash" or "hippie", e.g. in the countryside in Europe and so on). Also, you seem to be harshly criticizing the author and what he done in this span, but how are your choices working for you? Not great from what we read in your comment.
- debt 8y ago
  "tons of people do it on $5 a day style" Fallback is important though; that is the "if I run out of money, seriously, then what do I do?" There's a huge different between a $5/day lifestyle and a fallback to your parents basement vs a $5/day lifestyle and a fallback to, well, I guess I'll be living on the street. The difference in cognitive load and stress between the two is staggering. Having a fallback is a very privileged position to be in. Most entrepreneurs don't want to admit they can fallback to a parent's basement somewhere as it kind of kills their image.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >The difference in cognitive load and stress between the two is staggering. Having a fallback is a very privileged position to be in. I dunno, in many cases I know (or used to know, not so young myself anymore) the fallback was either "back with the parents for a while to sort things out", "find some place to rent with/without a roommate(s) and get a job" (which could be waiting tables too). Nobody really has any "fallback" in the sense of money in the bank or family fortune. So not much privilege required. As said, when you're young and without spouse/kids.
qaq 8y ago
HN is not exactly most people it's very easy to get remote gig or save up money that would let you travel in Asia for a year. I bet if it was a priority for you you could too.

dunkelheit 8y ago

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 with less money). OTOH maybe my ideas about what I want to do are vague precisely because I don't have much time to flesh them out.

wskinner 8y ago
I was in the same place as you. When I started my sabbatical I had some vague ideas, but mainly just planned to drive around the western US and experience the outdoors. After a few weeks I realized I missed thinking about technology, so I started doing the CryptoPals exercises (https://github.com/wskinner/cryptopals https://github.com/wskinner/cryptopals). I learned a lot, at my own pace, and didn't come back feeling like I wasted my time. Those first few weeks of unstructured time were essential. Not framing the time as having to accomplish something is important - I found that my intrinsic motivation came back on its own anyway.
freedomben 8y ago
It's a serious risk. If I'm ever in this situation again, I think I will have an idea, and possibly even a very bare-bones prototype before I quit my job. Also, if you're going to use this opportunity to learn a new language/framework/etc, I'd dip the toes in the water now.
surfmike 8y ago
I've been in that boat. My situation ended up being similar to what you're worried about— wasn't able to develop any idea or business substantially. My advice from my limited experience is: if you want to go it alone enough, you should be able to create at least a very simple version 0.1 before you strike it out on your own. We often think work is what's holding us back, but lack of disclipine and direction could be just as limiting.
- 8y ago

benburleson 8y ago

One thing I realized more recently is the value of building your nest egg early. Sure, you have many years down the road to earn money, but the later you earn it, the less time that money will be working for you. Put it away early, don't touch it, and it quietly grows. Burn down your reserves now, and you get no benefit of all the upcoming years of interest (or ROI, etc).

omosubi 8y ago
Yes you can wait a while to do something like this but a lot can happen in the intervening years - marriage, kids, house, medical issues, aging parents, etc that can hinder your ability to take time off and explore things you are interested in. If you've ever wanted to try something like this I would suggesting doing it young. I'm currently doing a smaller version of what Joshua describes and had to get approval from manager to get unpaid time off from work. His response: I wish I could have done the same thing. He later even admitted that he was living vicariously through me! That being said, do save as much as you can as early as you can. Just don't let saving get in the way of living your life
usaar333 8y ago
On the other hand, marginal tax rates are a thing. If you take six months off (across a year boundary), you might be only losing 55% of your salary or so, not the entire thing. (That is your marginal rate is much higher than effective) Say you get 5% real returns in stocks after taxes on distributions. After 15 years, you've lost about 10 months of salary at your effective rate. Having to work 4 extra months 15 years in the future to take 6 months off now seems like a reasonable trade. (It's a 3.5% annual discount rate on the future). PS: if you get into a situation where you have an income surge one year (say an IPO), it's a no brainier to do this. The tax rate differences on income now vs future can be high enough to match all stock returns.

juancampa 8y ago

I am currently doing something like this. I quit my job to embark in a the most ambitious project of my life and so far it's been quite the experience. One thing that I've discovered working on my own is the value of solitude. When I'm really alone, I can talk to myself out loud and I've found that it allows me to think 10X clearer. Maybe it's just me, but externalizing my thoughts without bothering about what others think it's great for creativity.

woohoo7676 8y ago

Good article, I did this several years ago (or rather I quit, got a part time contract job, then went full sabbatical). Definitely agree with the negatives, the procrastination and loneliness is very real when you're on your own. I tried to make my own app and started getting depressed when I associated its failure with my own (since who else do you have to blame). Still don't regret it though, I think it actually helped my career by forcing me to learn parts of running a business and programming I never would have done otherwise. But it's not all roses for sure.

shazam 8y ago

So how did it benefit his career?

np_tedious 8y ago
My thoughts exactly. Good article, well thought out, etc but the title is very bad. Jury is still out on impact to his career.

rb808 8y ago

If you've seen Europeans backpacking around Asia, Australians in Europe or Canadians in South America, its a common thing - with people from countries with a firm safety net. Its a pity Americans dont get that same security and have to work work work.

johnomarkid 8y ago
It's less about the safety net and more about re-entering your career at a similar level. In Germany you'd be hard pressed to explain why you took two years off of your career and now want to come back. Re Europeans traveling around Asia - Europeans tend to graduate university later than Americans and then embark on one or more internships before diving into their work contracts. It's not uncommon to take a break between those transitional periods to travel for a bit. But it is uncommon to leave your permanent contract to travel Asia for two years.
bogomipz 8y ago
I've backpacked around all of those places and can tell you there's no shortage of Americans backpacking in Europe, Asia and South America. It's nothing to do with a safety net, if you want to travel you just save up for it like you do anything else.

adamnemecek 8y ago

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. However they are very willing to talk to people who help them with their projects. These are the people you should be meeting. Take time off (I definitely needed it, my anxiety was through the roof, my sleep schedule was really fucked up). The days just seemed to be slipping away. Work was both stressful and boring. I'm actually pretty happy these days which is something I haven't felt in a long time. I've convinced two friends to do the same, they are both very thankful. My skills are 10x what they used to be. There is a lot of non-linear gains from working 10 hours a day at your pace, on shit you care about. There are days where in 2 days I do stuff that might have taken me 2 weeks previously. My confidence as a programmer has also really improved. Like few things are truly impossible given enough time. The thing to remember is that even if your thing doesn't work out, you'll be in a better position. Hit me up if you want to talk about your plans, my email is in my profile. Check out the project I'm working on if you feel like it http://ngrid.io http://ngrid.io.

sleazebreeze 8y ago
ngrid looks pretty cool! I've spent some time looking for something like this - combining structural editing with music. I'm not adept with music theory or production techniques, so I find many of the traditional tools do not work for me. I put my email in the form and I'd love to hear more about it.
- adamnemecek 8y ago
  Yeah I hate all the daws. They are good for editing audio not editing music in the note space. Current music theory is kinda terrible. I’ve developed something that I like to think supersedes it and I’m beyond pumped to show it to the world. But it’s hard so it’s taking some time.
biscottigelato 8y ago

Cursuviam 8y ago

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 and have another person to go on adventures with, as well as have most of my network of college friends and friends still in college around. On the con side, I've discovered that unstructured working at home descends quickly into distraction and browsing HN too much. I think I might try setting time each day where I go to a coffeeshop and work on coding projects, creative writing, and reading, as the change of scenery might help change my focus modal. Finally, I recognize that I'm incredibly privileged to be able to do this. Having well-payed internships and a 1%'er family is giving me an opportunity for relaxation and travel that most Americans lack. I'm planning on spending more of my hiatus time volunteering for local causes for what I wish I could say is the goodness of my heart, but is honestly out of guilt and boredom.

trub 8y ago
You are so f*ing out of touch. Sorry you are so tired.
- Cursuviam 8y ago
  K
jhu247 8y ago
Thanks for sharing @Cursuviam. The unstructured working part is something that I've grappled with for a long time!
sizzle 8y ago
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?
- 8y ago

filmgirlcw 8y ago

I appreciate that the author acknowledged his privilege (both economically and his support system) and that he said it’s not intended to be prescriptive (except that even with that disclaimer, the takeaway is still prescriptive — otherwise why write it this way?), but so many people — even from similarly privileged backgrounds — can’t do something like this, and I would argue shouldn’t. If you graduate with lots of student loans, aren’t making a salary that makes it easy to save (which is common even for high earners in expensive cities), and don’t have a network to get reliable freelance/contract work (assuming what you do could be freelanced/contracted out — engineering can but some jobs/skillsets are much harder to do, especially if you’re in your 20s), this is the sort of thing that might be good for your mental and physical well-being, but could end up causing more stresses in the future. As others have said, fair or not, having gaps on a resume can be problematic (and ageism in tech is a real thing) when trying to reseek employment. At the very least, re-entering the workforce at the same level (assuming you left at “senior” or a mid-level equivalent) might be tough. I suppose if you were a junior dev or just starting out, it would be easier to come back at the same level — but rob may not have the same burnout in that case. That said, I do think it’s very valuable to recognize what you want and what you don’t want out of life and a career. And that might mean not being in the rat race in your 20s and it might mean realizing you don’t aspire to have the lifestyle that comes with being a well-paid tech worker if it means you have no work/life balance and are slowly killing yourself. I used to dream about just quitting my job and taking a sabbatical. I was too scared that after the break was over, I wouldn’t be able to find employment the same way. Maybe that was unfounded, but that was my fear. I wound up switching careers and even though I make more money, I have a better work/life balance and I no longer dream of quitting. And for what it’s worth, the extra money is nice — but if I made what I made before and had the same lifestyle I have now, it would be worth it. I’d even take a pay cut.

atentaten 8y ago
Which career did you switch to?

stephengillie 8y ago

When I feel burned out, I take a contract position with a BigCo. The pay is still good, the problems are still relevant, and the slower pace is quite restorative. Plus it leaves merely a scar on your resume instead of a gap.

rvn1045 8y ago

Im doing pretty much the same thing since the beginning of the year. the absolute biggest thing thats helped me is meditating for 1-2 hours a day. when you don't have distractions and you have meditated for that long - you get laser like focus, super clear thinking, and ability to absorb and synthesize way more information. funny the article mentions self actualization - I did not start of with that goal in mind and starting to meditate introduced me to a lot of literature around religion - and you start looking at your life in a completely different way.

ian0 8y ago

If you want to re-enter the workforce without any ill effect from the break - it really helps if you do something! If your going to travel, travel. Travel around the world, drive the pan-american highway. Travel can be cheap as long as you can save up enough for transport to a cheap country: Go to mexico, learn spanish. Go to India, live on a mountaintop. Its actually fun to keep in the loop tech wise from a random location somewhere! And the hiring manager in two years time will be jealous, not suspicious. If you really want to work (during your only long holiday for the next 30 years!), then make that your focus. Make the side project happen, join an accelerator, make it a full time job - because it will be if its successful. If its to learn a new field (carpentry, art, mechanic) then take the time to be become an apprentice, don't just google youtube videos. Do something fun. Take a few chances. And I can pretty much guarantee you wont regret it at all.

rexarex 8y ago

This is sad. It sounds like he just stressed out the whole time about not being productive enough during an extended vacation. Sometimes it’s great going somewhere for a vague reason and doing absolutely nothing really that productive for a few weeks or more. I find it’s difficult for people to escape ‘living to work’ and subconsciously create tasks for themselves. In the backpacker community it’s definitely travel blogging, taking photos, journaling, etc. I’m very guilty of this. I enjoy it, but it’s really interesting to see the need to be doing -something- creep into your life, even at times when you most try to escape it.

lovelearning 8y ago

A "gap" seems to be almost like a crime no tech worker should dare do. I have seen otherwise rational coworkers reject resumes only for having a "gap". Most want to relax, but the same people also punish those who do just that. I thought it was a quirk of the society I live in, but from comments here, it looks like it's the norm in all countries.

ian0 8y ago
Just fill the gap with something relatively interesting and your ok. You will of course need to keep your skills in practice though.
jhu247 8y ago
In my own experience in SV, companies just want good engineers. If you have good experience and good projects recruiters will still find you, despite having a gap.
projektir 8y ago
I can't say I've found this to be that strong of a thing. Even big companies don't seem to mind my gap. I'm frankly confused as to why a resume gap would be relevant to anyone. If anything, my resume gap cleared up my head and I've dabbled in some things I don't usually touch so it made me a better employee, if we want to use that language. This just seems like a cultural holdover and one we could eliminate with more people taking breaks.
09bjb 8y ago
This is the kind of mindset that discourages people from taking healthy risks. There are any number of legitimate ways to explain a gap, such as, "No, I was not actually playing video games and surfing reddit the entire time! I actually wanted to invest more time in ____. Can I share with you what I learned?" Disclaimer: my CV has often been a horrendous mess of 3-6 month "gaps" (during which time I learned many of my most valuable life lessons) and it never cost me more than a month of training myself up, networking, and interviewing. Another disclaimer: I've always been of the habit of saving my money so that long gaps feel stress-free and I don't have to take the first job I'm offered.

bradneuberg 8y ago

I've been in the industry nearly 20 years and I always take breaks between jobs. I've worked for startups, Google, Dropbox, non-profits, etc. Between jobs I've pursued personal growth, traveled extensively, re-tooled my CS skill sets in new directions, gotten healthy, done extensive open source work, and more. I highly recommend it to others in the industry if you have the ability to do so; it's only helped my personal and professional career not hurt it. Live your own life and don't let others tell you how you're supposed to exist.

automatoney 8y ago
I'm just starting out so I'm really curious how long the breaks you took between jobs were, and if you had the next job lined up before you took your break? Also off topic but what was it like working for non-profits, and what sort of work did you do?
- bradneuberg 8y ago
  The breaks were anywhere from one month to a year. I never had the next job lined up before hand. All my work with non-profits involved doing open source in collaboration with them as a consultant. It was great :)
biscottigelato 8y ago
Any tips for companies to take your open sourced work as experience? I've mostly just been thrown the book at doing algorithm puzzles and such... Got rejected for not 'technically competent' despite polished complex app on both the App Store and on Github. It's insulting to the point I want to start cancelling processes with all Unicorns...
- coaxial 8y ago
  > Got rejected for not 'technically competent' despite polished complex app on both the App Store and on Github. It's insulting to the point I want to start cancelling processes with all Unicorns... Because "how do we know you didn't copy paste it from a tutorial and claim it as yours?" It is insulting, and frankly discouraging. As if the only one true way to tell whether you know your stuff or not is to check if you can solve some silly riddle/puzzle under the gun. One solution is to only apply to companies without a broken hiring process, but sadly they're very rare.

09bjb 8y ago

Just came here to say that I think protecting your CV at all costs from any kind of "gap" is some of the most overrated career advice out there. Take risks, show some self-direction and self-respect. Companies and colleagues will help you, but only you can steer the ship of your career trajectory. Follow the currents underneath you at your own risk.

desdiv 8y ago

What do you guys think of the idea of companies giving their employees the option of taking (up to) one year long unpaid sabbaticals? It would cost the company next to nothing, and it would be a preferable alternative to the employee quitting due to stress or burnout. For the employee it significantly lowers their risk of unemployment. They can either 1. go to a better company, or 2. return to their old company. In the case of US companies, there's also the added benefit of the possibility of the employee and employer coming to a mutually beneficial arrangement on maintaining the employee's healthcare plan during the sabbatical.

Puer 8y ago
In what world would that cost the company "next to nothing"??? That person isn't going to be working for a year. The company either needs to hire someone else to replace them, which is an expensive process, or lose the productivity for that position for a year.
- desdiv 8y ago
  I apologize if my suggestion was stupid. I'm just trying to get a discussion started here, that's all. It would cost the company next to nothing, in my view, because the steps the company has to take is almost exactly the same: 1. Employee quits. Company immediately looks for a replacement. One year down the road, when the company is expanding, they have to look for another worker. 2. Employee goes on sabbatical. Company immediately looks for a replacement. One year down the road, when the company is expanding, they first contact the sabbatical guy if they want to come back, and if not they have to look for another worker. In scenario 1, the company pays for the cost of two hirings with 100% certainty. In scenario 2, worst case the company pays for the cost of two hirings; best case the company only pays for one.

shurcooL 8y ago

Nice writeup. It's very valuable that you took the time to share a unique experience with everyone. I've also done a 1.5 year sabbatical, and I can relate. It's both very challenging (to pull off successfully) but also can be very rewarding.

curyous 8y ago

Where does it say it was good for his career?

jgamman 8y ago

in NZ (and Aus i guess) we call this an OE (Overseas Experience) and it is incredibly common for someone in their 20's to up sticks and bugger off to the UK (and others) for several months or years. They/we aren't, for the most part, privileged - they land in London with 50 quid, buy an A-Z at the airport and doss with friends under the kitchen table till they land a job doing whatever. Save and party until summer and then a long af van trip around Europe seeing the sights. Rinse and repeat if you've got the stomach for it. Variations exist. The leaving your country part is the important part. Even if it's English speaking you'd be surprised at the resilience you need to just get s* done arriving somewhere at midnight with no idea where you're going to sleep. Being punished for 'gaps' in your CV is a cultural thing. There are no gaps in your life, just... life.

hex20 8y ago
Very true. You also see it happening the other way around now, with people from Germany and the UK coming to NZ/AU to do an OE of there own.

turtlecloud 8y ago

Ya dude I feel ya. MZ was a sweatshop! Did the same - took a sabbatical. The main thing is to come up with a cool story of what you did.

JonasJSchreiber 8y ago

What you've written is incredibly mature, well-articulated, and insightful. I hope you succeed in your solo endeavors!

leksak 8y ago

Reading most of these comments, and the article itself, I can't help but think that the rat race is just replaced with another race as it seems imperative to work on something for a lot of you that have written here which I find curious, even though I can relate and understand it. At the moment, career wise, om not in a position to go down in hours but that is what I'll explore in the future. A 6 hour workday, working remotely more often and/or trying to split my workday up by going to the gym during work hours. This is tough though with meetings and all that.

patcon 8y ago

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 single person's perspective of it, but I feel like it would be comparable if I'd been in a relationship :)

Maro 8y ago
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.
- anotheryou 8y ago
  So you quit before you search for a new job? Most job offers I see are ASAP.
  - Maro 8y ago
    I just tell the next company that I will join on date X. I don't care about their ASAPs.

lurcio 8y ago

The right to useful unemployment.

ejanus 8y ago

I have been without job for a while now ,and I won't mind to getting back. It has not worked out as I would have love.

amrx431 8y ago

Many paradigms of life don't apply if you are a citizen of a developing country with billion people in it and you happen to be the first person in the history of your family who doesn't work as an agricultural labourer on a landlords field.

meuk 8y ago

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 working before I even graduated). I should have spent some more time on job hunting, in retrospect. At my current job as a consultant I am back-end code-monkeying in a large team where most developers don't have a technical background - it's not very challenging from a technical perspective (even though I like the working environment in other aspects). My current employer pushes me to get certified for some front-end technologies, which I don't find interesting (and have no value for the gig I'm currently assigned to). My true interest are OSes, drivers, optimization, FPGA's, electronics, compilers, assembly, microcontrollers, graphics... But I can't seem to find a job in that field, mostly because I don't have work experience in those fields. I also have a tendency to be very humble about my experience, which I think is a good thing in general, but I think sometimes people wrongly classify me as 'very junior'. On top of that, everybody seems to be looking for C# programmers, but the pay seems to be a bit lower in more technical fields. I don't care that much about my salary, but right now I am the one with literally the best background (4 academic studies), and the lowest income (basically every time I talk about it with someone, he/she goes "hm, that's pretty low"). I have had some good offers (about 15% more than I currently earn), but they came with a traineeship which seemed not very challenging and would force me to stay with that company for 2 years. A very common scenario I end up in is that I'm talking to a very enthousiastic HR person ("I think you're a very good fit for our company!"), but the offer ends up very low ("Well, you're a junior after all."). I am thinking about quitting my current job to brush up some skills (mainly Python, Vulkan, OpenGL, and some OS API stuff) and build a portfolio, but I'm too afraid to be unproductive and end up in a worse situation than before (about 1 year of working experience and a giant gap in my CV after that). Has anyone been in a similar situation? Any advice?

forcedefrappe 8y ago
This sounds very unfamiliar based on my experience with the US job market, but does match with some experience of the European one.. Which country are you in? Maybe that would make for better advice.

blablabla123 8y ago

> Project managing my life Actually I started setting up a Redmine to pursue more complex goals that are usually not related to work. In the past I also used classical todo lists on a sheet of paper or Asana for some time. But I gave up both, what I observed happens after using this 'tool' after a while: indeed a lot gets done, it's even fulfilling check an item, especially on paper. So after a year or so, the things on the list end up being more and more difficult to do. The only easy tasks are the recently added ones but the list becomes more and more static. Problem with todo lists is that they are the end product of some ideas that happen at random times. But you lose the idea behind it, so a proper project management tool is worth it. (In fact when you look at how Asana developed over time, it converges into something like that...)

thomasahle 8y ago
Redmine seems like a very big tool for just one person though, with issues trackers and all. Something like trello seems more the scale. Personally I just wish it had TeX support. Does anyone know a good, personal project management tool that allows writing sections in latex?
- thestephen 8y ago
  Have you tried, or considered trying org-mode? I found that once I got over the hurdle of learning emacs, the friction in managing tasks once you have learned the tool is nearly nil. Further, it definitely supports embedded latex fragments, exporting to pdf, etc.

i_made_a_booboo 8y ago

I'm pretty much coming to the end of mine now. Except I feel burnt out from the sabbatical whereas I generally always felt pretty good at work. I read a shit tonne this last 8 months and have noticed a big upgrade in my worldview. I shipped a couple of projects on my own which I'm proud of too. I grew immensely from the experience and a whole bunch of things I always toyed with the idea while working I actually got to try out and see how I really felt about them and not how I thought I was going to feel. The recruiters being suspicious about the time off thing is something I wasn't suspecting but I did get that vibe. I made a point to network the whole time I was taking off and have been invited to visit a small company I'm pretty excited about after an hour chatting to the CTO. Political savvy was one of my unexpected skills at my last job, so I feel like so long as I can get in a room I can get a job (provided I'm actually interested and think the company would be a good fit). So many lessons learned. Perhaps both good and bad.

biscottigelato 8y ago
I shipped 2 projects that I feel are highly polished. Been almost 3 months in the job market cuz i have since ran low on funds. Being in Vancouver it's just extra tough. The Unicorns doesn't care one bit of your side projects. The smaller guys just doesn't have the resource to relocate. Let alone getting in the same room with them for interviews (aka. fly you over). So far very disillusioned. Seems like if the projects didn't become million dollar businesses, then it's algorithm puzzles or working at McDonalds. Shipped products doesn't matter one bit...
- i_made_a_booboo 8y ago
  For me it's about creating a personal connection and telling a good story. I dunno I just have a belief in my ability to do that from past experience. This is new territory for me though, so we'll see. I'm not in the US on, so I don't play the whole unicorn game. I imagine that's a whole different ball game.
  - biscottigelato 8y ago
    Unfortunately more and more companies are going the 'we don't care about your resume, we just want you to do algorithm puzzles'. way. Triplebyte, as listed on the Hackernews job board, is especially proud that they don't look at your resume and measure you only on the few things they deem important. Basically you can be good at a hundred things. But they measure you on ten things and don't care about any of the others, relevant or not. So if you so happen only have 6 things out of the 10, you are out, even if you have clearly demonstrated that you are capable of 100 things, and learning those 100 things in short order. I would say I learned more in the 2 years than I did 10 years as a Firmware Engineer. But if I stayed my course just lurking in my old job I'd have been a Firmware lead. I can't even get an intermediate development job now...

__exit__ 8y ago

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.

trycrmr 8y ago

Does anyone else see articles like this and think about how much money in retirement they're foregoing? By not maxing out 401k & IRA deposits each year in your 20s you're missing out on significant gains from compound interest later in life. A sabbatical like this makes sense to me when you're comfortable with the trajectory of your retirement. The other situation is where significant mental health issues that can't be sorted out by adjusting schedule & lifestyle around work are going to negatively impact your career anyways. It could be worth it to take the loss on retirement account deposits to sort things out.

ffanon 8y ago

I've managed to get myself into what some might consider an ideal situation: a half-time job at BigCo. It means my work at BigCo is more interesting and condensed, and of course it means I have all the time in the world for side projects. BigCo total comp is so incredible that half of it still pays the bills in ExpensiveCity. Except all the challenges echoed by others in the comments are real: overcoming procrastination and doing focused work. Actually the former I can manage, the latter is harder. All I have to show for side project time is a long list of smaller projects, I can't manage to take one of them and build/polish it into something significant. Somehow having the choice 100 fun project makes devoting time to just 1 super hard. Maybe half-time off to some extend is worse for procrastination than full-time, since I can always fall back on my work at BigCo as a sign of progress in my life. This situation should be ideal, I know the path I should take, the opportunity is there for the taking, but so far have not managed.

abakker 8y ago
Do your side projects have customers? I’ve found that there is no motivator like someone else’s support tickets or deadlines. Put another way, it is easier to find motivation when the needs of your project are immediately helpful to someone else, rather than theoretically helpful. Just a thought.
- ffanon 8y ago
  I can imagine that would motivate, yes, but for me the point of side projects is to explore things that are less commercial, more researchy.. things BigCo wouldn't pay me to do. And to do something commercial while at BigCo would require quite some paperwork for BigCo to agree. And it is not like I need to be doing commercial work on the side for financial reasons.

deleted 8y ago

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JDiculous 8y ago

Why is everybody so hung up on how it'll affect your career? As if everything in life must be rationalized by its impact on your career. Maybe he creates a successful business and never has to work for anyone else again, maybe not. Either way the author will have had the valuable experience of not only trying to build a business, but also living life on his own terms - something that we give up (often without realizing it) when we sell ourselves to the corporate world. I'm 10 months into my sabbatical and have spent the last 8 months living in countries/continents I'd never been to, learned about different cultures, improved my Spanish (now trying to learn Russian), met a ton of people, and grown enormously as a person. Career-wise and financially was this a good decision? Probably not (at this point at least). But I wouldn't trade any of this for the world. Had I spent another year living in the same damn city doing the same work that I was bored to death of, I might've jumped off a bridge or something (not really, but in hindsight I was depressed without really realizing it). I will now shift gears towards working on my own project(s). If it works out - great, I will be living my dream. If it doesn't work out - no problem, I'll figure it out - even if I have to return to the U.S. and find a job again. On my deathbed I'm not going to regret taking a year off to travel the world when I could've spent that year continuing to work a job I was no longer passionate about. One of the things I've completely internalized from my travels is that I have no interest in the corporate rat race. I don't care about "career ramifications" because that's not a ladder I want to devote my life to climbing. Last night I hung out with a 21 year old from the hostel who's making $6k/month from online businesses working 1 hour/day, and has spent the last 1.5 years living abroad (I never met these kind of people when I was working my 9-5). That is my dream - not being a tech lead at Google (I don't need $6k/month either, $1.5k/month and I'm good). In essence, the sabbatical drove home the point that I had been climbing the wrong ladder. So even if I have to eventually go back to the job market, I will be targeting totally different jobs, and my mindset towards work, money, and life in general is totally different. Before I was living in a permanent state of delayed gratification, saving money with no clear vision for what I was saving it for. Now I have a better idea of what I want out of life. Or maybe I just have more confidence to go out and chase what I want when in the past I would've simply fantasized about it. At the end of the day I'd rather try and fail then have lived a safe boring life slaving away in some job I don't care about being depressed and wishing I had the balls to live life on my own terms and go after the life I want.

octygen 8y ago

I'll be really honest. I haven't done it ever and I regret it. I AM planning what I call a monk year now. I also interview people that have done it so I've been on the other side. Conclusion: It's really all about a plan first, discipline about the plan's boundaries and self-confidence when you present your achievements after. Else you may be viewed as a lazy hedonist. E.g., My PLAN is to take year to train for an Ironman. That's about 4h a day on average. I'd also eat well, stretch and keep up with the ancillaries of such hard training to prevent injuries. Then I'd be studying 4 online courses à day in whatever I want. My goal would be to finish a few nanodegrees and a few specializations on Coursera. Courses would be about 5h per day. Every day, non-stop. At the end, I would have done one Ironman AND add a whole lot of skill to my arsenal. It's not cheap - calculated it to be about $40K so far with a mortgage and rent to pay but I'm working on creative ways to lessen this. Last but not least, I have three non-profit projects I want to do. One huge dream, one medium, one small. If I went to an interview à year after this starts having been disciplined enough to accomplish even 75% the above, I'm pretty sure not even the hardest interviewer would be skeptical. Basically, I view the monk year as the year where I still grind. But I grind to add value to yours truly NOT the corporation.