4 ms·

I quit the tech industry, but don't know what to do next

7 points by Beaver117 4y ago

I worked very hard as a software engineer and ended up working at a very well known tech company, they also paid extremely well. But after a while the feeling of excitement and love I had for this field changed into disgust, anger, and stress. Looking at my options I made the difficult decision to quit, and it's now been almost a year now that I haven't worked. A great year of leisure, sure, but I attempted to figure out what to direct my life towards and failed. Nothing came out of it. I don't enjoy tech anymore, nor do I particularly enjoy any other fields of work. I had the good fortune (and good financial management) to make some investments with my savings so I'm probably able to live without working for 10 or 15 years. But I don't want to be aimless for that entire time. I have some hobbies but they're not practical to make a living out of. Some people here may have dealt with these feelings. How do I find a new purpose?

notanothereric 4y ago
Assuming the typical 4D metrics of career development won’t resonate with you - skill development, title advancement, monetary growth and “follow your passions - then consider either what excited you when you were 10-12 years old OR look for an altruistic mission helping others leveraging your current skills …
- sinenomine 4y ago
  The person is refreshingly honest. Spending one's prime years of life as a glorofied ChatGPT instance doing data piping chores is a sad fate. We should be able to do better than that.
- Beaver117 4y ago
  Skill development- while I really respect people who develop fully to principal or higher, I just can't see myself doing that. And the higher titles bring higher stress that just isn't worth it to me. Monetary - the benefit from more money becomes negligable as you go up the income scale. Although being a billionaire would be different. Altruistic missions - I considered this actually, but then realized the cost of failure is much higher. If I cause an outage in big tech, they lose millions of ad dollars, who cares. But outages or delays in nonprofits can cost lives or livelihoods, and that's much scarier. Going back to what I liked at 10-12 sounds good
vaidhy 4y ago
I feel you are confusing two emotions and it is coming through clearly - > I had the good fortune (and good financial management) to make some investments with my savings so I'm probably able to live without working for 10 or 15 years. But I don't want to be aimless for that entire time. Emotion 1 says "I want a purpose in life. I am well set financially and I would like to do something that is meaningful (for me and/or for the world)". >I have some hobbies but they're not practical to make a living out of. Emotion 2 says "Whatever I choose to do, should also be financially viable." The conflict between these two is making it hard for you choose what to do. Pick one of these. Do you want a purpose that would be meaningful, even if you make no money out of it? Or do you want a job that would pay you enough, but maybe not so meaningful? You cannot evaluate option 1 with criteria for option 2 and vice versa.
- Beaver117 4y ago
  That's exactly it. I'm torn between these two feelings, that I must do something meaningful AND it must pay at least a little bit, or have potential of a big payout. Mentally I lean towards doing something meaningful. But society is conditioned to think if something doesnt pay, it's worthless. Of course I know it can't be true, with open source work and so much art and writing done just for the creator. But it's hard to shake that thought.
  - vaidhy 4y ago
    Here is the choice I made - I switched from managing people to an IC. It is a pay cut and a different career choice. However, it opened up the time for me to travel, scuba and do underwater (and above water) photography. My wife is onboard with me on my travel plans for 3-5 months in a year. Eventually, once the kids move out, we hope to do more of travel together. As long as we are making enough money to live a lifestyle without worrying about savings, retirement and other expenses (which are being held in a separate account), I am content. I try not to think about big payouts or anything beyond the next month. My current job pays me enough for me to be happy about it. I learn new things and try to gain more expertise, just for the self satisfaction. My recent fascination is to see if you can use a game development engine (Godot) to create animated shorts. If you just want someone to talk about this, my email is in my profile. PS: For those who know about this hobby, yes all the money I earn goes poof into gear, travel, stay in nice resorts etc.
sinenomine 4y ago
Might as well harness the rising AI wave.
mathgladiator 4y ago
Hey, I quit Meta last year. I share your judgements, but the key that I have found is that tech is a tool. It's the only sane way to view this field. Like a machete, is can be used for good or evil. I've written down a more concrete philosophy here: https://www.adama-platform.com/2022/12/17/life-past-40.html https://www.adama-platform.com/2022/12/17/life-past-40.html My advice is meet people around and about, and find people you like. You'll see how technology helps them or inhibits them. You may decide to change careers, or you will see the bargain that we have struck with the tech devil. One thing that I'm dealing with is that I can't stand the fad aspect of this field, so I'm using time to build a new vertical platform that I'll enjoy building and using. Next year, I hope to ship a game as I want to make board games. The "ruthless pragmatism of big tech" is just lame and makes the work suck. I view coding as a craft that I am lucky to do, but I don't feel like working for another company for a while. My core advice is to figure out who you want to help.
- Beaver117 4y ago
  Great writeup. Truly it is difficult to avoid Nihilism and cynicism. You've put a lot of work into Adama, do you feel it has gotten proper use by others? I'll try to figure out what to build and who I want to help. Also you mentioned shrooms, they've gotten a lot of attention recently so I've also tried. One of the best experiences of my life for sure, but I can't say it gave me any deep, lasting revelations.
  - mathgladiator 4y ago
    > You've put a lot of work into Adama, do you feel it has gotten proper use by others? Thanks. No, but I'm also not marketing well. My strategy is to ship a single game end to end on web, maybe android, and I'm looking into https://lastgameboard.com/ https://lastgameboard.com/ ; the goal is to prove that I'm not full of shit. First, to myself. However, things are coming along nicely and I'm happy with where things are at. > One of the best experiences of my life for sure, but I can't say it gave me any deep, lasting revelations. Did you take a heroic dose? The deep revelation comes from ego death and looking in the mirror. I also thought I was going to die as I had too much sugar and the shrooms made me gassy. I felt very deeply that if I vomited, then I would have a heart attack and die. I was hanging onto the faucet in my bathroom for dear life, and I saw the burning bush at the bottom of the sink. It was a crazy night.
WheelsAtLarge 4y ago
You are in an interesting position. It is very likely that you will quit any job you get as soon as you encounter difficulties due to your financial safety net. All jobs have difficult times, so you cannot avoid it. I have seen this happen a number of times. A woman I knew would get a job only to quit when she encountered a problem because she could rely on her parents to financially support her if she needed money. I suggest you find a job in an area of interest and set some long-term goals beforehand for when you will quit if things do not go your way. Make sure you do not get caught in a cycle of getting a job and quitting.The advantage you have is that you do not need to prioritize salary as one of your top considerations. Don't wait too long. Before you know it years will have passes without you taking any action.
trimethylpurine 4y ago
Coach. Winning for yourself is obviously unfulfilling. It takes winning to realize that there's nothing special beyond the finish line and that's depressing. Now that you've crossed it, go back and help others get there. And I don't mean broadly host seminars. I mean go find an individual and individually uplift them. Show them how you did it and help them to do it. Repeat. Repeat.

7 points by Beaver117 4y ago

notanothereric 4y ago

Assuming the typical 4D metrics of career development won’t resonate with you - skill development, title advancement, monetary growth and “follow your passions - then consider either what excited you when you were 10-12 years old OR look for an altruistic mission helping others leveraging your current skills …

sinenomine 4y ago
The person is refreshingly honest. Spending one's prime years of life as a glorofied ChatGPT instance doing data piping chores is a sad fate. We should be able to do better than that.
Beaver117 4y ago
Skill development- while I really respect people who develop fully to principal or higher, I just can't see myself doing that. And the higher titles bring higher stress that just isn't worth it to me. Monetary - the benefit from more money becomes negligable as you go up the income scale. Although being a billionaire would be different. Altruistic missions - I considered this actually, but then realized the cost of failure is much higher. If I cause an outage in big tech, they lose millions of ad dollars, who cares. But outages or delays in nonprofits can cost lives or livelihoods, and that's much scarier. Going back to what I liked at 10-12 sounds good

vaidhy 4y ago

I feel you are confusing two emotions and it is coming through clearly - > I had the good fortune (and good financial management) to make some investments with my savings so I'm probably able to live without working for 10 or 15 years. But I don't want to be aimless for that entire time. Emotion 1 says "I want a purpose in life. I am well set financially and I would like to do something that is meaningful (for me and/or for the world)". >I have some hobbies but they're not practical to make a living out of. Emotion 2 says "Whatever I choose to do, should also be financially viable." The conflict between these two is making it hard for you choose what to do. Pick one of these. Do you want a purpose that would be meaningful, even if you make no money out of it? Or do you want a job that would pay you enough, but maybe not so meaningful? You cannot evaluate option 1 with criteria for option 2 and vice versa.

Beaver117 4y ago
That's exactly it. I'm torn between these two feelings, that I must do something meaningful AND it must pay at least a little bit, or have potential of a big payout. Mentally I lean towards doing something meaningful. But society is conditioned to think if something doesnt pay, it's worthless. Of course I know it can't be true, with open source work and so much art and writing done just for the creator. But it's hard to shake that thought.
- vaidhy 4y ago
  Here is the choice I made - I switched from managing people to an IC. It is a pay cut and a different career choice. However, it opened up the time for me to travel, scuba and do underwater (and above water) photography. My wife is onboard with me on my travel plans for 3-5 months in a year. Eventually, once the kids move out, we hope to do more of travel together. As long as we are making enough money to live a lifestyle without worrying about savings, retirement and other expenses (which are being held in a separate account), I am content. I try not to think about big payouts or anything beyond the next month. My current job pays me enough for me to be happy about it. I learn new things and try to gain more expertise, just for the self satisfaction. My recent fascination is to see if you can use a game development engine (Godot) to create animated shorts. If you just want someone to talk about this, my email is in my profile. PS: For those who know about this hobby, yes all the money I earn goes poof into gear, travel, stay in nice resorts etc.

sinenomine 4y ago

Might as well harness the rising AI wave.

mathgladiator 4y ago

Hey, I quit Meta last year. I share your judgements, but the key that I have found is that tech is a tool. It's the only sane way to view this field. Like a machete, is can be used for good or evil. I've written down a more concrete philosophy here: https://www.adama-platform.com/2022/12/17/life-past-40.html https://www.adama-platform.com/2022/12/17/life-past-40.html My advice is meet people around and about, and find people you like. You'll see how technology helps them or inhibits them. You may decide to change careers, or you will see the bargain that we have struck with the tech devil. One thing that I'm dealing with is that I can't stand the fad aspect of this field, so I'm using time to build a new vertical platform that I'll enjoy building and using. Next year, I hope to ship a game as I want to make board games. The "ruthless pragmatism of big tech" is just lame and makes the work suck. I view coding as a craft that I am lucky to do, but I don't feel like working for another company for a while. My core advice is to figure out who you want to help.

Beaver117 4y ago
Great writeup. Truly it is difficult to avoid Nihilism and cynicism. You've put a lot of work into Adama, do you feel it has gotten proper use by others? I'll try to figure out what to build and who I want to help. Also you mentioned shrooms, they've gotten a lot of attention recently so I've also tried. One of the best experiences of my life for sure, but I can't say it gave me any deep, lasting revelations.
- mathgladiator 4y ago
  > You've put a lot of work into Adama, do you feel it has gotten proper use by others? Thanks. No, but I'm also not marketing well. My strategy is to ship a single game end to end on web, maybe android, and I'm looking into https://lastgameboard.com/ https://lastgameboard.com/ ; the goal is to prove that I'm not full of shit. First, to myself. However, things are coming along nicely and I'm happy with where things are at. > One of the best experiences of my life for sure, but I can't say it gave me any deep, lasting revelations. Did you take a heroic dose? The deep revelation comes from ego death and looking in the mirror. I also thought I was going to die as I had too much sugar and the shrooms made me gassy. I felt very deeply that if I vomited, then I would have a heart attack and die. I was hanging onto the faucet in my bathroom for dear life, and I saw the burning bush at the bottom of the sink. It was a crazy night.

WheelsAtLarge 4y ago

You are in an interesting position. It is very likely that you will quit any job you get as soon as you encounter difficulties due to your financial safety net. All jobs have difficult times, so you cannot avoid it. I have seen this happen a number of times. A woman I knew would get a job only to quit when she encountered a problem because she could rely on her parents to financially support her if she needed money. I suggest you find a job in an area of interest and set some long-term goals beforehand for when you will quit if things do not go your way. Make sure you do not get caught in a cycle of getting a job and quitting.The advantage you have is that you do not need to prioritize salary as one of your top considerations. Don't wait too long. Before you know it years will have passes without you taking any action.

trimethylpurine 4y ago

Coach. Winning for yourself is obviously unfulfilling. It takes winning to realize that there's nothing special beyond the finish line and that's depressing. Now that you've crossed it, go back and help others get there. And I don't mean broadly host seminars. I mean go find an individual and individually uplift them. Show them how you did it and help them to do it. Repeat. Repeat.