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I have been at it for 20 years now and have started to feel my time is up as well As a lot of comments here highlights, the issue is not so much the tech but t

• drivebyhooting 5mo ago
  I could and did live frugally before I had kids. How can one continue living in a small apartment with lead and asbestos hazards is beyond me.
  • siren2026 5mo ago
    There is surely a spectrum between small apartment with asbestos and 5m$ house. I read on HN all the time that once you have kid it is unavoidable to spend 300k$ a year. But yet 99.9% of the world and the US manages to raise kids with a fraction of that income and they turn out mostly fine. (Before you ask, yes I have kids and yes we still live simply)
    • GloriousKoji 5mo ago
      The mental gymnastics I've seen kids enable is Olympic level. Need to upgrade to a bigger house, need to upgrade the car to a SUV, need keep traveling 2-3 times a year, need to sign up for some crazy sports league and coach which means domestic flights and hotels every other week.
      • siren2026 5mo ago
        Have seen that as well. Kids is the convenient excuse to go spending. Marketers have well understood that for multiple decades. Meanwhile I would bet there is an inverse correlation between spending for the kids and kids happiness.
      • deadbabe 5mo ago
        Friend had a baby. She went out and bought a massive Cadillac Escalade. To haul around a 10 pound infant.
        • deleted 5mo ago
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        • lazyasciiart 5mo ago
          American trucks are an arms race. You need one to protect the occupants from the other trucks on the road, unless someone legislates to stop all of you from driving them.
          • hermitcrab 5mo ago
            I feel we are engaged in the same race to the bottom in the UK, although it is not as extreme as it is in the US. One of the few constraining factors in the UK is that our car parking spaces are generally quite small and no-one wants to buy something they can't park anywhere.
          • tonyedgecombe 5mo ago
            I wonder how safe they look when you take into account the people running over their own kids in the driveway.
    • gedy 5mo ago
      > There is surely a spectrum between small apartment with asbestos and 5m$ house. That's exaggerating a bit, but some places near offices are kind of that way. (Why I love working remote, which absolutely increases the spectrum of choices.)
    • codeadict 5mo ago
      I have 2 kids and we have a single Kia soul and a little house I do most of the work. I pay for a good private school mostly out of fear of big schools and gun violence in the US and giving my kids multilingual education. I can assure the rich kids have a lot of problems and have a schedule like a company CEO, they go to our place and have a blast, free range fun. The kids need money thing is mostly a marketing thing the system puts into parents minds.
  • switchbak 5mo ago
    Many of the homes in the world were built when lead and/or asbestos were in use. Asbestos isn't much of a concern if you don't disturb it - don't let your kids play in the attic or tear out the drywall, and you should be fine. Don't let them lick the paint, and you're probably good. Or paint over it / get it remediated - it doesn't have to be a deal killer. I certainly agree that it'd be hard to have kids in a small space though, I definitely appreciate having more room - especially with a WFH setup.
    • drivebyhooting 5mo ago
      Don’t let your kids do X Y Z. That means you need to have your eyes on them 100% of the time.
  • DamonHD 5mo ago
    I have asbestos in this modest[0] house: it's not any sort of a problem. (Lead only in my soldering kit in significant quantities so far as I know...) I always have been fairly frugal and am in semi-retirement now from the residues of my last two small start-ups (to which COVID was unkind, so died simultaneously!). My extended family has/had big houses, including one in which a famous film was set it seems, but I see those as mainly expensive liabilities. Never owned a car. Etc etc. [0] As described by a visiting Secretary of State!
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  • array_key_first 5mo ago
    Plenty of people grow up in apartments in cities and live great lives. Often, they enjoy greater autonomy as they age into adolescence. Suburbs are basically prisons for children these days. The truth is you don’t need a home or an SUV or a front lawn to raise children. And it’s also not necessarily better for them. It might be more cushy, sure, but that doesn’t mean it materially improves their lives in any meaningful way.
    • siren2026 5mo ago
      I agree with this. From my experience the more isolated and cushy early kid's life are, the less capable they end up being able to manage rough situation later in life. It's counterintuitive because as parents we feel like we need to build a golden prison in the suburbs for them.
• hibikir 5mo ago
  I basically agree, just adding context. As companies grow, it's the natural state of things, as any hope for goal alignment goes out the window. I am OK dealing with situations where the good for the company's long term might not be the same as my personal preferences. But we often see situations where what is decided isn't good for the company, or for most workers, but great for a decision maker, and we all know that at those layers, talking about the misalignment to the layer above is a great way to get canned. A decade or that, and the company is a zombie. I've enjoyed tech in environments where there was alignment, and in a few cases it made me serious money, which is why I have said optionality myself. But nowadays AI has led to much higher capital costs to do innovative things, so the number of companies with the right size and potential has shrunk, and that makes fulfilling careers far less likely.
  • siren2026 5mo ago
    My bigger take here is that nothing is fine forever. We might have fun for a couple years but eventually a disruptor comes in and changes everything. This disruptor today is AI but it will be something else in 5 or 10 years. Therefore save when you can. Don't be fooled thinking you make a ton of money today therefore you will make a ton in 20 years. Get the optionality today, that's the biggest win you can add to your life.
• saadn92 5mo ago
  It comes down to perspective tbh. For someone who's worked hard labor throughout their life, the cushy tech job you get is actually worth doing forever. But for people who have never experienced that, I can see why retiring early makes sense, but honestly most of us get to work from home and do our jobs on the computer, which doesn't require much. It's still an amazing career to be in IMO
  • throwfaraway4 5mo ago
    I've worked in food service, landscaping and factory jobs. You're right, the tech job does feel super cushy after gigs like that. But I'm about 25 years in on the tech industry now and I feel the same GP. At some point, you can't avoid the politics and corp BS and it wears you down. Everything is relative. Now that I have the means to say "I don't have to or want to do this anymore" I'll be checking out after this year. It's been a good run.
    • saadn92 5mo ago
      exactly! after a certain time, you get to a new normal and you want something new or better in life. nothing wrong with that though.
    • reachableceo 5mo ago
      Why not check out now? Why after this year ? You supposedly have the means to do so now , so why not exit now? You won’t exit after this year. You’ll keep pushing it out.
      • siren2026 5mo ago
        Everyone always need twice as much as they have to retire. Most people will also never do it. Reading the FIRE subreddit I have realized that most people like the fantasy of retiring more than actually retiring. A lot of them wouldn't actually know what to do without the daily societal pressure to grind. Life is tough when you are out of the beaten path and need to figure out how to fill your days apparently.
• vondur 5mo ago
  You know, I think the experiences you are describing are the norm for non-tech corporate jobs. Now with AI as an excuse, management is now subjecting the tech positions the same as the non-tech workers and it stings. Tech people were previously treated far better than the average corporate workers, and started after the tech hiring boom from Covid.
  • alwaysbeconsing 5mo ago
    Quite right. I bemoan shortsightedness of managerial types often, but too many fellow techies had assume that gravy ride will last forever. In eyes of management we have not the same leverage now.
• suwapat 5mo ago
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• rambojohnson 5mo ago
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• kokanee 5mo ago
  I would take this advice a bit further even -- I don't think savings alone is the key, because inflation and de-dollarization are exponentially eroding purchasing power. The key is ownership of income-producing assets. In late-stage capitalism, the vast majority of people who work in exchange for wages will be members of the debt class; workers who manage to escape debt will still be living on a knife's edge where you can be laid off at any moment regardless of how well your company is doing. The only people living with stability will be those whose lives are paid for by the assets they own, rather than by the hours they sell.
  • Nashooo 5mo ago
    Easier said than done, no asset producing income will do so indefinitely without a lot work/investments.
    • switchbak 5mo ago
      Did they say it was easy? It's still the right thing to aim for, even if it is a lot of work.
    • stephenbez 5mo ago
      My S&P 500 fund has done this and will continue to do this without any work or investments of time.
      • array_key_first 5mo ago
        Passive investing is a fairly new phenomenon and we don’t actually know if it works long term. The premise of the stock market is that it’s a market. Blind and wide investment goes against the principles of how investment works. We could be accelerating bad outcomes because we are basically rewarding and punishing companies based purely on momentum, not performance. Basically, I think it’s possible that passive investment only works when it’s a small slice of total investment. Essentially, then you ride off the expertise and decisions of others. What happens when it’s the majority of investment? We don’t know.
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• looshch 5mo ago
  such a wonderful advice, this resonates a lot with me. I know i would ignore it when i needed to hear it though
• FuriouslyAdrift 5mo ago
  I'm coming up on 40 years with the last 17 at the same company. I'm so burnt out that I resemble a charcoal briquette.
• HoldOnAMinute 5mo ago
  I feel the same way. I feel sad though that it's over and I never accomplished what I wanted to. But for the last 20 years my priority has been my family. Pickups and Dropoffs to school, sports, activities, and doctor appointments. At least I was able to give them a good life. Living in the United States, my retirement plan is "MAID"
  • vostrocity 5mo ago
    MAID as in Medical Aid in Dying? Why would you do that?
    • HoldOnAMinute 5mo ago
      To be able to leave some assets to my loved ones In my country, best we can hope for is a quick, painless death - many people are bankrupted by medical bills and end-of-life care
      • eudamoniac 5mo ago
        Dude just leave the bay area, the literal most expensive place in the world, and you'll be fine. You'd rather actually kill yourself than move to, like, Boulder?
• deadbabe 5mo ago
  I feel like I could still endure this AI hype cycle a bit, that things will eventually stabilize to some point I’m comfortable with, agents already seem kinda cool after the psychosis wears off. But the next big disruptive thing like this, that will probably be my last straw. Not sure what it will be, but when it comes, I’ll just know. Maybe it will be developers installing neuralink type devices or something into their brains to have some kind of “organic interface” or something using their thoughts to build prompts or whatever. You will have to have it just to stay competitive in the industry. I will check out.
• nunez 5mo ago
  Some people need to touch fire to know the feeling of getting burned. I was one of those people. Excellent tech income; zero savings other than a 401(k) I barely contributed into. After an amazing meal at a burger place several years ago, I asked my wife about upgrading to a Model S. She figuratively sat me down (after we literally sat into the seats of our Model 3) and was more straight-forward with me than she had ever been prior to that moment. "How much do we have saved? Oh, _we_ have basically nothing? Yeah, so I'm not saying no, but you need to fix that before we discuss this again." I took it defensively in the moment, but not for long because I knew she was right. Building that nest egg became priority #1 since that talk. That was in 2023. I saved a lot since then. It felt VERY VERY GOOD to look at my savings and say "You know, I could fuck right off for six months if I wanted to. I won't, but I could!" It completely changed my priorities at work. Now, I've had to drain my savings twice now: once to secure a down payment for our house, and again for a major repair of said home (b/c I am strongly against treating our home as a credit card). Regardless, I chip away a good amount into several savings accounts every two weeks and am expecting to regrow the account within the next year. I can't wait to feel that feeling again!
  • sillysaurusx 5mo ago
    As someone who took that time off, don’t. Not unless you have a solid re-entry plan. The money was nice for raising our daughter but I’m out of runway and no way to recover. Do well at your job and be thankful to live such a luxurious life.
  • lazyasciiart 5mo ago
    You've had to drain your savings twice since 2023?
    • nunez 5mo ago
      Yes. Yet, the point was that I started saving in a much bigger way than I did before.
  • asdfasvea 5mo ago
    You are learning, but you haven't learned. You didn't build a nest egg, you saved for a down payment. You didn't rebuild your nest egg, you created a sinking fund for your home. You praise yourself for not treating your home as a credit card, but your left hand is still borrowing money from yourself. You've recognized there's an issue, but don't fool yourself into thinking you've done anything about it
• whodidntante 5mo ago
  Very good advice. I was at it for 40 years, actually did some MUMPS (for those of you who watched The Audacity), as well as every tech from the old days, even some hardware, and kept current and on the very edge up until the end. I also loved it and thought I would do it forever, I felt so grateful that my hobby and passion as also my career, and very well paying (eventually, back then no one thought it would be a career). I retired 10 years ago when I had enough (money) and had enough (of the industry). Always lived below my means. I cannot imagine what it was like to be in the industry for the past 10 years. As far as the nonsense that is pushed top down, it is not so simple. I was at/near the top. I know what was happening, what I was doing, but everyone has a boss, even the boss. The industry is too important, too big, too critical for it not to be run by human nature. So glad I got out when I did.
  • vostrocity 5mo ago
    I'm not sure it's human nature as much as it is a system that compresses everything into finance.
    • hermitcrab 5mo ago
      And we've all seen what happened at Boeing when the MBAs and spreadsheet jockeys took over from the engineers.
    • whodidntante 5mo ago
      Immense power and profits attracts certain behaviors. This has happened throughout history. Finance is a lot more efficient, flexible, and powerful than other mechanisms, and has become the modern choice.
• madrox 5mo ago
  This has been me as well. While I don't think my time is quite up, I have heard the call of the sea. Grey ships are waiting. There have been times in the last decade where I wished I had chosen a profession that lets me stay offline more. Ironically, AI has given me more enthusiasm for tech than I've had in years, which seems opposite to most people's experience.
• tikhonj 5mo ago
  I broadly agree, but expensive homes are an odd example because, like, you can just sell the house later. There might be some opportunity cost relative to investing in a broad market ETF or whatever, but that's not the sort of difference that makes or breaks your early retirement strategy. It's a bit odd to get moralistic over saving/spending money in general, but that's especially true around expensive homes.
  • foobarchu 5mo ago
    Yeah I'm more worried for people spending all their income on high rent apartments or quickly depreciating cars.
    • siren2026 5mo ago
      All projections currently show it is better to pay rent on an apartment than buying the similar apartment. Especially in tech cities. Do the math. I agree the ideal thing to do is to probably rent a cheaper apartment to start with.
      • derwiki 5mo ago
        Is that with current interest rates or irregardless? Can you link to one of these projections?
  • siren2026 5mo ago
    why would it be especially true around expensive houses? When you own a house, you are still paying an implicit rent to live in it (the opportunity cost of the rent that someone else could pay you instead). Given that in almost all locales it is so much better financially to rent than to buy right now, Buying a 5m$ house is probably one of the least financially responsible things you could do in the current climate (And especially in the Bay area where the buy-to-rent ratio is all time high)
• theodric 5mo ago
  I bought a farm and ran away from tech. Euphoria! For a bit. Honeymoon period's well and fucking over. I did not enjoy chopping that cord of firewood, but I didn't hate it, either. I miss making impulsive, frivolous 4-figure purchases, and I miss not having to literally fucking conjure money out of soil. I don't miss the self-important corpo wankbags, "quick meetings," or the yearly cycle of having to pretend that someone who works for me is deserving of being compressed into the bad end of a bell curve because HR or some MD came back and said that we have too many high performers relative to another department. I've done more computing and written more code (and documentation!) for fun in the last few years than I did since about 2016, which is nice. Don't run away from the desk job until you're really sure. If you're really sure, then don't let the door hit your ass.
  • nati0n 4mo ago
    Would love to hear more of your experience… Plant farming? Animals? Acerage? Income? Kind of looking at this myself
• jimt1234 5mo ago
  I remember one of my first "tech job" interviews, probably around 1997. The interviewer liked me, and was basically trying to recruit me, telling me about all the perks of the job. One of the perks she kept talking about was the pension - if I "put in" 20 years, I could retire with a generous pension. She even broke down how the whole pension worked (I didn't even know what a pension was). I thought was crazy. Actually, no, I thought she was lazy. I was 26 at the time and took for granted all my energy and enthusiasm. I thought I was always gonna have that level of energy, and just couldn't grasp not working. I wanted to work until I died, and was proud of that. Now in my mid-50s, I sometimes think about that interview and the energetic kid I was back then. I wish I would've understood that the future is gonna come, and I wasn't always gonna have that 26-year-old level of energy and enthusiasm for work. Plan for your exit, kid.
• pbgcp2026 5mo ago
  "spending everything they make to buy multi-million dollar houses in the bay area" was very good financial decision, wasn't it? ;-)
  • derwiki 5mo ago
    They will not be approved for a mortgage if it costs “everything they make.”
• barbazoo 5mo ago
  > My advice for anyone reading this that is starting your career: Live simply and save a lot This is such great advice and really what I would suggest to anyone young in any field. A terrible thing I'm seeing is folks living a life that requires them to stay within their high paying career in whatever field they're in. Modern day slavery except it's mostly self inflicted.
• mangomanai 5mo ago
  i am 43 . years i have worked in restaurnt as chef and waitier. i ran it for a long time and tired. on ly 3 weeks ago i realised the coding was a language. though i know extreemely litttle what i realise it was more about he tech knowledge but more that exprience. i am enjoying building and breaking things. recently by mistake built a something that is i would have nevr in my life would be able to do it. so yeah if you are tired it might be good idea to enjoy life and watch it in anew perspective. and then may be th eth elife and code will come i to balance.
• derwiki 5mo ago
  At my “first” job, Ramit Sethi came in to pitch “I will teach you to be rich,” which basically amounted to: every time you get a raise, have that amount automatically moved to savings/investment and keep living on the salary you had. Great was to avoid lifestyle creep (at least until kids!).
• lostmsu 5mo ago
  You almost convinced me, but then I remembered that you can sell that multi-million dollar home somewhere in the early 5-10 "years of grinding" and still end up the same.
• fnord77 4mo ago
  I always figured I would get sick of it or burn out. I'm hitting my 4th decade of software engineering with renewed excitement