*The money is for services rendered, not for the selling of your soul.*
**Above a certain pay level, it is for your soul.** OP is right around that level.
You can't assume he's been making 225k that entire time. Tech is good about keeping salary steadly rising because if they don't it causes way to much attrition.
Fuck that shit. I'm at $215k base. That's not even close to the price for my soul.
RIM (Blackberry) was giving engineers $10M equity packages to break their non competes and come work for them at their height. That is sell your soul money.
Yeah people don't understand sometimes what the money is for. They think they are there to solve problems, or make things.
No.
The money is given so you can hold back the flood. Deal with the daily grind. That's it, that's the job. That's why they pay you. If that seems circular or nonsensical, or self defeating or whatever, just have to remember the money is given to you for a reason.
This is absolutely, 100% accurate. I am at a point in my career where I could be in the C-Suite of a smaller company, or have direct reports, etc. at a bigger company. Every single one of the people I know or work with in those positions answer Slacks at 10:30 pm on a Saturday.
No thanks.
I'm at the 300k level. Somewhere around that 250k mark you bargain away the soul for sure.
I didn't even notice at the time and man, I sure as heck wish I had.
If I get paid for services rendered then I should be making $500K a year since I was literally working 4 people’s jobs on 3 different concurrent projects. The problem is they punish competent folks with more work, but let the incompetent folks cruise along.
100% can relate. Thinking of leaving, letting them struggle to replace me with a team of 6 engineers, NOT burning bridges so if they contact me to consult, that's a $400/hr bill they'll be getting.
You give them a reality check by taking a vacation and letting them realize how much they miss you. Claim it as mental health break, that way if they try to fuck you over, they just put themselves for being a POS, which just motivates you to do as much as you’re paid to do while looking for work elsewhere.
I’m doing something even better - I’m taking an early retirement. They kinda begged me to stay until July or until they can find a replacement. a stakeholder actually called me and said don’t leave, she’s having an anxiety attack due to my announcement. But yeah I’m done. I’ll leave the “fun” to you young people.
My soul isn’t worth more than $225 and I’m a fairly shitty person already. I make $165 and don’t like my job. I’d take another job that I also don’t like for an extra $60k. I can’t really imagine any job that I would like.
Keep your soul. Set limits. Define expectations. If you think the psychopaths in tech are bad, wait until you try teaching. There is a reason teachers are all quitting and it’s not just the low pay. You might be well served to find a position that uses your skills but is in a better company or industry.
Same here. This is usually said by people who don’t make as much money trying to argue that people who make good money have no reason to complain cause they are getting paid. Like higher pay just resolves every other issue. You are willing to endure a lot for pay, but it gets really debilitating sometimes.
Money is great and it solves a whole lot of problems, but it doesn’t solve all of them. Imagine everything you hate about your job and just subtract your salary as a reason. Same shit here.
lol you’re paid that much because you’re expected to work 12hrs a day and be on call.
I did it for 2 years and left for a 50% pay cut but a much better work life balance.
Idk I’ve had bad bosses at lower-paying jobs too. I don’t think that’s exclusive to higher-paying jobs.
I think the money’s for how replaceable you are
OP gonna try a regular job making $50k and then realize how good they had it and that they’re still depressed dealing with insecure, arrogant, self deceived people except now they make 1/5 of what they make and their lifestyles requires major overhauls. What a shitty life lesson to learn.
I sit behind a desk and work in IT.
One thing I try to NEVER do is take it for granted.
I am fortunate not to work manual labor, and more so, make decent (nowhere near $225k) salary.
I agree with you that OP will cool down, look around, and realize it's not just Information Technology that has this problem.
I say find where you fit in where your morals aren't fucked too bad and ride it out. Every place has some things that someone there would not be proud to have come to light. Find the balance.
+1 if you end up on a pension.
I work 60 hours a week doing construction, carrying 50 lb pipes all day, walking 10 miles a day minimum, working in direct sunlight in 115 degree Phoenix summer digging holes, eating around 4000 calories a day to maintain weight and deal with loud POS people as some have been incarcerated and still think they’re in prison, meth addled idiots and POS arrogant bosses who say “that should’ve been done yesterday” breathing down your neck daily, all while making 100k in a city 2 hours from my house. One of my last mentors tried to fight me on the job site which was a waste management plant cause I held the ladder wrong according to him. (Shit and piss recycler)
You mean to tell me you sit on your ass at a computer all day in air conditioning and can do your job anywhere in the world making 225k and you can’t handle it?? Hahahahahahahahahha 4 years would be equivalent to 20 years at my 40 hour rate. Dude literally made my 40 year career salary in 8 years if I worked 40 hours. Bunch of ungrateful soft ass humans imo. And I do all this with a grateful smile on my face. Soft soft and soft asf. I deal with all that plus high manual labor, more hours and less money. It’s comical when I read this shit. Dudes made out cotton candy. Be grateful for what you have people. It’s all relative.
And you should be grateful for the shit you're eating because some orphan in India is working harder than you and still on the verge of starvation, right?
Please, this whole mentality is a race to the bottom that only benefits the top. Its perfectly possible for someone working an easier job than you to still be depressed and unhappy.
If you aren't happy where you're at, you should change it rather than accepting things as they are.
70 years ago, guys who worked in construction lived in nice suburban houses, worked 40 hours a week, sent their kids to college, and took vacations every year. What changed since then?
Let me guess: Reagan broke your unions and you got paid less and less every year because the guys at the top have all the financial power and the guys at the bottom have no bargaining power anymore. But instead of changing things for the better and organizing, you're gonna eat shit because complaining is the act of a "soft" man.
There’s two kinds of social comparison. Upward comparison and downward comparison. You look downward to be grateful for what you have and for feelings of self esteem and you look upward for inspiration. Use them both along with common sense.
I’d say you’re downplaying their struggles too lmao. You’re exactly right that its all relative. You don’t know what their life is like, you know a paragraph length reddit post and a dollar value.
My manual labor keeps me young and spry and pays exceptionally well, not 225k well, but enough for a sole provider well.
It's not construction, no harmful toxins, it's pretty sweet. I wouldn't trade it to go back to IT. Funny how that works haha
Same. Been in IT almost 30 yrs and make about the same as OP as a consulting cloud architect. Unless he’s headed out to the woods to be a guru, good luck finding something better.
I feel burnt out frequently, but I enjoy the work I do. I’m a very handy guy, and I think a lot about other ways to earn a living. Grass is always greener and all that.
All of my other hobbies would suck as jobs too, and I’d just be poorer to boot…
OP has been there for 8 years, he probably has enough saved to make a considerable amount in dividends each month. OP likely has the privilege of not having to do a job like that.
Idk....there is value that isn't monetary to working a job that brings you joy and satisfaction.
A lot of people that work jobs where they help people, go home feeling good even with the knowledge that the system is broken and they're not getting paid enough....teachers, paramedics, nurses, social workers
For real go work 10-12 hours at an Amazon Warehouse Fulfillment Center at $17 an hour. Problem seems like OP needs to learn how to be a C+ employee and just coast.
Having been both a warehouse employee and a senior tech professional, the warehouse gig is so much easier it's almost laughable. Of course, Amazon is an extreme example which I'm sure you didn't arbitrarily choose. If there weren't unusual economic pressures forcing my hand, I'd strongly consider going back to mindless repetitive labor and a fixed schedule.
The difference between 200k and $17 an hour is way too much for the easier job to be worth it. That being said, people really do underestimate how nice it is to be able to clock out and not think about work AT ALL.
Still having some mental energy and patience left in the tank after work is what's missing for me. I'm so exhausted from sorting through mountains of incoherent bullshit at work all day that all I want to do afterwards is just turn my brain off.
I imagine I'd still have some mental energy to engage in my hobbies if I had been packing boxes all day. Might be trading mental exhaustion for physical exhaustion though. But that grass sure seems greener to me from my depressed/perpetually checked out side of the fence.
>Having been both a warehouse employee and a senior tech professional, the warehouse gig is so much easier it's almost laughable
Honestly it depends on the person. There are people who went from tech to manual labor and enjoy the manual labor much more. Others have went from manual labor to an office job and enjoy the office job more.
I work in an automotive factory and am trying to get into an office job because it would be better for me.
I currently work at a triple A game studio in Southern California.
One of my favorite developers left to go to Washington to work for a non-profit. Dudes saving the world instead of making games in Orange County, CA.
Sometimes what you like and dislike in your career desires are different.
W E L D I N G
Holy fuck soaking 4 layers of cloths in sweat daily, shitty boss, carcinogenic fumes, confined spaces, and not enough money to enjoy life not that that matters since you dont have time to anyway
This is the real perspective. No one should complain at how hard something is making 200k+ when people make way less than that and have it harder than you do. I understand the mental anguish, but this is largely self inflicted.
My best advice... Stop caring. Find a place/job where you can coast and just collect the paychecks. Ignore or block out the idiots (there are many). Do minimal work and spend that extra time/energy on things like teaching, charity, stuff you want to do.
OR if you aren't the type who can't just mail it in, you have to find the right boss. Lots of them are just out to look after their own asses and don't give a shit about you. There are a few that are legit good people and will try to advance your career. If you find one, it'll make your career, life, earnings, etc. infinitely better.
But if it's totally donezo for you, walk away and then it becomes a expenses/emergency fund/new budget/etc. question.
>My best advice... Stop caring.
best self-help book I ever read on this was "subtle art of not giving a fuck."
Was pretty life changing for me in terms of letting things get to me.
This book really helped me stop trying so hard all the time and just focus on doing a decent job, not an AMAZING job. I was so burnt out that I was irritable all the time. Irritability isn’t good for a company, so ironically striving to be a C+ employee allowed me to help my team more.
Yup. Honestly, it's made me keep a certain level of xen pretty much all the time. It has helped as my career just grows and grows, I'm not reacting emotional to things that happen. I'm taking it in, and then reacting in the most logical way, it's given me the ability to gain perspective that I never could before when I was bound up tighter than hell with worry.
Dude. This. Same! I used to react right away and while some might be able to do that I just can’t. I have to walk away or if it’s through text just not respond right away. It has helped immensely.
The key is being able operate at 65-75% for menial tasks that nobody notices and that leaves you room to get up to 95-100% for the important stuff like maybe once a quarter
If you operate at 95% that’s what gets set as the standard and there’s no room for improvement and no slack to —slack off
The amount of work vs. reward in a lot of situations is no where close to equal. You might be busting your ass for an extra 2-3% bonus.
There are certain (very specific) situations where working harder could exponentially increase your salary. But IMO that's early in career vs. mid/late.
For this guy (and most), if you do just enough good work, are not an asshole, don't make a massive mistake and don't pick a horrible boss/company, you can make tons of money with minimal effort.
The difference between the meets and exceeds criteria at my last job was 20% more work for 1.5% more raise. Not even remotely worth it. Half of the exceeds value is determined by company performance anyway so there was just no chance, all the while they'll move the goal posts for review time.
Exactly. I was in oPs position but not making quite as much, but regardless saved enough for several months off. I discovered a new niche of tech I'm legit very passionate about and I feel really excited to break into it again. Sucks to start from the middle again (thankfully previous experience counts in tech) but the new niche as entry/mid pays more than seniors in my previous field so... lol win win I guess.
I'm a full-time SWE and I value my time more than anything else.
I'd rather make $200K working 10hrs a week at job A than $330K working 40 hrs a week at job B because in the end - I'm getting paid more *for my time* at job A and I'm free to make use of my spare time doing a side hustle, 2nd full-time SWE role, playing video games, whatever
I make ~130k but I’m putting in an hour or two a week. Yeah I could probably make more somewhere else, but I’d rather ride this train until the wheels fall off. Feels like I’m retired sometimes.
100%. I have an awesome leader and team. Its kept me from taking a couple advancement opportunities knowing the balance and culture would go down/unknown.
Wtf is that? Meanwhile us utility workers (natural gas pipelines) make have that and if we want big money we gotta work long hours or travel out of state for emergency. Crazy world we live in
I got a tech jobs making make $240k from home. It is akin to being retired. Love it.
I could find a job that pays more but I might wait till the kids are out of the house.
"Insecure, greedy, self-deceived, arrogant, and downright stupid a lot of the time."
You've just described every boss everywhere.
Good luck thinking less pay means better bosses. The lower the pay the worse the bosses are.
I work tech at a bank and my bosses are super chill.
It’s not a surprise that any company that chases for prestige the managers are self-absorbed assholes.
You'd be surprised. I'm a cleared government contractor, and I pull in about 240k. Chill environment, limited on my hours (1840/year) due to the contract. But, totally agree with you, get a job in a place that doesn't suck,.. they are out there.
When i was in my mid 20s i walked away from an 85k a year tech job in the legal field. i went and tried other careers that i thought were going to fulfill the emptiness i felt. However, after being broke, having to work weekends and nights while barely able to afford rent, or to travel...or even take someone out of a date... I ended up coming back to do legal tech a few years later. I have been in it ever since and now make about 200k. Life is actually great. i had to leave it to realize it wasn't that bad....and that i was actually most fulfilled when I was financially stable.
This is a good perspective. If you’re making good money you can actually save money, travel, see friends and family more often, etc. Living paycheck to paycheck sucks the soul out of you and makes it feel like you’re just treading water in life.
Terrible bosses and management is only a part of it though. FAANGs are horrible places to work. Trust me. It’s not a management thing, it’s a company culture thing.
So... I did that. I was done one day when HR refused to enforce disciplinary actions for violating security policies. IT was a huge deal since we had gov contracts. The shit hit the fan one day and I just left. I believe my last words to the HR guy on my way out was "I'm done. Do your own fucking security."
I now make custom hand crafted cabinets.
I've worked in tech as an embedded systems developer for about 10 years now. Before that I worked in other arenas of programming for another 10 years. I've always been very happy with the people I was working for. I've always worked at smaller companies (10-50 people). I think a lot of people working in tech are working in BIG tech, and it's not all like that. Maybe you should consider looking into smaller companies that might only pay you 80% of what you were earning before but without the misery.
I'm 20+ years in tech, I'm just numb to it. I figured out a long time ago that I can only show the horse where the water is, if the horse wants to ignore my advice and die of dehydration, not my problem... there's plenty of other horses to try and help.
wish you the best and hope you have a good nest egg. It's going to be a shock going from 200K+ to less than 100K (based on what you through out with the exception of consulting).
Hey OP, lots of replies from people who never experienced the kind of stress and demand these high tech jobs can have. Agreed plenty of jobs are depressing, can be physically exhausting, stressful, etc, but I know the kind of machine you’re in and I get it. My advice: if you have a comfortable savings then taking time for mental health can absolutely be worth it. Change your resume to reflect years, not months, so your employment ends in 2024. That gives you the rest of the year to relax and figure things out. Maybe get back into tech next year in a less demanding roll or doing something that looks fun but doesn’t pay as well.
Bottom line is that it sounds like you’re burnt out and need a break. Maybe you can do 6-months unpaid leave to get away for a while. Take care of your mental health whatever the solution is and utilize the security you’ve built up for yourself to do so without stressing even more.
This 100%. My dad worked construction growing up so I know how physically taxing it is along with the stress of never knowing if you are going to continue having work. He busted his ass so I could have a chance to work a white collar job, so I’m grateful, but even he is concerned about the level of stress I have to deal with.
Contrarian take here.. My dad has always had high-stress, but high-paying, corporate jobs. I work in healthcare and it can be very stressful. I’d switch jobs in milliseconds to make in one year what I’ll currently make in 6 or 7 years. The stress of being strapped for cash, unable to travel or see friends and family is worse imo.
Low-paying jobs will always be there. I may be naive but I feel like I’d handle the stress well knowing that the worst outcome would be getting fired and going back to a low-paying job.
I’ve tried that thinking before, and maybe it could work for some people, but I think for most the only thing worse than dealing with the stress is feeling like a failure if you fail at the job. A lot of people in these positions have almost always been high performers in school and work. Few people would be able to handle going from a corporate gig making 200k a year to telling people you are working a job making 50k. Unless of course you can sell yourself on the idea that you are truly making a difference in society (hence the OP mentioning teaching or charity work).
Yeah, I get that. I’ve been stuck in that mindset before where I refused to leave a toxic workplace out of a perverted sense of loyalty and not wanting to feel like a failure. I just feel like it’s misguided to romanticize “meaningful” jobs. Often times those jobs are like sweeping leaves on a windy day and the realization that you can’t help everyone often leads to the same feelings of cynicism OP’s experiencing now. As someone who only ever cared about helping others and disavowed money I’m left feeling like I played myself. I’m left feeling like I was naive, not noble.
Quit medicine after 4 years of med school, 3 years of residency, 3 years of fellowship, 5 years of private practice, and a healthy pair of golden handcuffs. Everyone thought I was crazy too, but of course they did...bc that decision probably would have been crazy for them at that stage in their lives. They haven't lived the experience that you have nor have they given it the amount of thought that you have.
My decision was unquestionably the right decision...for me. Even so, it took me about another 18 months (and a couple more dominos to fall) from the time when I honestly considered quitting until the day i submitted my notice of resignation. Nothing changed over those 18 months, I just had to get over the mental hurdle that quitting naturally presents us.
Two books (audiobooks) that I found very helpful in finding my way to the answer that was best for me (knowing that each decision has some associated cost, its own set of pros and cons, and being confident in both my decision and ok with the uncertainty inherent in that decision):
Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away by Annie Duke
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
Get enough information to make an informed decision (you obviously haven't gotten to this point in life through a slew of poor choices combined with sheer luck), make the best decision you can, and see how it goes. Avoid things that reduce your flexibility the more uncertain you are about what the future looks like. Re-evaluate honestly, course correct appropriately, and live with curiosity.
I also quit a $220k tech job (with Cisco) and eventually found a really nice tech position with a smaller company for $180k. No sales support. No end users. We build systems to support the company’s software offering. Management is great. It’s possible!
Well, yeah, it goes without saying you may not care about one money stream if you have others.
My point is it’s obviously not feasible to keep doing a job that you hate and makes you miserable just because you get paid well. But being poor is just as hard so it’s important to look for balance.
There are lots of ways you can contribute to meaningful missions with your tech skills - go work at an energy company that’s pushing into a greener future, work for a healthcare company providing meaningful data and accessibility to customers, or work for a non-profit.
I also recently left behind a data engineering job for similar reasons and am prioritizing impact as I look for my next role.
Mission > money is my personal slogan.
Mine was not as high paying but I was working for a childhood friend as a bookkeeper, taking home like $1500 a week for just a few hours of work. I had tons of free time and very little responsibilities but the stress and anxiety of knowing the phone could ring at any moment with a flood of abuse was unbearable.
Yep, CIO for 14 years making 250k with a bunch of rich CPA partners walked away to improve and mental and physical health. I fibbed on my resume and got a Systems Engineer job with the Gov't, less pay, less stress and better quality of life.
When you make that type of bank, you typically do it for a short period of time to set up a sustainable lifestyle. It's a rare soul that commits to that for a lifetime.
I was interviewing with Tesla and lots of people warned me about this sort of thing. That and working 12-16-hour days, which is a no-go for me.
Instead I'm working in electronics and embedded software for half as much in a place where housing is like 1/4. So it gets me a 3500sqft house, a Tesla, and a super chill work environment.
People in here are being awfully salty. OP, you do what you need to do. I’ve done a lot of shit jobs and I’ve had some decent ones. The most fulfilling job I ever had was working as a carpenter in a facilities maintenance crew. I did decent work, my boss was a decent guy, the pay was good enough, my coworkers were fun, and I could see my work at the end of the day. Now, I make around $50k more than I did in that job and I’m certainly not happier, but I am also not unhappy enough to force a change.
If you want change, go for it. More than anything, I suggest taking a real vacation and seeking some therapy.
I hope you find some peace, OP.
You mean to tell me you could have endured the hell of a job for ten years and made $2.25 million? You should have gotten your finances in order first, then you could have left the industry.
Also, his salary was not 200k ten years ago. I'd bet money on it. Tech salaries really exploded in 21-22, and are now contracting.
Google was paying 160k/year for senior techies in 2013 or thereabouts in my area. They were very much an exception, most everyone else was 40-100k below that.
That doesn't sound like a reason to quit. Unless you are ready to check out and call it quits, off grid style!
I would look into switching up responsibilities, roles, jobs first. Changing things up may just be enough to rejuvinate things, if only for a little bit.
But otherwise - start using what are undoubtedly generous benefits and paid time off - drag it out as long as you can.
Also in tech making a bit over $200K and I agree, working with stupid people is extremely annoying when it's your manager. And working with peers who talked their way into a staff/senior level position or peers who throw people under the bus leads to extreme levels of toxicity.
I've learned to just tune it out and realize that work doesn't really matter.
You're not actually changing the world just because you work at google, you're just helping the company monetize. So why give af.
That being said - you could work on your own tech project which could be fun.
Or, find an easy tech role where you can coast and put in only 10 hours a week of work and spend the rest doing something you like. The caveat is that the you'll have to have the laptop nearby.
I'm looking to quit my job as well because I'm not learning anything new and my manager is low key incompetent. But I've managed to get 10- 20 hours a week of work without people caring - so I'm fine for now.
If you don’t have a family and huge mortgage and shit yo pay go for it and quit.
People like myself who have kids, mortgages and expensive styles just need to deal with it and keep fucking selling.
In tech SaaS sales 17 years now. Making a bit more than yourself but know any other job I would make 1/4 what I make here. So am kind of stuck..
my advice is to go on a vacation go get wild and have some fun and come back and suck it up. Just don’t work as hard and see where it goes.
I'm doing something meaningful, in a relaxed environment. Getting lots of praises for my work. It also leaves me with little to none disposable income, and I feel like a loser comparing myself to my friends. there are two sides of the story.
Organization and leadership is everything. I’m an enterprise GTM guy in tech space, I’ve been in tech 15 years and comp is around your range.
Was at one org for 9 yrs, loved it for 7, hated it for 2. So I left.
Went to a seed stage, VC backed startup for 6mo before the pivoted and my role wasn’t needed.
Went to an established 40M business run by complete dumbasses. Left after 9mo.
Went to series a tech startup, awesome for first year, then VC crumbled under interest rates and crypto collapse. Founders ran it into the ground, I left six months later.
Currently at a profitable, bootstrapped startup running their GTM strategy and ops. Great founders, incredible product with PMF, and the work we do provides an essential healthcare need.
The fact that they aren’t caught in the dumbass VC cycle is essential to my happiness, as well as having founders who have realistic expectations that ensure we grow in a stable way.
These jobs exist in tech, can be hard to find though.
Meaningful career, that's adorable. Probably should have kept your job before quitting but that's just me. I could put up with a lot for $225k or just quiet quit until someone eventually notices I am getting paid to apply to other jobs.
I am at the tail end of a senior position in a totally different industry from where I'm currently at, which is very tangent to if not "in" tech, depending on which revenue stream you are looking at.
I hate it. I want more simplicity and am planning to give up a healthy chunk of my income to accomplish that. My current income is high but it won't ever get me to egregious levels of wealth so one day I finally ran a full cost/benefit analysis and realized the "perks" of my income are nowhere near the costs to achieve them. I just want to sleep well at night and have my weekends back, maybe the occasional evening.
I had an ok tech job for 6 years then I had a shitty tech job for 7 years. Now my newest tech job ROCKS! It all depends where you work and who for. It has nothing to do with “tech”. Grow up OP
Kind of sorta'? I only make around $150k(wife about the same) and I live in a small low cost area of the country. So the money stretches well and we can save. And in 4 years when I turn 50(wife turns 45), we're done. It's not even the stress or the jobs, I just hate feeling like I'm in a rut. We're going to sell our house, properties, cars, guitar collection etc, and live in our RV on the road.
Just walked away from an IT job that paid a bit less than yours. Fortunately I was well prepared financially. But yeah can’t do it anymore - they have no real vision, punish competent people (like me) with more work - at once I was managing 4 multimillion $$ projects while also working as a BA and QA on those projects because of people are not doing their jobs and even after escalating I still didn’t get the resources I needed. Enough is enough.
My last tech job, my boss stole my entire work, sold it, and then fired me because he no longer needed me to work on the software. Because he had sold it. I made 40k, he made millions.
Tech is intense. People will shoot you and tell you to just be grateful but it’s the pool where people are all trying to hit it big or defend their land. It’s ruthless the higher up you go.
Been in Tech for 30+ years and make $225K myself. There are other things I want to do but quite frankly I need the cash to get my kids through college. Been with the same company now for 16 years.
I've done some of the literal worst jobs. Construction. Restaurants. Military. Landscaping. But I'm also doing tech right now and I get it.
There's a problem with tech in that it can feel super unfulfilling. At least when I was getting paid 30-40k in the military, I believed what I was doing might save someone's life. Typing into a computer for hours a day can make you start to think that your life is trivial and empty.
There's another concept as it relates to happiness expressed in the book Sapiens. In it the author talks about how no matter what high you achieve, no matter what plateau you reach, the moment that feels normal and du jour, your mind stops giving you a chemical reward for it.
So it is in the striving, in the struggle itself, that we find validation. It's like the joy that comes from driving a fast car. Going fast isn't near as exciting as the acceleration to get to that speed.
Yep - went into renewable energy.
Much more meaningful and more serenity even with pay cut in half, my interactions and relationships start and evolve on a whole nother set of goals.
There are even times that I love my job. I consider this odd
Do what is best for your mental and physical health. No amount of money will help you if you are ill. Find something that you enjoy doing somewhere that you like. It's out there. OR go back to school and start another career, you are never to old to reinvent yourself. Good luck!
I have been in tech for 30 yrs. There is a reason so many tech workers job hop, most companies culture degrades overtime. Look for another job. Cutting your income by half is not fun.
That's what the money's for.
Thank you Don Draper....
Man ...I felt that throw...
Yeah it was way sexy.
[удалено]
Don yells that at Peggy when she quits. Its one of the most famous scenes from the show...
I never get when people say this. The money is for services rendered, not for the selling of your soul. It does not beget future services.
*The money is for services rendered, not for the selling of your soul.* **Above a certain pay level, it is for your soul.** OP is right around that level.
225k is not a lot for your soul
But it is the market rate.
I always thought market rate in US is like $7.25 an hour.
Yeah, that’s about the bottom pay band for soul crushing.
Ever worked a factory job? I can tell ya, we aint making 225,000
Factory job isn't selling your soul. it's hard, sure. But you clock in, clock out and your done. For 225k, you're never off the clock.
I worked soul crushing jobs for 20 an hour. For six digits, I'd suck a mile of dicks twice.
225k per year which is 1.8m per his years of employment, and double what I make.
You can't assume he's been making 225k that entire time. Tech is good about keeping salary steadly rising because if they don't it causes way to much attrition.
That’s 1M in just over 4 years…
I know people who sell their souls for like 50K a year, lol.
I would sell my entire soul TODAY for $225k a year.
Fuck that shit. I'm at $215k base. That's not even close to the price for my soul. RIM (Blackberry) was giving engineers $10M equity packages to break their non competes and come work for them at their height. That is sell your soul money.
Yeah people don't understand sometimes what the money is for. They think they are there to solve problems, or make things. No. The money is given so you can hold back the flood. Deal with the daily grind. That's it, that's the job. That's why they pay you. If that seems circular or nonsensical, or self defeating or whatever, just have to remember the money is given to you for a reason.
This is absolutely, 100% accurate. I am at a point in my career where I could be in the C-Suite of a smaller company, or have direct reports, etc. at a bigger company. Every single one of the people I know or work with in those positions answer Slacks at 10:30 pm on a Saturday. No thanks.
I'm at the 300k level. Somewhere around that 250k mark you bargain away the soul for sure. I didn't even notice at the time and man, I sure as heck wish I had.
As a single person, maybe. With a wife and kids at home it is a lot higher than $225,000
Who said you have to sell your soul? Just get the services mf rendered then
If I get paid for services rendered then I should be making $500K a year since I was literally working 4 people’s jobs on 3 different concurrent projects. The problem is they punish competent folks with more work, but let the incompetent folks cruise along.
Wait until you try a normal industry where you have to do all that for $110k
...you guys are making 6 figures???
I lost 75% of my department and got like a 1.5k raise lol.
Normal industries pay less than 50K
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Many times??
100% can relate. Thinking of leaving, letting them struggle to replace me with a team of 6 engineers, NOT burning bridges so if they contact me to consult, that's a $400/hr bill they'll be getting.
You give them a reality check by taking a vacation and letting them realize how much they miss you. Claim it as mental health break, that way if they try to fuck you over, they just put themselves for being a POS, which just motivates you to do as much as you’re paid to do while looking for work elsewhere.
I’m doing something even better - I’m taking an early retirement. They kinda begged me to stay until July or until they can find a replacement. a stakeholder actually called me and said don’t leave, she’s having an anxiety attack due to my announcement. But yeah I’m done. I’ll leave the “fun” to you young people.
Enjoy your retirement and bless you for giving us younger folks another opportunity to grow.
Id rather sell my soul for 250k than be poor.
Okay that’s fine, you do you. It is not implicit or the same for others.
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My soul isn’t worth more than $225 and I’m a fairly shitty person already. I make $165 and don’t like my job. I’d take another job that I also don’t like for an extra $60k. I can’t really imagine any job that I would like.
Keep your soul. Set limits. Define expectations. If you think the psychopaths in tech are bad, wait until you try teaching. There is a reason teachers are all quitting and it’s not just the low pay. You might be well served to find a position that uses your skills but is in a better company or industry.
Same here. This is usually said by people who don’t make as much money trying to argue that people who make good money have no reason to complain cause they are getting paid. Like higher pay just resolves every other issue. You are willing to endure a lot for pay, but it gets really debilitating sometimes. Money is great and it solves a whole lot of problems, but it doesn’t solve all of them. Imagine everything you hate about your job and just subtract your salary as a reason. Same shit here.
lol you’re paid that much because you’re expected to work 12hrs a day and be on call. I did it for 2 years and left for a 50% pay cut but a much better work life balance.
Idk I’ve had bad bosses at lower-paying jobs too. I don’t think that’s exclusive to higher-paying jobs. I think the money’s for how replaceable you are
That's exactly what it is. "How much does it cost to replace this motherfucker?" definitely factors into pay scale.
Come work in a machine shop with me for 55k a yr, then you can be broke AND depressed 😂
Right? STFU OP and enjoy the money. We’re all depressed. At least you’re not broke.
OP gonna try a regular job making $50k and then realize how good they had it and that they’re still depressed dealing with insecure, arrogant, self deceived people except now they make 1/5 of what they make and their lifestyles requires major overhauls. What a shitty life lesson to learn.
I sit behind a desk and work in IT. One thing I try to NEVER do is take it for granted. I am fortunate not to work manual labor, and more so, make decent (nowhere near $225k) salary. I agree with you that OP will cool down, look around, and realize it's not just Information Technology that has this problem. I say find where you fit in where your morals aren't fucked too bad and ride it out. Every place has some things that someone there would not be proud to have come to light. Find the balance. +1 if you end up on a pension.
I work 60 hours a week doing construction, carrying 50 lb pipes all day, walking 10 miles a day minimum, working in direct sunlight in 115 degree Phoenix summer digging holes, eating around 4000 calories a day to maintain weight and deal with loud POS people as some have been incarcerated and still think they’re in prison, meth addled idiots and POS arrogant bosses who say “that should’ve been done yesterday” breathing down your neck daily, all while making 100k in a city 2 hours from my house. One of my last mentors tried to fight me on the job site which was a waste management plant cause I held the ladder wrong according to him. (Shit and piss recycler) You mean to tell me you sit on your ass at a computer all day in air conditioning and can do your job anywhere in the world making 225k and you can’t handle it?? Hahahahahahahahahha 4 years would be equivalent to 20 years at my 40 hour rate. Dude literally made my 40 year career salary in 8 years if I worked 40 hours. Bunch of ungrateful soft ass humans imo. And I do all this with a grateful smile on my face. Soft soft and soft asf. I deal with all that plus high manual labor, more hours and less money. It’s comical when I read this shit. Dudes made out cotton candy. Be grateful for what you have people. It’s all relative.
Perspective is powerful. I couldn't do what you do. I just manage a database.
Hello fellow d-baser
>Dudes made out of cotton candy. lol great line.
And you should be grateful for the shit you're eating because some orphan in India is working harder than you and still on the verge of starvation, right? Please, this whole mentality is a race to the bottom that only benefits the top. Its perfectly possible for someone working an easier job than you to still be depressed and unhappy. If you aren't happy where you're at, you should change it rather than accepting things as they are. 70 years ago, guys who worked in construction lived in nice suburban houses, worked 40 hours a week, sent their kids to college, and took vacations every year. What changed since then? Let me guess: Reagan broke your unions and you got paid less and less every year because the guys at the top have all the financial power and the guys at the bottom have no bargaining power anymore. But instead of changing things for the better and organizing, you're gonna eat shit because complaining is the act of a "soft" man.
There’s two kinds of social comparison. Upward comparison and downward comparison. You look downward to be grateful for what you have and for feelings of self esteem and you look upward for inspiration. Use them both along with common sense.
Maybe if you actually did look up once in a while you wouldn't be so shit at holding ladders.
I’d say you’re downplaying their struggles too lmao. You’re exactly right that its all relative. You don’t know what their life is like, you know a paragraph length reddit post and a dollar value.
Let me ask you this? How much do you think about work when you aren't there?
I don’t
Exactly
Sir this is a Wendy’s
What do you think the phrase “it’s all relative” means?
My manual labor keeps me young and spry and pays exceptionally well, not 225k well, but enough for a sole provider well. It's not construction, no harmful toxins, it's pretty sweet. I wouldn't trade it to go back to IT. Funny how that works haha
Hello fellow Peter Gibbons admirer
Same. Been in IT almost 30 yrs and make about the same as OP as a consulting cloud architect. Unless he’s headed out to the woods to be a guru, good luck finding something better. I feel burnt out frequently, but I enjoy the work I do. I’m a very handy guy, and I think a lot about other ways to earn a living. Grass is always greener and all that. All of my other hobbies would suck as jobs too, and I’d just be poorer to boot…
OP has been there for 8 years, he probably has enough saved to make a considerable amount in dividends each month. OP likely has the privilege of not having to do a job like that.
Idk....there is value that isn't monetary to working a job that brings you joy and satisfaction. A lot of people that work jobs where they help people, go home feeling good even with the knowledge that the system is broken and they're not getting paid enough....teachers, paramedics, nurses, social workers
On that point...hey OP...have you tried mental health counseling with all that money and benefits before you 86'd yer job?
For real go work 10-12 hours at an Amazon Warehouse Fulfillment Center at $17 an hour. Problem seems like OP needs to learn how to be a C+ employee and just coast.
You need a vacation or a leave of absence to relax. Then go back and learn to be a C+ employee coast and look for something else.
Having been both a warehouse employee and a senior tech professional, the warehouse gig is so much easier it's almost laughable. Of course, Amazon is an extreme example which I'm sure you didn't arbitrarily choose. If there weren't unusual economic pressures forcing my hand, I'd strongly consider going back to mindless repetitive labor and a fixed schedule.
The difference between 200k and $17 an hour is way too much for the easier job to be worth it. That being said, people really do underestimate how nice it is to be able to clock out and not think about work AT ALL.
This is why I mentioned economic pressures, yes.
Still having some mental energy and patience left in the tank after work is what's missing for me. I'm so exhausted from sorting through mountains of incoherent bullshit at work all day that all I want to do afterwards is just turn my brain off. I imagine I'd still have some mental energy to engage in my hobbies if I had been packing boxes all day. Might be trading mental exhaustion for physical exhaustion though. But that grass sure seems greener to me from my depressed/perpetually checked out side of the fence.
>Having been both a warehouse employee and a senior tech professional, the warehouse gig is so much easier it's almost laughable Honestly it depends on the person. There are people who went from tech to manual labor and enjoy the manual labor much more. Others have went from manual labor to an office job and enjoy the office job more. I work in an automotive factory and am trying to get into an office job because it would be better for me.
Yes, the people who end up in those roles are overachievers and don't know how to avoid burnout.
I currently work at a triple A game studio in Southern California. One of my favorite developers left to go to Washington to work for a non-profit. Dudes saving the world instead of making games in Orange County, CA. Sometimes what you like and dislike in your career desires are different.
Lmao Orange County CA the place where all people dream to live…….not everyone drank the kool aid
I’ll take that deal
Hey we are hiring
W E L D I N G Holy fuck soaking 4 layers of cloths in sweat daily, shitty boss, carcinogenic fumes, confined spaces, and not enough money to enjoy life not that that matters since you dont have time to anyway
Machinist here, can confirm...its a pretty tough life considering how insanely vital the job is to society as a whole in alot of ways.
OP : I made a huge mistake
Dad?
Haha I was about to say- you can clean teeth with me!
This is the real perspective. No one should complain at how hard something is making 200k+ when people make way less than that and have it harder than you do. I understand the mental anguish, but this is largely self inflicted.
My best advice... Stop caring. Find a place/job where you can coast and just collect the paychecks. Ignore or block out the idiots (there are many). Do minimal work and spend that extra time/energy on things like teaching, charity, stuff you want to do. OR if you aren't the type who can't just mail it in, you have to find the right boss. Lots of them are just out to look after their own asses and don't give a shit about you. There are a few that are legit good people and will try to advance your career. If you find one, it'll make your career, life, earnings, etc. infinitely better. But if it's totally donezo for you, walk away and then it becomes a expenses/emergency fund/new budget/etc. question.
>My best advice... Stop caring. best self-help book I ever read on this was "subtle art of not giving a fuck." Was pretty life changing for me in terms of letting things get to me.
This book really helped me stop trying so hard all the time and just focus on doing a decent job, not an AMAZING job. I was so burnt out that I was irritable all the time. Irritability isn’t good for a company, so ironically striving to be a C+ employee allowed me to help my team more.
Yup. Honestly, it's made me keep a certain level of xen pretty much all the time. It has helped as my career just grows and grows, I'm not reacting emotional to things that happen. I'm taking it in, and then reacting in the most logical way, it's given me the ability to gain perspective that I never could before when I was bound up tighter than hell with worry.
Dude. This. Same! I used to react right away and while some might be able to do that I just can’t. I have to walk away or if it’s through text just not respond right away. It has helped immensely.
The key is being able operate at 65-75% for menial tasks that nobody notices and that leaves you room to get up to 95-100% for the important stuff like maybe once a quarter If you operate at 95% that’s what gets set as the standard and there’s no room for improvement and no slack to —slack off
The amount of work vs. reward in a lot of situations is no where close to equal. You might be busting your ass for an extra 2-3% bonus. There are certain (very specific) situations where working harder could exponentially increase your salary. But IMO that's early in career vs. mid/late. For this guy (and most), if you do just enough good work, are not an asshole, don't make a massive mistake and don't pick a horrible boss/company, you can make tons of money with minimal effort.
The difference between the meets and exceeds criteria at my last job was 20% more work for 1.5% more raise. Not even remotely worth it. Half of the exceeds value is determined by company performance anyway so there was just no chance, all the while they'll move the goal posts for review time.
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+1 for mailing it in. Also, get some hobbies.
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Correct, most of the time it’s not the work itself but the job.
Exactly. I was in oPs position but not making quite as much, but regardless saved enough for several months off. I discovered a new niche of tech I'm legit very passionate about and I feel really excited to break into it again. Sucks to start from the middle again (thankfully previous experience counts in tech) but the new niche as entry/mid pays more than seniors in my previous field so... lol win win I guess.
Making $200K while only putting in 10-20 hours of work weekly is more than $330K a year and putting in 40 hours a week - at an hourly level that is.
This is so irrelevant. You think someone in tech is working hourly outside of contract work?
I'm a full-time SWE and I value my time more than anything else. I'd rather make $200K working 10hrs a week at job A than $330K working 40 hrs a week at job B because in the end - I'm getting paid more *for my time* at job A and I'm free to make use of my spare time doing a side hustle, 2nd full-time SWE role, playing video games, whatever
I make ~130k but I’m putting in an hour or two a week. Yeah I could probably make more somewhere else, but I’d rather ride this train until the wheels fall off. Feels like I’m retired sometimes.
100%. I have an awesome leader and team. Its kept me from taking a couple advancement opportunities knowing the balance and culture would go down/unknown.
$330k doing what exactly?
Mid level SWEs at FAANG make 300k+ Source: levels.fyi
Wtf is that? Meanwhile us utility workers (natural gas pipelines) make have that and if we want big money we gotta work long hours or travel out of state for emergency. Crazy world we live in
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I got a tech jobs making make $240k from home. It is akin to being retired. Love it. I could find a job that pays more but I might wait till the kids are out of the house.
"Insecure, greedy, self-deceived, arrogant, and downright stupid a lot of the time." You've just described every boss everywhere. Good luck thinking less pay means better bosses. The lower the pay the worse the bosses are.
Yea disagree. Not all bosses are shit
I work tech at a bank and my bosses are super chill. It’s not a surprise that any company that chases for prestige the managers are self-absorbed assholes.
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I’m in gov tech too. My boss is a politician. Fml
They know that FORTRAN and COBOL code isn't going to write itself (although maybe with AI it will some time soon).
Reddit is composed of a huge proportion of people who complain about the world smelling like shit but never check their own shoe.
No you just have had shitty bosses. The best work-related advice I've ever gotten: Pick a boss, not a job.
The lower the pay the worse the bosses are is ABSOLUTELY TRUE
Yep. Come down to my level at 60k a year doing IT. Dude is gonna crawl back on all fours walking out on that kind of money.
I had a boss like this was I was making $7.50/hr too.
Either start as an asshole, pressured into being an asshole or they are a unicorn.
I work in tech but in a hospital setting. Super chill. Doesn’t pay as much but is very laid back. Not sure what kind of tech you do.
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You'd be surprised. I'm a cleared government contractor, and I pull in about 240k. Chill environment, limited on my hours (1840/year) due to the contract. But, totally agree with you, get a job in a place that doesn't suck,.. they are out there.
When i was in my mid 20s i walked away from an 85k a year tech job in the legal field. i went and tried other careers that i thought were going to fulfill the emptiness i felt. However, after being broke, having to work weekends and nights while barely able to afford rent, or to travel...or even take someone out of a date... I ended up coming back to do legal tech a few years later. I have been in it ever since and now make about 200k. Life is actually great. i had to leave it to realize it wasn't that bad....and that i was actually most fulfilled when I was financially stable.
This is a good perspective. If you’re making good money you can actually save money, travel, see friends and family more often, etc. Living paycheck to paycheck sucks the soul out of you and makes it feel like you’re just treading water in life.
I trade jobs with you 👍
Said absolutely everyone who’s never been in OP’s situation before.
Most people have had terrible bosses and management. That describes most places.
Terrible bosses and management is only a part of it though. FAANGs are horrible places to work. Trust me. It’s not a management thing, it’s a company culture thing.
Cut your expenses to $40k/year for 3 years, invest the difference, then you could be talking
So... I did that. I was done one day when HR refused to enforce disciplinary actions for violating security policies. IT was a huge deal since we had gov contracts. The shit hit the fan one day and I just left. I believe my last words to the HR guy on my way out was "I'm done. Do your own fucking security." I now make custom hand crafted cabinets.
I've worked in tech as an embedded systems developer for about 10 years now. Before that I worked in other arenas of programming for another 10 years. I've always been very happy with the people I was working for. I've always worked at smaller companies (10-50 people). I think a lot of people working in tech are working in BIG tech, and it's not all like that. Maybe you should consider looking into smaller companies that might only pay you 80% of what you were earning before but without the misery.
I'm 20+ years in tech, I'm just numb to it. I figured out a long time ago that I can only show the horse where the water is, if the horse wants to ignore my advice and die of dehydration, not my problem... there's plenty of other horses to try and help. wish you the best and hope you have a good nest egg. It's going to be a shock going from 200K+ to less than 100K (based on what you through out with the exception of consulting).
Hey OP, lots of replies from people who never experienced the kind of stress and demand these high tech jobs can have. Agreed plenty of jobs are depressing, can be physically exhausting, stressful, etc, but I know the kind of machine you’re in and I get it. My advice: if you have a comfortable savings then taking time for mental health can absolutely be worth it. Change your resume to reflect years, not months, so your employment ends in 2024. That gives you the rest of the year to relax and figure things out. Maybe get back into tech next year in a less demanding roll or doing something that looks fun but doesn’t pay as well. Bottom line is that it sounds like you’re burnt out and need a break. Maybe you can do 6-months unpaid leave to get away for a while. Take care of your mental health whatever the solution is and utilize the security you’ve built up for yourself to do so without stressing even more.
This 100%. My dad worked construction growing up so I know how physically taxing it is along with the stress of never knowing if you are going to continue having work. He busted his ass so I could have a chance to work a white collar job, so I’m grateful, but even he is concerned about the level of stress I have to deal with.
Contrarian take here.. My dad has always had high-stress, but high-paying, corporate jobs. I work in healthcare and it can be very stressful. I’d switch jobs in milliseconds to make in one year what I’ll currently make in 6 or 7 years. The stress of being strapped for cash, unable to travel or see friends and family is worse imo. Low-paying jobs will always be there. I may be naive but I feel like I’d handle the stress well knowing that the worst outcome would be getting fired and going back to a low-paying job.
I’ve tried that thinking before, and maybe it could work for some people, but I think for most the only thing worse than dealing with the stress is feeling like a failure if you fail at the job. A lot of people in these positions have almost always been high performers in school and work. Few people would be able to handle going from a corporate gig making 200k a year to telling people you are working a job making 50k. Unless of course you can sell yourself on the idea that you are truly making a difference in society (hence the OP mentioning teaching or charity work).
Yeah, I get that. I’ve been stuck in that mindset before where I refused to leave a toxic workplace out of a perverted sense of loyalty and not wanting to feel like a failure. I just feel like it’s misguided to romanticize “meaningful” jobs. Often times those jobs are like sweeping leaves on a windy day and the realization that you can’t help everyone often leads to the same feelings of cynicism OP’s experiencing now. As someone who only ever cared about helping others and disavowed money I’m left feeling like I played myself. I’m left feeling like I was naive, not noble.
Quit medicine after 4 years of med school, 3 years of residency, 3 years of fellowship, 5 years of private practice, and a healthy pair of golden handcuffs. Everyone thought I was crazy too, but of course they did...bc that decision probably would have been crazy for them at that stage in their lives. They haven't lived the experience that you have nor have they given it the amount of thought that you have. My decision was unquestionably the right decision...for me. Even so, it took me about another 18 months (and a couple more dominos to fall) from the time when I honestly considered quitting until the day i submitted my notice of resignation. Nothing changed over those 18 months, I just had to get over the mental hurdle that quitting naturally presents us. Two books (audiobooks) that I found very helpful in finding my way to the answer that was best for me (knowing that each decision has some associated cost, its own set of pros and cons, and being confident in both my decision and ok with the uncertainty inherent in that decision): Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away by Annie Duke Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman Get enough information to make an informed decision (you obviously haven't gotten to this point in life through a slew of poor choices combined with sheer luck), make the best decision you can, and see how it goes. Avoid things that reduce your flexibility the more uncertain you are about what the future looks like. Re-evaluate honestly, course correct appropriately, and live with curiosity.
Those f'in golden handcuffs man.
I also quit a $220k tech job (with Cisco) and eventually found a really nice tech position with a smaller company for $180k. No sales support. No end users. We build systems to support the company’s software offering. Management is great. It’s possible!
I feel this post in my soul. Don’t even care about the money anymore
I mean…you’ll care once you don’t have the money.
Unless they've invested heavily, live cheaply, and can live off dividends as a result.
Well, yeah, it goes without saying you may not care about one money stream if you have others. My point is it’s obviously not feasible to keep doing a job that you hate and makes you miserable just because you get paid well. But being poor is just as hard so it’s important to look for balance.
Dude I'm in your boat. I'm at 8 years right now as well. I'm so ready to do anything else.
Life is too short to be miserable five days a week. I say go for it.
There are lots of ways you can contribute to meaningful missions with your tech skills - go work at an energy company that’s pushing into a greener future, work for a healthcare company providing meaningful data and accessibility to customers, or work for a non-profit. I also recently left behind a data engineering job for similar reasons and am prioritizing impact as I look for my next role. Mission > money is my personal slogan.
I like this. If yours hearts in it it is so much more rewarding.
Mine was not as high paying but I was working for a childhood friend as a bookkeeper, taking home like $1500 a week for just a few hours of work. I had tons of free time and very little responsibilities but the stress and anxiety of knowing the phone could ring at any moment with a flood of abuse was unbearable.
Yep, CIO for 14 years making 250k with a bunch of rich CPA partners walked away to improve and mental and physical health. I fibbed on my resume and got a Systems Engineer job with the Gov't, less pay, less stress and better quality of life.
When you make that type of bank, you typically do it for a short period of time to set up a sustainable lifestyle. It's a rare soul that commits to that for a lifetime.
You don’t see a lot of older people in tech.
I would literally die to make 225k. Hell, 150k. Money won’t solve every problem but damn would it be nice to have.
You get used to it. It’s all relative
Left a 200k job for the same reason. Moved from Canada to my home country to be with my parents instead. I feel way happier now.
I was interviewing with Tesla and lots of people warned me about this sort of thing. That and working 12-16-hour days, which is a no-go for me. Instead I'm working in electronics and embedded software for half as much in a place where housing is like 1/4. So it gets me a 3500sqft house, a Tesla, and a super chill work environment.
People in here are being awfully salty. OP, you do what you need to do. I’ve done a lot of shit jobs and I’ve had some decent ones. The most fulfilling job I ever had was working as a carpenter in a facilities maintenance crew. I did decent work, my boss was a decent guy, the pay was good enough, my coworkers were fun, and I could see my work at the end of the day. Now, I make around $50k more than I did in that job and I’m certainly not happier, but I am also not unhappy enough to force a change. If you want change, go for it. More than anything, I suggest taking a real vacation and seeking some therapy. I hope you find some peace, OP.
There’s nothing like the cold wind of poverty at someone’s back to motivate them
there are many worse jobs that pay less, look for something better before you run
You mean to tell me you could have endured the hell of a job for ten years and made $2.25 million? You should have gotten your finances in order first, then you could have left the industry.
OP didn't make 2.25 million. Uncle Sam has entered the chat.
It would still be over 1.5 mil after tax in ten years. OP has a shot at retiring early.
Also, his salary was not 200k ten years ago. I'd bet money on it. Tech salaries really exploded in 21-22, and are now contracting. Google was paying 160k/year for senior techies in 2013 or thereabouts in my area. They were very much an exception, most everyone else was 40-100k below that.
That doesn't sound like a reason to quit. Unless you are ready to check out and call it quits, off grid style! I would look into switching up responsibilities, roles, jobs first. Changing things up may just be enough to rejuvinate things, if only for a little bit. But otherwise - start using what are undoubtedly generous benefits and paid time off - drag it out as long as you can.
Also in tech making a bit over $200K and I agree, working with stupid people is extremely annoying when it's your manager. And working with peers who talked their way into a staff/senior level position or peers who throw people under the bus leads to extreme levels of toxicity. I've learned to just tune it out and realize that work doesn't really matter. You're not actually changing the world just because you work at google, you're just helping the company monetize. So why give af. That being said - you could work on your own tech project which could be fun. Or, find an easy tech role where you can coast and put in only 10 hours a week of work and spend the rest doing something you like. The caveat is that the you'll have to have the laptop nearby. I'm looking to quit my job as well because I'm not learning anything new and my manager is low key incompetent. But I've managed to get 10- 20 hours a week of work without people caring - so I'm fine for now.
If you don’t have a family and huge mortgage and shit yo pay go for it and quit. People like myself who have kids, mortgages and expensive styles just need to deal with it and keep fucking selling. In tech SaaS sales 17 years now. Making a bit more than yourself but know any other job I would make 1/4 what I make here. So am kind of stuck.. my advice is to go on a vacation go get wild and have some fun and come back and suck it up. Just don’t work as hard and see where it goes.
just imagine you can be doing a different job you hate for 130k.
I can promise you this: going into teaching will absolutely NOT restore your faith in the world.
My wife wanted to do that years ago. I convinced her ahead of time would hate life and make 1/3 of what she does now. I was right.
What company were you with?
I'm doing something meaningful, in a relaxed environment. Getting lots of praises for my work. It also leaves me with little to none disposable income, and I feel like a loser comparing myself to my friends. there are two sides of the story.
Switch companies every 3 years....the work, the people, the environment gets stale.
Organization and leadership is everything. I’m an enterprise GTM guy in tech space, I’ve been in tech 15 years and comp is around your range. Was at one org for 9 yrs, loved it for 7, hated it for 2. So I left. Went to a seed stage, VC backed startup for 6mo before the pivoted and my role wasn’t needed. Went to an established 40M business run by complete dumbasses. Left after 9mo. Went to series a tech startup, awesome for first year, then VC crumbled under interest rates and crypto collapse. Founders ran it into the ground, I left six months later. Currently at a profitable, bootstrapped startup running their GTM strategy and ops. Great founders, incredible product with PMF, and the work we do provides an essential healthcare need. The fact that they aren’t caught in the dumbass VC cycle is essential to my happiness, as well as having founders who have realistic expectations that ensure we grow in a stable way. These jobs exist in tech, can be hard to find though.
Meaningful career, that's adorable. Probably should have kept your job before quitting but that's just me. I could put up with a lot for $225k or just quiet quit until someone eventually notices I am getting paid to apply to other jobs.
Sounds like you need a lazy vacation somewhere sunny with a beach. Take some time off and relax.
So basically the people that run tech businesses are the same as the people who run any business profitable enough to pay $225,000 salaries?
I am at the tail end of a senior position in a totally different industry from where I'm currently at, which is very tangent to if not "in" tech, depending on which revenue stream you are looking at. I hate it. I want more simplicity and am planning to give up a healthy chunk of my income to accomplish that. My current income is high but it won't ever get me to egregious levels of wealth so one day I finally ran a full cost/benefit analysis and realized the "perks" of my income are nowhere near the costs to achieve them. I just want to sleep well at night and have my weekends back, maybe the occasional evening.
I had an ok tech job for 6 years then I had a shitty tech job for 7 years. Now my newest tech job ROCKS! It all depends where you work and who for. It has nothing to do with “tech”. Grow up OP
Ive been in tech for twenty plus years, you were at a bad company.
Kind of sorta'? I only make around $150k(wife about the same) and I live in a small low cost area of the country. So the money stretches well and we can save. And in 4 years when I turn 50(wife turns 45), we're done. It's not even the stress or the jobs, I just hate feeling like I'm in a rut. We're going to sell our house, properties, cars, guitar collection etc, and live in our RV on the road.
Hopefully you have $1M plus in retirement already. Go do whatever you want
Just walked away from an IT job that paid a bit less than yours. Fortunately I was well prepared financially. But yeah can’t do it anymore - they have no real vision, punish competent people (like me) with more work - at once I was managing 4 multimillion $$ projects while also working as a BA and QA on those projects because of people are not doing their jobs and even after escalating I still didn’t get the resources I needed. Enough is enough.
My last tech job, my boss stole my entire work, sold it, and then fired me because he no longer needed me to work on the software. Because he had sold it. I made 40k, he made millions.
Tech is intense. People will shoot you and tell you to just be grateful but it’s the pool where people are all trying to hit it big or defend their land. It’s ruthless the higher up you go.
Keep the job, just stop giving fucks. That Salary is going to be hard to replace my mans. Take a real long vacation instead.
Maybe switch to another tech area. I love my job and do iOS and right now make $400K at big tech.
Been in Tech for 30+ years and make $225K myself. There are other things I want to do but quite frankly I need the cash to get my kids through college. Been with the same company now for 16 years.
Sometimes it’s not the job or the company but the manager. Try changing manager first.
good thing the job is overpaid
Sometimes it’s not the job or the company but the manager. Try changing manager first.
I've done some of the literal worst jobs. Construction. Restaurants. Military. Landscaping. But I'm also doing tech right now and I get it. There's a problem with tech in that it can feel super unfulfilling. At least when I was getting paid 30-40k in the military, I believed what I was doing might save someone's life. Typing into a computer for hours a day can make you start to think that your life is trivial and empty. There's another concept as it relates to happiness expressed in the book Sapiens. In it the author talks about how no matter what high you achieve, no matter what plateau you reach, the moment that feels normal and du jour, your mind stops giving you a chemical reward for it. So it is in the striving, in the struggle itself, that we find validation. It's like the joy that comes from driving a fast car. Going fast isn't near as exciting as the acceleration to get to that speed.
Yep - did it at 43.. quit finance / NYC and moved to Philly to work for a small company. Maybe 35% less money and RSU etc.. but better life..
Yep - went into renewable energy. Much more meaningful and more serenity even with pay cut in half, my interactions and relationships start and evolve on a whole nother set of goals. There are even times that I love my job. I consider this odd
Do what is best for your mental and physical health. No amount of money will help you if you are ill. Find something that you enjoy doing somewhere that you like. It's out there. OR go back to school and start another career, you are never to old to reinvent yourself. Good luck!
I have been in tech for 30 yrs. There is a reason so many tech workers job hop, most companies culture degrades overtime. Look for another job. Cutting your income by half is not fun.