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There's not a lot of empathy in these comments, so I just wanted to say that I've been there and I know it's scary. It's a shame that hard-working people with an education can't find opportunities outside of a handful of metro areas. I moved to the Bay Area for the job density, but I understand why people with families aren't eager to do the same -- I'm single and childless and most days I wonder why I keep living here.

Best of luck with everything. If you don't want to freelance and don't mind travel, DM me for an opportunity.

> "Another person I know is in a similar situation because his group won’t talk to people who aren’t already employed."

This point alarms me a bit. It doesn't even have to be a family circumstance. What about departures for your own mental health, or sabbatical?

So if I take some time off to learn a new stack (I'm leaning toward Elixir), and build a few projects with it in my free time, I'm a lesser candidate?

This being said, I do have a friend who did take a year off to pursue music. However, he's what they'd call a "rockstar" and has freedoms most of us don't.

Wait, so let me get this right: 1) Your wife gave up her career to take care of the kid 2) Now she's found a job and is asking you to do the same 3) Additionally, you consider your job a clusterfuck with incompetent management

Seems like a clear decision

You missed a few numbers: 4) may not be able to get another job after an extended gap 5) would have to move out of town

Those types of choices aren't usually clear.

OP also mentions that the new position for the spouse is in a location with sparse opportunities for job shopping.

I hope you and your wife get what you are looking for, something just as good, or something better. I don't have any advice for you beyond trying to find opportunities in your hardship, and taking good care of yourself and your family. Even though I know that the former may ring hollow, distant, and lacking in empathy, doing that (and probably more) helped me persevere onward to a new opportunity.

Hang in there.

Is there a possibility for remote work? Even part time or lower paid would help to ease the stress of long term outlook. And frankly, as someone who have been and done that, being at home spouse can be frustrating/isolating/etc and having something outside, some goals and duties to focus on, helps a lot. I mean, if you are frustrated from discrepancy now, it will got only worst. So having a goal, part time job, small business (even if it earns no money) helps really a lot to deal with all those frustrations.

"So if I take time off to watch our child while my wife rebuilds her career, and maybe move to a different career myself, somehow I'm penalized? Pardon my language, but fuck that."

Agreed. Anyone who wants to implement some kind of asinine policy like that should instantly be forced to spend the next 6 months unemployed, and then try to find a new job.

I don’t think it’s a policy as much as it is common sense. Unless the OP was producing output during that time (which he doesn’t suggest he would be doing), he _will_ be less attractive to hiring managers. Why would someone want to hire somebody who is letting their skills atrophy when they can hire somebody who’s been growing their skills actively?

There are a lot of candidates out there and to ignore your competition for employment is to do yourself a great disservice.

No, it's an asinine policy that screams "We only hire guys right out of college with no other life."

It's the kind of thing that only comes up with people who have never been in such a situation, and can't imagine that such a situation would exist.

Again, it’s not a policy (you keep using that word). Are you a hiring manager? If so, would you really hire a person who hasn’t done anything work related for over a year over someone who has?

At the end of the day employment is a mutually beneficial deal for the employer and employee. It’s not some sort of social safety net. Performance counts.

If it's something that a hiring manager uses to make a determination, it's a policy.

By that logic every decision made during the hiring is a policy. Too vague to be useful imo.

Semantics aside, my point stands: it’s reasonable to hire the best person for the job. A person’s personal problems are just that, personal.

I'm sorry, but that just tells me you've never been in that kind of situation. Which tells me that you lack empathy for other people.

And your response tells me that you’re not a hiring manager and have never been responsible for building a team.

Raise the child, build a business from home.

I would sign for it in a heartbeat.

That is sometimes good advice for developers. But only sometimes — it's not work that interests mosts people.

For most careers, it's not very reasonable to quit a job and try to build a company.

Not everyone wants to build a business.

Small kids are a lot more work than many people realize. Ditto building a business. Trying to do both at once without being financially independent first is not a choice anyone should make if they can help it.

Building a business, particularly a consulting business, is pretty easy and doesn't take financial independence, especially if it's IT related. Incorporating is easy, you can do it online. Then call up ye olde consulting firms and have them find business for you until you build up a customer base that calls you directly when they need work done. Do this enough and soon you'll have so much work you'll have to farm it out to acquaintances (your first employees).

Typically if you have an organization that only talks to people with current jobs, that rule is for people sending in cold resumes. On the other hand, if they know who you are, you probably won't have the same filters applied.

Let's say you go ahead and move and take time off to watch your child. Two years down the road you want to start looking for work. What you've done with those two years is going to really matter. If you've invested time in activities like writing about your field, speaking about your field at conferences/meetups, creating an online course about your field, contributing to related open source projects, teaching a class at a university, etc. you are going to be in a very different place than someone who just checked out for 24 months.

Being currently employed sends certain signals to a prospective employer, but there are other things that can send much stronger signals. The unknown is still going to be scary and I don't know your field, but your Ph.D. can probably open a lot of doors to make yourself visible to market.

God, what a terribly insensitive comment. Leaving the workforce to care for family is not "check[ing] out for 24 months."

No. But he is right that if you do some activities in the meantime, you will be in very very different position then if you don't. Maybe the biggest difference is level of confidence, bit it such a huge difference that it is worth mentioning.

I'm in no way implying that taking care of your children is less important than your career. I think it is great what he is talking about doing and is a great investment to make in his child.

Leaving the workforce to take care of family and not doing anything to keep yourself marketable is "checking out" when it comes to your career. You are going to have to be proactive in making sure that you are doing things each week that will put you in a good place to return to the workforce IF that is what you eventually want to do.

> What you've done with those two years is going to really matter.

Caring for their child is what he'll have done with those two years. It's an exhausting full-time job. These suggestions are great for someone who's unemployed, but unrealistic for a full-time caregiver.

Well there were a lot of suggestions and there are plenty of other things one could do that I didn't suggest. Your chances of getting a job after 24 months having done absolutely nothing related to your career are much lower than if you do some things like I mentioned--even if you are only spending 10-15 hours or so a month on it.

I'm not downplaying how much work it takes to care for a child, but I don't think it is helpful to downplay the need to stay at least somewhat active in your field if you want to back to the workforce someday.

Look for large fortune 100 companies and if this is in tech you mostly can get to work remote

> So if I take time off to watch our child while my wife rebuilds her career, and maybe move to a different career myself, somehow I'm penalized? Pardon my language, but fuck that.

No offense but this reads as fairly entitled. Why would your value continue to rise as an employee if you take time out of your career? You will be competing against people who are bettering themselves without taking > 1 year breaks.

It’s not any employer’s responsibility to plan your life, you must do that yourself.

Your premise seems to be that people taking one-year breaks aren't doing something to sharpen the saw. I don't know about you, but I've added more to my skills during some times that I wasn't full-time employed doing study and personal projects than during some times that I was (and yes, that's a sign you should leave a position you're in, but this doesn't always happen immediately).

Very true. He doesn’t mention anything about personal projects or self-directed study though. Only that it’s unfair that leaving his career would be unattractive to future employers.

Because they are not. This is a competition with a set of rules, like it or not. If you think those rules are silly and arbitrary, then you can start a company that does not have those rules and hire people who do not want to follow them.

Would your company succeed because it does not have such silly rules? I have no idea.

It's really unfortunate to see how common it is to look down on people who spend their time differently. There are some tasks I wish to undertake that likely mean I would have to leave the office job experience for about a year.

Given how this may affect my future hire-ability, I doubt I will pursue it. I can't really afford to have my resume thrown in the trash because I felt something else was worth devoting my limited time to, even if only temporarily.

Dubious claim.

15 hr/week while unemployed working on your own app may be far more beneficial than 60 hr/week working on a trivial CRUD app.

He didn’t say anything about working on his own app. He said he was going to take care of his child. I’m not saying he won’t be doing that but it wasn’t in the OP.

You've got a PHD, your probably very specialized. This definitely closes alot of doors for you, but it's you closing the doors.

I don't envy the years I could look through the want ads and say to myself, I can do that, I can do that, I can do that. I prefer now, even though it's a bit a crap shoot whether someone is looking to fill a position with my skill set.