Ask HN: Burned out and almost financially independent. What to do next? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Burned out and almost financially independent. What to do next?

14 pointsdeanmoriarty15 comments

Hi

I am 34yo, have worked 10 years in high demanding tech/finance companies (both startups and large companies) as a software engineer. For the most part, I didn’t enjoy the corporate world. My last stint is particularly grueling, I work 70 hours a week in a fire dumpster and am severely burned out.

Reflecting more deeply on my experience, the root of all issues is that I didn’t like any of my bosses, and I’ve had several. The feeling of being owned, constantly pushed and pressured to deliver for irrelevant deadlines, and having to take orders is just something not in my nature. I think it might be some sort of inherited trait. My father, who has been a very small solo entrepreneur his entire life, used to say “I had opportunities in the corporate world that would have made me 10x more successful, but I wouldn’t trade my independence for anything else in the world“. Growing up it felt incredibly silly to hear that, and I remember making fun of him for the "lost" opportunities, now I get it.

I am trying to understand what I can do in life to insulate myself from people who can control me and make me feel miserable. Having always had this goal of independence in mind, through luck and aggressive savings I amassed $3M in liquid net worth (nearly all in index funds, no TSLA here), and my spending is low, at $40k a year (excluding employer-subsidized healthcare).

I just need to figure out what to do next. I feel I still have value to bring to this world, but, having been a corporate soldier my whole life, I have become so conditioned to being just a highly functioning cog in a big machine, that I have no idea what I could do. If I close my eyes and dream, I see myself having a solo online business (not consultancy though) that I can conduct while living a slow-travel lifestyle around the world, staying in one or two places a year. However, I cannot think of a single business idea that I could pursue on my own, my skills are heavily specialized in backend development/SRE, and again I severely lack ideas.

No plan on ever having kids or getting married, and my partner is supportive of any decision I take.

I can't tell you what to do next, but I can offer guidance on your next job hunt, if you decide that's what you want to do. Apply to medium-to-medium-large sized companies and ask on the initial screen interview if you'll be interviewed by the person you expect to report to. Don't continue the search at places where the interviewers are different than the manager.

Once you get this and make it through the HR and technical screens, make sure to let the prospective manager know your situation. Open up fully, tell them who you are and what you're looking for. Do this before the offer stage, and preferably before an onsite. Don't try to tactically approach it and don't go for any strategy other than being honest. Your hiring manager's reaction will instantly inform whether you're looking at the right team. If not, just bluntly ask if they know of any other teams at the company that seem like a good fit.

I think you will find this approach is less of a dice-roll. Whatever way you go, congratulations on your professional success and good luck on your next move.

>Apply to medium-to-medium-large sized

How would you define medium sized? How many employees and/or how much revenue? I'm asking because I feel like a lot of people have different ideas of what they consider "medium." I used to think it was 2000-5000 employees, but I've come to realize that's a large company.

Based on the 4% rule, you are financially independent already, and likely have been for some time. You are still very young, so you can take some time, years if necessary, to figure out what you want to do. Do some part time work if you need to keep busy.

I’d start by just taking a good 3-6 months off then reassess your options. You need some time to recover from burnout before diving into something new.

One response I haven't seen yet in this thread: invest in individual people.

Consider:

1. Investing in (pre-seed) startups, whose founders possess the potential to catalyze an exit from contemporary scientific-technological stagnation (c.f. https://rootsofprogress.org/technological-stagnation, https://applieddivinitystudies.com/1970/) *

2. Effective altruism with a long-termist/X-risk view; one possible mechanism involves micro-grants to individuals (e.g. https://www.climategrants.earth/)

*assuming you believe the stagnation thesis.

If he wants to broke, this is a good way to do it.

I don't tend to see this option talked about too much. If I were in your position, I'd probably look at reducing my hours down at my job. Give myself an extra 1-2 days away from work, use that to rest up a bit and start figuring out what you want next. Perhaps it's a move to your own gig, contracting, or a full career change. No matter what you end up doing going down to part time makes it a slower step. It gives you some time back while you evaulate options, but keeps you in a job which provides benefits and stable income.

> insulate myself from people who can control me and make me feel miserable.

I'd like to know the answer to this aswell. It just may not be possible, not without also insulating from all the good people in the world. My current strategy is to run the other way as fast as I can whenever I find one of these control freaks coming my way. And on the other hand, to glue myself to people that I do work well with. Anyway, solving this riddle is 80% of the "problem", the other 20% is the what/where/when, etc. (IMO.)

You are financially independent already. Quit: You will find it much easier to figure out what to do next in your life once you aren’t in the middle of a dumpster fire.

I think it’s ok to spend an unboxed amount of time doing stuff that energises you. You can decide what that is, art? volunteering at puppy rescue centres? Teaching on YouTube. Whatever. Do it and make it not too goal oriented. You want it to feel free and the opposite of the corporate oppression. In short: take an unbounded break, and trust you’ll find your next big thing to do in time.

You're in a position where you can comfortably take some time off and explore what to do next. Your spending + assets seem to me like you're comfortably financially independent even factoring in paying your own healthcare, not approaching it.

Go for it. Don't put pressure on yourself to start a business, just take some unstructured time off, experiment and see how you feel.

Jenny Odell -- how to do nothing: https://medium.com/@the_jennitaur/how-to-do-nothing-57e100f5...

Seems like entrepreneurship may be a good fit for You.

Try to grow plants.

How about grad school and an academic career?

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