I am around 30 and feel burnt out from my tech career. I do not feel any interest or happiness towards building things right now. I chose this career mostly due to monetary reasons and pursued undergrad and graduate degrees in CS in Europe. After which, I worked as a product manager for a while in the networking/telco sector in internal enterprise systems.
I am really at a loss for what to do now or how to spend time. I was always interested in doing my own thing, but would not call myself a good engineer or as having deep skills in a particular domain. I am more of a jack of all trades.
I dread just getting the next job and continuing the corporate grind, but I really worry about what to do in the near future career-wise. If you were in my position, what would you do with the time?
I can tell if I'm sleep deprived when walking up stairs. If I'm sleep deprived it just feels hard. And if I'm not sleep deprived I actually have a little spring in my step up the stairs.
There's a good video by levelsio and how he comes up with ideas for things he wants to work on.
I only have one month of runway and I'm working nights and weekends to build my first product now. So you are in a good position if you have that much runway!
Then 1. Find a mentor 2. Talk to other fellow engineers hear their opinion
make a plan;
1. maybe Grind into big tech 2. maybe move to u.s. to be around with many like minded people 3. More
But first thing have clear calm mind to make decision
I saw similar cases during the dot com boom and then bust. My opinion is that people that don't have an intrinsic interest in their work won't last a career length in it. Do you think some of the burnout is that you aren't really pulled into the work by interest and its just a slog/grind?
> I dread just getting the next job and continuing the corporate grind
Find something that interests you. I don't mean find your "passion" because if your passion is watching snails climb on logs its probably not going to pay well. Given what you read online about the job market, if you start looking now you might find something in 6 months so if you wait 6 months then expect to be out of work for a year.
I think the advice here is the reverse of someone trying to break into tech: find an industry that interests you, get a tech/software job there and then learn that industry and break out of the tech role into more industry specific roles at that place.
Some ideas that I explored were working for a church or non profit, starting an interior design firm with my wife (she’s a designer), advising startups, etc.
2 years later, I’m advising a couple start ups, on the board of two non profits, and back in tech.
I’m not thrilled about being back in tech. But the other ways I’m spending my time help provide me balance.
For understanding our place on Earth: https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/
Personally, before doing anything else, I would take at least 3-4 weeks and have a proper break. It will take you at least 1-2 weeks to get out of “work mode”.
Stop thinking about work, ideas, the next thing, etc. Get off social media, HN, Reddit etc. Try and distance yourself from all of the things that may have contributed to the burnout in the first place.
I’d probably do some travel in that time - maybe a week or two going to a country I haven’t been to before.
Once I was back, I’d then start to consider my next move with (hopefully) a fresher and clearer mindset.
I would say - figure out how you wanna earn money / make money. Just focus on that for now. If that means looking at your career and it's long term goals and how to keep it sustainable, do it. You might arrive at decisions like - you need to do something you like. You can give it a shot. I know many people who say that a job is just to pay the bills. But I also know that to be sustainable, it's important to have good jobs (good roles, good experience) which can compound later for you to get a better job - like, better role, better pay, and makes a good career which is worthy of promotions etc. So, yeah, look at short term to start with, but at some point you need to start looking at long term too - how to make money - startup, or work for others, and how to do it sustainably. Starting up is surely hard though, compared to working for others who take care of selling for you, which is a hard job
After that I’d figure out what you’d actually like to do, and use this opportunity to become good at it. 2 years is enough time to retrain in a good amount of careers, if you don’t waste your time.
For me, I'm going to spend the next 6 months focusing on:
- Fitness and Eating right
- Baking bread
- Learning Spanish with my partner
- Travelling
- After 1 month, I'll pick up coding again - but for now my brain needs a big break. I have a few parked projects I want to revisit without the slot machine genies help
Just have a break from tech. It will still be here when you get back, look after yourself first. Just have the confidence that you will bounce back when you are ready. Thats what I'm telling myself.
If it doesn't work out, there are other careers, more to the world than computers
Source: been there at 25. Still am there 11 years later, but life is good now.
Then repeat. Day 2.
Longer term: Focus on sleep and personal life for 3 months! Enterprise is soul-draining. Pursue your curiosity.
Travel cheap countries.
Make (more) kids.
Woodworking is always here. As is local politics. But you said you're not up to building something.
The answers will come. Once you've had some time to process you'll know what to do. Don't overthink it. Just take some time to relax.
I've had a few of these breaks in my life. It's time to take stock and move on. Sometimes retrain or learn something new. But ultimately breaks are good. Just don't force the change. It will come. Slow and steady wins the race.