
Ask HN: Quitting a well paid job - throwaway8383
I currently make around $300k/year in a software dev job that is unfortunately soul crushingly boring and bureaucratic.<p>I'd love to leave and have a go at a startup or possibly move into freelancing, but I keep putting it off almost solely because of the money.<p>How do you guys who have made the jump make the decision to leave a situation like this?<p>Within 1 or 2 years I could be very well set up for life, but at the same time, you're a long time dead and I don't want to wish away years waiting to get back to something I'm passionate about.<p>I'm asking here because I'm sure a lot of talented entrepreneurs etc have the high opportunity cost of leaving full time employment.
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kls
_Within 1 or 2 years I could be very well set up for life_

As a guy that walked from a similar situation (next in line for CTO of a
fortune 100). I would say stick out the two years. While the market is
exciting right now, and yes my life has been exciting since I walked, there
are times where I could have used that money. If you are two years out I would
grin and bear it for that time, it will put you in a far better position when
the time comes to pursue your own thing. HN and other sites can be a filtered
bubble where only the success get's echoed. But the overwhelming odds are that
any venture you embark on will fail. Failing is a lot easier if you have a
bank account to fall back on. If I had it to do over, I would have built up my
cushion a few years and then embarked on my own.

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mark_l_watson
+1 for giving him very good advice. If it were 10 years to economic
independence, the advice would be different, but two years is worth it. My
wife and I stuck out corporate jobs just long enough to have very long term
financial security (with a modest lifestyle) and the flexibility of being able
to do (mostly) just what you want is well worth it.

Working a few extra years to get a 1/2 million dollar sports car: NOT worth
it!

Working a few extra years to get flexibility and independence: worth it!

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RollAHardSix
Stick with it. 300k a year is obscene. Cut your living expenses; for instance
I am paid a fantastic amount of $21k-$22k, it hurts but I am able to pay my
mortgage, bills, put food on the table(and still eat fast food), add to my 2
savings accounts, internet/netflix, daughters college savings, and put her
into a local private school; simply by living frugally. The good thing is I'm
comfortable in my living conditions, I've found that 'balance' and so any pay
increases from here on out will be adding to my financial situation not adding
to my bills.

I sucked away over a year of my life doing sales; it was soul-crushing but it
gave me a very strong business-sense; I gave the Marine Corps 6 years of my
life, _that_ was soul-destroying but I came out a better leader. You have to
make sacrifices to put you where you want to be. And a year, two, three, four
isn't really that long; it's much better than being hungry.

tldr; Work the 300k job, live frugally/save, take what traits you can from the
job, working on creative jobs can wait.

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GoldenMonkey
Did it, launched product that crashed and burned. Crawled back to corporate
job. Doing startup part-time now... another 3 years before I can launch full-
time again. Lessons learned: more $ for more runway. test product viability
before dropping job. It will always take longer than you think: have a plan B.
Do it part-time if you can, to test viability.

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Ankur84
Do you have a specific startup idea? If you do, you could use some of the
money you earn and something like elance.com / crowdspring.com to get a
Minimal Viable Product up and running. Then you can start testing it out,
while still keeping your job. If things are working out, take the plunge, if
not, you won't go broke.

If you don't have a specific idea, you could go to hacker meetups, colleges
and find groups of people with an idea and a team and join them. Offering to
do some work and pay for food, servers etc. - I could sure use someone like
that right now ;)

Finally if you already have 4-6 years of a similar role under your belt then
you can probably move back into a similar role anytime you wish. But if not,
you probably need the years on your resume in case you want back in.

Moral of the story - it's not a binary decision, you can be doing both at the
same time.

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cjbprime
I'd probably wait it out for another 12 months. You can use your bored time to
make more concrete startup plans; it sounds like you don't have a startup
planned out that you're desperate to attempt. There is no reason why you can't
plan what you want to do for a startup while you're still employed.

Having the money will presumably give you significantly more opportunities
after you _do_ quit than if you do it while having to worry about how to make
money, so it's not like sticking it out is damaging your future startup or
freelancing -- it's probably helping it.

Actually, I'll make a rephrasing: I'd wait for around 12 months _or_ until I
wake up one morning with a startup idea that I can't imagine _not_ trying out,
planned in a significant amount of detail. Whichever comes first.

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jsmartonly
IMHO

1) Time to jump

As long as you ask question "when should I do it", you are not ready. From my
own experience,when you feel it, you know it is right time. That "feel" is a
natural conclusion of a lot thinking, researching, preparing and prototyping.
It is like you need to eat when you are hungry -- you will not ask "when
should I eat"

2) Freelancing

Start something takes a lot of time and effort. Freelancing may take your time
and energy away. I did that trying to start something on the side, which I
considered a mistake.

BTW, are you hands on developer, or development manager? $300k for developer
sounds high to me -- maybe you are super-star developer...

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joelmaat
If you are that close, then wait. If the job is that boring and slow (since
you said bureaucratic), then you should be able to automate it all away, and
spend some time at home thinking about your future. You could make significant
progress with the design of your product, culture, and entry strategy while
securing your financial future. When you have your product ready to go and
market tested (shh...), then jump. Maybe start paying some people on the side
to help get things set up for you!

Good luck.

(..sounds like you work at Google, eh?)

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mirsadm
Both myself and my co-founder left well paying (not as well as yours though!
:)) jobs to create our startup. It was definitely worth it and we plan on
doing this as long as possible.

I love programming and always have. I realised I needed to leave my job after
I started considering changing careers. The place was completely soul
crushing. I've been doing it for almost 6 months now and the funny thing is I
could go back to my old job any time if I wanted to. I have no intention of
doing that though.

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steventruong
_Within 1 or 2 years I could be very well set up for life_

Don't bet on this. If it happens, GREAT! If it doesn't, at least you won't be
crushed. Success doesn't always happen the first time around. Sometimes it
takes multiple plays before the jackpot lands.

But putting all of this aside, don't do it for money. Money is an important
factor but as others have echoed on here, do it because doing what you
enjoy/love outweighs what you make. Money is icing on the cake.

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bicknergseng
It's been made hard for you because you're making so much money. It's an easy
call for me because I don't make nearly as much as you... the whole "tax
breaks for job investors" arguments.

If you're unhappy, confident in yourself, and have enough money to be
financially secure in the short term, quit. Sometimes all you need is a little
incentive to do something extraordinary.

Also, if you're looking for a job in a few months, send me an email.

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mapster
Have you tried or considered launching your business until you have customers
and are back in black, then make the transition? also - leave as many doors
open as possible. Much success!

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rms
Agreed with kls. I no longer believe that "having a go at a startup" is worth
it. Quit when you're ready to have a go at changing the world.

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eddie_the_head
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1225179>

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bicknergseng
Also, where are you making 300k a year as a "software dev" that you're bored?
That's like lead scientist status.

~~~
rms
Google or Facebook?

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gamechangr
Describe your current job.....it may help give a better understanding for
advice

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sofarsogood
the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence

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paulhauggis
"How do you guys who have made the jump make the decision to leave a situation
like this?"

For me it was easy. It's about the freedom, not the money. I would rather make
60K working for myself than 300K working for someone else.

I hate having to ask someone (like when I was a kid) to have a day off or go
on a vacation. When I finally made the switch 3 years ago, my life changed for
the better. I love waking up every day and working on my own projects.

If you have a family and no savings, it's a different story.

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biopharma_guy
If you are making $300k/yr then I can say you are providing some real value to
the company otherwise it wouldn't pay that obscene amount of money to an
employee. I will take cjbprime's suggestions. 1\. Do you have a specific plan
carved out what to do once you leave your job? If not then take some time to
plan while in the job and see if you can start something in your niche
expertise. Find out that if you have sufficient networking in place to hire
few good people from your industry. 2\. Have you found any pain point to
solve? And how and where to attack? If not, then you can spend next 6 months
to do and even if your 8 hr job is soul sucking you still have 16 hrs of your
life to make something challenging and fun.

I'm not that experienced but that's what I would do.

