
Ask HN: Quitting without anything lined up? - jhatemyjob
Graduated college in 2018 and got a job at a startup immediately after graduating. After about a week I realized I hated it. Weird company culture, bad micromanager, disgusting codebase, no WFH. It&#x27;s not terrible but there are certainly better jobs out there. I decided to stay; the pay is decent and I had a lot to learn (about being professional, office politics, marketing, knowing when you have PMF, sales, branding, stock options, <i></i>NOT<i></i> engineering). Just for a year though. Then I was gonna switch to another, better job.<p>What I didn&#x27;t anticipate was being incredibly burnt out. I want to quit and not work for a while. Issue is I heard that&#x27;s &quot;bad&quot; around the Internet.<p>Here&#x27;s what I have going for me:<p>* I can live with my parents at any time for as long as I want no questions asked.<p>* About 10 months in I started getting regular pings (2x per week) via email&#x2F;LinkedIn from recruiters for various other jobs, varying from startups to Uber&#x2F;Facebook&#x2F;Google.<p>* I have been shipping production-quality software since 2007. Based on my experience at this startup I believe I have the equivalent of 8 YoE but that&#x27;s hard to put on paper.<p>* I have friends at various other companies that could refer me.<p>Basically my career goal is to bootstrap a SaaS company and either turn it into a lifestyle business or get acquired for like $1-5M. The job market is a backup plan for me. I&#x27;ve had 2 engineering jobs at this point and I fucking hated both of them.<p>Will this recruiter outreach stop once I quit? I&#x27;m also kinda worried about closing the door to Google&#x2F;Facebook&#x2F;Uber but honestly I&#x27;d rather work somewhere that let me work part time remote so I could focus on my own stuff. Working on other people&#x27;s code blows and I&#x27;d prefer to do as little of that as I possibly can.
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WheelsAtLarge
Best advice, bite the bullet,stay and make sure you have a job before you
quit. While it might be easy to find a job once you quit there's a big
possibility that you can fall into a situation where it's easy to not get a
job for a long time or you can't get a new one. If you hate the job you have
then use that as motivation to get a better job. Also make sure you are really
in the career that you like. What you describe in your job is not out of the
ordinary when it comes to having a programming job. Work is work that's why
they pay you instead of you paying or you doing it for free.

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1k
This is an easy one - go for it! With your age, experience and accessibility
to support from friends and family I think the upside far outweighs the
downside.

You haven’t mentioned any financial commitments (loans, dependants, filial
support, etc) so presumably you have none.

You will probably regret not going for it more than sticking with something
you hate.

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jhatemyjob
Yeah I'm definitely gonna quit. Just kinda scared of closing doors by not
having something lined up before I quit. But maybe I'm just being paranoid

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nartz
Nah, just start interviewing, and spend more time getting offers to find a
company you might actually like.

Avoid starting something until you see what doing it correctly looks like.

You can always start your thing on the side, and transition when it becomes
more than a side project. Plus, it is 100% easier to do while you have a
salary.

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techjuice
The doors are always open for great talent, modern skills in demand and
professional experienced engineers.

If you want to go on your own path that is fine and normally the best path if
you want to have more control over your time and freedom for the short and
long term.

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jhatemyjob
Yep control over time and freedom is my goal. Thank you for the encouragement.

