Hacker News Reader

Comment by mprovost | Hacker News Reader

The takeaway here is to leave before you're frustrated. While things are still good. That is when you are in the best position and frame of mind to make a change. Because you can walk away from any offer that isn't better. If you wait until things are terrible then yes you can feel trapped in a bad situation because you have to pay the bills.

View on HN

The tricky part, as it was for me, was when things change. Things can be great somewhere, and then something at very high levels cause trickledown, and before you know it, minor problems turn into complete institutional dysfunction. It's like the butterfly effect, but with organizational dysfunction.

Add your spouse having other constraints, and it becomes a mess to navigate sometimes.

sure sure, but given the (potential) downsides of choosing wrong, what would be the trigger or reason for leaving IF things are still good?

Or are you saying if you see signs of things going downhill but things are currently good?

Compare it to investing. Do you wait for the stock to go down and then sell, or do you sell when it's high and take your profit elsewhere? Even if you invest it in something that then goes down, you still made your profit. If you move before things get bad, you'll always be able to look back at your time at the company with happiness. No burnt bridges, no bitterness. Sure it's a risk to move somewhere else, but in this other world where you wait for things to get bad before moving then 100% of the time you're signing up for some period where your (work) life sucks.

What is the indexed linked mutual fund of this analogy? Perhaps focusing on a specific technology or skillset such that you can be a contractor providing services to a range of other companies without having a commited relationship with any of them? (The index being your choice of technology / skills)

The index fund is the safe, big multinational corp that will never make you rich but probably never lay you off, just shuffle you around between orgs and pay for your retraining.

I actually think a competent engineer making $100k plus can become rich, maybe not filthy rich. If said engineer were to max out roth/401k for 30 years, they would most likely retire with few million dollars.

As an engineer you also might decide to join a SV based company and make $200k+ or you can become self-employed and deposit $56k into your 401k.

In reality anyone making $100k+ plus and living in M-LCOL area can become quite rich when comparing to other places in the world. That is if you are not buying/leasing new cars all the time and living humbly.

Sure, that's "rich" in the same sense as someone who enjoyed years of returns on a passive index fund imo. Very rich relative to most of the world, not fabulously wealthy like the few driven and lucky startup lottery winners.

Employment is fundamentally different from investing, because while all dollars are interchangeable and easily reallocated, almost nothing about a person is.

As the job interview adage goes, you're interviewing them just as much as they're interviewing you. If you're dabbling in the market to see what's available while things are good, you don't have as much pressure to accept subpar offers and you have leverage to negotiate better offers.

It's the same as setting up wish lists and checking on them periodically. You're much more likely to get a good deal if you keep tabs on the thing you want over a long period of time than just hoping you get a deal the moment you have the impulse to buy the thing.

More money. More impressive title. Wanting to relocate. Downsizing. Learn new tech stacks/skills not available at your current job. Scoping out a new industry to prepare for launching a business.

If I did this I'd be finding a new job every 3-6 months.

Over time I've realized that I'm not going to be happy in any 9-5 position, so I might as well save as much money as I can until I can afford to do something else.

Do you mean early retirement or starting your own business?

I'm leaving it purposely ambiguous because I don't want to put any expectations on myself. If I end up starting a business then that's great but I'm also ok with the idea of living a completely unproductive lifestyle.

My only requirement is that I do what I feel like doing!

It's interesting how 9-5PM M-F now seems unreasonable in our industry. What a time to be alive.

There's lots of talk of 4-day work weeks or starting a business. Or like you say -- to just exit out completely.

(I should clarify I'm in favor of cutting down hours or starting your own thing.)

Out of curiosity would you be in favor of someone living an unproductive lifestyle? If not, why?

I'm also super curious by what you mean by unproductive. My answer will depend on our definition of it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com