Hacker News Reader

Comment by hodder | Hacker News Reader

This is difficult in most high income industries sadly, as an extended vacation/mini retirement is considered a death sentence to your career even if the reality is your skills do not become stale.

View on HN

I did it three times, in 2007, 2010, and 2012. Each of these were 8-10 months. The key is that you can't spend your time on the couch. You need to have a story. Live in a foreign country. Write a book, even if it doesn't get published. Spend some time working on an open source library that you've always wanted to help out. Walk the Appalachian Trail. Ideally, you're spending 5-10 hours each week (after an initial decompression) keeping up with the industry and keeping your programming skills fresh.

When you start, make sure to write down all of your stories and accomplishments so that you can come back and interview like you never left.

And have twice as much money in reserve as you think you need, because your job search after the fact will take a little longer. However, you will find a job again.

This, as long as it led to something genuinely interesting/useful and/or relevant to the work, and you can demonstrate it somehow, no one serious is going to perceive it negatively after some questions and answers.

Is it a death sentence or do the higher ups just want you to think that? If many people start doing it, the people hiring will just have to accept it. When I was a kid, they said people shouldn't get tattoos because you'll never get a real job. Now everyone has tattoos, even people with real jobs.

> When I was a kid, they said people shouldn't get tattoos because you'll never get a real job

I'm from such upbringing and then after exiting the study and full time job marathon in mid 30s, I realized that everyone have tattoos including doctors and policemen. Nowadays the first thing kids want when reaching age 17 is tattoo. Some major cultural shift happened when I was stuck in libraries and offices. Now after few years and with gaps in CV I'm the unemployable.

So, what tattoo are you getting?

Thinking about becoming a tattooless villain.

I think most people consider the "social" impact rather than anything else. Other commentors basically boil it down to "if you can explain it as a useful endevour" it's fine.

I have not found that to be true; twice now I have taken a year off, done something completely different, then gone back to my career (software engineering).

Mid 40s and considering a year sabbatical to focus on some skill upgrades. I can afford the time off but am very hesitant to do it for fear of having a hard time getting back into a similarly high level role even with a skill refresh in hand.

For what it's worth, I took a year-long sabbatical in my 50s and did not suffer any noticeable ill effects to my career on my return. Your mileage may vary, of course.

A year is barely noticeable, especially if you can fill the empty space with some learning projects.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com