Did anyone leave tech to a completely different industry say music, arts, travel, agriculture, community service, food, etc? I know the pay is great here for the work but I started to get bored of 9-5 job, my colleagues, the whole concept of working in tech( for that matter office life) feels too systematic without challenges. I'm a 25yr Indian and a h1b visa holder with an approved i140. I'm in the job for money to travel to places and I feel that it is time to leave this and return to India and work on my interests seriously. I'm not greatly talented in my other passions like screen-writing, cooking, photography, music but want to consider trying them without too many plans like getting degrees in them. I would consider myself hard-working on things I like. Is it too much leaving a somewhat stable but boring life for an exciting and unstable one? Did anyone take such risks? Share your experience if you did!
Go back home and follow your dream. Clearly your passion is something other than tech. Rather give it a try than regret later in your life
Yes!
Did you think this comment’d be funny???
Engineering in the tech industry is always challenging, especially in products that require rapid scaling. If you find yourself bored, I would consider switching team/company or even position and work in a faster environment or more critical team, instead of completely giving up what you have got in the last few years. You can always found your own company if you still feel less challenging
I switched 3 companies in 3 years. One was a start-up, a mid-size one, and Cisco. It's more energetic at start-ups and fast paced but the ultimate goal at every place was writing code, 'finishing tasks', interacting with teams, providing results. All of this is not really interesting to me or even passionate about tech industry to start my own company. But, thanks for the suggestion.
What do you feel your passion is?
I would say base your decision making on what you want to do rather than what you do not want to do. So while you're still working, figure a few different options you want to explore and have some thing lined up before you quit your current job.
Even it is probably irrelevant, but you know the rule of blind.
Hey! I left the artist life to become a dev, so I’ll offer that perspective. I was a professional guitar instructor for 6 years, I attended community college and grabbed a degree in Music Theory, I played gigs on the weekend, in addition to music I also did wood burning, sketching, drawing, graffiti, typography, stenciling and a little dancing lol. As a professional guitar instructor I was paid 44/hr, but it was hard to get students, at most I had about 20. Why did I make the switch? Well, I lived in Idaho and my girl lived 1400miles away in Arizona. I wanted to ask her to marry me, but there was no way in literal hell her parents would approve because my income was inconsistent, at best. I don’t fault them for being apprehensive, I understand and respect that. So, I needed to rebrand myself at 22years old when all I had ever done was art. I saw a ad for a dev boot camp and convinced myself my experience in music would help me be good at it (NOT TRUE. Lol). But, hard work and dedication landed me a nice job and I was able to ask my girl to marry me, confident that I could provide for her. Do I regret leaving the arts as a means of making a living? No. Not at all. I still paint, draw, sing, write, but there is no pressure to make money via my art. My advice would be to continue your day job and either A. Save up until you have a fat savings to sustain you as you embark on your artistic venture, B. Keep your day job and moonlight your passions (moonlight is the concept of working on your passions at night or in the morning, slowly growing them AS you maintain a steady job) or C. Go Freelance/Fully Remote Full/Part time to give yourself more time to explore these other avenues, while sustaining your financial stability. If you want to chat more, hit me up in the dms. Blessings.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Do you not feel like giving your everything(time and effort) in arts that you actually love? A- takes a while to build up that amount of savings. I feel that I have lived half my life with all the 'habits' I have. B- yes, I did that till now but not consistent enough. C- can't do part-time or freelance as I'm a h1b visa holder.
Of course! I hope it can be of some benefit to you. Well, yes and no. This is how I weighed my passions vs. employment and found what works for me. Firstly, I want my effort and investment where I work to be compensated well. I don’t need, TC 250k, but I don’t want to live in constant financial stress. (This is even more true when you have a wife and kids. Financial strain leads to the vast majority of divorces.) Secondly, as much as I love creating art, I am more than an artist and I am more than a coder. The question isn’t “Be an artist or be a techy.” The two aren’t mutually exclusive. Now I am able to play gigs on the weekends, while not feeling devalued and disappointed when I only make $150 from a show. Third, my day job affords me to invest in my art, furthering what I can produce. When I was a starving artist I couldn’t go out and buy a new guitar, or a effect pedal, or nice spray paint. Because of this I used sub par paint I could afford and the quality took a hit. For music it was the same. So now I work in an industry that empowers my creativity. Fourth, we were made to work. If you leave tech your ventures will still be work. The question is whether you want to work smarter vs harder. Do I love coding every day? Not really, but is it better than being a prep cook. 100000000%. I never feel discouraged by my job because I understand it is what it is. No matter where I work I will feel the same way because work is work. When I was a guitar instructor I found myself getting burnt out from playing guitar. Fifth, when your hobby becomes your profession you lose creative control. When I was a gigging musician I couldn’t play the music I wanted to, I had to play music people would tip for. SPOILER ALERT: Let me tell you it sucks the life out of you to play Sweet Home Alabama, Wonderwall and I’m Yours every gig. Because I am not dependent on people tipping me so I can eat, I can play what I want and the art is enjoyable to me.
Lots of famous people who achieved great things did so when they changed the course of life completely. The knowledge and experience in one field translates nicely and as a strong advantage when you turn into a different field. I know at least two Msft engineers who left to become a professional poker player, soccer player. There are many who go for their dreams (probably not many in Blind).
Left msft to become a pro soccer player?
The Sounders play pretty well and I believe Msft has ownership of the soccer team too
Not everyone is Steve Jobs. Draw a line between your hobbies and what you do for work - and there’s interesting tech out there just need to be in the right team at the right time
Haha! If you mean to say what Steve Jobs is in tech, yes, I'm nobody in any of my interests. I'm not interested in tech and want to know if anybody moved/had thoughts or experiences. Please, read my post again if you want to make an insightful comment.
Try business consulting. It can be exciting or it can suck but it will be different.
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K. Another reason of thinking about leaving is the 'awesome' sense of humor techies like you have at workplace.
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