Has anyone found a good semi-retired lifestyle after working a decade-plus in Big Tech and accumulating sufficient assets that earning high TC is no longer a top priority? If so, what do you do? How did you find your current opportunity? How much TC? How many hours per week? How much autonomy do you have? Are your skills being well-utilized or do you feel like you're just doing grunt work?
No semi retired, but currently in “relax/recovery mode” after burn out many times, working as a contractor, no on-call, no performance reviews, no 1:1 bullshit, no context switching, no working weekends. Planning to go back to big corp bullshit next year just to increase savings / investments. First year of my working life not working in the weekends.
I don’t have any answers, but I’m currently pursuing this route myself. The three things I’m trying to optimize for are WLB, health care, and minimal time in an office. I have young kids so I’m tethered to home during the school year for another 15-20 years. I’m considering teaching to get summers off, pension, and health care. Consulting to control hours, but then I have the overhead of managing my benefits and inconsistent income Mostly passive recurring income from a turnkey business or real estate.
A Friend of mine, who was a VP became Engineer reporting to first line manager after he decided to semi retire This was 10y ago and he is still working Takes no stocks in rewards but negotiated for 2 months off every year
I went to a startup with people I knew and liked. They were able to give me a decent TC and it's fully remote. This allowed me to relocate to a MCOL area and relax a bit.
What is "decent TC"?
300k cash + paper options.
Work in the IT department of a non-tech company.
My spouse is working a DoD contract job to maintain health insurance. He works a 4x10 remote schedule, zero stress, $150K, no backstabbing coworkers. The benefits are excellent and we don't have to touch retirement accounts - we have more than double what we need for retirement.
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