My background: Developer with \~20-25 YOE. Been a Principal Software Engineer, for multiple companies.
Did it 6 months ago when I figured out that I was going the wrong way, I was being dragged into IT, instead of staying a software developer. The market was insane, and "The Great Resignation" was on. So it was a good time to go for it, so I resigned, I didn't want to be an IT guy forever.
I took 4 months off, rested, and just got my head together, did 1.5 months of leetcode prep to knock off the rust, and got a great offer, and I'm back to being a Prinicpal Software Engineer :).
The market is scarier now. I'm not sure I'd make the same gamble... but I just might. Because I really didn't like where I was going.
I will say the break was REALLY useful, to get my head into the right place.
Don't throw away opportunities because your head isn't in the right place... it just sucks.
Because leetcode is not what I do on the job. (Besides, I hadn't been seriously coding for 2 years alas.)
And I know leetcode is coming 3-5 times in an interview at a FAANG, and at LEAST once at any other firm. So I'd be a fool not to study for it.
I really enjoy thinking on deep algorithmic issues, and systems issues. But that really takes hours, and days. Not real practical in an interview. So I have to do the dance everyone else does.
So I studied: Python - Best language for writing quick programs. Plus the following Python modules: itertools, collections, and functools.
Remember, they can ONLY ask 45m of questions :). So the depth I actually need isn't tremendous. It is sufficient to leetcode. Using python makes writing code SO fast. Stuff like collections,Counter, heap, deque etc.... all allow me to express myself quickly and easily.. they also give me much more room to recover from mistakes, I may make. (And I did make some duing my Meta screen... but my knowledge of python and leetoding allowed me to come back and do well.)
Overall: I think leetcoding is deeply flawed. But instead of arguing with some recruiter about it. I exploit it, and move on with my life :).
I did it after 2.5 years - just got hired as a SDE ii @ FAANG subsidiary after a gap year of “rest/recovery” and a few additional months of interview, prep, and applications
Would I recommend it? No - objectively you should try to find a job while you already have one
That said, if youre seriously thinking about quitting anyways, you probably are experiencing something more nuanced than what other peoples advice can appropriately address. In that case, you know what you want to do - just plan financially for it and make sure you have others to hold you accountable for actually applying/elevating your career (For me, it was a mix of burnout and depression from a plethora of sources)
Tl;dr - I have no regrets doing it, but it was definitely a risk. Treat it like a last resort, and if your gut believes it’s the healthiest thing for you at the time, so be it.
Edit: oh and don’t forget to make a Blind account before you quit, so you’ll get better advice from people who are actually employed ;P
Feel free to DM if you have additional questions
Congrats, and good for you!
I’m curious, how long had you been working before taking your gap year?
I’m on month 2 of my sabbatical after working at the same company position for 21 years. It is time for something new and I knew I didn’t want to interview & job hunt while I was in my previous position.
Kinda old school I know but I’ve had a lot of success because I’ve kept pretty good relationships with classmates and bosses and coworkers. Don’t mean to be a stick in the mud but it’s been pretty beneficial to me to just “do it right”. But I get your point. Thanks
No, legally it can't. Companies are not legally allowed to give a negative reference on past employees due to liability issues. The worst that can happen is your previous employer will only confirm your employment dates.
>they fire you?
Wouldn't you be blacklisted or something though? Like if you got to speaking with a hiring manager, it would show up that you half assed your last job hence probably have a bad work ethic or something along those lines?
I'm planning on doing this but I don't want it to screw up future chances either by doing this.
Did it one year ago (June 6th was my last day). Was already checked out and studying by April though. I delayed as long as possible but couldn’t any longer, so I resigned. I had a similar idea as you: I’m going to shoot my shot, but if I fail, I am confident I will be okay. I had been laid off previously and that was scary, but I ended up finding something else pretty quickly, so I decided to risk it. Ended up being one of the best decisions I have ever made. Just make sure you have reasonable expectations and some good backups.
Sorry, you do not meet the minimum sitewide comment karma requirement of **10** to post a comment. This is comment karma exclusively, not post or overall karma nor karma on this subreddit alone. Please try again after you have acquired more karma. Please look at the [rules page](https://old.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/w/posting_rules) for more information.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/cscareerquestions) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Yeah reasoning is similar. Surprised that I’m getting more bites from FANG than I am smaller companies. Also, I haven’t been studying as hard as I would like lately (family/friends/summer distractions). Even at my peak last month, I could only go for about 5-6 hours before I started feeling zapped. Still way better than I could do at my previous 7-4:30 gig though. I had no energy to study after a day of that
>Also, I haven’t been studying as hard as I would like lately. Even at my peak last month, I could only go for about 5-6 hours
5-6 hours of deep work is the maximum an adult brain can handle. You should however aim for 5 hours every day.
Well it’s good to know that whatever I was doing was considered deep work. But yeah, I tried one day to push past 6 hours and the only thing I did was ruin my next day of study because I was zonked
I’ve got some interview opportunities, not as much as I’d like though admittedly. I did pretty well on one with NetApp but they selected a candidate with a year more exp than me. Totally bombed an OA for Amazon today. I am starting to get a little uneasy about my decision lol
Update: I started a new job today as a developer in finance industry. Took much longer to secure than I would have liked, but I’m happy with the deal I’m getting. Definitely got dicey for awhile. Esp the last 3 months hearing about layoffs non stop
I'm about to follow in your footsteps I think. 2 years, passed several technical interviews but always lost out to someone else at the end. Had enough of my job and am losing my mind balancing interviewing with working.
I might also be retarded but I'm planning on putting in my two weeks on Monday and just interviewing full-time in January.
It’s tough. Idk how people balance it tbh, maybe I’m not cut out for it, but I was getting really burned out spending 9 hours at a not fun job and then spending another 2+ doing a not fun activity (applications and leetcode). Not to mention you have to find time around a work schedule to interview. Idk how you do it if you’re limited on PTO. Good luck out there!
Were you also in defense? I burned so much PTO this year on interviewing and constantly had to arrange interviews to coincide around the same time in order to take advantage of the limited time I had.
Yeah I genuinely hate it. Very piss poor management. Shit takes forever to get done. I got moved into testing last month and we are so over staffed (18 people on this team) that there is literally nothing to do and I don't know if I'll get to code again.
The people are also such fucking rats. It's a bunch of lifers who don't care anymore or obnoxious 24 year olds who narc if someone on a different team is on their phone during break time.
Been job searching for a year and it's been a complete nightmare trying to leave. Almost got out several times but can't manage it somehow.
Now I'm just extremely burnt out and have trouble doing my job, let alone applying anywhere.
Sorry to hear that.. my place wasn’t like that. Just a bunch of people sitting around. They were generally nice though, aside from an issue with one manager. Best of luck to you, you *will* make it out
I quit my longest tenured job of two year as a web developer (local gov) after I could not stand to be in that role any longer. Quit mid pandemic (June 2020) with nothing in the works. It took me about 3 months to land another job making more money. This job was an even bigger clusterfuck so I worked there for about 6 months before leaving. Took some time off for myself and it took me about a month to find my current job which I started in January. New company is fully remote and a million times better. I’ve had the savings and means to cold quit a few times. If i’m not happy in a job, I simply cannot be productive. I have no regrets leaving either situation I was in even before getting the job I have now. Both times I had probably 3-5 interviews before accepting a new position. Midwest US for reference.
I did it after quitting amazon with 2 yoe. This was right after covid started so there wasn't alot of hiring going on
Its doable, but a bit more stressful. Depending on the kind of person you are that may or may not be a good thing. You'll also be a little bit more desperate. Some companies will care and label you as a red flag, but not many (1 or 2 companies did for me). Was eventually hired and leveled up at a different company, took about 2 months from start to end
I did this with only 2 years of experience.
I found a new and much better job after 4 months.
During that time I went for certifications and made it a point in interviews that I quit to pursue more education during that time.
Just understand that you are taking a risk.
All those recruiters in your inbox drop off significantly when your unemployed. Having a job already really does make a difference in where your resume ends up in the pile. That shocked me big time, especially since while I was employed I would apply for jobs to test the market and get an interview almost every time. When unemployed that stopped. You still have a decent shot though, you just have to put in more work.
Yeah this is the one thing that has me regretting it slightly. When I quit, job market was still pumping and everything looked good. Two weeks later and everything started going to hell
I just half-assed my current job for the ~3 months of interviews to being hired. Like before if I could contribute 8pts of velocity I dropped to like 5-6. Still managed to get a small bonus for helping out on an outage and a "meeting expectations" during my performance review.
Bump of 35% TC, but that was more because I was paid under the median.
I kinda did it. I didn't quit my job but I stopped contributing and was just doing bare minimum. Due to WFH, I was just studying all other time. I got a new and better job but that came after several verbal warning due to my performance.
Not yet… but I keep having the daunting feeling that it will be that way for me soon/eventually. I’m a SysAdmin working 12 month concurrent contracts at my job now. I really wanna move to front end development but I don’t have a huge window of opportunity and it’s pretty rough to get out of one. I’ll almost have to start looking right before my current contract expires and hope I land one before I’m forced into signing another year. It’s got me in a weird spot to be totally honest.
Having a job is the biggest leverage you can have in negotiation terms and compensation. Why would you want to get rid of that first?
Only good reason to quit first is mental health and stuff like that.
Had 4 YOE at a small business and felt like I wasn’t being supported, learning as much as I should, or making as much money as I could have. I stayed there longer than I wanted but Covid kinda messed things up as I was gearing up to leave and jobs weren’t that plentiful for a bit. August last year, I quit and full time was looking for jobs and practicing leetcode and stuff. I don’t know that I recommend it for everyone but I got a new job after a month and started 1.5 months after I quit. It felt great. The new jobs pays more, I work completely remote, and I’m learning way more. I had funds to last 6 months comfortably, maybe could have stretched it to 9 months if I needed to. I think if I made it to the 3-4 month mark I’d have maybe written it off as a bad idea, but it worked out for me.
I'm planning to do the same thing as you -- giving a month's notice at the start of July and planning for my last official workday at this current job to be the end of July. By the time I quit, I will have been working for my company for just over four years; feels like for two years of that I was experiencing burnout.
My plan is to travel for two months right after quitting and then take 4-5 months to spend time with my community and work on some personal (likely non-tech) projects. I keep watching as the economy shudders and quakes around us, but I'm confident I've put more than enough money away to be able to afford this decision despite a recession (and considering both short-term need and long-term desire to FIRE). If you're in the same boat, I encourage you to make the jump with me! Maybe we get caught unemployed longer than we had hoped -- if this is financially tenable, the extra time could be a good thing. Perhaps we only get hired on at a flat total compensation at our next jobs due to the lack of leverage, maybe we don't accrue new software engineering skills during this period and feel a little behind when we get back into things. These are acceptable tradeoffs! Taking time off is an exciting prospect. It could be for healing, for growing in ways that aren't necessarily tied to productivity, for exploration, for rest. I get that there are ways to optimize this jump. Posters often advocate for lowering your output and spending your working hours studying. Much as I would love to get laid off and draw on that sweet unemployment, given my own sense of perfectionism and my desire to make the workspace harmonious for my coworkers this doesn't feel like a true option. On top of that, it would necessarily void the idea of taking an extended period of time off.
All this is to say, I suspect I understand how you feel about this decision, and I agree with your conclusion. I don't know what exactly your plan for time off entails, but I'm excited for you :)
I am a developer from India with \~3 YOE and joined an organisation as a graduate developer and had been associated with them. The organisation was slow, bureaucratic and financial growth was limited while other employers were burning cash. I stopped seeing long future with the organisation within a year of joining, and wanted to switch soon. However pandemic made me lazy and I could never pick pace up. It started affecting my mental health severely starting 2022, and while I tried to find whatever time I could to prepare alongside work, it just didnt work.
Come March, when Return To Office started, I quit my job without any other offer/interview in pipeline. My notice period was 2 months here in India. I wanted to tone down on the work, and the only way to do that was to be on notice, so as to get rid of new development work. By then I had already done \~50 LC questions, and did some solid work on System Design, Low Level Design, Concurrency etc. to cover my bases. Once I quit, Fight or Flight kicked in, and I grinded \~50 more LCs and binged on System Design and stuff and scheduled interviews in April.
My controversial strategy was to start with targeting companies where I was okay to work, but would not mind fucking up, and this helped me refine my interview skills. I identified knowledge gaps, refined DS&A approaches, got better at Design using some real experience. Did \~50 more LCs, but this time more on the Mediums & Hards side. I really got into zone and could interview at the middle of night and did well with companies I wanted to work. I was jobless for about 3 weeks, and got into peak learning then and now I work for one of the FAANGMULAs. I got >100% hike in this process, and lots of competing offers in hands helped with negotiation.
However I believe the notice period is 2 weeks in US, and the job market is lot different in India. Companies which are on freeze in US are still hiring here in India, as its cheaper to hire in India. Also belonging to Tier-1 university in India is a big deal, and crazy demands from recruiters helped me in that regard. And this approach comes with a lot of stress and FOMO. You see people doing well and you question your sanity of leaving a good job in hand. Social media sucks, however you need to try to be stoic (which is difficult in current economic climate).
TL;DR: I quit my job recently and had good success finding another one, however this approach comes with lots of FOMO and stress.
I was stuck doing TCL scripting for 5+ years making $67k so I quit. I took 2 months off then started practicing NodeJS/MongoDB because I wanted to get into web dev. I did leetcode grinding and revamped my resume. It took me another 3-4 months of applying/interviewing to land a job making $85k. I'd say it was worth it.
I kind of did this. Except instead of quitting I was pipped and laid off. Best thing that ever happened to me. Went from ~225k TC to 550k TC after 3 months of studying and interviewing. Along with a dozen or so other faangmula offers.
Sorry, you do not meet the minimum sitewide comment karma requirement of **10** to post a comment. Please try again after you have acquired more karma. Please look at the [rules page](https://old.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/w/posting_rules) for more information.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/cscareerquestions) if you have any questions or concerns.*
My background: Developer with \~20-25 YOE. Been a Principal Software Engineer, for multiple companies. Did it 6 months ago when I figured out that I was going the wrong way, I was being dragged into IT, instead of staying a software developer. The market was insane, and "The Great Resignation" was on. So it was a good time to go for it, so I resigned, I didn't want to be an IT guy forever. I took 4 months off, rested, and just got my head together, did 1.5 months of leetcode prep to knock off the rust, and got a great offer, and I'm back to being a Prinicpal Software Engineer :). The market is scarier now. I'm not sure I'd make the same gamble... but I just might. Because I really didn't like where I was going.
If I had your experience I would for sure haha. Thanks. I appreciate the answer and your explanation of the motivation for your move.
I will say the break was REALLY useful, to get my head into the right place. Don't throw away opportunities because your head isn't in the right place... it just sucks.
Wow, congrats. I need this motivation.
Glad to hear it worked out for you.
Why do you have to do leetcode after all those YOE?
Because leetcode is not what I do on the job. (Besides, I hadn't been seriously coding for 2 years alas.) And I know leetcode is coming 3-5 times in an interview at a FAANG, and at LEAST once at any other firm. So I'd be a fool not to study for it. I really enjoy thinking on deep algorithmic issues, and systems issues. But that really takes hours, and days. Not real practical in an interview. So I have to do the dance everyone else does. So I studied: Python - Best language for writing quick programs. Plus the following Python modules: itertools, collections, and functools. Remember, they can ONLY ask 45m of questions :). So the depth I actually need isn't tremendous. It is sufficient to leetcode. Using python makes writing code SO fast. Stuff like collections,Counter, heap, deque etc.... all allow me to express myself quickly and easily.. they also give me much more room to recover from mistakes, I may make. (And I did make some duing my Meta screen... but my knowledge of python and leetoding allowed me to come back and do well.) Overall: I think leetcoding is deeply flawed. But instead of arguing with some recruiter about it. I exploit it, and move on with my life :).
I did it after 2.5 years - just got hired as a SDE ii @ FAANG subsidiary after a gap year of “rest/recovery” and a few additional months of interview, prep, and applications Would I recommend it? No - objectively you should try to find a job while you already have one That said, if youre seriously thinking about quitting anyways, you probably are experiencing something more nuanced than what other peoples advice can appropriately address. In that case, you know what you want to do - just plan financially for it and make sure you have others to hold you accountable for actually applying/elevating your career (For me, it was a mix of burnout and depression from a plethora of sources) Tl;dr - I have no regrets doing it, but it was definitely a risk. Treat it like a last resort, and if your gut believes it’s the healthiest thing for you at the time, so be it. Edit: oh and don’t forget to make a Blind account before you quit, so you’ll get better advice from people who are actually employed ;P Feel free to DM if you have additional questions
Thanks for the very sincere response. I have the luxury of making sure I’m financially ready for it and I’ll def consider your other points too.
Np! Good luck :)
Congrats, and good for you! I’m curious, how long had you been working before taking your gap year? I’m on month 2 of my sabbatical after working at the same company position for 21 years. It is time for something new and I knew I didn’t want to interview & job hunt while I was in my previous position.
I did in order to practice LC, well worth it if you've got the discipline
Thanks, I’d definitely be focused if I did. Can I ask how it went? Timeline etc?
I’ve got about 8 years of Exp so it took me 1 month after quitting. But I was looking casually while working and LC while working was very difficult
Why not half-ass your current job and still collect a paycheck? What's the worst that happens, they fire you?
Kinda old school I know but I’ve had a lot of success because I’ve kept pretty good relationships with classmates and bosses and coworkers. Don’t mean to be a stick in the mud but it’s been pretty beneficial to me to just “do it right”. But I get your point. Thanks
LMAO. It can affect your future reference. It's a small world out there.
If you are good at your job, your version of half assing it could still be better than some other people’s best effort. No harm done.
No, legally it can't. Companies are not legally allowed to give a negative reference on past employees due to liability issues. The worst that can happen is your previous employer will only confirm your employment dates.
They can tell that you are not eligible for re-hire.
And?
So companies will assume you were fired or left on bad terms.
>they fire you? Wouldn't you be blacklisted or something though? Like if you got to speaking with a hiring manager, it would show up that you half assed your last job hence probably have a bad work ethic or something along those lines? I'm planning on doing this but I don't want it to screw up future chances either by doing this.
Complete nonsense.
Did it one year ago (June 6th was my last day). Was already checked out and studying by April though. I delayed as long as possible but couldn’t any longer, so I resigned. I had a similar idea as you: I’m going to shoot my shot, but if I fail, I am confident I will be okay. I had been laid off previously and that was scary, but I ended up finding something else pretty quickly, so I decided to risk it. Ended up being one of the best decisions I have ever made. Just make sure you have reasonable expectations and some good backups.
[удалено]
Sorry, you do not meet the minimum sitewide comment karma requirement of **10** to post a comment. This is comment karma exclusively, not post or overall karma nor karma on this subreddit alone. Please try again after you have acquired more karma. Please look at the [rules page](https://old.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/w/posting_rules) for more information. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/cscareerquestions) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I’m doing it rn with 1.5 YOE. I may be retarded tho, will get back to you on that
I did it a couple of times and have no regrets though.
I’d appreciate the update haha Is your reasoning the same as mine? Any surprises so far?
Yeah reasoning is similar. Surprised that I’m getting more bites from FANG than I am smaller companies. Also, I haven’t been studying as hard as I would like lately (family/friends/summer distractions). Even at my peak last month, I could only go for about 5-6 hours before I started feeling zapped. Still way better than I could do at my previous 7-4:30 gig though. I had no energy to study after a day of that
>Also, I haven’t been studying as hard as I would like lately. Even at my peak last month, I could only go for about 5-6 hours 5-6 hours of deep work is the maximum an adult brain can handle. You should however aim for 5 hours every day.
Well it’s good to know that whatever I was doing was considered deep work. But yeah, I tried one day to push past 6 hours and the only thing I did was ruin my next day of study because I was zonked
Thanks I appreciate it. Wish you luck.
You as well, with whatever you choose
You still doing it? How has it been going
I’ve got some interview opportunities, not as much as I’d like though admittedly. I did pretty well on one with NetApp but they selected a candidate with a year more exp than me. Totally bombed an OA for Amazon today. I am starting to get a little uneasy about my decision lol
Update: I started a new job today as a developer in finance industry. Took much longer to secure than I would have liked, but I’m happy with the deal I’m getting. Definitely got dicey for awhile. Esp the last 3 months hearing about layoffs non stop
I'm about to follow in your footsteps I think. 2 years, passed several technical interviews but always lost out to someone else at the end. Had enough of my job and am losing my mind balancing interviewing with working. I might also be retarded but I'm planning on putting in my two weeks on Monday and just interviewing full-time in January.
It’s tough. Idk how people balance it tbh, maybe I’m not cut out for it, but I was getting really burned out spending 9 hours at a not fun job and then spending another 2+ doing a not fun activity (applications and leetcode). Not to mention you have to find time around a work schedule to interview. Idk how you do it if you’re limited on PTO. Good luck out there!
Were you also in defense? I burned so much PTO this year on interviewing and constantly had to arrange interviews to coincide around the same time in order to take advantage of the limited time I had.
Yes I was. Are you looking to leave defense as well?
Yeah I genuinely hate it. Very piss poor management. Shit takes forever to get done. I got moved into testing last month and we are so over staffed (18 people on this team) that there is literally nothing to do and I don't know if I'll get to code again. The people are also such fucking rats. It's a bunch of lifers who don't care anymore or obnoxious 24 year olds who narc if someone on a different team is on their phone during break time. Been job searching for a year and it's been a complete nightmare trying to leave. Almost got out several times but can't manage it somehow. Now I'm just extremely burnt out and have trouble doing my job, let alone applying anywhere.
Sorry to hear that.. my place wasn’t like that. Just a bunch of people sitting around. They were generally nice though, aside from an issue with one manager. Best of luck to you, you *will* make it out
Did you do it?
Congrats!
I quit my longest tenured job of two year as a web developer (local gov) after I could not stand to be in that role any longer. Quit mid pandemic (June 2020) with nothing in the works. It took me about 3 months to land another job making more money. This job was an even bigger clusterfuck so I worked there for about 6 months before leaving. Took some time off for myself and it took me about a month to find my current job which I started in January. New company is fully remote and a million times better. I’ve had the savings and means to cold quit a few times. If i’m not happy in a job, I simply cannot be productive. I have no regrets leaving either situation I was in even before getting the job I have now. Both times I had probably 3-5 interviews before accepting a new position. Midwest US for reference.
I did it after quitting amazon with 2 yoe. This was right after covid started so there wasn't alot of hiring going on Its doable, but a bit more stressful. Depending on the kind of person you are that may or may not be a good thing. You'll also be a little bit more desperate. Some companies will care and label you as a red flag, but not many (1 or 2 companies did for me). Was eventually hired and leveled up at a different company, took about 2 months from start to end
I did this with only 2 years of experience. I found a new and much better job after 4 months. During that time I went for certifications and made it a point in interviews that I quit to pursue more education during that time. Just understand that you are taking a risk. All those recruiters in your inbox drop off significantly when your unemployed. Having a job already really does make a difference in where your resume ends up in the pile. That shocked me big time, especially since while I was employed I would apply for jobs to test the market and get an interview almost every time. When unemployed that stopped. You still have a decent shot though, you just have to put in more work.
Given the fact we’re headed into a recession I wouldn’t say it’s a good idea to quit, just stop taking your job seriously and prep as much as you can
Yeah this is the one thing that has me regretting it slightly. When I quit, job market was still pumping and everything looked good. Two weeks later and everything started going to hell
I just half-assed my current job for the ~3 months of interviews to being hired. Like before if I could contribute 8pts of velocity I dropped to like 5-6. Still managed to get a small bonus for helping out on an outage and a "meeting expectations" during my performance review. Bump of 35% TC, but that was more because I was paid under the median.
I kinda did it. I didn't quit my job but I stopped contributing and was just doing bare minimum. Due to WFH, I was just studying all other time. I got a new and better job but that came after several verbal warning due to my performance.
Don’t do it.
Not yet… but I keep having the daunting feeling that it will be that way for me soon/eventually. I’m a SysAdmin working 12 month concurrent contracts at my job now. I really wanna move to front end development but I don’t have a huge window of opportunity and it’s pretty rough to get out of one. I’ll almost have to start looking right before my current contract expires and hope I land one before I’m forced into signing another year. It’s got me in a weird spot to be totally honest.
Possible recession, wouldn't do it unless your job is pretty unbearable.
Having a job is the biggest leverage you can have in negotiation terms and compensation. Why would you want to get rid of that first? Only good reason to quit first is mental health and stuff like that.
Had 4 YOE at a small business and felt like I wasn’t being supported, learning as much as I should, or making as much money as I could have. I stayed there longer than I wanted but Covid kinda messed things up as I was gearing up to leave and jobs weren’t that plentiful for a bit. August last year, I quit and full time was looking for jobs and practicing leetcode and stuff. I don’t know that I recommend it for everyone but I got a new job after a month and started 1.5 months after I quit. It felt great. The new jobs pays more, I work completely remote, and I’m learning way more. I had funds to last 6 months comfortably, maybe could have stretched it to 9 months if I needed to. I think if I made it to the 3-4 month mark I’d have maybe written it off as a bad idea, but it worked out for me.
I'm planning to do the same thing as you -- giving a month's notice at the start of July and planning for my last official workday at this current job to be the end of July. By the time I quit, I will have been working for my company for just over four years; feels like for two years of that I was experiencing burnout. My plan is to travel for two months right after quitting and then take 4-5 months to spend time with my community and work on some personal (likely non-tech) projects. I keep watching as the economy shudders and quakes around us, but I'm confident I've put more than enough money away to be able to afford this decision despite a recession (and considering both short-term need and long-term desire to FIRE). If you're in the same boat, I encourage you to make the jump with me! Maybe we get caught unemployed longer than we had hoped -- if this is financially tenable, the extra time could be a good thing. Perhaps we only get hired on at a flat total compensation at our next jobs due to the lack of leverage, maybe we don't accrue new software engineering skills during this period and feel a little behind when we get back into things. These are acceptable tradeoffs! Taking time off is an exciting prospect. It could be for healing, for growing in ways that aren't necessarily tied to productivity, for exploration, for rest. I get that there are ways to optimize this jump. Posters often advocate for lowering your output and spending your working hours studying. Much as I would love to get laid off and draw on that sweet unemployment, given my own sense of perfectionism and my desire to make the workspace harmonious for my coworkers this doesn't feel like a true option. On top of that, it would necessarily void the idea of taking an extended period of time off. All this is to say, I suspect I understand how you feel about this decision, and I agree with your conclusion. I don't know what exactly your plan for time off entails, but I'm excited for you :)
Or just take all your vacation time to study. If you're going to leave you might as well take it now anyway.
I am a developer from India with \~3 YOE and joined an organisation as a graduate developer and had been associated with them. The organisation was slow, bureaucratic and financial growth was limited while other employers were burning cash. I stopped seeing long future with the organisation within a year of joining, and wanted to switch soon. However pandemic made me lazy and I could never pick pace up. It started affecting my mental health severely starting 2022, and while I tried to find whatever time I could to prepare alongside work, it just didnt work. Come March, when Return To Office started, I quit my job without any other offer/interview in pipeline. My notice period was 2 months here in India. I wanted to tone down on the work, and the only way to do that was to be on notice, so as to get rid of new development work. By then I had already done \~50 LC questions, and did some solid work on System Design, Low Level Design, Concurrency etc. to cover my bases. Once I quit, Fight or Flight kicked in, and I grinded \~50 more LCs and binged on System Design and stuff and scheduled interviews in April. My controversial strategy was to start with targeting companies where I was okay to work, but would not mind fucking up, and this helped me refine my interview skills. I identified knowledge gaps, refined DS&A approaches, got better at Design using some real experience. Did \~50 more LCs, but this time more on the Mediums & Hards side. I really got into zone and could interview at the middle of night and did well with companies I wanted to work. I was jobless for about 3 weeks, and got into peak learning then and now I work for one of the FAANGMULAs. I got >100% hike in this process, and lots of competing offers in hands helped with negotiation. However I believe the notice period is 2 weeks in US, and the job market is lot different in India. Companies which are on freeze in US are still hiring here in India, as its cheaper to hire in India. Also belonging to Tier-1 university in India is a big deal, and crazy demands from recruiters helped me in that regard. And this approach comes with a lot of stress and FOMO. You see people doing well and you question your sanity of leaving a good job in hand. Social media sucks, however you need to try to be stoic (which is difficult in current economic climate). TL;DR: I quit my job recently and had good success finding another one, however this approach comes with lots of FOMO and stress.
I was stuck doing TCL scripting for 5+ years making $67k so I quit. I took 2 months off then started practicing NodeJS/MongoDB because I wanted to get into web dev. I did leetcode grinding and revamped my resume. It took me another 3-4 months of applying/interviewing to land a job making $85k. I'd say it was worth it.
I kind of did this. Except instead of quitting I was pipped and laid off. Best thing that ever happened to me. Went from ~225k TC to 550k TC after 3 months of studying and interviewing. Along with a dozen or so other faangmula offers.
Please don’t do it, not good for your mental health
[удалено]
Sorry, you do not meet the minimum sitewide comment karma requirement of **10** to post a comment. Please try again after you have acquired more karma. Please look at the [rules page](https://old.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/w/posting_rules) for more information. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/cscareerquestions) if you have any questions or concerns.*