I’m relatively early in my career, but have been fortunate financially since i started. I have the ability to pay expenses for a year, or longer.
My question is essentially: is it career suicide to take 3-6 months or more off of “official” work?
With the covid pandemic the past two years, and with work on top I’m feeling the burn-out. I think it would be better for me, and better for my work, if i took some time off.
This would probably involve separating with my current employer, and finding a new position at the end of the sabbatical. I would also keep my skills sharp, programming & collaborating with friends.
I don't see how many recruiters would have a real problem with someone with work experience having taken 3-6 months off. If it were 1 year plus out of the job I guess it gets a bit trickier unless you have something to show that you did in the meantime. Personally I find it a bigger red flag if someone is job hopping every few months.
E.g. I took 6 months off to travel only 1 year into my career. When I talked to my boss and told him, that I quit for this reason, he immediately made the counter offer to instead just put the contract on hold during that time. Obviously this is not a reaction that you can count on, but there is not exactly a shortage of job options in this field either. So I would take the time off, but make sure that you don't burn trough all the saving before starting the job search again.
* Sitting in a beach chair gets old in one or two weeks. Use the time to skill up: spend a few hours a day building something, or do a masters degree or short term course - maybe somewhere picturesque in Europe.
* Starting up is going to burn you out more than you are now. And possibly in addition to being burnt out you will have much less money than you do now.
* You will find another job unless you quit into the start of the recession.. then you have hiring freezes all around and you might need to take a sh*y job or work with sh*y people.
* Even if the bubble doesn't pop - for your next gig its unlikely you come in from a position of strength. They WILL low ball your comp on your next job. HR scum have seen this movie enough times.
* Boredom breeds a gambling habit. Don't use your free time to trade exciting markets.
* Cut up your credit cards. Its super easy to pile up "just a months income when I get back to work".
* Put half your money into a long term investment account. Put the rest in a cash account. Never eat into that long term account. When the cash account goes to 10% of what you started with drop everything and begin searching for paid work.
* Be accountable to yourself. Try to something meaningful to show for yourself when you're done.
This is the daydream that keeps me going now.
I think you have some salient points; I would stay busy in the sense of making things (software) while I'm away.
> You will find another job unless you quit into the start of the recession..
This is probably what I fear, and why I'm asking around. With the inflation & supply chain issues recently, and with the current yield curve inversion, at least in a short-to-medium term sense I think the music is going to stop soon. But macro-economies are cyclical and although bad stuff spreads quickly, I don't think software specifically will have much of a dip even if some other economic sectors do.
I wasn't a professional in 2000-2003 after that downturn, but I was online during that time & witnessed the steady decline of "tech". I'm cautious of the "this time it's different" thesis, but the analog-only lifestyle that was possible in 2000 isn't what people do today - there will be long-term demand for what we/I do (this is my opinion).
To address the point directly: I think if we are starting a recession now-ish, in 6 months' time the subsequent upswing might already be starting - I recall Apr - Sept 2020. I'm confident that I'm average-or-above, which should guarantee work somewhere. If the recession starts in 6 months, I have another 6 months' runway still comfortably, and I can start the search early. I recall in previous recessions companies are still hiring developers.
> Boredom breeds a gambling habit. Don't use your free time to trade exciting markets.
This is sound advice; I only gamble in the sense of a family-and-friends regular poker night. I buy bonds & index funds on a set schedule otherwise in markets. I'm not attracted to gambling; I've met people who are, I don't think it's me. But like you say, don't take chances.
> Be accountable to yourself. Try to something meaningful to show for yourself when you're done.
It sounds like based on yours and other commentary, if the "me" time is successful, I should have artifacts to show it. The time off shouldn't represent a material issue during the subsequent job search. Since you say you have personal experience, what is your anecdote? what did you do, what would you have done differently?
My startup was funded through revenues from day zero, the world entered a recession soon after, and that was a motherf** hard grind. Spending other peoples risk capital would be easier on yourself.
The other benefit I got from this is I ended up moving into a different career direction when I did go back to work. Previously I had done a lot of infrastructure stuff in Go/Python, and during my time off I realized I wanted to do more low level work in C++. This wasn't my plan or intention in any way when I took time off, it was just something that occurred to me while I was taking a break. It ended up working out great for me and it's probably something I wouldn't have done had I not had the time to rest, think about things, and then study while preparing to interview again.
Personally I’ve never believed in putting off your dreams until you’re least able to enjoy them - retirement. If you’re good at what you do, I highly recommend taking mini retirements every few years. There’s no better way to explore what’s important to you.
But let’s imagine the worst happens and the world plunges into a deep recessions while you’re on your sabbatical. Maybe someone steals your car too. You have a year of expenses saved up. This is huge. Could you take a job waiting tables for a time too? Enjoyable. No. End of the world. Absolutely not. Eventually you will find a tech job again.
This calculus completely changes if you have a family to look after but you sound like you’re young and single. I highly recommend the below thread asking a similar question.
I’m planning on trying out the mini-retirement route. Not much more to add here, but I hope your travels go well!
No family to speak for (of my own).
In my case it didn't lead to "career suicide", it accidentally led to me becoming aware of the market for contract engineers, so I went and did that for around three years for an effective 3x increase over my old salary, before negotiating a permie role with a salary anchored against my modest contract rate. The 3x jump is less amazing than it sounds as I was paid under market in my prior job.
Much of this outcome was not in my control or due to my skill or planning, it was simply a result of the labour market: there was a good market for software engineers, I had a few solid years of professional experience, I had some professional connections and reputation from working in the old job that let me easily get a different role in a related sector.
If I were in a similar situation in future, my advice would be:
* resigning immediately isn't necessarily the best move, even when you definitely do need to to move on from the current job. First take paid leave (if any remains) or unpaid leave (if that can be negotiated). Then you have a stronger position when negotiating the terms of a new role. But if the market is good and you can get multiple competing offers, maybe that doesn't matter so much.
* recognise how I am feeling and take action to improve or change the situation earlier. Being passive and letting things get worse can impact mental health, which can reduce your motivation to improve the situation and ability plan and execute reasonable decisions.
* in the longer term, you achieve financial independence when you have an investment portfolio with an expected return that covers your baseline living expenses. If you have saved and invested roughly 25x your baseline living expenses into equities, then you are free, things go nonlinear, phase transition, you have achieved escape velocity for infinite sabbatical. Spending accumulated savings to live for 1-3 months without income might be a great short-term move to let you get healthy and explore the next steps for your career or life. Spending accumulated savings to live for a longer time without income might set you back in the longer run and have less upside.
Some recruiters also run agency businesses where after successfully matching you to work at a contract for a client , they handle stuff like invoicing, in return for taking their own (perhaps quite large) cut on top of your agreed daily contract rate. This can be an easy way to get started since they sort out some stuff for you, but there's more potential profit if you learn how to operate without relying on this.
There can be legal issues where it is unclear if a worker should be classified as a contractor or an employee, which could result in the worker paying more or less tax, or the employer being liable to give additional benefits to contractors who are actually deemed as functioning as employees, or so on. Another thing to think about is insurance & liability -- if a client pays you $10 to write some code, and your code has a defect and causes the client $1b in losses to their business, can they sue you for $1b? $10? etc.
When I was a teenager, I had my jobs to acquire some discretionary cash for things my parents refused to fund (e.g. build a skateboard mini-ramp in the backyard). I got a job to get the money to buy the supplies, and spent years enjoying it.
In the intervening decades, I forgot how satisfying it is ot see the job as a means to fulfilling a personal goal.
To me, this purposefulness, this I'm-here-to-achieve-this-personal-goal, eliminates concerns about what a current or potential employer would think about your time not working. As any job is in service to a larger personal goal.
Also, for very experienced people, it sometimes it takes 6-12 months to find the next right role.
Take care of yourself.
I think some of that had to do with the nature of the field I work in and the startup I work on. But in reality, as long as you know how to code...this is kind of the determining factor. You might have to take a job you don't like as much or something (though again, maybe not even that) but there is just such high demand for software developers that it's hard to imagine becoming completely unhirable.
I want to emphasize that my message here isn't that there is no risk, but that after doing it this risk feels much smaller than it initially did.
Even if you aren't working on a startup, you may find that if you label it as your "sabbatical" and casually and joyfully explain that you wanted to try taking a big block of time off to do things you're interested in. Some companies will find this offputting, but as many or more will find it interesting and want to hear more.
Frankly when trying to hire developers companies can't really afford to be picky anyway. If they are it's not a great sign of what it might be like to work there.
You'll be fine.
I took a similar 3 month sabbatical about 5 years ago and it was one of the greatest things I've ever done in my life. Really helped me get my priorities straight. After it was over I ended up landing my dream job, which I wouldn't have thought to go for if I hadn't taken time off, including a 40% pay increase within a month of job hunting.
Go for it!
The time off itself was great. I struggled to get away from needing to feel productive, but did explore some new tech and played some games. I would recommend a small break to anyone.
You would think being in management would make reentry harder, but I got a good pay bump and switched industries. The market is definitely hot. I also didn't get questioned about my time off. I framed it as "taking care of family" and that was the end of it.
I tell this to my newbies too - make sure you're developing good work habits. If this break is the result of the pandemic, do it. But if you're doing it to get away from work after only a few years of experience, be careful because unsustainable work habits don't go away.
Could you arrange with your boss to take a month off to resource yourself?
> There could be a middle ground where you don't have to quit your job and that your employer would be happy to accommodate (if they care about their employees).
I would love to discuss this type of exchange - how should I approach this with my current boss? My team has about 5 people but about 10 peoples' worth of incoming work - we are all feeling the pain. I'm fully ready to amicably part ways & not come back - but it seems like it's common to come back to the place one departs from.
You could frame it to your boss as you're leaving to take off time for a couple of months and just mention that you could be interested in coming back and go from there. Obviously no guarantees in either direction.
If you have decent skills and apply at the typical YC company, I would be extremely surprised if they cared about you taking time off. But apply for a gov clearance requiring job or non-tech well established company, it's hit and miss.
> This would probably involve separating with my current employer, and finding a new position at the end of the sabbatical.
Why do you assume that? You may find that your manager is entirely sympathetic to your burnout concern. An extended unpaid absence may also let some much-needed air out of the budget for the rest of the team.
Why not just tell your manager you're taking a sabbatical for psychological reasons? It's the truth, and everyone is going through it. They may be willing to save your spot for you.
> I would also keep my skills sharp, programming & collaborating with friends.
Depending on how long you've been coding, your skills won't go dull after 3-6 months. You'll be able to jump right in without issues. If you're going to take a sabbatical, actually take one.
Dollars and cents wise, I'd encourage any member to take unpaid leave before quitting to the unknown, and any leader in a growing org to accept it. (Besides in large enough orgs they have to plan for this for defense reserves, maternity, paternity, and disability anyway). The worst case scenario is that they quit when they come back, but that's still better than quitting forever today.
I did apply to a few jobs (nothing really exciting) BUT having a side-project really scares away employers, they don't want someone that has multiple "things" on their mind (even though everyone does, be them start-up projects, hobbies, personal issues, etc.).
I'm curious: Are there people who have taken longer breaks? What were the consequences for the careers?
That was a non-programming career though. For programmers that can pass a leet code style it's different. You probably could take a dump on a recruiter's desk and still get a job.
But, IMHO, it's wise to get 2-3 years of experience before taking significant time off. At that point you're solidly out of junior/entry level roles and into experienced hires.
Absolutely not. And if you worry about it, there's not law that says you have to put months down for when you worked. Years are sufficient and that will easily mask a 3-6 month hole
If you’re asking this question it means you live in the US. As Nike says, just do it.
I don't care if that affects my career, I just wanna make enough money to live and that's all.
You can’t pour from an empty cup.
no
