I'm done with coding (opens in new tab)

> I’ve tried to discuss this with my mom, and she kept telling me how “lucky” I am for working at Microsoft...

I don't think I worked on any unethical part of Apple, I just worked on the indexing and caching for iTunes, but I really hated working there, and it was frustrating that whenever I complained about it, people would remind me how lucky I was to have a job at Apple.

I survived 2.5 years there, but eventually I had to quit (taking a fairly substantial pay cut in the process). I think my parents thought I was nuts, but my mood improved almost immediately.

His mom telling him he's "neurodivergent and won’t survive at a smaller company"... unfortunately I am familiar with this type of mother.

Kind of a strange sentiment? It seems like you're willing to take a paycut, so there's no shortage of jobs that will pay you a sustainable, but not FAANG, income to work on something respectable.

I get wanting to take a break after working on something distasteful - I've been there! - but I can't say I'd give up on the field entirely after one job.

Neel, based on your linkedin, you're 27 or 28. You're a grown adult. Stop following your mom's orders. Quit your job, take some time off to decompress and recover from your clear burnout, then figure out what you want to do. Life isn't Microsoft or flipping burgers. There's a lot of things in between. You have one life, don't waste it trying to please others. But simultaneously, don't assume that your burnout is permanent. Just take a break my friend.

Appreciate the moral stand against surveillance-tech and totally sympathize with leaving big tech to do startups (I did the same!) but I don't get the title. Isn't OP still coding his software startup [0]?

[0]: https://www.fourplex.net

I've got this sentiment reading a few such goodbye letters like this. They often end by saying something like, "I quit software engineering. Because I can't make money at it, under these conditions." As if the options were work for Big Tech; work for a YC company (aka embryonic Big Tech); or be poor.

So I'm gonna say it like this, to get the vibe across:

It's pretty easy to run some Internet businesses and equal your software eng salary, as the owner of those businesses.

Not in year one, but if your goal is to hit ~40k in the first year and then scale up over a couple years, you can do it.

Also it is vastly easier if you have the capital to jump to the front of the line and skip the horrible 1 year of waiting for traffic/users to come, and just buy a business. Then you're in business from day one and can complete this more quickly and less stressfully. Elon did it with Tesla and he's now the world's richest man; learn from his example.

It's funny that this ends up being a kind of "secret knowledge" because it falls between the cracks of tech and corporate incentives. Big companies won't teach you this, because lol why would they teach you how to screw them and quit. VC's won't (exactly) teach you this, because while they are generically supportive of entrepreneurship and while it is easier to earn less money than more money (obviously), they want you to go straight for the billion dollar ideas and discourage small money thinking. Which leads to this outcome of like 100 engineers trying and only 5 making it through the gauntlet and becoming rich, rather than >90 making it if only the incentives were different.

Incidentally I recently bought a business and, after spending a lot of time in the nitty gritty "weeds" of making an Internet $10 as opposed to "zero to one" thinking, this is all coming into focus. But as I said, it's a kind of secret knowledge, which you have to piece together from YouTube, newsletters, and doing the effort - that last part of which is like 80% of the real learning. In my case I bought something and then learned on the job; fortunately the profits did not suffer.

So I'm here to tell you this is doable; it's definitely doable. If you're a software engineer of average intelligence for a software engineer, you can do it. Figuring it out isn't easy, but it's very far from impossible.

This hits very close to home and I'm very glad to see I am (and you are) not alone. Thank you for writing it.

I'm currently in the process of leaving my "big tech" job. While I won't name my company, it is somewhat similar in some ways -- though ethics isn't my primary reason.

> I’ve decided that in the shitty job market, it’s not worth being a software engineer even if I make much less.

is a thought that has run through my head countless times over the past year, and when I finally gave my notice

>she kept telling me how “lucky” I am for working at Microsoft saying “it’s big tech” and “you’re neurodivergent” and “you won’t survive at a smaller company.”

was the loudest thing I heard, over and over again.

Best of luck with Fourplex.

I once worked for a start-up that perpetuated inflated social status symbols in a way I found repugnant. Transitioning to an academic non-profit environment was the best career decision I could have made for my mental health. Less money, yes. Less stress and self-loathing, absolutely and entirely worth it for me.

If the author is reading this: thank you for having the strength to say no to morally wrong work, despite the money, despite pressure from your family.

Good for you. You stood up for your morals. I wish that more people had your strength.

You are experiencing an identity crisis over this, which is normal. Writing about it is good. Talking to a therapist would probably be good too, if that works for you.

If I can give one piece of advice, it would be to stop talking in absolutes. Instead of "I'm done with coding", which is final and sets a stake in the ground which is hard to come back from, why not say "I'm putting down coding for a while to focus on my startup". For many people, myself included, it's normal to have many different interests over a lifetime. This is a good, and normal, thing.

I fear I am done with it as well. I am trying this AI thing and it's really good at it. So I can't motivate myself, to spend the mental energy to code it myself. But starting new tasks is very difficult for me and every new prompt feels like a new task.

In the past, when I finally managed to actually start coding I would eventually get in the zone and be productive. Now with this AI stuff, the constant back and forth, the constant waiting for the output to complete, it does prevent me from getting into the zone.

In terms of neurodivergence, I’ve found for myself over 27 years, that working at large companies is in fact the problem, and smaller places with more flexibility and broader responsibilities is far more rewarding.

Coding is one of my favorite things when I get to do it on my own terms which I’ve achieved while growing up and learning/playing as well as working for a few small startups. I would die if I had to write API frameworks all day and I struggled as a sysadmin when I was expected to be on 24/7 (but loved some aspects of it like ansible and pentesting). I’m currently a businessman and miss coding so I’ve just started using cursor for personal projects while on vacation and am having an absolute blast.

I’d never heard of viva insights. Looked it up. Do people actually use this stuff? Who? Why? It looks like something middle management would use to generate a few plots in order to justify their useless jobs. I’d run from any employer that seriously bought into something like this.

I don't know you, but it sounds like you have principles you stand for and that's rare. If you have a talent for something that can do good in the world it's worth pursuing. I'd take a break and find a place that aligns with your values. Best of luck.

Respect for standing up for what he believes in. A lot of people in this industry would have no problem building drones that bomb children if it gave them a good “total comp”.

I have a manger , in a big billion dollar company who is now using AI and checking in 2000 lines of python

It’s bonkers stupid

Clicked on this post because the domain name sounded familiar from the Tor mailing list. I knew you ran a large set of relays but didn't know you were also a pretty extensive contributor over many years! You're definitely smart and if you were able to get a job at Microsoft you're capable of getting a job at most other places, so this doesn't really have to be a permanent decision if you don't want it to be. You can work at Let's Encrypt, Tor, Signal, etc while making an impact and still doing pretty well for yourself. Anyways, in the spirit of this forum, I wish you luck with your startup.

I think it’s worth trying for ethical coding jobs for a bit. I think with your resume you could work at a lot of places, and you may be able to rekindle passion for something that you used to love and make six figures.

What a cynical view. You can switch jobs! Nothing is going to force you to work on surveillance software! I spent nearly a decade working on Salesforce. It’s not even on my resume and you couldn’t pay me to do it!

Yeah surveillance never works, at least not in the long term. Either people like what they work on or they don't, and adding a layer of corporate hypocrisy, where you need to pretend to be excited about every single tiny change, does not help.

Some products are just boring and I can't fathom how some people get excited about it. The cynic in me tells me everyone is faking it, and that is soul crushing to think about. The alternative is that some people are that boring and have nothing else in their lives going on so they look forward to adding yet another button or boring feature for the Nth time.

Absolutely can't blame them.

So, did you quit?

Whenever anyone refers to themselves as a "coder", I always think, "Would Hemingway call himself a typist?"

Calling oneself a coder is only a recent occurrence. I never heard the term until a few years ago; possibly due to all the hobbyists getting involved.

Coding is the end result of programming. I'm a programmer and proud of it.

Cool, more room for professionals

>After all, Edward Snowden had a “stable” federal government job (...) and he gave it up to stand up for the right to privacy

Edward Snowden was primarily critical of Obama era foreign policy in the Middle East not being notably different from Bush. That is also why he send the data to writers and journalists whose work was primarily critical of US foreign policy.

Of course he understandably pivoted to become a privacy activist when the Internet overnight wishcasted him into that role and ignored his criticism of US foreign policy.

"> I’ve decided that in the shitty job market, it’s not worth being a software engineer even if I make much less. Part of it is being “specialized” in over-glorified surveillance so even if I change employers, what’s the guarantee I won’t be working on another surveillance product. Assuming I can even get another job.

...While six figures is certainly nice, it’s only nice if it’s ethically done. I’d much rather flip burgers or bag groceries than work on surveillance for six figures. "

Almost all companies, startups and corporations have surveillance in some way shape or form, if it is product analytics, webpage views, tracking, etc, even Mozilla has got into tracking, although the pay isn't FAANG level.

Unless you don't want to make over 6 figures in the US (assuming that is where he is from), perhaps work at a non-profit e.g. EFF or governmental work.

It's really expensive to be very principled, I'm sure your rent, family and children would thank you, especially if you leave the ENTIRE field and have no means of income other than savings which will certainly be spent on them rather than your startup.

What? How much money did this person make working on software they consider surveillance, before deciding they were comfortable enough to leave? Looks like they made enough money to live off “dividend income.” Something about their dad? The hell is this?

Thanks for sharing man. I think quite a few of us are fed up with the status quo in tech.

I was also at Microsoft until fairly recently, and although I didn’t feel like my immediate work was “unethical”, I’ve felt for quite some time that leadership is completely out of touch with workers. The copilot push in 2022, coinciding with firing the AI ethics team, is a prime example of actions that felt reckless.

I wonder what it’s going to take for tech workers like us to collectively say “enough is enough” to the grotesque avarice we see from tech leadership. I’m not holding my breath, and have essentially no desire to find another role in the industry.

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