[HN Gopher] Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city
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Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city
I'm 34. I work in quant finance in London, UK (in ML/statistics). I
graduated with a PhD in CS and sort of fell into this field when a
recruiter contacted me with the promise of $$$ that is hard to get
in any other field unless you're at Google. I'm on a pretty decent
salary even by London standards, but I'm utterly miserable. 1. The
job is meaningless. When I first started in the field I thought I
enjoyed it, but now I see that the bonuses were what excited me
about the job, not the actual work. 2. Although the money is good,
an 'adequate' house in London would cost at least 10 times my
salary. I'm renting a flat with my partner. It's a reasonably
decent flat by London standards, but because we're renting we can
never really make it a home. 3. London is a horrible place to
live. I have no affinity for it whatsoever. Even if I could afford
a house I would not want to live here. 4. My home town is an hour
flight away but if I were to move home I would most likely take at
least a 2/3 pay cut. I would prefer to live back home. But doing
that would ruin any chances I ever had of being able to retire
early. 5. My parents, like most boomers, had a much better
standard of living when they were my age. My father had a pretty
average salary, bought a massive house for a reasonable price, and
saw his wealth multiply many times over. It's not like that for my
generation. My partner is in a similar job to me and he is making
multiples of what I'm making (although it's more stressful than
mine). Luckily for him, he hates his job less than I do, so he
could probably stick it out a few years longer. I have just come
back from 2 weeks holidays at home with my parents and was pretty
much in tears this morning starting another day at work. It's so
hard to muster up any motivation for the job, especially now that
the company is in a dry period pnl-wise. I much prefer my home town
to London, but I can't expect my partner to move back with me, as
he is doing extremely well in his career and it would be career
suicide for him. I have racked my brain trying to figure out what
field I would prefer to work in, but I can't think of anything. I
just go round in circles thinking about it. Given that anything
else would involve a massive pay cut, I think I would regret
leaving the job I'm in. I could probably grind leetcode for a
couple of months to try to get into Google, but I would find
working at Google utterly meaningless as well. I have the ability
to work hard to pass an interview, but I've been working for long
enough now that I find it difficult to muster up any enthusiasm
during job interviews, which is probably a red flag for potential
employers. I'm no longer young and excited about this stuff! I'm
interested in computers and programming in general, but doing it
for a living ruins the joy. I would love to be able to retire and
get into meditation / travelling the world / learning about things
for fun.
Author : thebrowncat
Score : 120 points
Date : 2021-08-16 17:41 UTC (5 hours ago)
| vfc1 wrote:
| Switch jobs and get a 5 to 10% increase, and keep doing it for a
| while, this way you will retire earlier and the excitement and
| optimism of the new job will keep you going for the first year at
| least.
|
| Persue an alternative that you find interesting and learn how to
| make a living out of it.
|
| You can create a small SaaS company on some niche, freelance
| remotely, get creative and learn how to invest, maybe invest a
| little bit in crypto, take what you have an invest in real estate
| buy a studio and rent it and start making some extra income.
|
| Make a plan, there has got to be a way.
|
| Look around you, do you see anyone over 45? This means they all
| figured out an alternative, so with time, so will you, but don't
| make the mistake of thinking that you are "trapped", you have a
| lot of alternatives and choices.
| fmitchell0 wrote:
| I appreciate everyone's advice regarding your job, but as others
| have alluded, I suggest the bigger point is to go deeper into
| your values.
|
| It sounds like your job is tightly-coupled with how you see
| yourself, so perhaps consider things outside of your job
| (volunteering, extra-curriculars, investing, etc.) that are
| closer to what you value.
|
| One way to handle getting through these low periods is to shift
| your mindset of your job being a reflection of what you like and
| more your job enabling you do, participate what you like.
|
| Personally, being of service of others, using my vacation days to
| help others, and investing in projects and people I believe in
| has helped offset some of the feelings you may be feeling.
| MrsPeaches wrote:
| Might doing something in the impact space help?
|
| 80,000 hours have some resources, that might help guide your
| choices, if this is something you would be interested in.
|
| https://80000hours.org/
| caffeine wrote:
| Finance in London is very hot at the moment, there is a lot of
| hiring going on and substantial upside available for talented
| individuals. Why not start speaking to recruiters and see if you
| can find a better and more exciting team? Stay way from banks,
| focus on funds and HFTs.
|
| PnL wise, a lot of firms are starting up coming off a bumper 2020
| year. It sounds like fundamentally your problem is being in a bad
| team/firm that you are not excited to work with. On a good team,
| you should be getting in to work early feeling pumped that you
| are all going to smash it today. If you don't have that feeling,
| just find a new team.
|
| You mentioned that your partners job is more stressful. Would
| suggest seeking out a more stressful job for yourself. The low
| stress jobs in finance are not fun, interesting or lucrative,
| while the high stress jobs can be all three.
|
| Also, through Brexit, the EU have successfully caused many firms
| to put Real Jobz in other capitals like Amsterdam, Dublin, or
| Paris. It sounds like you might enjoy the lifestyle in one of
| those cities better than London.
| f6v wrote:
| Nobody is going to tell you what to do and how to get there.
|
| There's a framework for thinking about it though. Start with your
| goal(no matter how unrealistic it seems to be). Then go backwards
| to where you're now. Ray Dalio laid it out pretty well in
| Principles.
| nextos wrote:
| There are interesting startups and academic labs in London,
| Oxford & Cambridge solving meaningful problems related to human
| health.
|
| You could easily find a job there where ML & statistics skills
| are required and live in a more rural community, while your
| partner would still be able to commute to London by train.
|
| Drop me an email (contact details in my profile) if you are
| interested.
| brundolf wrote:
| Is there no way that you and/or your partner could switch to
| remote work? At least in the U.S., remote working is sweeping the
| industry. Failing that, could you get a remote job for a U.S.
| company?
|
| If none of the above, is your relationship serious enough that
| your partner would be willing to sustain both of you on their
| salary alone? Could you quit your job, take some time off to
| recuperate, and then find a job you don't hate, even if it pays
| much less?
|
| If none of those options work, and it just comes down to "my
| partner is unwilling to leave the city and I can't possibly be
| happy here", then it may just not be a workable relationship.
| Though before jumping to that conclusion, I'd have an honest
| heart-to-heart with them and tell them how you feel. It could be
| that you're more important to them than their career; you never
| know until you ask.
|
| Best of luck.
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| Retirement is not a binary. Why don't you go do all the stuff you
| want to do for 6 months or a year? Maybe do a few short
| freelance/contract gigs during that time so there's no resume
| gap. F*** the recruiters who expect zero resume gaps in a
| lifetime anyways. I mean life is just too short for this kind of
| crap, go have fun and have some faith that things will work out.
| You either jump or you don't.
| ishjoh wrote:
| I lived in NYC for about a decade, I did not work in Finance,
| instead I was a consultant at one of the big consulting companies
| that has > 200k employees worldwide. I hated it, I would
| physically dread going to work some days, compounded by the fact
| that I would have to go out of town to places I didn't want to
| be. I was miserable, and it was making me physically sick, which
| I suspect you'll start feeling or already are feeling. Then one
| day, my partner could see I was suffering, and told me to quit,
| she was right, and I did a few weeks later when I found a
| different job.
|
| A few things I took from that experience.
|
| 1) If you hate what you do, the money only works for so long
| until it doesn't matter how much it is and you're getting
| physically sick. Earning a good living and being healthy is so
| much more important than retiring early with ulcers or other
| problems.
|
| 2) If the money can't buy you the things you really want, what
| does it matter if you have more of it but still not enough. This
| is a really hard one, that took me a while to come to grips with,
| and I'm probably still coming to grips with. Ask yourself what is
| really the value of money. for me I want money to live in a nice
| home (modest by most peoples standards, middle class without the
| huge mortgage), buy a car that doesn't break down constantly (VW
| has been great at making these), save some money for retirement
| and for a rainy day, try to take a vacation once in a while
| (hello road trip), then I just want to spend time with family and
| friends.
|
| 3) Change is scary, we stay in bad situations a lot longer than
| we should because we don't know if the alternative will be worse.
|
| 4) A similar job at a place with a different culture can
| massively change things. I currently work as a consultant and
| it's great, my coworkers are great and one of the conditions is
| that I don't travel more than one week of every month, although
| with Covid I haven't traveled at all. This is so much better for
| me and lets me spend so much more time with my family.
|
| The rest is some advice I would give to a friend if they said the
| same things you've said to me.
|
| If you can't afford a place in London where you would like to
| live, you could look to an up and coming neighborhood, in 10
| years it will likely look a lot different and you'll be happy you
| got in when you did. Alternatively you could buy a house in a
| place you want to retire, you could rent it out or have it as a
| vacation home on Airbnb, that way if real estate continues to do
| what it has been doing you'll have a nice asset, and a place you
| like to visit. Also, your partner sounds like they're really
| hitting their groove, but they also might grow to dislike their
| job in 5 or 10 years.
|
| edit: make sure you tell your partner how you're feeling, they
| might just tell you to take some time off to regroup, sometimes
| we get so wrapped up we don't see how others are suffering
| because we're not.
| reason-mr wrote:
| While it does sound like you are burned out, I lived in London
| for 6 years and hated it - I left as soon as I completed my Ph.D.
| - it's not a good spot if you are not a city person. My
| suggestion is to look at remote work, take a pay cut if
| necessary, and work from where you want to live, at least for a
| while. Just because you have a Ph.D. this does not mean you have
| to live in the middle of a large city. Use the money from that
| job as a vehicle to develop a small, focused piece of software
| that solves a problem, preferably somewhat related to your Ph.D.
| work. Get a business person involved in this early to validate
| the concept, so you sure you are not making something you can't
| sell, and start selling it. Two outcomes - either you make money
| (in which case fine) or you don't, and have something to point at
| showing that you can be self-starting - and then look for a job
| related to that. Do be rigorous though, and finish what you start
| (ALWAYS finish what you start). You could begin by doing some
| focused research to aid in deciding what field you think your
| academic background confers an advantage in (and is not fintech
| :))
| willvarfar wrote:
| Lots of what you don't like, little of what you might? Seems just
| about where so many of us have been in the past, so don't
| despair!
|
| The general advice is to sit down with your partner and plan out
| the outside-work five-year and ten-year plan. Does it involve
| kids? Moving? Founding a startup? Having a proper weekend hobby
| or starting already on checking off bucket lists?
|
| The only way out of a rut is change. The longer you leave it, the
| worse the choices will be.
| pulse7 wrote:
| You could fly to London on Monday morning and work until Thursday
| afternoon (4 x 10 hours/day or 4 x 8 hours/day). You would sleep
| in a hotel for 3 nights/week in London and most probably pay less
| than for a monthly rent. Then you could build your home almost
| everywhere (the only limitations are good flight connections to
| London). Maybe you could even negotiate partly remote work.
| During work you would sleep 4 nights at home and 3 nights in
| London. During holidays you would be at home all the time. If you
| manage, you can even retire early. Since homes one hour flight
| from London can be much cheaper you would be able to pay for them
| faster...
| the-dude wrote:
| Is this sarcasm?
| rocgf wrote:
| Which part of it screams 'sarcasm' in this post? It may not
| seem like it, but being miserable while making a lot of money
| is a thing.
| the-dude wrote:
| The 'A quant who feels locked and would rather retire to
| travel the world' part?
| pineaux wrote:
| a bit of a throwaway account maybe
| mabbo wrote:
| > I find it difficult to muster up any enthusiasm during job
| interviews, which is probably a red flag for potential employers.
| I'm no longer young and excited about this stuff!
|
| A thought: instead of focusing on what the job is, find a job
| where you care about what the job accomplishes. You're in quant
| finance. Does that excite you? I'll bet not, or else you wouldn't
| be where you are right now.
|
| Everyone needs software these days. Charities, non-profits, lots
| of companies that are doing good for the world. They all need
| software people, technical people, and what they accomplish might
| be of more interest to you than the specifics of how you
| accomplish it.
| lacker wrote:
| Quant finance is notorious for being extremely unmotivating and
| depressing to work on. You say:
|
| _I 'm interested in computers and programming in general, but
| doing it for a living ruins the joy._
|
| Well... maybe. But maybe it's just the soulless nature of quant
| finance that ruins the joy. You need to quit your job, because
| you hate your job, and try something else. Anything else! Don't
| conclude that you hate programming for a living just because you
| hate programming at a quant finance job.
|
| Google and the other huge tech companies is one reasonable thing
| to try. Yeah, it might not be the most inspirational job in the
| world, but based on the experience of my personal network, it's
| far more interesting to work at Google than it is in quant
| finance. If I were you, I would also check YCombinator companies
| for ones that are willing to hire remotely in a European time
| zone, since it sounds like you don't really want to live in
| London.
| earthboundkid wrote:
| Yes, for any job, there will be periods when you're more or
| less engaged, but at the end of the day, there's no substitute
| for believing in what you're working on. I am leaving a lot of
| money on the table because I was depressed working on something
| I didn't believe in, so I changed jobs to something that pays
| less but means more to me.
| smabie wrote:
| Do you work on the sell side or buy side? If buy side prop or
| fund? Have you considered other quant jobs? Maybe they will
| be more exciting.
| thebrowncat wrote:
| Prop. The difficulty is getting the job in the first place.
| blunte wrote:
| Set a deadline - 6 or 12 months. Cheer yourself up by using that
| time to plan carefully some of your desired activities. Save as
| much money as you can during that year.
|
| Then quit.
|
| It will take three months at least before you find your balance
| again. At least, that's how it was for me after my company closed
| and sent us all away with nice severence packages. One of my
| colleagues literally stepped into a nicely paying contract gig
| the following Monday. I took a month which turned into three
| which turned into six. I did the cliche thing and went to Bali.
| And still my mind was so focused on the rat race and how to live
| by its rules that I almost forgot to enjoy my time.
|
| I did some contract stuff, did some nice travel, and then got a
| "real job". Now, 1.5 years later, I hate almost every day. I have
| money again, and safety, and a comfy house with a big yard (great
| fortune to be stuck here during COVID compared to a flat in
| Amsterdam). But knowing I have to get up each day and do nearly
| pointless tasks just to keep the ship moving in the right
| direction has been making me question the point of existence.
| That questioning can easily reach a point of danger, because
| ultimately you will reason that there is no point (and there
| isn't...); so you should be doing something that makes you happy
| or that you find passion in.
|
| Tomorrow I quit. I worked out a contract where I have total say
| in how the tech stuff is built, and I have total flexibility in
| location and nearly total flexibility in hours of the day.
|
| Given your skills, if you wish to leverage your unique and pretty
| valuable talents, you should be getting involved (networking)
| with entrepreneurial finance people. One of my other colleagues
| was a quant, and now he's investing and managing investment for a
| few clients. It took him about 5 years, but now I believe he has
| surpassed his income level from when we were at a professional
| finance shop. He travels for work and pleasure, and he mostly
| keep hours of his choosing.
|
| There are really so many things you could probably do... you just
| need to start getting to know people and seeing which
| opportunities present themselves.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| I'm not sure how you can't afford a house in London with your
| jobs; maybe you're not as highly paid as you think, maybe you
| need to save / invest more, maybe your standards for housing are
| above what you can find in London (truly horrendous overpriced
| properties).
|
| That said, as a fellow Londoner who is about to leave for sunnier
| places, I think you can find a better balance in terms of
| location and compensation.
|
| If you can't work remote for less in your field, learn some
| coding and spend a couple of years in some medium sized company /
| startup in London. Not Google, find a place you enjoy working
| for: most likely you won't have to grind leetcode to pass an
| interview, you'll get more flexibility, less stress - and you'll
| get way less money. I've seen (capable and very smart) people
| switch jobs, do a bootcamp and earn 80kPS per year 2 years after
| the bootcamp. Likewise, I've seen people with 15 years experience
| making 40kPS (and being less effective than the 80kPS person).
|
| Once you have some experience in London as a developer you should
| be able to land a fully remote gig and then you can work from
| wherever you prefer.
|
| In terms of motivation, I think I will never be satisfied working
| for someone else, hence why I decided to run my own business
| (after both contracting and full time positions). You get to
| solve a wider array of problems (from accounting, to coding, to
| whatever is needed), there is no politics, promotions or
| performance involved. If you do a good job and solve problems for
| someone else, you get more money, else, you starve. Spend some
| time thinking if entrepreneurship is something for you. In case
| it is, set yourself small goals. Start by thinking where you want
| to live, how much money would you need, etc. Maybe use your
| existing savings from the high paid job to purchase a property
| (surely cheaper than London) and have lower expenses (bills,
| food, entertainment).
|
| In regards to your partner - life is all about choices and it's
| too short to waste. Some people care a lot about their career.
| Some people see it as a rat race.
|
| If you strongly care about living somewhere else and your partner
| can't find a compromise, maybe it wasn't destiny. I lost a 5
| years old relationship because our goals weren't compatible, with
| me dreaming of running my own business from the beach and her
| dreaming a safe, high paying government job in her native
| country.
|
| Best of luck!
| LittleGecko wrote:
| I can quickly comment as I was in the same situation not too long
| ago. I was a semi-quant in a fund in London until recently. I
| stayed from the intern stage to the very top. I spent my entire
| time working. I hated London with a passion, it's a cold city
| where people are cold, the weather is cold and wet, the food is
| terrible, never made any friends there, you're expected to join
| the rat race in short. It has a huge impact on you if you don't
| like because you're reminded of this every day, you may be
| thinking of other places where life is not like that, that your
| life is running out getting a paycheck. I'm not sure if this is
| your experience and I talk for myself, but maybe it is. Also I
| wouldn't think of things in terms of optimising career/money.
| These things are only good if you're happy and it doesn't sound
| like you are.
|
| Here's what I've done: I left (I left far far). Life is too
| short. Quant skills can be applied in various things, including
| startups. I would suggest looking at Cambridge because you cannot
| leave your partner apparently. Cambridge has a bunch of funds,
| but also has a lot of startups working on interesting projects,
| you should have a go and visit the place. Things are greener,
| nicer, people are calmer, and you're 1hr away from your partner.
| Good luck.
| finikytou wrote:
| I had middle six digits in the USA with a green card. I abandoned
| everything to go back to my home country. Ill never make as much
| money as I was making in the USA in the same field here in
| Europe. But I am much more happy. every day I walk in my city,
| everyday I eat some home food I rejoice that I did not chose the
| money. u won't make the same money back home but ur life will be
| cheaper, and youll be happy. Thinking money first as a person
| with a family that built wealth is not really needed. If you were
| an immigrant from a poor background it would make sense but if
| your parents built wealth most likely ull get some of it... why
| care about making six or five digits?
| BlissWaves wrote:
| Most likely because internal value is associated with salary
| and worth. It's very difficult to change that when society
| determines your worth and skills by the salary that you get.
|
| His partner is apparantly also highly ambitious and I don't
| think relationships work with one partner being all about
| watching the stars and another super driven. Add a Phd to that
| which is long years invested as well and it's pretty much that
| you have a choice but you really don't have a choice.
| pcmoney wrote:
| This sounds like a combo of mild depression, burn out, and
| concrete/legitimate issues. I would try and disambiguate which of
| these is the driving vs contributing factor. Reductionist
| reasoning trends to nihilism for every job/activity (including
| travel, meditation, etc).
|
| Maybe you are expecting too much from your job in terms of
| fulfillment/meaning? Or too little?
|
| Community and people make our lives richer than money. Maybe find
| a job just as meaningless but with people you really enjoy
| working with?
|
| Keep taking time for yourself and dig into this. What do you need
| the money for? Why? Why do you think retirement will be
| meaningful? What is meaningful to you? How can you optimize for
| that?
| alsetmusic wrote:
| Agreed on the depression aspect. Working a job you hate while
| feeling trapped is a perfect recipe for depression, even if you
| otherwise aren't predisposed.
|
| I cannot recommend enough the value of finding a trusted
| therapist during such a time. Such a person can be difficult to
| find and you shouldn't stop trying if the first person you see
| isn't a good fit. (This probably doesn't work for everyone.)
|
| Once you feel like you have your feet under you again, quit
| your job. If you're able, take a job that prioritizes your
| happiness over your salary. I took a pay cut for greater job
| satisfaction and the trade off was worth it (for me; again,
| this won't be the same for everyone).
| ryandrake wrote:
| I'm going to be the contrarian. Keep the job. Power through it
| and retire as early as you can, then you can do whatever you
| want. If you're in $finance$ or $FAANG$, don't go to a non-FAANG.
| Definitely don't quit your job unless you have another one lined
| up, and definitely don't take an extended leave to travel and
| find yourself. Don't believe "CS grads will always be employed."
| There are people on HN who graduated in 2010 and have worked a
| decade without experiencing trying to stay employed in a bear
| market. It can and will happen again, and suddenly having savings
| is going to be super important. Work is not supposed to be roses
| and sunshine. That's why it's called Work and not Fun Hobby.
|
| Remember, the goal is to not _have to_ work. Then, you can do
| whatever fun thing you want, even a fun job!
|
| I _wish_ I would have had a quant finance salary and aggressive
| savings plan in my 30s. I might be retired already if I did.
| Instead I kind of flitted around doing "fun" jobs and didn't get
| serious about retiring until I hit 40. Don't be me.
| jstx1 wrote:
| There's definitely an argument for making hay while the sun
| shines. But retiring early exposes you more to future bear
| markets since the value/returns of your investment portfolio
| will go down. Being employed seems a lot more resilient in that
| case.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > There's definitely an argument for making hay while the sun
| shines.
|
| Forgot that phrase, but that's exactly what I'm getting at.
| Also, make that hay in the morning. Because of compounding
| interest/returns, dollars (or pounds) that you save in your
| 20s are far, FAR more valuable than dollars you save in your
| 30s which are more valuable than dollars you save in your
| 40s. The advice you sometimes hear to go traveling and
| backpacking in your early 20s to self-discover is total
| financial lunacy. Every month you don't earn money in your
| early 20s probably results in extending retirement six or
| more months.
| cableshaft wrote:
| This isn't so much every month not earning money but every
| month not putting money into a retirement account/savings.
| If you make a bunch of money in your 20s and don't
| adequately do these things (like, work for a startup that
| has no 401k and you don't open up and contribute to a Roth
| IRA to make up for it, for example), then it's not much
| different than going backpacking through your 20s.
| rebelos wrote:
| It's a real shame that spending your youth fixated on money
| and a nebulous future retirement doesn't have a price tag
| attached to it.
|
| You can calculate the opportunity cost of a dollar spent vs
| a dollar invested, but you cannot so easily calculate the
| cost of squandering a chance to have a memorable experience
| while you're still young and unencumbered.
|
| Balance.
| jstx1 wrote:
| You can have other goals apart from increasing the balance
| of your investment portfolio or retiring early. It's not
| all about optimising this one aspect of your life.
| kgin wrote:
| 3% withdrawal rate has a ton of cushion built in, surviving
| all historic scenarios including the Great Depression. If we
| do experience something worse than the Great Depression, it's
| not a particularly safe assumption that your job would still
| exist either, but having whatever was left of your savings
| would put you in a better spot than most to forge a new life
| in this new post-apocalyptic world.
| oneplane wrote:
| Being employed or running a business (or being in school, in
| a sports team etc.) also means you're part of the general
| actively synchronised life. Might sound fuzzy but it boils
| down to being in touch with society around you. Then again,
| there is plenty of society all over the world where that
| means working strange hours, strange jobs, or not at all.
| granshaw wrote:
| It's not an either/or. Having a good nest egg gives you the
| option of working less or working on something more
| fulfilling (that still generates income)
| kgin wrote:
| Everyone needs a way to plug in to the world around them.
| It doesn't have to be a full time job or even a job at all.
| But this is something everyone needs.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| What you've said is correct but if you take what you've
| said and apply it to the point of retirement it gets a bit
| depressing since you do indeed lose all those things.
| People have a lot of trouble accepting retirement because
| of that loss of routine and of connection.
|
| So what's the best outcome? My point of view is that the
| answer is to find something right now that provides that
| connection to society without causing you harm in other
| aspects. So it's an argument for quitting.
|
| The original poster in this thread says to push through
| pain now to early retirement. But lets think about that.
| You'd be working your ass off now merely to hit the issues
| of a loss of routine and connection later in life.
|
| Instead find something now that you wouldn't mind doing
| past retirement age and you'll never have those issues.
| blunte wrote:
| What you don't understand is that if you hate life, and perhaps
| if you have money and comforts that you know should help... but
| you still are miserable, it feels hopeless.
|
| The money traps you. It's so hard to imagine taking a huge pay
| cut. But that pay cut, and living life the way you want, is
| more important.
|
| Hating most of your hours each day until you're 45 or 50 and
| then retiring will leave you such a different and sad person
| that retirement won't be joyful.
|
| The problem with a human life is that we can only know
| intimately what we experience. It's so difficult to really know
| how the other choices would have been (for us). I'm probably
| not in the financial situation as the quant, but I know the
| feeling. If I could tell the college me advice, it would have
| been to do the music degree instead of compsci.
|
| My family has all worked very hard until retirement, and then
| the lack of income made them hyper sensitive to spending
| anything. "Never spend your capital; live off the interest." So
| you die with a few million in the bank. Now you don't want to
| spend your last 10 or 20 years poor and hungry, but there must
| be a middle ground.
| thebrowncat wrote:
| The other issue with trying to power through the job whilst
| absolutely hating it, is that your performance suffers and
| you end up getting fired. The turnover rate in quant finance
| is extremely high and it's not just because people
| voluntarily quit.
| mech422 wrote:
| Not to sound harsh - but its a trade off...You seem to want
| the money and the job satisfaction/community/work-life
| balance... Its incredibly hard to get it all. Pick the ones
| that are most important to you, and let the others sort
| themselves out.
|
| Sounds like you're only going to make another year or two
| at you're current job before you're totally fried. So
| perhaps start looking for new stuff now, and start socking
| away extra cash in case you want to retire.
|
| P.S. The turnover rate in programming in general is very
| high. I was surprised the 'average' programmer changes
| careers after 10 (5?) years. Burnout is real everywhere.
| mech422 wrote:
| bad form replying to myself, but this just occurred to
| me..
|
| Given you sound fairly young, what about powering thru
| say 3 years with your partner to build a nest egg. Then
| both taking (perhaps lower paying) jobs that you enjoy,
| giving your nest egg time to grow - that way, you'd have
| the satisfaction of doing something you enjoy, and the
| option to retire whenever...
| thebrowncat wrote:
| I guess that's what's subconsciously been my plan for the
| last while. It's just that on the rare occasions I'm with
| extended family and I'm reminded of what's truly
| important in life, it brings my unhappiness to the fore
| again, and I resolve to try and do something about it.
| blunte wrote:
| Depression after returning to work from a holiday is very
| common. That should be a clue that we're doing something
| wrong as a society.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| Agreed. I do think you have to work for your future self and
| sacrifice some time and happiness for a stable income. But
| not to the extent that you can't enjoy your current life.
|
| I think that OP should look for another job that he might not
| love, but will hate less.
| BlissWaves wrote:
| Why music degree instead of CS?
| blunte wrote:
| Music, both listening and performing, has been one of the
| few things in life that really fills me with joy and gives
| me the strongest (positive) emotions.
|
| If I had gotten a music degree, I could have probably been
| a decent composer and a better instrumentalist; so I might
| have been able to make a living. Or at least I probably
| wouldn't have gotten enough early higher paying jobs that I
| trapped myself in that money cycle.
| granshaw wrote:
| I don't know what your partner/family situation is - I
| feel like I could easily wind down my spending and
| comfort level, but I don't want to put my partner through
| that. I think in most cases this is the constraining
| factor
| blunte wrote:
| That is and has been one of my best excuses (and a pretty
| valid one, especially when children are involved).
|
| Now this is rather extreme in comparison, but some young
| families with children live a bit of the slow-nomad life,
| on a minimal budget. It's difficult to know if that would
| be overall good or negative for them and the kids, but I
| kind of suspect it would make for better young humans. I
| imagine it would mean a lot less prejudice and intolerane
| of others if you grew up being exposed to many different
| cultures.
| mech422 wrote:
| We do understand...
|
| But if you want the money and want to retire early...that's
| the price you pay unless you're very lucky. Given the
| salaries O.P. and partner seem to be making, they could
| prolly power thru and retire in 5 years? 10 years tops ?
|
| Also, if retiring at 45 or 50 leaves you 'sad', I'd question
| your assumptions about retirement? Working for 25 years, and
| having another 50+ years of retirement ahead of you makes you
| sad?
|
| P.S. I don't do the "perpetual interest" thing..Even if
| you're very optimistic, 110 years should be plenty. I have
| mine based around 75-80. You'd be surprised how much that
| lowers what you 'need' to retire..
| loopz wrote:
| You truly don't, if you think money has any intrinsic worth
| rather than how you choose to live your life.
|
| Let's say you sacrifice 10-15 years with a life miserable,
| but very fulfilling regards to money. How does that shape
| you as a person, and how will that shape your life after
| retiring early, rather than living another life, not ruled
| by currency?
|
| Some of us have already chosen differently, and have no
| problems regarding life's choices now, with or without
| Covid. That self-integrity and intuition just can't be
| bought with money.
|
| For others, there may be no choice. But then the question
| would never arise..
| usgroup wrote:
| Yeah I was in pretty much the same situation a while ago. Big
| salary, stress, London, job I didn't like. I quit. I started a
| services consultancy and got the work/life balance I wanted, and
| got to pick my own work. Personally, if you can hustle as well as
| think, I'd suggest that.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| When you absolutely need to make a change the way i handle it is
| to think of the worst thing that will happen. Generally the worst
| isn't that bad so it makes the critical decision much easier to
| make.
|
| I quit my FAANG job with no backup in place during the pandemic
| and so far have done a bit of traveling. No one blames me. It's
| 2021, the year of the burnout. For me the breaking point was
| watching the movie Whiplash where everything is given for the
| career and thinking it all seemed reasonable. The movie wasn't
| intended to be perfectly reasonable at all.
|
| I've lined up another job already but will still be a little
| while before i start that. I was never that bothered by
| unemployment at any point except that i may have had to move back
| to my home country if i didn't line up the next job within the
| visa grace period. But that's not as much of problem as a mental
| break. One of the nice things about having some savings is that
| you can prioritize your mental health now even if it cuts into
| your early retirement plans.
|
| Maybe you don't get another job for a while but if you are on
| track for early retirement being unemployed in 2021 isn't going
| to break you.
|
| You're burnt out in 2021 after the chaos of a pandemic.
| Completely understandable. Do what you have to do.
| alain94040 wrote:
| > he is making multiples of what I'm making
|
| > Given that anything else would involve a massive pay cut
|
| That's one solution right there: talk to your partner obviously,
| but it looks like you could quit the job that you hate, and could
| still maintain your lifestyle using your partner's income. Then
| find something to do that you actually enjoy. I hope your partner
| would be happier when you're happier.
| throwaway277 wrote:
| 36 here, and in a similar spot, though in a very different field
| (and country.)
|
| That said -- where you are now feels hopeless, and the first
| thing to really do is try to figure out what you want. I mean
| that in an almost tactical way -- clearly you have some competing
| priorities, and it would help to know what you would want in an
| ideal world, and then make the compromises that are required.
|
| It sounds like money isn't as much of a driver for you as you had
| initially hoped. So -- what would you want to do if money weren't
| an object? Does your partner want to stay or just not in as much
| of a hurry as you to leave?
|
| There are options/possibilities. You might be able to work
| remotely from somewhere with a lower living cost but with a
| London-esque salary. There are also places besides London and
| your hometown.
|
| I say this having been in a similar spot, as mentioned earlier.
| Burnt out completely at my job -- the one that I had wanted since
| I was 12. I've been working on a startup now for a little while
| -- and its by no means a success at all -- but I at least have
| something to work towards. There's a fantasy. There's something I
| can imagine working where I can be happy. And with that, there
| are real conversations I can have with my partner and myself
| about what we should do. It's not easy, but I have a vague idea
| now of what I would find rewarding, and at least a path to get
| there.
| rdiddly wrote:
| The biggest impediment to your breaking out of circular thinking,
| might be thinking automatically that any other job would entail a
| big pay cut. Because first of all, maybe not. Your skills are in
| high demand. If anything it's the opposite problem: If you don't
| decide for yourself what direction you want to go in, someone out
| there will always have an opinion. In your case that person was
| the recruiter you mention, but everyone of course has lots of
| ideas about where they can put talented people to use. Which is a
| nice problem to have if you're said talented person, but it
| becomes about being selective. The recruiter decided where you
| should work, not you.
|
| Analogies:
|
| 1) Maybe I'm quite handsome and let's assume heterosexual for
| this example, and I never have to ask women out; I just wait for
| them to ask me. Corollary: I date only the women whom said women
| want me to date (themselves)!
|
| 2) Maybe I'm an accomplished musician and someone's always asking
| me to join their band. When I do, inevitably the band ends up
| sucking. Maybe I don't like music anymore?!?! (No, probably I
| should start my own band, or at least not limit my search to only
| the bands that go looking and find me. Maybe I should even write
| to my very favorite band, refer them to some of my amazing work
| and say I hope we get a chance to work together someday. You
| never know!)
|
| Secondly (and yes I realize it's been a long time since the
| "first of all"), just for the sake of argument - if you did take
| a pay cut, so what? What do you need all that money for... to
| throw away on rent in a city you hate? Work remotely from
| someplace cheaper and you might find that the differential amount
| that you can save each month remains the same or even increases.
| Just food for thought. Or to get more extreme and "Shit My Dad
| Says" about it, experience complete unemployment for a while, or
| be in the army for a stint, and see how much more appealing that
| "low" salary job is!
|
| Bottom line: Don't be a prisoner of the golden handcuffs!
| coralreef wrote:
| _My father had a pretty average salary, bought a massive house
| for a reasonable price, and saw his wealth multiply many times
| over. It 's not like that for my generation._
|
| With the housing market this is certainly so. I'm one year
| younger than you, but have managed to triple my networth since
| 2020 (thanks Federal Reserve!) through stocks, mostly tech.
|
| Obviously there is a lot of bias in this statement because I've
| only been investing for 7 years which have all been bull markets.
| But the data is there for you to see, if you can just buy and
| hold S&P500, you would have done very well over the last few
| years.
| a3n wrote:
| If you moved back to your home town today, what would you do for
| a living? Do that in London, or something related to it.
|
| As for the 2/3 pay cut, aren't you spending a good bit of that
| now on excessive London costs? Plus the intangibles of feeling
| like shit?
|
| Finally, there must be someone who will pay you remotely (even if
| "remote" is just WFH in the City) for your skills, or for your
| fundamental abilities that your skills are built on. For example,
| an advanced engineering firm that uses statistical quality
| control, informed by ML.
| throw149102 wrote:
| I'm definitely very confused about point 4. Perhaps it's a UK
| thing, but taking a 2/3 paycut should not ruin your chances of
| retiring early, if you're living in a city as expensive as
| London. If you consider the cost of rent, and cost of living in
| general, your 2/3 paycut should end up being like a 95/100 paycut
| after accounting for CoL. In other words, it should hardly impact
| your retirement plans.
| ptudan wrote:
| Golden Handcuffs can be a real bitch. I feel for you.
|
| How long have you been working at this job? You might just be
| burned out for the specific company and colleagues.
| thebrowncat wrote:
| Less than 2 years. My previous gig was 2.5 years. Before that
| was 2.5 years. It's obvious I never last long anywhere!
|
| If I could switch companies easily I would. But you need to be
| insanely good at math/statistics to pass the interviews, which
| I'm not, and you need to show enthusiasm for the role, which is
| difficult.
| peterhi wrote:
| This was normal for me for good many years. Given that few
| companies promote internally (or that there are fewer
| promotions available to staff) means that if you want a
| change you will probably have to move on anyhow
|
| I would say that your first concern is to find something that
| you actually want to do. When you leave to get away from a
| job you will probably end up in the same space and the cycle
| will start again
|
| The money you get paid to work in London is in part because
| how expensive London is, so moving home with a pay cut may
| actually see you better off
|
| Be careful of how this will affect your relationship. You
| don't want to get to the point where the line "I put up with
| is this shit for your career" leaves your mouth
|
| Sports data (odds and pricing) is another area that ML could
| get you a job
| Bootvis wrote:
| I think you give yourself too little credit. You graduated
| with a PhD in CS, you must be well above average.
| jstx1 wrote:
| Above average in which group though? If it's a competitive
| field where only the people with relevant PhDs get called
| back in for an interview, then you need to be at the top
| end of that group to get a job. Being above average in some
| broader population doesn't really mean much.
|
| (I don't know OP personally and I'm not commenting on them
| specifically, they could be amazing)
| thebrowncat wrote:
| You have summed it up exactly. The salary and talent pool
| have bi-modal distributions.
| Bootvis wrote:
| In my (limited) experience there is definitely a bonus
| for being the very best but I also believe the London
| Quant job market is big enough to get a decent quant job
| without being IMO material.
| thebrowncat wrote:
| Well, I certainly have the ability to pass hard interviews
| with a lot of preparation, but there comes a point where
| you wonder if it's at all worth the effort.
| Bootvis wrote:
| That I definitely agree with but if I understand you
| correctly you're quite miserable now so an alternative
| looks relatively attractive.
|
| Can you try to get into the hiring committee at your
| current employer? You'll get some free practice.
| __app_dev__ wrote:
| I had to cram for a FAANG interview earlier this year
| after being unexpected invited to apply. I came close but
| didn't get the job and was told I can try again in 6
| months. BTW, I'm in Los Angeles.
|
| Then the past few months I've had several other big tech
| companies reach out and told them I'm not going to
| interview this summer.
|
| I recently had a former Microsoft Program Manager tell me
| that "the more experienced the person being interviewed
| the worse they are at interviews because that haven't
| used that part the brain in 20 years".
|
| The interviews are such a pain now make me kind of wish I
| was doing something other than Computer Science.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| Try looking for a role on this job board. The world is bigger
| than Google/finance.
|
| https://80000hours.org/job-board/
| akvadrako wrote:
| Due to the pandemic there is a lot of remote work available these
| days. You can probably find a freelance gig or a full-time
| position with a North America-based company that pays better than
| most London-based positions. And I don't mean Google, but one of
| the thousands of smaller companies. Often their interviews have
| almost no technical aspect, it's just chatting. At least that
| would be a partial solution.
| bizzleDawg wrote:
| I am seeing a lot of comments here about depression, though it
| doesn't ring true to me - the situation you're in is one that
| myself and a lot of the other comments can understand from our
| own experience of similar situations and it really does suck. My
| take is that you're feeling the way you do in response to the
| situation you find yourself in, and perhaps due to the loss of
| control and ensuing hopelessness.
|
| As a first step I recommend taking a look at a book called Ikigai
| [1] (There is some fair criticism of the author taking that
| japanese word somewhat out of context, but don't let that take
| away from the key point of the book). It certainly helped me to
| work out a way to think more about how to find a more rewarding
| and meaningful career and ultimately life. It's a nice gentle
| read too.
|
| As a second step, you could seek out a career coach or someone
| who you can talk to in order to uncover your needs and dreams -
| they're in there somewhere buddy.
|
| I've only recently taken the second step myself to start learning
| more about how to feel more meaning in what I am spending a good
| chunk of my life on. I've found a good coach who has been
| enormously helpful in asking the right (and difficult) questions
| at the right time.
|
| Final thought: money matters come up a lot in your post. You
| don't have to measure yourself in that dimension if you don't
| want to anymore. You can add a great deal of value to the world
| without $$$ being the base unit, and/or have a lot of fun!
|
| [1]: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ikigai-Japanese-secret-long-
| happy/d...
| ingvul wrote:
| > Final thought: money matters come up a lot in your post. You
| don't have to measure yourself in that dimension if you don't
| want to anymore. You can add a great deal of value to the world
| without $$$ being the base unit, and/or have a lot of fun!
|
| Reminds me: "But sir, I don't want money; I just want a big
| home with a big garden!". Not sure where I heard it.
| thebrowncat wrote:
| Thank you - I've read Ikigai and loved it :) Could probably do
| with another read!
| srcreigh wrote:
| Is it the social situation? Everybody needs enough encouraging,
| supportive, friendly people in their lives.. and if you have
| discouraging, apathetic, etc people then you need even more of
| the former.
|
| This could be the good money + toxic environment deadlock. I
| guess it's mostly the social environment which discourages you
| from looking elsewhere. The pay could be better elsewhere, the
| social environment almost certainly could be better elsewhere.
|
| I recommend that you start interviewing for other positions
| immediately - maybe 1 per month - just to keep yourself grounded.
| Your interviewing/networking doesn't imply a decision to make a
| change, it just informs your decision regardless of if you decide
| to switch or stay. Interviewing could encourage you to stay where
| you are, etc.
| vsareto wrote:
| There's a couple of constraints here that seem to be dominating
| your decisions.
|
| One: early retirement
|
| Two: the idea that the recruiter was right about not being able
| to find the money elsewhere
|
| You have a _PhD in Computer Science_ , one of the highest
| academic accomplishments in one of the hottest fields for the
| last 30-40 years. I want you to know how far ahead you are of
| people like me who just taught themselves to code and glue web
| apps together for 6 figures. You need to dispel the notion that
| you can't find your current salary elsewhere and that recruiter
| was likely lying to you. Finding meaningful work is a different
| beast, but you're staying attached to a job for a financial goal
| that isn't really clear.
|
| Assuming you stayed at this job, how long until early retirement?
| It might make more sense to enjoy things now and take a break
| from working, move to a new city with a lower CoL (plus you don't
| even like London), and try a better work/life balance.
|
| Depending on your flat's rent and joint savings, it might
| actually make more sense to leave the flat, put that money
| towards traveling (which probably won't even come close your
| rent), and figure things out. It's not like you're building
| capital renting the place anyway.
|
| As a final bit, career suicide is a dead concept in CS. That
| seems like extremely outdated thinking especially with remote
| work's popularity now.
| hrudham wrote:
| This comment really resonated with me, but I thought I'd tackle
| one point in particular:
|
| Personally, I've felt that retirement is an outdated concept.
| Don't get me wrong, I'm planning for it, but I'm in no way
| expecting it to be entirely possible; not without some form of
| at least part-time work to support it.
|
| Maybe this is a factor of my environment (3rd world country,
| but one you've heard of). I look at my parents (who are in the
| lucky position to be able to retire), my peers and their
| parents (who are often in a worse situation, but might be OK
| with part-time work, or with help from their children), and the
| general public I interact with (massive income disparity makes
| this a dream to most). We're also living longer on a
| generational level, so the "early" part becomes even more
| difficult to obtain.
| atmosx wrote:
| My take too. I believe the op can find same or better salary,
| while working remotely.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "You have a PhD in Computer Science, one of the highest
| academic accomplishments in one of the hottest fields for the
| last 30-40 years. I want you to know how far ahead you are of
| people like me who just taught themselves to code and glue web
| apps together for 6 figures."
|
| I have a Masters and don't make 6 figures. I think the PhD has
| a smaller pool of positions, especially if you expect to be
| paid well.
| f6v wrote:
| > You have a PhD in Computer Science, one of the highest
| academic accomplishments in one of the hottest fields for the
| last 30-40 years. I want you to know how far ahead you are of
| people like me who just taught themselves to code and glue web
| apps together for 6 figures.
|
| Don't want to be a buzzkill but OP can as well be a mediocre
| engineer, even with a CS PhD. It's important to recognize your
| own strengths and weaknesses.
| badjeans wrote:
| Unfortunately, a CS PhD doesn't even guarantee mediocrity.
| oneplane wrote:
| It can be even worse than that: be amazing at the theory, be
| an amazing engineer, but being unable to make something that
| can be interpreted by others makes you an unacceptable risk
| to any company (except your own).
| nightski wrote:
| I think just about any engineer can accomplish that feat,
| PhD or not.
| oneplane wrote:
| It does take some serious skill to construct something
| like FISR that works and is efficient, but not easily
| understood.
|
| Writing crappy code is indeed are more widely available
| skill ;-)
| vsareto wrote:
| OP could be a lot of things, however, I'm going to go with OP
| being "likely employable in the future" due to having a PhD
| and being currently employed with a near-Google salary. Don't
| be an asshole.
| workethics wrote:
| So, in earnest, I don't see what the parent comment said
| that deserves them to be called an asshole. I actually see
| you calling them an asshole as much more rude than anything
| they said.
|
| I figure there's some social implication that I'm missing.
| Would you mind breaking down the thought process for your
| reply?
| jgwil2 wrote:
| Not GP, but the "as well" in that comment could be seen
| to imply that GP is a mediocre engineer, and OP is as
| well.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Where do you plan on retiring to? Moving back home? Why not move
| back get paid less and start retirement early. Wasting all your
| money on London rent means you are breaking even over a lower
| salary.
| thebrowncat wrote:
| The problem is that I want to create a life with my partner...
| and I don't want to ruin his career. If I were single I would
| move back in a heartbeat.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Forget jobs for a minute. You want to create a life with your
| partner. Where? The two of you, thinking about life
| together... where do you (plural) want that to be?
| pm90 wrote:
| Disclaimer: I am not a licensed therapist or professional in
| any way. Just a random person offering an opinion.
|
| I think you need to really weigh the options and give it
| serious thought. If you're so miserable that working made you
| cry, and you don't like the city you're living in, I think
| you need to strongly consider putting your needs first. If
| you're miserable, I can guarantee you that the people that
| really care about you will also be miserable... so you're
| doing them a disservice by continuing to be miserable.
|
| It seems like you already know what to do. You really liked
| your hometown. You don't like London. Just go home and see
| how it goes. If it doesn't work out, you can restart. If it
| does, then great. Life is so short, don't spend it being
| miserable.
| [deleted]
| tinktank wrote:
| I feel you; I too went through the same sort of thing -- PhD in
| CS from Cambridge, girlfriend in London who thought the center of
| the universe was London and parents back home screaming at me to
| 'get a house and settle down in London'. I was slogging it, being
| paid incredibly well only to end up at work before the sun came
| up, back home when the sun had gone down, forever damp, wet,
| cold, windy even when it was sunny outside.
|
| A lot of your post centers around your living situation and being
| unable to buy a house in London even though you're well paid. You
| don't like London and hate it -- don't force yourself to live in
| it. I did that, and I got really really sick. The stress
| basically broke me.
|
| Like you I was scared -- scared that I'm unemployable and tied
| into my job, scared that I have no skillset, scared that I'm not
| good enough. I ended up being pushed, and that was not great. In
| the end I realized all the things I thought would mean the end of
| my life didn't mean anything at all:
|
| - Not living in London didn't matter - Not owning a house in
| London didn't matter - Not making my parents didn't matter - Not
| being with my ex-girlfriend didn't matter.
|
| What did matter was being happy and doing things that made me
| happy. I spent a year sitting at home learning about digital
| design because it seemed interesting. Today, I'm in a research
| commercial research position, doing well and happier than I've
| ever been.
|
| The (long winded) point I'm making is -- sometimes deep down (or
| not so deep down) we KNOW something isn't for us but we plug away
| anyway. Once you know, you know. Start making steps to change, do
| not continue to fight it. If you have to fight every day it's not
| for you.
|
| Don't be like me and break into two. Just start taking steps to
| fix it. Don't be afraid if the steps mean some uncertainty.
|
| Having said that, here are some practical ideas: - Have you
| thought about a research position? Take a look at the Alan Turing
| institute, they usually have interesting positions available. -
| Take a look at DAMTP/Stats @ Cambridge. They are really getting
| into ML/Stats for machine learning. Imperial too is ramping up
| their research teams in that area. - Have you thought about
| applying to one of the bigger, older insurance companies?
| Everything I'm hearing leads me to believe they want to ramp up
| the ML/technical side of the underwriting and claims process but
| don't have the technology skills to pursue it.
|
| If any of these seem interesting, ping me. I can make intros.
| BlissWaves wrote:
| This just screams depression to me. You have dedicated so much of
| your life to CS and now dream about meditation and learning about
| things for fun.
|
| It may be worthwhile also to think about why started your Phd in
| the first place. What did you find so fun back then. Just trace
| to the past and find your initial reason and try to chart a path
| from here to what problems you want to work on.
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| Take a job in an early stage startup doing something that
| leverages your background (e.g. computer vision). You'll take a
| pay cut for now but if you become someone that early stage
| startups want to hire you can hop around until you hit the
| unicorn jackpot while still drawing a good salary. Also there's a
| better chance you'll find the work meaningful. If nothing else,
| you'll have more say/agency
|
| Seems like equal or better EV both in terms of $ and QOL over
| next 10-20 years
| kazinator wrote:
| Linton Kwesi Johnson must have felt trapped in London when he
| wrote the lyrics Inglan is a Bitch Dere's
| no escapin it.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isMjvRpAckU (with music)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq9OpJYck7Y (recitation only)
|
| Mebe you feel bedder fta listenin to dis.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Ask for a sabbatical to see if you can figure out what exactly
| makes you hate your job. Read up on the history of finance and
| the great depression.
|
| Helping orient your mindset on the big picture of how you are
| helping people can be illuminating and good for mental health.
| maybelsyrup wrote:
| I see a couple comments to the effect that you should find
| something that you _like to do_ , and that's good -- liking
| things is generally easier than not liking them.
|
| But to me that doesn't go far enough, and ignores a deeper
| question: what do you believe in? Like, in life? What are your
| values, your principles? This may be a bit dark, but if you died
| tomorrow and could witness your own funeral, how do you wish the
| people who know and love you to describe _how_ you lived your
| life?
|
| The things we _do_ can be connected very deeply to the things we
| _believe_ (to crudely paraphrase Bob Dylan: the things we
| "serve"). In my view, human beings have a higher probability of
| flourishing and overall contentment when they _are_ connected.
| Conversely, when they 're not -- when what we do doesn't serve
| what we believe, or when it goes against what we believe -- our
| species risks a lot of trouble.
|
| So, my two cents: if you know your own values, come back to them
| concretely (write'em down, for instance). If you don't know them,
| or haven't ever articulated them very clearly, do so. But once
| you've got them nice and clear, find work (a career or not, just
| small-w work) that serves them. It's not a cure-all, by any
| means. Just consider them a little talisman and use them like
| that.
|
| On the one hand, you may never end up a millionaire. But on the
| other, you'll never again spend much time in places like the one
| you're currently in.
|
| Edit / addendum: this'll be cliche, and I'm sure you've heard it,
| but I say it anyway: take the time to develop a relationship with
| a good psychotherapist. Not even necessarily for your "symptoms",
| whatever those might be, but for the broader existential stuff.
| DamonHD wrote:
| I spent a long time working alongside quants in the City, in
| several large and small companies. Some of the quants seemed to
| enjoy their work a lot, a few less so. It depends on the team and
| the company to a large extent I suspect.
|
| If you really can't find any fun place in the City as a quant,
| consider eg a data scientist role elsewhere.
|
| I don't think that I have yet paid myself (eg a CTO of start-ups,
| with an MSc) what you probably got as your opening salary. I
| worked in IT, but the money wasn't a motivator and so I never
| moved to trading as friends did, or into management...
| orware wrote:
| Although my unique circumstances are different, I'd like to share
| that you are not alone in feeling trapped in one's job and city
| since I too have felt the exact same way in recent years.
|
| I unfortunately can't offer very many solutions since I am in
| basically the same "trapped" situation currently (but towards the
| end here I can hopefully share a few things that keep me going).
|
| For myself, the position I currently have in my hometown is the
| best I can hope for in this area, but the work/team environment
| have steadily become worse, particularly the last few
| years...being able to work from home last year helped out
| tremendously since it was something I had been hoping to have for
| some time, but the main kicker was simply being able to be around
| my kids more and have those smaller interactions with them on a
| more frequent basis and not deal with the office drama
| constantly.
|
| Age-wise, we're the exact same, but education-wise you're further
| along than I'll likely ever get (I have some work towards a
| Masters in CS, but I'm poor at math, so with a completed PhD in
| CS in hand for yourself, I feel that opens up so many more doors
| than I could hope to receive). Housing-wise, I fortunately live
| in a somewhat rural area so housing prices aren't nearly as high
| as they are in other parts of California so we were able to take
| the plunge to purchase a home about two years ago (at times I
| feel that renting was definitely easier, but we were outgrowing
| our old place so I echo the sentiment of having one's own place
| to make "home" as being a positive).
|
| I think the big thing I'm reading in your post above though is
| potentially that proximity to family and a city where you
| actually do feel like you're home and I can also echo that
| sentiment too. I spent a year in the Bay Area for school, but
| always felt that it was different than my home area, and later on
| during a short stint at a tech company in the Bay as well, those
| sorts of feelings returned too (it's difficult for me to say
| though whether I might have eventually felt "at home" if I had
| given myself more time but I'm not sure if that would have
| occurred or not).
|
| In the last month my workplace has had myself return to the
| office and it created an immediate sense of sadness since I would
| no longer have the comfortable environment I had built up at
| home, nor would I get to see my children as often I had grown
| accustomed to. That I feel is the great drawback of so many
| companies pushing to bring their staff back onsite rather than
| adopting proper remote work options and allowing for it moving
| forward.
|
| On top of that, I took a short (less than a week) vacation with
| the family, and had similar feelings as yours in my first day
| back in the office afterward since I just resented the thought of
| coming back into the office again so much after enjoying a few
| days away.
|
| Also like you however, I've even shied away from wanting to apply
| for Software Engineering roles at other companies because I have
| the same concern regarding whether I would prefer the new work
| more than my existing work...or would it in fact be worse? That's
| the big concern (aside from the larger questions of whether
| remote work would be allowed and if I would be forced to make
| larger changes such as completely moving my family away to
| another city, etc. which also doesn't seem as appealing to have
| to put them/myself through either if it can be avoided).
|
| So I wonder, what's my alternative to this line of work I've been
| in over the past decade+? And it's a really sobering thought
| since there would basically be nothing (that I can think of) that
| would come close in terms of salary so I feel forced to continue
| on in it (even though I do enjoy software development overall,
| I've also worked mostly independently since I'm basically a team
| of one, so I'm never sure if working in a larger software
| oriented organization might take away some of the enjoyment I've
| had working independently on software projects due to the extra
| rigor that might be needed on larger teams...overall though I'd
| still hope that the extra comradery would be a net plus on that
| scale).
|
| Since you mentioned that your partner earns several multiples of
| your current salary I'm not sure what kind of accelerated
| timescale that might provide you as a couple to a potentially
| early retirement elsewhere (potentially closer to your hometown),
| but that might be consideration (although it doesn't help out
| with the here and now feelings which can't be worked around if
| you're still needing to go to work and experience those feelings
| daily).
|
| For myself, it is difficult too...in years past what would
| sometimes help is me making attempts to get hired at tech
| companies (providing some small hope for that short period of
| time before being eventually rejected...which is also a not so
| great feeling so that's one reason why I've shied away from doing
| much of that lately), but at the moment I'm actually exploring Y
| Combinator's Cofounder matching area to see if that might provide
| me one path away from my current role I feel so stuck in and
| maybe take me into a new role (e.g. CTO) where I can provide more
| impact in a smaller company and get to stretch more of my brain
| and what I feel I can bring to an organization. I'm not sure if
| this experiment will pan out or not, but I'm hopeful for now :-).
|
| Feel free to reach out via my email in my profile if you feel
| like sharing any more of the "struggle" we both seem to have
| (it's good to know I'm not alone in feeling that way either :-)!
| trhway wrote:
| >My parents, like most boomers, had a much better standard of
| living when they were my age.
|
| that is BS. 198x and even 199x were much worse economically than
| today. Your parents grinded through it to give what you have, in
| particular education. Of course, because it was given to you and
| you didn't have to work for it really, you don't value it. There
| have been no better time in human history than what is in store
| today for a person with a high CS degree. And your experience
| just confirms it. Great job by all the standards and 10x house
| with a very low mortgage rates in the world top real estate
| destination and total affordability with just a bit of very
| convenient commute.
| tinktank wrote:
| Are you seriously implying OP earned a PhD in ML/CS without
| working for it and that it was "given" to them? There is no way
| in hell OP was "given" a PhD in CS -- it takes hard graft,
| tenacity and rigour to get a PhD in any field.
| [deleted]
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| You might find working at Google utterly meaningless (I mostly
| do) but the pay would be excellent and more importantly you would
| have the potential to work remotely... at least 2/5 days a week
| and potentially fully remotely as well. And that's just Google.
| There's lots of companies offering full remote at this point.
|
| With CS and stats in your resume you are well set. Stop selling
| yourself short.
|
| It sounds like you're bummed out and not feeling great. Much like
| myself and many other people after this last year and a half.
| Save a bit of coin, and then go on leave or quit your job, take
| some time off, go hang with your family, and then try a new job
| with a fresh head.
|
| 99% of what we do as engineers is utterly meaningless. That's why
| we don't do it for free.
| xupybd wrote:
| Get out, there are more options than you realize. Even another
| firm in your industry might be a better fit. You are free to
| move. You are probably better at your job than you realize.
|
| Start applying find out what options you have.
| royka118 wrote:
| Sounds like you've got a bit of burnout. I felt like this a while
| back, I got though it by working for a company I really felt I
| had an impact and enjoyed the work culture.
|
| I'd counter argue that leaving London doesn't have to mean the
| end of a career. Have you tried looking at other places in the UK
| to live/work? I'm a bit bias but Bristol is a fantastic city to
| live in and the tech scene is really well developed. Lots of
| start ups, mid sized and large companies. Plenty of banks/fin
| tech companies are based here too.
|
| One of the things that have helped me get though burnout was to
| do other things outside of work. Be that go for food, cinema or
| even visiting tourist sites.
| soylentgraham wrote:
| London is hard. My take on it was; People go there to "make it"
| and put huge pressure on themselves to, and as a result live to
| work. People end up socialising pretty much only in work circles,
| and ex-work circles (including uni), a lot of the time because
| after work is the only time they're in proximity with their
| social group (as nobody lives closer than 30 mins to anyone else)
| As a freelancer I tried to fight this and floated from group to
| group. Looking back on my career, the best jobs/work were based
| almost solely on whom I was working with.
|
| Whilst its not a quick fix (finding the perfect place), if you
| can't leave london, my perspective would be to try and find an
| employer/job with people you enjoy being around. If a job is
| inevitable, spent 50 hours a week amongst people you want to be
| around.
|
| Money comes and goes. Sure housing is always good to have N-10
| years ago.
| throwthere wrote:
| Hey mate, I've been there. You're blaming a lot of _general_
| extraneous factors. That sort of generalized dreariness... might
| you just be depressed? I mean, the sort of non- "meaningless" is
| quite hard to come by. A few generations ago most everybody was
| farming or mining coal or something. Actually, probably most
| people are doing jobs like that outside of the bubble we live in
| thinking worldwide anyway. You really ought to delineate what you
| want in a house-- surely you can afford something in a nice
| neighborhood on the outskirts-- but then you'd be tied down and
| have to maintain your own house.
|
| And, there are worst places than London, believe me. It's just
| too easy to fantasize about other lives-- the grass is always
| greener.
| hacknews20 wrote:
| "I would love to be able to retire and get into meditation /
| travelling the world / learning about things for fun." So you are
| motivated by the idea of meditation but not enough to save/use
| money you have to attain it? Genuine question.
|
| That aside - cyber security is an option for your skillset. You
| sound like someone who should take the plunge and go contracting
| 4 days per week. It's either change job, change the terms of the
| job or quit. If you are that unhappy and your partner loves you,
| then tell them and they'll say "ok quit the job and see if you're
| happier, we'll be fine". If they don't say that then there is
| something wrong with the relationship too. Is it the situation or
| the job that's the problem?
| krat0sprakhar wrote:
| > I could probably grind leetcode for a couple of months to try
| to get into Google, but I would find working at Google utterly
| meaningless as well.
|
| How are you so convinced you'll hate Google as well? The big plus
| of working at FAANG is that they have lots of projects and you
| can switch to something you are interested in. You don't to
| working on ML in Ads, you can always switch to compilers (dart?),
| databases (spanner?), VR (daydream?) .. the list goes on. Of
| course the rat race for promotions, and perf can get
| disheartening, but you can reach a terminal level (L4) relatively
| quickly and then focus on what genuinely interests you.
| convolvatron wrote:
| how does that work? I got stuck in a wildly inappropriate group
| and there there was no clear way out except the internal jobs
| boards...where the positions looked even less appropriate than
| the one I was in.
|
| for every developer working on Go there are 1000 working on the
| most banal corporate crap you can imagine.
|
| I'm not saying its a bad tradeoff - plenty of money. but if you
| care about what you do with your time, it might not be for you.
| myelin wrote:
| Googler here... I transferred teams this year, and did it by
| searching Grow for keywords I was interested in, then
| emailing a hiring manager. I think out of the thousands of
| jobs in there I was interested in about two or three, but
| that was enough.
|
| Another way to do it is to ignore the official process and go
| make friends on teams you're interested in. If you're looking
| for Go jobs, maybe just do a code search and figure out who's
| writing a ton of Go, and see if any of those look like fun. I
| know there's a lot of Go code in Cloud, which is usually
| hiring. There's some Rust in Chrome and Chrome OS, if you're
| into that.
|
| I've never done a 20% project myself, but I hear those are
| good too. I gather that lots of little teams hardly ever get
| headcount, and starting out as a 20 percenter is the only way
| to get into one of them.
| presentation wrote:
| You don't need to retire to meditate, travel the world, nor learn
| things for fun. Sounds like you need to figure out what you want,
| and one way to approach that is to try doing something that isn't
| what you're doing now. Probably if you leave your job, you would
| be able to find something like it in the future - software isn't
| a career path where gaps in your resume make you unemployable,
| and it absolutely is one where you can experience location
| flexibility.
| BuckRogers wrote:
| "I would love to be able to retire and get into meditation /
| travelling the world / learning about things for fun."
|
| This makes you human. Unfortunately the best life for human
| beings was probably the farm and those days aren't coming back
| anytime soon.
|
| You're in a tough spot, especially if your relationship is solid
| and not going anywhere. London is a large enough area you may be
| able to find something that suits you? I would stay in the area,
| and just find another line of work. Everyone is due the
| opportunity to change their situation.
|
| I would recommend considering changes like that, but hold strong
| overall, don't toss both of your lives into massive change. You
| can work there, and then semi-retire early out to where you're
| from. Talk to your partner about that as a potential option. He
| may agree more than you think. Talk it out with him and go from
| there. That's about all you can do. I wouldn't just throw
| everything you've worked for into the trash immediately.
|
| I'm actually in a very similar situation, but Chicago. I'm from a
| more rural area as well, and I've been grinding out my existence
| for a while longer than you.. I am financially prepared to move
| back to the countryside. Just hard to even find places at market-
| rate today. My wife and I are both willing to live with less
| money at this point.
|
| You may have more in agreement, or come to an agreement for the
| longterm view once you two have a full discussion.
| dilippkumar wrote:
| I'm sorry you are in this state.
|
| You share a lot of details about what you don't like and what you
| wish were better in your post. Perhaps HN can help you in a
| different way if you write about what you want to do and what you
| like (careers, cities, dreams and ambitions etc).
|
| > I have racked my brain trying to figure out what field I would
| prefer to work in, but I can't think of anything.
|
| I assume you mean that you want to do some things but can not
| make the money-partner-city-family proximity balance work.
|
| If you share what you really want, even if it is totally
| impractical, HN might be able to find a way to make things work.
|
| On the other hand, if you don't have some idea for what you'd
| rather be doing, I recommend seeing a therapist. When the world
| appears uninteresting in all dimensions, it's a sign to seek
| help.
| wiz21c wrote:
| Yeah, very good advice. It is very important to know what you
| are one earth for. This knowledge sometimes disappears, always
| changes, must continually be updated, etc. But it's key to be
| able to navigate in the total uncertainty that is life. Seeking
| help for that is totally normal and useful. You'll get many
| things from a therapist.
|
| Somehow some people are lucky enough to be at the sweet sport
| between what they like to do and what they're able (in the
| sense that they are in a situation where they can express they
| qualities,...) to do. But for one match there are so many
| mismatches, just a question of luck.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| matsy112242 wrote:
| I didn't make anything like as much & was much earlier in my
| career but: I was utterly msierable in consulting in London, at
| what I thought was a baller salary but actually by US/global
| standards wasn't really. People told me I had to stick it out for
| minimum 2-3 years. I quit after 8 months and have never, ever
| regretted that decision. Two career changes later and I still
| don't make as much as you, but I could feasibly retire (with
| restraint or some smart investing) or semi-retire by my 40th
| birthday. 'Retiring' is way cheaper than people think, because
| they always assume that they would spend as much as they
| currently do, and that they would never make money again, and
| that they would pay the same income taxes. I would talk it over
| with your partner, and so long as he's happy to have you in a
| search phase for a while, start spending a lot of time on working
| out things you could conceivably be good at & enjoy, and just
| neglect your job while you do it (within ethical bounds/don't
| cause a 2008). You might need to stay on good terms with 2-3
| people for references, but honestly the rest of them will only
| matter to the degree that you find them to be authentically
| valuable/interesting/good humans.
| deep_etcetera wrote:
| Hi, I'm the same age as you, born in the UK but have been working
| in USA for a few years now. I am also feeling burned out by my
| job, spend a lot of time fantasizing about retiring early.
|
| This is a shot in the dark but I feel like a lot of my mental
| state has been caused by covid, missing regularly seeing my
| friends, family and the alienating nature of interacting with my
| colleagues only via screen. Because of this I have resolved to
| not make any large decisions until covid is completely over,
| since it's hard for me to assess how much differently I will feel
| once things get back to normal. Till then I save as much as
| possible to give myself more options.
| tomcam wrote:
| Insightful. Most people don't have that kind of perspective on
| their own lives.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| I won't try to tell you how to live your life, but I did want to
| chime in on one thing you said: "I find it difficult to muster up
| any enthusiasm during job interviews, which is probably a red
| flag for potential employers..."
|
| This is the opposite of my experience, and having worked as a
| consultant/contractor for the past decade I've done quite a few.
| It's a lot like a first date, in that an excess of enthusiasm is
| off-putting (why are they so desperate?), and appearing not yet
| convinced you're interested is a bonus.
|
| Of course you want to be professional and courteous, but going
| into a job interview not sure if you want the job, is often the
| best way to get it.
|
| No job is always fun, that's why they pay you instead of the
| other way around. But you shouldn't be in tears when you start
| the week. Start "fishing" for a job, and see what's out there,
| and because you are already employed, you can be patient and
| choosy. Good luck.
| deeblering4 wrote:
| Personally I'd chunk these feelings down into bite-sized goals,
| and work to completing them one by one. For example, 1) Find a
| remote job 2) leave the city 3) own a home 4) travel 5) retire
| early
|
| Each will have it's own complex requirements and take time to
| achieve, but I think taking some time to lay out your goals
| clearly, and staring to feel progress towards them will help make
| the trapped feeling go away.
|
| Also, in my personal experience it's become important to separate
| my job from my hobbies. I used to spend all my free time on the
| computer, but these days it's my full time job and then some, and
| I've found it very refreshing to find other hobbies to pursue in
| my free time.
| artofxinyi wrote:
| What % of your life right now is determined by external factors
| and pressures? Are you truly living this life right now for
| yourself?
|
| It seems to me that you do have ideas of what might make you
| happy, but there are quite a few blocks, the most apparent of
| which is that you don't seem to believe that it is possible. But,
| it is fully possible to start designing a life that works for
| you. Millions of people have done it, but you will need to really
| look inside and listen to yourself.
|
| Don't look at what everyone else is doing, or have done. If you
| consider what everyone else considers, you might as well continue
| to play a sort of video game where the rewards are determined by
| whichever bubble/society/conditioned norms you are surrounded by,
| and end up spending 90% of your time living a the collectively
| conditioned life. 90% of your life stressed and unhappy.
|
| If you out in the garden and observe, you might notice how unique
| each plant is different from the other. The century plant (agave)
| likes dry conditions and blooms once every 10-30 years, but
| Hydrangeas need shade to thrive and bloom only once a season.
|
| You are a completely unique individual, and what makes you happy
| will certainly be different from other people. Perhaps financial
| stability is important, but you've recognized that
| traveling/meditation/learning other stuff brings you joy also.
|
| As a start, think about what your ideal life might look like.
| What would you be doing day to day? Give yourself the space to
| imagine something different, it might seem far from where you are
| now, but you need a direction to start moving.
|
| When I was working in animation, there was an engineer who would
| work for a couple years at the studio (ultimately burning out
| after "crunch time" like everyone else), quit, then spend a year
| trading stocks in New York to recover from burn out and make up
| for the $ lost working for a studio. Then he'd come back to LA
| and work on the next production.
|
| That was so fun and inspiring to me. What a creative way to make
| things work!
|
| I'll end by saying that part of my vision was to live and paint
| in Hawaii (I also studied cs/did research). I was also thinking
| that maybe I'll have to wait till I'm 50 to start living my life.
| But this past weekend, I was out here with my new easel painting
| Kaneohe valley ;)
|
| It took me 2 years - many small but significant steps along the
| way. I did take a bit of a paycut/maybe sacrificed a promo, but I
| am 100% happier where I am now, doing what I am doing now,
| spending time on things that truly matter to ME. And, there are
| tons of people I've met here, who've done the same and took
| charge of their lives in the same way.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Have you checked for depression? Sounds like one for me. BTW
| what's your partner's story so far? Sounds like he is not eager
| to leave London.
|
| BTW I'd say don't compare your parents life with yours. World was
| different back then.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Life is too short to waste years in a job you dread.
|
| Let me say that again.
|
| LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO WASTE YEARS IN A JOB YOU DREAD.
|
| You are selling yourself short, though. Sure, you might take a
| bit of a compensation haircut stepping away from your current
| role, but money isn't everything, and people retire early without
| spending their career making crazy money. It just takes more
| planning.
|
| Your degree is a money-printing machine. You can find work that
| will be fulfilling and not awful and not underpaid. It won't be
| EASY but worthwhile things often aren't.
|
| You're also in a world where remote work is 100% a thing people
| DO. This introduces the challenge of your partner, though --
| under the surface of your post is a possible other problem. Does
| your partner love London? Does he love his work?
|
| It's not uncommon for a sort of "oh shit is this it?" feeling to
| start happening in one's 30s. It doesn't mean you have to act on
| it, but you also shouldn't ignore it entirely.
| onelastjob wrote:
| Seems like you should be able to work remotely with your skill
| set even if you have to change jobs. If you can convince your
| partner to also go remote, then you could both become digital
| nomads and get your travel in. Or, you don't have to go full
| digital nomad, you could both just leave London.
|
| There's not much point to staying in a job you hate if you have
| other options. Money isn't everything and not everyone survives
| to retirement (even early retirement).
| rebelos wrote:
| A lot of people have a weird emotional fixation with "owning" a
| home when it really shouldn't matter at all.
|
| You're in finance, so you should understand opportunity cost and
| you should very easily be able to model out the full financial
| burden and projected ROI of home ownership. Once you get honest
| about the work, hidden costs, loss of flexibility, and
| opportunity cost involved in being a homeowner, it'll start to
| seem like a not great and potentially even stupid idea,
| particularly in this environment with rapidly inflating housing
| prices.
| thebrowncat wrote:
| I agree mostly. But staying at my parents' grand house really
| brings home the difference in quality of life.. I like baking
| but barely have any worktop space in my tiny kitchen in London;
| they have a massive kitchen with a table in it etc etc
| oneplane wrote:
| Many high paying jobs are meaningless for the reason they are
| high-paying: they (the company) needs someone to do the job, and
| the combination of required skill and meaninglessness means that
| nobody who can do the job really wants to do the job.
|
| If a lot of people who could do it wanted to do it, the pay would
| drop. The other way around also applies: if a lot of people want
| it, and a lot of them actually can do it, the pay drops as well.
|
| But now that not a lot of people want it (because it might be
| meaningless and/or unfulfilling) and it requires a specific
| skillset and isn't highly available, you get in exactly your
| position.
|
| Instead of focusing on early retirement (which signals that
| working seems to equate 'bad'? and being free from the 'bad' is
| the ultimate goal?), focusing on what you actually want (instead
| of focusing of the negation of what you don't want) might get you
| much more of a direction to look for work/life.
|
| In the end, money and by extension, wealth, doesn't really mean
| all that much. It's what you end up doing that has the meaning.
| And 'doing' doesn't always require a lot of money (or wealth in
| general).
|
| Regarding technology, you'll have to find out what it is in
| technology that you actually want. Some people want to think
| about things and try things out. Others want to build things. Or
| perhaps you're in to managing people and enabling them to do the
| thinking/building/operating. All of those types of jobs can be
| done remotely (as in: fully remote). This means that you are
| neither bound to a specific city, nor to a specific office
| building to 'go to'.
|
| The other part of the story, the city where you live, that's a
| different problem. If you simply don't like the city, then there
| is no way around it (like doing something with your job), you'll
| end up leaving the city so best to start working on that.
|
| Retiring doesn't equate having fun. Neither does travelling the
| world. That's just an instagram crutch. Perhaps the problem lies
| in stress, top-down management or 'targets' or something. There
| is plenty of work where those don't apply. There is also plenty
| of work there those _do_ apply. It 's very easy to be stressed or
| getting 'managed' when you are retired and not working. The same
| applies to targets.
|
| Perhaps it's my personal experience (or your personal experience)
| but there is a huge difference between the way 'work' can express
| itself in its various incarnations. Work that requires being
| managed, having some rate, ratio or target to hit, fight-for-
| your-bonus or work more than 35 hours a week no longer something
| I'd personally be willing to accept at this stage. Depending on
| what you have to offer and what the company has to offer, that is
| a choice you can make with plenty of options left to pick from.
| mym1990 wrote:
| What is it about computers and programming that interests you or
| sparks a fire? You said in general, but I feel like that is a
| very wide array of possibilities.
|
| I don't think any amount of money is worth your mental being if
| you're showing up to work in utter distress. Based on your
| credentials only...you seem to have your head on straight and a
| bright individual, your skills will be valued elsewhere. I would
| look to save more of your income by cutting expenses, and figure
| out a way to quit your current job. Take a few months off and
| work on yourself, find out what you actually want to do and find
| a path to that.
|
| Good luck!
| dwaltrip wrote:
| > Given that anything else would involve a massive pay cut, I
| think I would regret leaving the job I'm in.
|
| Are you sure you aren't willing to trade some amount of money for
| a difference in work / lifestyle? Have you tied your sense of
| identity to tightly to this high salary?
|
| > I would find working at Google utterly meaningless as well.
|
| How do you know? Google also isn't the only option. There are a
| decent number of other high-paying tech companies. And if you are
| willing to take a salary a tier or two below Google (which is
| still quite good money, at least in the US -- can't speak for
| London), then there are tons of options.
|
| It sounds like you may need also some sort of break / mental
| reset. Life is often hard and confusing! Lots of people struggle
| with types of difficult decisions. Be kind to yourself :)
|
| Don't be afraid to experiment, try different things out, and then
| re-evaluate later. There is always more to learn about how to
| life better. Best of luck to you :)
|
| ---
|
| P.S. This is super trite but make sure to exercise a few times a
| week! Get your blood pumping. I just got back into exercising
| after a few years of not doing it much, and it has been really
| helpful for me. It doesn't solve all of one's problems. But our
| bodies really need to move -- they evolved to do so -- and they
| feel much better when they do. Plus it's a great way to not worry
| about all of this bullshit for a time, as our brain is busy
| managing the physical load. For me personally, rock climbing and
| running are my favorite ways to exercise. I love rock climbing in
| particular as it is quite fun so it doesn't even feel like
| exercise.
| matt_s wrote:
| Have you looked at non-FAANG companies for remote work? If you
| know web apps or could learn there are a lot of companies with
| remote SW dev openings out there.
|
| After working for years at a large company, I am happy with a
| much smaller company, working directly on products. Happy as I
| could be, it still is work though. You feel more connected with
| the work when its usage isn't so distant.
|
| Sounds like you have some burn-out. Maybe looking at other
| industries than finance would help? Take a break/sabbatical and
| do fun programming?
| thebrowncat wrote:
| The problem is the salary differential between my industry /
| FAANG versus everything else. It's a bi-modal distribution.
| aerojoe23 wrote:
| Sounds like you hate it despite the pay. Retiring early is a
| nice idea but maybe being happy now would be worth working
| longer.
|
| Have you talked to your partner? "... I can't expect my
| partner to move back with me..." Maybe he's more burned out
| then you think.
|
| I have no idea how you spend your money from your post but
| maybe take a long look at your life style. Try to figure out
| what makes you happy and spend time on it. The less you spend
| the less you need to make to retire early. You may have heard
| this all before, but I like this post.
| https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-
| si...
|
| As an aside, I've recently (re-)discovered I enjoy manual
| labor so have been doing yard work more. Something about it
| is meditative. The tasks take a long time but are simple and
| don't require thinking. Looks good when it is done and feels
| extra rewarding to actually have to sweat to get it done.
| dstick wrote:
| The key part of his suggestion was "remote". As someone else
| mentioned, you're net positive comparing a high salary,
| living in London, with a lower paying job, living elsewhere.
| If you live somewhere else, you could do with less income in
| a more fulfilling job.
|
| But you need to quit. You're on a collision course with a
| burn out. Avoid at all costs. This will mentally scar you for
| the rest of your career. It's no joke.
|
| The important part is to get control back over your life.
| Your happiness.
|
| My advice would be to jot down all your options and how they
| relate to each other and then go over them _with_ your
| partner. Maybe have them read your Ask HN post and everyone's
| reply if you haven't shared your doubts / feelings yet. If
| your partner wants you to be happy, and you want to be happy
| together, this is a problem the both of you need to solve.
|
| Best of luck!
| threweradwer wrote:
| Google doesn't have only people working on ads. You could be
| working on new DB, OS, infra etc. I myself resigned from job
| for Google (not at Google) because in my location they have
| only crappy projects but I think in London there might be
| something interesting. I think Facebook might start hiring
| remotely (and then I might consider joining).
|
| I personally decided to work for startup with equity as for
| me it is most interesting work. I also switched to investing
| and enjoy this extra skillset and income and maybe you might
| too.
|
| Also you said your partner is making 10x, so why do you even
| work? My wife makes 10x less and she works mostly for fun
| because it's marginal change to our way of living. Don't sell
| yourself if you don't have to. Why are you so obsessed on
| salary you probably don't need instead of living best of
| life? You are already old (sorry)
| dejv wrote:
| Well, there are very few careers that pay as much as being
| quant and all of them are going to be somehow similar. So
| lets be honest, you either get over it or take paycut be it
| permanent by switching careers or temporal as it is going to
| take time to build new consulting service or business
| (anything else is hardly going to pay your current salary)
| and you might never be able to get back to amount of money
| you are making right now.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| I'm roughly the same age as you and I'm in more or less the same
| situation.
|
| It was joy of programming and computers that got me into this
| line of work, and though I still enjoy it, I can no longer rely
| on that intrinsic motivation to get through the day.
|
| I'm finding my 30s to be a time of major transition. I am forced
| to evolve from a young, intrinsically motivated and excited 20
| something year old, to a more disciplined, appreciative, albeit
| less "happy" 30 something year old.
|
| I miss waking up every day with a bursting energy for coding. I'd
| love to have that again. But the reality is, after 10+ years of
| doing this work every day, I cannot get that excited about it
| anymore. I absolutely have to find a sustainable path and the
| first step in that is realizing that the old me is gone.
|
| The story of my mid 30s, maybe even all of my 30s, will be one of
| discovery and adaptation. I hope to arrive at the doorstep of my
| 40s, a well tuned and well adapted individual. I need to monitor
| myself, day in, and day out, and find systems that work toward
| the simple goal of getting up every day, doing good work, and
| feeling healthy. Happiness and joy are feelings reserved for
| mostly novel experiences. Work is a day-to-day art, the kind of
| thing ripe for a disciplined mind that can be productive without
| necessarily being massively stimulated (intrinsically or
| otherwise).
|
| I am nowhere near the end of this stage in my journey. I have
| made mostly dismal progress up to this point but have recently
| started tweaking new levers and twisting different knobs with the
| hope of making some positive progress. I still struggle, daily,
| with burnout and feelings of inadequacy. I struggle to get
| excited about my work and so I struggle to do the work.
| Struggling to do the work, means I feel shitty about myself.
|
| All that said, I do think the first step is in recognizing where
| you are in life. You likely haven't yet accepted what it means to
| be a 30 something year old programmer. Maybe there is still time
| for you to change your path, but it doesn't sound like it. Take
| stock of the positives in your life and find a determination to
| preserve them. That will mean first recognizing and appreciating
| what you have, and then, understanding that it's through your
| daily work that you're able to maintain those things. With that
| understanding, embark on the long journey of optimizing your
| life. Find a way to make this sustainable. You have to.
|
| (Or, get out, and do something else!)
|
| Once you've fully accepted your situation and are ready to work
| on solutions, a bunch of interesting conversations can be had.
| Start learning about what works for others, and try those things
| out in your life. Always been a late sleeper? Try a 5:30 AM
| routine for a few weeks. Always been a coffee drinker? Cut back
| to 1 a day, or drink tea. Finding these things give you a small
| boost to productivity? Keep doing them. Find they don't help at
| all? Stop doing them.
|
| Turn the knobs, twist the levers, but always keep your eye on the
| goal - productive work, healthy life.
| coldpie wrote:
| Find a small company to work for. There are a lot around and many
| are hiring. You may take a pay cut (or maybe not), but the QOL is
| so much higher at well-run small company than any big company
| could achieve. The work impact feels much higher when you're not
| just one tiny cog in an enormous machine.
| thebrowncat wrote:
| I'm working in a small company as it is. Quant finance is
| meaningless by its very nature, big company or small.
| smabie wrote:
| I mean is it meaningless? Maybe you don't like it which is
| find, but I find the purity of the work to be refreshing:
| make money no bs lies about "making the world a better
| place."
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| And what does your partner think?
|
| > 2. ... an 'adequate' house in London would cost at least 10
| times my salary.
|
| Then buy outside of London something much cheaper, save a
| shitload and retire early, while keeping that well paying job.
|
| > 3. London is a horrible place to live. I have no affinity for
| it whatsoever. Even if I could afford a house I would not want to
| live here.
|
| It is a known fact that there are many people working in the city
| who live outside of London, nearby a train station, in the fancy
| suburbs: in the morning they go to the train station by car
| (which takes no time because they of course pick a quiet place
| with no traffic jam) then they go to the city by train. The
| parking lots of these train stations are, during the working
| days, full of Bentleys and Porsches and whatnots, which gives it
| away.
|
| Would that be an option? (not the car type: the suburb near a
| train station)
|
| FWIW in Brussels there are people doing exactly the same: living
| in the fancy suburbs (like the posh Waterloo suburb) and dodging
| all the traffic jams thanks to the train, while enjoying the high
| paying job (compared to the median salary in Belgium) the city
| offers (cough European institutions cough cough).
|
| My father-in-law, now retired, did that for 20 years: working on
| the trading floor for a big bank in Brussels, 1 minute walk from
| the train station, then going back to his on the countryside...
|
| I'd say it's not just extremely common: it's also very smart. You
| do away with the traffic jams, do away with the city stress, do
| away with the real estate price, can save more, etc. All the
| while enjoying birds chirping and squirrels at home every single
| day.
|
| > 5. My parents, like most boomers, had a much better standard of
| living when they were my age. My father had a pretty average
| salary, bought a massive house for a reasonable price, and saw
| his wealth multiply many times over. It's not like that for my
| generation.
|
| Common' now... If you work as a quant in the city, I'm sure it
| can be like that for you.
|
| I don't like the city either: any city. Not my thing. Lived in a
| city (not London) for 40 years, it's enough. A few years ago I
| moved outside the city and I love it.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > many people working in the city who live outside of London,
| nearby a train station
|
| I can't find the link now, but I remember reading a story about
| a guy who worked in London but lived in Spain and flew back and
| forth every day because it was cheaper to commute by plane than
| to live anywhere near London.
| MrsPeaches wrote:
| Also worth thinking about places that are on crossrail aka the
| Elizabeth line:
|
| https://content.tfl.gov.uk/elizabeth-line-when-fully-open.pd...
| brightball wrote:
| I'm going to suggest an alternative: treat your job like a job
| and don't derive personal value from your occupation.
|
| I used to work insane hours trying to get ahead and when I was
| doing that I always thought badly of people who left when the
| clock struck 5pm. The older I've gotten the more I've realized
| how much those folks had right.
|
| Work to Live. Don't Live to Work. You'll be a heck of a lot
| happier.
| mongol wrote:
| About number 4. If you are miserable, why is it important to
| retire early? Most people can't do that, and they are not
| miserable, in general. Scratch 4 from your list of priorities.
| dhconnelly wrote:
| I dealt with a lot of the same issues around meaninglessness vs.
| golden handcuffs (at Google incidentally) and recently took a job
| at a smaller company, albeit without a pay cut. I specifically
| resisted switching jobs for several years for the same reason:
| having to grind Leetcode only to end up with the same alienation
| and cynicism. Turns out all that salary isn't just for hard work.
| Anyway, honestly, having now finally taken that step, I'll say
| that Leetcode isn't really a huge cost (you do it and then you're
| done for a while) and that simply working on new stuff does get
| you over one hump, namely the boredom. Not sure how long the new-
| stuff momentum will carry me past the possible onset of
| meaninglessness, but I'm trying to just adopt the "one must
| imagine sisyphus happy" mindset. Not a strategy but maybe at
| least a tactic? Happy to discuss further
|
| Edit: I'm aware this is a very privileged situation to be in,
| honestly that doesn't help much with coping though and everyone
| wants to be happy. I seriously had just decided I never would be.
| Even that (temporary?) feeling is mind-blowing
| nitwit005 wrote:
| It seems you joined a field you thought you would enjoy, but that
| didn't work out, and you don't mention anything you would like to
| work on. Is there any job you think you'd like, or is pay the
| only motivator?
|
| If pay is the only thing that makes a job worthwhile, then maybe
| you should stick with the high paying job and just retire as soon
| as you can.
|
| Admittedly, you might not enjoy retirement either. But at least
| you can sleep in.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| I feel this post is really hard to understand. You are:
|
| * A phd in quant finance in London
|
| * You joined due to high comp
|
| * You say getting a home would cost 10 times your salary
|
| * You have a partner earning multiples of your salary (?!)
|
| * You want to retire early
|
| I guess I just feel like this story doesn't seem like the numbers
| make any sense? A quant finance phd should be able to afford a
| home. A quant finance phd with a partner earning multiples of
| them should easily be able to afford a home. Maybe not in cash,
| but certainly with a mortgage, even in this market. You say "an
| 'adequate' house in London would cost at least 10 times my
| salary", but that seems manageable with your partner's help?
|
| It seems like your economic position is incredibly favorable to
| me, and that you wouldn't really experience any difference
| economically if you got a more pleasant job with lower income if
| your partner is going to be the breadwinner, in such a way that
| you can make life better for the both of you.
|
| edit: The housing thing is really throwing me for a loop. Perhaps
| I have no sense of the London market, but I'm going to assume no
| person can be unsatisfied living a million dollar home, that a
| quant finance phd must earn at least $100k per year, and that a
| partner earning multiples of that must earn at least $300k per
| year. How do these numbers check out?
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| Google people make 200k starting as Jr devs so I'm assuming
| 400k.
|
| Esp with PhD.
|
| Agreed not super clear what's going on.
| soylentgraham wrote:
| Google juniors are more like PS40k in london. Jobs over
| PS100k are not the norm, even in finance in london. The awful
| london housing market (small market, people do NOT sell)
| starts around PS320k for a terrible studio. Banks nowaways
| tend to loan around 4-4.5x gross salary. (And you need a good
| chunk already saved, which is also hard as tax and rent is
| high)
|
| PS100k salary doesn't buy an average 1 bed in london (and
| you're competing against at least 4 cash buyers)
|
| As someone who recently left london, the story checks out.
| illwrks wrote:
| Seconded. Most 100k+ jobs in London ( that I'm aware of )
| are contracting ones.
|
| Houses ( for anywhere so-so ) are 400k at minimum, or else
| your aiming for a rabbit hutch.
|
| Taxes of every shape and size will eat a tonne of your
| income.
|
| Right now your better off looking outside of London. WFH
| has changed the landscape and it will not be business as
| usual for the coming years.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Stocks also play a role. The creator of Redux was making
| 100kPS (+35kPS in stocks) at FB.
|
| That said, there is a huge disparity in salaries in London.
|
| I was making 100kPS per year as a random full time engineer
| with 15 years of experience in some unknown company and
| working (potentially) fully remote before covid.
|
| I know VPs and CTOs making 120-200kPS.
|
| I could get a contract for 600PS-700PS daily and the top
| contracts I've heard for senior engineers from my friends
| are 1kPS/1.2kPS per day (generally Java or Angular jobs in
| banking where things are on fire).
|
| There are plenty of engineers who never go past 50kPS.
| dom96 wrote:
| To add another data point, an FB junior would make around
| PS65k base + ~PS27k stock per year (+bonus). So getting
| over PS100k at a FAANG in London seems pretty common to me,
| I would expect finance to pay even more.
|
| Personally I sympathise a lot with OP. I have a similar
| "stuck" feeling, I often wonder whether it's all downhill
| from here (comp-wise) for me. I cannot see myself working
| for a FAANG forever, so what other choices are there?
| BagHolder7 wrote:
| Just wanted to chime in and say that I'm feeling the same way.
| I'm 34 years old, and have a wife + kid. In my twenties,
| programming was exciting and cool. In my thirties I view myself
| as a powerless slave doing tasks out of a never ending backlog.
| Been at my job for 7 years and don't have the willpower to
| LeetCode. Even if I were to land a FANG I don't think I'd want
| the workload that comes with it. Fantasize about retirement on a
| daily basis. My dream is to have a cabin somewhere at the base of
| a mountain and to never touch a computer again.
| theodric wrote:
| Bank enough money to formulate an exit plan that includes what
| you're going to do for money next, after this.
|
| I just bought a 10-acre farm in Ireland. I paid cash. Not all of
| my cash. There's cash left to buy a pickup, animals, spruce up
| the house, startup capital for some farm enterprises, etc. That's
| what my sometimes soul-killing job in Finance-Tech has done for
| me. That's what yours can do for you: provide you the means to do
| something else. Figure out what it is, and do it.
| Gortal278 wrote:
| With a phD in CS, the likelihood is you could probably find
| something outside of Quant finance at a big tech company. Try and
| connect with some recruiters at Google etc and see what they have
| going on.
|
| A better job can make a big difference, perhaps one that will
| allow you to spend more time visiting home (remote work
| supported).
| thebrowncat wrote:
| Just because it's Google doesn't mean I'll be interested. A job
| is a job, as I see it. Why would working on ads be any more
| meaningful than my current job, even if it's using ML? Although
| if it were 100% remote, that definitely trumps my current job.
| foobarian wrote:
| > Although if it were 100% remote, that definitely trumps my
| current job.
|
| It seems to me the London location is a constraint not
| because of your job but because of your partner. So I'm going
| to play devil's advocate and say that you may as well
| capitalize on that and get a job that can't be remoted away
| and get as much out of it as you can before you both decide
| you've had enough and move away.
| lacker wrote:
| Don't work on ads then if you don't like ads. There's
| thousands of different roles within FAANG companies that all
| pay well, is there really none of them that you would find
| more meaningful? Give it a try, don't just stay in quant
| finance forever because you assume that everything else sucks
| just as much.
| Gortal278 wrote:
| There are plenty of Google roles that don't touch Ads. Google
| is at the cutting edge of ML it's probably worth chatting to
| a recruiter or two and seeing what's available. I just used
| Google as a filler, plenty of big tech presence in London.
| myelin wrote:
| Another Googler here, speaking directly to the "working on
| ads" point: Ads is huge, but it's not hard to stay away from
| it if you're not interested. I worked in Cloud (App Engine)
| for four years and am now working on Chrome OS, and out of
| all the people I've worked with who transferred to other
| teams, I've only heard of 2-3 who moved to Ads.
|
| Internal transfers are pretty easy too; it's not unheard of
| to switch teams every 18 months or so, so when you get sick
| of working on whichever huge distributed system you start
| with, you can go work on consumer hardware, one of the
| various operating systems, Google Maps, the Chrome browser, a
| site like Google Docs, one of the many iOS apps, one of the
| Cloud products, etc etc.
|
| Working at Google isn't the wonderland some articles paint it
| to be, but it's definitely not boring, and there are lots of
| interesting people and projects around. You might not find
| your job itself to be super meaningful, but being surrounded
| by thousands of other engineers who all would like some
| meaning in their lives makes for an interesting community,
| and tons of fun little at-work side projects.
| throwaway384028 wrote:
| >Why would working on ads be any more meaningful than my
| current job, even if it's using ML?
|
| We can't answer this for you and really nobody should try
| since you didn't provide any areas of your life that you find
| meaning in or industries you'd be interested to work in.
|
| Most jobs out there aren't going to have any meaning and the
| ones that do wont don't pay as much as you want since you've
| indicated in other comments that pay is important to you.
|
| Heres what I'll tell you. Accept the fact that most jobs you
| have and most jobs everyone have are meaningless, put your
| 30,40,50 hours a week in at your current job and find meaning
| outside of work and just realize that work is a means to an
| end.
|
| Or, quit your current job, find something remote realize that
| you'll probably take a pay cut but with that you might be
| able to get a reduction in hours that you can spend more time
| doing what you want and be back in your home town with your
| family.
| pxue wrote:
| Is your work time demanding?
|
| Why not try spending 25% of your work day on a business project
| you love? Make it profitable and do it full time.
| f0e4c2f7 wrote:
| If you want I can offer a fairly straightforward path from where
| you are that leads to more money.
|
| Housing and location can be solved by switching to remote and
| moving somewhere more rural if you're up for that.
|
| But it sounds like you've already come to the conclusion both of
| those things would lead you back to where you are now.
|
| For you friend I prescribe reading Sidartha.
| thebrowncat wrote:
| Thank you. I've been trying to make mindfulness a habit for a
| while now. I'm hoping it will clarify what it is I actually
| want to spend my time on.
| horns4lyfe wrote:
| Going to push back a little here. The two of you are miles ahead
| of most of the world (and your own country) in income and
| education. You'll be able to retire likely decades before the
| rest of us slobs. In the meantime, find some awesome hobbies, you
| can certainly afford it. Learn some fun and difficult shit, get
| really good at it, rinse and repeat. Your job doesn't have to
| have meaning, just enjoy your life; you're set up to enjoy it a
| lot more than most. If you can't find any fulfillment outside of
| work, then good luck.
| bartvk wrote:
| I'd offer an idea like "How about going back to college? Is that
| something your partner would be okay with?"
|
| But I have the feeling that you are showing signs of depression.
| It removes all color from an otherwise colorful life. Get out of
| that situation as soon as possible, it is damaging your mental
| health.
|
| As for early retirement, check out the leanfire subreddit. I
| think your view on retirement could use a different perspective.
| __app_dev__ wrote:
| Use your knowledge of ML/statistics and your quant finance skills
| to play the market with high risk options. If you do well enough
| you can make enough to quit your job. Of course once you have
| enough money don't bet it all on options.
|
| Obviously this is like gambling but with your background and many
| financial advisors may recommend against it but with your
| background it might be worth a shot.
| shrike wrote:
| If you have access to an extended leave program try and take
| advantage. FMLA in the USA allows for 90 days of leave, my last
| employers disability insurance paid 80% of salary during leave. I
| expect there is something similar in the UK. All it took was a
| letter from a doctor, most of the people taking leave had stress
| related issues. The letters were primarily from psychologists.
| Several people submitted their notice in the last few weeks of
| leave.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| I think I'd get a remote job and move part time back to the
| country, an area with direct train to the city. Partner should
| understand after a good talk. Personally would rather have a
| part-time happy partner than a full-time miserable one.
| [deleted]
| notanzaiiswear wrote:
| Have you talked to your partner, and what does he say? He seems
| the main reason you are stuck in London, but maybe it doesn't
| even have to be that way?
|
| You could think about ways to do most of your work remotely.
| svilen_dobrev wrote:
| Talk with your partner about all this. How you feel, what you
| dream doing, how you dream doing it.. You said you want to be
| living/building-life together.
|
| So.. start doing it.
|
| just put all facts on the table, and only facts. Avoid wishfull
| thinking and definitely avoid "they will hate me" or "i'm no
| good" black-for-the-sake-of-black thinking. Look for any (kind
| of) opportunities..
|
| i am sure you will find a way. you HAVE to. No point going
| insane, for money or not.
|
| good luck
| dubcanada wrote:
| What do you like to do?
|
| It almost sounds like you don't know what you want to do.
| lcall wrote:
| If you decide to look for a job, there are resources here to help
| w/ the job search (edit: do a ^F for "identifying"):
| https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/share/church-resources?l...
|
| But: carefully and well-choosing a purpose in live helps with so
| many things. To be successful, we must learn to act rather than
| being acted upon. To bring joy and stability, I think it needs to
| be realistic and at least partly or largely unselfish. I wrote
| more on past related HN discussions, and many more thoughts (in
| profile).
| zerr wrote:
| Btw, you seem to be underpaid. You should be getting 300K-500K
| GBP total comp. Shouldn't have an issue buying a house.
| thebrowncat wrote:
| I'm guessing you've just taken the average Silicon Valley
| salary in USD and converted it to GBP. Europe doesn't pay the
| same way as SV...
| zerr wrote:
| Not at all. Finance sector in London (especially investment
| banks) is an outlier.
| [deleted]
| bomdo wrote:
| Are you sure? 500K GBP would be 700K USD.
|
| See
| https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html?track=Software%20Engineer&r...
| rishikeshs wrote:
| What are some things that you connect well?
|
| Things you love doing without looking at the clock?
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