I quit my high-paying tech job': 10 people share what finally drove them away from big tech

 

In a world where high-paying tech roles are highly coveted, many professionals are choosing alternative paths over big paychecks. Some left behind their glamorous roles to pursue their passions, and some quit tech due to burnout.

These 10 professionals share what finally made them leave big tech — and what they're doing now.

Eric Yu quit his $370K software engineer job at Meta after having panic attacks

Eric Yu was a software engineer at Meta and experienced panic attacks due to work pressure.

"In November 2019, I experienced my first panic attack while I was working from home. It was around 4 p.m., and my left pinky went completely numb. At first, I ignored it, but it got worse: An hour in, my ears were ringing, and my heart was beating really fast."

Now, Yu and his fiancée have started house hacking, a lower-cost way of getting into real estate. They bought a five-bedroom home in Redding, California, four hours north of San Francisco. While they lived in a 252-square-foot detached guest house in the backyard, their main house was bringing in about $8,000 a month in revenue on Airbnb.

Yu told Insider that he knows it sounds crazy to leave a $370,000 job, and staying at Meta for the rest of his life would have ensured financial security, but he knew it wasn't right for him.

Sergio Najera quit a six-figure engineering job because the company didn't allow international travel

During the pandemic, Najera was working as a software engineer at a major corporation based in Minneapolis. He had been dreaming of traveling abroad for a long time. However, the company was very strict on employee travel policy. If he wanted to work outside of Minnesota, he would need special permission.

He decided to quit and take a startup job because it would give her the flexibility to work from wherever he wanted to. "I've traveled to Spain, Morocco, the Netherlands, and Argentina. Next, I'm planning trips to Brazil and Chile."

Mayuko Inoue left her tech job due to panic attacks 

Mayuko Inoue is a former iOS software engineer at Patreon and Netflix. She started to get panic attacks and learned her anxiety stemmed from overexerting herself at work.

Inoue told Insider that "Work hard, play hard" is a mentality that echoes throughout tech offices, and hustle culture seems like this aggressive, masculine personality (though that's probably because the tech industry is very male-dominated).

"I saw that what lures people into hustle culture is the idea of working for financial stability, finding status, or feeling that you're changing the world. It can feel contagious and impossible to escape.

Michael Lin quit his job as a Netflix engineer making $450,000 a year and has zero regrets

Michael Lin joined Netflix in 2017 as a senior software engineer. At first, he enjoyed his role.

However, over the next two years, the shine began to wear off. Lin told Insider that the projects and meetings blended together, and they felt like small variations of each other after a while. The engineering work began to feel like copy and paste.

After quitting Netflix, Lin was worried that he'd have no social life. But the opposite happened — he's met more people through starting his own business, like other entrepreneurs, writers, and creators. "I now feel a deep calmness inside me, an unshakable belief that everything will be OK, even if any future success is not guaranteed right now.

Jerry Lee quit his $198,000 job at Google to build his startup

Jerry Lee is a former strategy and operations manager at Google. He told Insider that after working at Google, he felt like he got a mini MBA.

Lee told Insider that he's grateful for all the lessons that his managers and his teams taught him, and he still uses them to run his startup today.

"But certainly, my job at Google was stressful: We worked on a global team and some coworkers were based in Europe and Asia. So we had meetings at 5 or 6 a.m. on Tuesdays and at 11 p.m. every Wednesday. I felt I always had to give 110% every single day because my colleagues were extremely smart and hardworking."

Rahul Pandey left his $800K job at Meta to build his own startup 

In 2017, Rahul Pandey he joined Facebook (now known as Meta) as a senior engineer and worked there for almost five years. His compensation at Meta rapidly increased to more than $800,000 a year.

In 2022, he left Meta to start Taro, a community to help other engineers achieve similar career success.

Pandey said that he left Meta as a much better engineer compared to when I joined in 2017. "I attribute this to a mindset shift around building deep relationships at work. I understood that asking questions is a prerequisite for growth within a complex, fast-moving team. I was able to receive actionable feedback from colleagues, which allowed me to identify and deliver high-impact projects."

Mitchie Nguyen left her $196,000 tech job at Meta to build her creator-economy startup

Mitchie Nguyen spent about six years working in the tech industry at companies such as LinkedIn, Meta, and Google.

Nguyen told Insider that many people talk about salary bumps as a benefit of job-hopping. However, her No. 1 reason and motivation has always been to gain a breadth of experience.

"When you're starting out in your career, it's important to explore roles and build a network in new companies. Through all these jobs, I gained confidence and skills from sales to product marketing. That's why I quit her job at Meta to start my own startup in the creator economy."

"I realized my 20s was my time to explore roles and industries. Our careers span upwards of 40 years, so I wanted to take full advantage of exploring — I feel the later you get in your career, the harder it is to drop off and do something else."

Dayana Sabatin quit her job in tech in Seattle because she felt miserable with her career

Sabatin used to work in a cubicle for eight to 10 hours a day as a financial specialist at a tech company in Seattle. Feeling beyond miserable, she decided she wanted to change her life. She made the decision to move to Los Angeles and is now a writer, blogger and YouTuber. 

"I can confidently say I'm on the right path now, and I've never felt more excited about the direction my life is headed in. If you feel destined for something outside of what you currently have, then go for it. Don't be afraid to color outside of the lines.

One tech worker quit her job due to burnout and has no regrets

This tech worker hit a wall last year after working at a large technology company for about a year and a half. She'd sit on the couch with her partner at the end of each workday and not be able to carry on a conversation. Her job was so demanding that she didn't have energy left over for anything else.

"So, I asked myself: Is this what I want for my life? I'm nearly 30. Do I really want to give up so much for my job? I decided to quit in August."

She has no regrets about quitting, despite a tough job search.

Jonathan Javier left his $120,000 job to build his startup to help people land their dream jobs

Jonathan Javier is a former product operations analyst at Google, Snap, and Cisco. He left his $120,000 job to build his startup, Wonsulting, an AI-powered platform that helps job seekers optimize their résumés, cover letters, and LinkedIn profiles. 

Javier than told Insider that people need to build their network early on to land their dream job. "Building your network early on makes a big difference in job hunting. Before negotiating compensation, I asked peers who worked at other tech companies what a reasonable pay range might be. With that information, I felt much more confident during interviews. It's better than relying solely on websites like Glassdoor."

IDF Withdraws Forces From Gaza, Sparking Concerns of New Invasion

 

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Sunday that it withdrew troops from Southern Gaza, saying that it had “concluded its mission” in Khan Younis.”

The Israeli military said that its forces were leaving the Gaza Strip to “recuperate and prepare for future operations,” prompting Hamas terrorists to declare victory. 

The IDF said that it will leave one brigade open in Gaza which will allow the Israeli military to have access to return as necessary.

“A significant force led by the 162nd division and the Nahal brigade continues to operate in the Gaza strip, and will preserve the IDF’s freedom of action and its ability to conduct precise intelligence-based operations,” the IDF said in a statement. 

The news comes a week after President Joe Biden called for an “immediate ceasefire.”

Via The Jerusalem Post, the outlet suggested that the withdrawal was not a result of the U.S. pressuring Israel to make a deal with Hamas in exchange for hostages being held captive by the terrorist group. 

The IDF on Sunday announced that it had concluded the active invasion stage of the war for now while leaving open the possibility of a future new invasion of Rafah in deep southern Gaza.

Although a top IDF official said that this change had nothing to do with US pressure, the timing was unmistakable in coming right after the IDF’s disastrous mistaken killing of seven humanitarian aid workers last week.

Hamas immediately declared the IDF withdrawal, even partial, a victory for sticking to its position of demanding IDF withdrawals, including of troops in northern Gaza.

The 98th division was the Israeli military’s largest division that was designed specifically to fight Hamas in Khan Younis.

White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby told ABC’s “The Week” that the withdrawal was not a sign of a new incoming operation but rather a “rest and refit.”

“They’ve been on the ground for four months. The word we’re getting is they’re tired, they need to be refit,” Kirby said. 

It is unclear whether the IDF’s withdrawal of its troops had anything to do with Iran’s threat of attacking the country. 

They have used a Hezbollah agent in Lebanon to threaten Israel’s northern region, resulting in some IDF troops from Gaza being moved up north.

John Fetterman Latest Remarks on Squatters Rights and Crime Won't Please Leftists

 

I didn’t have much hope that Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) would be a good senator; he’s a Democrat. Truth be told, it would seem miraculous if he could finish one term. The man suffered a near-fatal stroke during the 2022 election, and the impact on his cognitive abilities was profound on the stump. He was hospitalized shortly after his swearing-in, but since that stay—Mr. Fetterman has been a pleasant surprise. That’s not to say I’d ever vote for him, but he’s a Democrat who is pro-Israel, anti-woke and finds his party’s position on public safety to be a disgrace. 

Once again, Mr. Fetterman reminds us that he’s not with the woke faction of the Democratic Party base and offers a warning that Pennsylvania won’t be an easy win for Joe Biden and his party during this election season. Fetterman sat down with the New York Post to expound further on the social insanity gripping the nation: 

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman ripped the idea of “squatter’s rights” during an exclusive interview with The Post this week. 

“Squatters have no rights,” Fetterman said, adding that the issue was one he often dealt with when he was mayor of working-class Braddock, Pa. “How can you even pretend that this is anything other than you’re just breaking the law?” 

“I am not woke,” he warned. 

[…] 

“It’s wild, that if you go away on a long trip, for 30 days, and someone breaks into your home and suddenly they have rights,” he sad. “This is crazy. Like if somebody stole your car, and then they held it for 30 days, then somehow you now have some rights?” 

[…] 

Fetterman also tore into soft-on-crimes policies that critics said contributed to the fatal shooting of NYPD Detective Jonathan Diller. 

“I have gone to police funerals,” Fetterman said. “If this individual is convicted, then he should spend the rest of his life and in prison, and never have an opportunity to get out.”

Does Fetterman believe in second chances? Yes, but the man who murdered Officer Diller has 21 priors. Fetterman was feared to have suffered irreparable brain damage since he didn’t give himself enough time to recover from his stroke two years ago. Frankly, there were times when Joe Biden seemed more cogent—that’s no longer true. Fetterman will never have my vote, but he’s not an insane liberal. Granted, that distinction doesn't earn him a gold star either. He infuriates his own side more now, like when pro-Hamas activists besieged his home, and he responded by going up on his roof holding an Israeli flag.

How the April 8 Eclipse Shows the Genius of God

 

Whether one believes that God created the universe on purpose, or that something else did in a random and chaotic manner – the Big Bang comes to mind – it’s difficult to argue against the order of the cosmos. This order will be visible on April 8 when millions of Americans can witness a total eclipse of the sun as the path of totality arcs across the nation from the Rio Grande Valley to northern Maine. 

This is a very big deal for a lot of people. Because Texas is less prone to cloud cover and will be the first state to experience this eclipse, droves of people are traveling to the Lone Star State to see it. So many people are coming to north Texas that Kaufman County, which is adjacent to Dallas, declared a state of emergency. So has the entire state of Indiana. 

The Royal Museum of Greenwich, England explains why this event is so extraordinary. A total solar eclipse is visible somewhere on Earth about once every 18 months. The last time people witnessed this phenomenon where I live in north Texas was July 29, 1878, beating the Royal Museum’s estimated average of about 400 years between total solar eclipses passing over any given point on the planet.

But is this eclipse a function of chaos or order? Science, for its part, provides us with something of a paradox. Some speculate that the origin of the universe was utter chaos at the moment of the Big Bang. Others theorize, “we live in a chaotic universe that, in many ways, is completely unpredictable,” while others still say cosmic rotation is increasing chaos in the universe. At the same time, it’s thought that there is order in the universe but this aforementioned chaos hides certain patterns. Which is it? 

To the extent there are hidden patterns in the universe, there are many to discover for one simple reason: We can only see about 5% of our universe. The other 95% is completely invisible to us, most of it described by science as dark energy – about 68% – and dark matter, reckoned to comprise another 27%. 

We know little about dark matter and dark energy, but we know a little more about the remaining 5% of the universe and it appears to be put together rather well. Monday’s eclipse demonstrates how well. One newspaper, The Oklahoman, reported “On April 8, 2024, a total eclipse will pass over the far southeastern corner of Oklahoma and through Dallas.” That might sound mundane today until realizing that this report was published on April 30, 2000. 

The order in the observable universe is so precise, a newspaper in Oklahoma City reported on next week’s eclipse nearly a quarter century in advance, and astronomers calculated the date and time before that. Such exact calculations are impossible in a random, chaotic environment. It is because of the structural precision of our universe that very smart people can calculate when a solar eclipse will occur. In case you’re curious, the next one that can be seen in the United States will happen on August 23, 2044. 

Skeptics of the biblical account of creation are free to lecture us on how the creation story in Genesis cannot possibly be true, and non-believers routinely deride Bible-believing Christians as bumpkinesque rubes as they explain how it wasn’t God that created the universe, but something else.

That “something else” embraced by science and people who claim to follow it cannot be seen, cannot be fully explained and cannot be proved. It encapsulates a belief system requiring faith that the quantum vacuum – which some believe created everything out of nothing – a second Big Bang about a month later, and other theories played some part in creating the universe. However, it’s difficult to argue for a chaotic universe in light of the consistent accuracy with which astronomers can calculate when solar eclipses will take place. 

Many so-called rationalists who believe in things they cannot see, explain or prove ridicule Christians for believing in things they cannot see, explain or prove. But how is a belief that a timeless, all-powerful God created an orderly universe any more preposterous than a belief that the quantum vacuum created everything out of nothing in an accidental explosion? 

Wise people will admit that science does not know for sure how the universe came to be. They have theories and conjecture to support their belief in a chaotic, random event somewhere in time and space, and a strong faith in those theories. But the exactitude within the observable universe which reflects the first sentence of the Bible – In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth – will be on full display during the afternoon of April 8. It promises to be a glorious exhibition of the absolute and limitless genius of the Creator.

Americans Differ on Ukraine and Gaza

 

When Russia invaded Ukraine, Americans overwhelmingly supported Ukraine–as they did with Israel after Oct. 7.

No wonder: Ukraine was surprise attacked by Russia, and Israel was by Hamas.

It seemed an easy binary of good versus evil: Both the attacked Ukraine and Israel are pro-Western. Both their attackers, anti-Western Russia and Hamas, are not.

Now everything is bifurcating. And the politics of the wars in America reflect incoherence.

Both Ukraine and Israel are portrayed in the media as supposedly bogging down in their counteroffensives.

More pro-Israel Republicans are troubled by Ukraine’s strategy, or lack thereof, in an increasing Somme-like stalemate.

Yet more pro-Ukrainian Democrats are turning away from Israel as it dismantles Gaza in the messy, bloody slog against Hamas. The left claims either Israel cannot or should not defeat Hamas, or at least at the present cost.

So the left pushes Israel to a cease-fire with Hamas.

It blasts Israeli “disproportionate” responses.

It demands that Israel avoid collateral damage.

It pressures it to form a wartime bipartisan government.

It lobbies to cut it off from American resupply.

It is terrified that Israel will expand the war by responding to aggression from Hezbollah and Iran.

Yet on Ukraine, the left oddly pivots to the very opposite agenda.

It believes Ukraine should not be forced to make peace with Russian “fascists.” It must become disproportionate to “win” the war.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy deserves a pass, despite canceling elections while suspending political parties.

America must step up its resupply to Kyiv with more and far deadlier weapons.

Ukraine has a perfect right to hit targets inside Russia.

Russian threats to widen the war should be considered empty and thus ignored. America should hate Russia far more than Hamas.

By contrast, conservatives are less supportive of Ukraine’s offensives, if more than ever allied with Israel.

In their realist views, Ukraine is a smaller power, vastly outnumbered by a richer, better-armed Russia. Thus, it should negotiate while it can, rather than eventually losing everything.

Israel, however, is, in their view, defeating Hamas. If allowed to finish the job, it can soon win the war in Gaza and still handle Hezbollah and deter Iran.

Furthermore, the right is wary that Russia is a nuclear power. The Ukraine war is unfortunately creating a new, potent anti-American axis of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea and drawing in former U.S. allies like Turkey and Qatar.

Yet, in Israel’s case, the U.S. is far more powerful than Hamas’s patron, Iran, and can easily deter it should Tehran intervene.

As of now, none of Hamas’s allies have nuclear weapons. Israel, however, does, unlike Ukraine.

Many conservatives further point out that Israel is a long-time U.S. democratic ally.

Ukraine’s elections are currently suspended while the country remains under martial law.

In realist terms, the old idea of Russian triangulation still makes some sense. Russia should be no friendlier to China than to the U.S., and China is no more aligned with Russia than with America.

Hamas, by contrast, is a terrorist clique, as are Hezbollah and all of Iran’s terrorist appendages. Their hatred of the U.S. is long-standing, immutable and transcends the Gaza war.

How about the public’s views in general?

With over $35 trillion in debt, still smarting over the humiliating withdrawal from Kabul, and the military short 40,000 recruits, the public does not wish to get heavily involved in either war, even as polls still show radically differing left/right attitudes toward both.

Americans once overwhelmingly supported vast aid for Ukraine. Now they decidedly believe the U.S. is providing too much to Kyiv.

They still poll strong support for Israel over Hamas, but less so for Israel’s ongoing destruction of Hamas given the collateral damage that follows.

Given there are few Russian-Americans, there are almost no demonstrations on behalf of Moscow’s war. But there are plenty of protests for Hamas since there are lots of Middle Eastern Americans and visitors within the U.S.

What are we to conclude about these contradictory wars and American attitudes toward them?

The more democratic and defensive the power, the more Americans support it–but only up to a point.

Even more, they demand quick victory–and lose interest when the wars stagnate, costs increase and protests grow.

When Ukraine and Israel began costly counteroffensives, the former losing thousands and the latter killing thousands, the American public began to be less invested in either war.

Final lessons?

Israel should do all it can to destroy Hamas as quickly as possible and end the war.

Ukraine does not have the wherewithal to defeat Russia. It should cease costly offensives against Russia’s fortified lines and seek to negotiate.

Or, put another way, fickle Americans sympathize with those who are attacked. But their continuing support seems contingent on whether the victim can remain sympathetic–and win decisively to end the war rapidly.