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How many of you gave up on a high-flying career?
Scientific, engineering, Hollywood, wall street, art, medical careers...
For example giving up on leading edge technology engineering for some more average engineering company. Or working in a famous top institution given up for a less known place.
I assume the reasons might be for moving to a lower cost of living or lower crime city, or have less stress or shorter working hours.
I'm in silicon valley (not too nice to live here), and want to move to a cheaper place with slower pace. Also my work is leading edge tech which is what I always wanted...
If you have been in a situation like that, what's your story?
Was it worth it in the long run? Any regrets?
I took a $16k pay cut to come to the job I have now. It's less stressful, less demanding, etc. I settled on a mid-level corporate career instead of going for something higher purely for the better quality of life.
It was the best decision I ever made. Getting nights/weekends back, being able to sleep better at night, etc. is worth every penny of the pay cut.
How many of you gave up on a high-flying career?
Scientific, engineering, Hollywood, wall street, art, medical careers...
For example giving up on leading edge technology engineering for some more average engineering company. Or working in a famous top institution given up for a less known place.
I assume the reasons might be for moving to a lower cost of living or lower crime city, or have less stress or shorter working hours.
I'm in silicon valley (not too nice to live here), and want to move to a cheaper place with slower pace. Also my work is leading edge tech which is what I always wanted...
If you have been in a situation like that, what's your story?
Was it worth it in the long run? Any regrets?
If you have one of the well known Silicon Valley corporate names on your resume, you won't need to take a pay cut to move to a different city. Google the headquarters of the large banks. If those cities appeal to you, you can always get a gig in fintech that will have work/life balance and a good paycheck.
Since you're in CA, look into Wells Fargo. All of their controversy will be solved using a lot of tech based solutions for monitoring, regulatory, etc.
Last edited by charlygal; 04-25-2019 at 07:44 PM..
I would imagine most people below age 45 today never even had the option of a "high flying career" these days to give up on, so you probably won't get a huge amount of responses except from retirees?
I might qualify. I wasn’t launching rockets or doing brain surgery, but I was at the top of a niche profession at a very prestigious organization.
I left due to punishing workload and toxic corporate culture. I took a significant pay cut and went to work for a very mundane organization. Best decision I ever made. I can now pursue hobbies and leisure activities, spend more time with family and live a life with much less stress.
I would imagine most people below age 45 today never even had the option of a "high flying career" these days to give up on, so you probably won't get a huge amount of responses except from retirees?
What about the recent grads (5 years or less) who are making $75k+? Granted, my exposure has mainly been to financial and tech careers.
I'm old and it took a long time before I began making "comfortable" money.
I am purposely not attempting to go up the ladder too high for this very reason. I want a work/life balance. I am happily married. I want to spend time doing things at home with my wife. I see some people I work with now who struggle with work/life balance, and a lot of it seems to boil down to not having much of a life outside of work. They don't seem genuinely happy to me; in fact, they seem very stressed and miserable and take it out on others. I don't envy that lifestyle in the least bit.
I make enough now where I'm comfortable in my early 30s. I'm not wealthy, but I am paying my bills, saving an ample amount for retirement, have a hefty nest egg, we eat out, we have plenty of entertainment, and we can go on a few long distance trips per year.
I know people who gave up on the so-called high flying careers because they didn't want 200 or 300K in debt for student loans. While it might be fun to impress people at cocktail parties when they show off their business card, that debt they have isn't fun at all.
I know people who gave up on the so-called high flying careers because they didn't want 200 or 300K in debt for student loans. While it might be fun to impress people at cocktail parties when they show off their business card, that debt they have isn't fun at all.
Student debt is 100% optional. Many people have successful lives without debt.
My situation might not be as extreme. I'm currently in engineering on the manufacturing side for the past several years. It's a great path if you're interested in managing, but it's not so great if you're looking for a deep technical route. Through a combination of dumb luck, not knowing what I wanted in my 20s, and a high demand for this field, I've made multiple job changes that increased my salary substantially. However, it comes with a lot of drama, cleaning up messes and obnoxious fire-fighting, people making decisions based on "feelings", people throwing their last-minute problems on you, getting blamed for crap you can't control without god-like abilities, and management-lite "people-project" tasks. It wasn't until the past 2-3 years I realized how much I hate it and how far behind it puts you from a technical standpoint.
I was recently approached by my boss to pursue an open manager job....nah, no thank you lol. For a while, I've been looking to make a switch to a more technical role on the design/R&D side of engineering, and I'm not deviating from that goal. If I wanted to climb the ladder to management in my current path, the door is certainly open. However, I've gotten a too much of a taste of that nonsense and feel no need to go any further. Our finances are fine as-is, even if I need to take a pay-cut to get the career I want.
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