There's a lot of absurdity in this industry right now. I'm curious if anyone else who has the ability to do so is quitting this month.

If so I'm curious:

  1. What pushed you to do it?

  2. What will you be doing? (Even if nothing!)

I just quit recently. After a few years in big tech the only thing I have to show for it is a fat bank account. I don’t remember the last time I’ve learned something new or had any kind of responsibility.

I’ll be joining a startup in a few months to hopefully find the joy in my profession again with a fresh start and more skin in the game.

I quit last year and have just been chilling and working on side projects. The reason I left was because of mandatory RTO combined with a very steep decline in the engineering culture of where I worked.

Got tired of having to talk to like five different people who barely spoke English to get anything done and the increasingly naked hostility from the c-suite about our value to the company.

My current company, even though slower than the industry, has started pushing AI-first for everything. Funny that as soon they announced it they started losing senior developers and most teams are now composed mostly of juniors + 1 senior.This on safety-critical adjacent products. Burnout and bugs are rampant. As a counter measure they are increasing salaries of the seniors but with low adherence.

I'm currently looking and I'm considering cutting my salary up to 50℅ to work for a company with a very interesting product that doesnt push AI and let us instead decide where to use it.

I'd rather lower my quality of life than put up with this bs and being forced to use a tool that I disagree so much on an ethical and moral pov. Let alone letting managera decide which tools I have to use on my engineering work

Not long ago I had a dream about becoming a butcher, and so then I bought half a cow with a friend and after a week trying to cut it out in pieces I realised maybe I was too old to make the move... so im still a programmer.

I did. Now 3 years have gone by.

I quit because like many here I was totally unfulfilled with what I was doing day-to-day. Feeling like I'm wasting my life away for a (not even great) paycheck.

I was thrilled with the freedom and agency it brought me, and had a long list of things I wanted to do. I went to see family and friends I hand't seen in a while, then took a multi-month trip in the mountains while reading, learning and programming whatever I wanted to.

Then had a baby, which wasn't planned, but turned into the most important and meaningful thing in my life. Time went by, the market went down, AI, etc. I started trying finding a job about a year in, and it's really tough. Even worse, everything I hated about work seems to be generally worse now everywhere.

Not sure what to do.

Not quitting just yet, but the culture is super toxic lately. Managers will promise things that are not feasible, set absurd deadlines, and then let engineers take the fall if they don't meet those deadlines. When engineers come up with good ideas, managers will say it's a bad idea, but then run away with the idea and take the credit.

I wake up every day wondering if I should quiet quit or go for a clean exit.

Think about it all the time. Can’t stand how AI has made everyone at a company a pretend expert at everything and discussions are now just everyone’s AI responding back and forth to one other, and nobody seems to notice or care.

What a great and timely question! :) I quit a week ago to take a year-long sabbatical.

> 1. What pushed you to do it?

The pursuit of curiosity, for the most part. That's what makes quitting a lot harder when you have a good job and nothing to complain about: you feel like you're making a huge mistake on a whim. Doubly so when you consider the state of the job market at this time.

That said, we don't live to work; we work to live. It's a lot of risk and uncertainty, but you should remember that while some unknown bad things can happen in the future, unknown good things can happen too! [1] When you own your time, you increase your luck surface considerably: you have more opportunities to travel, to wander, to play, to meet new people, to tinker, to discover.

So I've been thinking and reading about this a lot. The final push came from two books I read: "The Pathless Path" by Paul Millerd [2] and "The Inner Compass" by Lawrence Yeo [3]. I can't recommend them enough.

> 2. What will you be doing? (Even if nothing!)

I have a huge Steam backlog to beat... :) Besides that, I'll be studying computer science and maths. Programming language theory, compilers, and functional programming are particularly close to my heart.

But, most importantly, enjoying life!

[1] https://moretothat.com/take-the-leap/

[2] https://pathlesspath.com/

[3] https://compass.moretothat.com/

There's always been absurdity though, right?

These are some I can think of or have witnessed since starting my dev career in 2010:

- 4GL business languages making developers redundant

- Big data

- Cloud computing

- DevOps

- LLMs

For those about to quit, I salute you.

Still can't get work. I've pretty much given up working for anyone else building software. Had an offer on the table for good pay, rescinded after a credit check (gov't subcontractor, "potential insider threat" excuse; fishy happenings with primary contractor lead me to believe they had their own guy they wanted to install...)

I found a little job in education (no tech at all) that pays $22k/yr. That'll float the bills while I use my spare time to build other things. Got a couple dev boards (one SBC, one for that cheap TI component that came across HN a few days ago) to toy around with some little hardware ideas I have that maybe I could productize.

Grabbing a PD analyzer and an older M1 or M2 Mac to explore Asahi Linux and maybe start contributing in a few months.

Me, in my fantasies.

Sadly I'm tightly mortgaged and in a very high cost of living area in the US.

My plan is to move to Europe so I can cut my cost of living in half, not stress over health care, and eat real food instead of fake American chemicals. Need a few more years ..

I quit in June. No real absurdity, I'd just spent two years after we were acquired feeling bad about leaving and abandoning everybody, or that's what I'd tell myself to not feel like a coward. Either way, out now, trying to balance curing burnout with a dozen personal projects and lots of well-intentioned, interesting people talking about new opportunities. I told people (my wife most pertinently) that my plan was to walk the dog a lot and not have a plan, but no lack of a plan survives contact with boredom. So, behold my thundering herd of shaven yaks: three screenplays, two TTRPGs (one CMS for TTRPGs that will do data-driven print layout for you), one video game, one piece of consumer electronics, slowly going through Lingua Latina. And I still feel like I have a lot of unfinished business in football analytics, which was the day job.

I don't really know what the right balance is now, but I'm having fun and generally much happier.

Stroke too away sight in one eye Americans with disability Act not helpful at work All algorithmic knowledge wasted out of work for a year so I gave up

I quit after almost five years at Stripe. Loved my team and manager but the product culture at the company were steadily going downhill and I wasn't building much. Honestly couldn't tell you what I was doing day to day but i was still sitting at my computer for 8 hours and feeling pretty unfulfilled. The direction of the company was also confusing and I kept getting pulled into its forays (its doing well but trying to get deeper into crypto). The tooling was also breaking a lot and became haphazard.

Trying to do something on my own now, maybe I'll reassess in the fall and ask for my job back or start looking around if this doesn't work. Its not really a "break" because I'm working a lot (maybe more than before) but I figured this is my window to try. Somewhat hoping big tech will always be there but if not i can make do with whatever I get as long its doesn't have a toxic culture.

Im close to stopping.

Founder of a deeptech/hardware startup in a difficult sector and we are struggling to get our tech validated (latest datapoint are no improvement over the current practice). While i believe with sufficient time it can be proven and improved, that crosses into the realm of academia and not entrepeneurship.

So yeah motivation is quite low at the moment, and im not sure if to push-on or accept failure and move on.

Any advice?

Quit 10 years ago. In the meanwhile I tried building my own things, first few years have been poorly the last few have been great. Never give up people :)

Got fired. I’ve no idea what I’ll do after 10 years of backend dev. I’m thinking of making video games. It looks rough but I want to do it.

Leaving at the end of the month; first time quitting (not jumping ships) in my career. It's a scary move.

I will be taking a short break and polishing some of my OSS projects.

I'm actually excited about the future of software right now. Currently interested in the field of applied AI/automation/robotics though I have zero credentials. If you're looking for a T-shaped engineer with strong UI and UX experience, let's talk :)

I'm thinking of quitting in January and moving to New Zealand (already have a visa) for a year then Ireland for a year.

Im definitely afraid of the state of the industry after 2 years of contracting work and breaking back in at my current salary (160k) since my goal is to retire early. The opportunity cost of a life well lived vs preparing myself to live a better life in 20+ years is a really difficult decision to make

I’ve applied for several jobs outside of tech or only tech-adjacent. I’m not happy to give up significant income and benefits, but you don’t get everything you want.

What AI-first means for companies who are not actually AI companies is elevating staff with the right degree of _partiinost_ around AI and using vendor AI products to show how many Jira issues have been closed in pursuit of the latest exciting and important new transformation.

I quit over a year ago after burnout with a little bit of savings working in devrel and technical PM. Since then I went all in on scuba diving - became an instructor, maxed out open-circuit (OC) tec diving with 100m advance trimix dives, technical stage cave diving (OC), and most recently O2ptima CM Air Diluent CCR diving. I also got B2 certified in Indonesian. After burning a hole in my pocket on diving gear and certs, I'm looking for my next fully remote devrel/dev-ed role so I can go CCR cave diving in a few years :D

I'm thinking about it every day

I just quit. A comically inept director who screamed at people and promotions given out for obsequiousness over impact. I'm guessing the second one will be more-or-less the same everywhere but I'd rather not deal with people I don't respect in the slightest.

quitted on 6/30. Was working for 5 years as PO in autonomous driving. teams changed 3 times, France to US/Mexico/Europe to India. Each time start almost from scratch. Now cooking for family and boot strapping 2 startups.

Throwaway. Software person here. Quitting current job in a few weeks.

1. Leadership, culture, and (development) process changes; I've been looking casually for over a year and finally got something.

2. New company, same role, but should be much more amenable and stable.

Yep! I just did. I’m leaving this July.

To anyone reading this: don’t be afraid to make the move. It’s your life. It can feel scary before you do it, but once you finally quit, it’s not scary anymore.

I was working at an AI startup, and I saw our CTO lie in a demo to potential customers. I know that startups sometimes have a "fake it till you make it" mindset, but the guy straight up used a product from another company, presented it as our company's product, and faked numbers. I saw him completely misrepresent the capabilities of our product several times. Unethical and most likely illegal, I felt super disappointed, but I didn't immediately quit.

I quit later, as it became increasingly clear to me that this guy knew nothing about technology, didn't care, but also had a fragile ego where he had to present himself to the company as being in charge, even though he was the worst person for the role. To top it all off, it also dawned on me over time that we basically had an absentee CEO who was working only ~15 hours a week at most. Then when I quit I found out there was a third co-founder who owned a huge stake of the company and I did not even know existed while I worked there.

When I first interviewed, the CTO seemed like a nice and friendly guy, I didn't immediately see red flags. This was my first startup experience. I'll try to research things better if I decide to join one again. I might also just not join unless I can myself be a co-founder. Fuck reporting to incompetent twats.

Currently taking a sabbatical. I decided to take the summer off. I'm working on personal projects. Lucky enough to have good savings from a previous job so I can afford to do this. I'm planning to take gradual steps towards returning to work near the end of the summer.

I salute the bravery of everyone in this thread. In my 25+ years of working in tech, the hiring market has never been worse, and it was really, really bad for a few years of that career. I know talented ex-coworkers who have been looking for a job for 2+ years and had to resort to stocking shelves at Home Depot while they kept trying. Right now, I don't think I would have the courage to even quit a job that I absolutely hated.

So, you people who are leaving without another job lined up, just chillin' at home: My admiration goes out to you. GL guys! You're braver than I.

quit last year, bikepacked for a fee month in europe, and now after a toy project got hn-ed in december, built a real saas that pays the bills. pretty grateful to hn.

i quit after realising how ineffective it is to support a founder who stopped focusing on the product.

Already did. Hated working with AI. Will try to start a business one day where I can code how I like it.

Currently not doing anything IT related. Just went on a bike ride.

I’m using a throwaway for this.

In my previous job I was working in a boring old app, and all my attempts to modernise it were rejected. So I felt like this is not my project anyways.

And everything was hair-rippingly slow, asking external developers to implement a simple button was a nightmare of bureaucracy with jira tickets and meetings and reviews ugh.

And I’m coming from the indy hacker scene, I have always moved quickly and avoided unnecessary overhead. At home I was working on side projects and adding buttons was not even in my effort-radar, bc its so quickly done!

Then with ai getting good at coding + my experience I was able to ship so many projects and features, the slow progress at work became unbearable. I was wasting my time so badly there.

TLDR:

Maybe this is a new phenomenon, but I quit bc I can do much more alone while vibe coding. The opportunity cost of staying there was just too high.

Also: the models work much better during unemployed hours and I do so much more sports now, I love it!

Quit about a month ago after working at my last place for two years. It was a decent job before the agent psychosis became widespread, from that moment everyone in the company went insane and the pressure to use "advanced agentic engineering" became unbearable. Also, most engineers in the company supported and were enthusiastic about that trend, so I was in a minority.

I don't have much savings on me, but I'd rather go frugal and downshift than be producing slop for a living.

I think about quitting every single day. I have too many little responsibilities running around the house in order to pull it off. Layoffs impacting us big time. Brain drain. Off shoring. 7,000 line PRs. 12 hour shift coverage. Project count tripling. Not sure how long I’ll make it before I have heart issues and become one of those late 40s guys who keels over and is forgotten by the company in 6 weeks. Stressful.

I quit last September and have been doing sporadic freelancing and intensely working on personal projects.

It was already clear to me last summer that the agentic stuff was kind of the final nail in the coffin of a "normal" software dev shop. All the routine of typical SCRUM-based etc activity was degrading even further from ritual and theater into a pointless charade or comedy, or as you say, absurdity. Dueling LLMs on the code reviews, people sitting around a conference room on laptops counting fantasy story points, getting Claude to write their annual self-assessments.

Unfortunately I still need to make money. I've done a couple freelance gigs. Some is less absurd than others. I'm sporadically interviewing to go full time again but I'm being extremely picky.

What an utterly privileged life we lead when we can just decide to quit our jobs because things are getting too “absurd”.

Quitting is a bad move. You should just quiet quit and start acting and don't take anything too seriously. Probably all your colleagues feel the same way anyway. Everyone is just hustling and bullshitting at this point. Everyone is laser focused on how to maximize their lock-in factor whilst putting in as little effort as possible. Because it's what works.

You can't avoid the bullshit unfortunately. Whatever company you join, it will be the same thing. If the company REALLY provided value, they would have gone bankrupt. There's no avoiding the bullshit. You must embrace it.

I quit because our product had become little more than a funnel directing people to gambling sites, and everyday working on it felt gross.

I’m working on my passion project, a mobility focused fitness app (bendy.fit), and searching for work that doesn’t feel morally repugnant!

I'm not quitting, but AI has completely changed my priorities.

Building software has become dramatically easier over the last year. The hard part is no longer creating products—it's getting people to discover and trust them.

I spend far more time thinking about distribution today than implementation. That's a shift I didn't expect.

You mean Ask HN: Who wants to be fired?

I quit about a year ago...

I did a crazy experiment: Built and shipped 25 projects in 25 weeks.

Several of those projects made it to the top of HN here. One went viral and ended up in TechCrunch and many other big-name sites: https://channelsurfer.tv

I wasn't _trying_ to make money. I just wanted to build a bunch of cool shit, rekindle my love for building websites, make the web more fun, and maybe figure out what I wanted to do next.

Now I'm trying to focus on making money. I'm kind of out of money, so I'll likely need to do some freelance work for a while.

Soon I'm going to release something to help others do the same thing. Ship high-quality stuff quicker.