Quitting my job as an Engineering Manager to go be an Entrepreneur
It's been a month since I quit my job as an Engineering Manager to be an entrepreneur again.
I was working remotely.
I had flexible hours.
My pay allowed me to save more than half of my income.
But I nevertheless decided to do it.
I was promoted to Manager in less than two years, from a Software Developer position and I was really excited about it, however I realized I fell into the Paradox of Success:
The success I built by working deeply as a Frontend/React developer on a codebase that served more than 100 million users was because I was able to be very productive with my time.
In my two years I contributed to more than 500 commits to production code, by far more than anyone else.
However, as a Manager, I was literally forced to attend many meetings where my contribution was less than 5 minutes out of the whole hour. Every day of the week, multiple times a week. We have a little one at home, and we all suffered the consequences of being so distracted and having to spend extra time to make up for all the shallow work.
Now, fast-forwading to where I am, I am hurting from losing my income and taking over a behemoth of a project, but I am proud of what I did and working better than ever.
I've learned more than I would have if I didn't quit; I am currently reading an Advanced Mysql book (my weak point in CS so far) and working heavily on the Figma designs:
(Note: I am not a designer! So for me, simple designs like this are already a big milestone).
Now, if anyone asked me whether it makes sense or not to quit... I trully don't know, all I know is that it is important not to become more stressed.
We do have about 8 to 10 months saved in the bank.
It's not my first time as an entrepreneur on a big project, and I hope to find a bit of support or an ear to listen to my concerns around here.
Happy hacking!
Currently reading:
- "Essentialism" by Greg McKeown.
- "Deep Work" by Cal Newport (reading of for the second time -- a must read for entrepreneurs!).
- "High Performance MySQL".
Hi @YuanHao! I felt very excited when I read the headline and saw that you were behind this post! I remember when you told me you got that promotion, and it's so cool to see that you're now taking matters into your own hands. All the best and let me know if I can support in any way!
Thanks @lunchbag! In retrospective, I should have turned down the offer as I really love programming and not so much the management/administrative part of it, but there was only one way to know. I always get inspired by your income milestones, hope I can also get there one day!
Why you couldn't continue to do your full time remote job at Edmodo and work on your entrepreneur dream on a part-time basis until you get some success?
Mostly because I was being required to be a Manager (3 hours of meetings per day sometimes, and on very bad days up to 5 hours -- that's really draining), and also a Lead Programmer (we were cut short on resources for our project), and I was just unhappy overall with the direction of our project. We have a 2-year-old at home, and my wife was doing almost all of the child caring for that time, and it was really tough on her too. The project just happens to be a good something to do with my extra free time :)
Also, I think it's important to note that we have enough savings stashed for about 10 to 12 months, with a little bit of passive income too. I would have never quit without said savings.
I wish you all the best!
I hope you have already identified some genuine problem which I believe you will solve it with an obvious improvement and then will be able to sell it as well. Selling and generating revenue is a critical part for me!
Thank you! Indeed revenue and generating an income are critical. We found a segment of the market which is not been addressed by any product. Crossing fingers!
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thanks @hackerland!