#career-change

#career-change

When I worked at LinkedIn, it was uncommon for me to see people stay at the office past 5 p.m. At the startup I'm working for now, an eight-hour day of hard work is just the baseline. Although I felt comfortable and taken care of at LinkedIn, when the excitement of working for a big-name company like LinkedIn wore off, I realized I wasn't learning, growing, and hustling the way I wanted to, so I quit.

At Amazon, I was on the Amazon Q Developer team, building their AI coding assistant. You'd think being at the center of Amazon's AI developer tools would be exciting, but it was actually deeply frustrating. It was apparent to anyone outside the Amazon bubble that we were losing the AI game badly. The leadership was constantly playing catch-up because there was very little true product vision. They kept saying they wanted to move like a startup, but then had the risk tolerance of IBM.

"It's hard," Elyse said. "It's really, really, hard, ridiculously hard. You have to love it. For me, it's much easier than for some. I'm much happier doing those hard things, trying to find somewhere to live every month, figuring out travel arrangements and dealing with things like getting robbed at gunpoint. That's much easier and fulfilling than having a 9-to-5 job where I'm in one place all the time. Being in one place makes me feel like I am going to go insane."

In April, I went through my third tech layoff in two years, and it was the straw that broke the camel's back: I was leaving tech behind. I just got married this summer, and it made me think about what I want my life to look like in five or 10 years. I had thought about leaving tech to go into education before, but it was hard to justify leaving when I was making up to $110,00 a year with just a bachelor's degree.

Adorno, originally from Connecticut, left the US for France last October, and admits that this decision had been a long time coming. After going through a number of careers, including as a lawyer, a filmmaker and an artisan breadmaker, Adorno had become tired of the work, work, work culture in the US and was looking for an escape. She says she was ready to to explore a life without work and felt that it was the right time to leave.

I set aside extra money for my kids, mortgage, bills, and car payments. My original goal was to reach $12,000 in savings. That way, when I started my coaching business, I could jump right into it without affecting my family financially. I ultimately reached about $10,200 before my exit. I'm glad I did that because it gave me some peace, and I wasn't thrown into a scarcity mindset when I left.

Now, he's living in Seoul andbuilding a business that aims to create a community for the Korean diaspora like him. Getting here required leaving behind everything he knew. By his mid-20s, Cho felt like he could see exactly what the next 20 years of his life would look like. Good pay, long hours, and climbing the corporate ladder in finance. "I felt like a dead person," Cho, now 28, told Business Insider about his job at Goldman Sachs.

Even if you're happy with your current employer, you may be looking to climb the ladder, broaden your experience, or find a role in a new city.

"Having a job everyone thinks sounds cool [then] feeling like you can't reach any goals day-to-day is not easy. You feel like a lie."

I jumped at the opportunity to move to Portland for a four-month internship, but eight years later, I feel like I've outgrown the city.

I turned my tutoring side hustle into a full-time business in January 2024. There was a push and pull for me in this direction.

"So many students leave a 200 hour program saying, 'I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of this topic!' which is true" - Jen Whinnen, founder of Three Sisters Yoga.

I signed in Raleigh you expect one thing. When [your play is not] showing up or the coach is not believing you, and it's always the bottom [pair]. Everybody has their own story and own career.

At last the heather moved. A badger's head appeared. Their eyesight is poor, but they can smell you, Jackson says.

"For many, the midlife crisis can usher in a period of clarity and renewed purpose, as individuals reflect on their desires and goals for the future."

We are, globally, not super into our jobs. Gallup's 2025 State of the Global Workplace report showed a decline in employee engagement and wellbeing, with 79% either not engaged or actively disengaged.

I'm fine now, but it was a major health scare. After that, I had some sense that I needed to have some time for myself, almost like a gap year where I could just think about what was a priority for me. Where did my values actually align?

Will Young discovered he is descended from British royalty, specifically relative to King Edward I, during an episode of 'Who Do You Think You Are?'.