Ask HN: Have you ever taken a career break or gap year to hack?

I just finished almost 5 years out of the corporate world after a pretty rough family loss. Many months of it were busy fighting personal fires. Many months were explorations into other career paths. And then when things stabilized and I realized my motivations, many months were spent hacking.

I only really regret treating the time off as more of an issue than it was. I was convinced by month 10 that I had failed to meet some imaginary, impossible deadline I had set for myself against the imaginary, impossible expectations of imaginary and impossible people. That cognitive distortion only got in the way of the inevitable and only possible resolution, which was a better sense of my own motivations and a broader horizon to sail toward hope again.

I would agree with the advice of everyone here, and add: If you’re stressed about the opportunity cost of lost earnings, weigh it against your sense of value for the time you’ll take off, whether it’s in the skills you’ll be building, or the new experiences, or the renewed mental health. And above all, talk to your friends early and often. Even if the roof is on fire, especially when the roof is on fire.

Yes, but I've never been an employed programmer -- I lost my job over a year ago, and basically, because I still have the chance to upskill and live with my parents, I've used the last year to work part-time and flesh out some projects and become more employable overall.

I'll be starting a job next month, because at this point I probably gotta get back on the hamster wheel and work into some professional progress, but I'm hoping this is my last non-programming job. The last 13 months have absolutely been worth the price of admission.

In my 60's now, in my late 20's due to a layoff I ended up taking a year long "Sabbatical".

It wasn't planned and I didn't have the finances setup but I made it work and spent my time doing volunteer work, some personal spiritual exploration and low cost travel.

Granted, single, no one needing me for anything, so your mileage may vary.

For me, best decision ever. I really enjoyed getting to point of not knowing what day it was.

I’ve recently took a year and a bit off for my mental and physical health. I did have to give up on good income for a while, but I figured my well being was much more important than having a larger house deposit.

Job-wise, I haven’t really stressed that much because I figured it wouldn’t too hard to get a software job as an experienced dev (and I was right)

During the break, I did try to build some for-profit projects so that I could prolong the break as much as I wanted. But in hindsight, it was a mistake if I were to do it again I would just focus on what makes me happy instead of trying to make something that can make money.

All in all, I’d recommend it. I’m in a better place mentally and I hope I can do it again in 5-7 years.

Yes, I've taken multiple - anywhere from a couple months to an entire year during COVID. Travelling, trying my hand at a business, others to just take a break and work on side projects or freelancing before fully jumping back in.

It's good to consider the financial impact seriously in balance with everything else - not only the income you won't earn, but also how that would have compounded across your lifetime.

To address your point about recruiter emails, I still get them. So long as you can provide value to a business at the end of your break it's not necessarily an issue, though you might have to work harder to demonstrate that - I think especially for the soft skills you'd otherwise be using day-to-day in a workplace as opposed to when you're just doing your own thing.

I took 3 months off, joined antlers entrepreneur residency program for 3 months (the first batch in India, they do this in the almost 100 cities globally too).

The odds of creating teams among 70 founders, freezing on an idea, pitching and getting an investment from their IC is only 5%. This contrasts with YC where everyone gets an investment on day 1. But Antler isn't meant for those who have that clarity. Yet. You just want to startup. They interview you, giving you 2-3 months to figure it out.

They also have a small stipend during this time.

Although I personally pitched with a team and didn't get an investment and decided to join the workforce again - there are many who continued with their team and bootstrapped post that or raised many quarters later.

Regardless of how many founders eventually raise at the end of the cohort (15 teams formed from 70 founders, 3-5 teams on avg clear IC for $250k investment), Antler raises capital from their LP's 100% of the time, backed up by the logos of the employment of the founders, and potential opportunity. I felt conflicted by this initially. But it's a net win for the ecosystem. They get to fund more winners longer,and aren't obliged to fund every team for various reasons and have a high bar at the IC that is a reality check for many first time founders.

Much like cohorts, the bond from staying in close proximity with that many folks also leads to a lifelong network that is still super tight 3 years post.

Yes, I have deployed overseas for the military 4 times since I started programming professionally in the corporate world.

The first of those, my second of five deployments, I taught myself to program. Yes, I was a professional programmer before I could program anything. This is actually the norm in JavaScript and unfortunately many JavaScript developers never really learn to program.

My programming speed and capabilities has dramatically improved with each of these career breaks. The strange thing about programming is there is absolutely no correlation between competence and career elevation, and these breaks have been detrimental to my career elevation.

You might be interested in the Recurse Center (https://www.recurse.com/) and the experiences of people who have gone through it (they heavily encourage blogging about your time there so there is lots to read).

Note: I am not affiliated with the Recurse Center, just a big fan.

A long time ago, after getting burned (by bad people, not by work itself), and temporarily not being able to get interested in anything, I decided to live very frugally, and force myself to learn an area that I knew I would normally find very interesting.

That worked, and I got my mojo back.

I also became a bit of an expert in the niche I was learning. That helped get me work that was unusually challenging and rewarding.

(I've since moved on to other areas, especially startup do-all-the-things roles.)

Just an anecdote, maybe an edge case. I don't think it's a reliably repeatable formula. There was a lot of good and bad luck involved. And, under the particular circumstances, I had to be willing to give up almost everything else, and ended up giving up things I didn't even know I was giving up.

I was laid off in January and have been having a hell of time getting hired again, so I did a batch at Recurse Center (RC)[0]. It was a truly great time where I got to hack away at all sorts of ideas alongside people much more capable than myself. There’s a number of articles that hit the front page on here all the time like One Million Checkboxes where I got to listen to a live presentation from the author.

Now I’m back to the job hunt grind, which is the complete opposite of fun, but my time at RC was very worth it.

[0]: https://www.recurse.com/

I took 6 months off to work on a side project and build a business out of it. It was one of the best things I've ever done. The job I got straight after was a direct result of my side project. Although the business did not thrive, I learnt a lot about what not to do as well. 6 months is a long time, and I felt too comfortable taking my time with things like trying to make the code perfect. If I were to do it all over again, I would have focussed more on other parts of the business like marketing and creating value than writing clean code.

I’m on year two of winging it as a professional artist after close to 20 years as a software engineer. Mental health has never been better!

In between being laid off and finding a new job I do challenge myself to do the "most advanced project on X" that I can think of. I work on the hardest features first. This keeps me highly motivated and most importantly: sane. Some hacking projects allowed me to grasp new tech that I added to my problem solving tool belt. The risk is getting rabbitholed and forgetting about looking for a job.

You should check out https://www.recurse.com Its a free code retreat program where you work on whatever you like. People even put it in their CVs, so could be a win-win

I'm doing it right now. I left my job and created a game company during my sabbatical (https://galantrix.com). Feel free to drop by the company's Discord if you want to chat.

I don't know what to expect going forward. In my experience, as long as you can show that you're keeping your skills sharp, and have something to show for your year off, it can even work to your advantage. Taking one year off to spend your day playing Factorio probably wouldn't look as good to recruiters (although I can see people needing just that after a stressful run).

BTW, I'm near 50 with 20+ in FAANG/AAA Tech.

Yes. Took just over a year off after a death in the family to travel. Saved up with my partner so we wouldn't have to work while on the road. Kept our adventures frugal and did nothing but adventure and decompress initially. Then settled back in the US and worked on a startup idea for four months. Didn't go anywhere, but I learned a lot, and my experiences and prototype helped me land my next gig (@Netflix).

Had nerves interviewing at first but eventually settled into a groove. Will it be harder than interviewing when you're currently employed? Yes, but a lot of it will be in your head. One of the most rewarding experiences of my life and so happy I did it

If you write code every day it won't really matter. It's just a matter of where you apply your efforts.

It's coming up on a year for me out of a programming job. I'm looking forward to starting this fast food job so I can afford groceries again.

Either way, still writing code.

I've done it 7 years ago and don't regret it all. I was in my early 30s, had my own place to stay and no family, so it was easy, but you can do it no matter what as long as you have savings.

I spent that time working on a "startup" with friends, but we have quickly realized that we had no sale skills whatsoever and were just building an app for fun. It helped me to learn frontend programming, so it wasn't a wasted time. After that, when I finally decided to look for a job, I found one with a much better compensation than before, but that was a given considering I moved back from Asia to Europe.

Now with our project at work coming to an end, I'm thinking it's a great time to do it again. Everyone complains about the job market not being as hot as it was before, so it make sense to take some time off to stay with family, do some sports, gather thoughts and later prepare for interviews, learn new skills and maybe jump onto the AI train. The SE work may change a lot in the following years and it is a good idea to prepare for it well. I have a feeling I will need to learn more about math, ML, systems design and devops to stay in the game.

I did this myself and it was some fundamental experiences of my life so from that point of view I'd say definitely go for it. Life is short.

On the other hand... Now older I see the financial/compounding aspect more clearly.

Specifically, you mention you have "savings for some years". If you stick at that, continuing to save and benefiting from compounding, you could reach financial independence, a magical point after which any work you do will be entirely optional, at your own discretion, and decoupled from what earnings it brings. For the rest of your entire life. Hard to overstate the freedom that entails.

So is it worth jumping off that trajectory early, squandering the savings, and pushing financial independence much farther back?

Arguably, no.

Your decision.

I'd like to, but the cost of losing out on a year of money/experience/retirement is awful. Compound interest is important. If we lived in the federation of Star Trek, we wouldn't be having this conversation for many reasons (not just the no money part). I really wish I was independently wealthy or won the lottery or something like that. It would be so cool to just go to a coffee shop and work on some cool project for me.

I went into boat detailing for two years after a mental health breakdown of 20 years in SysAdmin/DevOps/SRE/CTO/whatever the industry wanted to call the guy who always caught all of the balls.

It paid the bills and was a great seachange for a while for me to get my head back in check and learn boundaries of work/life balance.

I'm now back in a DevOps role the last year but things are different now. Mostly my attitude and expectations.

If you need the break, take it. The market will pick you back up when you are ready.

I'd like to take this question one step further: When do you think is an appropriate point to take a sabbatical? After working for a year, two years, three etc. The reason I'm asking is that junior developers might feel the need for a break earlier in their careers compared to experienced devs.

Would actually love some of y’all’s advice about something like this: I graduated college in May and started a Sales Engineering role at a cybersecurity company. I had offers a a few startups but because of health reasons and the really good insurance, I couldn’t turn this role down.

Now that the health issues are behind me, I have the ability to move to SF and work with a team of robotic engineers on a new project they’re building. Only caveat is I’d be doing it purely for learning; I don’t have the skills necessary to provide value to the team yet.

Haven’t talked details all the way through with the founder I’m talking to, but I think it could be an incredible learning experience. We’re syncing up after Christmas, anyone have any suggestions on what to ask or input on the situation in general?

Just starting it now. After very stressful 5 years in a big tech, saved more than enough to allow me to take a year long "break" to work on my own startup that I'm really passionate about.

I'm also quite confident in my ability to find a regular job when needed even if I have a few years gap in my resume

I did 6 months sabbatical after serving 3 years as CTO at hypergrowth startup. Didn’t code. Then after several months of fulltime work with plenty of coding I did 1 year of parental leave. Both made me realize that work-life balance is that, it’s not just doing 8x5 instead of 12x6. Whoever says that you should work a lot to achieve anything, probably simply do not realize that there are more healthy alternatives. Do recruiters care? I don’t think so, or maybe it depends on the stage of your career. I personally would not care at all, if a candidate has gaps in CV.

I thought about this so long that a burnout forced me to. Haven't had the need to get back to work ever since :)

I haven't worked in a office setting for over 7 years, but I built and sold several companies. Whoever is not going to hire me in future is probably their miss. But I am honestly not sure if I would even go back into IT.

It's been the best for my mental health. I love coding, but stress environments, especially feeling stress for someone else aren't for me.

A few years back I left one of the FAANG companies after the first two covid years and had no job lined up for about 9 months.

I spent the first 3-4 months learning swift, iOS development, and hacking on an app project. It was probably some of the most fun I've had in a while simply because I wasn't locked into product decisions, timelines, or other requirements.

But of course it depends on finances and how easy it is for you to rejoin the industry. Fortunately I got my current job just as all the layoffs and hiring freezes began. Not sure what would've happened if not for that.

Yep, I took off nearly a year to hack on an interesting project I had been working on.

It was actually doing that work that helped me get my next full time job. And they later supported me in taking some time off so I could do a proper release of the project.

So, for me, it worked beautifully. Obviously I cannot say for sure what would happen for you, but I think if you are working on things that help you grow, it will not be wasted.

I quit a job back in 2011, the plan was to create an iPhone game. Six months later the job I quit hired me back as a consultant to rebuild the software team my previous manager drove away. After 9 months I made so much money I quit that and moved to Incline Village (Lake Tahoe) for 3 years, took up skiing in the winter, hiking in the summer, and working on the game. Then, again I was contacted to do some consulting, this time 100% remote. Off and On over the years, someone from my past will contact me with consulting work. I might work 6-12 months, or 3 years and then not work for awhile. Longest stretch is 9 months before I'm contacted again.

I didn't plan this, I never tell anyone I'm looking for work, I don't update linked-in with a status. But it's been so long now, I don't think I could ever work a "real" job ever again. I've now been on my own; consulting longer than my software engineering career out of university.

When I quit that job in 2011, I only had $16k in my checking account. I figured if I had to I'd cash out the 401k from a previous job. I don't have family, put myself through university working a 3rd shift factory job, and still graduated with $40k in debt, in 1999. So to anyone thinking, must be easy when you have a safety net, couldn't be further from the truth. The manager at that last job was so incompetent she was throwing engineers under the bus left and right for her mistakes, I left before I was next.

Quitting that job in 2011 was the best decision I ever made. I know most people can't stand the stress of not having a steady paycheck. I couldn't care less, being free of being an employee was worth it to me. Salaried jobs are no more guaranteed anyway, it's a false sense of security. Since then, I bought and paid off a house in 4 years, paid for SUV. Bought tons of equipment, office furniture, books, computers etc. Over 5 years of living expenses saved now. I'm thinking of pivoting to creating a website, making youtube videos and maybe writing some books. The youtube channel will focus on science experiments; a different approach to learning. Trying to wind down a client I've been working with for 2 years now so I can move on. The last thing I'd do is cover software though, always hated it, just a means to an end, and I'm so good at it I make more in 1 day than most people make in 2 weeks. But money isn't everything, once you have "enough", and you keep your expenses low, you can be truly free...

' Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.' -- Robert Frost

I'm doing it right now. Nine months into a sabbatical during which I've been working on music and enjoying the fact that my phone isn't going to wake me up in the middle of the night because the database is broken. I don't expect to go back to work (I don't need the money, but it's possible I might miss the social aspects of having a normal day job), but I'm not particularly concerned should I change my mind. My primary skillset is specialized enough that there aren't that many people who do what I do.

I recently took 10 months off before my current gig. I did little to no coding, mostly just recovering from burnout and doing some side fun stuff. No one batted an eye about the break when I started job-searching again --- I think breaks like that in tech are pretty normal.

I also wrote a more detailed blog about my experiences and advice for a break if it's useful! https://gunsch.cc/2024/04/06/sabbatical-review.html

Coming from me as a hiring manager, not a financial advisor: seeing a gap year has no effect at all on me except maybe a bit of jealousy. If you did something interesting and relevant in that time, bonus points.

Yes, 6 month during COVID.

Mostly worked on a Virtual tabletop (think foundry but worse, except in OcaML), and on mathlab and modelling the climate crisis by and for myself (this weirdly helped with my eco anxiety, but mostly because it made me extremely selfish and not care for future humans anymore)

Yes, several times. Highly recommended - just make sure to set up a routine and follow it!

(I do this whenever switching jobs. After six to nine months, I'm eager to work with other people again, which makes it easy to find a job.)

i did it this whole year. First time in.. decades. Burned out from too much lowly politics, essentially, moving against my own values.

pros: you can breath freely. you can jump and sleep and risk and judge things. no calendar (like, which month is now?). etc - outside-hamster-wheel.

cons: Savings that should last whole year, well, did not. "i can always get a job" does not work, esp. right now (and i am making software for 35 years).

Will i do it again? Yes. "if it hurts, do it more often"

have fun!

Yes and it was one of the best years of my life. I made more money from submitting vulnerability assessments than my day job. I’m structuring my life to do this again.

You get a little lonely as you don’t get the social fix from hanging out with work folk.

Overall the health benefits are immense. Both mental and physical as you have more time to look after yourself.

The success comes in the form of creating a void for opportunities to present themselves. I ended up doing things I never thought I’d do. Some were fun nothing burgers, and others were financially successful. The important thing is I got all my daily chores done first and only coded if I was “bored”. Coding/hacking came last.

Not a year, but I did take 3 months once due to working extreme overtime on a project (made the company I was working for a lot of money). It was paid time off so did not have any financial stress and 3 months is likely very different from a year. In any case, the energy and creativity I came back with after that was incredible.

I am close to deciding to do this with 2025; go hack on things I like, ignore the news (tech news included) and build things. I am starting to need it as I am starting to dislike the profession; love coding just not coding for anything related to money.

currently in one right now, building a startup.

the food is shit but it's still better than 9 to 5.

on gaps on resume lol it never mattered. that "i can always get a job" lifeline is always there as long as i'm staying sharp on my technical skills.

on interviews though it's pointless to take it personally.

it's numbers game. sometimes they make you jump through hoops, sometimes you just dont pass the vibe check, sometimes they just cant afford a better offer.

for me it's less of how you can fit the requirements they are looking for, but more on what else you can bring on the table aside from fitting their criteria.

they should also be the one qualifying themselves to you as the right place for you to work at.

a lot of it is just a reframe on how you see things, and it reflects on your words and on your actions.

if you are feeling desperate and hopeless, it means you have a weak pipeline, a faucet not a firehose.

you need hundreds of brain dead applications and your phone ringing every hour or two. you have to play your cards like you're the blonde with the best tits in town.

you gotta be doing so much motion that your mind doesnt even have time to register any negative emotion.

If your career moves forward thanks to recruiters who seek out resumes that fit the standard mold... I'd say that track is just fine to get derailed from. Will a year off change who you hear from, and what you do? Of course! Isn't that the point? Jump the tracks, do something new, and find a direction that inspires you.

I did. Not a year but 6 months. Combined it with building a business and working on my mental and physical health. + living in 3 countries.

In terms of “hacking on my own things”, I highly recommend it. Not needing to work allowed me to make a lot of progress in 6 months. I tried different businesses, and was able to focus way better than “hacking in the side / after my 9-5”.

In terms of physical and mental health, I also recommend it. Make sure to not work 16 hours a day and try to enjoy the free time as well. For me it meant going to the gym daily, doing more boxing sessions, and traveling a lot.

Lastly, in terms of healing burnout, I’m not sure yet. I’m learning now that burnout can be triggered by different reasons. So if you are tired from corporate, take a year off, and then come back to corporate, I doubt your previous issues with corporate will just vanish. But as always, YMMV.

Lastly lastly, didn’t have any issues with recruiters. On the contrary, it makes hell of a story.

Good luck. Feel free to reach out or check my blog, where I posted some notes form my sabbatical. Links/email/socials are in my profile.

I took a gap, not to hack specifically though. planned for 6 months, then all the layoffs happened, 6 month break turned to 18 in the end.

I think because of the layoffs recruiters just stopped reaching out in general. Now that Im working at a household name company with linked in updated they still don't reach out.

The recruiters I talked to though were almost all on auto pilot. Theyd ask "why are you leaving your current job" and variations and I'd be like, well I haven't worked in a year. Or just ask me about my last job and I wouldn't bring it up that I wasn't working.

Not working felt amazing, the interview process made me hate working all over again and I didn't even have a job.

bro you can retire in this industry and come back in

job gaps aren't too much of a thing in this industry, like, they become obvious that you might not be familiar with libraries and frameworks anymore, not that you have any gaps in a way people in other industries are afraid of.

either way, you learn how to reposition your resume to be competitive. your references go stale though so definitely at least get a business partner or subcontractor while hacking. you can restructure the hierarchy of your project for storytelling and references when necessary.

my resume says I’m an individual contributor at a company I was technical cofounder of, for example. I have an IC roles now. Nobody cares, there’s too much stuff to build. But dont give them a reason to care, managers get worried you’ll butt heads with their management style if you have leadership experience, tailor your resume for the job you want.

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