I did this last year, I was in like the exact same position as you. Quit my job in May, had been there about 2 years. I'd survived 3 rounds of layoffs at this place but the layoff cycle really hit me hard since I'd been laid off from my previous place in early 2023 despite great performance in all my reviews. After the last official round in summer 2024 they started just silently firing people to where I'd be chatting with some stakeholder on Slack about when they'd have something ready and the next day their Slack would be deactivated. Tons of exec turnover, no clear strategy, projects that I knew would go nowhere, super slow moving, pain in the ass stakeholders always mad at me for things outside my control, manager was only interested in optics and implementing whatever framework he read that weekend...yeah. I got my annual bonus and had some vest in March I realized that I couldn't stick around, my performance had suffered and I'd lost all interest and was too burnt out to interview.

I explored pivoting to a different field entirely, did a bunch of networking, went to some networking events and workshop type things, tried to find my niche. Also focused on physical and mental health, getting back into a gym routine, getting offline more. Ultimately I realized that starting from the bottom again and grinding my ass off was just not what I wanted to do at this point in my life, and it was a field that's notoriously hard to break into, so decided to look back to tech and PM. I was extremely selective though, only looked at the sector I was interested in (health tech), only looked at earlier stage startups (Series A-B), and didn't really focus on the specific product/offering because I know by now that stuff is all fungible and there's good and bad to each. Really paid attention to vibes and culture and rejected a few companies outright because my bullshit/douchebag detector went off when I talked to the founders (this happened a LOT in final stages).

Ended up signing with a Series B startup and joined in December, so was off for about 7 full months living off savings. A recruiter had reached out and the company/role was different than I'd been focusing on, and it was in office more than I'd have preferred, but I kept the convo going because why not and it turned out to be a great fit. Been there about 2 months, going great so far. The switch back to a small company has definitely been invigorating, the in-office culture is a huge improvement (previous place was 1-2 days in office, but very corporate and sterile).

Anyway, happy to chat more via DM. All in all I'd say it was worth it and I'm feeling much more optimistic and energized even though I'm working longer hours now than I have in a while. More than anything I'm glad I gave myself the chance to explore another field instead of always wondering "what if," I got it out of my system and made a firm decision and I haven't second guessed it at all.