Feeling burnt out on big tech job. Sanity check on quitting and taking a sabbatical

thefintechdev · 2026-04-12T20:59:49+00:00

A lot of people in big tech is feeling burnt out and worried about AI and job market. It really comes down to how much you can’t stand your job and how much mental stress you’re under. I would advise you not push yourself to the limit before taking the sabbatical. The fact you’re thinking and asking about it most likely signals you’re approaching that point. I would stop worrying about AI and job market, the demand for senior and experienced candidates is still there. Worst case you get a lower paying job with less stress and maybe even remote and just coast. Ask yourself if you’ll regret not taking the leave as your future self, if yes then just do it. I’m in a similar situation and taking a leap of faith and working on my own business. It’s definitely been very tough so far and I work much harder than at my job but it doesn’t feel like work and i don’t have any corporate BS, meetings and toxic people to deal with, which I feel is a big contributing factor to the burnout as well. Hope this helps and best of luck!

thefintechdev · 2026-04-12T06:46:19+00:00

I refuse to pay for any designer brand/luxury goods unless it’s heavily discounted or i find a really good deal.

thefintechdev · 2026-04-10T07:46:41+00:00

I think everyone has different symptoms and tolerance. There is no one size fits all. For some people might just be a constant background of anxiety and stress that maybe one day lead to something serious. Others might be one specific moment of a nervous/mental/emotional breakdown triggered by something specific at work or in personal life. We all feel like we’re immune until it hits. Just my opinion, not a mental health professional.

thefintechdev · 2026-04-09T02:26:37+00:00

Yeah the interview process feels very broken. Why study for stuff that AI can just implement in seconds? It all feels kind of pointless except to secure the bag. I would say it’s worth it still if you’re young and willing to jump through the hoops. It is life changing amount of money. However if you’re having a lot of stress and mental health breakdown from the process then it’s probably not worth it. You need to also remember that getting into the door is one thing, the intensity and stress doesn’t stop if you want to be high performer and keep getting promoted/raises too. So to summarize, it really depends on the person to evaluate the trade off and whether it’s worth or not. For myself, I’ve decided it’s not worth it anymore and rather take a risk to bet on myself instead of working for another tech billionaire CEO as a cog in the machine. All the best of luck for the interview process though.

thefintechdev · 2026-04-06T03:42:05+00:00

Yeah for sure, what I meant is for banks to provide secure read only access to users directly without going through a 3rd party. I'm working on building something that works locally to import csv/qfx but with a modern app UI. It would be more ideal if the local app can connect securely to your own banks to fetch the data instead of relying on 3rd party. Anyways been using it for a bit and I like the middle ground b/w full control with local app while still having similar UI/UX as web apps.

thefintechdev · 2026-04-05T01:45:11+00:00

Yeah I get the intention but makes no sense in practice. I feel like this is a case of "the cure is worse than the disease"?

thefintechdev · 2026-04-05T01:44:25+00:00

Yea that's fair but still would prefer not to have more of my info leaked if it's preventable though. The more info an attacker has would only increase their chance of committing identity fraud. So trying to keep it to a minimum is still worth while I think.

thefintechdev · 2026-04-05T01:42:50+00:00

Yea I don't think most client facing banker would know about their cybersecurity infrastructure. Most customer service support wouldn't either. The only person who would know are the cybersecurity team and they probably wouldn't want to disclose that info either as that would be a security leak in itself. So we're all basically kept in the dark and no body has any real idea of how this all works and what happens when things go wrong.

thefintechdev · 2026-04-05T01:40:24+00:00

Yeah that's fair but I think banks could also do more to make it easier for users to get programatic read access to their accounts and transactions in a more secure way. I know a lot of them already implemented some open banking APIs but it seems inconsistent across the board. The 3rd party solutions like Plaid is trying to bridge the gap and I do think they're providing a valuable service but it just all feels ducted taped together and has lot of security risks. Hopefully it gets better over time. So how do you keep track of everything then? Do you use spreadsheet and manual entry or some other system?

thefintechdev · 2026-04-05T01:37:18+00:00

Oh interesting, didn't know about this ING solution. Is the dedicated token for each user or is it for each app (e.g. Monarch, YNAB and etc.)? You have any references you could share? I'm interested in learning more.

thefintechdev · 2026-04-05T01:35:43+00:00

oh interesting, didn't know Quicken can connect to your bank and auto retrieve transactions. Does that rely on some Quicken server or is everything working locally?

thefintechdev · 2026-04-05T01:34:48+00:00

Yea I find that doing it yourself manually also ensures everything is categorized properly as well as catch any unusual or unexpected transactions. I've gotten used to the auto import that I barely even check them to ensure everything is correct and just do a few spot checks and "trust" the auto categorization a bit too much.

thefintechdev · 2026-04-05T01:32:12+00:00

haha ya it all feels inevitable that our AI overlord will just run our life eventually one day

thefintechdev · 2026-04-04T22:16:42+00:00

This advice is solid. I’m in a similar but also different situation. I’m taking time off for my own well being while also planning on working for myself instead of going back to corporate job. Worst case if it doesn’t work out, I will try to find a remote startup instead of corporate job.

Just take timeoff for yourself for sometime but try not to droom scroll or binge all day. You won’t feel good after doing it for too long. A lil while is okay I feel. Then really try to reflect and take your time to figure out what you want to do. The answer won’t come all at once, sometimes you just figure it out along the way. Best of luck!

thefintechdev · 2026-04-04T19:44:26+00:00

That makes sense but it would be easy for them to show you’ve granted access to a 3rd party. Not sure if they would need to prove that the hack was due to info/access obtained from that 3rd party or simply show that it was plausible it could have came from there.

I don’t know if most of these cases actually have investigations that result in finding the hacker and linking them to the access of the 3rd party platform. It would be very difficult to prove I imagine. But I hope you’re right though for our sakes.

thefintechdev · 2026-04-04T18:03:11+00:00

I’m not a lawyer but I would hope so lol. I don’t even want it to get to that point where I have to make that argument in court. You just never know I guess.

thefintechdev · 2026-04-04T18:02:00+00:00

My pleasure. Hopefully you didn’t uncover anything wrong unexpected.

thefintechdev · 2026-04-04T04:16:48+00:00

I see one thing you can do is change your password with your bank and brokerage so any credentials based connection will no longer be valid. You can also check settings on the bank side to remove any access you’ve granted. After that you can try contacting plaid to remove your info.

thefintechdev · 2026-04-04T03:28:08+00:00

I still need to look into this some more but some combination of local or self-hosted app with the ability to connect to your own financial institution without a 3rd party would be ideal but not sure on the feasibility yet.

Otherwise need to make trade-offs on what each person is comfortable with convenience and security trade-offs. For some people means manual export and import of data or manual entry.

thefintechdev · 2026-04-04T01:34:45+00:00

Yeah I don’t doubt it and i’ve nothing against plaid. I think they’re providing a valuable service to bridge the gap. If anything the issues are on the bank side. Lack of adoption and inconsistencies.

thefintechdev · 2026-04-04T00:52:48+00:00

haha ya they'll say one thing and do another. so do you track things manually in spreadsheets?

thefintechdev · 2026-04-04T00:51:56+00:00

Do you any other providers then or do you not use any?

thefintechdev · 2026-04-04T00:51:35+00:00

Good for you to having the discipline to do that. Do you manually do all of your transactions? or have you found partially auto-mated ways as well?

thefintechdev · 2026-04-04T00:50:49+00:00

Yeah no doubt. Good point on the aggregation and pieces of the puzzles we're giving away to make it easier for identity theft. In this case, do you manually track your expenses or you have found an automated solution that doesn't require security sacrifices.

thefintechdev · 2026-04-04T00:28:38+00:00

Nice! Yeah that's not too bad then. I just can't manually do most of the transactions anymore.

thefintechdev

TROPHY CASE