Ask HN: Took a break after burnout – what now?
I left my job a few months ago after ~10 years as a software engineer. Burnout kind of forced the decision — I didn’t plan it well, just hit a wall and stepped away. I’ve recovered a bit and now I’m trying to figure out what to do next.
I’m in my 30s, single, and have saved about $3M across taxable and retirement accounts. Mostly index funds, some cash, and a chunk in RSUs. I spend around $50K/year living in a HCOL area, and don’t own a home. So I’m in a position where I don’t have to work right away, but that hasn’t really made things clearer.
Friends have brought up FIRE, but I’m not sure early retirement would feel fulfilling. Honestly, having more options has made things feel more paralyzing, not less.
The burnout wasn’t really about long hours. It came more from feeling ineffective and having no clear direction. My role felt fuzzy, leadership was inconsistent, and I started feeling like I was falling behind while other people kept progressing. That wore me down over time and chipped away at my confidence.
Now I’m considering a few paths:
Return to my old job — I left on good terms and could probably go back. I’ve been wondering if this was more of a me problem than a company problem, and going back might help clarify that. Extend the sabbatical — travel or focus on non-career interests for a few more months, then reassess. Start job searching now — not super motivated, but with the current job market, it might take a while anyway. Career change — no clear direction or passion, just vague curiosity about doing something different.
If you’ve taken a break, pivoted careers, or dealt with burnout like this — how did you figure out your next step? Especially curious how people figured out whether the problem was the job… or themselves.
First things first: one full year of therapy. Then, reassess and make your decision.
I cannot advise but just wanted to say you’re a hero, congratulations for quitting.
I am in a similar financial situation and age ($6M liquid, $60k spend, 38, not single), and have been in burnout for a while and haven’t found the courage to quit yet.
Similar burnout reasons as yours: nothing is horrible about the work but I feel deeply inadequate, I feel in my 20s I was a high performer with incredible mastery of my domain, and as the industry “progressed” complexity-wise and everyone became more advanced in their craft, I got left behind. There are many (most?) younger (and older) folks at my current company who are producing 100X what I do (this is not some kind of impostor syndrome btw, I literally had a trusted colleague say to me: “you really should be more ambitious and build more, much more”), and are hired on the same ladder, for the same comp. As you stated, that chips away at your confidence every day and it plants the seed for burnout.
Similar worries as yours: I am quite honestly afraid of what I will do with my time. I would just be running away from work and not running towards something else, and having grown up with some money trauma I did not want to regret willingly stepping away from the high pay, but I think a forced layoff would probably be the best gift someone could give me right now.
I hope for many more insightful replies to this thread.
6M at 60k spend means you have won the game a few times over. Go live your life and stop living in fear. You won’t get another one.
The question is, with that can money in the bank and your expenses so low, you are already living in a position of f%%% you (https://youtu.be/XamC7-Pt8N0?si=FNQgQJSfnxlFEcK5), how were you experiencing burnout?
You close your computer after you put in 40 hours a week and go home. You try your best to communicate in trade offs between time, budget and requirements and if that doesn’t work and you get fired for refusing to be overworked, why do you care?
I’ve been working for 30 years from startups, to boring enterprise companies, to BigTech and now working as a staff consultant for a third party cloud consulting company. Never once have I experienced burn out. Not because I’m special, I’m disciplined enough to say “no”, have savings (nowhere near what you have), and I’m always prepared to get another job - yes during the dot com bust, the 2008 recession and twice since 2023.
I’m not in a position where I don’t have to work. But I am in a position where I can say no to bullshit - being overworked, mistreated, being forced to return to office, say “no” to high pressure BigTech opportunities, etc.
In your position? I would travel (well I do that a lot now including nomadding), enjoy life, work for a risky startup that will probably under pay you but you might enjoy it and worse case you can walk away, volunteer, etc
When you mentioned you’ve “recovered from burnout a bit,” do any of the options you listed actually feel exciting to you?
Assuming going back to your old job or job hunting isn’t your top pick, do things like a longer sabbatical or a total career shift spark any motivation?
Since you’ve got enough runway, I’d wait until something genuinely excites you before making a move.
With that amount saved and invested and your expenses, aren’t you essentially able to live off that without drawing the capital down? In your position I would probably extend the time off a bit and be quite picky about the next role. Contribute to open source if you want to stay sharp while doing whatever else you like. Get fit, travel, hobbies etc.
I've always gone back to work but I haven't had that level of money and the breaks shorter circa. Few months.
Something to consider is fractional work, which is take to mean part time high value work. Like a CTO for 10-20 hours a week. Choose if you prefer advising or writing code or a mix.
But "burned out" is serious so no rush just to feel meaningful. Health first.
Out of curiosity, what would a rent-a-CTO even do for 10 hours a week?
I think it's going to be mainly startups who have say 2 coders and need a part time CTO build out the team a bit, process etc. Like hiring an architect part time to help build your house vs. full time because you build 1000 appartments a year.
Is this a comment need? I've plenty of experience with early stage startups, but they either already have a CTO, have a motivated senior engineer, or somewhere in the middle. My experience is that it's rare they can even identify what they need and why.
I think the need is rare to be fair. Good call.
The guy whose job it is to collate all jobs like this only posts 20 a week (some recurring) over all disciplines not just engineering.
There may be creatable demand. "Hire me for $200/h 10h a week and I'll make your current 5 people 50% more productive, yod have to pay them 20% more but you are still up 2.5 devs for the price of 1" could be a good consultancy sell. How you would do that is do normal (small-shop) CTO things. Make them more productive by the right focuses and processes not just more caffeine and late nights.
That's a big call! I don't know if I'd be brave enough to promise making devs 50% more productive. Definitely a good consultancy sell but I wonder about what the delivery would actually be.
I have a pet theory that the standard practices in software development actually reduce productivity, at least in the short term. From my experience, the sure fire way to get teams to be more productive is to first hire great people, then to empower them and make sure their morale is high.
Not sure how I could do that on a consultant basis. I can imagine how I'd bring tighter project management in, and make sure people are doing what they're best at. But actual long lasting productivity of a team I don't really directly manage?
Someone who can do that is a wizard.
I’d definitely FIRE given that amount of money. I’d run for some low cost places in other countries such as Canada and EU, settle down and think about my next step.
hi there, congrats on quitting after such a long time. I have also recently quit my job at big tech after 13 years to build something of my own. Happy to share my learnings. please feel free to reach out, email in my profile.
> Return to my old job
but
> My role felt fuzzy, leadership was inconsistent
Most likely it is a system problem. Because I bet you surpsised nobody in this thread :)
Doesn’t sound like you’re ready to get back to work yet. I’d extend the sabbatical.
Agree with this. Work on your own hobby projects. If you're hustle minded, maybe try to launch a paid micro-saas. Or just work on whatever you want. Don't be idle. But don't rush back to creating value for the man just yet.