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Advice needed, Mid-Life crisis

16 points by m_g_i ↗ HN
I have been with my current company for more than 5 years now and currently I'm working as a Director of Engineering (I'm one of the early employees). I make around $40k salary and I have $300k in equity as well (I live in India and $40k is decent money here, though I've got offers for $150k in India) . Right now, I think my career isn't going anywhere and I don't see any personal growth in the company. I'm a hacker at heart and I can quickly build stuff which just works and that's the reason people value me. I've experience in hiring and building teams and getting the shit done.

Now I have 3 options: 1. Start something of my own. I've got couple of ideas which I really want to try and build. I've got some financial issues to take care of, and because of that I can't really quit my job right now.

2. Join a company which pays me a hefty salary. That way I can solve my financial issues and save enough in a couple of years to bootstrap something. But this will need some serious preparation.

3. Continue with my current company and expect to grow in future.

Please Advice what can I do.

P.S. I'm almost 30 years old and I have almost a decade of experience (if you count my freelancing days while I was in college). I know PHP(Codeigniter/Laravel), JS/Jquery, MySQL, Postgres, Designing and Slicing PSDs, HTML/CSS/SASS etc. and have used lot of tools/softwares such as Beanstalkd, Memcache, Redis, Gearman, Vagrant (for local development), Git/SVN, Supervisord and what not. I also have a decent experience working with Phonegap, Corona (built a small game), AngularJS (built a decent app) and Chrome extensions (wrote few extensions). I've worked on so many things that I can't even remember. I worked on pretty much everything which was thrown my way.

9 comments

[ 21.8 ms ] story [ 949 ms ] thread
anigbrowl
It's not a midlife crisis in your late 20s unless you anticipate dying young :) I am 45 and wrestling with some major life issues, so my life advice about getting older is that you'll be just as confused, but more aware than the problem is within yourself than imposed upon you by the world.

That said, I incline towards option 1 - stay put for a while, but start building prototypes of your ideas. Option 2 is a good one, but the price of the extra salary is extra responsibility and commitment to the new employer, both of which could cause you to lose some focus on your own ideas. Developing prototypes first will qualify your ideas and help you to treat the high-paying job as a means to an end, as well as giving you a better idea of how much startup capital you need to accumulate.

shostack
I'm guessing you have a lot of flexibility with how you tackle things in your current role, as well as more control over your work/life balance. Consider how those would change by taking a new role. More money might solve some problems currently, but it quite likely may come at the cost of far less free time.

If you ever want to get your own stuff off the ground (and it sounds like you are equipped to attempt that), and your current pay is workable, it might be good to focus your free time on these new endeavors vs. taking the higher paying job and not having the free time to explore that.

Beyond that, if you still feel passionate about your current company, start digging into why you don't feel there is growth potential. Is it a management issue? Is the company itself stalled? Is it that the founders are greedy and don't want to pay you more? Getting at the root of that might add some clarity to your decision-making process and priorities.

rem7
I would vote for option #2. I was in a similar position (not in India though). The reason why I chose 2 is because fixing my financial situation would be a priority. There is a great feeling to know you don't owe anything and you're free in that regard. Last thing I would want is to start a business of my own with debt still around.
bbcbasic
150k job. Bite their hand off.
totallystupid
Your prescription, Sir:

A) Ask your parents, family and friends for advice. Maybe they do not know work, and they do know you.

B) Call it what it is: Quarter-Life Crisis

C) Recognize your options are not either or. Concretely :

  1 + 2
  1 + 3
  2 + 3 ( as consultant )
D) Read the Alchemist if you have not done so. Ask yourself what signs recur in your life and ponder what such may be suggesting to you about your path from here.

E) Recognize that choosing to do nothing is also a possibility. So is deferring your choice until an answer presents itself.

F) Quantum Jump : ask versions of your future self what path they picked and what happened doing so.

G) Be thankful for the life you have. It's yours, live it your way.

bambang150
It's simple. Love what you do and do what you love. Just follow your heart because when we are doing everything by heart, we can achieve the best thing in the life.
shoo
I'm confused. You haven't actually written anything about what you want, and what you value in life. We're not going to be able to figure that out for you!

If you have some financial troubles, consider lining up a new job with a hefty salary, and make sure you get at least a few weeks' break before you start there. Perhaps spent a little time not working on anything at all and reflecting on what you want (if you don't know this already!).

izolate
I hope you don't mind me asking, but it's been ~800 days. How is your mental state? I hope you're in a better place.

You don't seem like the kind of person who's motivated by $, so I'd say join a more challenging/interesting startup. Where are you based? I may be able to put you in touch with an incubator.

tallerholler
don't try to figure everything out man.

I just turned 32 and I had a "young-life crisis" from 29-31 probably where I didn't know what I wanted to do. My best friends seemed to be more successful than me and I felt like if I didn't make something happen quick then my contribution to society would be nil.

Sometimes you gotta just roll with life. If you think your job is dead end, then take a big boy breath, put in your notice and leave. Find another job. Go travel for a few months. Learn a new technology or build something that interests YOU.

Most of all, enjoy life. Stop and smell the roses. Hang out with friends and family and make new memories with them. You got your whole future ahead so just take it one step at a time!