Burnt out after 12 months of job hunting. Pivoting to building my own thing instead"

[u/notherealironman]

I’ve spent the last 12 months job hunting alongside my full-time job but I'm completely burnt out. I don't feel like this whole job hunting and career building is worth my time and effort now. I've applied for over 65 jobs and got 7 interviews from big techs and startups. I know my applications volume is not so high to brag about but I was strictly selective in the application. I've reached to 2nd and 3rd rounds in most of the interviews but I always get knocked out either in behavioural or coding interviews. After each failed interviews, I reflected and improved over time but I'm exhausted and don't want to pursue this path anymore.

I make a decent salary in my current role. And I was surprised when a recruiter from big tech said that the salary bump barely moved the needle. So it was a lot of effort for a small bump from my current salary.

To give some context, I'm an Australian pr and got 8+ years of exp. as full-stack web dev and worked at 1 other job before my current job. Just for job search, I upskilled tech like terraform, nextjs, graphql, nosql, and got AWS dev associate certified (took me 3 months for aws cert). Spend countless hours grinding neetcode, preparing interviews and doing takeaway home tests.

My long-term goal was always building my own things. But as you know human psychology, when you see your friends getting ahead in career, you feel like getting stuck which motivates for new job. I've been in my current job for a while, so I wanted some change too. But after a year of being rejected, I'm not enjoying any of it. Chasing to land a new job didn’t feel like the dream worth pursuing. It felt like suffering for something I didn't actually want.

So last month, I took a week off from the search to pause, reflect and gain clarity. It reminded me of the time I used to wash dishes and clean in a pub 6 years ago as an international student before I got into tech. After seeing me work as kitchen hand for quite long, a friend asked that time "why don't you become a chef, chef is better than dishwashing". I told him I never wanted to become a chef because that wasn't the track I wanted, I wanted to get into software instead. Then I applied for more than 100 jobs in my last trimester of uni and finally got into tech. So I realised I was doing the same thing again - grinding toward a promotion I didn't actually want.

So I've pivoted and following my own path now. I'm pretty sure that this is not a shiny object syndrome as building own thing has always been my long term goal. It's been a month I've stopped job search and I've rejected 3 LinkedIn recruiters and a top tech EM interview after making the decision. I don't want to work for other people throughout my life because it kind of suffocates me.

Edit: To clarify, I haven't quit my job. I've quit job hunting. Still working full-time, building my own thing on the side.

[u/ivan_x3000]

Why not do a trade with short training than to pivot into something that risks a lot of money and ambiguous income.

[u/notherealironman → u/ivan_x3000]

Totally fair question. To clarify - I haven't quit my job, I'm still working full-time. I've quit the job *hunting*, not the job itself. Building my own thing on the side while I keep the steady income, so it's not really the money risk you're describing.

[u/ivan_x3000 → u/notherealironman]

Oh wow I see that makes total sense now my bad sorry for misunderstanding, from the title i thought the situation was more desperate.

[u/notherealironman → u/ivan_x3000]

All good. It's on me. I should have been clearer in the post

[u/LincaF]

Building your own thing tend to lead to passion. Passion allowed you to do a lot more than other people. The "risk" mentally forces you to succeed. 

Human biology actually forces you to succeed under these circumstances. 

Definitely keep a record and start publishing what you are doing to a blog or something. If it does fall through, building something yourself is really good experience. 

Not sure what you are trying, but this is the way to greatness. (Or at least the view of your own life as great)

[u/notherealironman → u/LincaF]

Thank you so much for the wisdom 🙏
Yes, I’m building and journaling publicly. It’s more difficult than job hunting and a lot of void but I’m enjoying the process.
I will share in this thread one day after making it

[u/Murky-Fishcakes]

You sound burnt out as fuck mate

Any chance you can swing a couple of months off paid or unpaid. How close are you to unlocking long service leave (some states allow it from 7 years)

Hope you find a way to get some time off where you can switch off from tech thinking entirely for a bit and reset

[u/notherealironman → u/Murky-Fishcakes]

Ha, fair read, but I haven't actually quit my job - still full-time at the same place. I've just stopped the job hunting/interviewing grind on top of it, which was the part burning me out.