Doing nothing is doing something

This post is longer than I anticipated. I started writing with the intention of capturing my current stage. I ended up dwelling on my root. I thought of removing it but a tree can’t nourish without a root.

I’ve been dreaming about a career break since last year. After months of arrangements, I finally started it last month. Leading up to the break, I had “a plan.” I didn’t envision my career break as a void non-working period. In fact, I wanted to completely regain my time and invest it all into my learning adventures.

But honestly, the last month hasn’t been easy for me. I thought I would do many things, but I ended up not doing much because a lot was arising internally.

Once, I thought about just returning back to work and surrendering to social norms. The job is comfortable. I’m having a “good life.” Other times, I wanted to deal with this uncomfortable era of my career by learning to just sit with it.

Being unemployed is uncomfortable

I came to the US at the age of 16 with my mom. 2 months later, my dad and little brother reunited us. We all had zero English. Somehow, my brother and I survived school. Somehow, my parents in their 40s managed to make a living working at an $8/hour job while feeding their two kids. We were living paycheck to paycheck, and just a week of unemployment could turn things around.

They were struggling in many ways but I didn’t grow up able to empathize with them. Those years were hard and traumatizing and it took me many years to make peace with it. I remember just wanting to get an after-school or weekend job to help. Luckily, school was fun and rewarding so I was able to learn English quickly, got good grades, and got accepted to Georgia Tech eventually.

Those early years primarily shaped who I am today. Since then, when my time is not filled with school, I’m always either employed or having something lined up. School, internships, earning more, and saving up have been my main drivers for the past 16 years.

For every job I’ve had, even as a dishwasher in high school many lifetimes ago, I’ve always tried to go above and beyond. This attitude has taken me far. The peak was getting a job at Google. 10 years before that, I didn’t know a word of English. 6 years before that, I didn’t know how to code. It’s crazy how far I got in a short amount of time. I’m proud of this and do not regret striving to this point.

And also because of that, choosing to pause and being unemployed is simply uncomfortable and confusing. Many friends ask why. I don’t have an answer.

Losing the plot

Last year after hitting a burnout, I committed to improving my physical health. Daily exercising, running, and playing sports grounded my mind back to my body. When the body is in good shape, the mind is clear. With a clear mind and much contemplation, I realized I lost the plot. I lost the joy of doing my job.

I asked what happened. Am I supposed to feel happier after improving my physical health? Yes, I am happy and in good health. But also, I don’t know.

I started computer science late in my college years. My view of a successful career was ultimately having a job at big tech where I would solve hard, interesting problems all the time. Subconsciously, I projected career progression from others’ LinkedIn progression onto my own. I thought that as long as my path was aligned with others, I was in the safe camp. This started fading away as I touched reality. Even worse, I kept comparing myself to others.

As I become more aware of the world outside and within myself, for the first time, I feel like “a user” of my own career. A user driven by status. Because the early years in the US shaped me to keep grinding and staying in the safe camp to survive, I never took risks. Till now, I never took time to consider whether it’s safe to sail out. But I hope this is a good time to call it.

Having so many questions

My profession has changed rapidly this past year. On one hand, AI has lowered the barrier to entry and helped me quickly venture into exciting work areas like C++/Rust interop that I did for Google recently. Before, it would have taken me much longer to onboard and provide value to the project.

On the other hand, I am uncomfortable when engineering quality is being deprioritized. If it’s easier to add software now, should we spend more effort thinking about and doubling down on engineering discipline?

Before AI, we chose to compromise quality to move fast (ship more code). With AI, code is generated cheaper and faster than ever. Should we buckle up and actually get to quality now? If not, when? Do we just throw up our hands and give up?

Am I really improving my craft or am I just adding extra whistles when I should be taking a step back and rethinking everything?

We praise shipping tons of software and software rewrites. But at what cost? And that’s not even accounting for the cost of deskilling ourselves.

I take pride in my work when I put my heart and soul into it. But lately, the work has felt heavier because I have too many lingering thoughts and questions and no one to talk to in my shell.

What’s next

I don’t have an answer. On a happier note, I was accepted to join Recurse Center for a summer batch starting next week.

Joining Recurse Center has been a dream I held on to for a few years. I’m grateful that I’m able to finally do it.