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Why Millennials Are Leaving Six-Figure Tech Jobs - YouTube
Channel: CNBC Make It
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To most workers in the US, the
perks given to those who work in
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tech are astounding! $2,000 to
spend on a vacation anywhere in
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the world. $2,500 per year for
student loans. $4,000 in baby
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cash for new parents. That on
top of lavish offices decked out
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with in-house massage parlors,
gyms and cafeterias serving
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free, restaurant-quality-food.
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During the pandemic, in-office,
perks were replaced by money to
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furnish home offices, mental
health days, and the freedom to
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work from home forever. In an
industry fraught with
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competition for the brightest
minds, perks have become a way
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to not only attract but also
retain top talent.
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The benefits and perks package
alone, I would say, probably was
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at least 40 or 50k.
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This on top of salaries that are
multiple times higher than those
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of other industries.
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In 2019, the average tech salary
in the US was $146,000. That's
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almost three times the median
salary of public school workers,
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who made up the largest industry
of workers in the country in
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2021.
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But even those swanky office
spaces, six-figure salaries and
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unlimited time off are not
enough to keep some millennials
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from leaving their tech jobs.
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I expected kind of this perfect
work environment, but it was
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ultimately still a big company
with a lot of those same
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corporate problems that you get
in a large company.
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Hi there. Can you hear me?
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CNBC spoke to several people who
left their lucrative tech jobs
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to ask them one question. Why?
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Free team-building trips to
Hawaii and private concerts
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aside, the tech industry can be
stressful.
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I'm curious, was there a moment
for you when you started
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noticing that they'd like some
of the the perks kind of start
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losing their luster?
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A lot of these companies have
unlimited paid time off. Sounds
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amazing, right? What happens in
practice is a lot of people take
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less than you would otherwise.
They serve dinner every day. But
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they serve it really late. So if
you want the dinner, you got to
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stay at the office. So it's
things like that, where it's
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really, it's a good perk, right?
But there's something about it
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that makes you work more.
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Aaron Jack landed a coveted job
at Uber as a software engineer
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in 2018, after going through an
intensive coding boot camp in
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San Francisco,
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I guess I'd never considered
that you can even get into
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something like Uber or Google. I
thought those were kind of like
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reserved for, you know, really
elite individuals.
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Jack says that Uber was the best
job he ever had. But being a
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part of an industry that thrives
on efficiency and innovation
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meant the pace could be
unrelenting,
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It started out really great.
Because I was new. I was just
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learning everything, right? But
the longer I actually stayed,
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the more yeah, the
responsibilities kept kind of
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increasing on me because I
became a critical member of my
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team. I felt kind of stuck
because you get motivated to
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finish and you're like, 'oh, I'm
stressed to meet this deadline.'
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But then you're almost on a
treadmill where you finish and
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then you just get a new project.
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Anna Arsentieva worked as a
software engineer before leaving
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in December of 2020.
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I got my things there. About to
head out from the building. I've
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been here for the last eight
years. I'm about to set the
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alarm and leave for the day, and
not for the day but actually
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leave this time.
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The company where she worked
didn't offer the same perks as
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the big tech giants, but it did
offer a good work-life balance.
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Still, she felt a similar type
of pressure.
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What led to the burn out, it was
not the amount of hours I was
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putting in, but the fact that I
will have a project, I will get
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everything I can to make it
successful, as soon as that
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project ends, immediately a new
one starts.
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Jack and Arsentieva are not
alone. A 2018 survey by Blind,
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an anonymous workplace chat app,
found that over 50% of the close
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to 11,500 tech workers surveyed
answered 'yes,' when asked if
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they currently suffered from job
burnout. Compare that to a 2019
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survey of 15,000 physicians,
only 42% of whom said that they
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felt burnt out.
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And the pandemic only seems to
have made things worse.
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So many of my clients found
themselves working all the time.
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Rolling out of bed in the
morning, working. Thinking,
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'well, I have nowhere to go this
evening so I might as well just
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keep working.' Waking up on a
Saturday, 'I have nothing to do,
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well, I might as well just keep
going.'
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There is this understanding of
you're being paid well, there's
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all these perks, there's, you
know, stock options. We're
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giving you a lot, and in
exchange, you know, we're really
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requiring you to work those
extra hours.
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A 2020 survey by bBind showed
that 68% of tech workers felt
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more burnt out while working
from home than while working
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from the office. The survey
included over 3000 employees
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working at companies like
Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook,
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Apple and Google.
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Beyond the day to day pressure,
some said stagnation played a
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role in their decision to leave
their tech jobs.
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I was looking at the trajectory
of the job over time, and I
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didn't really see the growth
opportunities I wanted.
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In fact, a 2020 survey of more
than 4000 tech workers found
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that following salary, the
opportunity to learn new skills
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was the second largest motivator
to accept a new job offer. The
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same survey found that 58% of
tech workers would leave their
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current job for another one, if
presented new challenges and
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problems to solve. Jack imagined
his life 10 years into the
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future.
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You're still in the same office.
You're at the same desk. Have
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the same chair, same commute.
So the details change, but your
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life is kind of the same.
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Arsentieva agrees that the
desire to keep learning and
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growing played a part in her
decision to leave.
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In 2019, at the end of the year,
I was talking with my manager
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that I want to do something
else, I want to learn something
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else. And it just happened that
my interests were not aligned
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with the interests or the needs
that the company had at the
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time,
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Arsentieva persevered out of a
sense of loyalty. Her company
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had hired her with almost no
experience after she immigrated
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to the U.S. from Europe. But she
volunteered to leave when the
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company downsized due to the
pandemic and spent the next six
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months studying web development.
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Claire Shapiro joined Google
straight out of college and
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quickly began pulling in a
six-figure salary. But after
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years in a number of different
roles, she felt stuck in the
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tech bubble.
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I heard from so many other
people that had other diverse
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experiences outside of Google,
you know, that you can't really
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fully appreciate Google, or you
can't really understand without
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having this kind of other
context. It did feel like well,
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wow, if I don't leave now, I
could stay here for the rest of
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my life.
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In 2018, Shapiro took a 50% pay
cut and moved to Belgium for a
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new position as a design
consultant for the Board of
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Innovation.
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I thought, you know, I think the
work that I am doing is not
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energizing me to the fullest.
And I think I could probably
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find that potentially outside of
Google. And I did.
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The tech industry is built on
entrepreneurs. So it's no
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surprise that many of those who
leave their tech jobs do so to
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start their own endeavors. That
was the case with Morgan DeBaun.
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I wanted to be an entrepreneur
full-time. I wanted to move fast
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and not get too attached to
having, you know, a nice
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six-figure income at such a
young age.
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Like Shapiro, DeBaun started
working at Intuit right after
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college and quickly moved
through the ranks. But working
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as a product manager, she
noticed a blind spot in the
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products that she was helping to
develop,
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When we're looking at good
target users as a product
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manager, which was my first
role, you create these user
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personas, right? And so you
describe the person, you
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describe the target person, what
is what do they look like? What
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do they eat? Where do they shop?
What problems are they solving?
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What technology do they use?
Because you really want to have
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empathy for the customer. And at
the time, it felt like every
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customer's identity was all the
same. It was these white people,
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middle class, and I'm like,
'wait, hold on, this can't, this
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can't be good.' And there's
clearly a disconnect here.
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DeBaun says that she liked her
job, but thought that she could
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make a bigger impact by founding
her own company.
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I don't think that there's any
tech company that's ever going
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to put the black audience and
the black community and the
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black customer base as their
core demographic that they're
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solving for.
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In 2014, she launched Blavity, a
media company geared towards
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black millennials.
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Is there anything that tech
could have done to keep you
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specifically in tech?
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I don't know that there's
anything that could have kept me
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working at a big tech company.
As a young black woman, I just,
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I didn't want to fight so many
fights for the rest of my life.
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I think that I've made a lot
more progress outside of a
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corporate entity, and been able
to push a lot more tech
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companies to be more diverse,
and empower black people to be
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in the technology industry and
be more equipped to be able to
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influence these product
decisions. Definitely more than
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I could have been as being a
group director or VP at one of
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these tech companies.
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Jack and Shapiro have also
struck out on their own.
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I actually spent the better part
of, you know, six months
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developing my own kind of better
coding boot camp. Freemote, the
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freelance developer boot camp,
that solved a lot of the
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problems of the boot camp I went
to.
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Although Shapiro still works on
some projects with the Board of
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Innovation, she has also found
her calling as a freelance
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product and business design
consultant.
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Right now I'm making less than I
made at Google, but that's
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partially by design. I really am
prioritizing not as much the
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salary side and more of the
work-life balance and having
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experience side of it.
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In an industry as competitive as
tech, top talent is crucial. And
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those who leave are doggedly
pursued to return.
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Google does an excellent job of
maintaining connection with
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people that leave. I had a
dedicated recruiter that I could
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call at any time that checked in
with me once a year. Asked me
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how my job was going and asked
me what I was doing, you know,
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I get recruited still to come
back into a big tech company.
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And I always just like, it makes
me happy. Because I'm like,
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'yes, keep trying to get me back
into the system.' But I'm busy!
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If you didn't have this grand
vision, do you think that you
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would have left tech?
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No, I don't think that I would
have left tech if I didn't have
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a vision or didn't have an
internal purpose that was
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driving me.
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And going back is certainly
tempting.
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For me, I don't think that I
would go back unless the sort of
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structure and the roles that I
would want to have kind of came
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into Google. So who knows. If
Google and I meet again, I won't
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be mad about it.
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After a six month hiatus,
Arsentieva got another tech job.
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This time as a software
engineering manager at a company
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that helps match customers with
car and health insurance.
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Do you feel like you are less
burnt out from this job?
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Honestly, no. I want to give the
best I can. So I put a lot of
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hours. But it's never asked of
me. Actually, in reality. My
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manager told me I should stop
working so many hours and take
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it easy because they want me for
the long run, not for me to get
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burned out again.
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But stress and its impact on
mental and physical well being
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isn't unique to the tech
industry. A 2021 survey of 1500
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workers from different industry
sectors found that 52% of the
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respondents are experiencing
burnout.
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Still, the restrictions of the
past year have given a lot of
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young tech workers the time to
think.
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I think it's really hard to make
this transition into a role
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where there aren't the perks and
the money is very different. But
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I think now people are, now that
they've been away from it for a
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year that it's an easier
transition.
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For those in tech wondering if
they should quit their jobs,
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Jack says it might be worth the
risk.
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If you're someone in tech, then
you have skills that are just
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intrinsically valuable. You can
always get back and do it again.
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