Big tech to Indie hacking?
A little background - started my SWE career back in 2017. Worked across tech startups and big tech, grew from an intern to tech lead in 8 years. With career growth, compensation grew from 15LPA to over a crore(pre-tax!).
But truth be told, the job is fu*king soul-sucking. Don’t get me wrong, I love writing code and solving problems, but these tech jobs kill the fun out of programming. Toxic culture, artificial deadlines, smug colleagues, chasing fake impact and ‘growth’ mindset (wtf does that even mean?), boring business domain, outdated tech stack, legacy tooling, stupid processes and gatekeeping, overly competitive environment, team/org politics, brutal oncall, perf reviews every 6 months (really?)!
Most of the jobs I have worked at were somewhat similar - boring, meaningless but financially rewarding. Golden handcuffs!
I have been seeing lot of activity on twitter(X) lately around indie hackers and solopreneurship, even from Indian accounts. Many successful stories of folks building really profitable saas business running lean companies (<5 people).
This got me thinking, wouldn’t it be awesome to build a product that you care about on your own terms, in a domain of your interest, with your favourite tech stack, without all the corporate bullshit?
I’m seriously considering to quit my job, and try out building something of my own. (Have enough savings for atleast 5 yrs). Also surprised why more folks in tech are not doing this? Has anyone here made the switch from a career in big tech to indiehacking?
Looking for perspectives and suggestions. Would love to connect with like-minded folks over DM
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I'm in similar boat, started learning no code tools, I have an idea that I'll be working on , i just don't care in my first few iterations/products, all I want is the engine up and running. I'll be dedicating next two years of my free time towards creating products using no code tools.
Great to hear that. Would you be working on your product along with your day job? Do you have a team or building solo? Any specific reason on why using no-code tools?
I'm a backend/data guy, i have no intention to learn frontend so that's why no code. After work hours I don't want to overburden myself.
Not leaving my day job for the next 2 years. Currently I don't have a team, I'm just getting started, might hire freelancers or interns.
My main aim is to create a micro saas end to end.
Last year I worked part-time for a guy who made a shitty product and with good marketing and solving niche problem he was making 20lpm.
I feel that I can do better , atleast on the tech side. It was a great learning experience too
I switched more than 10 jobs in 10 years before my startup finally gained traction and i left jobs for good.
Now I'm taking over my family business in healthcare. There's a lot of scope in health sector, planning to start side hustles and simple saas/Fintech offerings.
If you're serious about building, feel free to DM me. I already have many things in place including early customers waiting to try product.
Hi @LooseGoose I am interested in building things from scratch. Can we connect over DM?
I have 6yoe and a full stack engineer. pretty good at front end (React & vanilla JS) , and starting my side hustle in building something. Would like to contribute. Please reach out if you have something for me
I am in the same boat. I have realized that corporate life isn’t for me. I don’t feel happy or at peace. I am passionate about Ai/ML and love the work I do but I want to explore something on my own. I have decided to dedicate 45-60 minutes daily to brainstorming and exploring opportunities. If you know of any Twitter handles or people who have taken this leap, drop their handles. I would love to learn about their journey and how they got started.
Best of luck to you as well!
Hi @steppenwolf have you found anyone who tried ? Please share with me if you have
Man your story is so relatable. For the past few years I have been thinking of building something that other people can use but couldn't decide on anything. Hopefully this year I can get some clarity.
Anyways, i would love to connect with you over this. Sending you a dm
Oh Shit, i just realised that OP is from the big league.
Man I just don't have the guts to send you a dm that too on an anonymous platform 😂😂
I am just a self taught programmer without a degree in.CS who loves programming
Relatable story. Agree with the Soul-sucking environment in corporate and growth mindset, it kills the joy of living. Working only for money. I work in health care and will quit working just for the sake of money. Need a career where working should be creative, soul satisfying and live life without strict deadlines
In same boat. Crore+ TC after 10 years of SWE. Don't like my job much. Interested in AI Research/Startup/FIRE but that's a hard climb.
I usually follow other indiehackers on YouTube for inspiration and absorb their thought process. Few that I can suggest are - simon hoiberg and tk kader
Even I am in the same boat, I also feel the same way. I am not getting to code also from the day I joined this BS MNCS. They took my skill. Before that I got chances to work on complete products. There's no innovation nothing good, just maintenance that's it. If you are planning to do something please involve me also I am very hungry to again create things from end to end. Can't leave day job as only earner I am and don't have savings also currently
Same boat. Trying a lot of stuffs as a side project given I don’t have the liberty to leave my job at least for a couple of years. But yes, the long term plan is to either build something sustainable or go full-time trading. Let’s see where the Lady Luck take my roads to!!
Woah so even the dream big tech jobs are no different except the money😶.
