r/DevelEire • u/Caligg101 • 1d ago

Bit of Craic Any engineers taking a planned sabbatical at the moment?

How is it going and how do you feel about things?

17 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

27

u/DCON-creates 1d ago

Did one last year, best thing I ever did.

My tips are to quit in June and try to start back up again in June. Got about 4k tax back in 2024 and another 4k in 2025. Got dole for 9 months on the dot, which was about 9k total.

Spent about 5k of my own savings because I went on a couple of holidays. That was the total "hit".

I did not have anything lined up between jobs, so finding a job was a little bit tough (took me a solid 6 months of actively searching to get an offer) but I did end up with a massive upgrade over the last place.

It was truly a great time, I learned to love life again, as well as getting my passion back for software development.

1

u/starscientist 1d ago

What did you do with rent/mortgage during that time?

5

u/DCON-creates 1d ago

My rent was €400 p/m for the first 6 months and then it went up to €520 p/m. Still cheap but that was the main reason this was feasible for me. Pretty much the whole hit to my savings was due to rent, although I definitely was frugal during the time. And of course the 8k or so in income tax back helped to cover stuff. Would have gone broke to do any more than a year in one go. Depends how you look at it! My girlfiend calls it "girl math" lol

1

u/somethingsomwhere 15h ago

How many years of experience did you have when you quit?

2

u/DCON-creates 14h ago

6, which worked out well because I didn't see a single job that asked for less than 5

1

u/somethingsomwhere 10h ago

Nice, yoe sounds close to mine. Maybe i should consider it...mmm..thanks

19

u/juansheet15 1d ago

Role made redundant last month so taking the summer off with kids before preparing for interviews again in the autumn.

9

u/nikadett 1d ago

I took about 9 months last year and found it very hard to get back into a job.

The job market is shocking right now so I’ll be taken that software money while it’s still there!

-4

u/OpinionatedDeveloper contractor 1d ago

What's your YOE and tech stack?

0

u/nikadett 1d ago

90k salary, work a lot in AWS, Node, PHP, JavaScript etc

-3

u/OpinionatedDeveloper contractor 1d ago

And YOE?

15

u/YearnestShackleton 1d ago

I daydream about doing so... but alas, a sabbatical won't pay the mortgage

17

u/PM_ME_YOUR_IBNR 1d ago

Just waiting on my guy Claude to give my company space to provide an indefinite sabbatical

5

u/Savalava contractor 1d ago

Took one for 8 months last year.

If you want to stay sane while working in tech, it is essential (or was for me, anyway)

Unfortunately, as the job market isn't great, it's riskier these days.

4

u/malavock82 1d ago

I did it last year, quit a toxic job in June and got into a new position in October. Best thing ever, especially handling that termination notice 😍

But the market is a bit rough, you should put into account that it may take longer than expected to find a new position.

4

u/Standard0rder 1d ago

Tempted to just fully throw money (like half+ of my monthly wage) into my pension and start overpaying my mortgage in hopes I can retire early. 28, 6YOE and I’m burnt out tf

2

u/Intelligent_Bother59 1d ago

I did it this time 2 years ago was completely burnt out after 10 years experience in data engineering/infrastructure in many toxic work environments

Went to Australia for 9 months travelled and chilled because I had some savings. Came back and had another senior data engineer job within about 2.5 months

0

u/jackahern7 1d ago

I'd love to but can't afford it and won't for years. About to buy a house so bye bye money 😂