Breaking Out Of Tech

In this episode of Techie Personal Finance Bootcamp, host Lucas Casarez, CFP® discusses the process of transitioning out of a tech career, addressing the importance of understanding projected salaries, the impact of lifestyle and expenses on decision-making, and the necessity of financial planning. 

He emphasizes the need for thoughtful consideration and planning before making any drastic career changes, suggesting exploring additional opportunities within tech and calculating the necessary income for a sustainable transition. He also provides advice on managing resources, reducing expenses, and planning for a successful career change. The episode aims to help listeners design and build the life they want through informed and strategic decisions.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_03 0:00

What is gonna be the projected salary? That's always gonna be a huge one. Because if if you're making $200,000 and this next thing is gonna be $50,000, well, we we need to know that we need to talk to it in advance.

SPEAKER_05 0:12

This is Techy Personal Finance Bootcamp where I help tech professionals in their 20s and 30s balance a great life's day without sacrificing their future possibilities. I'm your host, Lucas Casaris, certified financial planner and founder of Level Up Financial Planning, where I help educate, coach, and build strategies with my clients to help them take their financial confidence to the next level.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Disclaimer, alert. This information is for education, so don't just go use it. First consult with your financial advisor, because that's way more legit. That's it.

SPEAKER_04 0:45

That was Orlando Gomez, and you can catch him in season three, episode four on how he broke into tech by writing a jingle.

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Welcome to Techy Personal Finance Boot Camp. This is season six, episode one. I'm excited to kick off this season after a brutal tech season. It's just as I get more clients, it gets a little bit harder to kind of power through and knock out taxes while doing the financial planning. But it at the same time, I I still kind of love it and enjoy it. But it took a little bit of time to recover after that. I already have one great guest episode recorded, so that will be coming out next after I get this first episode edited and pushed out for y'all. And today I'm going to be talking about how to break out of tech. So it's very different than what you've seen from me and what you've seen from a lot of people the last few years, where it was all about breaking into tech. I've worked with a handful. Probably about half my clients have been boot camp grads, people breaking into tech, trying to do everything they can to become engineers, UX designers, all these important roles, exciting roles. And one thing that's interesting is it's very tough, very demanding on my clients and just people in general. So and you throw in COVID, the pandemic, you throw in the recent layoffs, and uh things just being not as exciting on the compensation side. So it wasn't too long ago when I was constantly just being told by clients, like, oh, they're getting all these crazy new offers, raises, new stock options, and all that stuff is slowing down quite a bit. And so with that, I think it's important to talk about the reality of things is well, tech might not be here for you as long as you want it to be here for you, which some people are assuming right now. But also on the other end, you can take control and actually decide if this isn't what you want anymore. If yes, it pays well, yes, it's it's a good career if it's something that you enjoy. But there's a lot of opportunities out there. And so I'm gonna talk about well, what are your options? How can we plan? How can you start to design the life that you want to create and build moving forward from here, right? We can't really change any of the actions that have happened in the past, but looking forward, we don't have to feel trapped. You can actually take control and make different decisions. I'm gonna talk about all the things that are likely to impact just your identity, is a big piece of it too, right? So that's that's one of the trickier parts of this whole career situation is your identity in a lot of ways is going to be wrapped around this. And and it's very difficult to think and consider making change. But then there's the the lifestyle and then the money aspect, right? I can't really help with all those things, but I will help give you a few ideas to think about as you begin to plan and strategize on what those next steps might look like, Ryup. And now a quick message from our nonprofit sponsor, tech by choice.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Tech by choice is a nonprofit that's focused on helping underrepresented groups understand thrive in tech. Our main goal is to be a community that you don't need a code switch in in order to learn what you need to thrive in tech. And so we do workshops for skill building, we talk about financial literacy, we also talk about mental health and what to do if you run into discrimination in the workplace. Any donations, if you go to techbychoice.org slash donate, you'll get all of the details on how you can give to the organization. Things as little as like five dollars really help us go. The other way that you can get involved and help tech by choice is to volunteer. We are always looking for mentors and we're looking for people to people to help out with some of our resume review events and just supporting the community by even joining and answering questions in our Slack is always really helpful. And then if you have any connections for us to get those sponsorship deals and connect with larger companies and get out there in the tech streets, I'm always open to that as well. So there's a lot of different ways to help.

SPEAKER_03 4:43

So my very first thing that I say when clients come to me with this thought is that's that's exciting, what's what's going on? I find out what their situation is, what's kind of bugging them. And my biggest thing is, well, we don't need to make a decision today, right? Hopefully, hopefully it's not so bad. It's not to the point where they're just rage quitting and walking out. So don't rush. Things things can change quickly. There's a lot of times where I have a conversation with a client and they're like loving work. And then the next time I have a conversation with them, whether it's a week later or a couple months later, and they're like, I hate it now. Like this, everything's changed and and it's just not fun, it's not exciting, uh then the next time I talk to them, it's changed again. So don't don't rush to quit, don't rush to make a knee-jerk reaction. It if you don't need to, right? If there's things that are impacting your health, if there's things that are not being done right or properly in your print situation, but if if it's more just uncomfortableness of you just not enjoying it as much, well, let's think through stuff and then let's come up with a game plan. Don't rush and don't rage quit there. And so that's that's the number one step that I always kind of have them do. And I let them talk it out to you and make sure that they can kind of voice all those concerns because a lot of times we think these things and they just rattle around in our brain. But once we actually kind of talk about them out loud, there might be some things that you can own up to and change and and take control over, and and it ends up not being that big of a deal, it's something within your control. The second step will be we'll start learning additional opportunities. And and I know this episode's called breaking out of tech, but there's a lot of roles in tech that if it's your role specifically that you're not happy with, there's a lot of other opportunities that could be out there. Maybe you'd like to be a manager, maybe you'd like to be a developer relations, and and or maybe you want to switch from software engineering to UX designs, there's sales-based. There's so many different roles. So maybe it's not breaking out of tech, but it's like I need to get out of this career. This isn't a good long-term fit. And so you can pivot within a role. Sometimes you can pivot within the same company, and they'll support you and give you a little bit more hand holding than you would if you were to make that big shift to a different role at a different company because there might be people you know there and they're more willing to kind of bring you up to speed on that new role that you're working towards. So start exploring additional opportunities. And maybe that is untotally different. Maybe you want to be a farmer, maybe you want to start landscaping business, maybe you want to become a financial planner or do taxes or become a content creator, or any there's so many different people out there. So it's it's really fun once you start getting into this phase and actually start taking action because I'm sure there's a lot of things on your mind that are possible and you've thought about. And probably one of the most fun parts about this whole thing is well, now you get to find out more, you get to dig into it. Who do you know in these different roles that you might be interested in? Take them out to coffee that build your network for one, and then it kind of helps that way. And you just get to experience new things, you get to see what else is out there without without the pressure of, well, you need a job as well. So you're you're pre-networking, you're finding out what you need to do. And and some of the things that you need to find out is well, do you need experience for whatever this next role is going to be for you? And if that's the case, then you might need to start taking action now so that a year from now or two years from now, you're actually ready to take the leap. And if not, well, now I quit. Now I had to wait to get the experience to get to where I need to. And so if you can get out ahead of it, if there's something that you're really excited about and it takes experience to get there, well, you have that knowledge to start making those decisions, and then you could better position yourself to make it more seamless during that transition. Can you can you do it on the side? So that's an important thing. When I launched my business, even though it was within the same type of breadth, it was still financial planning, it's way different. And I wasn't gonna be allowed to start my own business while doing the same thing for another company. And so mine was like, I basically have to go to zero income. But if you're able to maintain your income and test out a couple of ideas as far as possible career changes for yourself, well, that's gonna help tremendously reduce the risk, reduce the financial stuff a lot to you. It might be a little bit more on your plate as far as energy drain and a time suck from you. But if it's worth it, and it's probably worth it to go through that exercise because there's a lot of times where people get into that next career, that next thing, and they're like, I hate that even more. And so if you're able to test some of these things out in a low stress, low risk situation, well, yeah, let's start knocking some things off. Like becoming a painter, did not like that. It was fun as a hobby, stressful as a job. And and so you can start marking some of these things off and really honing in that you you think would give you that best chance of being happy, being excited about your role. Another thing is, well, is there gonna be a cost investment? And that's always tricky because it is gonna take a significant investment for you to kind of pour into it. Well, that's something you need to evaluate. Do you have resources now? Is that something you have to build up to? And we'll use that for one of the future steps as far as making informed decisions and and and taking action too, which is gonna always be an important part of any plan. You can't just talk about it, you can't just start to sort these things out and then not act on anything. We'll get to that. What's the time commitment? That's always a tricky one. That's really gonna be the the make or break as far as well, can you do it on the side without totally running yourself into the ground? Will your employer allow it? If there's some types of conflicts of interest, you might have to divulge what you're working on, but you may not have to as well. It might be totally separate to where there's no concerns there. What is gonna be the projected salary? That's always gonna be a huge one because if you're making 200,000 and this next thing is gonna be 50,000, well, we we need to know that we need to talk through it in advance and see well, what what's that gonna look like? And obviously that the closer the gap, the smaller the gap there, the less of the impact, the less of significant changes it'll make, but the wider the range, the more dramatic of an impact it might have on your life and lifestyle. So just be aware of that. And again, even if it's simply like, oh, becoming uh masseuse is only gonna pay me 40,000 a year and I'm making 200,000 a year now, that might just ax that out right now. And and maybe that's something you do right before you retire, or something that you do later on as a career change, but it might not be something that you could sustainably and reliably do without kind of blowing up everything in your life as you know it, as far as the lifestyle and things like that. So the next step would be well, how much do you need actually to earn, anyways? And so that's that's always the trickiest part to hone in on because we start to develop these habits, we start to develop these things where it's like I do this, I do that, and now I need it. I've I've just done it for the last two years, the last five years. Once you start packing on all these different things that are a part of your lifestyle, it feels like a need, even when it's not. And and I'm not gonna tell you or any of my clients what what is a need and what's uh a want, but hopefully you can kind of hone in on those things. And even if even if all those things in your lifestyle are really a need, and you're like, I really can't live without it. Well, it's still helpful to know what that number is, what what it is that makes up those numbers, and get a good visual of well, this is what we need to make sure we cover. And that goes for just kind of basic living expenses. But what type of life do you want to have? Do you want to be able to travel? What type of travel do you want to do? Do you like supporting charities, giving back? Are you supporting family members? There's so many different things that go into your financial need that is sometimes even outside of what you spend on yourself for a monthly time period. And so once you hone in on that, it's gonna give you a lot more information, especially once we start to compare it to what that potential salary is for a career change. And and that's probably the most difficult part that's gonna take the most time, it's gonna be the least amount of fun. But the the nice thing is as you're doing it, you're gonna start seeing a lot of things that maybe you look to make changes on the expenses and and you still don't make the career change, but you're still putting yourself in a better position. So when you're looking at those expenses, building them out, seeing how much do I need on a monthly basis to make sure you survive and have a good life, but not just kind of in in misery forever. And and there might be a gap. So, for example, when I launched my company, I just got back from vacation research. So I was kind of sharing like it's it's nice to go on vacations on. When I started my company, we didn't go on vacations for the first few years, and then COVID happened. And so now now it is nice to go on vacations, but it's because of that kind of career ish type change that I made pre-planned for is hey, we're not gonna do these things, we're not gonna eat out, we're not gonna go on vacations, and that's gonna bridge the gap. And someday we will be able to because the income, as you're getting the experience on that other side, will kind of catch up to where you could start doing these things again. So even if you're seeing expenses on that lifestyle, like I can do without them for a little bit, I can't do without it forever. I I would like to get my salary back to a place where I can actually replace these things. But if you know that you can start making those changes now. Step number four is gonna be, well, we we know what your potential income might look like from your research into the different opportunities. We know what your expenses needed are on a monthly basis, and we kind of start to hone in on that. Well, what are the resources we can use to bridge the gap? Because what if what if you do go a couple months between quite more tech job to this next role, whether it's in tech or totally it's something different and and random that no one would ever expect, which is perfectly okay. It's you're like what excites you and what you're gonna be excited about. But if there is a gap there, well, what resources are gonna fund that gap until there is no gap no more? And and that's gonna be something that you it's gonna be different for everyone because you might have a 400k. When you tap into that, there might be some tax consequences. You might have individual stock, you might just have saving, you might have an inheritance. There's all different ways that you might have resources available that you've never really thought of because, especially with retirement, I have it all the time where my clients are like, I can't tap into that, that's for retirement. Well, it's it's ultimately yours, and it's to make your best life, whether it's for retirement or to kind of help you make retirement taken care of. But at the end of the day, it's it's all resources, they're all different kinds of buckets, and they have different strategies of how to tap into them and kind of utilize them if we need to. But find out what those resources are, find out how they'll be impacted by taxes if you start to liquidate them, if they're invested and at risk and you're likely going to need them to survive over the next year or two years. Well, that might be something we want to sell, not have at the mercy of whatever the stock market's doing. Because if we have a hundred thousand in investments and that's what you're gonna use to kind of bridge the gap for the next year as you're making this career opportunity, some horrible thing happens to the stock market, and now it's 50,000. Well, you only got six months now, it's gonna be a lot trickier. And so we you want to kind of go through well, if I'm gonna need these resources, let's put them in a safe spot, let's reduce the taxes as much as possible, let's be aware of the taxes as much as possible so that we can start to build that game plan, see how long of a runway these things will last. And now a quick message from our nonprofit sponsor, underdog devs.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

Underdog devs is a nonprofit that can help for me, incarcerated or from a lower socioeconomic background to become a software engineer, and we make sure the money goes directly to expand access to people who maybe wouldn't get access. Once you're part of underdog devs, then you have the ability to sign up for Project Underdog. That's where you get your bills paid for four months, surround you with mentors, you get pair programming all week, and we try to get you at a point where you're not having to work, you can focus on studying if you want to support us and we have lots of different ways. Volunteering, through like hardware, old computers, or financially. We have our website, underdog devs.org. You can reach out through there.

SPEAKER_03 17:22

And that that's that's it right there. Just as far as high high overview, how much income are you gonna make? What's the transition gonna look like? Is there gonna be costs there? What's the expenses needed, and what are your resources? And once we do that, we can back in and say, well, if we start to do some math and you can just use an Excel spreadsheet. If you get in and you have, let's say, six months to make this career transition before you have to go back to your old job and say, Hey, can I get that job back? Or or just another company for a similar role. Like we can find out with your resources, with what the income's gonna be looking like, how long your money will last to kind of support you and boot you as you're trying to make this big change, this big career change. And the more resources, the more flexibility you have, right? It's unfortunately something where resources tend to float towards the people that were already wealthy, whether it's their parents, grandparents, or whatever, and inheritance. But if you've been in tech for a while, you might have accumulated some wealth yourself at this point. And and if not, that's good to know too, right? It's not that you can't make that leap, you can't make the decision. But if we know that your runaway is only one month, then you feel like it's gonna take you a year to make a transition to a new career. Well, the math isn't math in right now, and and we're not gonna go into credit card debt, most likely, unless it's just that bad that you have to. But I wouldn't recommend it for brandy and my clients. My game plan would be well, if we can bear it, if we can stick out what were those kind of software expenses, those lifestyle expenses that we can cut out now. Instead of spending it, we're gonna put it into savings account. We're gonna build up these resources pretty substantially. And as you're building up your resources, since you reduced your spending, your resources are gonna last a lot longer when you make that adjustment, too. So if you reduce your withdrawals from 4,000 from your resources to 2,000 because you're finding ways to save $2,000 a month and not spend it, well, that your resources are gonna last double as long. So it's pretty pretty dramatic for that impact of reducing your spending does, not only for increasing your resources, but in increasing the chances of you being able to successfully make the career change because the resources are gonna last way longer because we're putting less pressure on them. It's gonna give you information to what changes are you gonna make now so that you don't have to always wait. It's not an impossible dream, it's not an impossible transition. It's more of a well, let me let me do what I can now while the money is good, while the income is good, and build up the resources and voted, you might get coached to another company, and all of a sudden you're loving again. Having two years of way more resources because you decided to make uh better decisions and and different actions and and changes in your life to build up your resources. If you're in a happy place, well, you're in a happy place, plus you have a lot more resources either for the future or whatever you need. So that's kind of what the game plan is, the process and conversation is like whenever I'm talking with that scene. So whether you're doing because you actually want to make a change, or if you just want to be prepared if change is forced upon you, all these steps are gonna be important. And I'll just kind of quickly go the nana. But first thing is well, don't rush if you if you're feeling like you need to leave tech, you don't have to quit today. What are those different opportunities that you want to explore that would take the place of your current role and position? That's gonna be important to find out what's that salary gonna look like ultimately, or if you're starting your own business, how much income are you gonna generate? How long will it take you to build up that income? But next is how much money do you need on a monthly basis to cover your monthly expenses? And and on top of that, the lifestyle you want. So the travel, the gifting, anything that is in addition to your normal monthly lifestyle expenses, you want to factor that in because you'd hate to build a life, build a game plan for just the basics, right? Just the need to get I can just do it, but then that means I can't travel. But if travel's really important to you, you probably want to factor that in. What are your resources? And once we have all that, then we can do the math of seeing how long of a runway you've created for yourself. Don't see what you like right now. As far as well, I I live paycheck to paycheck. I don't have any savings, I don't have any resources. Well, that's that doesn't have to be the end of the conversation. We can figure out, well, let's let's try to come up with a game plan to save let's reduce spending, increase savings, and that's gonna increase your resources, it'll make your resources last longer, and and ultimately just put yourself in a better position and and close the gap between how long you'd have to wait before you could actually make a career transition and take control of your financial situation. Nonprofit sponsors were provided ad space at no charge. I think they're awesome and wanted to provide them a platform to spread awareness about the great work that they do.

SPEAKER_05 22:17

Thank you so much for listening to Techie Personal Finance Bootcamp. You can find show notes by visiting local financial planning.com and finding the podcast page. You'll also be able to find strategy guides, videos, and two screens to help you take your financial confidence to the next level. I do feel this episode has added a ton of value for you. Please break and share this with friends and colleagues. Catch you next time on Techie Personal Finance Bootcamp.