Ready to retire - looking for inspiration

[bonvoyage]

Ha! I honestly cannot even fathom how it didn’t occur to you...I think I’ve spent my entire life working with that goal in the back of my head.

Truthfully, I was mostly enjoying my job till about the middle of last year. I work in Artificial Intelligence and natural language processing (I have a PhD in computer science). This is what I've wanted to work on since I was a teenager - having read Robert Heinlein's masterpiece The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

Unfortunately, I have been forced to take on some infrastructure maintenance work since we just don't have anyone else to do it. I ought not to complain - my company is paying me very well for this work but it is boring.

I could move to another company but then I would have to get used to it's politics and figure out how to navigate it's minefields. I'm done with working for megacorps.

I want to wake up every morning and do whatever I want. Thanks to the revolution in cloud computing, I can easily continue to work in my field as an independent researcher. With the click of a mouse, I can rent all the computing power I need for a small amount. Also, tons of free data is available.

I plan to start participating in Kaggle contests among other things. I can't do this as an employee for intellectual property reasons. I face all kinds of constraints of this nature.

 

[albireo13]

Yup,
working for MegaCorp usually means checking your brain at the door to work on meaningless corporate trivia.
It is mostly a challenge for negotiating corporate ennui, rather than applying skills to solving real problems.

 

[WestUniversity]

My blood pressure is back in line, other stress related problems have subsided and I sleep mostly through the night for a change.

I have spent the last five months reconnecting with DW and the children, as well as catching up on numerous projects around the house.

DW and I recently took a trip across the pond for a couple of weeks. We’ve got four more trips scheduled between now and December with a fifth trip in the planning stages. We are also researching a Mediterranean cruise for 2020.

I’m regularly going to the gym and I have lost almost 20 pounds. I haven’t felt this good in years and as I mentioned I’m only five months into retirement.

As for inspiration, I doubt any of the above would have been possible had I not retired...

 

[socca]

I want to wake up every morning and do whatever I want. Thanks to the revolution in cloud computing, I can easily continue to work in my field as an independent researcher.

We CompSci types are extremely fortunate in that we can pursue our passion with little need for complex supporting equipment. A FI physicist who wants to continue her work on particle collisions as a completely independent researcher may need to construct a particle accelerator in her backyard - a daunting prospect. Meanwhile, CompSci folks can get along quite well with a modern personal computer and a good internet connection. My 4.2 GHz iMac would have been considered a supercomputer in an earlier age.

If your experience is like mine, you may discover that the basic overhead of living interferes with the ability to "wake up every morning and do whatever you want." What kind of overhead? Well, body maintenance, residence maintenance, financial maintenance, relationship maintenance, etc. That said, I've been engaged in recreational software development for 40 years, and only on the day I die will they finally be able to pry the computer out of my hands.

I hope that you are able to join the ranks of independent researchers ASAP!

 

[bonvoyage]

We CompSci types are extremely fortunate in that we can pursue our passion with little need for complex supporting equipment. A FI physicist who wants to continue her work on particle collisions as a completely independent researcher may need to construct a particle accelerator in her backyard - a daunting prospect. Meanwhile, CompSci folks can get along quite well with a modern personal computer and a good internet connection. My 4.2 GHz iMac would have been considered a supercomputer in an earlier age.

If your experience is like mine, you may discover that the basic overhead of living interferes with the ability to "wake up every morning and do whatever you want." What kind of overhead? Well, body maintenance, residence maintenance, financial maintenance, relationship maintenance, etc. That said, I've been engaged in recreational software development for 40 years, and only on the day I die will they finally be able to pry the computer out of my hands.

I hope that you are able to join the ranks of independent researchers ASAP!

Every word of what you have said resonates with me I wrote my first computer program (in punched cards on a mainframe - no less) nearly 40 years ago and have been hooked on programming ever since.

As a matter of fact, I have already had to take on all of the maintenance chores that you listed. My wife has a very demanding job as a senior manager in her company so she has a very inflexible schedule.

Thankfully, I can work from home whenever I want and I typically actually go into my office only once a week, if that. I can get all of my work done via webex nowadays. This means that I get to handle pretty much all of the maintenance chores in my household already so I'm used to it and I don't mind.

I ran all the retirement calculators and came to the conclusion that I am vastly over-prepared for retirement financially. The calculators are giving me a 100% of chance of success even with some crazy withdrawal rates.

My initial thought was to stick it out for a couple of years until my younger daughter heads off to college but I don't think I'll last beyond the end of the year. I'm increasingly feeling that I'm done.

One good thing about living near New York is that the start-up scene is really beginning to get active. I'm thinking of talking to some VC friends and see if there are any start-ups that could do with some help.

 

[Helena]

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Both my dad and my brother were into model trains. Both of them built huge track layouts with handmade towns, mountains, tunnels, bridges, etc. My brother was doing that for relaxation at home after working at his Houston NASA lab during Apollo moon missions !
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[bonvoyage]

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Both my dad and my brother were into model trains. Both of them built huge track layouts with handmade towns, mountains, tunnels, bridges, etc. My brother was doing that for relaxation at home after working at his Houston NASA lab during Apollo moon missions !
.

Theres definitely a lot of overlap between model railroaders and tech people in general. That said, I do encounter a lot of artistically inclined people as well as tech people in the hobby

 

[flybynight]

I'm not officially retired yet. Last day is scheduled in July. As my prior posts depict, I struggled mightily with the retirement decision and walking away from the nice checks. I finally overcame the hurdle, and while I still have some anxiety from time t time, I'm confident it was the right decision. Just wanted to mention that I've gotten some good inspiration from this post. This forum is great!

 

[coping]

Congratulations on the ability to retire!

I, too, was in the software industry during my career, working for mega Corp on the west coast. I retired about 4 years ago and have never been happier. I just couldn’t do the big company thing any longer.

I absolutely love software development and figured I’d do my own projects after I retired. I started an app I was really excited about and was making good progress. But, it started to feel like ::work:: to me. I wasn’t spending time on all the other things I had planned: writing, traveling, and reading. I have a habit of jumping into projects and not looking up.

So, I put the app on the back burner and have forced myself to focus on these other things. So far so good: travel, writing, and reading are filling my days. I miss the programming, but am enjoying the others so much, I don’t mind.

I wish you all the best in your retirement.

 

[bonvoyage]

Congratulations on the ability to retire!

I, too, was in the software industry during my career, working for mega Corp on the west coast. I retired about 4 years ago and have never been happier. I just couldn’t do the big company thing any longer.

I absolutely love software development and figured I’d do my own projects after I retired. I started an app I was really excited about and was making good progress. But, it started to feel like ::work:: to me. I wasn’t spending time on all the other things I had planned: writing, traveling, and reading. I have a habit of jumping into projects and not looking up.

So, I put the app on the back burner and have forced myself to focus on these other things. So far so good: travel, writing, and reading are filling my days. I miss the programming, but am enjoying the others so much, I don’t mind.

I wish you all the best in your retirement.

Thanks for your good wishes - I can see that our paths are very similar. I have been making a list of the things I want to study after I give notice - probably too esoteric/nerdy for this forum We ought to create a separate topic for FIREd tech people.