The surprising benefits of a mid-career break

I never had a career, but I took a break anyway after 14 years as a plastics factory worker. Mine stretched to 2.5 years since I could afford it. I&#x27;m now in my second month as a junior Java developer. This makes more sense than the sabbatical, since I had no skills or connections to get stale.<p>I have to say the benefits really did make me a better deal as an employee. I basically went from someone who did things because he had to, just fitting everything in around work, to someone who pursued his own goals. Now that I&#x27;m back at work, I don&#x27;t constantly lose sleep till I have to rush to work at the last minute; I schedule things so I don&#x27;t have to, and I got my sleep habits under control. I don&#x27;t bike to work just because I need some way to keep from getting fat; I sought out active, fun hobbies I can still engage in, like ice skating. I don&#x27;t beat myself up all the time for being lazy; I have my own strategies now for getting myself to put in time on the right projects and not let things slip away. I also used to have trouble just getting basic things done like phone calls and finding a tailor; with my time off, I got things done and gained confidence that I could get any errand done.<p>I also feel so much more independent now. Google Maps plus free time to explore means I found so many wilderness sites and activities. Internet reading about joints plus time to work on the exercises mean any ache or pain that comes up is something I can solve. Compared to the time I tore a back muscle falling into a railcar, when all I could do is try to reduce the activities that caused me nerve damage and hope I got better, I&#x27;m so much better equipped to take care of my own health.<p>tl;dr Having full responsibility for yourself is great. I did a lot of things it would have been too late for in retirement, and the best part is the habits I learned when I had time are now ingrained enough I can do them even while working full time.

In 2013, I quit a 10-year job in the HFT&#x2F;trading systems industry and went to work for small non-profit that developed web&#x2F;mobile systems for humanitarian and human rights agencies. One of the best the things I ever did. What came out of it:<p>1. Completely upgraded my outdated skill set - from C++&#x2F;Oracle to ES6&#x2F;React&#x2F;Redux&#x2F;Node.js etc.<p>2. Completed a life-long dream of writing a full length science fiction novel (not yet published, sadly)<p>3. Developed computational psychology model (pet interest) that might one day be the basis of a paper<p>4. Learned proper leadership skills, public speaking skills and people management skills<p>5. Much better health - exercised, got plenty of leisure time (worked only 30hrs&#x2F;week)<p>6. Networked through pro-bono consulting<p>It was financially punishing for me, but ultimately it was more than worth it. Last year I returned to the industry full time (a different industry this time). The additional skills&#x2F;experience in the resume opened up a lot more higher level opportunities that I would never have been able to pursue 3 years ago. Right now I&#x27;m in a management level position doing exactly the kind of work I want to do, and I doubt if I&#x27;ll ever have to worry about finding a job...<p>By the way, for anyone who asks, those 2 years were easily the happiest in my life.<p>Edit: cons: be ready to be poorer!

I took 5 years off of programming, to go with my family to China, where my wife could pursue her ESL career. I taught high school part-time and was a house-husband. We came back this summer, about 3 months ago. I&#x27;m 45 and managed to find decent employment.<p>I was pretty nervous about coming back to software development, but it turned out fine. I&#x27;m not very ambitious career-wise, but I can support my family. I&#x27;m doing web development (there was some catching up to do!) and servers &amp; ops on AWS, which I was able to jump right back into. Linux hasn&#x27;t changed much!<p>I tried to find work in the US from China, but nobody took me very seriously, so I came back in late April, interviewed in a few places, partly while on a road trip, got 3 offers in 3 different cities, on a spectrum of interesting to well-paid, and all ethical, and accepted one in June (the middle one -- reasonably well-paid, reasonably interesting, in a low-cost-of-living location).<p>It helped having support of people in the US (my parents, who gave me a home base, and friends in various cities who I could stay with) and being not-very-ambitious -- I&#x27;m happy to just be a software engineer &#x2F; ops guy. I don&#x27;t need to be very high up the food chain. Companies seem hungry for people who are professional and skilled and get along with people.<p>I definitely sacrificed something professionally by spending those 5 years in China. It was an expensive sojourn. But I am happy we did it. We were very lucky to (1) all be healthy, (2) have enough money saved to make the leap, even though we knew it would be temporary, and (3) have at least one of us employable in the US (me, the programmer) and abroad (my wife, the ESL teacher). It was a monetary loss for sure! But I learned a lot about life and not worrying about every little detail, and it was an experience that strongly shaped our three children, both for better and for worse. And I think it helped bring the US and China together a little, on a personal level, in the friends that we made and the things we learned.

I&#x27;m currently on a trip around the world, going over 1 year at the moment and loving life, I wouldn&#x27;t trade it for anything.<p>I&#x27;ve met countless 20-somethings doing the same, and a surprising number of mid-career professionals, and they&#x27;re all European.<p>I have yet to meet a single person in almost 2 years of international travel that is from the US and was willing to take a break in their career.<p>I hope this American culture shifts towards Europe in the future. Americans are left out of this experience and cultural exchange, and seen as choosing to rather stay at home to toil over their bank accounts. The professional and personal benefits are more than adding 1 more year of your working life will ever get you, and besides, I want to see the change because I have a vested interest in finding a job when I come back.

Get on the property ladder before you take your sabbatical.<p>I recently took an 18 month sabbatical from my banking software development job and it was well worth the risk. I had been working for 11 years. I ended up getting my old job back when I returned because I did not leave on bad terms. I probably would not have if I had stayed there any longer as work and London life was turning me into an angry selfish person in general.<p>My only regret is that I didn&#x27;t buy a flat or house just before I took the break. Whilst employers are more than open to the idea of a long sabbatical in my industry, lenders are not. Right now I am earning just as much as I used to but I am struggling to get a home loan despite having an excellent credit rating. They see that hole in your work history and it gives them the jitters. I should have bought a place and rented it out before I went traveling.

&gt; <i>One of Smith’s clients pointed out to their manager how much money they could save in the budget for that year by not having to pay their salary, yet not sacrificing the investment they had made in training them over the years.</i><p>When an organization can operate without your presence for over 300 days, your role may not be very necessary.<p>The surprising costs of a mid-career break involve falling far enough behind industry trends and methods, that it would be faster to train a new person than retrain you. The article is very optimistic about the rate of change in any workplace, and also an employer&#x27;s willingness to support this kind of extended vacation.

I’m a few months into a mid-career break. I’m exercising, playing with kids, writing, studying, and sleeping (8 hours&#x2F;night!). I’m also depleting savings, but not as quickly as I projected. Now that I have time, I fix broken things rather than replace them. I take time to research things really well before purchasing, so make few mistakes and get good deals. Each dollar I spend is a few minutes sooner that I need to return to employment (if the projects I’m tinkering with aren’t yet revenue-generating), which motivates frugality.<p>We lowered our costs significantly right before I left work. We moved to a small but adequate house in the far suburbs. My mortgage is about one-eight the mortgage of peers in my profession at my level, even when I include the rent I pay now for a tiny personal office nearby.<p>Chen, featured in the article, was one inspiration to take the plunge. I found his LinkedIn CV, which describes that period: “Father and Husband, Sabbatical, September 2011 - August 2012. We took a year off from our life in Boston and lived on a remote island in Norway just north of the Arctic Circle.” I liked that. Ideally I emerge from this period with a sustainable business of my own, but even if I return to working for others, as long as I have an interesting, compelling story about what I was up to during my time off, and how it made me better - which I will - I doubt the period will cost me much (if anything) in interview terms, and it may benefit me.<p>Glad to read the experiences of others here who did this and didn’t regret it. If there are people who took time off and did regret it or have advice about how (not) to spend the time, would love to read that too.

I took a 1 year career break in 2011, travelled around Asia, learnt some new life and professional skills and got an excellent new job in Australia (I&#x27;m British) via sponsorship.<p>Im convinced that I got the job because my energy and enthusiasm levels were completely reset after my time away from working.<p>In August this year I left that job and I&#x27;ve been living in Thailand for the last 2.5 months, and already I feel completely reset and ready for new challenges.<p>The most important part of a career break is to use the time wiseley to either work on yourself, or work on your skills, or both. If you just sit around on your backside playing XBox and doing the same shit you did while you were working, then you&#x27;re probably not going to benefit from it.<p>Yes this path may not be available to friends who went down the family&#x2F;mortgage path but they have benefits in their life which I don&#x27;t have. Different people, different priorities I guess.

I did this a few years ago, taking 1 year off. I was a bit nervous being in my 40s, but it did such immense help for me, I recommend it for anyone who is willing to work hard during their time off. I pivoted from enterprise software to backend development for various online companies and I&#x27;m very, very happy.

While a sabbatical year might be very beneficial for the person taking it (for the multitude of reasons mentioned in the article), it can be detrimental for the organization. For example, if the person taking the sabbatical is in charge of (or playing a lead role in) a project that is time sensitive, then this is a big setback for the project. Similarly, if the person is mentoring someone else (who is dependent in some way on his presence), then taking a sabbatical is unfair to that mentee.<p>This is why it is important to plan the sabbatical year so that it is personally beneficial and also not detrimental to the organization and its people.

Can anyone in this thread speak to how it would impact a software engineers career in the USA? I&#x27;ve considered doing this for a while, just afraid to give up all I&#x27;ve worked for

I worked 7 years for one company and had the feeling it wouldn&#x27;t go anywhere.<p>So I quit and went Funemployed for 1.5 years. Doing some game development etc.<p>Went self-employed afterwards and got to work from home and make much more money.<p>I learned much and even tried to finish my masters degree, but the new job prevented me from getting the thesis done, haha. But maybe next year.

Oh, another &quot;Isn&#x27;t it cool that people can quit their jobs to go do $EXPENSIVE_THING&quot; humblebrag article! File this along with the &quot;Exploring Africa in my custom jeep&quot; and &quot;Traveling the country in a solar powered van I built&quot; pieces. Unfortunately, this option is not available to the 99.99% of readers who need to pay their mortgages, health insurance, child care expenses, student loan payments, and other realities of normal life.<p>If you&#x27;re one of those lucky enough to be able to just jaunt off to a faraway land for a &quot;career break&quot; then congratulations! But these articles claiming it&#x27;s something that you, the reader, can do, are pretty silly.

It sounds like lots of people here have taken breaks, but have any of you taken actual sabbaticals (i.e. with explicit employer permission and with the intention of coming back afterwards)? How did you negotiate it and how did it go for you?

I did this last year by accident, after a layoff from a high intensity but failing startup. Easily one of the most productive, eye opening, bucket list kicking experiences of my life. I ended up doing 6 months, traveling, starting a company, got CELTA certified, met a woman who turned my perspective on dating upsidedown, and generally was much happier.<p>Oddly though, all of my personal coding projects went almost immediately into the bin. I didn&#x27;t have the motivation to push them when I was employed and lost <i>all</i> motivation when I didn&#x27;t touch the field on a daily basis.

A consultant that just started working for our company wrote this post a few days ago: &quot;He who dares&quot;... Why moving from a corporate to a start-up could be the best move you ever make… Might be of interest <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.thisisbud.com&#x2F;he-who-dares-why-moving-from-a-corporate-to-a-start-up-could-be-the-best-move-you-ever-make&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.thisisbud.com&#x2F;he-who-dares-why-moving-from-a-cor...</a>

Question for all you guys who took a break (ie travel for 1 yr+) and came back to another job. How did you show in your resume?

As much as the break and benefits itself seem alluring, most of the world can&#x27;t afford this kind of lull in their careers. This applies to both work-oriented countries like Japan and USA as well as third world countries.

Did BBC just clickbait me?

Non-white people do this too. They just call it being laid off. The holistic, &quot;I just feel so fulfilled!&quot; crap just irks me at some visceral level that I can&#x27;t fully explain. There&#x27;s just something so entitled and lazy about this way of existing.