I quit Oracle a few months ago. The good part is that I get spend more time on fun blog posts and projects like datastation [0]. The bad part is it's still challenging to find contract work that is enjoyable and pays well.
Most of all though I miss having teammates/peers. That may be the thing that drives me fastest back to full time employment.
Maybe consider registering at a local lively coworking space/accelerator? You may find like minded people you can form a cooperative with.
Also as far as the contract work that is enjoyable and pays well -- in my experience this mostly has to do with knowing the right people. People who are high up enough in an org and technical enough to be sympathetic to understand what enjoyable jobs for you would be.
> Maybe consider registering at a local lively coworking space/accelerator? You may find like minded people you can form a cooperative with.
I did try a coworking space but it has not been the best year to get that in-person experience. :) I'm vaguely looking into accelerators now but I'm naive so I'd kind of rather build a slow, sustainable, healthy business than get swept up in the mindset having a VC funded startup requires.
> Also as far as the contract work that is enjoyable and pays well -- in my experience this mostly has to do with knowing the right people. People who are high up enough in an org and technical enough to be sympathetic to understand what enjoyable jobs for you would be.
You're right and I misspoke a bit. There are definitely enough opportunities out there but you have to try things out and move on if you don't enjoy it. The last two contracts I had paid decently but I found the style of work completely demotivating. So I keep looking.
> I did try a coworking space but it has not been the best year to get that in-person experience. :) I'm vaguely looking into accelerators now but I'm naive so I'd kind of rather build a slow, sustainable, healthy business than get swept up in the mindset having a VC funded startup requires.
Totally agree on the slow sustainable healthy business -- If you're going to bootstrap then I assume you've heard of the MicroConf community? You might want to get plugged in there. At the very least they've got great resources on things bootstrapped founders care about[0].
I meant to suggest hanging around the accelerator because you'd find like-minded people, not necessarily entering it by the way -- for example working as a technical advisor or contributor to the accelerator (and/or the attached VC/PE firms) itself might be interesting and give you the latitude you're looking for.
> You're right and I misspoke a bit. There are definitely enough opportunities out there but you have to try things out and move on if you don't enjoy it. The last two contracts I had paid decently but I found the style of work completely demotivating. So I keep looking.
No worries, I do pretty much exactly the same thing -- if I'd known a better way I would have shared it. I can agree from experience that finding companies you'd want to work at for long periods is very hard, and even more so when you have seen >3 small-to-mid-size companies and how vast the difference in architecture, experience, coworkers, environment, etc can be (especially compared to larger companies).
It seems like if you have a very specific niche you want to target it's easier (i.e. try to be a patio11 type figure in one area that deeply interests you), but if you just want to find interesting problems that span areas/stacks/architectures, it can be hard to find companies that fit.
I just didn't fit in well with my particular org but there were plenty of good managers/directors and interesting work to be done. In a company of 100k employees there will be better and worse bits.
The compensation was pretty good though. I'd still recommend anyone to work there as much as any other Fortune 500 in tech.
they did pay well didn't they? my boss neighbor works for oracle, and he lives here in third world buying houses like buying cars. dude could just stop and become the big landlord if he wishes.
Most of all though I miss having teammates/peers. That may be the thing that drives me fastest back to full time employment.
[0] https://github.com/multiprocessio/datastation