I Quit My Job as a Data Scientist
Summary
TLDRJulia, a data scientist at Spotify, decides to quit her job without another one lined up. Though she loved working there for the first few years, in the past year she has been working long hours on high-priority projects, causing burnout and affecting her mental health. A failed job search made her realize the market wasn't ideal for switching jobs. After taking a month off following her grandfather's passing, Julia has an epiphany that life is long, and she should prioritize her happiness. Despite anxiety about losing her identity and platform, she puts in her two weeks notice, aiming to focus on her mental health, content creation, and eventual job search.
Takeaways
- 😊 Julia has worked at Spotify for almost 5 years, starting as an intern and becoming a full-time data scientist
- 😟 In the past year Julia has been working long hours on high priority projects which caused burnout and affected her mental health
- 🤔 Julia started looking for other jobs a few months ago but did not get any offers she was happy with
- 😢 In November, Julia's grandpa passed away right after layoffs were announced at Spotify, which was an emotionally difficult time
- ✈️ Julia's trip back to China for her grandpa's funeral gave her clarity and perspective about priorities in life
- 👋 Julia has decided to quit her job at Spotify without another offer lined up
- 🎥 Julia will focus on being a full-time content creator for her YouTube channel after quitting
- 📚 Julia plans to dedicate time daily to preparing for job interviews by practicing coding questions
- 🤞 Julia is anxious but excited about this next chapter and finding a new opportunity
- ❤️ Julia expresses gratitude to her viewers for their ongoing support during this transition
Q & A
Why is Julia quitting her job at Spotify?
-Julia is quitting because she has been working long, demanding hours on high priority projects but has not seen career progression. This caused her a lot of stress and burnout. She also felt limited upward mobility at the company during the bad economy.
What were some of the negative effects Julia experienced from her demanding workload?
-Julia developed insomnia, anxiety, stopped exercising and creating YouTube videos, which is her stress relief outlet. She also had emotional breakdowns and cried frequently.
What happened when Julia tried to find a new job before quitting?
-Julia interviewed with one company for 1.5 months and got to the final rounds. However, they decided to go with someone more senior despite Julia's positive reviews. This left her very upset.
How did going to China for a month impact Julia's perspective?
-Attending her grandfather's funeral and learning about his long, multi-faceted life made Julia realize life and careers are long. It's important not to get stuck comparing yourself to others.
What is Julia's plan after quitting her job?
-Julia plans to take time off to rest and recover. She then plans to dedicate focused time to preparing for job interviews by practicing LeetCode. She will also create more YouTube content.
Why doesn't Julia have another job lined up before quitting?
-The job market has been bad. And trying to job search while working her demanding job did not work out. Quitting to focus on finding a new job is her last resort.
What are Julia's concerns and fears about quitting?
-Julia is anxious and scared about losing her identity and financial security tied to her prestigious job and career. She worries about letting her YouTube subscribers and supporters down.
Why does Julia acknowledge she is privileged to be able to quit her job?
-Julia recognizes that having savings, a financial safety net through YouTube, and work experience to fallback on means she is lucky to be able to take this risk that others cannot.
How can people continue to support Julia during this transition?
-People can support Julia by subscribing and following her social media channels, sending sponsorship opportunities, and sticking around to see her share her job searching process.
What tone does Julia convey about her decision to quit?
-While anxious and scared, Julia also comes across as resolute in her decision. She has given this serious thought and feels choosing her mental health is the right thing.
Outlines
😞 Quitting my dream job due to burnout and lack of growth
The speaker did not sleep well because she is quitting her dream job at Spotify where she has worked for almost 5 years. She started as an intern and moved to a full-time role. Over the past year working long hours as the sole data scientist on a high priority project, she experienced burnout, lack of upward mobility, and constant pressure from stakeholders. This led to breakdowns, anxiety and losing joy in aspects of life outside work. After unsuccessful job searching while still working, the recent layoffs and her grandfather's passing all contributed to her decision to quit without another job lined up, in order to focus on her mental health.
😔 Reflecting on privilege, identity and the difficulty of letting go
The speaker acknowledges her privileged position to be able to quit her job to find more fulfillment. She struggles with letting go of being defined by prestigious job titles and recognition she gets publicly for working at a top tech company. Traveling abroad for her grandpa's funeral and learning about his multifaceted life made her realize life and careers are long, not short. This gave her clarity to take the risk of leaving her job for herself and her mental health, even without another job lined up yet.
😊 Planning to focus energy on content creation and the job search
Going forward, the speaker plans to put significant time into preparing for job interviews, while being patient with the difficult market. She also considers herself a full-time content creator and plans to increase her activity on social platforms during unemployment. She is grateful for the support of her audience and asks them to follow her across platforms as she vlogs about her job search experience in this next chapter.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Data Scientist
💡Mental Health
💡Privileged
💡Identity
💡Career Progression
💡Job Searching
💡Layoffs
💡Full-time Content Creator
💡Mental Break / Unemployment
💡Self-care
Highlights
I'm putting in my two weeks notice at my job at Spotify after almost 5 years
For the past year I've been working 10-14 hour days on the highest priority project with constant pressure from stakeholders
The demanding workload caused anxiety, insomnia, and prevented me from doing things I love like making YouTube videos
There was little career progression despite the effort I was putting in
In the same week I got layoff announcements at work, my grandfather passed away
Attending my grandfather's funeral gave me perspective - life and careers are long, no need to constantly compare myself to others
It's difficult to let go of my identity as a Spotify data scientist and YouTube creator, but I need to take risks for my mental health
I acknowledge my privilege in being able to quit without another job lined up to chase fulfillment
This was my last resort after trying to salvage things at work and job searching while working
Next steps are to practice coding interviews, take my time with the job search, and enjoy this break
I'll also double down on creating YouTube content full-time until I find a new job
Please subscribe and follow me on other platforms for more job search updates
This is an end of an era leaving Spotify, but I hope viewers stick with me through this transition
I'm anxious but also excited for this new chapter focused on my mental health
Thank you for all the support, it means so much!
Transcripts
good morning I didn't sleep that well
last night because I am quitting my job
[Music]
today
[Music]
I am so nervous right
now oh my God my heart is beating out of
my
[Music]
chest hey hey good morning how are you
doing I'm good how are you um busy yeah
[Music]
morning cool well I think this is our
Dev convo is there anything like work
related that you'd like to talk about
first or cool so
um I have some news for you okay I'm
putting in my two weeks you are okay
yeah like what's
that uh I think I'm just going to take a
break uh kind of take my time I don't
really have anything lined up as of
right now well I did a lot of thinking
over the break um and I just felt like
this would be a good move for me in the
long
term
okay
surprise to be honest I've been holding
off on making this video because I just
don't know what to say but I've decided
to speak to you all as as if I were
speaking to my friends in real life and
have this be a conversation from the
heart versus something more
scripted so let's start from the
beginning as many of you all know I'm a
data scientist at Spotify I've been here
for 4 and a half years almost 5 years
and I started as an intern and then I
converted to a full-time employee
getting this position at this company
has been a dream it was my dream job all
throughout College and it felt so
surreal to be in this privileged
position where I get to say that I did
the thing and for the first I would say
3 years it was an amazing experience
probably the best corporate experience I
could ever ask for I think for me where
things started to shift was the past
year year and a
halfish I'm going to keep this portion
short because there's a lot of nuances
that just happen dayto day and I can
remember all of them but I also don't
want to and the purpose of this video is
to not talk poorly about my experience
there because the majority of my
experience at Spotify has been nothing
short of amazing but obviously there are
reasons as to why I decided to leave and
to leave without a job lined up for the
past year and some change I've been
working on the highest party project in
my org as the sole data scientist for
the majority of it and I was working
like 10 to 14 hour days give and take
for months on end and I'm sure there are
folks out there who work more demanding
jobs but that was just not the
expectation that I had of my role and I
do think the Tipping Point for me was
just the constant pressure from certain
stakeholders like I said this wasn't
just for a week or two it was for months
and at a certain point I started to
develop insomnia this entire situation
at work made me so anxious that I
couldn't sleep I didn't exercise I
didn't really do anything except for
work and a big side effect from a
demanding 9o5 is you getting pulled away
from your real life so at one point I
had to like stop creating videos and
this is the primary way where I kind of
release my stress something that I love
to do and this was taken away from me in
September I posted one video in October
I posted two videos and and then I had
this one video that I pushed out with a
really cryptic like title because I was
just kind of really fed up but I
couldn't really tell you all explicitly
what was happening so I kind of just
vented all of my anger and put it into
this one video and then when I did push
myself to post videos I realized that I
just didn't have time to do anything
else in my life which is not really
healthy I was really burnt out at that
time and I failed to recognize it I
think it took my therapist to tell me
that it took my manager to kind of say
it sounds like you're burnt out and I'm
like oh really and then I think the
final push was like these constant
breakdowns for no reason where I'd just
be like crying cuz I'm so stressed
another Factor was that the economy is
really bad so there wasn't a lot of
upward Mobility or movement I think I
had to really make an extremely strong
case and even on top of working these
insane hours even on top of of working
on a very high impact high visibility
project I think my career progression
wasn't very clear here it was extremely
stagnant I felt like I was putting in so
much work and I wasn't really moving
anywhere those were just all signals for
me to take a step back and say hey Julia
like maybe you should re-evaluate your
current
situation and seek other
opportunities so I decided to start job
searching around around October the
market was pretty bad back then but I
think it's kind of forced right now so I
just shot my shot I got around like 5 HR
calls three of them amounted to a role
that I was interested in and they were
also equally interested in me and then
it took a month and a half for me to get
to final rounds with one of the
companies and at the end of the day they
called me and said that I was a great
candidate only positive reviews but they
decided to go with someone more senior
with more years of experience I was just
so out of love with the thing that I was
doing I just wanted to escape with the
first opportunity that I got so I was
really really upset like I remember
calling my sister on the phone and just
balling my eyes
out so that was the end of November and
then the week after we got the layoff
announcements have another Vlog for that
that was a really really tough week
because the same week my grandpa passed
so I was like okay I'm going away for a
month this is not ideal I wish I had a
job lined up and I can just quit and
take this vacation relaxed and happy but
that's not the case so I'm just going to
go on vacation kind of think through
things and come back with a game plan
this past trip to China was just so eye
openening to me because obviously I
experience the pain of losing someone
that's very very close to me for the
first time in my life but also when I
attended my Grandpa's funeral General I
was able to meet a lot of different
people from different walks of his life
and I got to learn so much about his
life not only through the Beautiful
Eulogy that my dad gave but also through
talking to his friends and every single
person kind of met him at a different
stage and they were like your grandpa
was doing this when I met him your
grandpa was like this when I met him and
I think it helped me realize that
although I feel like life is short
because life has been moving by so fast
life is actually really long and your
career is also really long warranted
that not everyone's going to live until
they're 89 but you know when you live in
New York City where everyone is just
hustling all the time you're stuck in
this bubble where one you're always
comparing yourself to other people and
two you're comparing yourself to
yourself and just racing against time
but for what right like why so it truly
is like removing yourself from your
environment gives you this Clarity that
you probably didn't have before I think
the hardest thing for me is letting go
of my identity I am Julia I'm a data
scientist working at Spotify and I'm a
YouTuber and I live in New York City and
on the internet my life looks so perfect
like it's so difficult for me to lose
all of that you know and obviously I've
grown my subscriber base on YouTube
due to the fact that I work as a data
scientist at one of the top tech
companies out there and it's really hard
to let that go but through the funeral
experience I've realized that my grandpa
lived so many different identities
throughout his
life I did a lot of thinking during my
time abroad and I just decided that when
I come back to the States I'm going to
put in my two weeks and I'm just going
to take a risk for
myself I've worked really hard to get to
where I am today to get this position at
this company that I could have only ever
dreamed of and at the same time I want
to acknowledge how privileged I am
privileged to get the experience to work
at such a big tech company to have it on
my resume to have a couple years of
experience under my belt privileged to
have a savings account for a rainy day
privileged to have this platform that
could be used to serve as financial
support when I need it not everyone can
just quit their job without another job
lined up because they're chasing
fulfillment and happiness because
fulfillment is a privilege and happiness
unfortunately is also a privilege so
yeah that's basically it obviously this
is not ideal ideally I would have a job
lined up before quitting my current job
but that's just not the case I feel like
I've put my best foot forward at work to
try to salvage things I feel like I
tried my best job searching while
working a demanding job and that just
didn't really work out for me so this is
definitely my last option trust me I've
thought through this so much but I am
making this decision for myself for my
mental health and I'm really really
anxious and scared but I'm also really
excited so you might be thinking what's
next what's next is I'm sitting my ass
down every day for a couple hours and
turning out those leak code questions
I'm definitely going to start job
interviewing as soon as I can I'm going
to take my time with the job search even
if I wanted to frontload job
interviewing and all of those things I
don't think I can because the market is
just really bad so um I'm going to take
my time with you know the job search I'm
going to give myself some Grace and I'm
going to enjoy this period of
unemployment but I'm also going to work
really hard to get that next opportunity
for myself technically I don't think
that's true I'm not an employed I think
I'm going to be a full-time content
creator until I find my next opportunity
I'm going to job search and then I'm
going to pump out content I'll probably
try to post more on all of my different
social media channels so subscribe cribe
follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok
please and if you have any sponsorship
leads definitely send them my way I know
a lot of y'all subbed to me because I
work in Tech so I'm excited to share
with you all like my job searching
process probably in Vlog form still in
the upcoming weeks to months so stay
tuned for that yeah this is definitely
an end of an error and I hope that you
all can stay and support me throughout
this time once again I'm really really
grateful for you and your support cannot
say this enough thank you so much for
watching and I will catch you in the
next one
bye
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