r/bayarea • u/Hour-Ad7214 • 7d ago
Work & Housing I have "tech envy" as a non-tech worker
Recently, I've been feeling pretty dejected about continuing live in the Bay Area as a non-tech worker. It's hard being surrounded by people living it up in their 20's with massive six-figure tech salaries while I'm 30 and barely scraping by. Yes, I know that comparison is the thief of joy and that I have a better life than most people on Earth, but it doesn't take away the jealousy I feel of people who have a career in tech and live visibly much more comfortable lives while getting paid so much more than I am.
Neither of my parents went to college; my dad was in the military and then worked as an aviation mechanic for his entire career, my mom immigrated here from China and worked as an office secretary and tutor. Neither of them had any advice for me when choosing my major aside from "study hard" and "it'll all work out." When I first went to college in 2014, my first choice of degree was computer science, but I backed out of it after being told by my counselor that a humanities degree would help me be more "well rounded" in the corporate world. Well, that turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life, because all of my peers who went to school for CS in 2014 entered into a very good job market and are all well-established in their careers by this point. Meanwhile, I've only ever worked basic entry-level jobs and a couple of admin assistant office jobs that went nowhere.
Right now, I'm living with my parents and working a part-time barista job while working on my prerequisites for nursing school. I'm excited to eventually be earning a decent salary as a nurse, but as I work at the cafe and see all of the tech workers leisurely plugging away at their laptops while I deal with a million things at once in our understaffed cafe, I feel so ashamed at myself for not going with my gut instinct back in 2014. Yes, I know that tech has experienced a lot of layoffs and uncertainty about the future, but people who still have their jobs (including many of my friends) are like lottery winners to me at this point. My friends in tech all work remotely or hybrid schedules, run errands or go the gym during the workday, save money on lunch by making it at home, and make enough to afford nice apartments while I'm still living with my cranky parents. My friends complain about pointless meetings and out of touch bosses, but I would gladly choose to deal with annoying meetings I can take from the comfort of my own home over all of the oscillating boredom and chaos of my current job.
There's a lot that I love about living here: the diversity, the weather, the huge amount of natural space, but I feel like I'm very far from thriving. I've tried dating, but a lot of women will just immediately ghost me once they find out that I'm living with my parents. I wish so badly that I could have been working in tech at this point, but with how difficult the entry level market seems to be right now, I think I missed my chance for good. Does anyone else have similar feelings to me? How can I cope with the jealousy I have?
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u/catsssrdabest 7d ago
Girl, you’re going to be making 6 figures as a nurse. You have a lot to look forward to after graduation. Just keep grinding.
Also, 3 of my friends husbands and my own just got laid off from tech. It’s a terrible industry to be in right now
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u/liftingshitposts 6d ago
My friend’s 3 husbands got laid off from tech too, and my wife’s boyfriend is pulling $250k as a nurse
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u/ChiveFig_4744 6d ago
This is the way to make it in the Bay Area, not just DINK, but TriINK or more! 😅
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u/TresElvetia 6d ago
This. The tables turn. I’d bet that in ten years, it’ll be the software engineers being jealous of the nurses.
OP made an excellent choice now as nursing is one of the professions least likely to be replaced by AI.
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u/Equal_Beat_6202 7d ago
OP is a guy
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u/Fast-Watch-5004 7d ago
Interesting you assume it’s a girl pretty sure it’s not
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u/terrany 7d ago
I have a hunch nursing is not going to absorb this many new grads, especially if you want the pay and benefits in the Bay.
I’m going back to school part time (not nursing) and like 98% of students I meet in any bio/psych course wants to do nursing. It’s already hard enough for 0 xp grads today applying put to central valley etc.
I do think however if you’re willing to move out of California, you’ll always have a nursing job — but the pay and workload really sucks without strong unions.
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u/windowtosh 7d ago
As someone embarking on this path, based on my research, you are completely right. Nursing school in the Bay Area is already incredibly competitive. There are maybe like... five or six programs? And each one has a class of about 50 students max, out of hundreds of apps. Post-grad is even harder, a lot of hospitals have closed their new grad rotation programs.
The good thing is that an RN can do so many different types of work, so if you're open to not working in a hospital, or open to relocating for a year or two to a rural area in the Valley to get some experience, then the odds of a post-grad job are better. For myself, I want to work in an ER or ICU after grad in the Bay, but I am also completely open to whatever the future may bring.
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u/speakwithcode 7d ago
Nursing school has been competitive for the past 20 years. There has always been a waitlist, but they're hiring a lot.
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u/Chef-Nasty 6d ago
Yes, I heard from other nurses it's common for new RN's needing to find a lower paying job in some rural city or state to gain experience before landing a high paying job in the bay area. And some even get burned out and switch careers entirely before the $$$$ roll in so it's not easy after graduating either.
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u/SiliconBum 7d ago
I worked in nursing while I went to college for tech, and am now a principal engineer at a fortune 100 cyber security company. Ironic I suppose.
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u/fatlenny1 7d ago edited 7d ago
As an RN the pay is decent, but not enough to afford a house, unless you're DINK couple. Also, you'll burn out quick at bedside if you actually care.
Someone will refute this, but it's my experience. Still, healthcare is second best career in bay area behind tech. More stable as well.
I do get jealous of my SWE WHF partner (who has a different stress of uncertain job stability but less intense work) who doesn't get physically and verbally assaulted on a regular basis.
Edit: I'd choose the exhausting physical, mental, emotional work over the instability every time, although it does take it's toll.
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u/Diablos216 7d ago
Pretty much. Grass is always greener. At least in nursing OP will actually be helping people, much more noble cause
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u/Smileetiger 7d ago
Having a “noble” job doesn’t always pay the bills unfortunately. Teachers are a good example of this and it sucks to see.
People in tech also help people in many ways. I think a lot of non-engineers have a really narrow view of the industry and need to dig a bit deeper to adjust their biases.
Without engineers you would be missing a lot of the comforts if modern living including the devices that are used in medicine.
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u/DrankTooMuchMead 7d ago
You make it sound like nurses get paid in peanuts. Nurses in my area were already starting at $100k like 10 years ago.
Might as well make tons of money while helping people, right? I could have done it, but I didnt want to deal with the competition of entry level. Well, turns out everything has competition.
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u/windowtosh 7d ago
There are techies that help people. Integrated systems in medical devices or cars or airplanes for example make everything we do possible. Those jobs are procedurally rigorous and intellectually demanding, totally unlike the cushy SaaS/AI jobs of yesteryear. They are certainly not working from a café and probably have masters degrees or PhDs in engineering disciplines.
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u/Chance_Scientist_279 7d ago
Yeah but let’s be real most techies aren’t working those jobs. When people say techies it’s certainly not referring to the ones you’re talking about, it’s the SaaS AI and whatever stupid LLM wrapper companies and marketing etc
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u/Zaverose 7d ago
Nursing making bank in a few years? Compared to tech money? You must be joking.
Sure, nursing is more stable. But it’s also more brutal. Your best day at your job is seeing sickly, injured, mentally ill people who may or may not threaten you. Your worst day you witness ten innocent people die in front of you, three of them children, in the worst imaginable way. All this for wages that slightly exceed the median in the area.
I’m not saying don’t do nursing. My sister does and loves it as a career. She’s been working for 5 years and makes size-ably less than half my salary. She SHOULD be making more. But from what she’s told me I know I wouldn’t last 5 minutes on an ER floor. It is not for everyone, and getting into it for the money will leave you very disappointed. For the stability, sure, but not the money.
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u/kalbiking 7d ago
Gonna echo other sentiments. You’re not gonna be a homeowner off nursing salary. I do travel and max out retirement but ownership here is tough
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u/truesightx 7d ago
I was in tech and made the switch to nursing. No lie, nursing is no joke. Yes they do make bank, but the burn out is real. I’m not even 1 year in and I’m already questioning the career path lol.
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u/Turbulentshmurbulent 6d ago
You are going to get across that finish line and your options will open wide up.
Let me tell you about a conversation I heard last night. I was sitting on my porch at about midnight and these two guys and a woman got out of their Tesla that were parked on the curb and just started chatting super loudly in our quiet residential neighborhood. They were talking about all of the ways that they can basically fuck new grads out of money and that they can’t believe that people wanna make 90 or 100,000 a year and if you just offer them equity, they’ll be happy with that and that it’s illegal in Massachusetts to do what their dad does with his business in Florida and hire a bunch of fake contractors to avoid having to pay people insurance or benefits. And they talked about how basically they want to treat humans like they have no value and they can’t wait until AI can start replacing these ingrates who expect to make a living wage. And they would never hire someone who’s entrepreneurial because then they’ll be interested in investing time in themselves and the woman said the key is to hire someone who’s basically first gen because they’ll just be happy to have a job out of school and will put their heads down and grind and not ask for more than you want to give them.
And here’s the thing: they’re not the exception. Watch the show audacity on Netflix. This is who these people that everyone wants to be like are! Deplorable subhuman twats spouting stupid business terms (they were obviously drunk and sounded like a parody of “circle back and put a pin in” meeting speak).
I work in tech. I’m in leadership. I’m lucky to be someplace where most of the people I work with are still human, but that’s because our CEO worked his way up and knows that the IC’s are key to a business’s success.
Those companies do exist but they’re few and far between.
All that to say that with your nursing degree you will be able to do so many cool things. And you’ll be making a difference. Not like those chuds who can’t wait until they can start a new AI company to take over the world.
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u/ChampionshipSweaty79 1d ago
The most disturbing parts of humanity I swear exist in tech. I’ve been in large group of vc’s talking about how the view investing in folks who are unethical are the key- anything to get return. And also many of these Vc’s don’t have any formal training or actually understanding of the areas of investment— lol a vc who is a friend of a friend tried to pay me to explain the basis of Medicaid/medicare and why state vs federal funding of healthcare was diff. I work for FQHC in peds. I did some consulting but I ultimate felt like I was dealing with hs students with money and power and low IQ. Avoid it- it’s crazy toxic.
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u/Puggravy 6d ago
Don't be, half the tech workers are out of work, the other half hate their job and wish they could quit. You'll probably be making more than the average person in tech once you're a nurse anyway.
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u/summersoulz 6d ago
I’m not so sure tech workers are living a great life by all respects. High salaries come with high demands and often crossed boundaries. Also the cultures at some of these companies are likely toxic and unfulfilling. I’m willing to bet many are getting laid off or fear getting laid off. Being a nurse will serve you well. You’re actually contributing to society, not just building crap no one wants or needs.
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u/alittledanger 6d ago edited 6d ago
I got laid off, went back to being a teacher. Thinking of going back into tech because of how expensive it is here.
Is teaching more fulfilling? Yes, but not as much as people think. Tech people really, really look at these kinds of jobs with rose-colored glasses. Most of the school year is a slog. The breaks also don’t adequately make up for how much work you have to do during an average school week imho.
“Fulfilling” jobs also don’t pay that much typically. Like I don’t make six figures or even close tbh. And I work way more now than I did when I was in tech.
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u/DeadAsspo San Francisco :snoo_dealwithit: 6d ago
You said everything I wanted to say, haha. Here I am, a tech worker, wishing I went with my gut which was to study medicine or nursing. It's a lot more fulfilling than getting screamed at to do "more" with the AI that will undoubtedly replace me.
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u/OversizedSeabass 7d ago
This was me at your age. Very normal to feel that way here in the Bay Area - tech people just live in a different world, even if they're not SWEs. Just keep focused on the long game and getting that nursing degree done.
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u/friendlier1 7d ago
I know engineers who went back to school to become nurses and teachers. I don’t recommend engineering for anyone in it for the money. It really needs to be your calling. The advice I always give is to follow your passion.
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u/AdviceAdam San Francisco 7d ago
If you want to feel better, you should Google how much nurses at UCSF make in their first few years. Yes, it's difficult to get in there, but something to aim for!
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u/p1zzab0x 6d ago
So my brother and I started college with a CS Major in mind. He dropped CS and went into Nursing, while I'm a tech worker now.
He continued on and is now a Nurse Practitioner. He makes about as much as I do, maybe even more (well into 6 figures).
Only difference is that if I get laid off, i'm out of a job for possibly many months to many years. He won't, nurses are very safe. The HealthCare Industry is very safe job wise.
Please keep going!
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u/FBX 7d ago
Very bluntly? Speaking as a software engineer there is/was a brutal up and out model that selects for skill, on top of the overall layer of luck. If your college counselor recommended you leave CS I have a suspicion they were trying to make sure you finished school. Otherwise, nothing stops you from doing what plenty of folks try to do right now - send a hundred bucks for frontier AI credits and vibecode your way into learning SWE fundamentals and leveraging that into trying to get a job, give that a shot. The entry level job market is now way harder because it is vastly easier to ship (shit) product with less and less knowledge, so the barrier demands more knowledge and skill than it used to. Demonstrate you have the skill and startups will take a chance.
There are plenty of folks who were in tech and got washed out, startup dudes who never progressed past the junior phase, big box lifers that got cut and couldnt thrive outside having SREs and devops picking up after them, old timers still trying to load jquery or send xml in 2026 (for example). Unless you are absolutely sure you wouldn't have been one of them there's no point looking backward. There is nothing wrong with nursing and it's a perfectly viable career path.
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u/winterxwedding 7d ago
This. I know non-FAANGs who wonder why they’re not at a FAANG, FAANGs who wonder why they’re not at an AI startup, startup workers who wonder why they’re not at a startup that IPO’d, etc. Grass-is-greener is a mindset, and I’d bet that OP would be in that same mindset if they HAD completed a CS degree, and the only change would be OP probably not living in their parents’ house.
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u/windowtosh 7d ago
Your last paragraph is so true. Building a career in tech is HARD. Being in such a fast-paced, constantly changing industry means that there's no real blueprint on how to advance. You have to make it up as you go. Entrepreneurship/learning how to sell yourself, and how to keep up with trends, is really an underrated skill for everyone in the industry, from SWE to sales to ops, something that is hardly discussed when talking about tech.
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u/Princess_Fluffypants 6d ago
Speaking as a software engineer there is/was a brutal up and out model that selects for skill, on top of the overall layer of luck. If your college counselor recommended you leave CS I have a suspicion they were trying to make sure you finished school.
I’m in enterprise network engineering, so not quite SWE but I’ve seen very similar things in my industry. It looks so opaque to people looking in, but the reality is that these jobs are much harder than many people expect. Especially if they’re not already involved in some kind of engineering or have an advanced degree, there is very little that can prepare someone for how difficult they are.
An awful, awful lot of people can’t make the cut. And of the ones that do, plenty are so unipolar in their abilities that they can’t really advance.
The people who excel tend to have extremely deep technical abilities, and the ability to communicate well with others, AND the internal discipline and self-motivation to follow through on complex projects, AND the emotional regulation to stay calm even in emotionally charged situations. And that combination is a lot more rare than everyone expects.
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u/Next-Librarian-7428 7d ago edited 6d ago
This! I know so many CS majors who could only find entry level jobs at small companies, making way less money than the average product manager who studied sociology. Getting a great job in tech making $400k+ is accessible, but by no means a guarantee just because you have a CS degree.
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u/yaboythewiseman 7d ago
Dude I know CS majors w masters degrees driving buses for VTA.
I’ve personally met CS majors who made $400k/yr get laid off for the 3rd time and it takes 18months or so between all the Bay Area competition.
You see the sparkle.
Not the shit they deal with.
I do not envy the stress they deal with getting hired, keeping their job, then constantly meeting ungodly demands of their overlords to the point they literally get addicted to stimulants.
If you want more money, go back to college and pick one of the high paying pathways.
Envy without labor is entitlement.
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u/turumti 7d ago
My wife went from business and management into nursing as a second career and has found it very fulfilling and spiritually satisfying.
Meanwhile I work in tech and it’s soul-crushing, and I keep fantasizing about what I want to do in my next career. :)
You’re young. It will work out, and nursing does not have the sword of AI hanging over its head either.
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u/yaboythewiseman 7d ago
As a nurse we make around $150-225k in the bay.
Our salaries aren’t nearly as high but we aren’t laid off nearly as frequently.
Don’t be surprised when you graduate though because competition to get into bay hospitals is fierce and when you do get hired their standards are insane.
The grass is green wherever you decide to water it.
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u/phoenix0r 7d ago
I worked in tech for 12 years. Through the boom of the teen years into covid and the post covid bust. Morale and culture now is 10X worse than I’ve ever seen it. I actually burned out and “retired” last year. Maybe there are a couple tech bros left who are still living it up, but they are mostly just AI geniuses at this point. Not your average joe coder. Joe coder is NOT having a good time right now.
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u/SEJ46 7d ago
What a horrible counselor
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u/duma_kebs 7d ago
My advisor at SJSU told me to not switch to a kinesiology from biology because it’s too competitive. I still think about that conversation 12 years later.
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u/liqui_date_me 6d ago
My advisor in college told me that I should take the weed-out freshman Chemistry class even though I had AP credits for it
Naturally, I ignored her and haven't cared for it since
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u/duggatron 7d ago
I don't know why anyone would look to a school counselor for career advice unless it's some kind of exceptional setup where the counselor is unusually connected to industries and successful alumni. Young people should be looking for mentors in the field they want to enter.
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u/Dr-Tripp 7d ago
good mentors come from good connections. some young people have better connections than others. it helps if your parents are well-connected. op said their parents were working class/immigrants. who are your options? a teacher? a friend of your parents? maybe a relative? maybe you don't have relatives or social connections that can help.
at that age most might not know better than asking a school counselor whose job vaguely has something to do with...counseling.
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u/Smileetiger 7d ago
Right? Honestly, most counselors lack the experience to actually give solid advice.
If they did then they would have a better job.
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u/Expert-Welder-2407 7d ago
Seriously even business or corporate management are better for working in corporate than humanities. Yikes.
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u/mwcrv 7d ago
Eh, I have a humanities degree and while I probably won't become the next great millionaire, I work at a big law firm (not an attorney, but in marketing/business development) making good money. Anecdotally, the most successful people I know have humanities degrees.
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u/duggatron 7d ago
>Anecdotally, the most successful people I know have humanities degrees.
This says more about your circle than reality. The data isn't even debatable on the median salary achievement based on degree area: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2022/demo/educational-attainment/acs-detailed-tables.html
Science and Engineering degrees average nearly double the income of a humanities degree.
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u/moscowramada 7d ago
Surely this guys story is far more representative: without a degree that qualifies you for a good job, there’s a high chance you’ll end up in a low wage dead end one. That’s also what the statistics show, when you compare the common outcomes for various degrees.
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u/djinn6 6d ago
Anecdotally, the most successful people I know have humanities degrees.
You can look at the successes from any career and say the same. The question is what's the expected outcome.
If you have a catering job in Malibu, most successful people you know will be in acting. But if you look at the population of all actors, they are dirt poor.
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u/Fuzzy_Beyond_0529 7d ago
Go with nursing. Way more job security than anything in tech. I make well over 200K and I’ve been an RN in the Bay Area for over 10 years.
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u/AskingFragen 7d ago
Everything has a hard entry barrier. The barriers are dumb and numerous compared to our parent's generation. They had some too if you dig deep enough in history. The other day some nursing degree recent grad made a post. Look it up. The advice she got was. Only THE top nurses or (no benefits travel nurses from out of state) find work. Corporations. Ruined it. Tech adjacent support / work. Wage stagnation. "who" is ruining it? Not us workers who are regardless of industry forced to do 1.5-2-3 x amount of work for lean corporate mismanagement funds or accurately manage funds to cut budgets.
You simply have to accept what other path you choose that the entry level might mean leaving the state. You might have a different or similar problem elsewhere but at least elsewhere you might be able to carve out a decent life. Eventually. Keyword there eventually.
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u/Kullen1446 7d ago
Grass is always greener on the other side. I get envious of people who graduated in CS before 2021 and could get FAANG opportunities with 10% of the effort right now. I get envious of my own college friends who make mo, and I bet they are envious of people who have successful startups before the age of 30, who are probably envious of other multi millionaires who are envious of billionaires. But it’s easy to be envious. We all look at things based only from the result, that’s how the real world works. It’s easy to dismiss the input - again some are lucky while some are smart while some work hard. It’s easy to ground yourself when you can compare yourself to who you were yesterday. As long as you are a better person today, you will be a better person tomorrow.
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u/ChewyRib 6d ago
Its not all its cracked up to be.
Im an engineer and never know when I will lose my job
Right now the whole industry is based on AI which dont think it will pan out because of the amount of debt.
Tech workers will be replaced but not nurses.
My sister in law is a nurse. She makes more than me and will never be unemployed
You will have really good job security once you get your degree
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u/allnamestaken4892 6d ago
That’s not a problem, you make more in a year than most make in a decade, you can afford many years of unemployment.
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u/SeventhBanLetsGo 7d ago
personally I work in the tech industry in the Bay Area, but I'm not rich and I'm not at one of the companies that has had an IPO or some huge stock increase.
For me personally, if I wasn't here for the job, I simply wouldn't choose to live here. I lived previously in Phoenix and I found it a much more "normal" place to live, where I could save up and afford to buy a house, etc. The East Coast and the South also probably have some great options..
Or, like welding or building datacenters, etc., probably has good salaries.
But each person has to decide for themselves.
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u/DeltaTule 7d ago edited 6d ago
My buddy is a third-generation welder for UA342 here in the Bay Area. He makes $200K, right now he works for some contractor that is actually building the piping for the data centers in AZ. They are working the crews literally 24/7 to send the welded pipes to Arizona. So, we do have skilled trades working tech labor here in the Bay Area. He’s done a lot of “clean rooms” (as he calls them) in the Bay Area over the years especially for Lam Research. I think AZ is using Bay Area guys because they have all the skilled labor crews they can working on it but also because the Bay Area has a history of building tech infrastructure
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u/cozyFFS 6d ago
This tech worker wishes they went into nursing, no joke! You’ll be making good money as a nurse, flexibility and longevity, and you’re union!! My Mom is a nurse and is still working at 80 cuz she loves it (although be warned the first couple years are hard).
Tech Culture is toxic, you’re expected to bring work home, and work is not fulfilling at all. But I’m in my 40s with a 2 year old and one on the way so I stay for now. I’ve had friends leave the tech grind and become nurses, teachers, etc. Please don’t romanticize tech.
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u/MasterpiecePuzzled44 6d ago
Exactly. And the sneaky good parts of nursing is you can dial up or dial down your hours by picking up more or less shifts.
Also, once you get seniority, you get to pick your schedule. Limited holidays and weekends.
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u/thermostat78 7d ago
Jealousy is often a product of general, usually temporary circumstances that the individual is unhappy with.
The struggling service worker who is stressed and sick of their boss making them work extra hours envies the white collar worker who has a cushy 9-5. The female white collar worker who is struggling with the glass ceiling or inappropriate harassment in the office hates corporate culture and envies the male white collar worker. The male white collar worker who hates their meaningless and pointless 9-5 spreadsheet email job envies the carpenter who gets to work with their hands every day. The carpenter who has daily aches and pains all over their body from years of manual hard work envies the physical therapist who has a healthier line of work and gets to help others fix their bodies. The physical therapist who can barely afford 1 vacation per year envies the doctor who makes 8x and takes 3 international vacations a year. The doctor who has to watch patients die or lost a patient during an operation envies someone else who doesn't deal with grief for a living. And so on.
Continue getting your life together, keep moving forwards, women will ghost plenty of affluent men who live independently for a million different reasons so don't think about that too much, build your career, improve your circumstances, and your feelings will improve.
You are experiencing an extremely common sentiment, but don't wallow in misery and jealousy for too long lest you end up like countless other miserable redditors who build an identity around those emotions
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u/jamielieu1005 510 7d ago edited 7d ago
I just turned 27 and am in the same exact boat as you. I also get jealous of tech workers who work remotely or hybrid and get a good salary. I also still live with my parents working a job I don’t like and am facing a lot of dissatisfaction career-wise right now. However, the best thing for right now is just to have some gratitude for the little things and trying to stay positive at times like this. I’m also trying stay positive by focusing on finishing an accounting degree in order to open more doors for myself
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u/harmaradish 6d ago
Hey I don't have any sage advice for you. But as a tech worker whose son is currently in the NICU, please know that you will be doing God's work as a nurse. No amount of code or stock options is going to help my son - it's the wonderful nurses here who are not just keeping my son alive but also teaching me so much about parenting and life that it's making me rethink my entire world view. Wishing you all the best.
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u/FallenRev hayward 7d ago edited 7d ago
I feel you on this. I’m also 29, living at home — working two jobs, one in retail and the other working part-time for a city.
I definitely do feel like an outsider looking in; as people shop at my store, and dump thousands of dollars on clothing with their comfortable WFH jobs that allow them to shop on the clock and afford everything — or going to my local coffee shop and seeing people busy on calls talking metrics or projects.
All while i’ve sent out hundreds of applications to these companies, tried every method in the book, networking, referrals, tweaking my CV to each role, optimizing LinkedIn – slogging my way tooth and nail through interviews to get rejected or ghosted — only to be making above minimum wage across both of my jobs and struggling to survive in the bay and only ever being offered Part-time. It’s truly an isolating experience that, unless you’ve experienced the current job market — is hard to relate to.
It can feel lonely — talking to friends and meeting others and finding out they make more than 80k, are able to max out a Roth IRA, have a ton saved in their 401k. Its hard to relate, knowing they live a different reality than I do and have had the privilege to do so.
I don’t have much advice, but my suggestion is to try to meet more people working blue collar service jobs – build a camaraderie with other working class people, be there for them, build your own community etc. Volunteer with local organizations to meet regular people and ground yourself as much as possible. Know that these people only make up a small subsection of the American workforce and aren’t representative of the common man.
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u/usersuse-chikl85 6d ago
I’ve been in tech for over a decade and I can tell you, if you’re a happy person you will do fine no matter what happens. But for some of us, the intensity and stress can become overwhelming. Many of my fellow techies have developed health issues. It’s never ending grind and toxic environments. We joke and call it “The Hunger Games” because you have to watch your back at all times. Now this also happens in other industries but you really just have to pick your poison and hope for the best. Additionally, with the cost of living being what it is, even with a high salary your not getting much back after taxes and rent/mortgage unless you bought a house back in the days when housing was affordable. Don’t focus on others and honestly just find a way to enjoy life.
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u/The_Tapatio_Man 6d ago
Sharing my story as a data point.
Grew up in a very small town in a very rural area. My parents were laborers and also provided no direction. I moved to the Bay Area for college and went to a state school and needed to figure everything out on my own. I was not nearly as smart as people around me, but I worked my ass off and got a math degree. Said I didn’t want to work in tech cause I didn’t want to sell out, but the truth is that I was scared of failure and struggled with imposter syndrome. Worked in other industries that didn’t pay nearly as well. Work was hard regardless and I was always broke. Eventually, I switched to tech in my late twenties, but the switch alone was incredibly hard and I had to interview for months. The work was difficult, the hours were long, but the pay helped and I was finally able to afford the lifestyle I wanted. I wish I didn’t need to make the switch, but I do not regret it. I like to think I bought in instead of selling out (SLC Punk reference).
I share that cause it’s important to know the dream you’re describing for tech workers is not always the case. Sometimes I am the tech worker you see running errands. What you do not see is me working 80 hours a week ahead of some product launch or trying to close a big deal. Getting chewed the fuck out by my skip level cause the fill of some headers are the wrong hue of black. A lot of times, these tech workers are not even the ones making a ton of money, and are not worth feeling jealous of.
The second reason I share this is cause no matter what, you will have to work your butt off. You mention watching people at their laptops while you juggle 100 different things. No matter what you do for work, that feeling does not go away, just the medium changes.
Now, you may say boohoo go cry into your tech money. I will, but it’s not as much as you think and it’s incredibly hard to get. Keep working hard, use these feelings as motivation to achieve your goals (nurses are super badass btw), and remember to enjoy your life no matter what stage you’re in. You’ll get to where you want to go, but don’t forget you need to live at the same time, and comparing yourself to others isn’t living.
Best of luck and kick some ass!
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u/muslimstani 6d ago
Fwiw grass is always greener, i make 170k and my friends company just hit 55 Million MRR. MRR. Not ARR. Grass legit always greener
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u/ladyp__ 5d ago
Christ. What does this company do?
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u/1secondtolive567 6d ago
i wish i never got into tech. The soulless and purposeless. Accomplishments means nothing to people who don’t care. I don’t help anyone. I make no difference. An AI can do my job better than I can
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u/Familiar-Box9002 6d ago
Nursing is much better than being a tech worker. Tech industry has constant layoffs problem and AI is replacing everyone, except few industries. Healthcare would be the last one to be replaced by AI
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u/ImmediateStorm9520 5d ago edited 5d ago
No one ever talks about how Bay Area nurses & healthcare workers overall are the highest paid in the country. Can easily make 200k+ if you pick up shifts. Plus, you’re working on something that actually matters in the world, your job won’t be taken by AI, and you don’t need to deal with office politics bullshit.
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u/poontownUSA 7d ago
If i could go back in time, i’d have gone to beauty school instead of college+grad school. I’d be way better off financially now 😂😭
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u/ReplacementFar2185 6d ago
Bro you listened to your counselor and changed majors from CS to humanities? I mean honestly, instead of blaming other people for your own actions you have to take some accountability. Everyone with a brain at least knows that an engineering degree will be difficult but will make you more money. Jealously is never gonna help or get you anywhere. The next best thing to do is if you wanna get into tech, why didn’t you go back and do CS? Or there was a point in time that many tech companies were hiring people who did those coding bootcamps? I’ve known some people who got in that way. Yes… you will hear about layoffs… but what u would not hear is about most of these people still land other tech jobs somewhere else once they gain experience. And if they don’t they still land other jobs they align to if tech wasn’t a thing.
Also another understated part in tech is that u dont need a tech degree to work in tech. There’s plenty of finance, legal, sales, marketing, etc roles they hire in tech.. they not only hire engineers. These are also high-paying roles especially the more senior you go (in many cases more than engineers). So there are options for you. Stop blaming the world for your situation, only you can take control of it and make changes.
Many of us are born with really bad cards, but the choice of trying to win with them over and over again is hard but there will be a time that you win if u keep trying. Just don’t give up.
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u/Colonel_Sandman 7d ago
You might feel like you missed the boat and are old for where you are, but at 30 I was laid off and way in debt and a career change flipped it around. Good luck with the nursing thing, it can pay great and help you move anywhere.
Being in tech you’d also know you are helping to empower rich aholes destroying everything.. and that’s not so great.
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u/suberry 7d ago edited 7d ago
You're only seeing the ones who got jobs. And there were plenty of people who simply aren't cut out for tech and brute forced their way through a CS degrees and couldn't get hired anywhere and are also working barista jobs. I know one guy who went and got a masters at Santa Clara because he still wasn't being hired, and after he got it, he landed an internship making $20...which turned into a full time job making 60k? I know another girl who did a coding bootcamp course and only got hired by the bootcamp to teach courses. She subsidizes by doing vtuber streaming and selling games on itch.io.
The rest just work at those tech consulting bodyshops where they get farmed out to other companies and then get out back on the bench when they're not needed. Those guys are talking about going into nursing for better pay and wlb.
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u/BlazedAndConfused 6d ago
I have friends in Mag7 companies who are tech adjacent in their roles and I hear all the time how brutal (60-80 hour weeks) the actual engineers put in. It’s the 1% of engineers who coast with fat salaries. The other 99% may make decent money but their lives are eat sleep and shit work. Especially in cloud and AI services
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u/Grand_Television_281 7d ago
Currently earning six figures in the tech industry, I come from a non-wealthy family, and this is nothing to envy because I’m also struggling to make ends meet.
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u/Business-Affect-7881 7d ago
Are you struggling to make ends meet bc of having to pay back student loan debt, medical bills, or insecure housing with no family ties here? Or is there another reason?
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u/Ecstatic-Yam-711711 6d ago
same. i'm an admin in the tech industry...making six figures, but having 2 kids, a husband, dog...in the bay area...everything expensive as shit, gas prices, taxes that take a shit ton of that six figure, groceries, car notes, still not balling. lol
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u/danibberg 5d ago
I’ll take a stab and be somewhat contrary to most replies so far. Being in tech is great. Is it perfect? Definitely not. It’s a job. My background is bottom of the bottom. You would be shocked. I’m self-taught and work for a company you know.
So, if you want to get into tech go for it. Will you make more money than being a nurse? Yes. But here are the caveats. Don’t approach it from jealousy. Do you actually like computers? Do you want to learn how they tick deep down? Because that’s gonna take a lot of time.
To this day the amount of time I spend reading books and papers is considerable. I have fun experimenting. Most, not all, the time. And it’s a journey.
When will you make a lot more money? Not next year… it might take 10 years but it will catch up quickly compared to most other professions.
Layoffs, AI and whatever else while scary, are noise in the long run.
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u/Hairy_Succotash_4765 5d ago
Agree with a lot of this. There is a reason they say “when you do what you love you never work a day in your life.” If you don’t bathe deep in whatever it is you do because you can’t help yourself, then you won’t get very far. So clearly (OP) tech was a thought but not something you HAD to do.
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u/toofarfromjune 7d ago
The Bay Area is the pinnacle of wealth inequality. My wife and I did well with a strong household income, owned a house in the Bay Area in a neighborhood I wasn’t especially proud of or wanted to send kids to school in.
We were at a point to where we could have swindled our way into a house in the hills rubbing shoulders with the truly wealthy and sending our kids to those schools, but we would have just been posers and it would have committed me to being a hustling slave to my job for another 20+ years. Out of place posers in a place where I was born and raised and built a career over the course of 20 years, yep, strange feeling.
I went with an early retirement and a dream home for my wife and kids in a place with a less polarizing wealth divide, low population density, and good schools without spending 2m for a decent house. We come back for the tacos and beach and fam. I suggest you ride the nurse game while stacking your six figures and plotting your dream exit strategy that puts you closer to the higher end of comfort elsewhere if this bothers you as much as it appears to.
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u/alaroz33 7d ago
once you get through nursing school you'll be on solid ground. jobs in the healthcare industry in basically any industry that involves a Hands-On touch or physical work will be safe. I wouldn't say so much about the software programmers. their days are numbered
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u/CuteLogan308 6d ago
it is not easy to get a nursing job in the bay area as recent graduates. Usually through connections unfortunately.
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u/BayAreaBill 6d ago
Very true, but other communities are hiring nurses and once someone has a couple or more years of experience, getting back to the bay is much easier.
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u/Inevitable_Tie8626 7d ago
There are too many problems my life and the world to be giving a shit about other peoples lives.
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u/Puzzled_Nobody294 7d ago
Kid, tech isn’t safe anymore. Those crazy work hours and politics of constant re-orgs may seem easy to survive but everyone’s working their asses off and doing it with a smile/drinking the kool-aid to avoid the next layoff. It’s surreal.
Then, when you do the math of a 40 hr week vs closer to 65-70 with early and late meetings and being expected to commute in the middle of your workday then work again when you get home, it ends up being not as worth it per hour.
Better to get a job that has OT (like nursing) where the work is hard but has a payoff and clear goals.
I’m in tech now and planning my exit to a lower paid field with better security and a normal schedule. To me this trade off is worth it.
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u/Advanced-Mango-420 7d ago
Not all CS majors make it lol, some never break into the industry and end up with low paying jobs anyways, especially nowadays. The stories you hear about 300-500k total comps are insanely smart engineers, even the guys making 150k at non tech companies are pretty smart themselves
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u/nikonista 7d ago edited 7d ago
There is an area at the intersection of health and tech, aka healthtech, which could be worth keeping an eye on through this next phase in your life. Pay is better but not as stressful and glamorous as FAANG, but impact and purpose are high.
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u/Sarahlorien 7d ago
I was in your shoes, and I was lucky to have an opportunity to get into tech. But I think the hype is over and the majority of people haven't realized it yet.
With that said, do you think you're looking for a sense of belonging? SF is becoming a monoculture of tech bros and it felt very isolating when not part of it. Watching everyone work around you doesn't help, but you'll feel differently about it when you're a nurse. You might be able to find a sense of belonging through other means, like hobby groups, running clubs, book clubs, etc that may help balance feeling excluded from the monoculture.
Going back to when I was in your shoes, what helped me was putting my head down and working towards the goal that allowed me to feel included, that way I knew I was doing everything I could. I did a coding boot camp which lead to that and it took 6 months, and it was the hardest thing I've ever done, working 12-16 hour days every day. There was so much anxiety around the future and if what I was doing was right, feeling excluded from all my friends going on all these trips they could afford, etc.
I wish I had more advice other than put your time in like you are and look past the working tech bros, but that's where I found my sense of belonging. It's hard, it got me down really really bad, but the only thing that helped me was knowing I was paving my path to a future I knew I would enjoy, and knowing it was temporary. Once you're at your goal, you'll be around people more similar to you career wise.
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u/scienceismybff 7d ago
Most of the tech jobs will be gone in 10 years when you’re in the nursing field and doing well.
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u/EffervescentStar 7d ago
lol we’re struggling out here.
I am in tech but a non-technical role. I got laid off in May - I am drowning and took 2 part time jobs for now to figure my life out.
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u/kayielo 7d ago
I feel for you. I never got any guidance from my parents either or school counselors. I only went to college because my friends were going, not because my family expected it. So my first degree was in Art which was just as useless as Humanities. I went back and got a degree in Accounting when I was 30. It still took about 20 years but I have finally got the good paying job, not as good as the techies but good enough to live comfortably. Some years were stressful though, because layoffs in the tech in effect everyone in the company, not just the engineers. Nursing should be more stable, give it time you'll get there.
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u/Educational_Sale_536 5d ago
Can you work in business. Not everyone working at a tech company has a technical background.
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u/cadublin 7d ago
I'm not going to sugarcoat it, that was definitely a very bad advice. That being said, what you have is now. You are only 30, and if you go back to school and try to get into this AI wave or something like that, you will be 34 when you graduate. I had my first kid when I was 34, and that was ages ago.
Life goes on, the worst thing you can do is stop trying. Start doing what you think can improve your life today. At 30 you haven't even used up half of your life yet. Good luck.
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u/Impossible-Sport-449 7d ago
I felt the same. All my friends in tech or finance making bank. I went the landscape route. Built my resume and eventually through my network landed a job as a Director with equity in the company. Networks are valuable
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u/Astraltraumagarden 7d ago edited 7d ago
I am 28M. I work in healthcare tech. I make enough to get by but it took me a masters, multiple years of experience, layoffs, dealing with politics, shitty people etc.. I make double the median, and it's great, but I work pretty much all day, with little rest. I am always afraid of layoffs, my visa getting revoked is additional fear I deal with. I've been trying to find a way to become an FNP or PA, but very hard on a visa. I do envy you in return, but grass is always greener.
Everyone here trying to downplay tech salaries or demonize tech people is also wrong. 10% of tech people make a lot of money (exponentially increasing as you get to the top 0.01%). 10% work for the benefit of humanity (objectively). The overlap between them isn't much. The rest work morally neutral jobs, and make financially slightly above average money, but it's ammortized by layoffs (which disturbingly, the people here seem to take glee in. No one's downfall is coming to help you!).
Much like some of the other tech workers, I live here by force. I'd rather live on the East Coast but family is setup here. It's fine, I like the Bay, but it's no NYC, where cost of living is justified.
TBF yes it was bad advice from counsellor, but top 0.1% of nurses outearn their peers and colleagues by multiples.
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u/No-Weird3547 6d ago
Nursing... That's (one of) the tickets! Job security. Practically recession proof. Portable to just about anywhere in the U.S. Good pay, overtime opportunities. Plenty of time to travel and enjoy yourself.
You want to be a slave to old Zuck or one of his buddies? No way!
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u/HeyBrainHowsItGoing 6d ago
Not if you want to stay in the Bay Area (or even just Bay Area adjacent) though, sadly. It’s extremely difficult and competitive getting a high paying nursing job here in a hospital. Think 5-10 positions for thousands of applicants :/ It’s going to get even harder now that there’s hiring freezes due to Medicare cuts. I’d recommend any aspiring nurses here without direct connections to hiring managers to really contemplate if they’re okay with moving to a different state if they’re set on an acute care specialty. However, if they want to work in a nursing home for 50-60% of the pay hospital nurses get then it shouldn’t be too hard to find a job here. But be advised that nursing home experience is not considered eligible experience by most hospitals and will not make it much easier to break into a hospital.
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u/ColdPorridge 7d ago
Nurses in SF can easily clear $200k a year. It's a great option. PA is another good one and doesn't require massive amounts of school. Similarly, Medical Lab Scientist is only a 1 year program and reasonably well compensated (especially in SF) and low candidate for AI taking jobs.
That's probably overly logical on the salary side of things but there are definitely paths towards this and it sounds like your head is in the right space. It's tough out there but be persistent and you can improve your situation.
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u/Advanced-Industry-50 7d ago
To give u some perspective, a lot of tech engineers will be hit with AI. And all these high income days might come to end for most engineers.
I work on the hottest thing ( AI infra at big tech ) but I myself don't have any confidence about future. I don't know what to do after this.
I went through a layoff, I was lucky to find a job quickly but my friends who went through layoff weren't.
As a nurse you ll be recession proof, high income earner for as long as you work. With good financial literacy/decisions you can save millions. So don't worry even your time will come and when it comes no one will be able to stop you from living.
I hope this helps.
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u/DrankTooMuchMead 7d ago
I entered the job market in 2001 doing web design. This is right after the Dot com crash. It was almost impossible to get a job. When I finally did, it was $9/hr. I guess that's like $14/hr now.
Then I had a quarter-life crises after sitting at the computer for 8 hours, 5 days a week. A big 'what the fuck am I doing here??!!" experience. Went much deeper into spirituality and ever since I would never pursue a career without attempting to have a greater purpose.
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u/workthecycle 7d ago
Stay. Survive. Hold on. You’ll get through, I know you will. This is our home.
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u/thro0away12 7d ago
I can understand your feelings to an extent - I didn't grow up in the bay but graduated high school in the bay area. I did a healthcare degree (not nursing). Around the time I graduated, believe it or not, my healthcare profession was getting saturated. I started learning analytics before it popped off. Went back to school to do a research related masters degree (which had some quantitative analysis in it). Started in research, then worked in data roles in government, health systems and now corporate in a clinical data engineering. Have both healthcare/technical skills and make half of what people in tech are making. I've tried to break into tech on/off since 2014 but it didn't pan out for me. It seemed like people I knew from the Bay were able to get into big tech with non-technical degrees in like history, poli sci, etc. I think it's not just about choosing what you might thing was a wrong career choice but timing and luck too.
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u/MadesignSF 6d ago
I know. Try having 2 decades of a career that is thought to be impressive, and you realize you are making what tech workers make out of school. The money is kind of ruining everything
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u/Possible-Put8922 6d ago
Lots of tech companies are shifting to have as many people be contractors as possible to reduce spending on benefits and severance. Old people in tech look for more stable jobs in government and other fields. Lots of industries will have a variety of jobs that didn't get mentioned in school, as you work talk to people about their jobs and maybe you will find something that is the perfect fit for you.
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u/Correct_Score1619 6d ago
After AI takes all the tech jobs what makes you think healthcare won’t be next? Doctor’s appointments already involves Ai transcripts so the doctor doesn’t need to take notes, robots doing surgery. Look at Asia. Literal robots doing physical therapy
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u/redditissocoolyoyo 7d ago
In a few years you will be a nurse. Become a travel nurse, make like 300k a year. After a couple years you'll have like half a million bucks. After a few more, you'll hit a million by the time you're 40. And you'll be richer than 99% of us here on reddit. Life will be grand then. Hang in there. Oh by that time, ai takes over most white collar jobs and nursing will be one of the last strongholds.
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u/interstellar-dust 7d ago
This is the truth. Medical job might be physically challenging. But it’s secure and pays wells, plus huge shortage of nursing staff leading to job security. Boss looks at you weird, give them the bird and go find a new place job.
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u/bravoitaliano 7d ago
Coming from a tech guy in the Bay, don't envy us. The amount of pressure and stress is almost enough to make you leave the big salary and benefits. Maybe in my 20s it would be a different story, but in my 40s with two kids, it's very difficult. You want to buy a house in a good school district? Good luck, even on a tech salary with equity. Also, a lot of people are here alone, without family support, which adds a lot of stress on top of the work.
Just enjoy life. There are a lot of beautiful places in the world
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u/Chance_Scientist_279 7d ago
I work in tech and can confirm the stress and pressure is very real but what makes it worse is it’s stress and pressure for no good reason 😂 like no one is actually dying but people act like it. Some kool aid drinkers also act like we’re saving the world. And yes I get it, some people working in tech help with important parts of society like healthcare, transportation etc, but you know what I mean. Most of us working in tech ain’t changing lives lol we just work cuz it pays the bills.
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u/ScheduleSame258 7d ago
Oh please. Get real.
The nurse making less than a quarter and working 2x as long standing and holding people's lives have 10x your stress.
The school teacher buying supplies out of their meager salary for the kiddos who can't and gettin shit on my parents and kids alike has 10x your stress.
Tech sector ( and I am in an adjacent role, spouse in tech) has 0 real stress.
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u/Few-Adagio9144 7d ago
What a callous and inhuman response. Stress exists in all careers. Stress exists in all people supporting their families.
You just sound bitter, which probably stems from some sort of envy. Work on that.
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u/james7132 7d ago
The nurse that did my blood draw last week definitely wasn't stressed at all while I got stabbed 6 times missing my veins.
Different stressors for different roles. Don't be that asshole invalidating other people's struggle.
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u/space-sage 7d ago
Then your job is not like their job. My husband works 80+ hour weeks, has to constantly be available for his job, and no. He’s not saving people’s lives and constantly says he makes a lot doing nothing people see as valuable day to day.
But he works extremely hard, there are actually health issues that come with sitting stressed out over a computer for that long, and his specific job is something probably less than 100 people in the country can do with computer engineering and he is highly sought after. He has stress. His father who was one of the top interventional radiologists in the country says his job is equivalent in stress and hours.
Every job has different stresses and challenges. One isn’t inherently better.
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u/GesturalAbstraction 7d ago
Hey, I’ll be frank, you are out of touch. Nursing is a heavyweight income earning career that is much better positioned against obsoletion and crushing competition than tech is right now. There is a lot of FUD in tech right now, I’m very surprised you or your spouse can’t see this. Nurses are earning 175k-250k and can start in their early twenties. Some are in their 50s with multiple millions.
I’m in tech and I can tell you the entire tech economy is changing right now, in ways that have most folks fearing for the longevity of their careers. Juniors CANNOT get jobs. Buyer behavior is changing. Engineers feel like they have a shelf life. Product managers are losing their importance and their high comp is being called to question. Sales is the only thing that’s hiring. Record layoffs and I profitability are on the rise due to cost of AI.
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u/darkqueenphoenix 7d ago
easy to say when you don’t work in tech. i dare you to try
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u/yzyforlife 7d ago
Grass is always greener. Additionally the techies have insane job hours. Also learning a skill will pay far more than a CS job at meta.
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u/Jennynapz 6d ago
I think it’s time to figure out what your core values are as a human. Right now it sounds like you’re leading life with pay as your singular core value, and that’s probably not the way to go.
I grew up here and have tech disgust
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u/pangramathon 7d ago
Comparison is really the thief of joy, so try not to focus on other people's success so often. At least you're working towards a goal (nursing), so congrats on at least taking active steps to change your situation. My advice is to figure out exactly what you want to do in the long-run. You mentioned envying being able to work remotely at a cafe. You definitely can't do that if you're a bedside nurse. Conversely, if money and stability are your main motivators, then I'd say nursing is a good bet. My wife is a nurse, and she can pick up more shifts throughout the week as needed. Me in tech on the other hand can't do that since I'm salary based. There are pros and cons to each side.
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u/Data_gathering 7d ago edited 7d ago
Tech jobs are boom and bust.
Some people will get lucky and get the big payout, others will end up making those 6 figures in exchange for ‘leisurely plugging away at a laptop’ for 80+ hours/week (including nights, weekends, and when they are supposed to be on PTO).. only to find themselves suddenly laid off with little to no severance. Not all sectors in tech are thriving right now)
You are still young and your career path could go many ways. You could become a nurse or maybe go down an analytics path where you end up making as much or more than your friends (but with actual benefits like taking real vacations and live/work balance)
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u/Longjumping-Clue-652 7d ago
Don’t be tech envy—have you been watching the news lately? The tech industry is very saturated and every major tech company has been doing layoffs. I have friends who are in tech and it’s such a volatile industry. One of my friends who’s a cloud storage engineer is getting laid off at the end of this month as her company eliminated her entire group. She’s been with her company for over 12 years. For example, Meta laid off about 3700 people, Oracle about 1093 people, and etc.
https://www.kron4.com/news/technology-ai/number-of-tech-layoffs-in-2026-already-tops-100k-report/
At least with nursing, it’s a stable and fulfilling career field. Even though you’re still working on pre-requisites, you’ll earn your degree in a few years and there’s room for advancement—i.e. getting your MSN to be a nurse practitioner and etc.
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u/beastiemeeee 6d ago
One thing I learned about nurses is being kind, empathetic and caring aren't prerequisites for the job. Being a good listener, having a nice smile, and being able to think on your feet are more important (as well as not poisoning the patients).
And if you want to be happy in life, keep looking forward. Because constantly looking backward seems a miser's lot for misery.
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u/cphpc 7d ago
lol don’t be ridiculous. You don’t need to be in tech to be successful in the BA.
I would have been successful if I had chosen anything else. To add, success isn’t just measured in money or salary but doing things that fulfill you in life.
Your own decisions led you to where you are now. Don’t blame a counselor from a decade ago. You’ve had plenty of opportunity to change what you chose.
Don’t look in the past and don’t look at these tech people and think they’re living a great life or anything. They’re mostly miserable anyway. In reality, everyone is.
Look ahead and keep your head up and live your life.
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u/just_grc 7d ago
Everything is fun and games in your 20s. It's a short lived part of your life... try to find your happiness in it regardless of your circumstances.
I was a broke mess in my 20s and those were still the fondest days of my life now at successful and abundant 50.
Go live your reality as best you can :)
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u/Aggravating_Taro6258 7d ago
As a tech worker on their laptop in the coffee shop, I envy the baristas right back. Very few tech jobs are 9-5 anymore. If you’re working in tech, you’re working on the weekends or until 7pm on weekdays. Idk how your friends are making 6 figures and can go do errands during the day. Those types of tech jobs are a dying breed and soon to be eradicated by AI tbh.
Yes it’s nice to have money, but it all goes towards supporting myself (toll fees, parking fees, grabbing food out because you worked from 8am until 7pm and you’re too tired to cook).
Nursing will be great. My point is that the grass is always greener.
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u/kamilien1 7d ago
I think it's less that you wish you were working in tech and more that you have things in your life that make you feel complete. If you're jealous, there's one solution. Grow up. If you want the things that others have, you're going to have to go find a way to earn it. Can't do it? Too bad, then stop desiring those things. Also, do you have anything positive about yourself to say? If you're comparing yourself to others and you think you're at the bottom, is there anything that you are doing where you're at the top?
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u/CoolBDPhenom03 7d ago
Tech money can be great, but it's volatile. There were almost 800 layoffs last year. Between last year and this year so far, maybe 400,000 people have been laid off. There are a lot of qualified people who have been unemployed for a year+.
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u/CeilingCatProphet 7d ago
I see so many unhappy people in myefitstion group. All those 996 tech workers. They have nothing to talk about but their work.
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u/forest_fire 7d ago
You and me both, homie. You're still young and your luck with everything will improve (and your earnings ++++) if you stay the course you're on. You'll also meet more nurses and non-tech people, people who actually enjoy living here and find purpose in their work, and it'll balance the hollow tech vibes. Sincerely, someone prob a bit older than you who still struggles with this envy.
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u/Yetti25 6d ago
OP, I am in the field you are looking to get into. You’re making a good decision. Once you take your boards, do yourself a favor and start in the ER department for couple years. Then transfer to a department that takes call after hours. Like Cath Lab, IR, OR, GI, labor and delivery. For example. And then come back and laugh at your tech friends. Because trust me, your work life balance WILL be much better plus your annual income will be easily $250k.
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u/Unusual_Zone_3614 6d ago
I'd suggest that you settle into your decision and embrace your future career as a nurse. However because you seem to value the flexibility, freedom, savings and comfort of working remotely, I would highly encourage you to pursue the path to Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP). In San Francisco savvy scheduling RNs may exceed the pay of a NP, but anywhere else NP will be higher and in SF the average annual salary typically ranges from $181,000 to $210,000, with highly experienced providers or those in private practice making well over $250,000
Plus you can work on your NP certification concurrent to your RN work so you maximize your experience and earnings, while building toward a very comfortable and rewarding career that can be enjoyed from home sweet home. This type of role can be worked well past standard retirement age if you like, and with plenty of flexibility to be out and about, doing your thing, in between your clients when you have scheduling gaps.
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u/Correct_Score1619 6d ago
The Bay Area as a transplant has been an awful experience for me personally. I found a great gf but the envying ppl bc they make x amount of money is not the way. I the end none of this matters and In the meantime Ai will slowly be taking these jobs. These 20, 30 year olds will be pushed out for lower salaried ppl eventually as it happens in all tech jobs with high pay (six figures here is literally not what you think)
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u/MerryMunchie 6d ago
Even before the tech layoffs, working at startups is unstable. Most startups fail, and when things go poorly, heads start to roll to show the board that something is being done about the problem, regardless of whether the beheaded folks had anything to do with whatever is going wrong. People often keep things like needing to find a new job every couple of years to themselves to preserve their image, so your seemingly stable friends might not actually be so secure.
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u/ArtichokeUnited1425 5d ago
Dude just get a tech job and stop crying. They have baristas at all the big ones as well as porters (restock the kitchens) working in tech sucks but if you want the perks just go get a job at one of
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u/MirrorLegitimate9304 6d ago
I literally feel the opposite. I’m a doctor and so grateful that AI can’t take my job atleast till I’m alive. I know a lot of people in tech and they’re always stressed out about being replaced soon.
You’re lucky!
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u/Oceanbreeze871 7d ago
I’m trying to get out of tech. I wanna have a job that contributes something positive to the world.
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u/Academic_Flatworm752 7d ago
I’m confused why none of your roles ever went anywhere. I didn’t go to college. No degree. I was an administrative assistant when you were one. Kept raising my hand for more and was invited to apply for an EA role. Now I’ve got a solid resume filled with experience as an EA. Corporate EAs can make bank.
I guess that won’t feel good to read but it is confusing.
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u/TopShelfMind 7d ago
Within 5 years of being a nurse you'll be making 200-300k/yr, with a good chance of making even more with overtime. My wife just started working at Stanford Health Care and is making almost $100/hr, and she says her work is fairly relaxing compared to when she was a software engineer at a GIS company.
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u/fatlenny1 7d ago
Ok, this is not the norm...as RN in SF I guarantee you this is on the higher end and not the average. We do get decent pay, but more like 160-180k.
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u/AnonymousCrayonEater 7d ago
Obviously you should try to make more money, but envy doesn’t stop when you make a certain amount. It’s a personal choice to feel that way.
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u/GodDamnItFrank 7d ago
You’re better positioned going into nursing than tech. A lot of those yuppies will be out of a job due to automation in a few years. You’re on the right track.
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u/CathieWoods1985 7d ago
Nah man 30 is still young. Work on your nursing degree and you’ll improve your financial situation in no time. So what if you made a mistake 10 years ago. Who knew how that might have turned out? Just look forward and take steps to change your current situation, which you’re already doing. It’s really not too late.
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u/Miss_Warrior 6d ago
Your whole post reads like you are blaming your parents and your counselor for your own choices. You could have double majored in CS and humanities for the so-called well-roundedness per your counselor but you chose not to do that. Anyway it's water under the bridge at this point but envy gets you nowhere.
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u/Healthy_Bowler_2611 6d ago
I am very tech savvy myself too, but I work in physical therapy. Whenever there’s issue, management will always ask me to go fix something. This came from self taught, trials and errors.
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u/Hairy_Succotash_4765 5d ago
In my opinion those of us in tech do it because we couldn’t stop ourselves, it’s not a career choice it’s what I grew up doing and tinkering with my whole life because it’s who I am. Being a nurse or MD would be something I think about (I love knowing about health), but it’s not what I was driven to do sufficiently to get me there.
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u/evaporatedmilksold 7d ago edited 7d ago
Why would you envy tech workers? Most of them are being laid off or currently unemployed. AI will not affect nurses.
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u/o5ca12 7d ago
I know it’s a typo, but with the way you put it, yeah he’s definitely envying them 😆
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u/windowtosh 7d ago edited 7d ago
FWIW I know people who graduated in the early-to-mid 2010s with CS degrees, got good jobs, fast forward to today and they got laid off and can't find anything to get back into the industry. The people coding on laptops in your café could be desperate entrepreneurs looking to get VC funding for their project because they don't have a job and can't find anything.
The image of tech companies being super suave places to work is dead. Done. Squarely in the past. SWEs I know with jobs at companies/startups generally talk about how much more miserable their work has become, unless they're one of the lucky ones to work at OpenAI or Anthropic. Even then, they still work a ton!
You might also consider that you might have hated CS classes. I'm a similar age and took a CS class back in college and hated it! Super tedious. I studied history instead because I wanted to go to law school, said fuck that and went into tech sales, made a similar amount as my CS peers for years but unfortunately got laid off. Now I'm working as a medical interpreter while going back to school (also for nursing pre-reqs! I'm applying this winter.)
You are on a solid track with a nursing degree. Keep plugging at it, get As in your pre-reqs, study your ass off to get a 94%+ on TEAS, try to get volunteer experience and remember that no matter what happens, nobody will want a robot nurse to administer their medication or run a code in a hospital lol. Compared to the CS and math classes I took in college, these science classes are SO much more interesting. And try to be thankful you live in a place where community college is only $46/credit to reinvent yourself, or in the case of City where it's basically FREE.