Why Did I Retire from My Central Government Job as An Assistant Professor at the Age of 32
It was a crazy decision coming from a middle-class family background in India
June 30th, 2021 was my last working day as an ‘Assistant Professor-Grade-II Level-10 of 7th CPC’ in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Pune (IIIT Pune), India.
Getting a central government job is considered like conquering the world by many middle-class families in India. And leaving that at such a young age is considered the craziest thing to do. But I am not crazy after all, so let me take you quickly through my journey and tell you why I did so.
Let me begin by briefly introducing you to my credentials. I had been a meritorious student right from my school days throughout my academic journey including my Bachelor of Engineering (B.E) in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) with Honors grade, qualifying for one of the most prestigious exams after B.E i.e. GATE (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering) twice, securing a university Gold Medal for scoring the highest marks in my Master of Technology (M.Tech) in CSE, qualifying another prestigious exam UGC-NET (JRF), and then Ph.D. in Information Technology with specialization in the broad area of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
In my decade-long career as a full-time employee, I worked for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), two private academic Institutions and Universities. Then, I worked at IIIT Pune for two years.
I received various accolades for my work everywhere I worked. Some of the eminent were: appearing in two of the leading newspapers/portals of India: The Times of India (Education Times) and The Economic Times (ET Government), Publishing three patents, and more than twenty scientific articles in the journals of world-renowned publishers like ‘Springer’, ‘Elsevier’, etc.
Other key achievements were being the Guest Editor of a Springer Nature journal and having 24,395 reads (till date) on ResearchGate (It is the platform for research scholars, just as ‘Medium’ is for writers). With Such credentials and hard work of over 15 years in the field of computer science, I was about to reach the peak of my career when I decided to retire. It was of course unusual but was well-thought.
Over the past year, I have received multiple unsolicited advice and queries regarding my decision to voluntarily retire at the age of 32. I had written a Facebook and LinkedIn post a few months ago to answer the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for my connections on those platforms and got tremendous support from my well-wishers. Now, I have decided to share my perspective here also in the form of my responses to the FAQs.
1. Why did you leave your good job as an Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Pune (IIIT Pune)?
Please refer to the concept of ‘FIRE’ (Financial Independence Retire Early) in finance. It is not like conventional retirement where someone does not work after a certain point. It is just leaving the traditional full-time 9–5 job to work towards your passion and life goals.
a. I know the value of this designation very well, as I had tirelessly worked for years with perseverance to reach there.
b. It’s a prudent decision.
c. I always wanted to do something of my own (Without any geographical restrictions), follow my passion and explore life. COVID-19 made me realize it even sooner (With God’s grace we were not diagnosed with it) when I got stuck at Pune during the second wave, far away from my hometown. My father was alone in my hometown. My Mother was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for a long time (Early onset, at an early age) and passed away in December 2019 (At that time also, I was working at IIIT Pune. Pune is around 1000 Km away from my hometown. I used to take leaves frequently and kept coming to my hometown at regular intervals to visit her).
I was not at all satisfied with my work-life balance for a long time and was gradually preparing for this decision for years. It was also a financially-challenging decision that I knew from the beginning. I am married for more than nine years now. I had discussed this plan of retiring too early with my wife from the beginning and we had adopted a minimalist approach to living since then, which helped me take this decision as we had saved a decent amount till then. After completing my Ph.D. when my salary increased multi-fold and both of us were working, then also, we never increased our expenses. We limited it to what it was previously, which helped in saving more too quickly.
d. Working 12–14 hours daily (Mostly including weekends) was taking a toll on my health and was also not aligned with my broader life goal. My work-life balance was pathetic and I used to actually live only a few days every year. The rest of the time, I had turned into a robot.
After reflecting over a long time, I realized that I had created a small (but enough to follow my passion) corpus by working hard for over a decade. Then, I took this decision.
2. After having lived in metropolitan cities for so many years, how do you manage to live in a small town (Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh)?
With utmost respect to the lifestyle of all the metropolitan cities, I would like to tell you that while living there also, I used to miss my hometown and had always wished to settle there (Most of my close friends and family members know this). This was the reason, earlier also I resigned from Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in 2012 and returned to my hometown. Key factors responsible for this were:
a. Food: It is an important part of my life, and I am a bit selective about it. Even though in today’s world almost every type of food is available everywhere across the globe, but I never found that similar taste (Of the same food item) in any other state.
b. Traffic: I was not comfortable with too much traffic that is there in those metropolitan cities, where it required hours to navigate to the office from home and vice-versa.
c. Proximity to my hometown: I always preferred to work from a place that is near to my hometown (Maybe 3–4 hours’ drive at maximum). But all of these big cities were far away (Many were around 1000 Km away).
d. Friend circle: While working in these cities, I always missed my old friends.
I am a bit choosy about picking my friends. I personally believe that while it is great to have an office colleague as a good friend or even the best friend; the whole friend circle should not narrow down only to the office colleagues due to schedule, geographical, and many other restrictions.
I am not at all criticizing the lifestyle of these cities. I am also not stereotyping. It is just my personal opinion. So, I not only manage but enjoy living in my hometown.
3. Why don’t you try to join some corporate job?
I have received offers from the corporate sector as well, but relocation and doing a ‘full-time job’ (even virtually) is not aligning with my current life goals.
4. So, what’s next? Your plan?
Be patient and stay tuned. I will definitely let you know. But I am not at all in a rush, so I repeat, be patient.
Thank you for reading.
You may also like:
