I’m leaving my corporate job to study.

Liev Garcia
Jul 29, 2017 · 2 min read

A few months ago I decided to take a year out to do a masters in Data Science. I’ve been interested in the subject for a few years, but was not able to focus on it due to work and family commitments.

I’ve been reflecting on my career future, seeing my work-life will span for at least another three decades, it seemed fair to assess whether more of the same made sense.

I joined the corporate world around 12 years ago and been working in roles such as Pricing Analyst, Data Analyst and Reporting. However, the past three years I’ve been given free range to build web based prototypes for my company for internal use. We built prototypes with a back end in Ruby and front end in (mainly) React. I’ve managed this (growing) team and enjoyed the work, but as the team grew, so did the admin, the need for oversight and management, the need to plan and coordinate what designer, UI, front end, back end, database were doing at any given time.

My decision to leave has nothing to do with the project or the team, this is my baby, or as much as one’s work can be! But I want to go back to doing stuff for myself. I want to write code and think about problems that have nothing to do with someone’s holidays, grudges, corporate politics or priorities. Staying at this job might make me (one day) a better manager, but is this what I want for the next 30 years?

I’m looking forward to the renewed interest and energy this year will bring.

Or maybe I’m wrong. Not!

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