I Quit My Job

I quit my job.

There’s a kind of silence that follows a decision like that. Not panic. Not relief. Just a rare, still moment when everything stops pretending — and you’re face-to-face with yourself. That’s where I was. Not in some dramatic movie scene, just in front of my laptop, cursor blinking on the resignation email.

So, a few days ago, I gave my two-month notice at my remote software engineering job with a Malaysian company.

It wasn’t a reckless move. I thought about it deeply. I had multiple reasons — some practical, some philosophical — but the biggest one was simple: I’m sick of having a job. A regular 9–5 doesn’t feel like it fits the way I see the world or want to engage with it.

Let me be clear: there’s nothing wrong with having a job. It works for a lot of people. Mine even looked ideal from the outside — remote, decent pay, minimal workload. The kind of thing 90% of society would kill for.

But for someone like me — an overthinker constantly searching for meaning in what I build and do — it was a curse.

For two years, I clocked in. Shipped code. Attended meetings. Delivered features. I wasn’t overworked. I had free time during working hours. I even chose to work weekends sometimes just because I enjoyed coding. But increasingly, I felt like I was logging into someone else’s life. Nothing felt like mine.

What really broke me was the client meetings. The politics. The obligation to defend a company I didn’t believe in, to people I didn’t care about, for work I didn’t feel proud of. It started rotting me from the inside.

This wasn’t my first attempt to leave, either. Around the same time last year, the company tried to reassign me to a support engineer role. I pushed back, submitted my resignation, and made it clear I wasn’t going to accept being sidelined.

They panicked. Retained me with:

• A 30% salary increase.
• A guarantee I wouldn’t be on support.
• A promise of new projects — no more legacy code.

And they did follow through — temporarily.

But three months later, I was back in the same toxic legacy codebase. Not as a support engineer, sure, but still stuck in what I thought I had escaped. They said it was temporary. Nine months passed. Nothing changed. One of my colleagues even got moved to a better project while I was still in the mud. I wasn’t bitter — just done.

That’s when everything began to shift. I realized I wasn’t chasing anything anymore. I was maintaining. And “maintenance mode” kills people like me — builders, creators, people who want to make a dent.

So I quit.

I didn’t even bother applying for another job. At least not for another year.

Because I’ve had enough of doing work that feels empty. Enough of pretending that sitting in a Zoom call defending a bug fix to a client is the best use of my time on Earth. I want to do something meaningful, something worthy, something mine.

No, I don’t have a job lined up. I have no income stream. But I have a plan.

Here’s what I’m focusing on next:

• Building a SaaS product that people actually use. I’ll share more about this in future articles.
• Launching a productized software service — turning software engineering into a repeatable offering.
• Creating content — not tutorials, but insights and perspectives. The kind of tech content I wish existed when I was starting out.
• Leveling up technically. I feel like I’ve been stagnating. I want to fix my knowledge gaps, take certifications, and build a lot of serious projects.
• Freelancing fallback. If the SaaS dream doesn’t hit right away, I’ll freelance. And if even that fails? I’ll find a job — but on my terms, and only if I absolutely have to.

I’m not naive. I know this path comes with risk, instability, and awkward conversations with people who won’t understand. But I’m okay with that. Because for the first time in a long time, I’m moving forward with clarity — not comfort.

This isn’t the end of anything. It’s the beginning of something I’ve avoided for too long.

And this time, I get to define the rules.

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Thanks for reading. If you’re curious about what I build next, stick around.