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Many are walking away from their high-paying jobs — and have zero regrets. Insider spoke to seven people who left behind coveted roles at major companies in tech, finance, consulting, and fashion.
From combatting work-induced burnout to chasing long-held dreams, these former corporate employees reveal why they don't miss their old lives. They now have new pursuits and want to share valuable lessons with those considering career shifts.
Navdeep (Navi) Singh
Navdeep Singh is a former Amazon software engineer who experienced anxiety because of the pressure at work. He said deadlines at Amazon were aggressive and that he felt he wasn't allowed to ask questions.
Singh told Insider that he felt almost paralyzed: he couldn't ask questions because he was expected to solve problems by himself, and he was afraid that he would make a mistake. "During this time, my team hired more new grads, and I couldn't help but compare myself to them and think I was the worst one among them."
Singh eventually quit Amazon after two months and he started feeling better. "I just wish I had known sooner that what happened while I was at Amazon didn't define me or my capabilities."
Read more: I quit Amazon after 2 months. The job was as stressful as I'd read about.
Xaviera Ho spent years working towards her dream job at JPMorgan. Two years after landing her dream job as an investment analyst, Ho quit. She said there's no such thing as work-life balance or work-life integration.
Xaviera Ho
Ho also said working in a large organization like JPMorgan, whose headquarters are located in the US, can feel like being a cog in the wheel at times. "Many initiatives or positive changes that you want to implement can get lost in a web of bureaucracy. I realized that I prefer to have the autonomy to start projects. I wanted to be closer to the key decision makers."
Vivian Tu
Vivian Tu is a former trader at JPMorgan who also worked in sales and marketing at BuzzFeed. She told Insider that leaving Wall Street was one of the best decisions she has ever made — it allowed her to figure out that she's good at — and can get paid to do — so many other things. Leaving also gave her the experience and skills to start her content creation journey, launching a channel called "Your Rich BFF."
"I consider myself lucky in my career because I have no regrets, which is rare. That said, I hope my story of job hopping can show people that company loyalty is no longer the norm, and frankly — it doesn't pay. "
Angelina Lu is a former business analyst at McKinsey & Company who now gives consulting and career advice on social media.
Lu says the McKinsey workload was extremely demanding. "We averaged workdays of 12 to 15 hours. On Mondays, I'd typically wake up at 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. before getting to the airport to catch the earliest flight to meet my client. I'd use the flight to catch up on work, get ready for the day, or nap to get more rest," she told Insider.
Lu ultimately made the decision to leave because she wanted to explore and grow in other aspects of her career, but she said leaving McKinsey came with its tradeoffs. Not only did she take a pay cut, she also forfeited the opportunity to pursue an advanced degree sponsored by McKinsey. Lu now works as a product manager at a tech startup and loves seeing the impact she makes.
Eric Yu was a software engineer at Meta and experienced panic attacks due to work pressure.
Eric Yu
"In November 2019, I experienced my first panic attack while I was working from home. It was around 4 p.m., and my left pinky went completely numb. At first, I ignored it, but it got worse: An hour in, my ears were ringing, and my heart was beating really fast."
Yu told Insider that he knows it sounds crazy to leave a $370,000 job, and staying at Meta for the rest of his life would have ensured financial security, but he knew it wasn't right for him. Now, Yu and his fiancée have started house hacking, a lower-cost way of getting into real estate.
Elizabeth Rosenberg was the global head of communications for a large ad agency. She worked 60-plus hours a week, as PR is a demanding "always on" role that thrives in high-stress situations and can very easily lead to burnout, she told Insider.
One day, she experienced intense stress at work, which brought on a severe migraine that sent her to the emergency room. She knew she had to make changes and ultimately quit her agency job.
Rosenberg told Insider that no job on earth is worth putting your mental and physical health at risk — and that while there isn't a one-size-fits-all answer for burnout and stress, self-awareness is the starting point of change.
"Everything from setting boundaries around your health and not apologizing for it to speaking up to your supervisor before you get to your breaking point will help you," she said. "We shouldn't have to prove we're good at our jobs by the number of hours we put in or how much we can push ourselves to the breaking point."
Vincent Chan used to work in finance after being sold the dream that working in finance is very sexy. But in his role, he saw that every new person was trying to outwork the other person at his company. "Once one person started building that kind of workplace culture, another person would follow suit because they didn't want to be left behind. Everyone was trying to impress their respective bosses to try to get a raise or get that promotion."
Eventually, Chan quit his job and primarily focused on content creation. He has a presence on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram and manages a finance newsletter. "I wish I didn't drink the corporate America Kool-Aid so much in college," he told Insider. His biggest advice for people who want to quit is to brush up on personal finance skills. "If you have the safety net, you have more options."
Julia Fernsby
Julia Fernsby moved to New York City from Ireland right after college to work. However, her dream fashion job was not what she envisioned, and the city felt overwhelming and unfriendly.
She said she felt very judged at work, and her co-workers reminded her of Regina George in 'Mean Girls.' "I was a bit heavier than other girls. I wasn't tall, didn't wear makeup, and had a funny accent. I tried to fit in with my clothing, but I wasn't financially stable and couldn't afford extravagant shopping. I wore similar clothes but in worse-quality material. I couldn't afford a good hairdresser."
Fernsby's journey serves as a reminder — sometimes, it's the detours in life that lead us to where we're meant to be.
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Kenny Williams resigned from three jobs in less than a year. He said knowing when and how to pivot is an important lesson he's learned in his career.
"I resigned from the next job, after only two weeks. It was incredibly hard to leave a full-time job with benefits in such a short amount of time. My toxic ideas about professionalism made me feel uncomfortable at the mere thought. But I knew that if I stayed, I'd be miserable."
Williams told Insider that he doesn't consider how other people feel about upholding old standards of professionalism. "Thanks to Gen Z, standards of professionalism are changing for the better and they've given me the courage to be a part of that movement."
