Hello, World.

I’m an unemployed, ex–Big Tech software engineer with 25 years in the industry.

That sentence would have terrified me a decade ago. Today, it feels strangely calm.

We’re living through another brutal cycle of tech layoffs. Thousands of engineers: smart, capable people are refreshing LinkedIn feeds and grinding through interviews that feel increasingly like Squid Game with better lighting. Many are hurting. Some are in real financial distress.

By a combination of discipline, luck, and a few painful lessons, I’m not.

I’m financially independent, though not in the glamorous influencer sense. It’s more like involuntary early retirement. I’m not drawing a paycheck, but our living expenses are covered by returns from a pool of investments built slowly over time. It is an enormous privilege, and I don’t take it lightly.

What follows is not advice. I’m not a financial advisor. I’m simply a middle-aged engineer showing his work, the wins, the mistakes, the weird detours and how they compounded into stability.

Index Funds: The Boring Backbone

In 2008, during the wreckage of the financial crisis, I fell down a personal finance rabbit hole. Your Money or Your Life shifted my thinking. John Bogle’s The Little Book of Common Sense Investing sealed it.

The idea was simple: buy low-cost index funds that mirror the broader market, like the S&P 500, and let time do the heavy lifting. Most active managers fail to beat the market long term. If professionals with teams of analysts struggle, what chance did I have after a day of debugging Java?

So in early 2009, while markets were still bruised, I began investing heavily in S&P 500 index funds with a smaller allocation to total market bond funds, roughly 90/10.

Funding came from:

* 401(k) contributions (eventually raised to 8%)

* Employer matching (free money, always take it)

* Post-tax brokerage investments, which ramped up after we paid off student loans

I also funneled nearly every cash bonus into index funds.

Starting in 2009 was luck. The S&P 500 was near historic lows. Over 17 years, those funds averaged roughly 13% annually. Exponential compounding quietly made index funds our largest asset class. Today, the dividends from our taxable accounts form a meaningful portion of our income.

Boring worked.

Real Estate: Tangible Wealth

My father never trusted fiat currency. He believed real wealth is something you can touch.

So we bought it.

We own our primary residence and two rental properties, all mortgage free. We purchased during the softer post-crisis 2010s and paid them off through aggressive saving.

Some argue a primary home isn’t an investment. I see it as capital that appreciates and reduces our housing cost dramatically compared to renting. The rentals, modest homes within commuting distance of major cities, produce consistent income.

Property values have grown around 7% annually. Rental yields run 7–8% per year for us. Combined, real estate is our second-largest asset class and a powerful stabilizer.

The Side Hustle That Should Have Been Sold

In 2010, I built Android apps to pay off debt. It was the Wild West. Multiple app stores. Low competition. In 2011, I cleared over $100,000.

Then the gold rush ended.

Competition intensified. Earnings halved in 2012. A buyer offered $53,000 for the entire business. I declined, insulted.

I should have taken it.

By 2013, new apps earned less and less. Eventually I stopped building. The old apps trickled income for a decade until Google deprecated the SDK and delisted them in 2023.

Over ten years, the passive income didn’t even reach half the buyout offer.

Lesson: Know when the peak is behind you.

HYSA: Sleep Insurance

A high-yield savings account isn’t exciting. It’s insurance.

We built it from three months of expenses to one year as layoffs at work intensified. After my lay off, the severance added another year. At 3.75%, FDIC-insured, it’s less about growth and more about peace.

Peace compounds too.

Big Tech Stock: Concentration Risk

Joining Big Tech 7 years ago brought RSUs and an ESPP program with a 15% discount, effectively instant upside.

When shares vested in 2020, pandemic growth sent the stock soaring. I held. From 2020–2024, it averaged roughly 22% annual growth for me.

But concentrated positions make me nervous. I’ve been gradually converting shares into diversified index funds to manage capital gains taxes.

Concentration builds wealth. Diversification keeps it.

Precious Metals: Hedge or Warning Sign?

A doomer friend convinced me in 2009 to buy silver. I did, modestly, consistently, every Christmas.

Silver averaged roughly 12% annual growth over that period.

Precious metals produce no cash flow. They simply sit there, shiny and indifferent. Whether that performance represents savvy hedging or currency erosion is an uncomfortable question.

FOMO Stocks: Tuition Paid

In 2014, I invested $20,000 into hype-driven “visionary” tech stocks.

Two years later: $7,000 gone. Roughly –17% annually.

That was my tuition for ignoring fundamentals.

Soviet Ammo: The Accidental Asset

As a teenager, I bought surplus Cold War ammunition for pennies per round.

It sat in a basement for decades.

Two years ago, I sold one can for $700.

Roughly 10% annualized growth. The market is strange.

Crypto: The Best Return I Don’t Understand

In 2017, skeptical but curious, I mined a small amount of Monero on an old laptop. It earned $17 and destroyed a CPU fan.

I converted it to Bitcoin and forgot about it.

Today, it’s worth around $200, about 27% annualized growth.

It’s my best-performing asset.

I still don’t understand it.

The Big Picture

We made mistakes. Missed peaks. Held too long. Sold too soon. Chased hype. Ignored offers. Got lucky.

But over 17 years, consistent investing in productive assets, especially low-cost index funds and real estate, did most of the heavy lifting.

Financial independence wasn’t achieved through genius. It was built through:

* High savings rate

* Boring diversification

* Employer benefits

* Controlled lifestyle inflation

* And a lot of time

In uncertain times, stability is a gift.

If you’re navigating layoffs, know this: markets move in cycles. Careers do too. The key isn’t predicting the future, it’s surviving long enough for compounding to matter.

If you’re curious to follow this ongoing experiment in middle-aged reinvention, engineering, investing, existential reflection, I write monthly and share updates.

Thanks for reading.

Until next time.

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