Retiring from tech to farm mushrooms is valid — but so is building your escape

"I am retiring from tech to live offline" got 848 points. The author is a senior engineer who quit after 15 years to farm mushrooms in rural Washington. Half the comments are "good for you," half are "but what about the money?"

I get it. Tech burns people out. The constant churn, the imposter syndrome, the feeling that you're always one framework behind. I've felt it. Most devs I know have felt it. here's the thing — but retiring from tech isn't the only answer. look, sometimes the answer is building a tech stack that doesn't burn you out.

My approach: automate everything I can, own everything I must, and spend time on things that actually matter. n8n handles my workflows. Ghost handles my publishing. Python handles the glue. I don't fight the tools — I make them work for me.

The author of that post isn't retiring from tech. They're retiring from tech industry culture. The standups, the OKRs, the pretend-agile, the resume-driven development. I don't blame them. But you don't have to leave the industry to escape the bullshit. You can build your own lane.

I run a blog that generates itself. I have trading bots that execute without me. I build games on itch.io that sell while I sleep. This isn't retirement — it's leverage. The difference is I'm still building, just not on someone else's timeline.

The HN commenters asking about money are missing the point. The author didn't quit because they couldn't make money. They quit because the money wasn't worth the cost. The real question is: what are you building that makes the cost worth it?

For me, it's the freedom to write a blog post like this at 2am because my automation stack handles the publishing. That's the win. Not retirement — autonomy.

. That's how I see it anyway.