I left my successful career in technology to become a watchmaker.<\/p>\n
Even writing that still feels strange. I signed with Snowflake in December 2018, one of the first ten employees in the Amsterdam office. Over the years I built a diverse team of world-class Solution Engineers, watched many of them grow into larger roles, and eventually became a Senior Manager myself responsible for multiple teams. I built a strong internal network. I had earned trust. I was respected by the people I worked with and, I hope, liked by many of them as well. The team was performing. I was performing. I was earning good money. Things were going well.<\/p>\n
So why in the world would someone leave that?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n
The funny thing is that I\u2019ve asked a similar question before.<\/p>\n
I still remember a sunny day in December 2018. I was driving past the Heineken office in Amsterdam after what would become one of the most important job interviews of my career. Snowflake had only two employees in the Netherlands at the time. It was an unknown database company that most people had never heard of. I called my best friend from the car and talked him through the interview. It felt surreal. Was I really considering leaving a company where I was respected, comfortable, and knew exactly what I was doing to join a tiny startup with an uncertain future?<\/p>\n
At the time, it felt like a crazy decision. Looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. Looking back, I find it amusing that some of the same people who thought joining Snowflake was risky later thought leaving Snowflake was risky.<\/p>\n
The circumstances changed, but the question remained the same:<\/p>\n
Was I willing to leave something good in pursuit of something that felt more right?<\/p>\n
Maybe this question never really goes away. Reflecting on this question is also one of the reasons I\u2019m writing this. Partly, this article is for me. Major life decisions deserve reflection, and writing helps me understand what I think. But I also hope it might help someone else. Not because I think everyone should leave their job, start a business, or become a watchmaker. Quite the opposite. I hope this story encourages people to think honestly about where they are, where they want to go, and whether the two still align.<\/p>\n
If it helps even one person to be honest with themselves, it will have been worth writing.<\/p>\n
What Success Meant to Me<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n
For most of my career, I thought success was fairly straightforward: build a career, earn a good salary, provide for your family, and keep progressing.<\/p>\n
In my twenties, success meant earning enough to start a family. Later, it became helping other people succeed. I was fortunate enough to build a career in technology, eventually leading multiple teams and helping people develop their careers.<\/p>\n
Looking back, many of the moments I’m proudest of had nothing to do with revenue, targets, or performance ratings. The thing I enjoyed most was never the technology itself. It was the people. Helping someone discover potential they didn’t yet see in themselves. Challenging them when they needed it and supporting them when they struggled. Sometimes that also meant protecting them from the organization itself. Not shielding them from accountability, but creating enough safety that they could experiment, fail, learn, and grow without fear. Many of the moments I’m proudest of involve seeing someone grow.<\/p>\n
For a long time, that was enough.<\/p>\n
When Success Stopped Feeling Right<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n
Over the years, however, something started to change. The company grew. More processes appeared. More metrics appeared. More people became involved in decisions. I found myself spending less time discussing people and more time discussing how people should be measured.<\/p>\n
I understand why large organizations do this. They need consistency, structure, and ways to make decisions at scale. But I increasingly felt a disconnect between what motivated me and what the organization was rewarding. The skills that were becoming more important were not the skills I wanted to spend the rest of my life developing.<\/p>\n
What is important to understand is that this realization didn’t happen overnight. In fact, I stayed longer than many people probably thought I should. That was intentional. I wanted certainty.<\/p>\n
If you leave too early, there could be a voice in the back of your mind asking whether you made a mistake. Maybe it was just a bad quarter. Maybe it was a difficult manager. Maybe things would have improved. I wanted to remove that doubt completely before making a decision.<\/p>\n
And eventually I did.<\/p>\n
Not because the company was bad. Not because the people were bad. Not because corporate life is bad.<\/p>\n
Some of the best professionals I’ve ever worked with are still there and doing exceptionally well. Watching them thrive helped me understand something important: I didn’t belong there anymore. Not because I couldn’t succeed.<\/p>\n
Because success and fit are not the same thing.<\/p>\n
I didn’t leave because I was failing. I left because I was succeeding at something that no longer fit.<\/p>\n
At some point, I realized I had spent years climbing a mountain, a mountain that changed over time.<\/p>\n
I started asking whether it was still the mountain I wanted to climb.<\/p>\n
That’s a very different question.<\/p>\n
Most of us spend a lot of time asking how to win. How to get promoted. How to earn more. How to reach the next level. How to become better.<\/p>\n
Far fewer people stop and ask whether they actually want to keep playing the game they’re currently playing.<\/p>\n
That question stayed with me for a long time.<\/p>\n
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