This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Nitya Kumar, 25, an Adobe employee who lives in India. The following has been edited for length and clarity. I landed a product design role at Meta straight out of college in 2022. By 2024, I saw the industry pivoting toward AI and wanted to learn new AI design skills. During this process, I stopped seeing my career as a ladder with a focus on moving upward. In my view, all work and no play keeps the Big Tech offers away, so I started