ggodw000 wrote:
Anyone has done it?
Yes. Though, I didn't use the time to learn loads of new stuff. Rather I used it to relax and have fun and escape MS and Seattle's weather (quit and moved to CA). And when I got bored (about 1 year into the break) and longing for a less trivial project to work on (answering stackoverflow questions doesn't quite cut it) I started writing a compiler. A bit later I began considering interviews and job applications.
I cannot say the break was entirely a bad idea or a good idea.
I did spend quite a bit in those ~18 months living in an expensive place in the valley while making close to zero. I didn't get the kind of job offers I'd wanted. [Some people think you're bad or just unworthy of attention if you don't already have a job. Or their offers are modest. Some others suck at conducting interviews. Few seem to read your resume or make any sense of it. To be fair, I should have probably worked harder to get what I wanted.] So, yeah, vanishing savings, stupid crap to deal with, offers that didn't materialize...
But eventually I got something acceptable in a somewhat new area (modems aside, I hadn't done much of network-related stuff before, so I learned a thing or two about network drivers, TCP/IP and Python). I then changed the job to once again something somewhat different (working on a compiler backend) and upped the salary. Looks like my pet compiler project had contributed to getting the last two jobs. Oh, and, of course, there are friends and random people who helped too.
Looking back...
To be safe, have enough money for 6 months of fruitless job hunt.
If you can, move to a cheaper place, but not too far away, so you can still attend events that may help you get a new job (e.g. meetups). [Even a hike with a bunch of new people may get you an interview and an offer. Or a friend may collect a few business cards for you and one contact can work out. You never know.] Or get a roommate to share the cost.
Be prepared to change a job or two to get more money or to get into more interesting projects or both.
There's still plenty of stuff to learn on the job.
P.S. We could meet.