From Corporate Job to Designing Jewelry: Techie Quits Corporate Life to Build Jewelry Brand due to High Work Pressure
From Corporate Job to Designing Jewelry: Techie Quits Corporate Life to Build Jewelry Brand due to High Work Pressure
Jessica Yen, 33, left high-pressure analytics roles at top firms to launch Surfers Jewelry
At 33, Jessica Yen has traded corporate burnout for creative freedom. Once a consultant at Deloitte and later a data analyst at Salesforce, Yelp, and Cruise, Yen is now the founder of Surfers Jewelry, an e-commerce brand built for the surfing community.
Her corporate career began in 2014 at Deloitte’s San Francisco office, where she quickly realized the glamour of consulting was overshadowed by long commutes and little control over projects. Moving into data analytics at Salesforce in 2016, she honed her skills but soon found herself consumed by deadlines and executive demands. “At my peak stress, I had dreams about redoing Excel formulas, obsessing over whether I’d divided something twice or misplaced a decimal,” she recalled in an essay for Business Insider.
After stints at Yelp and the self-driving car company Cruise, the exhaustion deepened. By 2020, during the pandemic, Yen stepped away from corporate roles. She experimented with coaching and launched her first e-commerce venture, Daily Work Journal, which she later sold in 2024.
Surfing, initially just a hobby, became her next chapter. “I never planned on building a business around it, but it became the perfect synergy; that’s how Surfers Jewelry began,” she said. Today, she designs and markets jewelry for surfers while occasionally continuing coaching with past clients.
Yen credits her corporate years for equipping her with essential entrepreneurial skills. “Whatever you specialize in becomes your edge as an entrepreneur,” she noted, adding that her analytics background helps her confidently run the financial and operational side of the business.
For her, the shift has been about more than work, it’s about identity. “Most of my peers stayed in corporate jobs, but I see entrepreneurship as my long-term path. It’s high risk, high reward, but the flexibility and creative freedom make it worth it.”
