Software engineer quits $250,000 job to open matcha cafe in Manhattan

Michelle Yang, 29, said she was making about $250,000 a year as a software engineer in New York. This was enough money to travel, buy almost everything I wanted, and for the first time in my life not have to worry about money.

But back in 2022, Yong felt increasingly disconnected from her work. Despite the high pay, she says she no longer sees the point in spending her days behind a computer screen.

“It felt like a fake piece,” she told CNBC Make It. “What am I really doing this for?”

Yong now runs Matcha House, a cafe on Manhattan’s Lower East Side that specializes in matcha, a finely ground green tea. The cafe opened in July 2025, but she expects to pay herself about $33,000 in 2026, an 87% pay cut.

Leaving software engineering wasn’t an impulsive decision. Before opening the cafe, Yong traveled to Japan to research matcha, worked pre-dawn shifts at Starbucks to learn operations, and wrestled with contractors to turn a vacant storefront in Manhattan into his own matcha shop.

Yeung expects the cafe to be profitable in its first year of operation. The transition came with long hours, financial uncertainty and a major lifestyle change, but she says the trade-off was worth it. “I wanted purpose and meaning.”

Yeung was born in San Francisco, and for the first eight years of her life, her family of five lived in a basement studio apartment in Chinatown. After her father left when she was 12, her mother supported Yong and her two older brothers by running a day care business from their home, she says.

“My family did a really good job of making sure I didn’t feel poor, even though they were well aware that they were poor,” Yong said.

Yong shared a bed with her mother until she left home to attend university. I remember growing up in a household where money was spent carefully and family vacations were rare. She says she didn’t feel deprived because many of the families around her lived similar lives.

Still, money worries shaped many of the family’s aspirations, Yang said.

“For as long as I can remember, financial stability has been the ultimate goal,” Yang says. “My brothers and I, our main goal has always been to get rich or to reach a level where we no longer have to worry about money.”

Yeung excelled in math at school and felt software engineering was a natural career path after his older brother encouraged him to do so. By the time he graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in applied mathematical science in December 2019, Yeung had already landed his first software engineering job in New York.

His compensation package of about $160,000, including salary and bonuses, felt unrealistic.

“I was actually shocked,” Yong said. “That was a huge number for me, having grown up with such a small number of people in my family.”

Over the next few years, Yeung’s compensation steadily increased. Despite her financial success, she says she felt increasingly alienated from the job itself.

“I quickly realized that I was doing it because of the amount of money it offered me,” says Yeung.

This frustration ultimately convinced Yeung that he wanted to quit software engineering altogether. She says that by 2023, she started actively saving money and cutting back on expenses like rideshare services, streaming subscriptions, and travel, building a financial cushion that would allow her to finally step away from technology.

In the summer of 2024, while drinking matcha tea with friends in Manhattan, Yong began to think more seriously about something he had noticed for years. That was, “There are no good matcha shops in New York.”

She had been making matcha at home for years, but wondered, “Why does my matcha taste better?”

Although it wasn’t an overnight decision, this realization convinced Yeung that opening her own matcha cafe might be the career move she was looking for.

After Yeung decided he wanted to open a cafe, he didn’t immediately quit his software engineering job. Instead, she spent months laying the groundwork for Matcha House while working in the technology industry.

In the fall of 2024, Yong traveled to Japan to learn more about matcha sourcing and production. Back in New York, she worked the opening shift at Starbucks from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m., then attended a software engineering conference in the morning.

“I was on my own little mission,” Yang says. “After spending the past five years sitting in front of a computer, it was fun to do something physical and learn this completely new skill.”

Yeung said he felt ready to leave software engineering by early 2025. By that time, she had accumulated more than $200,000 in savings, but she initially planned to use the money for more traditional goals, such as buying a home and attending graduate school.

Opening the cafe was more difficult than Yeung expected. She said contractors often didn’t take her seriously or didn’t finish the work they promised, leading to delays and a series of last-minute setbacks.

Yeung says she couldn’t have opened the cafe without the help of friends. They assembled furniture, hung curtains and helped mop up water after the cafe flooded the night before opening day.

In the cafe’s early days, Yong spent most of her waking hours at the shop, often working 12-hour days, and whipped all the drinks herself. “My life is all about work. I have no regrets,” Yong says.

But she soon realized that the business wasn’t entirely dependent on her behind the bar. Her brother helped out for a few weeks, gradually building a team of employees to help run the cafe.

Yeung wanted to bring the same level of care and precision to matcha that is seen in American coffee culture, including how the tea is stored, whipped, and prepared. She focused on a limited menu of matcha drinks and was able to keep inventory costs relatively low.

Now, Yeung says he works much longer hours for a fraction of the salary he once earned, paying himself only as much as he needs to, while reinvesting much of his business profits back into the company to support staffing and operations.

But she says she finds more fulfillment in frothing drinks and running her own business than in her previous job.

“I’m not really motivated by money anymore,” Yong says. “At the end of the day, I’m just happy with what I did.”

The cafe was on track to be profitable in its first year, but was close to breaking even during the winter, according to documents seen by CNBC Make It. Yeung said she ultimately invested about $150,000 of her own money into Matcha House, and is now gradually recouping that initial investment.

Just before opening Matcha House, Yeung gave up her $3,300-a-month Manhattan studio apartment and moved in with a roommate to cut costs.

Currently, much of her time and energy is spent running her business, leaving little room for discretionary spending on things like travel and entertainment.

“My spending is only on necessities,” she says.

In March 2026, her total personal expenses were $2,291. Here’s a breakdown of her expenses:

Rent: $1,750 for sharing an apartment with a roommate Food: $258 for groceries and eating out Transportation: $112 for subway rides and Uber trips Discretionary: $94 for household items, including a cell phone charger Utilities: $38 for electricity and her share of Wi-Fi Subscriptions and memberships: $25 for Netflix and Spotify Phones: $15

Based on her current income, Yeung qualifies for Medicaid and does not pay any monthly premiums.

Yeung said she has no student loans, car payments or credit card debt. She said she took out about $25,000 in student loans, but paid off most of the balance with her internship earnings before graduating from college, and the rest soon after starting her first job.

Almost a year after opening, Yeung says Matcha House is running more smoothly and with far less disruption than when it first started. The cafe now employs about 10 part-time workers, and Yeung no longer has to open the shop himself every morning.

Still, she says she spends most of her life working.

“My life is more about what I do every day than how much money I make now,” Yong says. “It’s been a year since I started the business, and I’m just grateful that I was able to get through the year and survive another year.”

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