When Cinneah El Amin was laid off from her tech job in 2023, she wasn't in any rush to get another corporate role.

Instead, El Amin took it as a sign to go all in on her own business, Flynanced, which offers career and personal finance advice to ambitious working women.

For the next year, she saw her "corporate sabbatical" as a time to grow as an entrepreneur. She put out new social media content, expanded her audience and booked deals with partners like TD Bank and Intuit Quickbooks.

But by the spring of 2024, El Amin was burned out. So she made a decision a lot of startup founders might shy away from: to scale back on her own business and get another 9-to-5 job for steady income.

"This is not me admitting failure," El Amin says. "This is just me redefining what success looks like for me."

When entrepreneurship leads to burnout

For the 30-year-old, going back to working for an employer meant more job stability, a structured routine, better health insurance and a steady paycheck.

She sees it as a form of self-care, one that also removes the pressure to monetize every ounce of effort that goes into Flynanced.

"It's a huge leap to go from having a brand alongside a 9-to-5 to that being your primary source of income," she says.

The financial pressure pushed El Amin into overdrive on her business, which led to exhaustion and burnout.

"I was always thinking about the next sale, the next brand deal, she says, "and it felt like I was moving away from why I started this, which is to help women with their finances and career journeys."

Ultimately, she adds, "I felt like I couldn't really serve my community from that cup."

Job searching tips after a break from the workforce

But El Amin was entering a job market that hadn't improved from the time she was laid off. For months she faced headwinds of low job openings and hiring activity, especially in her field of financial services.

"I can't lie, when I started my job search, I definitely felt a little bit of anxiety around, 'Will I really be able to find what I'm looking for?'" El Amin says.

She worried she wouldn't be able to match her old salary or keep a remote-first job.

So she had to get strategic: El Amin got clear on the skills she was bringing to the job market as a technical product manager and about the types of jobs she wanted. She focused her search on companies in her previous industry, and she worked with a coach to nail down her career story — including all the things she learned during her career break and building Flynanced full-time.

Her biggest lesson was learning to connect the dots and show how her entrepreneurship journey makes her a better product manager. "Building an idea from concept through launch is very similar to working through the product management life cycle," she says.

Another key takeaway: "I didn't have to hide something that I have a lot of passion for," El Amin says. Mentoring other women on work and personal finance "is something I like to do, the same way people have other hobbies outside of work that they don't hide."

That being said, El Amin says it was important to communicate that she could scale back her business to be a side hustle as she took on a new day job.

The LinkedIn trick that led to a job offer

After an "aggressive" and "intentional" search for several months, during which she estimates she applied to upwards of 300 roles, El Amin landed an offer as a senior product manager with the federal government in September and started her new job in October. She works fully remotely and feels fortunate to replace her previous six-figure income from working in the private sector.

El Amin says she found her role using a LinkedIn trick to search for users' "I'm hiring" posts, rather than through the platform's jobs board.

"Going into federal government was not even on my radar," she says, "and if that individual had not put out a post saying, 'Hey, this agency is looking for product managers,' I would have never found it."

Like many, El Amin thought working for the federal government would translate to career stability. But she says the Trump administration's efforts to slash the size of the federal workforce through mass layoffs has thrown that assumption into question.

Following President Donald Trump's executive order on Jan. 20 calling for the end of remote work in government roles, she's accepted that she might have to return to an office at some point. So far, however, no plans have been explicitly announced for her office base in New York City.

"I don't rest in this job thinking that I have full job security," El Amin says.

That being said, "I'm motivated to do this work because it's probably the first time in my life that I really feel like I'm working on something that brings me fulfillment as a product manager. I am working on mission-critical services that help the American people. And that feels really good."

Now, El Amin spends about 10 hours per week working on Flynanced and "serving the existing community."

Committing to both a day job and a side hustle requires ruthless prioritization, she says. "I'm happy where Flynanced is, but I'm also just really intentional. I don't want to burn myself out."

"I love being an entrepreneur," El Amin says. "I also love having options."

Want to earn some extra money on the side? Take CNBC's new online course How to Start a Side Hustle to learn tips to get started and strategies for success from top side hustle experts. Sign up today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $97 (+taxes and fees) through April 1, 2025.

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It's newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life.