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Ask HN: How do you escape golden handcuffs at FAANG?

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11–13 of 13 posts

Re: Ask HN: How do you escape golden handcuffs at FAANG?

#11
post #4

I didn't move from FAANG, but a very similar equivalent in my home country. I saw people "golden handcuffed" all the time, and the honest truth is that you have to decide what's more important to you - spending cash on vacuous bullshit and being unhappy at work, or not dreading every monday. You can still find places that pay well, and you don't have to sacrifice your life to them. The big thing is learning to live w…

>> spending cash on vacuous bullshit and being unhappy at work ...

I don't find anything incorrect in your response per se but I hope those weren't your assumptions about my situation and I didn't specify the details either. I've lived within my means, spend only for comfortable leisure travel, no mortgages; otherwise I wouldn't have achieved FIRE.

Neither am I sacrificing due to work as it's a good team with good WLB, it's just that I'm no longer excited by the work without dreading the Mondays. So as I mentioned in another response it's very likely that I'm actually scared of leaving this comfort level.

Re: Ask HN: How do you escape golden handcuffs at FAANG?

#13
post #6

The money thing is real though. What helped me was starting to build stuff on the side before quitting. Shipped a couple of small projects, got some revenue trickling in, and at some point the side thing became more exciting than the day job. That's when leaving felt obvious, not scary.

> Shipped a couple of small projects, got some revenue trickling in

What did you ship?

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