Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

#171

Post by illwrks » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 9:51 PM UTC

soylentgraham wrote: post #159

nickthemagicman wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google people make 200k starting as Jr devs so I'm assuming 400k. Esp with PhD. Agreed not super clear what's going on.

Google juniors are more like £40k in london. Jobs over £100k are not the norm, even in finance in london. The awful london housing market (small market, people do NOT sell) starts around £320k for a terrible studio. Banks nowaways tend to loan around 4-4.5x gross salary. (And you need a good chunk already saved, which is also hard as tax and rent is high) £100k salary doesn't buy an average 1 bed in london (and you'r…

Seconded. Most 100k+ jobs in London ( that I'm aware of ) are contracting ones.

Houses ( for anywhere so-so ) are 400k at minimum, or else your aiming for a rabbit hutch.

Taxes of every shape and size will eat a tonne of your income.

Right now your better off looking outside of London. WFH has changed the landscape and it will not be business as usual for the coming years.

Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

#172

Post by armchairhacker » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 9:52 PM UTC

blunte wrote: post #111

ryandrake wrote: post #100

I'm going to be the contrarian. Keep the job. Power through it and retire as early as you can, then you can do whatever you want. If you're in $finance$ or $FAANG$, don't go to a non-FAANG. Definitely don't quit your job unless you have another one lined up, and definitely don't take an extended leave to travel and find yourself. Don't believe "CS grads will always be employed." There are people on HN who graduated i…

What you don't understand is that if you hate life, and perhaps if you have money and comforts that you know should help... but you still are miserable, it feels hopeless. The money traps you. It's so hard to imagine taking a huge pay cut. But that pay cut, and living life the way you want, is more important. Hating most of your hours each day until you're 45 or 50 and then retiring will leave you such a different an…

Agreed. I do think you have to work for your future self and sacrifice some time and happiness for a stable income. But not to the extent that you can't enjoy your current life.

I think that OP should look for another job that he might not love, but will hate less.

Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

#173

Post by jokethrowaway » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 9:55 PM UTC

soylentgraham wrote: post #159

nickthemagicman wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google people make 200k starting as Jr devs so I'm assuming 400k. Esp with PhD. Agreed not super clear what's going on.

Google juniors are more like £40k in london. Jobs over £100k are not the norm, even in finance in london. The awful london housing market (small market, people do NOT sell) starts around £320k for a terrible studio. Banks nowaways tend to loan around 4-4.5x gross salary. (And you need a good chunk already saved, which is also hard as tax and rent is high) £100k salary doesn't buy an average 1 bed in london (and you'r…

Stocks also play a role. The creator of Redux was making 100k£ (+35k£ in stocks) at FB.

That said, there is a huge disparity in salaries in London.

I was making 100k£ per year as a random full time engineer with 15 years of experience in some unknown company and working (potentially) fully remote before covid.

I know VPs and CTOs making 120-200k£.

I could get a contract for 600£-700£ daily and the top contracts I've heard for senior engineers from my friends are 1k£/1.2k£ per day (generally Java or Angular jobs in banking where things are on fire).

There are plenty of engineers who never go past 50k£.

Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

#174

Post by svilen_dobrev » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

Talk with your partner about all this. How you feel, what you dream doing, how you dream doing it.. You said you want to be living/building-life together.

So.. start doing it.

just put all facts on the table, and only facts. Avoid wishfull thinking and definitely avoid "they will hate me" or "i'm no good" black-for-the-sake-of-black thinking. Look for any (kind of) opportunities..

i am sure you will find a way. you HAVE to. No point going insane, for money or not.

good luck

Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

#175

Post by reason-mr » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 10:08 PM UTC

While it does sound like you are burned out, I lived in London for 6 years and hated it - I left as soon as I completed my Ph.D. - it's not a good spot if you are not a city person. My suggestion is to look at remote work, take a pay cut if necessary, and work from where you want to live, at least for a while. Just because you have a Ph.D. this does not mean you have to live in the middle of a large city. Use the money from that job as a vehicle to develop a small, focused piece of software that solves a problem, preferably somewhat related to your Ph.D. work. Get a business person involved in this early to validate the concept, so you sure you are not making something you can't sell, and start selling it. Two outcomes - either you make money (in which case fine) or you don't, and have something to point at showing that you can be self-starting - and then look for a job related to that. Do be rigorous though, and finish what you start (ALWAYS finish what you start). You could begin by doing some focused research to aid in deciding what field you think your academic background confers an advantage in (and is not fintech :))

Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

#176

Post by wly_cdgr » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 10:16 PM UTC

Take a job in an early stage startup doing something that leverages your background (e.g. computer vision). You'll take a pay cut for now but if you become someone that early stage startups want to hire you can hop around until you hit the unicorn jackpot while still drawing a good salary. Also there's a better chance you'll find the work meaningful. If nothing else, you'll have more say/agency

Seems like equal or better EV both in terms of $ and QOL over next 10-20 years

Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

#177

Post by xupybd » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 10:19 PM UTC

Get out, there are more options than you realize. Even another firm in your industry might be a better fit. You are free to move. You are probably better at your job than you realize.

Start applying find out what options you have.

Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

#178

Post by matsy112242 » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 10:20 PM UTC

I didn't make anything like as much & was much earlier in my career but: I was utterly msierable in consulting in London, at what I thought was a baller salary but actually by US/global standards wasn't really. People told me I had to stick it out for minimum 2-3 years. I quit after 8 months and have never, ever regretted that decision. Two career changes later and I still don't make as much as you, but I could feasibly retire (with restraint or some smart investing) or semi-retire by my 40th birthday. 'Retiring' is way cheaper than people think, because they always assume that they would spend as much as they currently do, and that they would never make money again, and that they would pay the same income taxes. I would talk it over with your partner, and so long as he's happy to have you in a search phase for a while, start spending a lot of time on working out things you could conceivably be good at & enjoy, and just neglect your job while you do it (within ethical bounds/don't cause a 2008). You might need to stay on good terms with 2-3 people for references, but honestly the rest of them will only matter to the degree that you find them to be authentically valuable/interesting/good humans.

Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

#179

Post by dom96 » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 10:23 PM UTC

soylentgraham wrote: post #159

nickthemagicman wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google people make 200k starting as Jr devs so I'm assuming 400k. Esp with PhD. Agreed not super clear what's going on.

Google juniors are more like £40k in london. Jobs over £100k are not the norm, even in finance in london. The awful london housing market (small market, people do NOT sell) starts around £320k for a terrible studio. Banks nowaways tend to loan around 4-4.5x gross salary. (And you need a good chunk already saved, which is also hard as tax and rent is high) £100k salary doesn't buy an average 1 bed in london (and you'r…

To add another data point, an FB junior would make around £65k base + ~£27k stock per year (+bonus). So getting over £100k at a FAANG in London seems pretty common to me, I would expect finance to pay even more.

Personally I sympathise a lot with OP. I have a similar "stuck" feeling, I often wonder whether it's all downhill from here (comp-wise) for me. I cannot see myself working for a FAANG forever, so what other choices are there?

Re: Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

#180

Post by dwaltrip » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 10:25 PM UTC

> Given that anything else would involve a massive pay cut, I think I would regret leaving the job I'm in.

Are you sure you aren't willing to trade some amount of money for a difference in work / lifestyle? Have you tied your sense of identity to tightly to this high salary?

> I would find working at Google utterly meaningless as well.

How do you know? Google also isn't the only option. There are a decent number of other high-paying tech companies. And if you are willing to take a salary a tier or two below Google (which is still quite good money, at least in the US -- can't speak for London), then there are tons of options.

It sounds like you may need also some sort of break / mental reset. Life is often hard and confusing! Lots of people struggle with types of difficult decisions. Be kind to yourself :)

Don't be afraid to experiment, try different things out, and then re-evaluate later. There is always more to learn about how to life better. Best of luck to you :)

---

P.S. This is super trite but make sure to exercise a few times a week! Get your blood pumping. I just got back into exercising after a few years of not doing it much, and it has been really helpful for me. It doesn't solve all of one's problems. But our bodies really need to move -- they evolved to do so -- and they feel much better when they do. Plus it's a great way to not worry about all of this bullshit for a time, as our brain is busy managing the physical load. For me personally, rock climbing and running are my favorite ways to exercise. I love rock climbing in particular as it is quite fun so it doesn't even feel like exercise.