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Really an employee at a FANG is not going to be a boomer Gen X at most.
Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
181–190 of 418 posts
Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
#182> First, what is the environment like for exiting high-level former-FANG employees? For most employers, it will be a positive. There may be a handful of very small startups that see it as a negative, but the reality is a very small startup is so different from a giant tech firm that the hiring team is probably correct in assuming you've never had to do something incredibly arduous without enormous support (I once had…
> Just realize it's not going to be anything like a giant tech firm, where you don't realize they actually do 99% of the job for you. This. So much this. All those teams of devops people, the SREs, the QA people, the network engineers and all the other unsung heroes don't exist in a startup yet the people who only ever worked at BigCo assume that they do and so forget about all of the problems involved in building a…
> All that build infrastructure or coding standards or documentation or monitoring systems that you took for granted at Google or Facebook? None of it exists. Not only that - you won't be rewarded for building it, instead you'll be asked why the next person to come behind you got their work done faster than you did.
Not necessarily like that, but yes, almost. For instance, if someone sat down and spent a month writing documentation for shit we might pivot from in two, I must fire myself for having let it happen. Just wasting money and (perhaps more importantly) time.
I've definitely seen what you're saying happen, though. Lots of FAANG engineers not experienced in how things come to be.
- "Why don't we have blue/green deploys?"
- "Great idea. What will it help us with and how can we make it happen?"
That's likely to happen. Someone else speccing out a deploy system for you with canaries or b/g or whatever so you can go write some code isn't going to. You're hopefully independent enough to make the case, build the thing fast enough that it's worth it to the business, and have it running.
Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
#183> First, what is the environment like for exiting high-level former-FANG employees? For most employers, it will be a positive. There may be a handful of very small startups that see it as a negative, but the reality is a very small startup is so different from a giant tech firm that the hiring team is probably correct in assuming you've never had to do something incredibly arduous without enormous support (I once had…
> Just realize it's not going to be anything like a giant tech firm, where you don't realize they actually do 99% of the job for you. This. So much this. All those teams of devops people, the SREs, the QA people, the network engineers and all the other unsung heroes don't exist in a startup yet the people who only ever worked at BigCo assume that they do and so forget about all of the problems involved in building a…
I almost got burned by this. The COO of the company basically asked my why I wasn't getting anything done. I had to be direct and say that I'm happy to spend 100% of my time coding new features, but he is going to have to answer the phone when a customer says the site is down, because I will be too busy coding.
Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
#184Just as general advice, try to count your blessings and quit complaining so mcuh. If this is your attempt at humblebragging, then quit doing that as well.
Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, I almost always forget how fucked up American healthcare system is. However with this much money, even a 1M stacked, one can live a happy life in anywhere in the world. I have a friend living in Berlin working 10h / week for a SF startup remotely and meanwhile he enjoys playing music and building stuff for fun.
Yes, if I didn’t have passive income sufficient to pay for all of my and my family’s healthcare, I wouldn’t feel economically secure in the US. And that means at least $70k to $150k in passive income per year.
That sounds very depressing TBH.
With 70k passive I could retire in Hungary. Just by having $150k in your bank account would give you 5-8 years of runway in Budapest to live a very good life.
Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
#186Can you power through another year - just 12 more months - this time saving as much as absolutely possible, so that you can better weather whatever comes your way. Write the goal down - save $xxx or leave in 12 months. Track the goal. See if you still want to leave once you hit the goal.
Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
#187> First, what is the environment like for exiting high-level former-FANG employees? For most employers, it will be a positive. There may be a handful of very small startups that see it as a negative, but the reality is a very small startup is so different from a giant tech firm that the hiring team is probably correct in assuming you've never had to do something incredibly arduous without enormous support (I once had…
I've found FAANG experience typically a negative in hiring. (note: "typically" not "always"). That kind of big company experience doesn't really prepare you for the day-to-day, frantic, resource-starved environment of most startups. The consequence of most decisions is more immediate* -- and can be company-killing. Whereas at any big company there's rarely true pressure (lots of pressure, very much so, but in my gf's…
Very few startups have failed because the coders couldn't solve a algorithms problem in 45 minutes. A lot of startups have failed because the coders built something that didn't have a large market, or didn't compete well with existing competition.
The big O of a function matters when you have 100 million users, not so much when you are struggling to get 1 user.
Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Just realize it's not going to be anything like a giant tech firm, where you don't realize they actually do 99% of the job for you. This. So much this. All those teams of devops people, the SREs, the QA people, the network engineers and all the other unsung heroes don't exist in a startup yet the people who only ever worked at BigCo assume that they do and so forget about all of the problems involved in building a…
> All that build infrastructure or coding standards or documentation or monitoring systems that you took for granted at Google or Facebook? None of it exists. Not only that - you won't be rewarded for building it, instead you'll be asked why the next person to come behind you got their work done faster than you did. Not necessarily like that, but yes, almost. For instance, if someone sat down and spent a month writin…
It can get a bit cumbersome. Especially for people coming fresh into an agency environment. You are going to have to learn a dozen different build pipelines and tech stacks by the time you are done at the agency. We are absolutely aware of blue green deploys or whatever it may be, in fact client X had it, they are gone now though and our most recent inherited code base uses cloud formation to spin up feature specific environments instead, have fun learning that and then never using it again.
We work hard to normalize tech stacks and deploys as they come in, but it is always a cost/benefit tradeoff and very often "leave it alone" is the clients choice.
Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your answer is very inspiring and also perfect example for youngsters to understand money and productivity are not the only things that matters in life. I had a similar junction in my life and I selected money instead of pursuing family and academic life, now I'm starting to think maybe wasn't a good decision. I'm getting older (38) Do you mind if I ask did you also quit your job to pursue Phd? Nowadays started worki…
> I had a similar junction in my life and I selected money instead of pursuing family and academic life, now I'm starting to think maybe wasn't a good decision. I'm getting older (38) Wasn't a good decision despite making money or wasn't a good decision because you didn't make enough?
More specifically, I think at the end, money that I got wasn't worth not spent time with family and pursuing different life paths. My friends who were taking it slow has not much of a different life than I do now.
More deep in that topic, Mihály Csíkszentmihályi has a good experiment where they research about what life worths living by asking many participants with different incomes. Result was pretty clear that after some amount of money the life standard has a plateau.
At the end I think this can be considered as an engineering optimisation problem of scarce sources which is limited "time", therefore if I had a second chance I would choose balance more then leaning to one side of family, religion, work triangle.
ref : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66333.A_Life_Worth_Livin...
Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
#190Just get a 9-5, check-in, check-out. Find some hobbies, work on your personal relationships. Remind yourself: "It is just a job. I mean nothing to any company who would happily replace me in a heartbeat if I screw-up."
It's just a job man, it doesn't matter at all as long as the paychecks come in.