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Ask HN: I got let go this morning. What should I do next?

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Re: Ask HN: I got let go this morning. What should I do next?

#181

Post by cpks »

pbz wrote: post #162
UK-AL wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally would not do a startup, unless I was one of the founders. Or they provided me with a non-nedglible equity stake or the best salary I could get. Most developers get tiny, tiny amounts of equity at startups which don't pay off in the end. And the appeal of "interesting work", soon dissipates when your up against deadlines, and the focus is speed not quality code. As is in most startups. Just working at a s…

Could you attach some numbers to what you consider tiny and adequate equity?

Simple bit of math from much earlier in my career:

* Google salary is $180k

* Startup salary is $125k

Expected value of stock options must be >$55k per year to be economically equal. If we assume 5 years to exit, 20% odds of successful exit, and $50 million exit, that means I must own about 3% of the company at the time of exit, assuming I have no risk aversion (and more if I do). Assuming reasonable dilution over the 5 years, I need to get substantially more than 3% today.

In most cases, only founders get that level of equity. The equity offered to future employees is, quite frankly, a complete joke for most startups I've seen. The assumption is that there aren't enough developers who can't value options well that some sucker is gonna get fleeced.

That doesn't make startup the wrong option (I went with it), but the incentives have to be non-financial. Startups can be great or horrible places to learn, depending on how much exposure you have to business processes and similar. In Google, you're in a specialized box. In startups, you can see many more aspects of the operation. Getting into a position with that kind of visibility, however, can be difficult to properly negotiate early in the career.

Re: Ask HN: I got let go this morning. What should I do next?

#182

Post by fandawg195 »

> I have looked into doing freelance work, but as I am self taught my CS skills are not as solid as other developers, and my design skills are just about average. I am more product focused, I try to work as closely to the end user as possible and clearly define what they need.

in my experience unless you are interviewing for a huge silicon valley company, most companies don't get into the nitty gritty of algos. and data structures. rather they will ask more fundamental front-end questions like 'what does this refer to in js' and 'what is prototypical inheritance' and might have you do a small project to showcase your skills.

Re: Ask HN: I got let go this morning. What should I do next?

#183

Post by pacomerh »

kleer001 wrote: post #98

Always have a beer after getting laid off. First off, how much cushion money do you have? Are you living paycheck to paycheck? Do you live in your parent's house? Roommates? Married? Kids? House? How strong is your network? As in, how many people in the industry do you know? If you know a lot of people go freelance. How often do you get unsolicited job requests? If you get 1-2 a year then take some time off and work…

Java? didn't he say he was a Javascript developer

Re: Ask HN: I got let go this morning. What should I do next?

#184

Post by pacomerh »

This was probably for the best. I'd suggest you take some time to really think of what you want to be doing. If you're gonna work for another company now is the time to choose it wisely. Or if you're gonna go the freelancer way, it's also a good time to promote yourself as one. I wouldn't tell you what to choose because that really depends on what type of person you are. Do you like being around people?, are you good working by yourself, etc.

Re: Ask HN: I got let go this morning. What should I do next?

#185

Post by ninjakeyboard »

I have no compsci - I would recommend you do some interviewing to find out what you don't know and fill in the gaps on coursera. Mostly the stanford algorithms 1 course will ensure you have what you need to interview IMO. Apart from that, I don't see much else you miss compared to your compsci peers that isn't directly obtained by work experience and effort.

Re: Ask HN: I got let go this morning. What should I do next?

#187

Post by fat0wl »

frostmatthew wrote: post #166
wombatpm wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for fortune 300 non tech company (despite their NASDAQ listing). Our pension program has been frozen - no new employees can join and years of service no longer accrue additional benefit. There has not been a 401k match in four years, the continuing education program ended with the merger 10 years ago. And the healthcare is marginally better than Obamacare. And raises. Last year they were 0.75%. A startup looks…

I'm guessing when most people [on HN] are comparing big companies to startups they're thinking of tech companies. What you describe may not be unusual for large non-tech companies - but it's pretty horrible compared to large tech ones. If it's feasible you may want to consider looking for a new job. [And FWIW some great advice I got when starting out as a developer was never work where software is a cost-center].

This cost-center point is key. I work for one of the big international electronics corps as an enterprise web dev, but they have no interest in the quality of our work. They don't understand it, they have no belief in codebase maintainability (everything is new development or bugfix, basically as soon as an app is written it becomes frozen legacy code that will sit for 5+ years until a rewrite is finally budgeted).

A lot of the superiors they hire really affect the architectural policies of the company. For example, we can use Spring & jQuery but little else. Now they are trying to write apps with heavier front-end & getting into trouble cuz its a mess of jQuery callbacks with no real js framework. Why? The main architect has never heard of React, Angular, backbone, etc. (not to mention the fact that I'm one of like 2 devs who can actually write js, and unfortunately the other does not possess the equally rare skill: "uses proper design patterns"). You'd think I was joking until you met a bunch of corporate consultant programmers.

Basically, these companies try to boil web development into an old-school "IT" process but the level of intellect is astonishingly low. I've been lookin for a new gig at a tech company for quite a while but it was tough to make a change cuz this is my first gig out of grad school, had to prove myself a bit & build resume.

The only relief is that the corp "cost-center" IT kindof job I have is such a mess that its a good place to study & relax, pace of work is veeeeery slow.

Re: Ask HN: I got let go this morning. What should I do next?

#188

Post by daxfohl »

noarchy wrote: post #175
daxfohl wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh, to be 25 and single again. Trust me by the time you're 35 and have kids you'll have a different sense of what's important. Your kids will be your sunshine but also your responsibility. Early retirement, living on a couple thousand dollars a year, will seem like the dumbest idea ever.

>Ahh, to be 25 and single again. Trust me by the time you're 35 and have kids you'll have a different sense of what's important. Your kids will be your sunshine but also your responsibility. Early retirement, living on a couple thousand dollars a year, will seem like the dumbest idea ever. That's a choice that a 25 year old need not make. For those of us who have hit or are even beyond 35, and chose not to have kids,…

Yes, don't get me wrong, I think it's great to have early retirement as a goal, and maybe even try it out for a while (it was my goal from an early age and I tried it out for three years in my late 20's / early 30's). It's excellent motivation to save money when you're starting out.

And I was in the same boat; when backpacking through Thailand I thought, "Thailand is cheap, I'll just raise a family here". Well sure, for backpackers it's easy to live on 3K per year. But with a couple kids, you'll likely want a safe car (stupidly expensive there), decent schools (again), something nicer than a backpacker hostel, etc. Heck, flights home to visit family will run close to 10K per year alone.

Re: Ask HN: I got let go this morning. What should I do next?

#189

Post by lotharbot »

darkmighty wrote: post #136
lotharbot wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

depends on the lifestyle you want to live. My wife and I might retire in our mid-30s, in the US but not in an expensive area, and be completely comfortable with well under $1 million in assets. Because we live a laid back, low cost lifestyle -- with the house paid off (as of this week) our burn rate is dropping to under $20k per year. You might need considerably more money to maintain your desired lifestyle. There's…

May I ask what is your definition of retirement? I just can't imagine to stop working at that age (maybe it's because I haven't even started).

raise the kids. Make indie games, with the understanding that it doesn't matter if they never make significant revenue. Write. Read. Study. The key point here is really "not needing to earn more money" rather than "not doing anything".
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