Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#231

Post by badfrog » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 1:36 PM UTC

nvarsj wrote: post #149

These kind of posts keep making me think I should go work for a FAANG so I can actually retire one day. Anyways, as someone on the other side, who has never worked for or applied to FAANG, I have a few reactions. First, your salary is absolutely ridiculous. I know hard working people who have built their own businesses with blood and sweat, and they still don't make as much as a slacker engineer at FAANG. So I'd say…

> these engineers, while they all tend to be very smart, tend to be borderline junior engineers in the real world

Define "real world"?

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#232

Post by SkyPuncher » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 1:37 PM UTC

christiansakai wrote: post #201

sriram_malhar wrote: post #53

I quit full-time work in 2001, after being burned out in the dot com boom. I did well for myself financially after the startup I was in got bought. The phrase "well" is of course subjective, considering that no colleague of mine quit. I left a whole lot of money on the table, but never once have I regretted it. I decided that the name of the game is to optimise quality of life. That means, infrequent brutal deadlines…

I am 32 now. I am inspired to read this. I still need to get over the fact that I am not making anywhere near a FAANG engineer.

You're also likely not paying as much for living either.

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#233

Post by auiya » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 1:40 PM UTC

Having left FAANG in 2012, what I discovered is you become so highly specialized due to the way those orgs have to scale, that you are no longer the "jack of all trades" type person small-to-medium sized orgs want to hire. For instance, my background is large-scale threat hunting, blue team, red team, penetration testing, APT attribution, and some tool development. I was turned down in a recent interview because I didn't ALSO have reverse engineering experience in addition. At FAANG, we had an entire shop dedicated to just reverse engineering. I ended up joining another large company.

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#234

Post by lotsofpulp » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 1:41 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #225

lotsofpulp wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beginning in 50s, health insurance alone is $25k per year in premiums with after tax money plus ~$13k out of pocket maximum per year. Don’t know how a couple can afford to forego that, especially if they have assets that can be taken, the hospital will come for them.

$25k is a bogus number. I know several self employed people. The highest earner is paying $900 a month and the other is paying $800 for 2 people. Another person I know who is 1099 and makes less than $30k is paying about $75 a month. Personally I paid about $30 per month working part time as a waiter in college making about $20k a year.

My parents just purchased a silver HSA plan on healthcare.gov for $2,000 or so per month, with a $13k oop max.

Here’s the source:

https://www.state.nj.us/dobi/division_insurance/ihcseh/ihcra...

A young person’s data points about healthcare costs are useless. It’s the 50s and 60s that get you, and when you actually need healthcare.

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#235

Post by 9nGQluzmnq3M » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 1:41 PM UTC

badfrog wrote: post #231

nvarsj wrote: post #149

These kind of posts keep making me think I should go work for a FAANG so I can actually retire one day. Anyways, as someone on the other side, who has never worked for or applied to FAANG, I have a few reactions. First, your salary is absolutely ridiculous. I know hard working people who have built their own businesses with blood and sweat, and they still don't make as much as a slacker engineer at FAANG. So I'd say…

> these engineers, while they all tend to be very smart, tend to be borderline junior engineers in the real world Define "real world"?

Companies that operate without a firehose of money from advertising or shiny hardware to fund everything.

I came from a series of real world companies struggling to turn a profit to a FAANG, and the difference in, well, everything is pretty vast.

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#236

Post by jpetso » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 1:42 PM UTC

greggman2 wrote: post #165

randomsearch wrote: post #89

> How do I know what the source of the problem is? You don’t like working for FANG. That seems like a totally normal sane response to me. I’d be more concerned about the people who love that corporate environment rather than those it doesn’t give meaning to. Some people like the security and routine and structure (understandable), some people like the politics (weird), but I don’t think you need to overthink this. Th…

> You don’t like working for FANG. That seems like a totally normal sane response to me. I’d be more concerned about the people who love that corporate environment rather than those it doesn’t give meaning to. There are lots of people at Amazon, Google, and I'm sure Facebook that find meaning in their job. Improving search actually does help people, billions of them. Improving the web stack (Chromium) also helps bill…

Except that working on stuff for FAANG doesn't necessarily make things better and instead just helps with monetization and/or lock-in.

Is it really an improvement to cover more of the search results page in ads, centralize ever more functionality on that page which pushes out smaller/independent competitors, track users more comprehensively and optimize mobile loading times by creating a corporate-controlled, Google-hosted format that companies are coerced into instead of doing the same thing with standards-based, distributed technologies?

Is it really an improvement to the "web stack" if Chromium kills diversity in the browser engine space, blurs the lines between client software and Google account, then proceeds to limit ad-blockers' capabilities via extension API changes? While at the same time Google web sites happily go about cross-advertising for more monoculture and deliberately not supporting Firefox even where it provides all required functionality.

(Similar examples exist for other market-dominating companies and products.)

One man's improvement is another one's trading the long-term health of tech and business ecosystems for short-term convenience and stock market returns. It's tempting to believe in the usefulness of one's work is when the massive scale and complexity of FAANG companies make it so easy to miss the forest for the trees.

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#237

Post by mepiethree » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 1:42 PM UTC

alasdair_ wrote: post #93

OnlineGladiator wrote: post #8

> 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 agree with most of this, but services like CircleCI, Rollbar, and (now) Github Actions are just as good as the build infrastructure at many large companies, and they are free at low usage

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#238

Post by baron_harkonnen » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 1:42 PM UTC

donkeyd wrote: post #102

iuete wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the only two options are big tech and chaotic startup. There are non-tech places that just want someone to add some tech to their business, for example.

There's also big consultancy, which allows you to see all kinds of companies, work on different types of projects and still have a bit of consistency at your firm. It's not for everyone, but if you value some consistency, decent pay and working for different types of projects and companies, it's definitely worth checking it out. It's not the type of job to find a 'mission' though, usually.

If by "big consultancy" you mean working for one of the big 4 consulting firms this seems to me to be the worst possible combination for OP. I've worked with a ton of these types and my impression of them only seems to decline with each interaction. The "expertise" of big four consultants that I've met is largely around sounding good rather than honestly understanding technical solutions. The are optimized for delivering solutions rather than solving problems. So the work is going to be far more tedious and empty that working in big tech. The pay is also pretty bad for something that is supposed to be "high paying". I very valuable role at a startup or small company can easily get you more money with a lot more fun.

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#239

Post by realitychecker9 » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 1:42 PM UTC

sriram_malhar wrote: post #148

rhlsthrm wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you a consultant then? What type of projects do you do and how do you find clients? This is something I'd love to do once my current gig is done.

I consult, I teach (distributed systems) at a university, I sit on a few technical advisory boards for a few companies. I don't really go out of my way to find clients; word gets around and I get referrals. If the problem interests me, I'm happy to sit with the potential client and give pointers and advice (for no charge) even if I don't want to take that project (cf. rule 1 -- never pack my calendar). It is a win-wi…

"Once you own a home outright, and health insurance is taken care of, the other expenses are completely manageable. I don't need to earn a lot to lead a rich life."

That is the checklist of a rich person, own home outright, health insurance taken care of, and manageable other expenses.

If you were the same age, but had no home ownership, no health insurance, and dependants how would that change your perspective?

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#240

Post by lotsofpulp » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 1:43 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #228

tiborsaas wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The $25k for someone making $50k is a completely bogus number. It’s likely a little less than half that for a family of 4 on a Kasiser healthcare plan according to google.

Not bogus in NJ:

https://www.state.nj.us/dobi/division_insurance/ihcseh/ihcra...

Kaiser is an exception and is only available on the West coast. And maybe a little bit in VA.

Either way, the point about needing a ton of money for healthcare is valid. It’s a race to get to Medicare age before you get hit with a medical problem.

Edit: Here's the data for nationwide for a 40 year old. Based on the NJ pdf above, you can double the premium to figure out the cost for someone in 50s to 60s.

https://www.kff.org/health-reform/state-indicator/average-ma...

Edit: I just noticed you were claiming someone earning $50k won't pay $25k in health insurance premiums, which is right. I did not know that premium tax credits only took into account annual income.