I'm not that experienced in SWE but I would assume this sort of move would be worse for a while before it gets better. The "better" might be substantial though
Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
271–280 of 418 posts
Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s unfortunate for NJ, the $900 person just turned 60 last Friday and the couple paying $800 are 63 and 64. My brother in law is a low income 1099 earner and gets a special insurance for his kid that’s about $30, called PeachCare and it maxes out at $70 for 2 kids. Depending on income it’s $10-$35 dollar max per child.
$900 per month is $10,800 per year for 1 person, which is $21,600 per year for a couple, and I wrote $25,000. My point is that there are significant healthcare costs, well into the tens of thousands of dollars, in one's 50s and 60s, and the data supports it. I don't know what the situation is if you earn $50k from investments every year, as I'm not familiar with the subsidy rules, but it would seem strange to me if t…
No one making $50k self employed is paying 25k in insurance premiums period. The people I quoted are probably making between $150-200k a year.
Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I was you, 5 years later I am working at a FAANG making 400k/yr Mind you I was making only 80k less at my last job, a non-FAANG startup. So not saying FAANG is everything, but the workload is sufficiently less than the mad max startup lifestyle.
In your case your pay increased 5 times too.
Who wouldn't want such a life.
Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
#274> 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…
FAANG is about the worst preparation possible for starting a company. The skillsets are completely different, and in many ways diametrically opposed.
I'd suggest working for an early-stage startup before starting your own (e.g., 5-10 people). Or step down gradually. Work at a company with 50-100 people, then 5-10. Companies and roles are very different at different orders of magnitude.
Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m in Georgia and Kaiser’s website says there are 26 locations throughout Metro Atlanta.
Here's a list of all the places Kaiser offers healthcare, and it doesn't apply to most people in the US, so I don't consider it relevant for a discussion about healthcare costs for people in the US as a whole. https://healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/doctors-locations
OP said they work for FANG and they are likely in California or Washington. It’s very relevant.
Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
> mature tooling that exists at FAANG I never worked at FAANG but even after more than 10 years working in tech, it still surprises me how undervalued well working tooling is. I'm not talking about 100% automation with infinite possibilities. Just really basic stuff, like deployment or setting up a development environment. That should always be a no-brainer.
I used to work at Google, and I find the tooling much better on the outside. Heroku is much better than Google's deployment tool; Github is much better than their review tool. The only things I miss are the snacks and the searchable codebase
> and the searchable codebase
Do you mean that you'd search Google's entire codebase monorepo for code examples, or that there was a better, searchable code snippet tool internally?
Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
#277the preacher in me is saying: you have no idea how good you have it - here I am stuck with ‘high end’ market rate working in corporate IT making probably 1/3 or even less than high end FAANG salary with mortgage and kids. I have no idea how the heck can you feel bored? Do you have lots of free time at work or involved in repetitive task? if you are, FAANG companies offer avenues for their engineers to contribute to tech projects meant for greater good of the company or even to opensource projects.
Now, I got that out of way, to answer your question:
- you won’t get FAANG level salary AND perks unless you are a Quant working in wallstreet but then expectations are probably crazy high.
One thing that would be a shocker for you is how little influence IT department as whole or Engineers have when it comes to projects to work on and what tech choices to make. Often it is driven by your internal business stakeholders (VPs, Board of Directors, Finance, etc.), and for startups, sure there are unicorn startups out there but a vast majority tends to founded/run by folks who have very little industry experience or a newer trend where a startup (fintech/ai startup) is owned/backed by a forbes 100 corporate giant that really dictates the scope and direction of your projects.
But here is the best thing: anytime there is a hot new IT trend (containers, cloud, microservies, devops, Machine Learning, Agile, etc.) - in Corporate IT, unless you are part of corporate giant that sees itself as a tech company, you can bet on two things: innovators have a daunting task of convincing senior IT folks and their business stakeholders that it is worthwhile taking a look at something new and then, there is always that surprise element of: we will just buy a vendor solution and you can just be a fancy application support person.
Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I've seen consulting being suggested freq as a viable gig to support yourself when you run out of money to pay the bills. How does this work? Register on Upwork or fiverr? What if your capabilities as a consultant are inadequate? What if you struggle more than you actually did at a full time job? How do you position yourself for the gig?
>I've seen consulting being suggested freq as a viable gig to support yourself when you run out of money to pay the bills. How does this work?
I think people conflate consulting, freelancing and contracting. In the context of "quitting your job" to go "work on your own", we can treat them as the same thing.
This is what I do, so it's merely anecdotal: there are many companies out there that cannot afford and/or do not have the need for a full-time, technology-savvy employee (data scientist, programmer). But they do have a need for tech solutions. I've had luck in finding small businesses that have $25k-$50k annual budgets for technology solutions; reporting, automation, small mobile apps, process streamlining. 4 or 5 of those in rotation, in a low cost of living part of the country (where skills are less abundant) and you're doing alright. The fact that you're equivalent to, essentially, a sub-$50k salaried person means timelines and expectations are utterly reasonable. After all, it's nigh impossible for these companies to find a substitute. Other bonuses include being able to define your workload and schedule, as well as seek out interesting work.
Is this consulting, contracting, or freelancing? I don't know, probably a bit of all 3.
Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
Small companies more easily provide perks such as part/flex-time and remote work.
Totally disagree as someone who has done both a few times: Try working remotely or from home with a small company or startup. In those environments you typically wear more than one hat and it requires face time. You'll also often work longer hours which throws any chance at a work/life balance out the window.
I'm sure that's common, but by no means universal. I work at a 5 person startup, and do wear a lot of hats, but remote is flexible (2 or more days a week) and I maintain reasonable work hours. Just saying it does exist.
One reason I think it works is all of us are very autonomous in day to day tasks, and only meet occasionally to verify priority and align expectations.
Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?
#280If you think your comp is ridiculous, you should see mine!!