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Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#481

Post by saagarjha »

StopTheWorld wrote: post #380
joshuamorton wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're probably 2-3x the guy running a local plumbing business doing remarkably fewer hours. And of course it's more accessible. The average guy running a plumbing business is probably 30 something, while people can hit 300k at faang a year or two out of college with like one good promotion.

I worked with a guy who went to a public university - not a top 25 public university but in the ballpark. He was hard-working, smart and "got it", but he wasn't at the level of some super-geniuses I met coming out of school. He worked with us (Fortune 100, non-FAANG, non-tech, non-big metro) as a junior SWE for a year and did not get promoted as he desired. He jumped ship for a FAANG-adjacent company after a year wor…

That’s basically what I did, it’s not particular unusual.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#482

Post by RealityVoid »

AnarchismIsCool wrote: post #321
epicureanideal wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean a SAAS that solves a boring problem for other businesses with money to spend. Profitable software-based ideas are increasingly difficult to find. Thousands of people are exploring every niche and trying to start startups in them, which is great, but competition is fierce and unexplored niches are shrinking. And of course, it's still not straightforward even if you find a relatively unexplored niche. Most peo…

One word. Hardware. There is limitless opportunity outside of the webtech/adtech bullshit bubble. Go create a hardware startup, it's never been easier. It's still harder than adtech bullshit was 10 years ago, but the turnkey manufacturing industry is faaaar better than all the "hardware is hard" weekly blogspam would lead you to believe.

I like making hardware and SW that goes with it... I'm just not sure how you validate the market need for something like that and what hw more exactly to build. I feel there is already so much stuff...

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#483

Post by alfiedotwtf »

postexitus wrote: post #71
alfiedotwtf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep can confirm - if you know who this is, then it’s obvious who they are talking about.

Is that the company which shall not be named?

I’m not going to name them because for some reason these comments have chosen not to mention them by name, but they’re not a secret company - they’ve had a lot of posts on here on HN… they do cool shit and are super smart, but I guess the biggest reason people don’t like to talk about them is they’re a secret weapon and you don’t want others to have your advantage (even though everyone knows about them lol)

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#484

Post by sidcool »

keiferski wrote: post #221

It's interesting how so many people have an aversion to being a business owner / entrepreneur, and will instead put in so much effort to optimize being a well-paid employee, instead of learning how to start and run a business. These salaries listed are great salaries, no doubt, but they are not dramatically more than say, a guy running a successful local plumbing business. And the ceiling is limited as an employee, w…

Some people want to do cool technical stuff while getting paid well, and not interested in managing a business. Most researchers are like that.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#485

Post by just_testing »

unregistereddev wrote: post #176

Anecdote: I'm a Sr. Staff Engineer at a large employer in a LCOL city. Typical middle class houses cost $300k - $500k here, with luxury houses costing roughly $1m and small starter homes costing $200k (just using real estate as a rough proxy for cost of living). My base salary is $150k/yr. My cash bonus maxes out somewhere around $80k/yr, and typically falls in the $50k - 70k range. I also receive equity worth roughl…

Thanks for a comment from outside of the bubble

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#487

Post by satvikpendem »

keiferski wrote: post #221

It's interesting how so many people have an aversion to being a business owner / entrepreneur, and will instead put in so much effort to optimize being a well-paid employee, instead of learning how to start and run a business. These salaries listed are great salaries, no doubt, but they are not dramatically more than say, a guy running a successful local plumbing business. And the ceiling is limited as an employee, w…

One is basically guaranteed, as long as you learn and play the game; the other, to put it simply, is not. It takes an order of magnitude more effort and savviness to make a successful business than grind Leetcode and work at FAANG for 30 years. And even then, the FAANG employee is likely to outearn you.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#488

Post by FooBarWidget »

jt2190 wrote: post #374
FooBarWidget wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just" an indemnity clause. First, you don't really know whether that'll hold up in court until it happens. Second, by the time you're done with the court case, you'll have spent a tremendous amount of time and energy. Not only is that stressful by itself, it's also a big distraction from running the business, and every day you are busy with the court case you'll wish you were spending time working your business. The…

This ignores the fact that nothing is stopping someone from suing you personally today , small business owner or not. There are two types of people who sue: - rational actors who have acted in good faith, exhausted all avenues of recourse, and feel like the courts are their only hope for some sort of resolution. - irrational actors who sue for weird personal reasons, can’t be reasoned with, refuse all attempts to com…

Not everyone lives in a litigious society like the US. Here in Europe if you try to sue an employee for work related stuff you'll be dismissed pretty quickly on the grounds that you need to be suing the company instead.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#489

Post by sirwhinesalot »

markus_zhang wrote: post #47
jimt1234 wrote: post #28

Story time: About 6 years ago a close friend with years of software experience was bored with her job and decided to look for another. She received plenty of solid job offers, all with excellent pay, but one of them stood out. It was a company that made back-end software for credit unions. Not sexy work, but what stood out to my friend was the how genuine the people she talked to during the "interview" process seemed…

This reads like a company from the fantasy world!

A lot of european companies are like this (in the wealthier countries at least). Even offices of multinationals tend to be like this. Work/Life balance is taken very seriously.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#490

Post by piltdownman »

mmarian wrote: post #201
piltdownman wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the employers side of hiring someone in UK/Ireland is far more expensive than in the US, plus we have incredibly strong workers rights and mandatory 23 day paid leave + 11 other bank holidays/national holidays a year. Not to mention redundancy pay. Downsizing ain't a knee-jerk thing here, it's a costly process. In France its basically like they don't want a tech sector. Employee's rights are skewed so far to the…

> Downsizing ain't a knee-jerk thing here, it's a costly process. Not if you're less than 2 years in the company (in the UK). Which probably applies to a large proportion of software engineers.

For sure, less than 104 week's service means no entitlement to statutory redundancy payments. However, the redundancy process affords other protections.

The major one is an unfair dismissal claim against the company on the basis that the redundancy is not a genuine one - you can't just re-hire for the same or an equivalent but differently named position.

The other ones relate to fair procedures and fair selection. The Twitter Exec in Ireland who got an injunction is a good one;

https://www.irishtimes.com/technology/big-tech/2022/11/25/du... {Incognito or no JS for paywall}

Or the Wix developer who was paid out €35,000 compensation when she was fired after she labelled Israel a “terrorist state” on social media, because the manner in which Wix had dismissed her had been “procedurally unfair.”

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/israeli-tech-firm-ordere...

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