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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?

#501

Post by Noneofya »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #281
Rinzler89 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is the stress level actually that different? Your liability is. Worst case scenario is you don't get hired, or you get hired, and then get fired. That the worst that can happen. FAANG isn't gonna come after you for damages if you accidentally brick something in production or are just lazy and incompetent. As a business, your customers might. Let's watch how the Crowdstrike scenario unfolds in the coming months, whe…

> FAANG isn't gonna come after you for damages if you accidentally brick something in production or are just lazy and incompetent. As a business, your customers might. So? Worst case, the business folds and you start it again. This is like being worried about being fired, and people telling horror stories about so-and-so who got fired. They’re fine. You’ll be fine. The whole point of an LLC is to prevent people from…

> So? Worst case, the business folds and you start it again.

Must be great having infinite ideas and capital.

Nobody but scammers is this chill about their company going bankrupt.

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

#502

Post by Noneofya »

stonethrowaway wrote: post #277
Rinzler89 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> instead of learning how to start and run a business Because the stress and risks of running a small business as a solo inexperienced first time business owner are insane compared to a regular 9-5. Especially if you start hiring other people, your liability then increases 10 fold as now anything can happen with them (sick leave, absenteism, low performance, sabotage, etc) but you're still bound to the same deadlines…

> Because the stress and risks of running a small business as a solo inexperienced first time business owner are insane compared to a regular 9-5. Believe it or not you get over this. It’s kind of like the fear of going up on stage to give a presentation. Some people get an addictive rush, these are usually serial entrepreneurs who just love to be in charge because they have no problems with risk/stress tolerance (mo…

You have a strange notion of „everyone should“.

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

#503

Post by boxfire »

dakiol wrote: post #494
boxfire wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and probably no where to hide if you want to just rest and vest. "Rest and vest". What a luxury. Some of us are trying to tread water with an anvil chained to the waist. That's what I get for choosing to work for something I'm passionate about. What a world

> That's what I get for choosing to work for something I'm passionate about. Are you passionate about working for your current employer or passionate about your career? I’m passionate about my career (programming/software development): I love reading the classic tech books out there (TAOCP, DDIA, etc.), I love working on side projects, sometimes I contribute to open source, etc. On the other hand, I couldn’t care les…

Yeah I work in an FFRDC, pushing the frontier of our exploration of space. I'm quite passionate both about the employer and (most of the time) my work. If I didn't care about my employer at that level I woulda been out the door after two years. I think to myself sometimes about the other side of that though, like if I didn't care for them but the money was good.

My home hobbies resemble work within my area, but not my current job function, but I'm keenly aware my employer may try to take advantage of my other talents and do I guess the only thing that saves having an alternative hobby is that I'm so diversified that whatever my work task is I can work on an orthogonal hobby at home. It's kinda nice, I've got both really.

In my mind if I "sell out" (in terms of trading in for that sense of purpose in my work), and just work for the paycheck, then I would go for max. Work an HFT quant firm as a senior or principal engineer or research analyst. $$$. Or some other juicy gig. But I would hate myself if that became a slog and I had no time for my interests at home.

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

#504

Post by brodouevencode »

nequo wrote: post #356
reaperman wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think I see the same pile of downvotes that you’re seeing? My comment of ridicule got +10 votes in 15 minutes before I edited it, and now is down to +9 an hour after editing the ridicule out. I see that “Calm down. It's a common misconception” did get downvoted.

I mean the original comment that misunderstood marginal tax rates. That one looks very gray to me. (And I think your comment is better without the ridicule! The sources you found for your follow-up comment are interesting and I learned from it.)

Agreed - and thank you for updating.

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

#505

Post by Noneofya »

keiferski wrote: post #242
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…

People say this but I don’t buy it at all. If anything, it feels like the vast majority of the business world is still operating on some combination of Excel and a software program that was outdated a decade ago. The main issue is that their problems are too boring and obscure for anyone without direct personal experience to care about them.

> If anything, it feels like the vast majority of the business world is still operating on some combination of Excel and a software program that was outdated a decade ago.

Which just proves the immense value of Excel and the relatively bad value proposition of custom-made software.

> The main issue is that their problems are too boring and obscure for anyone without direct personal experience to care about them.

1. Yes, which is why it’s increasingly hard to start a business as a pure software engineer. To put it harshly, most software engineers don’t know enough about the real world out there to solve its problems. Many choose to create software for other software engineers for this reason, and that market is fierce.

2. Another issue is that only those specific businesses might have those problems. Even if you know about them, solving them might not be a good business case. Solving them must be lucrative enough to allow for a small target audience, or the problem needs to be common enough to allow for economies of scale, which brings us to back to point 1.

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

#506

Post by peterb0yd »

asveikau wrote: post #304
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you're uniquely good at what you do, a lot of companies won't reward it. You do still have to look hard for those opportunities.

A lot of people who are very good at what they do have a hard time selling it. A lot of people who are good at selling it are not actually accomplishing much. So there is often a gap between perception of high performers and actual high performers.

Solution: partner with a sales/biz person and start a consultancy.

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

#507

Post by Noneofya »

wonger_ wrote: post #460
cvwright wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your story supports the position that it's safer to take the FAANG job. This guy found an underserved market opportunity, built something, got some success marketing it, and made a whopping total of $40k. Meanwhile the FAANG guys are making that every two months, without all the risk.

Imagine if this app was B2B instead of B2C, or if it pivots to B2B in the future, or if it's acquired. Imagine also future passive income with little maintenance. And his project seemed like a side project written over a few months. Still risky, but the expected value is comparable to a stint at a salaried job IMO, once you find a decent market opportunity. Not to mention the qualitative value of self-employment, and…

Imagine investing the FAANG money into dividend ETFs and living off those in a few years.

> that FAANG employment seems a tad risky these days with layoffs

You aren’t seriously comparing the risk of self-employment to the risk of being layed off by one of the most stable companies of the world during a downturn after a 15 year bullrun, are you?

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

#508

Post by Noneofya »

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 also think the opportunity to build small but helpful gadgets is bigger than finding the perfect SaaS idea. But it’s still not exactly easy to come up with something new. Whenever I see an ingenius product I think to myself „This was obvious, why haven’t I thought of that?“, but oh well.

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

#509

Post by GlenTheMachine »

jotux wrote: post #409
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #208

Civil servants living in the DC or SF metro areas max out at about $195k not including benefits. The benefits include an actual pension, really good health insurance, and 1-1 salary matching into a 401(k)-like retirement fund (the TSP). Also, you're actually expected to work 40 hours a week and generally not more, and you're expected to take all your vacation. It takes a while to get to that level, or you need to get…

Just going to jot down some thoughts about this, as it's something I'm very familiar with. GS-15s aren't particularly common (fedscope data says 3.1% of federal employees are GS-15) and overwhelmingly they are supervisory positions (or more commonly supervisor-of-supervisors). Even if you do find a non-supervisor GS-15, the federal government mostly contracts development, so it's exceptionally rare to find a federal…

"Most agencies are hiring new grads at GS-7 or GS-9 (in SF that's $61k to $75k to start) which is a joke."

This has not been my experience, my agency hires new PhDs at the GS-13 level and BS/MS graduates at the GS-12 level. But YMMV.

"It's possible to find a job at some agencies working on stuff that feels very rewarding and very important, but you will always constantly feel like the bureaucracy is constantly fighting you."

Concur.

Of course, government jobs are very stable, which can be an advantage or not depending on what you want out of life. We find that most of the engineers we are able to recruit have been to industry or academia and found the instability and poor life balance to be incompatible with having a family. So my "new" recruits tend to be a little older, married, with a child or two. On the other hand, many of my actual younger hires eventually get headhunted and leave for industry to make 2x more than I can pay them. Then they find out that on an hourly basis they're making roughly the same amount, because their new jobs expect 20-40 hours of unpaid overtime.

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

#510

Post by GlenTheMachine »

mettamage wrote: post #335
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #208

Civil servants living in the DC or SF metro areas max out at about $195k not including benefits. The benefits include an actual pension, really good health insurance, and 1-1 salary matching into a 401(k)-like retirement fund (the TSP). Also, you're actually expected to work 40 hours a week and generally not more, and you're expected to take all your vacation. It takes a while to get to that level, or you need to get…

This is being a software engineer?

At this point you'd typically be managing a team of software developers. But yes.
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