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Ask HN: How to Exit FAANG?

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Re: Ask HN: How to Exit FAANG?

#61

Post by ctvo »

mezeek wrote: post #56
ctvo wrote: post #32

Where do you live now? If I had to do this I'd do the following: - Move to 2nd tier, lower cost of living city. My hidden gem: Chicago. Public transit, plenty of housing, culture, arts, #1 food city in the US, international airport with flights everywhere, half the housing cost and 3/4th other expenses as NYC and SF. 2nd option is Philadelphia for the same reasons and proximity to NYC for the weekend trips or to go i…

chicago #1 food city, come on lol

I live in NYC. Chicago is the #1 food city in America in my opinion:

- availability

- quality

- diversity

Others agree:

https://www.bonappetit.com/story/chicago-restaurant-city-of-... (a little bias here’s another one: https://travel.usnews.com/rankings/best-foodie-destinations-...)

You can do a quick search for more recent opinions.

NYC has more top end, famous restaurants. Chicago has more close to top end restaurants that you can easily get a reservation for. Measured by dimensions like # of Michelin stars, Chicago is only behind NYC and SF. It’s ahead LA for example.

Re: Ask HN: How to Exit FAANG?

#62

Post by ldjkfkdsjnv »

anp wrote: post #46
marcus0x62 wrote: post #14

What is it — specifically - you like about the high comp? Is it a sense of feeling personal security, proof of being valued, the desire to be able to buy expensive things on a whim? It may be easier to give up the money if you really identify what it is doing for you and ask yourself if a) you still need it and if so b) if there is a different way you can meet that need.

Not OP but have had some analogous thoughts. Compared to the state institutions and startups I worked at before, FAANG-scale comp and perks literally changed my life, having grown up rather poor. I can afford to save for retirement while also attending to my health, I can afford a personal trainer to help me stay on track in my goals, I can afford a cleaner to keep my personal space tidy when I struggled for years to…

I had the same exact experience. The money really does make life easier. I am healthier for it.

Re: Ask HN: How to Exit FAANG?

#63

Post by roland35 »

schnebbau wrote: post #45
ctvo wrote: post #32

Where do you live now? If I had to do this I'd do the following: - Move to 2nd tier, lower cost of living city. My hidden gem: Chicago. Public transit, plenty of housing, culture, arts, #1 food city in the US, international airport with flights everywhere, half the housing cost and 3/4th other expenses as NYC and SF. 2nd option is Philadelphia for the same reasons and proximity to NYC for the weekend trips or to go i…

That sounds appealing... apart from the weather in those cities. Would anyone care to recommend similar but warmer?

Miami or Atlanta also have some software industry

Re: Ask HN: How to Exit FAANG?

#64

Post by roland35 »

karmakurtisaani wrote: post #39
programmarchy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TattleGPT might be reading this thread. Problem is that it can rhyme now.

What's the problem with that though?

It at least avoids low effort searches for "Google" to point to his user profile, I guess!

Re: Ask HN: How to Exit FAANG?

#65

Post by roland35 »

rhines wrote: post #26
rmk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that on the assumption that you will eventually move to the low COL area as described above?

No, but it does assume you already save a large portion of your paycheque. Suppose you make $400k as a senior SWE at FAANG, or maybe $250k after taxes. Now you move to a lower CoL area and make 30% less - so $280k (for argument's sake suppose taxes are the same, so you take home $175k). Now supposing your CoL is halved, your CoL needs to have been $150k+ for this to be worth it. Since you lose $75k in pay, and need t…

Meta and Amazon are the most remote friendly. When I interviewed at Google it was a hassle to match with a team that was hiring remote.

Anywhere in the US is very good compensation. London is a different story.

Re: Ask HN: How to Exit FAANG?

#66

Post by throwawaycopter »

I did it a couple of years ago. Just left and accepted a slightly lower compensation in a non-FAANG company, but still a very respectful salary.

Didn't regret it for a moment.

My advice is to just fire some CVs, do some interviews, and see if any of the offers you will eventually get make sense for you, in terms of the ratio of Compensation vs. Responsibility. While you are still employed, you can always refuse offers.

And now it's time to throw this account away. Cya.

Re: Ask HN: How to Exit FAANG?

#68

Post by quickthrower2 »

mjr00 wrote: post #33
phphphphp wrote: post #18

The thing you want, low stakes low effort programming, doesn’t really exist. The reason Google can survive building everything themselves — and thus giving you and many others endless code to write — is because they have exceptionally deep pockets and army’s of people. Outside of Google-type companies, people write code to serve a direct business need which means the impressive software engineers are not the people w…

Agreed with all this. The absolute best thing you can do as an engineer at a smaller company is not write code at all. Figure out how to solve problems using existing tools and processes. If you do have to write code, write the absolute simplest thing possible that solves the problem. That doesn't mean "low quality," because things like testing/CI/monitoring are still important. It just means you aren't building a sy…

Problem is you were hired to code, they will review your performance a large part on code, and if you want another engineering job they will want examples of when you coded X and test you on concepts in latest frameworks.

The role you are describing might be different to an engineer.

Sure a good engineer avoids unnecessary coding but having done that they have to be seen to do some necessary coding (or necessary work like architecture, security, devops etc.)

Most small companies think in job titles and roles as an anchor but you may wear other hats sure.

Re: Ask HN: How to Exit FAANG?

#69

Post by netllama »

ctvo wrote: post #61
mezeek wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

chicago #1 food city, come on lol

I live in NYC. Chicago is the #1 food city in America in my opinion: - availability - quality - diversity Others agree: https://www.bonappetit.com/story/chicago-restaurant-city-of-... (a little bias here’s another one: https://travel.usnews.com/rankings/best-foodie-destinations-... ) You can do a quick search for more recent opinions. NYC has more top end, famous restaurants. Chicago has more close to top end restaur…

"close to top end restaurant" is purely subjective, and meaningless. Sorry, but Chicago doesn't have the diversity, quality or quantity of restuarants that NYC has. Not even remotely close. Chicago has certainly come a long way from the days of meat & potatoes, but its no where in the same league as NYC. And the fact that its easy to get reservations only further underscores how non-competitive Chicago is in that regard.

Re: Ask HN: How to Exit FAANG?

#70

Post by dev_0 »

mjr00 wrote: post #33
phphphphp wrote: post #18

The thing you want, low stakes low effort programming, doesn’t really exist. The reason Google can survive building everything themselves — and thus giving you and many others endless code to write — is because they have exceptionally deep pockets and army’s of people. Outside of Google-type companies, people write code to serve a direct business need which means the impressive software engineers are not the people w…

Agreed with all this. The absolute best thing you can do as an engineer at a smaller company is not write code at all. Figure out how to solve problems using existing tools and processes. If you do have to write code, write the absolute simplest thing possible that solves the problem. That doesn't mean "low quality," because things like testing/CI/monitoring are still important. It just means you aren't building a sy…

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