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“Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work

businessinsider.com

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Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work

#111

Post by jdswain »

bane wrote: post #103
RSchaeffer wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'd structure my days very differently What would your restructured day look like?

I think I would definitely put more effort into establishing clearer space/time boundaries between work and home. I live near a local library and might turn it into an office of sorts so that I have a place to go, people to interact with and so on. I'd definitely put more effort into making sure I'd wake up, shower, and dress for work during work hours and then stop at the end of the work day. Basically, better disci…

I used to go out in the morning to a local Starbucks and do email and planning tasks plus also get some social interaction. That worked really well for staring the day with a clear boundary.

At the end of the day I'd walk up to the train station (through a park) to meet my wife, so I'd have a clear boundary on both ends of my day. It worked really well while I lived there. Now I'm in a small town and it's a bit harder to do something similar.

Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work

#112

Post by pixelmonkey »

sidlls wrote: post #109
pixelmonkey wrote: post #87

One of the interesting trends of the past 10 years is the degree to which "big tech" has replaced "big finance" as the place for the elite to go to collect huge paychecks for relatively "nice" white collar work. It makes total sense for top SV engineers to get paid well, IMO. But I am afraid working for these big tech firms is starting to have that feeling of "elite pedigree" that pervades complacent industries, like…

> But what is the exact mechanism that is making it so finance and tech are among the only fields where labor compensation is commensurate with leveraged value-add? What makes you think labor compensation in tech is commensurate with the leveraged value-add? I think you're generalizing too broadly. The vast majority of tech workers, even at the "Big Names", are not anywhere near a position where they can "rest and ve…

You are right that compensation is uneven in every industry. You are also right I am generalizing a bit too much.

My main point, though, is more that in tech/finance it is very possible for compensation to be (largely) commensurate with leveraged value-add. Whereas in professions like teaching and firefighting, it is simply impossible.

Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work

#113

Post by m-j-fox »

samsonradu wrote: post #56
m-j-fox wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've wondered this about CEOs. For the price of one Jamie Diamond you could hire the entire graduating class of Harvard Business School. Surely, between them, they could perform his duties, no?

Think you mean Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan) and my opinion is that they can't. They would likely lack the real-world experience to take highly important decisions under pressure. At that level it's not all science, knowing the right people and people skills in general are very important. His public appearances are quite good also, a very good speaker.

Blame autocorrect. But you get my point: doesn't have to be the HBS class; could be the HBS professors; or 100 bankers with 20-years experience each. Point being, there's got to be a better explanation for CEO pay than ROI on their services.

Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work

#114

Post by pdimitar »

scurvy wrote: post #101
dsacco wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a lighthearted joke.

Indeed, he said it jokingly.

I ain't buying it. I don't know the concrete person, that's a fact.

I spent my younger years in much more social jobs compared to programming in cubicles (thank the gods I work remotely for 5+ years now) and out of probably 200+ men I've heard joking about horrible wife and kids, I can assure you no more than 5 were really joking. And I don't mean offhand conversations -- I am talking about people who I've chatted with between midnight and 4 AM. (It was a job with wildly varying schedules)

"Joke" in the marital context usually means "I am too scared to confront my wife so I'll pretend I am light-hearted and make-believe I am just joining the popular marital jokes club -- while secretly I am hating every second of my home life".

Sorry for cynicism. It's what I found during my whole life. Anecdotal evidence for sure but, my $0.02.

Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work

#115

Post by jonas21 »

tensor wrote: post #99
freyir wrote: post #3

> "They are really good engineers, really indispensable. And then they start to pull 9-5 days" Worthless slackers.

That quote is super cringe worthy. The article is very unclear, they also quote: >"Most of my friends at Google work four hours a day. They are senior engineers and don't work hard. They know the Google system, know when to kick into gear. They are engineers, so they optimized the performance cycles of their own jobs," one engineer described. Probably a lot of cherry picking going on.

They're not really contradictory. A 9 to 5 day can easily turn into 4 hours of real work. Show up, eat breakfast, spend some time reading HN, an hour of work, lunch, an hour or two working, grab coffee, play some foosball, another hour of work, go to the gym, time to go home!

Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work

#118

Post by pdimitar »

joejerryronnie wrote: post #117

Or, as a recently bought out/retired colleague remarked, "My job now consists of being home all day and trying not to piss off my wife" - a much harder endeavor than any engineering project I can think of.

Sounds like love and respect are long gone from that "relationship".

Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work

#119

Post by tanilama »

contingencies wrote: post #95
tanilama wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is inevitable. They better saved enough money before the company wiped them out for its own existential crisis, because by then, it is hard to imagine how could they return to this ridiculous lifestyle once again.

They've got cash reserves of like 100 billion...

Tell that to Microsoft, and how many people they are still planned to layoff on the way. Company is going to survive, even continue to prosper, but they will trim the fat and relaunch itself someday in the future as all the companies do.

Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work

#120

Post by aetherson »

IBM wrote: post #59

This is probably why Apple, a hardware company, has operating margins that are higher than Google and Microsoft (even though their gross margins are almost half of Google's and Microsoft's). The only person I can think of that might have this arrangement at Apple is Scott Forstall. I think that's why he's been radio silent until very recently (or he could just be very loyal to Apple). Maybe Katie Cotton when they cha…

A friend of a friend at Apple seemed to have a very long leash. He was involved in the original iPhone, but afterward he kind of bounced around, spent time in Japan, "worked" at home, did a lot of other projects. He and Apple eventually parted ways, but I'm not sure he was fired, and at any rate it was after years of this kind of behavior.
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