Legendary slacker story:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/17/business/us-outsource-job-chin...
Don't work hard, work smart :)
“Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work
161–170 of 335 posts
Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work
#162> There are a lot 'coasters' who reached a certain level and don't want to work any harder. They just do a 9-5 job, won’t work to get promoted, don’t want to get promoted. Finally someone who understands how being an employee works. You are paid to be present ~ 40 hours a week, as stated in your contract. Working twice as hard and killing your week end has no point and you won't get promoted. Don't bother.
The gist of my last performance review was my manager saying "I don't really know what you do most of the time, but things rarely are broken and everything seems to be going okay." (That was a positive review.) That made me realize killing myself is pointless, it wouldn't even get noticed anyway. No one would care. A lot of these companies imagine themselves to be so much better-run than the reality.
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Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work
#163One 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…
With respect to your final point about teachers, firefighters, and doctors (please keep in mind I'm not against what I'm about to say) it comes down to the public nature of these jobs. When it's tax money, it's everyone's business. When it's a corporations money, it's only their business. Now obviously it's more nuanced than that, companies receive tax breaks and what have you, but I think that is largely to blame. Software engineer salaries aren't a matter of public discourse or political whims. Doctors, teachers, firefighters, and police officers are.
Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work
#164There's something corrosive to the soul about having no purpose in life.
I retired once. It lasted about 6 weeks, then I decided to create the D programming language. I plan to work until my mind no longer functions. I'm not interested in retiring.
Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for that (as you surmised, I meant "senior" in the broad sense). For those following along, new college grads usually start at Level 3 ("SWE II"), and "Senior SWE" (Level 5) is considered "high enough". Explicitly the guidance for L5 is that: "All Google engineers are expected to reach this level".
What are levels 1 and 2?
Usually companies try to make it so that levels mean roughly the same thing across all professions, so 1 and 2 or 3 mean "almost no experience". So while there might be people at level 1 and 2 in the HR department, or receptionist, or other professions where there is extremely close supervision, they don't hire anyone at that level for engineering. Often management also has a similar level system, but starts at a yet higher level (in the likely case that they never hire engineering managers straight out of college).
Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 wi…
Back when I worked at Boeing, there was a story from a gate guard (checks badges of people coming in) that an engineer he knew drove up to the gate one day, stopped, shook his head, did a U-turn, and drove off.
He was never seen again (and abandoned his family).
Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
You can teach and firefight anywhere on the planet. You can only work for the GAFA in a couple of cities, that happen to be the most expensive in the world.
The parent's point, I think, is that teachers and firefighters (in this country) are rarely (effectively never) compensated according to the value they provide. I happen to agree with that point.
Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work
#168This happened to me once. I ended up coding my own personal projects at the "host" company to pass the time. Otherwise, I would have gone nuts.
Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work
#169There's something corrosive to the soul about having no purpose in life. I retired once. It lasted about 6 weeks, then I decided to create the D programming language. I plan to work until my mind no longer functions. I'm not interested in retiring.
I feel the same. I will stop coding when they nail shut my coffin.
Re: “Rest and vest”: engineers who get paid and barely work
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for that (as you surmised, I meant "senior" in the broad sense). For those following along, new college grads usually start at Level 3 ("SWE II"), and "Senior SWE" (Level 5) is considered "high enough". Explicitly the guidance for L5 is that: "All Google engineers are expected to reach this level".
What are levels 1 and 2?
Engineering interns might be level 2.