Can't help but this Comma in "Founder, Executive, or Employee " after " Executive" bugs me...
Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee
251–260 of 632 posts
Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee
#252This is rather true in practice, but I find it tremendously depressing. I have found that the executive path is actually the one that most of the scumbags take, it is the one that attracts the most people, and those people are usually not likable, they're salespeople that sell themselves all day. The third group, the one that actually creates value, is accurately represented as not as successful both in terms of mone…
I have a different (admittedly controversial) take, having been on the "tech ladder" for some time now (as a Senior SWE and Lead Engineer): most individual contributors overestimate how much value they actually provide, especially in the Bay Area. That isn't to say we're not under-appreciated and under-compensated (we are both). But realistically much of the time work we do is easily done by literally thousands of other people just as well. The same just isn't true of product development, sales and marketing. Any one of those three teams, staffed well, will account for well more than the value of the entire engineering organization.
Mostly this is a self-inflicted problem. Especially in the Bay Area, where developers tend to value CS ability signaling rather than the ability to work well with product teams and the ability to engage in practical engineering.
There's too much focus by developers on shallow things, like fad-following the latest frameworks, on pseudo-intellectualism or technology-purism (e.g. "coding is doing math", code "elegance", whether/how FP is just so much better than anything else, etc.), and trivia like programming language choice.
Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's easier to take a risk on a startup in a tech hub because you can likely find a job elsewhere if things don't work out. In a non-hub area, it's riskier to take the leap because fallback options are much more limited.
In my limited experience outside of one of those hubs I can say that's definitely a factor. I've spoken to a few good candidates that when decision time came got cold feet because of fear that the local ecosystem not being strong enough to provide a security cushion in case something went poorly.
That's interesting, never really thought of that way. I'll keep that in mind in my decision making process
Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are bootstrapping, and you are starting a company in an area that does not need the top tier of engineers (which is most of them, regardless of how they talk about hiring the best), I'd consider starting someplace low cost. I think college towns in the midwest / rust belt are untapped resources, or areas that used to have strong technically focused companies that moved away. I've personally seen founders boots…
I share you bullishness about "untapped" cities, but: > ...starting a company in an area that does not need the top tier of engineers... As far as quality of talent, the "top tier of engineers" aren't all in SF, Seattle, or NYC. There are plenty of "top tier" engineers in all kinds of places. If you mean the "top tier" in pay rates are in those cities, that probably true. But those cities also have a ridiculous cost…
> As far as quality of talent, the "top tier of engineers" aren't all in SF, Seattle, or NYC. There are plenty of "top tier" engineers in all kinds of places.
Surely depends on the metric used: the same people who, if brought up in one of the progressive teams at an SV giant or a well-funded startup might become celebrated code-fashionistas touring the conference speaker circuit, would likely have turned out very different had they joined the insurance company that was the only game in town. But the things they would have seen there! Not C-beams glittering in the darkness near the Tannhauser gate, bad a lot of bad code plastered over and over with half-hearted attempts to clean up during decades of maintenance and extension. If there are wisdoms to be learned from working with that one of our two hypotheticals will know them.
Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
80k* %50 = 40k vs. 160k * %35 = 56k Bay area in a nutshell. You can have higher savings rates too, I do around %40 and I could save even more. Working at a startup does make it harder, usually it's better to work at FANG. You also learn a lot and realize the difference between 'facebook does this dev practice because it's huge so it has to vs. it's the better practice'
Pre or post-tax, and at what standard of living? Weather aside, you can get significantly better housing/schools/daycare/whatever for that 80k elsewhere than you can for 160k in the Bay Area. If you're young and single this is probably a non-factor, but for people >30 it can be significant.
Very true on the having kids part. But you typically have 7 years of your life before you reach 30.
Probably contributes to the logan's run effect you see in SV tech companies ;)
What I've seen from colleagues with kids is the spouse also works some sort of 6 figure job and they either commute a lot or bought a house before it got extra crazy. Like one who bought a $600-700k TIC around the Haight ~4 years ago. Or they sacrifice their living standard somehow. The current family set you see today bought when it was more affordable.
Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee
#256What about the consultant path?
Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is an insult to the thousands of people who make it in the bay area on barista wages. No this is the reality of living in the Bay Area. People who are living on barista wages are getting screwed by it. It's an insult to them that this is the reality today. > Just fucking wow. Alright calm down, you're on HN not reddit. You can express your viewpoint without being dramatic and vulgar. > You can save in the bay…
I don't understand where people get off telling someone who makes six figures that they should "get a roommate" just so that they can actually save some money.
Why should that be limited to those who make six figures?
Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee
#258> Often times there are hard barriers preventing people from starting a company. In these cases my best advice is to move to a tech hub (preferably the Bay Area) and work for a tech company until you can save the money I had to laugh there. Moving to the Bay Area will reduce your ability to save money, not increase it. I was probably saving 40-50% of my salary when I worked in Nowhereville, Florida. With the housing…
Saying it's impossible to save is misleading and it's laughable how often this myth about the Bay Area is perpetuated on HN. Unlike a lot of places in the US, the Bay Area has all of the following: * a meaningful degree of racial diversity (makes a big difference if you're not white) * comprehensive public transit (yeah, yeah BART and MUNI suck, but where I've lived in the US previously, they didn't even exist) * an…
Man, I find this comment annoying.
Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee
#259> Often times there are hard barriers preventing people from starting a company. In these cases my best advice is to move to a tech hub (preferably the Bay Area) and work for a tech company until you can save the money I had to laugh there. Moving to the Bay Area will reduce your ability to save money, not increase it. I was probably saving 40-50% of my salary when I worked in Nowhereville, Florida. With the housing…
80k* %50 = 40k vs. 160k * %35 = 56k Bay area in a nutshell. You can have higher savings rates too, I do around %40 and I could save even more. Working at a startup does make it harder, usually it's better to work at FANG. You also learn a lot and realize the difference between 'facebook does this dev practice because it's huge so it has to vs. it's the better practice'
The pay in San Francisco isn't double what it is other places.
Closer to 40% higher(according to Robert Half). Also lots of people are saying that San Francisco has better tech talent. Which mean the actual number is less than 40% because an average San Francisco dev would be only get paid above average in a smaller market.
And the difference is smaller compared to other large markets like Chicago, Houston, and L.A.
Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
Saying it's impossible to save is misleading and it's laughable how often this myth about the Bay Area is perpetuated on HN. Unlike a lot of places in the US, the Bay Area has all of the following: * a meaningful degree of racial diversity (makes a big difference if you're not white) * comprehensive public transit (yeah, yeah BART and MUNI suck, but where I've lived in the US previously, they didn't even exist) * an…
This comment, in turn, is laughable from a guy in his 30's with a wife and toddler... We live on a single income and have our own house with a quarter acre of land. And this is in coastal Florida, not a economically-depressed city in the Midwest. We all need to accept that people are looking for different things in life. It's difficult to save money in SF, while also having a lifestyle that's relatively easy to maint…
Approaching my 30s, with a wife and no kids yet. We have about 75% of our salaries. It's possible