21–30 of 449 posts
I've been consulting for the past year while I build a few side-projects, hoping they'll turn into businesses.
I'm making more than I ever have before and this was only year one. My hope is the next few years the time spent marketing myself through blogs, podcasts, and some books I'm working on will pay off either to make raising money easier for a business idea or to solidify higher rates for consulting.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even something you create in the weekend belongs to google when you are in contract with them ?
Some good discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056 Bottom line is that at least in California, employees theoretically have the right to IP developed in their own time on their own hardware, but in practice, there are numerous caveats, and litigation can be extremely risky. One of the caveats is that the invention should not overlap with a company's "existing or anticipated line of business", and…
Company resources is clear cut, but what is company time for a salaried employee? How does that change with being a remote employee?
I’ve moved to a strategic product role and honestly work less than an hour a day on average and seldom go into the office. If I decide to work on a side project does that restrict me from git commits between 8-5?
Since then, I:
* Moved out of my $3.3k/mo Manhattan apartment and bought a home for $200k in Western Massachusetts. Paid in cash so I no longer have to pay rent/mortgage. I feel like my time is much less "metered" now because my annual living expenses are so low, I can pursue things for fun without worrying about how much it's costing me in terms of time.
* Attempted to build a startup on top of a distributed storage cryptocurrency (https://blog.spaceduck.io/). Didn't work because the underlying platform wasn't mature enough yet, so it was more expensive and less reliable than centralized solutions.
* Attempted to build a business with a ML-powered recipe ingredient parsing service. Found out recipe apps aren't really willing to pay for it. (https://mtlynch.io/shipping-too-late/)
* Currently working on toy projects to sharpen my web development skills because I've found that part of my skillset to be a bottleneck with my previous projects.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even something you create in the weekend belongs to google when you are in contract with them ?
Like many companies, yes. However, unlike many companies, they actually have a process where you can submit your "weekend projects" for Google to review and "gain back" explicit ownership of them. Basically Google just checks to make sure it's not competing with anything Google's already doing, and then contractually assigns it back to you. (And anecdotally, if it does compete, you may be offered the opportunity to j…
Disclaimer: works at Google, maintains some FOSS code in my own time, both under my own copyright for some projects and under Google's copyright for others.
Freelancing and consulting. It's fun, pays decently well and is fully remote. Left Google SRE because of how mentally draining it was, how draconian the IP clauses were (everything you create belongs to Google!), and how generally I didn't see a future for myself there.
I ended up at Etsy. A major criteria of mine was "find a business model I want to work for." Etsy checked all the boxes -- I was impressed by the caliber of people that I talked to when I was interviewing, I got a fair offer, I think the business model of selling local goods internationally is a good thing for the world, and I would be working directly on things that affected the bottom line. It hasn't been all sunshine and roses. There were 2 rounds of layoffs and almost everything has changed since I joined. But something that doesn't change very fast at a small established company is its business model, so I've managed to still be motivated to work there despite all the churn around me. It also helped me realize that some of the ennui I felt at Google was really a shifting of interests -- I'm not interested in technology for technology's sake anymore, but instead am motivated to solve problems that I think can be solved via technology.
I left Google after three years as an SDE because I had really really had enough of my bosses, I wasn't promoted when I figured I deserved it, and a project that meant a lot to me wasn't getting the staffing it needed to succeed. I left for a more senior position at a smaller, less prestigious software company, though I've moved again since. Right now I'm working remotely from Toronto for a Silicon Valley start-up. U…
>>I had really really had enough of my bosses Its curious how these companies claim they are totally different or even unique but just turn out to be the very same. >>I wasn't promoted when I figured I deserved it This is again one of those large company political things. Year long promotion packet building, lobbying your work with promotion committees, getting a willing boss, and doing other routine political ground…
Since then, have moved from SF to Ecuador and started a humor publication explicitly making fun of companies like FANG (https://techloaf.io).
It’s very cathartic...
Ex-Googler here. I was a SWE L4 and left after four years in frustration with the promotion process ( https://mtlynch.io/why-i-quit-google/ ). Since then, I: * Moved out of my $3.3k/mo Manhattan apartment and bought a home for $200k in Western Massachusetts. Paid in cash so I no longer have to pay rent/mortgage. I feel like my time is much less "metered" now because my annual living expenses are so low, I can pursue…
Freelancing and consulting. It's fun, pays decently well and is fully remote. Left Google SRE because of how mentally draining it was, how draconian the IP clauses were (everything you create belongs to Google!), and how generally I didn't see a future for myself there.
Do SREs (i.e., site reliability engineers) typically write software? Are there many problems that software can solve for SREs?
The main difference between SWE and SRE-SWE is that the latter pays better.