Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

news.ycombinator.com

141–150 of 449 posts

Re: Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

#141
post #37

Moved back to Atlanta after five years at YouTube in SF to be close to family and afford a house. Discovered that Square has an office here, saving me from a descent back into Corporate IT. Haven't looked back. We're hiring :-)

Interested in hearing more about what you're up to. What's the best way to get in touch?

Re: Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

#142

It’s strange that there’s nobody from Amazon here, just people from G

I am in NYC, and hiring for a place that pays very well, possibly above FAANG salaries. I see a lot of resumes. A lot of those resumes are from Google, but very very few are from Facebook, and I find that to be a very curious thing. FBs office is not quite as large as Google's in NYC, but they have been around awhile and we are hiring out of both coasts and offer relocation. I am not sure if it is a quirk of our recr…

That's very interesting. I had a chance to possibly work at the NYC Facebook office which I didn't capitalize on, after reading this I'm having intense FOMO.

Are you in Big Tech or Finance?

Re: Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

#143
post #4

Running my own bootstrapped SaaS startup, Canny ( https://canny.io ). I've always wanted to do a startup. Last year I wrote a blog post about the biggest lessons learned during the transition. Seems pretty relevant. https://hackernoon.com/software-engineer-to-saas-founder-c16... Also left SF to be a digital nomad. SF is so expensive and if you aren't fundraising you don't need to be there. There's so much of the worl…

Nice, I saw Canny used by Expo :)

Re: Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

#144
post #37

Moved back to Atlanta after five years at YouTube in SF to be close to family and afford a house. Discovered that Square has an office here, saving me from a descent back into Corporate IT. Haven't looked back. We're hiring :-)

Interested in hearing more about what you're up to. What's the best way to get in touch?

I'm ${USERNAME}@squareup.com or @${USERNAME} on the Tech404 Slack and Twitter.

Re: Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

#145

Ex-Amazon here. The "people leave bosses, not companies" proverb applies to most people I know.

This.

And in my experience, there aren't many good bosses out there.

I always envy the stories of some corporate engineers who had excellent mentors and bosses, but sadly there aren't many of them.

Re: Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

#147
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

with spending like that if a decent chunk comes from savings rather than income, you probably qualify for MassHealth.

Possibly! I don't think I'd qualify until 2020 because my 2018 income is over the limit because of my earnings at Google in the beginning of the year. My understanding is that it's based on the previous year's income, so I'd have to earn nothing in 2019. I'm not sure if I'd apply in any case. I feel like it's questionable ethically to take public assistance when I could earn a high income if I chose to work for an em…

this is how the rich turn the middle class against the poor, by attaching shame to public goods. healthcare should not be means tested, but if you can actually pass the test then by all means do it. you are not better than anyone else.

Re: Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing "because he could". 8 years of L6 at Google should set you up for life if you move to a moderate cost area of the country.

What's the net worth of an L6 for 8 years at Google?

Other estimates in the thread (and Glassdoor) for annual TC are way off. L6 at G is a big range - 350-700k. Hard to say how much the guy made, because it depends on how much stock he kept vs. sold throughout the years, so I'll do a range. Let's assume he worked from 2010-2018:

Average TC: $450k - $850k

Post-tax: $270k - $470k

Annual expenses: $60k - $120k

Savings: $1.2m - $3.3m

Obviously this is a gross simplification, since it ignores other investments and makes pretty broad assumptions about their expenses, but it should give you the broad strokes.

Re: Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

#149
Now working on a game after 11 years as a Staff SWE at Google. I left for a complex mix of reasons, largely because I can and because I wanted to work on my own stuff, also not least because I don't have a good feeling about the digital world the big companies are creating. I wrote just a bit about this on my blog on leaving.

Re: Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

#150
post #48
post #23

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…

Do you feel disconnected in Western Mass? I am not sure how remote you are but I live in a remote area now but work remotely and feel it. Hell, even in the Bay area I was remote-is since the commute was isolating. All I can say about the culture there is that you have to job hop to develop relationships that may lead to future opportunities. *Btw your cartoon on your blog is good. If that's your original creation you…

One thing that helps is that Western Mass doesn't have to be remote. If you're in Savoy, yeah, you'd better like nature more than people. But the Springfield metro area has pretty cheap rent and is still 600k people with colleges and companies and a great food and music scene up in Northhampton. It's also within tolerable driving or train distance of Boston if there's something you really want to get to.

Working remote can definitely be isolating anywhere, but I think if I were going to go back to it I'd prefer a midsize city to either rural or dense urban settings. Rural settings are obvious just small, and that's made harder by being isolated while you work. But huge cities tend to feel anonymous - if you're not actively engaging and meeting people it's easy to get forgotten or even miss out on finding out about things you'd like to see and do. It may just be a function of my tastes and hobbies, but somewhere Springfield-sized makes it a bit easier to find a stable group of people outside work to spend time with.

More broadly, there's a lot to be said for college towns and non-huge cities relying on safe anchors like 'meds and eds' or corporate research. Boulder's probably too big and pricy these days, but Northampton, Rochester NY, Flagstaff, Ithaca, and the Research Triangle are all inviting. Heck, even Fargo ND was shockingly inviting last time I came through - I'd rather live there than Cleveland.

Post reply on HN