Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why? • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by rsweeney21 » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 8:35 PM UTC

neerkumar wrote: post #262

rsweeney21 wrote: post #71

Ex-Netflix here. I was a senior dev at Microsoft and Netflix (8 years of professional experience) and decided to switch to freelance for a variety of reasons. Eventually that turned into starting a company that provides a home for ex-FAANG (etc) devs that want to switch to freelancing. Facet Development is a freelancer network made up exclusively of ex-FAANG engineers. Facet does the work of finding freelancing jobs/…

I agree, this is actually a really really good business idea. I heard so many times top devs wish something like this would exist. Can you give an idea of what an ex-FAANG dev can expect after signing up? Like what's the frequency of projects? (not sure when you started this, if you just started it I understand you might not have a clear answer yet)

Facet has been in business for many years, so we have several long-term, repeat customers. We've just pivoted into this business model in the past couple of months because we we're getting overwhelmed with new projects and couldn't hire full-time devs fast enough. So instead, we thought we would see if there was an untapped pool of extremely high-quality devs that just wanted to be freelance. Turns out there is!

We get new projects weekly and our network is sized to match. We want make sure the number of opportunities we find covers 75% of our developer network. Our network is smallish right now (less than 50). If demand for joining exceeds our project capacity we will implement a wait-list for joining until our project volume catches up.

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

#292

Post by parthdesai » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 8:36 PM UTC

fizwhiz wrote: post #237

SubuSS wrote: post #207

I spent about 7 years at MS and 7 in amazon - mostly around databases. Now I have been with Snap for about 3 years and it has been going great. My reasons were: - Agility. Snap moves 10x faster than amazon/ms. - Small size. Our dev community is so much smaller than Fb etc. Last quarter our reported user count was around 188MM? So the amortized # of customers influenced per dev is very high. - Ownership. I am the tech…

That stock tho.

Not much to complain if you are shorting it :P

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

#293

Post by rsweeney21 » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 8:37 PM UTC

robszumski wrote: post #251

rsweeney21 wrote: post #71

Ex-Netflix here. I was a senior dev at Microsoft and Netflix (8 years of professional experience) and decided to switch to freelance for a variety of reasons. Eventually that turned into starting a company that provides a home for ex-FAANG (etc) devs that want to switch to freelancing. Facet Development is a freelancer network made up exclusively of ex-FAANG engineers. Facet does the work of finding freelancing jobs/…

Wow, this is a great idea. I can see both sides of it: "Look, you've always wanted to jump ship to freelance, but it's hard and you're used to being heavily supported by your org. We have that for you." "Look, you want to hire these people but you can't. I can, and they can complete your project in a super high quality way, you just need to pay for it. We can be there next week."

Exactly! :)

I always wanted to jump ship so I could work on my own startup, but was afraid cause I had no idea how to find work as a freelancer, and was totally not the sales type. I figured there had to be more people out there like me.

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

#294

Post by walshemj » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 8:37 PM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #191

daveoflynn wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contractors still do a bit better than employees, though HMRC keep talking about seriously cracking down on the practice.

Cracking down seems like a bad idea.. you lose dynamic flexibility on both sides. What would the upside be?

Its interesting that they are not clamping down a "self" employed barristers, I wonder why that might be.

I suspect IT contractors are not seen as real professionals in the British class structure

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

#295

Post by adrice727 » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 8:38 PM UTC

jakevoytko wrote: post #26

I worked on the same team at Google for 4.5 years, and left 3 years ago. I was bored; I was getting better at doing the same thing, but I wasn't expanding as an engineer. I worked on a free product. We had no market incentives to make time-boxed decisions and could declare anything we did a success whether it was or not, which drove me nuts. I was at the New York office, so when the company got bad press you could us…

Any advice for someone 3-4 years into their career with the option to work on something that's a "good thing for the world" or something that is more technically interesting and will be better career-wise?

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

#296

Post by jmmcd » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 8:39 PM UTC

twblalock wrote: post #269

rhymenoceros wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that metric, like any metric, is both easy to game _and_ can provide misleading information. Measuring number of commits? Create fewer, larger commits. Measuring commit size? Pull in more third-party libraries, even where it does't make sense. Author count? Add more/less documentation and recruit or inhibit new devs depending on what your goal is. Not to mention the number of commits/authors before and…

Ok, then find another way to measure developer productivity, or reliability in production, or customer features delivered. If you can’t find a measurable benefit to a refactoring (or anything else, really) then maybe it was not worth doing in the first place.

> find another way to measure developer productivity

And solve the halting problem while you're at it

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

#297

Post by walshemj » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 8:39 PM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #226

baq wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes mostly and fairness towards people who are actually employed.

In the US you pay more to freelance in taxes than you do as an employee (because the employer pays some on your behalf) but you can have other deductions as a contractor. So I think fairness is not specifically a sufficient motivator. The UK can have a tax advantage for freelancing but these freelancers lose out on employment protections. Dunno..

US contractors don't seem to get anything - they seem to think getting a 20% premium over FTE is good.

In the UK you would normally expect 3x for a short 6 month contract.

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

#298

Post by Zaheer » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 8:40 PM UTC

the_clarence wrote: post #245

Nihilartikel wrote: post #176

Ex-Google SWE L5 (Senior) - Left in 2014 after almost 9 years spanning from my late 20's to mid 30's. I really can't complain, and would easily rank it as my most fulfilling and lucrative full-time employment experience so far, though the previous and post employment were in defense and startups. In short, I left due to burnout, though I think it wasn't so much the team/work as it was my character lends itself to bur…

What is L5?

Google's internal leveling codes. I made https://www.levels.fyi exactly for questions like this :)

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

#299

Post by hef19898 » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 8:45 PM UTC

mtlynch wrote: post #104

lemming wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great article about the promotion process and the employee dynamic at Google. It very accurately summarises much of why I quit there so quickly after coming in via an acquisition. That conversation made me realize that I’m not Google. I provide a service to Google in exchange for money. I was very lucky to have a friend who taught me that very early (not about Google specifically, the same applies to any company). Wo…

Thanks for reading! >Since leaving Google, I now make a software product I sell online. I have no boss, no employees and no investors. Occasionally I miss having coworkers, but mostly it's great. Freedom is really worth a lot of money, at least for me. Yeah, that's the thing I miss most. Not just the social interaction, but being around smart people. Within Google, it was so easy to learn because there were experts i…

That is true, and the main thing I miss about Amazon. And the very steep learning curve, I probably learned more at Amazon than during my diploma and masters studies combined. Still, they have been a very good foundation.

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

#300

Post by rsweeney21 » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 8:46 PM UTC

PascLeRasc wrote: post #249

rsweeney21 wrote: post #71

Ex-Netflix here. I was a senior dev at Microsoft and Netflix (8 years of professional experience) and decided to switch to freelance for a variety of reasons. Eventually that turned into starting a company that provides a home for ex-FAANG (etc) devs that want to switch to freelancing. Facet Development is a freelancer network made up exclusively of ex-FAANG engineers. Facet does the work of finding freelancing jobs/…

Netflix is supposed to have a really great developer culture and work atmosphere/benefits, much more than the other big N. Do you agree with its reputation? Was there any negative aspect that made you leave, or did you just have more of an interest in freelancing?

My experience at Netflix was amazing. It has to be one of the best places for software engineers. I left because I wanted to work on a startup and never would have had the time while working at Netflix full-time.

I got lucky in that a very large project (~$500k) fell into my lap while still working full-time at Netflix, so once the contract was signed, I quit my job and started freelancing. My small freelancing business grew into a proper software development agency over a few years. Eventually, I was able to do a "real" startup - I started an analytics company (www.numetric.com), raised $16M in VC and grew that for 4 years. I did NOT like working with VCs. So we hired a replacement CEO and I left to do my next thing.

I still own Facet and after leaving Numetric I had some free time to experiment with ideas on how to grow Facet. That resulted in the creation of the Facet Developer Network.