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How the Valley treats experienced people

rachelbythebay.com

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Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#241

Post by closeparen »

throwaway713 wrote: post #237
closeparen wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under specific assumptions: 1) You don’t aspire to own a home here, as that will eat easily 100% or more of your savings. 2) You plan to spend your savings in a cheaper place. USD is a convenient shorthand for purchasing power, but breaks down under huge regional COL differences. A $200k savings account in the Bay Area is like a $50k savings account elsewhere: about enough to think about setting up a middle-class gro…

Both good points that I forgot to mention. I implicitly assumed most people would eventually move away from SV, but if you plan to stay there your whole life, then you'll have a much more difficult time buying a home and/or retiring. And having children adds a whole new dimension of financial difficulties.

I can’t imagine what else I’d do “after” this. I intend to be with the industry for a full career; unless and until it moves, that means being here.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#243

Post by burlesona »

throwaway713 wrote: post #204
galangalalgol wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too work in a fortune 500 outside the valley. Occasionally I wonder why we lose so many young coders good and bad to SV. I'll then go check salaries using a job hunting site for the same positions in SV and they pay the same or less after adjusting for cost of living. Is there some magic pool of jobs there that let you retired after 10 years that I am not seeing? I'm coming up on 20 years of writing c++ and I'm not…

> I'll then go check salaries using a job hunting site for the same positions in SV and they pay the same or less after adjusting for cost of living That's the problem. Salaries on job hunting sites are wildly inaccurate. Glassdoor lists FANG compensation as 2-3x less than what they actually pay. Also, the important metric isn't COL adjusted income; it's the total amount of money that's left over to save/invest after…

I made the move to the Bay Area with a family in my 30s. It’s not perfect, but we’re saving dramatically more than we could anywhere else. I don’t know how long we’ll stay, but at this rate 5 years would be enough to set us up really well almost anywhere else in the US.

I wish I’d gotten into software sooner. If you come out here at 22, live with roommates and stay until you’re 30, you probably take anywhere from $400-700k in savings with you to then have a much easier life somewhere else.

That’s why people do it, especially when they’re young.

Also in terms of math, you need to know that the big companies here pay about 50% via salary and the rest via bonus and stock, so the salary numbers you see are only the “live day to day” money. The other half of your income comes in big checks every quarter or so, which makes it easy to shovel that straight into savings.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#244

Post by jacobtwotwo »

isoskeles wrote: post #197
slics wrote: post #88

If one thinks 35+ is to old to code, well I have news for you. At 35+ you learn how to manage time and prioritize better. Life throws another ranch in your bucket of problems, marriage and children. When you are young, you are hired as an engineer to work 40 hours, which we all know very well that working for startups that means 80 hours or you are not putting good effort. Well with a family that’s not possible, as y…

> soon we will be left with a society that only focuses on how to better themselves and not mentoring or preparing the next generation of smart people I fear we are well on our way to this type of society. "Learning" is a virtue. You'll hear many people say, "I like learning," or some other version of this cliche. It reminds me of this idea, and it makes me cringe, partly because of the robotic aspect and partly beca…

I love mentorship, but I don't feel like I'm in a position to mentor anyone. Learning enough to be able to spread my knowledge (or the beneficial application thereof) is the core reason why I want to improve. I know that the more I improve, the more I can help others with what I've learned. Is it possible to have useful mentorship without a focus on self-improvement as well?

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#245

Post by mcguire »

WalterBright wrote: post #15
cathames wrote: post #13

Luck is a huge part of success. It's mythology that if you work hard enough for long enough that the world will become your oyster. Sweat and ingenuity are often necessary but not necessarily sufficient means to financial gain. No one launches from the same starting line nor runs along the same track. And don't forget that all the other smart folks out there are ravenously competing against you for those hotly desire…

It's not about working hard, and never was. It's about working smart. And people make their own luck. You can't get lucky if you're not in the game swinging. I've known plenty of people who just sat at their desks, doing as little as possible, waiting for the boss to direct them, reading hackernews(!), watching the clock till they could go home. They were never going to get lucky. Then there are the ones who are alwa…

"... doing a side project, they started a band, they go to meetups, they write articles, they talk about their investment strategies, they're planning out their next venture,..."

"Working smart"?

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#246

Post by mbrumlow »

dnautics wrote: post #238
galangalalgol wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too work in a fortune 500 outside the valley. Occasionally I wonder why we lose so many young coders good and bad to SV. I'll then go check salaries using a job hunting site for the same positions in SV and they pay the same or less after adjusting for cost of living. Is there some magic pool of jobs there that let you retired after 10 years that I am not seeing? I'm coming up on 20 years of writing c++ and I'm not…

I think you don't understand the math here. If you are in your 20s, single, and making six figures, you can rent an apartment with three other people in the bay and pay like 1-1.5k in rent and it's quite nice because you have so much extra capital to spend on top of saving. And there are things to spend it on here. Heck many in their thirties do this.

Meanwhile in the south you can make those same six figures and have a 5 bedroom house with a mortgage of 1.5k

Or live in a nice area for 800 a month. Or live in a shit area for 400.

SV math does not work out. You are taxed to much. Pay to high rent and have the pleasure of needing a shit map to walk in your city.

I keep seeing this same argument about getting to pay 1.5k to live with a bunch of other people to save some money.

No thanks.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#247

Post by lolc »

keithpeter wrote: post #34
lolc wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did a short container trip and it was great. We did get to see the engine too! As with any ship: Bring lots of books.

Thanks for commenting. I was looking at one of the European multi-port trips myself.

I did a feeder-ship from Rotterdam. While it was interesting to see the logistics and tight schedules, next time I would skip a run and stay at the destination for more than the day it took them to exchange containers.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#248

Post by mirroredfate1 »

badpun wrote: post #150
halfastack wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A startup that really wants people working 80 hours a week" sounds like the most US thing I've heard/read this month. The US work culture is utterly insane. They say that the Japanese work extreme long hours, but from my experience, it's quite similar for big cities in the US. Sounds like a sure way to a burnout, getting fat, and losing your family.

I wonder if I'm just a lousy human being, or are these startups full of cheats. For me, working 25-30 hours a week (really working, not pretending to work or sitting disengaged in meetings) is probably a long-term maximum of sustainable effort. How the hell are these people working 80 hours a week?

I prototyped something for a startup I was working on, and put in about 80-100 hours a week for three months. That was probably the most I could have managed. I went a bit crazy. My dreams got weird.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#249

Post by ahoy »

nikanj wrote: post #69
humanrebar wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example, I find that technical interviews for experienced developers tend to be harder, which makes me infer an "up or out" culture. A dev with 20 years of experience isn't even evaluated for normal individual contributor roles, instead they are chief code wizard or unqualified. Younger devs, especially college hires, are given more leeway to train on the job and grow into their level of aptitude and interest. A…

I think there’s an element of expectation there. The college hire might grow to be a grand wizard in 10 years, and become a massive asset to the company. It is still possible the older person is going to become a wizard later, but the question is: if they have it in them, why aren’t they a wizard already? College hires are seen as unscratched lottery tickets, older workers are seen as known variables. I’m not saying…

who stays at a company for 10 years?

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#250

Post by secabeen »

throwaway713 wrote: post #237
closeparen wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under specific assumptions: 1) You don’t aspire to own a home here, as that will eat easily 100% or more of your savings. 2) You plan to spend your savings in a cheaper place. USD is a convenient shorthand for purchasing power, but breaks down under huge regional COL differences. A $200k savings account in the Bay Area is like a $50k savings account elsewhere: about enough to think about setting up a middle-class gro…

Both good points that I forgot to mention. I implicitly assumed most people would eventually move away from SV, but if you plan to stay there your whole life, then you'll have a much more difficult time buying a home and/or retiring. And having children adds a whole new dimension of financial difficulties.

It also adds a bunch of social difficulties, unless you try to pull of the entire make-bank/move-elsewhere cycle before they reach elementary school age. Once they are in school, they start making their own friendships and relationships, and it becomes much more impactful for everyone to make that move to the new low-cost area, leaving everything they know behind.
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