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Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

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Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#91

Post by iuete »

DVassallo wrote: post #33

I left Amazon 9 months ago, after working there for 8.5 years. My total comp was over $500K when I left, which made it both easy (allowed me to save money) and hard to leave (I left about $1M of granted RSUs+Salary for 2019-2020 on the table). At one point, I realized that a career as a full-time employee in at a "high-stress" employer is not the ideal one for me. I'm working for myself right now, but if one day I ne…

I am at that "OK, what do I do now" point after having a couple of years off. I started applying for the same places I left, and then realised how stupid it was to do that. At some point I had to come to terms with what I really wanted, and it wasn't a high wage. So now I am looking for jobs (and working for myself) at places or in ways that I actually like, and don't care about the wage at all other than that it is enough to pay the basic bills I have.

I can't work at a place where I am employee #8973235879 in a row of programmers who never really see any benefit to what they are doing and have to mindlessly fill tickets. I mean I literally can't, as in the same thing will happen as before (I will go crazy and no longer function in general).

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#92

Post by wojciii »

asveikau wrote: post #18

It's super cliché to quote this guy, but the first time I found myself quitting a megacorp job that didn't fully resonate with me, but that others would envy, I thought of this Steve Jobs quote: > Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Good luck!

Good one.

Saved for later use, as I'm in a similar situation. :)

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#93

Post by alasdair_ »

OnlineGladiator wrote: post #8

> First, what is the environment like for exiting high-level former-FANG employees? For most employers, it will be a positive. There may be a handful of very small startups that see it as a negative, but the reality is a very small startup is so different from a giant tech firm that the hiring team is probably correct in assuming you've never had to do something incredibly arduous without enormous support (I once had…

> Just realize it's not going to be anything like a giant tech firm, where you don't realize they actually do 99% of the job for you.

This. So much this.

All those teams of devops people, the SREs, the QA people, the network engineers and all the other unsung heroes don't exist in a startup yet the people who only ever worked at BigCo assume that they do and so forget about all of the problems involved in building a codebase that can scale in a meaningful way because it's always been someone else's job and they have been focused solely on their KPI or singular deliverable.

All that build infrastructure or coding standards or documentation or monitoring systems that you took for granted at Google or Facebook? None of it exists. Not only that - you won't be rewarded for building it, instead you'll be asked why the next person to come behind you got their work done faster than you did.

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#94

Post by axiom92 »

DVassallo wrote: post #77
person_of_color wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

370k in cash?

It was 180K cash and the rest in Oracle stock vesting every 3 months.

Interesting. I know people 3 year out of college at Oracle with base ~190k. Partly because Oracle doesn't do cash bonus.

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#95

Post by sidlls »

tempsolution wrote: post #68
dmoy wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After a decade in FANG and living a not extravagant lifestyle, you could easily have a couple million socked away. That at least gives you breathing room to do whatever for a few years.

For a few years? What kind of lifestyle do you have that a few millions only last a few years? I really doubt with that math you would have been able to save a few millions in the first place, unless you won a lottery.

Typical cash plus equity for an experienced engineer is going to top $300k/yr at the low end. Millions might be an exaggeration, but it's certainly trivial to save well north of $1M in a decade on that salary, barring misfortune like a health incident.

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#96

Post by rdiddly »

I believe you are mentioned in this excellent article I saw on HN just today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21635896

If your compensation is ridiculous, and you've been at it 10 years, then hopefully you've saved enough money that your every day of work is completely voluntary. If not, you did it wrong. Live on way less than you make; save up enough that the interest pays that amount; you could now retire, but instead keep going to work, but just start saying what you really think.

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#97

Post by theengway »

person_of_color wrote: post #75
theengway wrote: post #4

You know, there are companies right nearby with mission that alone can keep you inspired and motivated. Those companies have very challenging and rewarding problems to solve. (Shameless plug for Tesla software engineering!)

Do you do referrals?

Back end, data systems, esp. large scale. Shoot at theengway at gmail

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#98

Post by modeless »

theengway wrote: post #4

You know, there are companies right nearby with mission that alone can keep you inspired and motivated. Those companies have very challenging and rewarding problems to solve. (Shameless plug for Tesla software engineering!)

I love the mission but it's hard to justify leaving FAANG for Tesla or SpaceX when you'll get paid half as much for twice the work.

It would be cool to work on Autopilot, but isn't it stressful when Elon promises that your feature will ship in 2 weeks and then you have to bust your ass for 6 months to get it out? Because it seems like that's how things work over there.

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#99

Post by bradlys »

rdiddly wrote: post #96

I believe you are mentioned in this excellent article I saw on HN just today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21635896 If your compensation is ridiculous, and you've been at it 10 years, then hopefully you've saved enough money that your every day of work is completely voluntary. If not, you did it wrong. Live on way less than you make; save up enough that the interest pays that amount; you could now retire, but…

Their version of ridiculous might be another's "okay". I think most people would consider $500k/yr to be ridiculous but it ain't enough to retire in the bay - even if you saved all $2.8m you netted over 10 years. It's not enough - you will pay off your mortgage and maybe afford the property tax for the rest of your life but it won't pay for anything else...

Re: Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like?

#100

Post by taneq »

OnlineGladiator wrote: post #8

> First, what is the environment like for exiting high-level former-FANG employees? For most employers, it will be a positive. There may be a handful of very small startups that see it as a negative, but the reality is a very small startup is so different from a giant tech firm that the hiring team is probably correct in assuming you've never had to do something incredibly arduous without enormous support (I once had…

> (I once had to spend 6 months reverse engineering a video output because our customer refused to tell us what it was [...] so I then had to build a fucking circuit to decode it).

This sounds like fun, tbh. Maybe I just have a weird sense of fun.

> it's not going to be anything like a giant tech firm, where you don't realize they actually do 99% of the job for you

100% true. I've gained a huge appreciation of all of the things that a company does for its employees that they don't even realise is happening.

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