Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#411

Post by nkohari » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:38 AM UTC

Galanwe wrote: post #407

rco8786 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can expect some hundreds/thousands dollars per year This is not correct. A senior (meaning L5-L6+, nothing crazy) engineer at a big public tech co will get 6 figures yearly in stock compensation in addition to their salary.

Sorry, but this is urban legend to me. No saying it does not happen, but that is definitely a very special case. I manage a team of quantitative developers in a Hedge Fund and do between 50 and 100 interviews per year, at senior level. I have head hunter compensation report on the candidates. I see regularly candidates from Google, Amazon, and finance industry. I very rarely see 6 digit bonus for big techs. My experi…

The parent post was referring to stock-based compensation (ie. RSUs), not bonus. This site might be interesting: https://levels.fyi/

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#412

Post by jama211 » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:38 AM UTC

lovehashbrowns wrote: post #282

mindcrime wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their value to google is high enough to keep them employed but the job is beneath their capabilities. That's what we call "the perfect job." It pays the bills, but leaves you the maximum amount of (mental|emotional|psychological|spiritual|whatever) energy to work on the things that really interest you ... outside of work. Of course different people will approach this differently, but I don't want my job to be interes…

For me personally, being bored at work actually leaves me more tired at home afterwards. I'm working on something so boring at work now and I can't handle it. It's just going to kill me very slowly over the course of the next month. Now for your second point, I completely agree--I don't want to feel like my job is my worth or joy in life, and it isn't. But at the same time, I wouldn't take a job at an assembly line e…

That's why you work on your side projects at work. I plan and design and write in a text editor my personal stuff all the time. It's just a text editor so it doesn't look suspect.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#413

Post by jama211 » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:40 AM UTC

chadcmulligan wrote: post #262

astura wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% of jobs are boring. You're just solving other people's business problems after all.

Yah, that's why you're paid well, because why else would you do it? If you want meaningful work get into research or work at a uni, but don't expect much money.

Precisely.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#414

Post by drivebycomment » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:41 AM UTC

yongjik wrote: post #94

LOL are you me, because that sounds very familiar. I cruised along at Google for many years, got bored, quit to try my own startup idea, didn't work out, now working in some SV startup. (Can't say I'm getting better challenges, but at least I'm tackling them better.) I think you got enough advice, so I'll just add a few points: * Challenging oneself to try harder is itself a skill. Don't lie to yourself that you're o…

These are good, practical advice.

I'd say moving to a different company/team every few years is a very useful way to keep oneself motivated. I personally make it a habit to look for different opportunities every few years. Even if I decide not to move after evaluating options, it helps me keep motivated. And when you do move, there's nothing like the excitement of learning new things and feeling a bit nervous/anxious in a new field and having/wanting to prove oneself that will keep you motivated and focused.

As for "moving protocol buffers" - indeed, all code does, at the smallest level, is just moving bits and flipping bits. There's no amazingly interesting things in computer science when broken down. What's interesting is what happens in between and what the combination of all of those accomplishes together. What it accomplishes is what matters. We're all just standing on top of the shoulders of giants that is collective human knowledge, adding tiny bits of our own contributions on our luckiest days, and just barely holding onto the shoulders in our normal days. If you're not advancing human knowledge, keeping some tools used by millions working is useful and meaningful. Keeping millions of people entertained is useful. Providing tools for other thousands of engineers is meaningful. The meaning of a job is what you define it to be.

Even if you decide you won't find meaning in the job itself and decide to take it purely as a "to-make-a-living", necessary-evil endeavor, what you achieve through it can be personally meaningful (provide for your family, for your personal experience, for society, etc).

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#415

Post by wpietri » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:41 AM UTC

cantrevealname wrote: post #358

md5wasp wrote: post #162

Hi there, I did the exact same thing as you (at Google Sydney), before eventually deciding that I must strike out into the wilderness. In the few years since I left; I worked as a solutions architect managing a team, a team lead, a remote dev, and now in a startup. Front-end, back-end, flip-side, all the ends. So I've been deliberately trying different angles of my career to see what suits. I'd describe this process…

> make the most of it by progressing deliberately in your social life Ironically the Bay Area is among the worst places on Earth for improving your social life if you're straight and male. I noticed that you don't live in the Bay Area, you're married, you probably meant a much broader meaning of "social life", so your experiences are likely very different. But the typical clean cut, well-spoken, hard working, respect…

I guess I've only lived in the bay area 20 years, but this strikes me as quite dramatic. I know literally dozens of men in tech happily raising families in the Bay Area. It's true the male/female ratios are worse (although we should certainly adjust for the large gay male population). But when I talk to friends who are dating, it's the women who seem to be struggling to find anybody decent, not the men.

Perhaps the problem is in thinking those things mean a guy "should be a magnet for women". I regularly get an earful from women about guys who think they're God's gift to the populace. And one of the first hits for "Bay Area dating as a woman" confirms that: https://violetfog.com/dating-in-san-francisco/

In a section about what she hates most, she writes: "The number of guys there that have a disgusting sense of entitlement and attitude towards dating. THAT was annoying. Often they’re the ones getting such great praise (and pay) at work that they think it translates into them being hotshots outside of work as well. Like they are too good or something. What sucks about these bad apples is that they often come off as charming at first. But alas, the arrogance and shallow attitude always reveals itself eventually. So just run when you suspect that big-paycheck-big-ego persona thing going on. Don’t walk, RUN."

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#416

Post by 0x262d » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:43 AM UTC

I recommend becoming a marxist, the concept of alienation is exactly that most people in capitalism are paid to work on stuff that is profitable to rich people but not socially meaningful and so it isn't intrinsically motivating and becomes soul sucking. This even applies to comfy software developers.

This won't give you more work motivation but it will make the rest of your life more interesting.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#417

Post by NeverFade » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:43 AM UTC

whack wrote: post #401

NeverFade wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the typical clean cut, well-spoken, hard working, respectful, male SWE in the Bay Area making $120K+ a year in his 20s or 30s, who should be a magnet for women, turns out to be living in one of worst places because of male-female ratios among singles (and some other cultural factors). Yes, it's quite simple: there are many more men in the Bay than women, so women have their pick, and they can afford to raise th…

I've been away from the bay for a while, but it's amazing how bad the dating scene is, for exactly the reasons you described. I'm currently engaged to an amazing woman who has only ever lived in working-class suburbs and smaller cities. Her exes and her friends' husbands are shockingly anti-intellectual, didn't attend college, have some substance abuse issues, and/or make well under 6 figures. She keeps telling me ho…

> Engineers in places like SFBA severely underestimate how attractive they would be anywhere else in the country/world.

I agree completely.

> Her exes and her friends' husbands are shockingly anti-intellectual, didn't attend college, have some substance abuse issues, and/or make well under 6 figures.

Here's what happened:

Guys who are intellectual, attended college, have good discipline, and stayed away from substance abuse and similar problems - they moved to the Bay to get that "six figure job".

The Bay has thus become chock-full of these men.

The few women who moved to the Bay can have their pick. What would be a rare find elsewhere, is commonplace and boring in the Bay.

One of many anecdotes I could cite:

A friend of mine is a 25yo female working in recruiting in the Bay. If you pitched a date as an "intellectual, college-educated man with a good life and a six-figure job" she'd literally laugh in your face. She had 2 different guys courting her at the time, a startup CEO and a VC. She once showed me her Tinder account. Just by swiping 30-40 times, she'd find at least one guy who is an exec or VC making 7 figures per year, and it would usually be a match.

"120k/year"? You'd make her laugh.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#418

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:43 AM UTC

cm2012 wrote: post #196

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This blows my mind that in the US one can make such insane money in tech while still being a slacker and retire early with a dream house bought and paid for while in Europe devs are slaving away through SCRUM powered meat grinders burning themselves out for a 3% salary increase on a pitiful 40-80k/year, no stock options, without any hope of early retirement or owning a decent home without a 30 year loan or financial…

Workers working for FANG in the USA also have much better quality of life than Americans in general.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#419

Post by wpietri » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:45 AM UTC

nkohari wrote: post #411

Galanwe wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but this is urban legend to me. No saying it does not happen, but that is definitely a very special case. I manage a team of quantitative developers in a Hedge Fund and do between 50 and 100 interviews per year, at senior level. I have head hunter compensation report on the candidates. I see regularly candidates from Google, Amazon, and finance industry. I very rarely see 6 digit bonus for big techs. My experi…

The parent post was referring to stock-based compensation (ie. RSUs), not bonus. This site might be interesting: https://levels.fyi/

Yes, I can confirm that stock-based compensation at brand-name Bay Area tech companies is significant. Those numbers definitely match what I see anecdotally.

Re: Ask HN: I've been slacking off at Google for 6 years. How can I stop this?

#420

Post by tlrobinson » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:47 AM UTC

peteretep wrote: post #403

ahs1 wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My advice would be work hard, save your money, travel when you can to better locales to improve your social life, but with the eventual goal of permanently moving out when you've saved enough. If you pick your destination within the USA well, dating prospects will improve greatly, and if you look worldwide (and can overcome the language and immigration issues), it could improve dramatically. The Bay Area will seem…

Move to South East Asia instead. Burgeoning tech scene, some incredible nature, dating is considerably easier, both with locals and other expats, health care is first-rate and a couple of orders of magnitude cheaper ... "a rural state" sounds like all the worst bits of living in the US.

Out of curiosity, where specifically in SE Asia would you consider living (or actually do live)?