141–150 of 515 posts
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Yes. His output was horrendous. I would have fired him anyway based just on that, but discovering he had multiple jobs expedited the firing (and clearly explained why his output was so poor).
Why did it expedite the firing? Was he working for a competitor?
I gotta tell you, though, that life at these SF startups isn’t the same as the low-output stuff you see at big companies. I’ve worked at a few and the expectation is that you are actually senior, i.e. you take ownership over things.
A lot of complaints you hear on HN are not meaningful in these environments: like when HN users complain about “management” telling them to do things and so on. Your job is execution on the product, not to be a func :: Specs -> Code.
Lots of engineers don’t want that sort of responsibility, so if you’re one of those people who prefer to just be someone supplied a detailed spec and then write code that matches then it’s not an environment you’re suited to.
It does pay well, though.
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$150 per hour consulting is not the same as $150/h salary. With consulting you have to pay for your downtime, the time you use to acquire clients, your insurance, etc.
Sounds like he has a steady client that accommodates as many hours as he likes at that rate, and has done so for a dozen years. I imagine he has covered his business development expense by now. This is how I do it too, by the way. Long term relationships with good companies. It's more like contracting, but without the 40h expectations of a contractor. ( Unless I feel like working 40 hours in a given week for some rea…
It sounds like he’s basically been employed by this one company for 11 years, albeit on a contract basis.
These positions exist, but they’re not all that common. Usually if a company is paying a single person a premium for many years they’ll just hire a full-time person and be done. The average freelance contract you find should not be assumed to be a decade-long opportunity.
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Sadly, going for equity in these scenarios is a mine field and almost never as profitable as advertised by the employer.
Getting $100k sticker price worth of stocks per year is worth about $100k a year. If stocks go up they are worth more, otherwise less. On average they will be worth more than cash, and for a big company it is rare for them to go down a lot, so I'd say that getting the $100k worth of stocks a year is at least as good as just getting the cash. Edit: Not sure why people think otherwise. Maybe they are used to companies…
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$150 per hour is $300,000 per year including two weeks vacation per year. I have a side client that I met 11 years ago that I charge $150 per hour for remote development. They feel lucky to get that rate! Most people around us charge $200 per hour but since I work full time for someone else and can’t always be available I give them that discounted rate. I don’t think they’re hard to find at all for consulting. Being…
2 weeks vacation per year is pitiful. Do people really get on and are happy with only that? I get 5 weeks ( minimum legal in France), i use it to the max and it's okay, but sometimes insufficient.
Average professional job has about 8-9 paid holiday days, plus vacation time on top. My worst number of vacation days was 10 at my first job right out of college (they had to change after they struggled to attract employees) but every other job has been more than that.
But only accounting for 10 unpaid days per year would barely cover minimum federal holidays, so it’s not realistic. It’s equivalent to saying you’re never going to take time off unless the company is shut down for a federal holiday.
You just need to apply for roles with public companies that offer liquid equity. Very few of us are getting 250k+ on base salary alone. Most of us have the salary bands you’re already in, but have additional equity pay on top. It doesn’t have to be a FAANG either. There are loads of public companies out there hiring engineers at 250k total comp .
Sadly, going for equity in these scenarios is a mine field and almost never as profitable as advertised by the employer.
Personally I would just identify a technical niche that is highly valued by certain industries, and specialize in that. For example in high-frequency trading, there is a small niche developing ultra-low-latency FPGAs or ASICs for trading systems. The work in question is fairly straightforward compared to other industries, but most of the people with the right skillset tend to go to aerospace or other big user of soph…
Can you self teach yourself into these positions or do they filter for a degree?
The thing to do is talk to headhunter firms. I've always maintained a number of relationships with the leading firms in my area (quant trading) and they'll call now and again. But if you don't know them, get in touch and they'll usually tell you if you're useful to them.
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Getting $100k sticker price worth of stocks per year is worth about $100k a year. If stocks go up they are worth more, otherwise less. On average they will be worth more than cash, and for a big company it is rare for them to go down a lot, so I'd say that getting the $100k worth of stocks a year is at least as good as just getting the cash. Edit: Not sure why people think otherwise. Maybe they are used to companies…
3 years receiving vested stocks. If price stayed the same, it would be worth 200k. Today it is worth 80k. So no, thanks. Stocks are not worth unless you're FAANG
If you can’t afford a single but if variance then I guess RSUs won’t make you happy. But for everyone else they work just fine (unless your company goes down in flames, in which case you have bigger problems and are probably job searching anyway)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Getting $100k sticker price worth of stocks per year is worth about $100k a year. If stocks go up they are worth more, otherwise less. On average they will be worth more than cash, and for a big company it is rare for them to go down a lot, so I'd say that getting the $100k worth of stocks a year is at least as good as just getting the cash. Edit: Not sure why people think otherwise. Maybe they are used to companies…
3 years receiving vested stocks. If price stayed the same, it would be worth 200k. Today it is worth 80k. So no, thanks. Stocks are not worth unless you're FAANG