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On Leaving Facebook

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Re: On Leaving Facebook

#71

Post by Aperocky »

rsynnott wrote: post #57
dahdum wrote: post #22

I didn’t see retirement addressed, that would be among my top priorities personally. Unless he’s already financially independent and can retire at will, taking a 30% paycut off FB’s top 5% comp could mean delaying retirement by many years. Given fixed living costs, retirement savings could easily drop by much more than 30%. I’m not disagreeing with his choice, it’s a personal one and he may not want early retirement,…

I find it kind of fascinating how into the idea of early retirement many people on this site are. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it as such, but… I don’t really get it. I don’t think I actually know anyone who has early-retired. What would you do with yourself? Is it not better to work for a longer time at a job you like than a shorter time at a higher paying one that you dislike?

That's a good perspective, I'm fortunate enough at where I am that I have considerable say in determining what and how I am going to work. I still look forward to weekends but don't find this work as something I want to get away from.

Able to work from home might have significantly sweetened the deal.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#72

Post by asveikau »

throwaway3137 wrote: post #23
pkdpic wrote: post #11

Glad to see this was about working at FB / Meta rather than being a user. Just for personal interest. Newish dev doing my first attempt at a FAANG interview. Wondering if I should be trying for FaceBook as long as Im bothering to study. Had a very positive-feeling convo with a recruiter there ~6mo ago before "Meta". Sounds like it might be a negative thing to have on your resume now though? Any thoughts?

(throwaway account for the obvious reason) I've been at Meta for 3+ years. I'm also interviewing. I have somewhere between 4 and 8 offers right now (not a humblebrag, just the facts). Not a single interviewer (from junior engineers to directors and VPs of engineering) asked me anything remotely like "Why are you still at an awful company like Facebook?" The plural of anecdote is not "fact", but that's my experience:…

They're probably not surprised you want to leave, however.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#73

Post by smallerfish »

rsynnott wrote: post #57
dahdum wrote: post #22

I didn’t see retirement addressed, that would be among my top priorities personally. Unless he’s already financially independent and can retire at will, taking a 30% paycut off FB’s top 5% comp could mean delaying retirement by many years. Given fixed living costs, retirement savings could easily drop by much more than 30%. I’m not disagreeing with his choice, it’s a personal one and he may not want early retirement,…

I find it kind of fascinating how into the idea of early retirement many people on this site are. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it as such, but… I don’t really get it. I don’t think I actually know anyone who has early-retired. What would you do with yourself? Is it not better to work for a longer time at a job you like than a shorter time at a higher paying one that you dislike?

Travel, surf, garden, build and fly drones, make music, enjoy time at the beach, sculpt metal, write interesting programs that occur to me, write a novel, play poker... I could go on. You'd rather be working? You only have 40 or 50 years left on the planet and then that's...it.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#74

Post by yongjik »

pkdpic wrote: post #11

Glad to see this was about working at FB / Meta rather than being a user. Just for personal interest. Newish dev doing my first attempt at a FAANG interview. Wondering if I should be trying for FaceBook as long as Im bothering to study. Had a very positive-feeling convo with a recruiter there ~6mo ago before "Meta". Sounds like it might be a negative thing to have on your resume now though? Any thoughts?

> Sounds like it might be a negative thing to have on your resume now though?

Among all your potential future interviewers, the percentage of those who would judge you negatively for a Facebook work experience is vanishingly small - be mindful of the HN echo chamber. Besides, you probably don't want to work in those places anyway. (Not that it's necessarily bad to hate Facebook, but if your manager can't separate their political belief from reviewing candidates, would you want to work there?)

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#75

Post by ptero »

pkdpic wrote: post #11

Glad to see this was about working at FB / Meta rather than being a user. Just for personal interest. Newish dev doing my first attempt at a FAANG interview. Wondering if I should be trying for FaceBook as long as Im bothering to study. Had a very positive-feeling convo with a recruiter there ~6mo ago before "Meta". Sounds like it might be a negative thing to have on your resume now though? Any thoughts?

I think while you can hit an interviewer with a strong dislike of the FB and everything it means, including the people who work there, it is probably a rare thing. I guess a slightly more likely case is for your resume to get rejected as "we cannot match their FAANG salary, no point in an interview", but I would not worry about it too much.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#76

Post by doopy1 »

ojbyrne wrote: post #67
dahdum wrote: post #22

I didn’t see retirement addressed, that would be among my top priorities personally. Unless he’s already financially independent and can retire at will, taking a 30% paycut off FB’s top 5% comp could mean delaying retirement by many years. Given fixed living costs, retirement savings could easily drop by much more than 30%. I’m not disagreeing with his choice, it’s a personal one and he may not want early retirement,…

9 years at facebook, maxing out 401k and Roth Megabackdoor ~= $450k in tax-sheltered retirement accounts. That is a hell of a good start for retirement. EDIT: forgot the employer match. More like $600k.

That won't carry you very far if you live in a major city.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#77

Post by kbrackbill »

pkdpic wrote: post #11

Glad to see this was about working at FB / Meta rather than being a user. Just for personal interest. Newish dev doing my first attempt at a FAANG interview. Wondering if I should be trying for FaceBook as long as Im bothering to study. Had a very positive-feeling convo with a recruiter there ~6mo ago before "Meta". Sounds like it might be a negative thing to have on your resume now though? Any thoughts?

If you can stomach it, you should absolutely do it. Having one of the tech giants on your resume has definitely been a strong positive in my experience and you can't beat the comp.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#78

Post by Aperocky »

kccqzy wrote: post #48
jackblemming wrote: post #8

This man had 8+ years at Facebook and they still made him do programming questions? What is wrong with our industry?

I've seen enough experienced people who are great at system design and expect to be tech leads, but who are absolutely bad at coding. Do you want to hire someone for their ability to program or for their ability to think about the big picture only?

tbf it usually comes in a package.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#79

Post by elb0w »

It always blows my mind how most interview in our field. When I first started in tech I was afraid to talk about not knowing leetcode to my peers. 15 years in and I now can confidently say I’ve yet to meet someone who thinks these are a valid metric.

Why do we make this the gate keeper to our industry when we know (except for the very specific roles) we will rarely need leet code type problems. When we do we just google them.

So silly to me.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#80

Post by Aperocky »

erehweb wrote: post #25

Was interesting that the writer says little about FB's mission and impact on the world - seems like it was not really important to them as a positive or negative. Perhaps part of this is due to writer's spending more time in tools rather than something like NewsFeed?

Sometimes Encapsulation is a good idea, even in life.
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