Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

On Leaving Facebook

frantic.im

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 645 posts

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#371

Post by hiq »

renewiltord wrote: post #61
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’ll hire at $400k cash comp for 2 yrs experience and I won’t skip you for Meta. The only problem is that, like most big tech companies, it has some people who are there as a retirement. Meta is better than Alphabet about that, though.

> it has some people who are there as a retirement.

In which way does it transpire during interviews / once they join your company?

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#372

Post by hiq »

donsupreme wrote: post #13

"everyday life it’s still very prestigious place to be working at. Getting a mortgage or a car loan is easy, saying you work for Facebook gets you on the fast line." I once felt that way but after leaving FAANG years later, I realized how snobby something like this would sound.

> a car loan

Is it normal for a software engineer (or anybody who could afford it after saving for a few months) to get a loan to buy a car in the US? Is it worth it financially? Or is it to improve credit scores, maybe?

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#374

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #176
voakbasda wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somebody here on HN recently shared the notion that leetcode tests are a legal way to discriminate by age or lifestyle, as older and well-rounded developers do not have the time or inclination to grind on such things.

Seems like this could cut either way. Yeah, older people are more likely to have other priorities, but they’re also more likely to be financially secure and thus able to trade money for time to study. Also, they’re more likely to have gained time management/prioritization skills and discipline that they could apply toward studying. Ultimately it seems like arguing that older people lack time or inclination depends on…

[deleted]

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#375

Post by foldr »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #176
voakbasda wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somebody here on HN recently shared the notion that leetcode tests are a legal way to discriminate by age or lifestyle, as older and well-rounded developers do not have the time or inclination to grind on such things.

Seems like this could cut either way. Yeah, older people are more likely to have other priorities, but they’re also more likely to be financially secure and thus able to trade money for time to study. Also, they’re more likely to have gained time management/prioritization skills and discipline that they could apply toward studying. Ultimately it seems like arguing that older people lack time or inclination depends on…

Anecdotally, I am one of the older people in our dev team, and also once of the only people who cares even slightly about big O. I’m talking simple stuff, like knowing whether indexing a given list data type is constant time or O(n). To be fair, it’s not particularly relevant to what we do.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#376

Post by analogdreams »

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?

What would I do with myself? Anything but sit in another pointless meeting or pretend to care about the latest corporate policy. The focus should absolutely be getting out of the 9-5 as soon as possible.

And I've found it gets worse once you realize you are financial independent or within spitting distance of the early-retirement. It magnifies the BS and makes it easier to mouth off. It also magnifies the concerns around inflation and stock market returns that could chain you to the 9-5 longer than planned.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#377

Post by nosianu »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #176
voakbasda wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somebody here on HN recently shared the notion that leetcode tests are a legal way to discriminate by age or lifestyle, as older and well-rounded developers do not have the time or inclination to grind on such things.

Seems like this could cut either way. Yeah, older people are more likely to have other priorities, but they’re also more likely to be financially secure and thus able to trade money for time to study. Also, they’re more likely to have gained time management/prioritization skills and discipline that they could apply toward studying. Ultimately it seems like arguing that older people lack time or inclination depends on…

I think the argument is that more experienced people are less willing to do useless things just because somebody wants them to.

I could never go back to university for that reason - studying, fine, I did a ton of courses on edX and Coursera, but I pick what interests me and a lot of test problems you are given (at least in my experience, at university and later online) too often are more about understanding the intent of the person creating the problem rather than anything useful. I could also never go back to the army (Germany, mandatory service, battle tank mechanic) and take commands from some guy who just wants to posture.

I'm not any less willing to study than I was at university - but now I refuse to do what I think is useless or meaningless. Studying for tests is high on that anti-list. Not all tests, I had no issues with tests I took for things that needed certification, e.g. sailing or for the pilot license, but that stuff was useful in practice and not nearly as over the top because those tests were not designed to "weed out weaklings".

EDIT: An anecdote for that last phrase

After writing the comment I got curious and googled that exact phrase. I found this in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Smythe_(physicist)

> He authored a textbook on electromagnetism called Static and Dynamic Electricity, which was a widely used reference in the field during the 20th century. His electromagnetism course was modeled after the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos examinations and designed to "weed out weaklings." Smythe's course was so infamous that future Nobel Prize in Economics laureate Vernon Smith switched to electrical engineering from physics to avoid it.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#378

Post by 2sk21 »

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?

I had a similar attitude when I was younger - I thought I would work for ever since I enjoyed programming so much. I had a fairly successful career both financially and in terms of technical achievements but by the time I reached my mid 50s, I was feeling completely burnt out with software development. Thankfully by that time I was financially secure so I was able to retire (I don't know if you would call 50s early though). I am thoroughly enjoying retirement - I still spend my time studying a lot of math a physics and working on hobbies.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#379

Post by 2sk21 »

gryn wrote: post #150
rsynnott wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

'early retirement' doesn't mean sit down and do nothing. for me personally it mean getting the opportunity to not be shackled by money. you can spend the rest of your life working on whatever project/idea you want without it ever needing to be perverted by money in order to sustain yourself. a lot of problems/services solved by many business would be more effective for both sides if the business didn't have as a goal…

This is exactly what I have been doing after I retired early. I spend a a lot of time studying math and physics and working on hobbies. There is simply so much to explore - I _never_ feel bored.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#380

Post by erik_seaberg »

skydhash wrote: post #343
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a successful developer well past middle age, I find this to be nonsense. The most common complaint I hear around this is "yeah, that discriminates against people who don't have time to grind to do the preparation." Why is it weird that people should spend time preparing for ask for a new job? I mean, ask an orchestra musician how much time they put into preparing for auditions, or how much time many degreed profes…

A musician put it in time for an audition because that will be the piece he will be performing. But doing leetcode when the job definition is: You will be working on this e-commerce site is not the most motivating things. While algorithms and data structure knowledge are important, most of the time is spent writing code gluing data sources to interfaces. I'm perfectly fine doing an interview on the technologies I'm e…

> most of the time is spent writing code gluing data sources to interfaces

Pretty much anyone can do that. We’re looking for someone who can do the other 20% of the job that’s novel and difficult. Ideally someone who recognizes that rereading glue code is a waste of human effort, and automates it away instead.

Post reply on HN