Live data from Hacker News

Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

adamconrad.dev

111–120 of 447 posts

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#111
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some expenses you have no control over (alimony, child support, chronic healthcare costs, elder care come to mind from my circle of associates). Yes, don’t spend frivolously (luxury vehicles, eating out all of the time), but sometimes (at least in tech), you have far more control over the income side of the equation. If you can switch jobs and make $100k/more a year, that’s easier than trying to cut all of your expen…

Not just "huge mmm" but also huge "American problems only"

The massive amounts of money available for software professionals is an American problem I hope to some day have.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it taps into peoples' inherent religious desires and motivates them to put in more work and possibly do things they wouldn't otherwise. There's a reason it's called drinking the kool aid.

See I do agree on surface level it makes sense to decorate things. But I have yet to see any empirical evidence of this, let alone weighted against the long term costs of burnout, disillusion, embitterment, increasing costs using third parties to fix the problems, and more. Anecdotally, the far majority of "we really love to work here!" people I met seemed to either stop caring very soon, were clearly faking it or we…

I think everyone agrees that performance is difficult to define, let alone measure.

Passion, though . . . aren't all startup founders issued a brand new Passionometer(TM)? I think that's in the rules or bylaws or somesuch.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#113

This sounds like a game for younger people. But then again, do FAANGs even hire middle aged developers? I ask because of genuine curiosity -- I have a decent network and could probably land another job pretty easily, but only one of my closer contacts works for a FAANG. So the only way I could even try would be through the front door, as it were.

Apple and Netflix definitely hire a fairly significant amount of middle-age devs... Not sure about the others.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#114

It's wild to me that his way of figuring out what companies to apply for was to make a list of the top-paying ones and just pick the top 10 highest-paying. Is that a common strategy? No thought about product, industry, impact on the world, just $$$. It looks like it worked out for them though, since I guess they got like a million dollar offer, so maybe I'm the one approaching this the wrong way?

I think the fact that he's a power lifter is an important factor to consider in your impression. Power lifters are generally obsessed with their physical metrics and numbers, so this just seems like an optimization exercise in a similar vein. Clearly not a "fulfill the purpose of my life" exercise.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#115

It's wild to me that his way of figuring out what companies to apply for was to make a list of the top-paying ones and just pick the top 10 highest-paying. Is that a common strategy? No thought about product, industry, impact on the world, just $$$. It looks like it worked out for them though, since I guess they got like a million dollar offer, so maybe I'm the one approaching this the wrong way?

Different strokes for different folks

You optimize your job hunting for these criteria and he did his chiefly for $$$, as you put it.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#117

That is the saddest self-realization post I have ever read. Boils down to accepting being a tool and proceeds with optimizing ROI on said tool.

A very well-paid tool that can probably retire in a few years and never have to work again.

I feel like I'm the only person left who actually likes working and being productive with other people. I actually like programming and solving problems with other people.

There's been a huge shift since COVID to embrace not working hard, but to me life isn't as interesting when you're spending 40 hours a week just kinda wasting your time, trying to get away with putting in the least amount of effort possible. Having a little pride in your work can be very healthy.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#118
>>>> Get a referral for all of the jobs you apply for, study a standard list of questions, stack your interviews, and negotiate like a champ. Success is all but guaranteed.

ELI5 what getting a referral for a job means. I've been out of the market for a long time.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#119

>>>> Get a referral for all of the jobs you apply for, study a standard list of questions, stack your interviews, and negotiate like a champ. Success is all but guaranteed. ELI5 what getting a referral for a job means. I've been out of the market for a long time.

Always be networking!

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do something like this as a first pass, but prune based on Values. I wouldn’t ever consider Amazon… but at $1MM… that’s kinda “change your values” type money.

Out of curiosity, what turns you off about Amazon?

Most of the feedback I’ve read about working at Amazon seems to be negative. It’s hard for me to reconcile though. As a user of AWS, I love many of their services and the possibilities AWS opens. Most of the negative feedback I’ve read centers around: PIPs, management, work/life balance, on-call, and frugality. If Amazon wants more folks to consider working there, I think they really need to get in front of this from a PR perspective and address these concerns.
Post reply on HN