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Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

adamconrad.dev

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Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#151

Post by 88913527 »

claudiulodro wrote: post #8

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?

If you view a job as just a job, and find meaning in other things in life, optimizing for TC seems incredibly rational. The problem is some people doing that don't actually find meaning in anything but money.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#152

Post by munificent »

fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #144
munificent wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you planning to do with all that financial independence? If the answer is, "Live a meaningful and satisfying life." then... some people seek out work that gives them some of that while they are earning money. Obviously, the idea that work can provide all of the meaning in your life is a toxic meme that leads to people being exploited. But the idea that work should provide no meaning is equally toxic. You're…

What are you planning to do with all that financial independence? This question is a pet pieve of mine. The number of good answers is endless, and its sad that you would even ask it. Working is slavery, however you want to slice it.

> The number of good answers is endless.

So why wait until retirement to start seeking them?

> Working is slavery, however you want to slice it.

This is a thought-terminating cliche. Slavery is slavery. Working is an arrangement you enter into voluntarily with a series of pros and cons for all participants. Is the CEO if a company a slave? The researcher who finds a cure for a disease a family member died from? A musician in a touring band? An author with a book deal?

It's your life and I respect your choice to live it how you want, but if you have an idea that work is a thing to be suffered for as little as possible until you reach payday and then you retire and your real life starts... you are almost certainly on track for a completely miserable life both before and after your retirement.

Take a look at the kind of people who have the greatest life satisfaction. How many of them went down the FIRE path versus building their entire life in a meaningful way?

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#154

Post by ngokevin »

claudiulodro wrote: post #8

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 FB makes a natural fit for those that approach it that way

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#155

Post by zdragnar »

bally0241 wrote: post #81
treyfitty wrote: post #39

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?

I interviewed there (with about a half dozen people). Interviews were a joke, it was all whiteboard leetcode with no real insight into technical thought process or real world work talk.

I did ask every person I met "How many hours, on average, do you work in a week?"

Ever single person gave me a non-answer that tried to change the topic. My favorite response to the question was "We are super flexible on where you work, like sometimes I like to work from a cafe". If that had been the only person I asked, I might have thought he misheard me. Since a pattern had been established at this point, I just moved on.

I know every team in a big company is going to be different, but my experience is that they churn and burn fresh coders and let the more ruthless, politic-y type rise up.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#156

Post by robocat »

nostrademons wrote: post #136
ForHackernews wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cutting expenses also gets you closer to financial independence: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si... In fact, it's doubly effective. If you can learn to reduce your expenses by $10k and live happily, not only do you have an additional $10k to save/invest, but you need less each year to live independently.

We're not in normal economic times. I "retired" at 33 (still doing other things, but without steady cash paycheck). Lived cheaply, worked hard, saved up a ton of money. I went back to work in 2020, right after interest rates were dropped to zero and the pandemic stimulus went out, because I figured that every single retiree, no matter how old, was about to get reamed by inflation. Have been right so far, and IMHO it'…

Can you give a broad outline of your investment strategy in a high inflation environment?

I am older than you, but one issue that I need to contend with is being in a demographic that will contain a lot of other retirees, so I believe I need to financially be better off than other retirees of my age to have a reasonable lifestyle (and I am unsure how to avoid thundering crowd effects for my generation). Reasonable = comfortable (e.g. could choose to have a small fizzboat, but not a megayacht).

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#157

Post by lhorie »

nostrademons wrote: post #132
Riseed wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure there's "change your values" type money for everyone. Though for me, $1MM is enough to consider working for Amazon to attempt to change it from the inside. Perhaps we're saying the same things with different words.

Amazon is not going to change from the inside for anyone making $1M. If you go in thinking it is, you're deluding yourself and will be much less effective than if you just accept that Amazon is what Amazon is and you're whoring yourself out to them for $1M/year. Your paygrade needs to be at least $100M/year to have a reasonable shot of changing the culture of a large company. Most likely, by the time you get up there…

I know a guy in there (who most likely isn't making anywhere near 100M), who transferred into the HR org to try to make a dent into the problem of employee turnover, PIP BS, etc.

Last I heard, he was giving middle managers a hard time for perpetuating the sorts of bad behaviors that give Amazon its bad reputation as an employer.

Maybe Amazon is a lost cause, maybe it isn't, but you won't know if you can fix it unless you try.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#158

Post by folkrav »

antisthenes wrote: post #76
hn_user82179 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW I assume that's because they parent a 1 year old, and it's important to trade-off on caregiving time.

Not if his wife doesn't work.

Your wife not working doesn't change that you're the dad when you're off work and would typically (I hope?) be involved in your children's education as well.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#159

Post by neilv »

gleenn wrote: post #149
cebert wrote: post #124

Is something wrong with software engineering interviews that one could reasonably need to spend months prepping for interviews? Leetcode problems can be fun and interesting, but seldom represent problems and skills I employ daily as a more senior software engineer. Studying these problems won’t help me much at my current employer and likely wouldn’t after I passed the interview gauntlet at another firm.

The very last bit of the article interestingly stated that they author wouldn't spend time doing prep again, they would only make sure they applied with a referral. I definitely agree, it's kind of a blight on our industry that the interview process is so contorted compared to the actual work we're supposed to do.

I thought maybe the author meant that they'd retain enough of the months of prep that they'd already done.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#160

Post by kache_ »

claudiulodro wrote: post #8

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 don't understand people who don't minmax effort to income. That's why we work, for money. I re-evaluate my employer every 2 years or at the end of a project, because I will always just go to the highest bidder.

I'll retire at 35 and then do what I want. But for now, optimizing.

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