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Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

adamconrad.dev

341–350 of 447 posts

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#341

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?

Reading these responses is pretty upsetting. No wonder big tech is so evil. So many talented developers willing to sell their soul for more money. No thought to whether what they’re doing is causing harm to the world.

On the other hand, if someone could make enough money for 5 years, they could probably retire and make software that DOES benefit the world.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading these responses is pretty upsetting. No wonder big tech is so evil. So many talented developers willing to sell their soul for more money. No thought to whether what they’re doing is causing harm to the world.

Reading judgmental comments like this also upsets me. It’s not selling your soul. It’s called being disillusioned with your impact on the world, a feeling that more and more people are feeling. Long gone are the days where you believed an individual could make a difference. At big corp, you are a small cog in the big machine. You are replaceable. I’ve volunteered on political campaigns. I’ve volunteered for non profi…

IMO like the OP choosing jobs on compensation, you were going for them on morality and winding up dissapointed. Best to forget about high compensation or high morals or whatever other metric the faceless company should have, and more about the faces and whether or not you actually click with the people you would be working with day to day. Looking back on it, the best jobs I've ever had always were the ones where I really liked working with my coworkers; to a point it made me not even care what exactly I did since I got to work with such decent people.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#343
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No wonder big tech is so evil. Big businesses have no ideology, even if some people would like to think otherwise. They will do everything they can to get more money. Anything resembling some kind of ideology or politics is done because it is helping the company to get more money. Corporations aren't good or evil. They do good or evil (whatever someone might deem like so) as a side effect.

Some corporations are evil: selling wapons to dictators, lying to your own employees (enron), deliberately making your product more addictive to sell more even if you know it destroys the health of your customers (sigarette companies).

...surveillance as a business model, anticompetitive practices to ensure customers never get better options...

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#344

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.

you are a tool. that's the reality. we all like to believe that we are somehow better than this and that there is meaning in the work we do, but at the end of the day if you were to disappear tomorrow things will go on without you. you might as well optimize for personal gain from being a tool

You can also optimize for self care

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#345
post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking to your wife about time you'd otherwise spend together is very sensible, especially for a longer period such as 3 months.

Right? I feel like you and I are living in some alternate reality where we actually talk with our partners before making major life changes.

I think it's mostly phrasing. Asking "May I?" seems silly or unhealthy. Asking "What do you think about this?" would seem more normal.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#346
post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading judgmental comments like this also upsets me. It’s not selling your soul. It’s called being disillusioned with your impact on the world, a feeling that more and more people are feeling. Long gone are the days where you believed an individual could make a difference. At big corp, you are a small cog in the big machine. You are replaceable. I’ve volunteered on political campaigns. I’ve volunteered for non profi…

IMO like the OP choosing jobs on compensation, you were going for them on morality and winding up dissapointed. Best to forget about high compensation or high morals or whatever other metric the faceless company should have, and more about the faces and whether or not you actually click with the people you would be working with day to day. Looking back on it, the best jobs I've ever had always were the ones where I r…

I also did this, but it's so hard to find lasting stable relationships, within 6-12 months it's always a different team somehow. In that case you feel double screwed if you compromised on salary and then the awesome team disbanded and you're left with a shitty team and a low salary.

Better to go for the high salary which you know will be stable, and will always "work" in the sense of giving benefit to your life. And take any awesome colleagues as a random happy accident and a pure bonus.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#348
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Experienced engineers will have plenty of time and plenty of cheese to do whatever they want, up to them whether they choose to go to somewhere like Meta. The only thing I can imagine that $300k can't do that $750k-$1m can is buy up a bunch of property and price people out

There’s also retire early as an option. I’m not good enough or willing to put in the effort to get good enough to get into meta, but if I was presented the option of working somewhere kinda shitty but I could retire in 5 years vs working somewhere that was decent but I won’t retire for 30 years, it’s an easy pick. I can’t really find somewhere where I can work on somewhere I love because the Vern diagrams of jobs I w…

Yes, exactly. Because the venn diagram is the two circles of: things I love to do, and things that I do on someone else's terms.

If someone else is telling you what to do, you won't love it, no matter what. Freedom is a prerequisite for love.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s weird and I suspect there’s more to the story on how they arrived at this kind of system. It sounds mechanical and low-trust. Granted, I am not as ambitious as the author, but my wife and I do not ask each other for permission to do things. What we do do is let the other know that we’re taking on an extra responsibility, and specific help needed. We both work in tech and are raising two toddlers.

My wife works at a YC co that recently closed their series A. It’s weird to me that you view it as “asking permission” and not “chatting about a thing before committing to it.” You’re not alone in this thread. It feels like most men here view it through the lens of permission. I don’t get it.

It does sound very transactional. If you need to negotiate your time like that then something has gone wrong.

Re: Changing jobs during the Great Resignation

#350

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 just don't think many or most tech companies have anything positive to offer the world. All these companies simply exist to make money. Generally speaking, most companies just exist to make money. To the extent that they improve anyone's lives, is that they support the economy and allow citizens to pay taxes.

There are certainly some minority of tech companies which do good in the world, but actually getting hired at them is not necessarily likely. They have limited roles available, and need specific skillsets. A large generic tech company needs just about any skillset, and so practically speaking you're likely to find a job there.

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