Ask HN: Has anyone started over outside of tech?

Because if you do a solid good job that's a 2, but a couple 2s fairly quickly gets you on the RIF train to getting fired. Which is nuts. So everyone has to outcompete their team trying to get those 3s. And the manager is put in the nasty position of having to rotate the 2s (which they must hand out since there's always quotas) among the team so that hopefully nobody gets RIFd while still meeting the quotas.

(Assuming a 5 point scale here, which is fairly common, but I've seen other scales but the same principles apply.)

My partner was a manager at the G of faang for many years and twice a year the whole month was blocked off for 60-80 hour weeks just to fill endless review paperwork. And their employees spend all of the six months between reviews scheming ways to fill that next round of paperwork. It's all a monumental waste of time, effort and cause of unnecessary stress for everyone.

None of this nonsense exists in other industries, at least as far as I know from talking about it with my circle of connections in other professions such as law, medicine, accounting.

This definitely seems bad, but it’s not common in every tech company. Maybe is something in your company or city/country?

I worked in a few countries and I’m UK at the moment. Large corporations do have performance reviews, but there is no expectations that everyone needs to over achieve.

If your job is burning you out, maybe is worth it to look around for a new one. Is the high salary of FANG worth it? “Boring companies” can still pay good enough and have really interesting tech challenges.

> None of this nonsense exists in other industries, at least as far as I know from talking about it with my circle of connections in other professions such as law, medicine, accounting.

Maybe not in the same way, but they still have their own struggles to progress in their careers. The main difference is that the tech industry doesn’t have labor regulations and every company needs to do their career progression.

However, Law can be as bad on that, lawyers need to grind for years before getting seniority and higher salaries.

Medicine and accounting is extremely government regulated and you need to get specific certification to pass to the next role. So there is a lot of pressure to get those.

Long-term, the American style meritocratic striving is probably unsustainable and harmful in innumerable ways. But it is _rational_ at least in terms of the choices parents make. Numerous metrics point to increasing economic disparities; the rungs on the ladder keep getting farther and farther apart. How can I as a parent best position my child to negotiate that climb? Parents, who as a rule worry about such things on behalf of their children respond by taking various interventions on behalf of their kids. One is spending money to buy merit, however distorted the concept is in the U.S.

An expensive education doesn’t guarantee a good job? True. But if they have the means, it’s reasonable to anticipate that parents are going to play the probabilities. The problems that arise for parents, their driven kids and the broader society are significant; and I would prefer the circumstances to be otherwise; but that’s going to take an enormous cultural change in the U.S. One that’s more systemic than that of parents choosing to send their kids to less costly universities.

I knew I wanted to do another entrepreneurial role but not do so immediately. I didn't want a tech job.

I spent a few years in construction project management and it was a great experience. A huge change from the tech business world. Initially the money was pretty tragic. But it was fun! And it improved. Moving from high tech to construction is a little bit like entering another world. I found it fascinating.

During that period I also read Ray Kroc's (founder of McDonalds) book which includes him saying "When you're green you're growing. And when you're ripe, you rot."

I prefer to be green and growing. In my career I've encountered many people in a fairly robotic non-or-minimal growth mode. Each to their own.

My experience left me thinking the world would be even better if career switching was easier (for those that want to). I also theorised how I might include this in my next startup (time will tell…). During that period I progressed my vision and plans for my next startup. The period was invaluable. My new startup has been underway for some time now.

Good luck with your plans.