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Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that, but if you’re trying to get a job at one of the best paying companies in the world, is the stress level actually that different? And there are plenty of examples (search on HN for them) of people running one person internet businesses and making a healthy living.

> is the stress level actually that different? Your liability is. Worst case scenario is you don't get hired, or you get hired, and then get fired. That the worst that can happen. FAANG isn't gonna come after you for damages if you accidentally brick something in production or are just lazy and incompetent. As a business, your customers might. Let's watch how the Crowdstrike scenario unfolds in the coming months, whe…

> FAANG isn't gonna come after you for damages if you accidentally brick something in production or are just lazy and incompetent. As a business, your customers might.

So? Worst case, the business folds and you start it again.

This is like being worried about being fired, and people telling horror stories about so-and-so who got fired. They’re fine. You’ll be fine.

The whole point of an LLC is to prevent people from going after the corporation’s owner. They have to go after the corporation itself. It’s in the name: limited liability corporation. And sure, if you end up harming someone physically then they might have a case against you, but most of us don’t run into that problem.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a common misconception among people who haven't done even the slightest bit of research. Or done their taxes themselves. Confidently stating stuff that is obviously false SHOULD be ridiculed.

Seems strange that ridicule should be your instinct rather than simple education

An educative reply is easier to ignore than a (or multiple) replies in which you're ridiculed.

Moreover, being thought about how you're wrong about X might not necessarily translate in the subject being more careful before confidently expressing themselves on a Y topic on which they don't know anything about. Hopefully, ridiculing might make the subject reconsider that part of their character.

That said, the HN policies recommend to "be kind"... I have no idea how to "ridicule someone's post in a kind way" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is the stress level actually that different? Your liability is. Worst case scenario is you don't get hired, or you get hired, and then get fired. That the worst that can happen. FAANG isn't gonna come after you for damages if you accidentally brick something in production or are just lazy and incompetent. As a business, your customers might. Let's watch how the Crowdstrike scenario unfolds in the coming months, whe…

If you are a tiny business, you just need an indemnity clause. If you have employees, you pay for E&O insurance. Im not saying any of this is obvious, but if you are applying to work at a FAANG, I will assume you are both smart enough and ambitious enough to do a bit of research.

It's totally understandable if you don't want to sell/market your business or you just don't want the unpredictability which is probably greater than with a larger company. But, oh no, I might be sued should almost certainly not be a major consideration relative to other factors.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People say this but I don’t buy it at all. If anything, it feels like the vast majority of the business world is still operating on some combination of Excel and a software program that was outdated a decade ago. The main issue is that their problems are too boring and obscure for anyone without direct personal experience to care about them.

> The main issue is that their problems are too boring and obscure for anyone without direct personal experience to care about them. I think there are probably several hundred HN readers who would be happy to tackle those problems. Boring is probably not the issue, but obscure is, assuming these problems exist. If they're difficult to discover that the problem exists, that's a challenge. Further, if the problems exis…

Your comment reminded me of a cool little project I found a few years ago re: niche problems and smaller solutions - the target demo being soldiers who (very generally) have some disposable income to spend on a small app that can improve their professional QoL was kind of genius imo.

There was (still is, though the website is now dead) a really cool website/app that a fmr Air Force soldier made called AFI SWiM[0] that extracted 'Shall, Will and Must' references from Air Force publications which blew up in popularity among the target demo. The dev recently(ish) wrote a blog post[1] how it surprised him to see the app[2] had gotten around ~20k downloads, though I am unsure if the app was always priced at $1.99 (which would be just under $40k).

I like the idea of developing a problem solver for a niche market, though finding and monetizing it definitely is pretty tough.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20220601160702/https://swim.afie...

[1] https://willswire.com/blog/chat-afi/

[2] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/afi-explorer/id1564964107

the github repo: https://github.com/willswire/afi-swim

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was preached to me that this was how it worked since I started working in the mid-90s. I didn't learn better until an accountant friend clarified that when I got him to do my taxes when I started making real money in the mid-00s. I dare say that it was probably the most common understanding until fairly recently. The internet has probably helped a lot with that. That is to say, if you're of a certain generation yo…

I guess it's a fair assumption you never once attempted to calculate your own taxes in the first decade of filing taxes? Did you just drop some papers off to an accountant the first year that you reached adulthood? I've used an accountant occasionally, but only when I had genuinely confusing tax issues involving international work or work across many states where I wasn't sure whether there existed a "nexus" that req…

If you're in the lowest tax bracket making just above the poverty line, as I was then (as well as most people around me), it was what we all understood to be.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#286
Yes. I've seen a few in the last couple years: one hard science/tech company, one tech infrastructure company taking on a huge established player, one AI-ish company (but suddenly had a shakeup with senior exodus to hotter AI companies).

Non-AI, I got a written offer (for a key T-shaped hands-on technical role in a special unit of a financial institution), for which TC was (put very roughly) about halfway between Google L6 and where non-FAANG IC TC generally tops out.

Since you're asking about "non-FAANG", a few comments about that, using one offer as an example...

First, requirements: making a lot of money now is higher priority for me than it has been in the past (since I'd previously made money way too low of a priority, and now catching up to do), and FAANG-like TC is a solution, but aspects of culture and mission are still also very important.

Some ways that particular financial institution offer was more attractive than FAANG:

1. Every single person I talked with seemed genuine, honest, smart, and down-to-earth, and like they'd be great to work with, not mercenary/arrogant/oblivious like I've seen from some FAANG people.

2. The interview process was collegial and two-way. And some asked some very good questions, including questions that I think would never occur to Leetcode interviewers to ask, and the "correct answer" wasn't in the FAANG interview prep books for people to memorize/practice.

3. A higher executive themself met with me for a substantial meeting, was very smart and straight-talking about everything, and then also brought up growth opportunity they had in mind.

In hindsight, I probably should've accepted, but three of the main reasons at the time that I declined:

1. Leadership of my then-employer assured me that a showstopper organizational issue I raised would be fixed, and I felt an obligation to my colleagues to stay and help fix it. (That was my values-based choice, given the information I had at the time.)

2. The compensation was structured in a convoluted way (more complicated than FAANG TC), and the net effect was that there'd be almost no financial quality of life improvement for close to a year. So I'd be working like crazy, like at a startup (but without a startup lottery ticket), yet, although I'd be working for a big financial institution with a gazillion dollars, I wouldn't immediately have enough money and sense of income security to upgrade from a problematic early-startup-grade apartment in a VHCOLA. Buying a fleet of Brooks Brothers no-iron dress shirts would feel like an investment towards the future bonuses, and I'd just have to make sure my old radiator didn't burst and ruin everything in my closet again, until I could find a sufficiently low-risk way to upgrade lifestyle. :)

3. Once the offer was in writing, I got handed off to dealing directly with large corporate HR processes, which had a very different feel from the people I'd been talking with, and my spidey sense (battle scars) tingled. (Not potentially Kafkaesque bureaucracy for bad reasons, like some companies, but maybe the effect of decades of evolution of highly-regulated large business bureaucracy.) Not the kind of thing you want to see, right after you see that the TC structure still isn't going to make you feel financially comfortable anytime soon. This was intuition rather than hard information, but I hadn't yet gotten that disconcerting feeling from Google (where they'd grown up with a Summer Camp for Stanford Students focus on employee happiness, and where I imagine I might be able to find a progressive policy or person who is able help with a bureaucratic machine dilemma, if ever needed).

When asking about maximizing your TC, consider whether that's your only requirement, and what qualities of FAANG or FAANG-like-TC companies you have to accept to get that money.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> instead of learning how to start and run a business Because the stress and risks of running a small business as a solo inexperienced first time business owner are insane compared to a regular 9-5. Especially if you start hiring other people, your liability then increases 10 fold as now anything can happen with them (sick leave, absenteism, low performance, sabotage, etc) but you're still bound to the same deadlines…

> Because the stress and risks of running a small business as a solo inexperienced first time business owner are insane compared to a regular 9-5. Believe it or not you get over this. It’s kind of like the fear of going up on stage to give a presentation. Some people get an addictive rush, these are usually serial entrepreneurs who just love to be in charge because they have no problems with risk/stress tolerance (mo…

> Everyone should attempt to start a small business or a side consulting gig. Failing that, you should strive to make it to VP-suite

Utter horse shit. I want to earn enough to live without too many worries, and spend time with friends and family.

Being able to leave at 5 is irreplaceable

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> instead of learning how to start and run a business Because the stress and risks of running a small business as a solo inexperienced first time business owner are insane compared to a regular 9-5. Especially if you start hiring other people, your liability then increases 10 fold as now anything can happen with them (sick leave, absenteism, low performance, sabotage, etc) but you're still bound to the same deadlines…

> Because the stress and risks of running a small business as a solo inexperienced first time business owner are insane compared to a regular 9-5. Believe it or not you get over this. It’s kind of like the fear of going up on stage to give a presentation. Some people get an addictive rush, these are usually serial entrepreneurs who just love to be in charge because they have no problems with risk/stress tolerance (mo…

> You get better at handling the stress as you get more comfortable with

Some people, but not many people...

> Everyone should attempt to start a small business or a side consulting gig

Why?

> Failing that, you should strive to make it to VP-suite of your company

Why?

Why take time out of your day to tiger parent strangers on HN when you can just have your own children and damage them instead?

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People say this but I don’t buy it at all. If anything, it feels like the vast majority of the business world is still operating on some combination of Excel and a software program that was outdated a decade ago. The main issue is that their problems are too boring and obscure for anyone without direct personal experience to care about them.

If you know of some boring, obscure market niches that are also likely to be profitable, meaning the cost of customer acquisition is easily less than the profit per customer, and is scalably solved with a software product, please either share with HN readers, or at least offer to sell them to us. They say ideas are worth nothing, but not to me. If you really have some good ideas (see definition above), I would be int…

Here's another one I remember coming across on Reddit or somewhere: this guy is ex-military and sells teddy bears to military spouses/kids/etc.:

https://zzzbears.com

Pretty niche but IIRC he is doing well for himself.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

In the USA this is not how tax brackets work. You are taxed on your income in each bracket at that rate, not overall

Out of curiosity, since you said "In the USA" specifically, is there any tax regime in these times where tax brackets don't work like this?
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