Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where will you go that will be a 50k-100k bump over google comp?
Lots of places, for two reasons 1) companies usually hire ex-Googlers up-level because they're perceived as being more valuable (Google titles tend to under-represent engineer capabilities; an L4 Googler is an SSE elsewhere). 2) Google was one of the FAANGs that fixed wages via unofficial non-competes. Their compensation ladders still reflect that.
I quit Google to work for myself (2018)
61–70 of 250 posts
Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)
#62I'm not sure I agree with this. The breaking projects before completion is very annoying, but also the author seems like they were only there for a promotion? I mean a promotion is nice, but it was never really explained why that was such a dealbreaker. If the only thing keeping you at your job is the prospect of a better title, that's probably a bad sign. They then made a lifetime's worth of money at Google in four…
My experience: initially, I learned a lot of new things, I was excited to work for a big famous company. But eventually, it started to be less fun and more stressful. There's an endless push for impact or to improve some questionable metrics, while technical debt is building up. Also there's always uncertainty about reorgs and layoffs. Lots of anxiety related to the next evaluation cycle.
After a few years, I can say money is probably my main driver. Although, I don't want to get promoted because I certainly don't want more stress. I want to stay in this company as long as possible because I will be very hard to earn more money elsewhere.
Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots of places, for two reasons 1) companies usually hire ex-Googlers up-level because they're perceived as being more valuable (Google titles tend to under-represent engineer capabilities; an L4 Googler is an SSE elsewhere). 2) Google was one of the FAANGs that fixed wages via unofficial non-competes. Their compensation ladders still reflect that.
Dealing with some ex googlers at my current (non tech company) now, Jesus Christ they are culture killers at regular companies.
Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)
#64Think about it like this. A customer is the entity that exchanges money for something they value; like a good or service. That's usually your manager. Or in the case of OP the promotion committee. (Many times it's both your manager and the promotion committee). They are the ones who directly control your money (raise, bonus, promotion, etc).
With that perspective in mind it makes sense to manage your career as a business where you're doing things to increase the rate at which you deliver value to the entity which can trade money for that value.
Many of the setbacks you faced are very common when trying to run your own business. The customer changes their mind, the market shifts the goal posts, you realize you're focusing on the wrong things. Like a business you have to constantly change your strategy and adapt to the customer; not the other way around. Why? Because the customer can very easily get their goods or services from someone else if you can't deliver what they want.
Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)
#65Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
(Not saying it for this person, as I don't know), but there is a case also where you can be a very average performer, just hiding in a large corporation (or retiring, as some people even say), then you will be very well paid, and highly considered. Then once you leave to create your own projects or join a small start-up, reality hits.
Ain't this the truth. So many mediocre people hide in a giant company, learn how to hit their kpis and think they're crushing it, but get smacked in the face by reality when they leave. My experience at a small company is that I always feel mediocre :)
Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
A good highlight of what quitting your job can look like: > Six years ago, I quit my job as a developer at Google to create my own bootstrapped software company. For the first few years, all of my businesses flopped. The best of them earned a few hundred dollars per month in revenue, but none were profitable. We often hear about the successes, and it is easy to be loud with success, but it's important to keep in mind…
It's an interesting reality check that in 2023, six years into his journey as a bootstrapped founder, Tiny Pilot made $225K in profit on ~$1M on revenue. For 2021 and 2022, it made roughly a $5K profit; the rest was all losses. He quit Google because he couldn't get a promotion presumably from L4 to L5, but $225K is less than what an L4 makes. This might also be a microcosm of why the working class is pissed off in A…
That has always been the case. If anything, software development opened up a brand new avenue for people to get rich other than stuffy “elite” colleges that feed into NYC/Chicago/Boston into finance/law/medicine.
Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)
#68Sadly the chosen metric can be subject to politics. You’ll find stakeholders have their pet metric, claim another stakeholders metric doesn’t measure what’s important, or a new, important person thinks all the metrics are garbage and need to be changed.
I’ve had successful projects hit their metrics and those have also gotten caught up in politics.
Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)
#69Author here. Cool to see this pop up again! Happy to answer any questions about this post.
It sounds like you may have been looking at the currents and picking the one that seemed best one to swim in. I found there's often -- but not always -- another option: build a dam. In other words, change it up. Alter the landscape. Seek to change the business in a way that nobody's been willing/able to do before. Looking back at my career I found I was happiest and most successful when I was able to tell my boss what I was doing vs. waiting for my boss to tell me to do something interesting/impactful/etc.
When that option doesn't seem to be presenting itself, it's probably time to move on. But I've found it's often worth giving it a try first.
A couple of times I needed to earn the right to create my own destiny by pushing through some grunge work, but once I established a degree of trust with my management chain, that was capital I could "cash in on" by proposing something big, new, and interesting. It never ceases to amaze me to see how boldness often gets rewarded. I just saw a co-worker of mine draw blood from a stone (funding-wise) by proposing something ambitious and controversial last week. Suddenly they're a TL of a new team this week. They've built a reputation for "just getting it done," so management has confidence in their ability to execute and drive results.
Whenever I'm starting to feel stuck in a rut, that's when I open a blank document and start hammering out a design for something new. I'm not even thinking about promotion when I do that. But somehow, somewhere down the road, either a promotion or a bigger opportunity with another company has always come of it.