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Ask HN: I got let go this morning. What should I do next?

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Re: Ask HN: I got let go this morning. What should I do next?

#131

Post by willthames »

eigenvector wrote: post #119
fasouto wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is 25, and he plans to retire at 30, in 5 years he may save another couple thousands more. Let's put on the lower part of the "couple" spectrum and say he have 200.000, in 5 years he will have 400.000 USD. This money is enough to retire early with the 4% rule http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/05/29/how-much-do-i-need... Maybe you are assuming that he want to live in the states, with the interest of this money he…

The English colloquialisms "a couple" or "a few" are generally accepted to mean 1 < x < 5.

A couple and a couple of hundred are quite different though!

The original post suggests ~$2000, not ~200k

Re: Ask HN: I got let go this morning. What should I do next?

#132

Post by pnathan »

hn_user2 wrote: post #53
agilecoder wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please be aware that if you do (1) and also do (3) you may be committing Unemployment Insurance Fraud. Most states require you to not only be actively searching for work, but to be "Able and Available" to work and frequently investigations and audits turn up fraudulent UI claims on this basis. Even though much of job searching is online and can be done anywhere, the assumption is that if you are out of state, you wer…

I did this. I highly recommend using the time to take a vacation. And by vacation, I mean searching for jobs in other states and countries. I disagree with your interpretation of "able to available". Even nolo is not 100% on this: Vacations and travel MAY mean you are "unavailable" to work. I am not a lawyer, and this is only my non-lawyer non official, non-professional opinion of what I relied on for myself. 1) Jobs…

I'm pretty sure that in some US statess, that's considered fraud. FYI. =)

Re: Ask HN: I got let go this morning. What should I do next?

#133

Post by pnathan »

* I would stay in the smaller city, and look for work in a larger city amenable to your future spouse. It is very important to me to always have a pool of local work in the case that my current company becomes my previous company.

* I am personally not fond of webdev, so no reply.

I would suggest eyeballing odesk for their contract work, as you can find reasonable work in the > 1K range - for small odesk jobs you can make more at MickyD's. Better take that unemployment insurance.

Also, I'd personally suggest not making any major decisions until Monday morning, after you've slept on it, thought about it, and so forth. My experience is that my judgement is impaired in highly emotional moments.

Re: Ask HN: I got let go this morning. What should I do next?

#134

Post by jacquesm »

tonglil wrote: post #124
jacquesm wrote: post #8

Try to retain your former boss as a customer, likely they'll need you two weeks time.

Can someone explain this more in detail? It's bad ethics to write stuff that only you can maintain, so what other methods can one achieve this/what do you mean?

Of course it's bad ethics to write stuff that only you can maintain. But if you built it, regardless of how well you documented it and how easy someone else could maintain it you're the current expert and by the sound of the OP the rest of the team is not in his league. So the employer thinks to cut costs now that the major work has been done and they're in 'maintenance mode'. That might work, for a while. And then in a few weeks when they want something a bit more elaborate it may very well turn out that letting the OP go was a mistake.

Being good at something (or at least, much better than your co-workers) is the other method you're looking for, no need to resort to evil stuff.

Likely this was reflected in the OPs salary, note that he's let go but his co-workers are not, so probably he was making more per hour than they. And now he'll make more per hour still and his former boss will be more than happy to pay once he realizes that OP could turn him down just as easy as he was let go.

Don't burn your bridges...

Re: Ask HN: I got let go this morning. What should I do next?

#135

Post by BRitterbeck »

tonyhb wrote: post #123
BRitterbeck wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your background more tech or more finance?

Not to discredit your question which is important in context... I feel like Both of them overlap and there are some really, really interesting problems in finance which most people don't have the balls to solve. There's a reason fintech startups are few and far between in comparison to the rest.

I was asking because I used to work in a bank, participated in two fintech startups, and have returned to banking due to circumstances with my family. I was going to target my advice based on the answer; however, after thinking this over some more, my advice would be the same for either answer. Stay in banking. There are a lot of problems in banking that need to be solved, and I think being on the inside of the bank gives one the best chance at solving those problems.

Re: Ask HN: I got let go this morning. What should I do next?

#136

Post by darkmighty »

lotharbot wrote: post #130
platz wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably need ~1.7 to 2.5 million to retire, and even that's not going to be at 30

depends on the lifestyle you want to live. My wife and I might retire in our mid-30s, in the US but not in an expensive area, and be completely comfortable with well under $1 million in assets. Because we live a laid back, low cost lifestyle -- with the house paid off (as of this week) our burn rate is dropping to under $20k per year. You might need considerably more money to maintain your desired lifestyle. There's…

May I ask what is your definition of retirement? I just can't imagine to stop working at that age (maybe it's because I haven't even started).

Re: Ask HN: I got let go this morning. What should I do next?

#137

Post by jmspring »

coned88 wrote: post #18
evo_9 wrote: post #14

So my guess is this is the first time you've been let go, or this is the first time as an adult (post-college) during your profession that you've been let go. Relax, it happens. This doesn't mean you aren't a terrific developer and person to work with. Take a little time to think about what you've worked on, what you've accomplished in the past 6-12 months I think you'll see what a great position you really are in. A…

What's the benefit of a startup? Seems like more hours for less pay while always needing to get things done. I fail to see the appeal. They just have lunches and dinners which appeal to people.

Benefit of a startup (depending on the stage) --

You get to be involved more broadly, but you will also be working way more. You will learn a lot.

Downside of a startup -- you are putting a lot of personal time in for others benefit. Unless you are a Facebook/twitter/google/etc. (all based on luck) an early engineer at a startup is basically wasting away 25-50k/year (depending on level) he could be getting at a public company.

I've played the odds, out of about six or seven startups I worked at, one managed to pay out for the previous couple of years of work (and I am was back at market salary).

I love startups. I work with some now in my current role, I've consulted with many others over the years, but if your goal is pay for time, they are the wrong place to go.

One more potential battle story -- discussions for non-founding CTO of a seed stage startup. The personal sacrifice at the time to accept would have been about $70k/year in guaranteed money for sub 10% equity in the company and a ramp from 45ish hours to 60+hours/week. On paper from everything you can find via glassdoor/angels list/hackernews, the numbers were right regarding the offer. However, what needed to be built (in terms of the service) consulting for the same type of gig would have been $150+/hr and probably much safer/lucrative -- but wasn't an option.

Despite adoring the lead angel investor, I passed. I have my own projects going on and battle scars that kick in when I go back to thinking about being an early stage in building out other's startups on salary.

Re: Ask HN: I got let go this morning. What should I do next?

#139

Post by aercolino »

I would live in a big city with plenty of opportunities. Find an interesting job, where to work no more than 20 hours a week, and earn around 60K. I think your Angular experience is very marketable. And you can always tell your prospective employers the truth, that you made an application too good to keep working there for maintaining it at your salary level. Then use your free time for whatever you want, including meeting lots of people. You could find cofounders...
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