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I quit the tech industry

eev.ee

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Re: I quit the tech industry

#481

Post by walshemj »

ryandrake wrote: post #403
thwarted wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more appropriate to take a "no MBAs" rule as "no one who self identifies primarily as having an MBA". In my experience, an engineer with an MBA who neglects to even mention their engineering schooling/experience in favor of the MBA is a rare animal.

Self-identifies primarily as having an MBA? I don't even know what that means. If I interview with your company, should I not mention the MBA and instead say that during my 15 years of writing software, I took two years off to go wind surfing? Really? That's considered better?

I think its the ones who do a BSC and immediately do a MBA without the required 10 years so or so in a real job - that they don't want to hire.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#482

Post by walshemj »

probablyfiction wrote: post #361
avn2109 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "They're being paid huge sums..." Everyone who works in finance just lol'd. But seriously, relative to the value a good hacker adds to the business, "huge sums" is probably not an accurate characterization of engineer comp.

Huge sums in relation to the average American worker. I'm being paid below average for a programmer of my caliber, but it still feels like a ton of money because I grew up in humble circumstances.

But you should compare your self to your peers in other professions.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#483

Post by eevee »

downandout wrote: post #276
probablyfiction wrote: post #17

This is what burnout looks like. Unless Yelp has a toxic work culture, it's likely the author brought it on themselves by pushing too hard. After several months, the author will probably start thinking about work again, and begin the job search once more. Not to say that the author's points are invalid; it's a terrible feeling to have to spend your most productive hours working on someone else's problems. He or she m…

>Unless Yelp has a toxic work culture Yelp's business model is quasi-extortionate. Even if the work environment itself was OK, writing code all day for that purpose would certainly leave me feeling pretty crappy about my job. That kind of thing doesn't wash off very easily if you have a conscience.

Whispered rumors of Yelp's business model have been greatly exaggerated. In almost four years I have never seen anything within the company to substantiate them in any way whatsoever.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#484

Post by oinksoft »

thomas943 wrote: post #400
meritt wrote: post #305

The guy cashed out enough to pay off his entire mortgage and is acting like that's a tough decision. Millions of Americans would love to have that "problem". Millions of people hate their jobs. They don't have the opportunity to just walk away from it, as they often have a family to support. And then he has the gall to ask for donations? Seriously? Can this post be laden with slightly more privilege?

> Can this post be laden with slightly more privilege? Sadly, it probably was laden with even more obnoxious privilege and what we are reading is the edited version. I'm in my late twenties and I am constantly amazed by how pathetic, obnoxious, and truly useless the younger generations have made themselves. This person wants donations to play with pokemons after letting us know they paid off their mortgage. My only h…

I hate to break this to you, but as somebody of similar age, we are the "younger generation," at least in the professional world. Beyond that, "the young'ns are useless!" is a tired trope. If anything I notice recent grads being wiser and more industrious than my peers were at that age, possibly due to some combination of being too young to have experienced most of the peaceful and prosperous 90's, the economic fallout they witnessed through high school/college, and the cynicism they learned from the lukewarm "liberal" politics of the Obama administration with its burgeoning surveillance state.

It's especially cowardly to use what appears to be a throwaway account to wish that a personal, inoffensive blog post "prevents this person from ever being hired again."

Re: I quit the tech industry

#485

Post by moron4hire »

exelius wrote: post #473
moron4hire wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Process doesn't work, it can't work, because Process isn't the problem, it's top-down management infrastructure. Process is orthogonal to that. In a top-down management style, your so-called "Lead Developer" is just the first head on the chopping block. They're leaders of puppet regimes. If the real leaders don't like them, they install a new one. It comes in many forms: layoffs, "performance" related dismissal ("you…

Any company of a certain size must convert to a top-down management infrastructure. I've seen what happens in large companies that don't -- you get 15 teams building different versions of the same product, and internal politics decide whose version becomes the 'official' one. But invariably, the internal user community settles on the one that's actually best for their use case, so you end up having to support 3 or 4…

I know, I really understand what you're saying. And I am not saying a democracy is a better option. But I just don't think the things you're describing are attributable to top-down management. It certainly has never prevented the problems you've mentioned in any of the places I've ever worked. I agree that clear direction is needed, but your garden-variety middle manager isn't going to provide that. What he will usually provide is a sense that the failures of the organization are the fault of the leaf-nodes.

For every SV-brand startup, there are dozens of small-time consultoware shops serving their local market. They're the kind of places that have been around for 20 years and still only have 100 employees each. They can't ever seem to grow beyond that size because the one-way communication flow from sales to development keeps them in massive technical debt.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#486

Post by Dewie3 »

Mahn wrote: post #125
jahnu wrote: post #43

"I had stock options, and I cashed them all in last week. I net enough to pay off the mortgage, so I’m doing that, which will leave the entire household debt-free and cut our expenses drastically." I'm happy for you. Even a tiny bit jealous. But it does in the end make the whole post sound like a humblebrag to me.

But that's how all posts like these go, HN loves to upvote them for some reason but they all boil down to "I'm quitting because I have enough money to do it".

Everyone quits because they have the opportunity to do it. If he didn't have enough cash to be unemployed on an indefinite basis, or the willingness to start his own tech gig, maybe he would have become a farm hand in Wyoming just to get away from it all. Then someone would have yelled Hipster!!! in the comments section. Or You don't know how easy you had it! You'll be back soon once you can't take the blisters and sore knees!.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#487

Post by bcheung »

mark-r wrote: post #321
jlongster wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wanted to make $200,000 or so from a successful personal project on the side, just so that I could pay off my mortgage so I didn't have to worry about it anymore. But when I think about really getting that money, I realize I wouldn't do that. If my mortage is $1200/month, I just bought myself 166 months, or ~14 years. If the idea is to quit your job and invest in a company, that's not the smartest move. Y…

Paying off a mortgage is just like any other investment - you need to look at the terms to see if it's worth doing. It's very illiquid, you can't get your cash back without getting another mortgage. On the other hand, it's a guaranteed rate of return that's probably significantly more than any other guaranteed rate you can find. If you think you can do better with a different investment then go for it. But remember,…

The guaranteed rate on your equity is 0%. Got $500,000 in equity? Then that's $500,000 earning 0% interest. Of course you aren't paying mortgage interest but with mortgage rates at 3.5 - 4.25% it's easy to find investments with higher guaranteed returns.

Infinite Banking (using overfunded, dividend paying, whole life insurance) currently has 4.5% guaranteed floors with actual rates with dividends currently at 5.0 - 5.5%. Lots of other benefits as well, life insurance, and being able to borrow money against your policy any time you want for any reason, no questions asked.

Also, a 4% mortgage is only 4% of the whole balance in the beginning. At the end it is 4% of a very small balance. If you use level payments you effectively cut the interest rate in half to make comparison.

Taking out a $10,000 loan at 5% and investing it at 5% results in a profit.

Year 1 - Make a $1000 payment, $9000 balance (5% is $450). Your investment is $10000 at 5% or $500. $9000 loan and $10,500 in investments.

Year 2 - Make a $1000 payment, $8450 balance (5% is $423). Your investment is $10,500 at 5% $525. $8450 loan and $11,025 in investments.

...

Re: I quit the tech industry

#488

Post by eevee »

sbisker wrote: post #420

>I net enough to pay off the mortgage, so I’m doing that, which will leave the entire household debt-free and cut our expenses drastically The lead seems buried here. This isn't someone quitting, this is someone in a position of incredible privilege, essentially retiring (or at least going on "funemployment" for a little while). There are far darker ways to make far less money, that are far more worthy of dramatic st…

I'm fully aware how lucky I am to be able to pull this off. (I don't have nearly enough saved to actually retire on, though.)

Knowing that other people have it worse — or even that I used to have it worse — doesn't make it any better.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#489

Post by ryanx435 »

eevee wrote: post #336
ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #267

"I don’t know how to turn this into dollars yet. Hopefully I’ll figure that out." This just oozes privilege and naivete. If only most people scraping along had this kind of safety net.

I am definitely hecka privileged. What would you have me do? Keep working a job I don't enjoy, out of guilt that other people have to do the same?

I hate the word privileged, especially when used in the context op did.

so you're successful, and an unquantifiable amount of that success was an accident of which family and socioeconomic background you were born into, and op wants you to feel shame because of that?

that's ridiculous. it's a free country: do what you want and don't worry about the haters.

Re: I quit the tech industry

#490

Post by skidoo »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #234
skidoo wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offense, but I disagree with pretty much all of this. We work more than our ancestors do, not to make an easier life, but for the sake of incorporating the ephemeral and inconsequential into our lives. And an agrarian lifestyle can be loads of fun, actually. I got more of a sense of accomplishment helping on my grandparents' farm than from any blue collar job I've ever held.

IMO the truth is somewhere in the middle. A lot of people tend to underestimate the extent and pervasiveness of 'make-work' in the economy. But then again there are lots of vital but rather onerous tasks that would never get done if there wasn't any financial incentive.

Financial incentive wasn't attached to labor for the bulk of our species' history though. That's relatively new. Prior, there was working for survival (far less hours per week than today), and beyond that the obvious slavery that was more overt than modern industry. All said, now I think it would take a mother of a global psychogenesis to remind people of benefits to working other than the mere monetary (physical, spiritual, etc). But it is in our genes. We are just lazier than our forefathers, that much less willing to scrub our own toilets and the like unless we can see the carrot at stick's end.
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