Hope you saw this about Replit OP https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27424195
As if someone with 10 years at Facebook would concern themselves with such trivialities.
On Leaving Facebook
251–260 of 645 posts
Re: On Leaving Facebook
#252"A common question I get is about work/life balance. And I view it a little different too now. At Facebook I could get by barely working a few hours a day. But the job was so unsatisfying that it spilled the frustration in the “life” part" This is the golden piece for me. I too recently left a big corp to a smaller place, expecting to sacrifice WLB and my free time - yet I ended up feeling happier and spending less t…
I think these kinds of complaints are interesting compared to other HN posts about - take your pick - startups trying to keep the lights on, startups closing their doors, bootcamp attendees looking for their first job, etc. Whether intentional or not, the tenor of this blog comes across as fairly sheltered and not particularly sympathetic.
It probably depends a lot on where you're at in your career, but it's pretty obvious that the blog resonates with a lot of people here. For many it probably resonates better than the struggles of a bootcamp grad.
It's not really fair to belittle stories like this with a "you know nothing of pain" mentality. Your startup founders and bootcamp attendees would sound similarly sheltered if set against stories of starving children in Africa. Should we all refrain from talking about our pains because someone else's pains are worse?
Humans struggle everywhere, with different things, and it's helpful for us to learn from people who've been through similar.
Re: On Leaving Facebook
#253I didn’t see retirement addressed, that would be among my top priorities personally. Unless he’s already financially independent and can retire at will, taking a 30% paycut off FB’s top 5% comp could mean delaying retirement by many years. Given fixed living costs, retirement savings could easily drop by much more than 30%. I’m not disagreeing with his choice, it’s a personal one and he may not want early retirement,…
He was at Facebook since 2012... has got to be rich. I gotta wonder why not just retire completely at that point, or at least start your own company? For those of us not in that situation it's a lot harder, especially if you want to work now so you don't have to work later and can retire asap.
Starting a company is not fun for most engineers. Way more fun to get paid (a smaller amount, but way above "average") to hack at a company that has already found product-market fit. Replit doesn't have a Facebook-size audience, but it's still millions of people who you can reach with your work.
Re: On Leaving Facebook
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are questions of the hard type really that common? Thought it was mainly medium.
With a few exceptions, I generally can't solve hard leetcode problems. It never even occurred to me to feel bad about it! I've been a working programmer for 25 years, including many years at Microsoft and Facebook. I'm certain I've never encountered a problem at work that needed a 'hard' style solution, and if I hypothetically had, I don't even know how it would pass code review. I've solved almost all of the easy an…
I'm definitely nowhere near 25 years.
My perspective of "hard" LC problems is that they are typically distributed over a system anyways, where the optimal parts make the whole. That, or they are domain-specific analogs, like complex solvers, or involve graduate graph theory, etc.
What is your perception? I haven't done LC in about a year and a half.
Re: On Leaving Facebook
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I can't imagine a single person where I work factoring this in Then it’s entirely possible you work for an immoral mega corp and your judgment has been compromised by your paycheck. Let me put it in a more blunt way you are more likely to understand. Your team is interviewing someone who was a process engineer on the deep water horizon oil spill. You’d probably feel gross hiring someone whose incompetence poisoned…
No I wouldn’t. I’d feel gross being so judegemental and thinking so highly and self righteously about myself. I highly doubt the work your company does is blessing the earth with immense positivity. I highly doubt, just based on sheer numbers and basic data, that the people working at your company are amazing humble people who care so much about the world. I doubt they are concerned with the homeless population and o…
> No I wouldn’t. I’d feel gross being so judegemental and thinking so highly and self righteously about myself.
Why is applying realistic negative values to behavior such as willful FAANG employment “judgmental”
You made the choice to work for a morally bankrupt megacorp because they paid you a crap ton of money. They paid your bills. You sold out, just own it and be a human instead of coping.
I didn’t say I have some kind of employee utopia, but we build real things that help real people and honestly do make the world a better more honest place.
Re: On Leaving Facebook
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
> At Facebook I could get by barely working a few hours a day. But the job was so unsatisfying This is a little too first world. if the work were too sparse and wants more work, why not join interview loops or take classes/training, attend talks? Does Meta not have those options? The frustration feels almost artificial, if one does not want to get more work, then maybe just go boating or mountain biking. Watch some s…
It doesn't work like that. You have to be "on" even if you aren't working. That means you feel like you can't commit to anything substantial since you feel like you should be working. Fucking off on the internet is a coping mechanism to numb the pain of being in this limbo where you aren't working; but, feel like you should be working because you are getting paid a lot. In retrospect it's easy to see that there's thi…
I’d like to find contracts that are purely delivery based and not part of a team setting. And do value based pricing so if I finish quickly, I’m truly off the hook and have my own time back
Re: On Leaving Facebook
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't work like that. You have to be "on" even if you aren't working. That means you feel like you can't commit to anything substantial since you feel like you should be working. Fucking off on the internet is a coping mechanism to numb the pain of being in this limbo where you aren't working; but, feel like you should be working because you are getting paid a lot. In retrospect it's easy to see that there's thi…
Last two years of my life was this. Sitting at home with nothing meaningful to do but still having to park my butt in my kids bedroom.
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Re: On Leaving Facebook
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not going to dox myself. > I haven't worked at FAANG I doubt that. > but I most definitely would not want to work for a company like yours. You do you. But I make sure we pay way above average, I want the best people and the best people don’t work for Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google.
What’s the pay for someone with 10-15 years experience and is “the best people”?
It entirely depends on the role.
My point is I make sure my companies pay well. I want every employee to feel like they’re robbing me.
But I also want to make sure that I have as few employees as possible.
Re: On Leaving Facebook
#259Why would you need several offers if the new job will be paying less than your current position? Can’t you just tell them how much you make and ask them to match that in equity?
I doubt many (any?) startups would match FB's 10-year senior engineer's total comp. That would burn up the startup's cash (and/or ownership) very quickly. I think the main draws at a startup for a post-FAANG senior engineer are feeling good about the product they build (more useful to the world than FB's ads) or the role/environment (less bureaucracy and org process). I am sure there are many exceptions, but I suspec…
I’d assume after ten years at FAANG, you’d have a decent amount of money saved up as well.
Re: On Leaving Facebook
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unpopular opinion: Facebook is widely disliked by the loudest voices in the room (for good reason), but the vast majority of people still just treat it like a fancy forum. It's not going to stain your CV. Plus, Facebook-the-app is far more disliked than Meta-the-company especially now that's a formal distinction. I imagine it's still relatively cool to work on Instagram, for example.
> It's not going to stain your CV. Not with that attitude. I refuse to hire anyone with FAANG on their resume and you can all do it too. Most of you on here are all woo woo Linux this and FSF that, but you won’t put your money where your mouth is. I won’t hire you if you work for these assholes, and I’d love for more of you to join me. To the rest of you: Sure, take that $300k total comp bro. Good luck working outsid…
It’s one thing to state your values and non-negotiables, and it’s another to seem arrogant and sanctimonious about it.
To me, your comment appears to be firmly in the latter.
If that truly is the case, hope you figure out what you are resentful about because, unbeknownst to you, it is alienating those who see such language.
I agree with your values but I would still think twice about working with you based on the comments in your history.