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Working for a startup makes less sense

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Re: Working for a startup makes less sense

#331

Post by jefftk »

viklove wrote: post #328
jefftk wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoops, thanks! I'd missed that! I don't think that had a large effect on my compensation, if any: I joined at L3, which is what most new grads are hired at, and my salary before Google was low enough that I don't think it pushed up my offer at all. I also didn't get offers from multiple places, which is the sort of thing that (a) results in higher offers and (b) is the sort of thing new grads usually do. But ideally…

Mind sharing what your rent was during those 3 years? The best figure would actually be comp minus taxes and rent. edit: Oh, I see you were in Boston -- that's a great deal then. I still wouldn't want to work for Google for idealogical reasons, but I can see why the money would attract others. You also had ~9 YEARS of full time experience at that point, which makes it a lot less impressive.

I'm in Boston, and our rent was about $1100/month for a couple. Rents are higher now (https://www.jefftk.com/p/boston-rents-over-time) and we have kids now.

Taxes would be higher but we donate 50% of our income (https://www.jefftk.com/donations) so I'm not sure how you'd count that?

Also, I didn't have ~9 years of full time work when I started at Google, I had 3.5. My first full time programming job started fall 2008, and this was Spring 2012.

Re: Working for a startup makes less sense

#332

Post by jefftk »

neltnerb wrote: post #329
jefftk wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Boeing won't care if you save the project $5k by spending a week of your time coming up with a clever workaround. I'm confused what you're getting at here. $5k/week is $260k/y (or a bit less counting vacations and holidays) and the fully-loaded cost of an engineer at a startup is typically more than that. Then consider how high opportunity costs typically are at startups, and I expect most startups would view your…

Yes, but a week of delays costs the company like Boeing a lot more than just your salary, and they have deadlines to meet and other teams that need your project done. I agree, most startups would view spending a week to avoid a one time $5k expense to be worth it for several years at least. That's why I'm saying the experiences are different. If you're reading a judgment into my comment, there is none, I think doing…

> I agree, most startups would view spending a week to avoid a one time $5k expense to be worth it for several years at least

Sorry, what I'm saying above is that I don't agree with that.

Re: Working for a startup makes less sense

#333

Post by echelon »

ex_amazon_sde wrote: post #285
echelon wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kubernetes is a solution worse than the problem. Not if you're a 1,000+ engineer org with an SOA. > Microservices are unix pipes but slower. Humans are way more expensive than the machines running our code. You can always spend more on spinning up additional instances. In reality the overhead isn't that bad. The principles of immutable stateless deploys free up so much mental energy when it comes to thinking about…

>> Kubernetes is a solution worse than the problem. > Not if you're a 1,000+ engineer org with an SOA. The fact that most FAANGs (Amazon especially) developed their own systems that are not Kubernetes, and often much simpler, should make you think. Many don't even use containers - by design. (Source: direct experience)

They didn't adopt Kubernetes because it didn't exist at the time. The original paper came out, what, four years ago?

These companies had deployment needs that weren't at the time met by off the shelf open source software.

Re: Working for a startup makes less sense

#334

Post by boring_twenties »

2sk21 wrote: post #310
boring_twenties wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just an anecdotal data point, but some places have a vibrant tech scene despite paying jack shit. Salt Lake City, where I live, is one of them. FAANG don't have offices here and don't offer remote positions, so no one is competing with them. As a result senior developers are getting like $130k or something, and seem to be happy with that. Some people (myself included) don't want to move anywhere else even for $500k.…

Indeed, I think $130k might go a lot further in Salt Lake City than $500k elsewhere

If your savings rate is 0, maybe

Re: Working for a startup makes less sense

#335

Post by halbritt »

ignoramous wrote: post #290
halbritt wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I created a startup tomorrow, I am confident that I could pull world-class engineers out of FAANG. This is easy. Offer relatively competitive TC with a real potential upside to the equity package and a work environment that's attractive. BigCorp is mired in politics and decision-making that's grounded in risk mitigation. Do something legitimately interesting and folks will come. Give them some agency and the abi…

A blog post I read on why hard-tech startups are counter-intuitively easier (especially, in terms of attracting talent): https://blog.samaltman.com/hard-tech-is-back

I read an article a while back that described one trait of the "10x" engineer as dispassionate curiosity. Setting aside the argument of what a "10x" engineer actually is, I'm sure those of us working in the field can recall folks that were exceptionally talented. Every one of those people that I can recall have exhibited this trait.

It's easy to deduce that those folks would be more interested in hard tech than any paint-by-numbers startup. I've worked at startups and well-established companies, and have found it surprising how easily really good engineers will turn down lucrative but uninteresting opportunities at well-established companies and how readily they'll take an "interesting" role for less or sometimes way less money.

Re: Working for a startup makes less sense

#336

Post by rsecora »

viklove wrote: post #330
bhl wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s a more democratic funding model to spread net innovation? Something like an employee owned company?

The technical term is a coop, like REI.

Workers cooperatives are too risky, the liability in case of default is not limited in all legislations that i'm aware. There are successful cooperatives in most countries but those are the exception not the norm.

It's always simpler, safer and more wise to incorporate.

Re: Working for a startup makes less sense

#337

Post by chris_t_98 »

mghfreud wrote: post #110
ravedave5 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked with startup employees who knew 15 technologies - all of them poorly. They had zero best practices because it was go fast 24/7. It was guys right out of school thrown right into the mix so they didn't get the guidance of more senior devs.

I just made a move to a small (~1000 people company) from Google and I feel you. The code quality is terrible, they do not write maintainable/modular code and worse, they do not do design. They suffer from this(there is always another corner case that they did not take into account because they did not communicate well with the customer) but they still do not take any steps towards the right direction.

What sector is the small company? Why did you decide to move there from google?

Re: Working for a startup makes less sense

#338

Post by whiskyant »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #125

I've had a related discussion with a few VCs in recent months. Some kinds of startups are effectively impossible to build given current structural constraints on financing them, creating an adverse selection for startups that fit the classic model rather than startups with the highest expected ROI. Broadly speaking, engineers will work at a discount to market-clearing wages of maybe 20% if they really like the startu…

Most startups I see pay at 50% discount to wages compared to top public companies not 20%

Re: Working for a startup makes less sense

#339

Post by whiskyant »

colordrops wrote: post #191
account73466 wrote: post #102

I feel like it is hard for people to say what they truly love before they have at least $1M in their bank account. If you have FU money, your view on working at a FAANG vs building a startup can change. You will find it easier to know what you truly LOVE.

$1M is not FU money for someone in a major metropolitan US city with kids.

$1M is nowhere near FU money, that's a joke to accumulate/spend here in the bay area.

I'd consider $5M closer to FU money.

Re: Working for a startup makes less sense

#340

Post by redis_mlc »

abacadaba wrote: post #307
marvin wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 million is 40.000 dollars per year indefinitely, by the 4% rule, with a small risk of ruin that you'll most likely see coming years in advance. It should be possible to live in the Bay Area on that, given that the place still has cashiers, cleaning personnel and maintenance workers. It won't be a middle-class lifestyle, but you'd have to make _some_ sacrifices in order to indefinitely work at whatever you want in t…

Never having visited myself, this is what I don't get about the bay area. How is it still a functioning city? How far out do you have to live to be able to afford rent on a non-tech bro salary?

You posed some simple-sounding questions, but the Bay Area is a very complex real estate market to understand.

So I'll just give you some simple answers.

If you don't already own a house, it's not a functioning area for families, or those wanting to own a house, aka "priced out forever."

Commuting farther is an option in other parts of the USA, but not the Bay Area, since it's constrained by hills and the Bay.

The non-owners living here need a gaffe of some kind:

* shared accommodation

* fly into a city airport with a private plane

* know a Prop 13 owner (ultra-low property tax) who wants to rent to a friend

* find an in-law unit coming onto the rental market

* navigate the Sunset area flop houses

* connections to ethnic communities with below-market asks

* get employer to chip in

* homestead a sketchy area of Oakland

* be a multi-unit superintendent (those used to offer a free apt. on-site, but recently I heard of almost market rent being charged)

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