91–100 of 418 posts
At my BigCorp employer, Senior Engineer starts at like, maybe $140k total compensation, on the low end. I don't know where the author is drawing these $250-350k minimum figures from, but it feels like "thin air." That being said, a startup in my area would pay 50-70% as much.
When it comes to compensation I think it's pretty clear that Big Companies win. You don't even need to point to Google, Facebook, etc to make this point. However, his argument becomes truly hand-wavey and spurious when it comes to the interesting work part. Of course some of the most interesting tech papers are coming out of Google, that doesn't mean anything for the average Google employee. Also, in his, argument, h…
You did a greenfield implementation of a compiler? Why?
I'd recommend anyone looking for their first job out of university to consider strongly a job at a startup. Consider it a 'finishing school', where you'll have the highest chance to touch as many different technologies and tasks as possible (from system administration, to backend to frontend work), as opposed to the 'Big Company' where (especially for a first job) you'll be focused on one task. The important thing is…
I went about it the opposite way, and can definitely recommend that as well: big company first, then small. The big company experience shows you a ton of things, like how to interview, build, and deploy at scale. The small company can benefit from your ability to bring order to chaos, develop tools which are obvious in any big company but strangely missing from every small one, and more. Maybe it doesn't matter which…
http://www.cmu.edu/career/salaries-and-destinations/2015-sur... [pdf]
Having $130k as a baseline salary for the analysis is silly. (However, a total compensation of $130k is not silly)
So I've been at this 9 years and I'm not making six figures. Fuck. I don't even understand where I went wrong. Part of me can't believe the article at all. His comment about cost of living was kind of an outright dismissal, very odd? I don't think Google will let me work from Milwaukee. Where is the information on travel, quality of life (owning a house?), etc?
I don't think Google will let me work from Milwaukee. Depending on your skills, maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't. But you might be surprised to learn that the author worked for Google an hour-and-a-half away in Madison? https://github.com/danluu/tex-resume/blob/master/resume.pdf
There are a lot of brilliant hyper-competitive people who work at these big companies and you will be a small fish. So I think this article is spreading a myth that there is guaranteed piles of money to be made by working at Google, Facebook, Apple, etc.
I've worked at both startups and big companies since I first came to SV in 1999. And some startups that became big companies. For me, there's much more than the practical & financial considerations laid out here. Deep down I know that I enjoy taking risks -- I like the roller coaster ride, and having a very real and visible impact on whether the company as a whole sinks or swims. Know yourself and don't ignore your i…
If you think you're that good at picking financially successful startups, why not invest just money rather than time AND money?
https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768
If you can get a job at Google, it's very different than getting a job "at a big company" and has historically actually increased your odds of success later on (via the propensity of investors to fund Xooglers). So I would definitely agree - taking a job at Google when you haven't had one before vs. starting a startup is a very legitimate choice to make. Taking a job at Microsoft vs. starting a startup, I would argue (and the X-Microsofters in my life) a very different one.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been out of school 3-4 years, and I work at a large company. I'm about 10% a manager, 10% a resident data scientist, and 80% a coder, and I love my job.
so are you a valley coder at netflix? seems suspect you already have a 250k salary as a 26 yr old
Just sharing anecdote for anecdote.
250k a year in 5 years at a big corporation, really? Yea if you're lucky to work on a project/team higher-ups care about and are also willing to bust your ass working long hours to meet insane deadlines. Also, you better be someone who is excellent at communication and charismatic if you want to get invited to the table of interesting work. There are a lot of brilliant hyper-competitive people who work at these big c…
Or, maybe I am doing something wrong here and am underpaid...