Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like? - <AUTHOR> I've spent the last decade in two FANG companies, and I've got to a high level where my total compensation is ridiculous.
The problem is that it bores me to tears, and I don't want to do it anymore.
At first thought, maybe I am burned out? However, I can still come home and write code for a side-project, so I don't think this is "burn-out". I don't know to be honest. I think the best description is that I am cynical of the "mission", and I can't connect my work to people I care about. How do I know what the source of the problem is?
However, I wanted to pose two questions.
First, what is the environment like for exiting high-level former-FANG employees?
Second, what are some of the surprises post-FANG that I would be in for if I wanted to start a company?
Thank you for your time. <comment><USER2> I quit full-time work in 2001, after being burned out in the dot com boom. I did well for myself financially after the startup I was in got bought. The phrase "well" is of course subjective, considering that no colleague of mine quit. I left a whole lot of money on the table, but never once have I regretted it.

I decided that the name of the game is to optimise quality of life. That means, infrequent brutal deadlines, minimal (pref. zero) commute, opportunity to learn, and spend time with family and friends and be of use to society at large.

This meant (1) I'd only do short-term assignments (less than a year) (2) I'll keep my technical chops as current as possible, so no shortage of interesting gigs to work on (3) Not hurry into the next gig when one ended.

I have never learnt the art of work-life balance, but now I'm able to amortise it over the course of a year! Work my ass off when I have a contract, then take off and putter around with different technologies and hobbies. There's lots of time for family and friends. The money is of course considerably less than what I could make, but more money comes at the cost of very high expectations and brutal deadlines. I charge less, and I get more time to do a quality job. Clients remember you for the quality, not for the time taken. Of course, as I get older, I _need_ the extra time too; I just don't have the stamina.

I love it. I am 55 and I code every single day, just for fun.

<comment><USER3> Your answer is very inspiring and also perfect example for youngsters to understand money and productivity are not the only things that matters in life.

I had a similar junction in my life and I selected money instead of pursuing family and academic life, now I'm starting to think maybe wasn't a good decision. I'm getting older (38)

Do you mind if I ask did you also quit your job to pursue Phd? Nowadays started working on my old projects, ideas and realised this is the only stuff that I'm enjoyed right now!

<comment><USER2> Yes, I did. At the age of 42!

Funny you should ask. I posted about my experience in a recent thread a few weeks back.

Search for my user name here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21299546](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21299546)

<comment><USER3> Yes indeed, I've read with enthusiasm :)

Thanks for sharing, I want to congratulate you and your wife because I assume as we get older big changes like quitting job, moving to another country or even moving to another house is getting harder to decide. But I guess hard choices are mostly fruitful in the long run.

<comment><USER2> Ha, thanks!

Some choices are hard because of uncertainty and fear of the unknonwn. People live through terrible relationships, suffer terrible commutes, work in soul- sucking places etc and are yet unable to quit because the alterntives are less defined.

While I have enough finances to be comfortable (and reduce uncertainty), I don't know of anyone personally who has made the choices I have, even though many are vastly richer than I. They continue to grumble about expenses and commutes and health issues. Middle class people vastly overestimate how much they really need, and peg their lifestyles to that bar, often at the cost of everything dear.

I have a very simple approach. I ask "What's the worst that can happen? Will this affect me next year?". I find that once I quantify it, most fears just melt away. Say my laptop gets stolen and everything in it is irretrievable. No backup, say. What's the worst? It would be a royal pain to get back my life, but by this time next year, I'd be just fine. Moving to a different country to do a PhD? What's the worst? I'll perform badly and get chucked out, and I will return and get another job. Five years from now it would be a fine story to regale my friends with.

Sorry. I'm getting wordier as I grow older!

<comment><USER4> I really agree with your comment, but the problem with "What's the worst that can happen?" for a lot of us is that it's so easy to go down a rabbit hole and find a way that your life would end or be ruined, no matter how unlikely it is. When I'm feeling anxious, like if I'm driving, I genuinely believe that I will be hit and killed at any moment, and there's nothing I can do about it.

So the technique I use is I say to myself "It's pretty likely that I'll be 35 years old at some point, regardless of whether I try to get a post-bac or not. It'd be really nice to be a doctor by then". Substitute in whatever long-term goal you have like founding a company or running a marathon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> These kind of posts keep making me think I should go work for a FAANG so I can actually retire one day. Anyways, as someone on the other side, who has never worked for or applied to FAANG, I have a few reactions.

First, your salary is absolutely ridiculous. I know hard working people who have built their own businesses with blood and sweat, and they still don't make as much as a slacker engineer at FAANG. So I'd say try not to take it for granted - you will find it difficult to even make a fraction of your comp if you leave FAANG.

Second, in my experience working with ex-FAANG - these engineers, while they all tend to be very smart, tend to be borderline junior engineers in the real world. They simply don't know how to build or operate something without the luxury of the mature tooling that exists at FAANG. You may be in for a reality shock when you leave the FAANG bubble. On the other hand it could be a great challenge if you're bored, and will broaden your engineering experience greatly.

If I was in your position, I'd look into FIRE and then you can just relax and do whatever you want without worrying about finances.

<comment><USER6> > mature tooling that exists at FAANG

I never worked at FAANG but even after more than 10 years working in tech, it still surprises me how undervalued well working tooling is. I'm not talking about 100% automation with infinite possibilities. Just really basic stuff, like deployment or setting up a development environment. That should always be a no-brainer.

<comment><USER7> I used to work at Google, and I find the tooling much better on the outside. Heroku is much better than Google's deployment tool; Github is much better than their review tool.

The only things I miss are the snacks and the searchable codebase

<comment><USER8> > and the searchable codebase

Do you mean that you'd search Google's entire codebase monorepo for code examples, or that there was a better, searchable code snippet tool internally?

<comment><USER9> > Do you mean that you'd search Google's entire codebase monorepo for code > examples

As another former Googler, yes, searching the entire monorepo was a frequent occurrence. Internal code search is pretty good (it's a search company, after all) but I have to say that I don't miss it so much now that Sourcegraph exists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > First, what is the environment like for exiting high-level former-FANG > employees?

For most employers, it will be a positive. There may be a handful of very small startups that see it as a negative, but the reality is a very small startup is so different from a giant tech firm that the hiring team is probably correct in assuming you've never had to do something incredibly arduous without enormous support (I once had to spend 6 months reverse engineering a video output because our customer refused to tell us what it was - I ended up finding a clue on a Russian blog and I translated it with Google - this is the sort of shit you will do at an actual hard-tech underfunded startup. And if you care, it turned out to be a proprietary video signal invented in the 80s that had long since been abandoned by almost everyone so I then had to build a fucking circuit to decode it).

> Second, what are some of the surprises post-FANG that I would be in for if I > wanted to start a company?

Your reputation will help you with investors, but it will not help you with reality. Starting a company is much harder than you think it is - no matter how hard you think it is; it's harder. That thing I said above about reverse engineering a proprietary video signal because our customer was impossible? That was one of the most enjoyable parts of my job.

If you want to start a company, and you're able to do so (don't put your family savings into jeopardy over this), go for it! Just realize it's not going to be anything like a giant tech firm, where you don't realize they actually do 99% of the job for you. It will be far more rewarding. It will be far more stressful. There is an extraordinarily high chance of failure. You will likely make friends with new peers, and likely ruin some relationships in the process.

The best advice I can give anyone that wants to start a company: ask yourself why do you want to start a company? If the reason is anything other than "there is this huge problem that needs to be solved and I know a way to do it!" then you are chasing a bandwagon of the glory that comes from being a successful technology entrepreneur, and aren't actually building a company with any value behind it.

<comment><USER11> > Just realize it's not going to be anything like a giant tech firm, where you > don't realize they actually do 99% of the job for you.

This. So much this.

All those teams of devops people, the SREs, the QA people, the network engineers and all the other unsung heroes don't exist in a startup yet the people who only ever worked at BigCo assume that they do and so forget about all of the problems involved in building a codebase that can scale in a meaningful way because it's always been someone else's job and they have been focused solely on their KPI or singular deliverable.

All that build infrastructure or coding standards or documentation or monitoring systems that you took for granted at Google or Facebook? None of it exists. Not only that - you won't be rewarded for building it, instead you'll be asked why the next person to come behind you got their work done faster than you did.

<comment><USER12> I almost got burned by this. The COO of the company basically asked my why I wasn't getting anything done. I had to be direct and say that I'm happy to spend 100% of my time coding new features, but he is going to have to answer the phone when a customer says the site is down, because I will be too busy coding.

<comment><USER11> I got burned by this. I worked at a Google spinoff as the first non-Google backend engineer. The documentation was atrocious and so was the onboarding process so I took the time to fix the problems for the next new hire.

I was then told the new hire got up to speed faster than I had (no shit) and that this reflected negatively upon me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I left Apple to join a startup that was then acquired by Facebook. I recently left after five years there to start another company. It takes a few months to get back out of the mind-set of consensus building, socializing ideas to avoid surprising anyone, and getting sign-off at every step. All of that is necessary to keep organization thousands and projects with hundreds of people on them operating smoothly.

When you're off on your own, have to remember that you yourself are usually the main bottleneck. You have to figure out how to unblock yourself and context switch efficiently as you take on every facet of the thing you're building, especially as it escapes purely technical work.

FANG companies do a great job of coddling you because it's effective all around. You have to find your own lightweight substitutes for all of that.

</comment><comment><USER14> > How do I know what the source of the problem is?

You don't like working for FANG. That seems like a totally normal sane response to me. I'd be more concerned about the people who love that corporate environment rather than those it doesn't give meaning to. Some people like the security and routine and structure (understandable), some people like the politics (weird), but I don't think you need to overthink this. There's nothing wrong with you.

I think in life we need a combination of meaning and joy to be reasonably satisfied. Joy mostly comes from relationships, meaning from work and other responsibilities eg being a parent, helping other people.

Working for a big corporation puts food on the table, but it's hard to see any meaning there. Actually, I can imagine working at old Apple or SpaceX could give you meaning. But most corporates are not driven by meaning, but by profit, which can be completely meaningless - travelling in a hundred different directions, for example. And these giants can also disconnect you from the world, like what is the impact of me writing this test suite for FANG's internal HR system, why do I even care.

Startups provide more meaning (ok, _some_ startups) but it's a totally different game and I'm not sure most people are suited to them. All the good startup people I know are outliers - surprisingly they are not motivated by cash; they are prepared or enjoy to work really hard; they have diverse skill sets rather than being the best coders; they are not just fine with risk, they like it because it's a bit of gambling and they need that.

There are many other options to consider. What if you worked in tech for a non tech company? Your skills then have a massive impact. What about an organisation like the Khan Academy rather than a business? What if you made tech your hobby not your career? Teaching, training, consulting? Working only part of the year and spending the rest volunteering in developing nations (met people who do that)?

As others have pointed out, take a break, get out of your environment, you need to see the bigger picture and remember what your really enjoy. Travel and spend time with people you love.

<comment><USER15> > You don't like working for FANG. That seems like a totally normal sane > response to me. I'd be more concerned about the people who love that > corporate environment rather than those it doesn't give meaning to.

There are lots of people at Amazon, Google, and I'm sure Facebook that find meaning in their job. Improving search actually does help people, billions of them. Improving the web stack (Chromium) also helps billions of people. I'm guessing the people at Oculus (Facebook) believe they are helping to invent the future. Pocket computers used to = newton/palm/ce, VR is at that first level but many believe it will advance to iPhone level (more ubiquitous)a at some point. I know people working on robotics at Amazon who love it.

<comment><USER16> Except that working on stuff for FAANG doesn't necessarily make things better and instead just helps with monetization and/or lock-in.

Is it really an improvement to cover more of the search results page in ads, centralize ever more functionality on that page which pushes out smaller/independent competitors, track users more comprehensively and optimize mobile loading times by creating a corporate-controlled, Google-hosted format that companies are coerced into instead of doing the same thing with standards-based, distributed technologies?

Is it really an improvement to the "web stack" if Chromium kills diversity in the browser engine space, blurs the lines between client software and Google account, then proceeds to limit ad-blockers' capabilities via extension API changes? While at the same time Google web sites happily go about cross- advertising for more monoculture and deliberately not supporting Firefox even where it provides all required functionality.

(Similar examples exist for other market-dominating companies and products.)

One man's improvement is another one's trading the long-term health of tech and business ecosystems for short-term convenience and stock market returns. It's tempting to believe in the usefulness of one's work is when the massive scale and complexity of FAANG companies make it so easy to miss the forest for the trees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I burnt out decades ago. Unfortunately, I kept coming back to tech when I could half-stomach it again and desperately needed money instead of doing what I really knew I should have done, which was to make a career change to something drastically different. This is one of my greatest regrets in life.

Now I'm old, my skills are out of date because I really don't give a crap enough about tech to learn the latest buzzword technology out there, and that and the gaps in my employment during my severe burnouts make for a CV full of red flags, which means that even in this nearly ideal seller's market for people with tech skills nobody wants to hire me. I don't blame them. I wouldn't want to hire me either.

So if like me you're burnt out and feel you're really no longer suited to the tech field, it might be better for you to permanently get out sooner rather than later. Consider doing whatever it takes to make a career change to something drastically different, even if it's risky and maybe you don't know exactly what you'd rather do. Taking such a risk will be a lot easier when you're younger.

<comment><USER18> That's a shame, what would you have done instead?

Also, at what age cut-off would you consider it being easier than being labelled "old" ?

<comment><USER17> _" what would you have done instead?"_

Maybe teach or try to make it as an artist... or try to get in to making movies. I have so many other interests apart from computers. Trying to pursue any of them professionally might have lead to something, and, honestly, maybe I would have burnt out on whatever it was or just failed, but at least I wouldn't have kept banging my head against something I hate and dread over and over and over again.

 _" Also, at what age cut-off would you consider it being easier than being labelled "old" ?"_

I'm not exactly sure I understand what you're asking there. Could you rephrase your question?

<comment><USER18> Certainly. You said you would have made the change earlier but now consider yourself to be "old" (and therefore your skills are out of date). At what age would you have not considered yourself "old" and likely a more suitable candidate for jobs?

I know that the "buzzword bingo" of tech doesn't help. What languages did you write in?

I play a few instruments and it is enjoyable but I am not sure I would have "succeeded" as an artist, simply because it is another industry set up to sell things just like the software industry (particularly "rent-a-software" that seems to be taking hold) and disillusionment would have set in (unrealistic expectations?). I suspect I would have ran out of creativity or ideas, and I wonder if the same would have happened to you?

It's a shame about you hating it and dreading programming. I don't like some of the stuff I have to write but at least it is writing software - I try to keep in mind that's it's still "better" than other jobs I would have gone insane in (eg. basic administrative jobs).

<comment><USER17> _" Certainly. You said you would have made the change earlier but now consider yourself to be "old" (and therefore your skills are out of date). At what age would you have not considered yourself "old" and likely a more suitable candidate for jobs?"_

Well, being more suitable for jobs is less a matter of being young than of having the right skills and a good CV. The reason I brought up being old is because I think it's harder to make a career switch when you're older than when you're younger.

 _" What languages did you write in?"_

I'm actually going to refrain from giving any more details about exactly what I did. Suffice to say the tech I knew at my peak is, mostly, no longer in fashion and that I knew a variety of languages.

 _" I suspect I would have ran out of creativity or ideas, and I wonder if the same would have happened to you?"_

That's certainly possible, but there are ways to keep oneself fresh.. like surrounding oneself with other creative people, who can be really inspiring, or to work on many different projects at the same time, so it's more difficult to get bored than working on the same thing over and over again. I do share your concern, however, particularly in the long term, but now, looking back on my life I wish I'd just tried more things career wise, and taken more risks... even if they didn't work out in the end, they would have provided lots of opportunities to completely change my life, learn new things, and meet interesting people.

 _" It's a shame about you hating it and dreading programming. I don't like some of the stuff I have to write but at least it is writing software - I try to keep in mind that's it's still "better" than other jobs I would have gone insane in (eg. basic administrative jobs)."_

Yes, there are plenty of worse jobs. I dread those too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've worked in both big tech and startups. Startups are nothing like big tech companies. The work and needs of a small company are completely different than somewhere like Google.

And here's the bad news: going to a small startup or mission-driven company probably won't make you happy. You often have all of the same problems, with none of the support or validation from a big company.

I've hired and worked with many who were in your exact same position. Almost all of them quit after a year or less and went back to big tech.

In my eyes, hiring someone from big tech is risky for this exact reason. It rarely works out, and the guys I've worked with end up getting sour when they realize they traded a job with high salary, security and perks for what amounts to at the end of the day another job with lower salary, few perks and no security because they got restless or bored.

<comment><USER20> I don't think the only two options are big tech and chaotic startup. There are non-tech places that just want someone to add some tech to their business, for example.

<comment><USER21> There's also big consultancy, which allows you to see all kinds of companies, work on different types of projects and still have a bit of consistency at your firm. It's not for everyone, but if you value some consistency, decent pay and working for different types of projects and companies, it's definitely worth checking it out.

It's not the type of job to find a 'mission' though, usually.

<comment><USER22> I've seen consulting being suggested freq as a viable gig to support yourself when you run out of money to pay the bills. How does this work? Register on Upwork or fiverr? What if your capabilities as a consultant are inadequate? What if you struggle more than you actually did at a full time job? How do you position yourself for the gig?

<comment><USER21> I wrote 'big consulting', because there are many large consultancy firms that would be happy to hire anyone with FAANG experience. Capgemini, Accenture, Deloitte, PWC, etc. Many of them work with companies that are being disrupted and are trying to stay relevant. This creates interesting opportunities.

<comment><USER23> From what I hear from someone who works at a big 4 it sounds soul destroying.

<comment><USER21> I work currently at one of the firms in my comment and it's not bad at all. Currently working on a really fun project too. It really depends on the firm and even the team within the firm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> In a similar situation, I decided to take a leave of absence with no plan for what I was going to do. Since I wasn't sure I'd go back, I made sure other people on the team were prepared.

Then serious family stuff happened and I was happy to have the time to deal with it. After the leave of absence was up, I still wasn't sure and asked about extending, but they didn't go for that so I left the company.

Since then I've learned to play the accordion and now I'm tinkering with electronics to come up with a new musical instrument. No real desire to get a job. After a while I decided I'm fine with simply being retired.

So I'd say try the leave of absence?

<comment><USER25> How do you support yourself? Do you have a family to support?

<comment><USER26> After a decade in FANG and living a not extravagant lifestyle, you could easily have a couple million socked away.

That at least gives you breathing room to do whatever for a few years.

<comment><USER27> For a few years? What kind of lifestyle do you have that a few millions only last a few years? I really doubt with that math you would have been able to save a few millions in the first place, unless you won a lottery.

<comment><USER28> Typical cash plus equity for an experienced engineer is going to top $300k/yr at the low end. Million _s_ might be an exaggeration, but it's certainly trivial to save well north of $1M in a decade on that salary, barring misfortune like a health incident.

<comment><USER29> >barring misfortune like a health incident.

Here is a reminder to everyone that a health incident is only a financial misfortune in the US.

<comment><USER30> If a health incident makes you unable to work, that's a financial issue in much of the world.

<comment><USER29> > that's a financial issue in much of the world.

Well, unless they have a pension. Which about half the countries in the world seems to provide, at least for government jobs.

<comment><USER30> There often are in the US as well for government jobs. But they usually depend on a significant number of years of tenure and defined benefit plans are pretty rare at this point for private employers. (Which isn't even necessarily a bad thing unless you think retirement benefits should be heavily tied to decades of employment with a single company.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I quit Google in 2017 to go work on something I thought would have a large positive effect on the world: [https://www.jefftk.com/p/leaving-google- joining-wave](https://www.jefftk.com/p/leaving-google-joining-wave)

I liked the startup work similarly to my work at Google, though it was very different. I needed to be much more focused on "what's the number one thing I need to be doing for the company now" and not "how can I design and build in a way that will work for the long term".

After about five months the product failed (for non-technical reasons) and I was laid off. I decided to come back to Google and start earning to give again: [https://www.jefftk.com/p/rejoining- google](https://www.jefftk.com/p/rejoining-google)

<comment><USER22> Thanks for sharing the write-ups: It was as much interesting as inspiring. _Earning to give_ is such a noble way to live.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Just left Google after ~4 years, and couldn't be happier (always been more comfortable independent though). I liked everyone I worked with, but the work was incremental at best, and most often about perf optics. You'll probably be surprised how hard people work outside those companies, and how good they are (even if you already knew -- it's easy to forget in there).

I'd say if you don't have something you really want to do, just take time off and code for fun until you figure it out. I wouldn't just go work somewhere else, esp somewhere that is impressed with such a resume, it would probably be worse.

Mainly, you need to figure out how much of your soul is left, and if the rest can heal or be repurposed. Because of your financial security, finding a personal mission you care about will be essential. You could make a difference. And you should.

<comment><USER33> > most often about perf optics

I've found once most companies reach a certain size, from an employee perspective they become less results-driven and more perf optics driven.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Starting up: expect lots of discomfort. There's so much bigCo support you have to re-build and it is hard to hire. It might be better to spend 6mths - 1yr at A/B stage co first then only to the founder stage. Alt, try doing something on the side to begin with. Find a partner in crime.

L7 & single? You can afford to pay the outside co-founder a bay area survivable amount (140-200 varies) and have that person work through some of the early situations and then skip out when things are moving along (eg. think A round). Risk-adjusted & safe but yet keeps a lot of the upside while allowing you to taste what it's actually like.

L8? Risk-reward ratio is skewed towards staying at a FAANG. Find and fund a few projects. See what happens. Get excitement outside of work (take all! possible vacations)

Either way, maybe find some time to talk with a proper counselor/therapist (and not HN...). Doesn't hurt and can help with the disconnected feel.

ps. funding env for form FANG, it's good assuming you are doing something sort of close to what you were responsible for. Don't expect risk-reward to be favorable though..

</comment><comment><USER35> I worked into a similar position early on where, like you, I was bringing in more than twice (or 4X) what I really needed to live on and save for retirement. My personal path was Contracting rather than BigCo'ing, but with the same result.

I worked out that an hourly rate paying you "Twice What You Need" in a year will also pay you "As Much As You Need" in six months.

Once you're provably good at this stuff, you can pick up short term contracts kinda whenever you want. And with each one you do, you get exposed to new tech (upping the skills and thus bill rate), and to new people. People who will have future need of good developers and friends with the same need (upping your ability to pick up the next gig).

By the time I had moved on into my SaaS/Entrepreneur phase, I was repeatably doing 3 month gigs with 9-12 month downtime in between to spend traveling and doing the things in life that I actually wanted.

So I guess Phase One might be to figure out a way to get that first big chunk of free time to see if you actually have other things in life you'd rather be doing. But definitely don't ditch the BigCo gig completely or burn any bridges.

I met lots of smart young people on the road working their way along on odd jobs. Hostels hardly ever offer you $250/hr to watch the front desk. Your ex- boss's new VC-backed startup just might though.

</comment><comment><USER36> > I've spent the last decade in two FANG companies, and I've got to a high > level where my total compensation is ridiculous.

> The problem is that it bores me to tears, and I don't want to do it anymore.

One of the nice things about working at a FAANG is the ease of changing teams. Most large companies have a formal process for doing that and it's not normally frowned upon unless you do it very frequently.

You may find that staying at your company and changing teams will get you the change you desire without sacrificing your FAANG compensation.

<comment><USER37> Except when you get to a high level. Then, the powers-that-be have plans for you, and you can't really refuse (e.g. how do you refuse the CTO who says "I need you on this critical project?"). And there really aren't that many teams that can take you even if they wished to. What OP _might_ be able to do is "invent" his own project. If he has something that he believes is (longer- term) for the company good, he probably can say "I'm just going to do this" instead of quitting. What are they going to do, fire him? If he was planning to leave anyway, it's not really a problem.... and one finds out that managers are not so eager to fire good engineers. He might take a hit in compensation though (bonuses/raises) especially if his plans don't pan out.

<comment><USER38> Google isn't like that. There is no CTO and even people in high levels can change teams.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Before making the "jump", I recommend you take a leave of absence for 1 ~ n months.

Go live abroad, make new friends, shake up your day-to-day, challenge yourself in non-tech ways.

Then after n months test how you feel about going back to work (and to your high salary).

If you're dreading it like it's torture, there's a strong indicator you should be thinking of alternatives.

<comment><USER40> I wish taking a sabbatical was this thing you could just up and decide to do. A lot of times you're needed to much by management. I guess you could give them an ultimatum if you're absolutely ready to follow through and leave.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I made a similar move a while ago, though I was not at the same level that you are and worked at startups before joining FAANG.

> Second, what are some of the surprises post-FANG that I would be in for if I > wanted to start a company?

The biggest changes for me were psychological. I'm a competitive person by nature, and where I worked, most people were the same. It mattered a lot to me that I was keeping up with my coworkers, both in terms of salary and peer recognition. This was unconscious, and I never truly realized this until quitting.

As a result, it had become difficult for me to enjoy my free time. I would hate myself for doing nothing and wasting time. Let me give you an example. When I was younger, I loved playing videogames. After quitting I thought it's finally time to catch up with all those games I had missed. But after having worked in tech for so long I found myself unable to enjoy them on the same level I had before. Instead of taking my time appreciating the game and its art and discoveries, I felt pressure to complete it with 100% as quickly as possible, in the most efficient way possible. I believe that's what tech culture did to me. It made me into a robot trying to compete. That also spilled over into my relationships, where I would regularly cancel dates or leave early in order to optimize my time.

Getting away from this mindset took a long time and I'm still working on it. I am now slowly learning to enjoy the small things again, relax without worrying about wasting time, or keeping up with everyone else around me.

</comment><comment><USER42> It's super cliché to quote this guy, but the first time I found myself quitting a megacorp job that didn't fully resonate with me, but that others would envy, I thought of this Steve Jobs quote:

> Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.

Good luck!

<comment><USER43> Good one.

Saved for later use, as I'm in a similar situation. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I never worked at a FAANG and have way less experience then you, but here's my 2 cents for whatever it's worth.

If I were in your shoes making a "ridiculous" compensation, then I'd calculate how many more years you'd have to work to get to FIRE (financial independence). If you're only 2-5 years out, I'd consider just sticking it out. As far as I'm aware, nowhere outside of the FAANG pays anywhere close to $500k comp. I'm guessing most startups generally don't pay more than $250-300k, which is like a 50% paycut meaning you'll have to work at least twice as long to retire.

At the same time, life is too short to be wasting it doing things you don't enjoy and being bored to tears. Just be careful of "grass is always greener" syndrome / FOMO. You might find startups to be way more work and way more demanding, and then regret having taken a steep paycut to give up a cushy job.

Or maybe you'll find yourself working on projects you're much more passionate about, start your own company that goes on to be successful, and be both personally and financially better off. It's hard to say as everyone's experience will be different.

I'd seriously consider the sabbatical route, and definitely wouldn't recommend quitting without a plan. The beauty of making so much money is that you can afford to hire people for your projects which you'll be doing anyways as a founder, and if things fail it doesn't matter because it's play money.

</comment><comment><USER45> I left Amazon 9 months ago, after working there for 8.5 years. My total comp was over $500K when I left, which made it both easy (allowed me to save money) and hard to leave (I left about $1M of granted RSUs+Salary for 2019-2020 on the table).

At one point, I realized that a career as a full-time employee in at a "high- stress" employer is not the ideal one for me. I'm working for myself right now, but if one day I needed to go get a full-time job again, I would almost certainly not go to big tech again. I'd rather get paid a fifth of what I was doing, but do something that leaves me with some energy after I put in a day's work. My compensation and status growth were not conducive to increased satisfaction. I wrote more about my reasoning here: [https://medium.com/@dvassallo/only-intrinsic-motivation- last...](https://medium.com/@dvassallo/only-intrinsic-motivation- lasts-92c0497cf97c?source=friends_link&sk=283bd1a40a3b79f94a763dab651f0da5)

<comment><USER20> I am at that "OK, what do I do now" point after having a couple of years off. I started applying for the same places I left, and then realised how stupid it was to do that. At some point I had to come to terms with what I really wanted, and it wasn't a high wage. So now I am looking for jobs (and working for myself) at places or in ways that I actually like, and don't care about the wage at all other than that it is enough to pay the basic bills I have.

I can't work at a place where I am employee #8973235879 in a row of programmers who never really see any benefit to what they are doing and have to mindlessly fill tickets. I mean I literally can't, as in the same thing will happen as before (I will go crazy and no longer function in general).

<comment><USER15> What is your retirement plan?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I was basically forced out due to my ex flaying me alive in an ugly divorce.

Now a few years later, I'm working at a modest job. It's arguably beneath me (at least in the minds of many here at HN), but there are more interesting technical challenges than there were at the high-paying job. And my boss knows very well that he's getting me cheap, so never gives me any static. I think he'd come mow my lawn if I asked him. :-)

That said, I'm fairly poor now. The most valuable property I own is a four- year-old Chromebook.

Pretty happy, though. There's more to life than money.

</comment><comment><USER47> I only made it a year. It was incredibly boring. I was the same way, enjoying side projects at home so I knew I wasn't over programming. I realized that I was not engaged with the work and prioritized that in my next (current) role. Now I'm doing hard technical work in my domain for a small shop. I'm working 50% time so I have tons of time off. The pay is less than FAANG but I'm not dreading my life everyday. I'm also trialing another company in the other 50% of my working time, helping them solve some technical challenges.

It sounds like you're at a much higher level than me, but my biggest advice is to decide what is important to you and prioritize that. You are in a position to do whatever you want, so just decide what you want to do and go after it.

<comment><USER23> I am assuming this was your first job out of Uni?

It takes at least your first year to get comfortable and to start being a useful employee even more so for a first job.

And you do need to realise that work is work and you need to approach it in a professional manner and not bail after9 months.

<comment><USER48> If it takes a year to become a useful employee, something has gone horribly wrong.

Although I do agree that "work is work" and the search for self-actualization through work leads to a lot of unhappiness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Sounds like missing Job Satisfaction? Research into job satisfaction says those who perform 'Job Crafting'[1] at their jobs i.e. "the physical and cognitive changes individuals make in the task or relational boundaries of their work" tend to say that they are much more satisfied with their jobs.

May be jobs at FAANG have become strictly defined that job crafting is not possible anymore?

> I can't connect my work to people I care about.

May be you can take a look at Social Good startups which tend to work closely with the reasons you care about and contributing to society as part of the work is generally associated with higher job satisfaction.

Or, you just look at the problems which need solving[2] and try to solve the ones which resonate with you[3].

[1][http://justinmberg.com/wrzesniewski-lobuglio- dutto.pdf](http://justinmberg.com/wrzesniewski-lobuglio-dutto.pdf)

[2][https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/](https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/)

[3][https://needgap.com](https://needgap.com) (disclaimer: I built it).

</comment><comment><USER33> Having left FAANG in 2012, what I discovered is you become so highly specialized due to the way those orgs have to scale, that you are no longer the "jack of all trades" type person small-to-medium sized orgs want to hire. For instance, my background is large-scale threat hunting, blue team, red team, penetration testing, APT attribution, and some tool development. I was turned down in a recent interview because I didn't ALSO have reverse engineering experience in addition. At FAANG, we had an entire shop dedicated to just reverse engineering. I ended up joining another large company.

</comment><comment><USER50> I planned on retiring in 1998 when my wife and I moved from San Diego to the mountains of Central Arizona. I had some 'getting bored' issues and had some concern that our savings wouldn't last forty+ years so I started periodic remote consulting gigs. In the last six years, I increased the amount of work I did, going to Google in Mountain View, doing an on site gig in Singapore, and lastly temporarily moving to Illinois to manage a deep learning team.

I had meant to start a small one person company when my wife and I returned home to Sedona, but my heart is not in it. So, I have been retired for six months and I am enjoying it immensely, no 'getting bored.'

<comment><USER51> Oh, you are that Mark Watson that used to hang out on TSS [0] back in its hey days?

0: [https://www.theserverside.com/discussions/](https://www.theserverside.com/discussions/)

<comment><USER50> I think so. Back then I was the number 1 search hit for "java consultant" and I posted a lot in shameless self promotion:-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I was in your shoes working at a FANG after selling my first company and I quit 2 years ago.

First of all I completely understand that your position bores you to tears. Been there and I know how it feels, especially if you are the type of person who could start a company.

Also, it is hard to connect with a company mission. All company missions boil down to just serving users and making money.

I wanted to quit and start a company all the time.

The fact is though, startups are really really hard to pull off. I came to realize this after building several, completed, shipped, but non-monetized projects after quitting.

Especially if you are at a FANG, probably where you live is also not that cheap. And given the loss of income, you will eventually come to a point of struggle where you are both not making money and trying to bring up a really- hard-to-bring-up startup project.

I'd say that is the surprise. Lifestyle-wise though, it has been awesome. E.g. Your entire day is not programmed by somebody else and telling you what to do. Be creative as you wish. Truly follow your dreams (the projects I built were my dreams and glad I did them). Do a workout any time of the day when you feel like to, these have been great, and my stress level has been lower.

You need to figure out how to make money though, and that's not easy if you plan on doing a startup.

</comment><comment><USER53> I believe you are mentioned in this excellent article I saw on HN just today: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21635896](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21635896)

If your compensation is ridiculous, and you've been at it 10 years, then hopefully you've saved enough money that your every day of work is completely voluntary. If not, you did it wrong. Live on way less than you make; save up enough that the interest pays that amount; you could now retire, but instead keep going to work, but just start saying what you really think.

<comment><USER54> Their version of ridiculous might be another's "okay". I think most people would consider $500k/yr to be ridiculous but it ain't enough to retire in the bay - even if you saved all $2.8m you netted over 10 years. It's not enough - you will pay off your mortgage and maybe afford the property tax for the rest of your life but it won't pay for anything else...

<comment><USER55> Or you move to a more reasonable place where that money sets you for a long time.

<comment><USER54> OP is likely completely invested in the region. It's easy to say "move somewhere else" but I've done enough traveling and investigations in the rest of the USA to know that moving somewhere else would mean a huge setback in terms of career. (Which, go figure, many people here prioritize)

<comment><USER56> If you're not able to think creatively enough to find a place in the US or the world to live off a $1-2M starting point, then early retirement probably isn't for you.

Meant with no disrespect: some people are naturally better suited to be employee types imo. Everyone fantasizes about life on their own, but most aren't willing to make the tradeoffs to do so.

Source: retired by 33, while making tradeoffs and living places that most of my peers would find unacceptable. To each his own.

<comment><USER54> I don't think the "think creatively enough" is the issue. It's more of a lifestyle difference. Some people are happy with living off the $50k/yr they'd get from a 4% slice of $2m for the rest of their life. Some aren't. I'm in the "some aren't" group. The things I enjoy and the places I like being in require a lot more money.

So - it's not just a matter of if early retirement is for someone but also if they can enjoy the lifestyle they want with the savings they have. And, unless I had like $10m+ saved - I doubt I could fully enjoy the life I'd like to lead. And since I don't think $10m is just gonna land in my lap anytime soon - I'll continue to work to get to the lifestyle I enjoy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I worked for Apple for 6 years on iOS/macOS.

Like any job, there was the good, the bad and the ugly.

It would surprise most people how small the iOS/macOS org is, and how big your impact is. Your fresh code gets to run on hundreds of millions of devices, and whatever you worked on is designed by a best-in-class design team and marketed by a best-in-class marketing team.

Fresh out of school, I knew I wanted to join a startup/small company. The hiring manager at the time told me that Apple operated like a startup so there was nothing to worry about. In hindsight, joke's on me!

I didn't like was how compartmentalized the teams were: the engineers had close to 0 contact with the design and marketing teams, and specs were ferried over by upper management.

I also felt that I wasn't developing much as an engineer and as an individual, which is why I quit. Management would be more than happy to keep you working in your area of expertise without much incentive to let you develop other skills.

The software org has recently made changes to make switching teams easier. Previously, I could say that it was easier for an engineer to interview for and get a job at Google than to change teams at Apple.

For me, changing teams 2 years in was a strategic mistake, and boy do they make you pay for it.

</comment><comment><USER7> I woke up at 5:15 this morning because I was so excited to go into work at my startup. At Google, I wasn't excited a single day.

Think of something you care about, and do that. For me, that was renewable energy. My friends who stayed probably make twice or three times as much as me but who cares; they spend 3 hours a day on a bus and 8 hours at a desk they hate. Most days, I spend less than 1 hour doing things that I don't want to do.

<comment><USER58> I would be curious to hear what your startup does exactly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> All due respect to the scale that FANG/FAANG employees work at, but I can't help feeling completely disconnected from this person's situation (being an "exiting high-level former-FANG employee with ridiculous compensation"), and like they come from a completely different walk of life/world.

I mean, I work in a global corporation with 6,000 employees, and yet I am not experiencing a financial/social/career status that I think this person is.

And then, I realized that, minus the "FANG" part, I can't think of a single person I know in tech that hasn't asked the same question about "burnout" at some point in their career.

It's amazing what different scales we work on.. but yet the same common human concern seems to be there. I don't really think it's specific to tech either, but it seems such a common theme in tech.

I wonder if "burnout" has something to do with the fact that tech/digital work involves so much repetitive mental labor (much like repetitive physical labor also causes injury if not managed).

EDIT: Or maybe this person is simply questioning their mission in life and finding that money and status isn't enough. If one persists in this condition long enough, performing repetitive labor without inspiration, maybe that is what causes the injury.

</comment><comment><USER60> I've been at similar sounding cross-roads a number of times in my career. For me, the way that I've thought about this question changed a lot after 9/11\. I lost a bunch of friends and colleagues. It was all of a sudden. Out of nowhere. For me, and for them. Ever since, I try and live life as fully and well as I can. Sometimes that has meant maximizing income. Other times it's meant passion projects. I've been lucky in that I've been able to get great high paying jobs when I've needed them. Try not to let fear get the better of you and live your best at all times. If you are feeling like you are wasting your time, then stop. Time truly is the most precious thing.

</comment><comment><USER61> Most people with this complaint have never worked in finance or big banks. Seriously, working in tech for a tech company is a techies dream, dont squander it. It sounds to me like you are too dependent on your job for the happiness in your life.

</comment><comment><USER62> i have nothing but contempt for the industry at large, even though there are occasional companies that are not completely horseshit. its great to have the inside experience so you can speak with authority about all the ways its fucking garbage. most people here have their personalities too wrapped up in it to realize. pretty pathetic overall, but everyone's motivations and particular jobs differ, so i dont want to paint with too broad a brush. above all, im truly grateful that i feel like ive made sense of the whole thing sufficiently for my own peace of mind. its a huge part of where my politics comes from. work is not that complicated if you dont stake your entire ego on it, and recognize that money is not the be all and end all you think it is- with that realization, you can work plenty of jobs and enjoy them for their intrinsic value, while getting paid a nominal wage. pursuing money too singlemindedly can easily wreck your life, as far as i can tell. tech basically represents the pursuit of money- everyone here tries very hard to focus on science and the tech part of tech, but its pretty obvious from what gets upvoted that a primary focus is getting rich as quick as possible. i truly despise this, but again, everyone's situation is different and for some people its less egregious. at least finance bros admit what the game is. also tech companies are largely built on lies- the products they produce are often worthless, and ad sales, which prop up lots of other ones, are probably a bubble. the ads and data are ultimately of limited value, and i dont think the industry fully realizes it. i guess if i could summarize, i would say that you shouldn't underestimate the negative effect of doing worthless work, no matter how much you are getting paid. you cant connect with the people you work with because none of you are there for the right reasons that foster connection, most likely. and then every now and then, you find a tech company that does something useful well, and so i guess its just very complicated.

<comment><USER23> Id suggest you chill out and get some therapy

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I just spent five years in a mature startup where I could see a tangible connection with the customers and my impact on thier lives (low fee fintech for unbanked). It was laid back and family like enough to be fun but without the drama of real family. Lots of good times.

Since that ended I landed in a very good job (huge Corp) with rediculous pay but I can't see any connection to any real customer and our projects aren't even mentioned in the business impact. I'm relied on to design and build tech and teams but I am not fulfilled. Same as yourself I guess.

I miss being plugged into the business and seeing my impact on customers lives. There is zero family like atmosphere, no joking around or healthy level of hanging-out at all.

<comment><USER64> Impact on customers is the thing I love as well. I just can't imagine doing a job without it.

<comment><USER65> Same reason I left my previous company. Working on internal tooling for 2 years are not for me.

<comment><USER64> Interesting! Could you say more about why? For me, internal tooling can be really fun, in that my "customers" are people I get to see and talk to all the time.

<comment><USER65> Sure! I've built a site that are used by internal sales people where they record customer purchases. Around 10 people per day would use it. Found it boring after a while. Luckily my ex-manager referred me to the company which he joined, I'm happy now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> I've heard stories of people quitting Big Tech and going into early retirement in their early 40s. It's totally feasible with the total compensation you've been receiving and if you live below your means. It could be an extremely liberating feeling not having to deal with any work at all. Now go travel around the world or pick up new hobbies or do side gigs for fun.

</comment><comment><USER67> I have never worked or applied for FANG. But, I have worked with several ex- FANGers. So, my only advice is: Just don't be that person that wears your Google (or whatever) jacket for the next 5 years. It sends strange signals to your coworkers.

<comment><USER68> How so?

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Ex-FAANG here. Specifically about 'what the problem is'...Quite often people work to support their lives--in the sense of food on the table/retirement and in the sense of having space and money for intellectual or passion pursuits. You seem to have the food-on-table thing figured out. Do you have an actual fulfilling life outside work that helps create meaning to your work? This meaning may even be "I love work", but feedback loops giving meaning to what we do are key to feeling fulfilled.

What I can tell you is that people more successfully attempt to understand the nature of their crisis _after_ they get out, because the daily grind occupies most of their brain and life. If you can figure out _before_ leaving, however, you can use a few months of work time to appropriately gear yourself to a new endeavour. This may mean leaving your FAANG or changing jobs within it.

Other things to consider: shorter work week, sabbatical, work rotation, shoot the sh*t with an EAP therapist if your FAANG offers HIPAA-compliant services or your own outside person, make your side coding project a new company (your FAANG may have policies about that though).

</comment><comment><USER70> A surprise can be that there are plenty of fulfilling and financially rewarding jobs out there. See, it's not about FANG vs other companies. It's about big Co. vs smaller ones. You'd be surprised to see how easy it is to get challenging and meaning projects in a fast-growing small companies. You'd be surprised to see that fewer people does not not mean more work, but less and innovative work. You'd also be surprised to see that the financial reward can be much higher.

Note I'm not saying big companies are bad. They are innovating. They can pay you handsomely. They can be better managed. Most important of all, some people are just really good at navigating company bureaucracy and moving things forward -- they should stay at those companies. What I'm saying is that smaller companies offer different dynamics without necessarily compromising total package or meaning of your projects.

What? You're concerned that there are too few good smaller companies. Well, let's just say the Bay Area disagrees, at least for the past 20 years.

</comment><comment><USER71> My case was not Big Tech, but Big Telco and the problem was a bit similar, since doing anything involved a pay cut.

First, I took _a long_ time off to rethink my career. I was _really_ lucky to have the time, money, and support from my wife to do that.

During my time off I discovered that beign in a "top" company for some time was more a Handicap, than something valuable for the job market because my rate was far off the market.

I rejoined the salaried employee club after two failed startup attempts.

I got the job because instead of sending a cv or contacting whoever, I started sending a MVP to any potential employer.

I still do it now because I can discover beforehand if the job will motivate me.

Suprises found:

\- Goverment status matters a lot. Lost one opportunity because the political situation in my contry scared the investor.

\- I wanted to do both sales and technical stuff. It is _compicated_ because you need both _deep_focus_ for some tasks and react quickly for others. Balance is... interesting.

\- 2-3 months after I rejoined the salaried workforce, my wife told me It was the first time she saw me happy to go to work.

</comment><comment><USER72> I don't have experience working for FANG but here is what I think you should do:

1) First appreciate that you are in a GREAT position, 99,999999999% of people do not have your options.

2) Absolutely quit. Your life is short, making the most of it is not being bored to tears.

3) Do not get a job immediately, you need to figure out what you want to do so you don't get stuck in a boring position again. The way to do this in my opinion is to get stimulus you would not normally get. Travel, try out completely new technologies, learn a weird hobby, try going to a silent retreat for a few days, climb a mountain etc.

It sounds like you still like to code so you need to figure out what motivates you. Is it working for yourself? Do you just need a different work/life balance? Do you need to try and help save the world?

4) Find something new to do, you won't be certain the new "job" is for you but that's fine. Don't be afraid to try out new stuff, eventually you will find something you enjoy.

</comment><comment><USER73> It's easy to get a job if you're ex-FANG, and often you can return to your FANG job easily (e.g. without having to interview).

I suggest you do some interviews and see how you feel about the opportunities that present themselves. Taking vacations to try doing your own thing is also a good idea.

FWIW I wish I had left my FANG job long before I did.

</comment><comment><USER74> (not an ex-FANG-er)

I've only dealt with medium-low level post FANG people, but none of them expressed major downsides.

There is a certain "flatness" because being senior in a FANG is a unique experience.

One basically went back to schoool: Audits university courses out of interest only. Not a bad "gap year" approach to deciding what you really want to do.

Once maslow is out of the way, "have experiences" is good advice. It's not impossible the voluntarist sector, more than start-up is where your energies can be best applied: Start Ups are drowning in sources of competent FANG aware advice. Charities, help, the NGO sector is not so aware and can use you.

Think about board positions on small local NGO entities.

Think about standing for office in your county.

Think about mentoring people outside your core area.

<comment><USER75> Since the OP claims to feel cynical about the FAANG mission and the the work is not connected to people that the OP cares about, if one is financially secure enough to not have to worry as much about income or lifestyle, there are plenty of opportunities and situations that could desperately use that level of tech expertise (or even just another volunteer) but can't nearly compete in terms of compensation. Anything at the state or local level in the Health and Human services arena for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> I quit my job at a growing unicorn startup this month. It was my third tech job in an IC role and after working for four years out of college I felt just like you did. Completely bored going into work each day but making so much money for my hourly work output it felt too trapped to quit.

But I did eventually because the decision to trade time for money felt worth it. I felt that if you don't give yourself a break to try something besides big tech work it's hard to do so again at a later point in your life with a mortgage, kids, etc...

Now I'm surfing every morning, running a lifestyle business ([https://www.interviewquery.com](https://www.interviewquery.com)), and hanging out with friends.

</comment><comment><USER77> Work on your network.

If you aren't good at networking atleast put in work to know people who know people.

The advantage big orgs provide is basically a network of specialists you can count on to compensate for all your weaknesses and limitations.

If you have your own such network the transition isn't too bad.

</comment><comment><USER15> I am struggling with this as well. If you were there a decade I'm guessing you are set for life financially? I know I would have been at a decade but left after 5 years so I am not set for life which means I'm in this dilemma. go back for the money (safe retirement) or do something more risky (dad took the risk, failed, might be in the poor house except married a younger wife who has good job). I'm 54 so not a lot of time to recover.

In any case I know other people who left. One told me he went stir crazy and joined his friend's startup part time (because they can't afford him full time) but he doesn't need the money, just doesn't want to feel taken advantage of.

Another had enough that he mostly just enjoys is life with his wife. His kids are adults and live around the world so he travels to see then. Him and his wife attend investor meetups to invest in startups. He makes simple robots as a hobby (and possibly a new company but so far just hobby). They also left the USA, tried a year in Asia and so far 2 in Europe, a year in the first spot, and starting a year in the second, no plans to move but of course they have the means to switch.

I know for myself, looking back on my own happiness, I was happiest when working with best friends on projects I liked. There are at least 2 companies with close friends I could work with but their projects are not so clearly projects I'm interested in and both would pay low compared to FAANG (guess is 1/5th to 1/6th) so it's not an easy decision. Also not clear if it would pay out of they do well. I other words don't want to feel I'm selling them my life for their success.

I was also happiest when I was part of the core team helping to make the decisions of what ships, what the shape the product is. On at least one team I was "just an engineer" and found it so frustrating to watch the leads go have their meetings to decide everything and then just be told what the direction was. Not sure how to fix that except to start my own thing which is easier said than done.

Feels so stupid to be so worried about this spoiled engineer problem though.

<comment><USER78> How many FAANGs have you worked for? You could try a different one and see if you can last 5 years there, thus making up the total 10 years needed to accumulate what to an average salary is a career's worth of income.

Or even a second/third tier FAANG. BigCo, sure, maybe even not technically a tech-company (I classify my own employer this way), but the base salaries are still pretty nice even if you'll be demoralized at how much less you get in annual RSUs compared to the first tier FAANGs.

I ask since I also ruminate on this question (a lot more commonly since my 5 year mark passed a few months ago) but I've also observed we get a lot of incoming hires from places like Microsoft/Intel/even Apple. While I'm not sure the frustrations at the other BigCos would be any more tolerable after a prolonged period than my current BigCo, I do think they'd at least be different, and eventually intolerable in different ways. That can be enough to make it work out. For me, the stresses aren't so much the team or even the project, but the higher level company policies/dysfunctions that can't be solved by moving to a new team. (I think "not having any say in product direction" is something that can be solved by moving teams -- or similarly "tired of having to do the PM's job" for those who just want to code solutions to given problems.)

Of course there are always the smaller companies available, and their base pay isn't that much less than the FAANGs. Soon I'll get to welcome back a former coworker who left our BigCo for the then not so big and just-recently-IPO'd Tableau. There are many such pre-IPO or recently-IPO'd companies that are well funded enough to offer comparable base salaries, with stock options that if they pan out will tend to be a nice little boost on what you'd get just having worked at a FAANG and receiving RSUs. (And if not, at least the base salary is still quite a bit better than you'd get doing many other things instead.) I know his mental sanity was a lot better for the move, it'll be interesting to see how long it takes for him to leave again.

And of course there are various consulting routes. At my previous job we were a 2 (and at times 4) person unfunded startup. To fill the coffers the founder occasionally leveraged his consulting network he built prior to going full- time startup and took on small projects that I'd also shift my focus to. The change in work to deliver on those was fun, and if you do that all the time instead you can make good money. I'm not that great at network building though, but fortunately if you can't find your own clients to do a project for (or a client who will have you work on a team of full timers for a fixed term) there are plenty of intermediaries. One of my close coworkers in his early 40s has had a good time alternating between long stints and doing contract work in between. Unlike me though he doesn't want to reach a state of not working. (Technically I see it as wanting "not having to work to live" rather than not working ever again, but he doesn't want to stop working period, so "having to" work isn't really a concern. My mom was like that and she was working until she died, I didn't inherit that trait though.)

I think back to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7423626](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7423626) a lot and consider "just suck it up" as a decent solution. Or take a year break (easier for me, I'm only 29), then suck it up for another 5 somewhere else in order to hit the threshold "effectively retired, barring a Great Depression" investment number. Then I can do what I want, which could very well be described as noodling, as opposed to something with a "mission" or "meaning".

Like you I sometimes feel stupid for not just internalizing "work is work" and carrying on. It's not such a terrible problem to face, wanting to get out of a cushy-yet-soul-crushing gig with minimal hazards, yet here I am ruminating about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> Begin by aggressively saving your ridiculous income. This sort of compensation can work either as a trap (since few companies will match it) or a tool for freedom. Start doing this now!

Everything else can be figured out once you can quit and not worry about money.

</comment><comment><USER80> How much are you making? I know that's a taboo question but your account is throwaway :-). I made $130k at a company called proofpoint with around 6-7 years experience as a software engineer and analyst, until I left tech.

<comment><USER81> In case OP doesn't give you exact numbers, you can probably make some guesses: 1\. ~10yrs in a couple of these companies means they're likely at E5/E6 (+1 level if Amazon) 2\. All those companies have had fantastic stock growth over the past decade and they compensate heavily in stock 3\. Play around [https://www.levels.fyi/](https://www.levels.fyi/) for those companies

So likely >500K W2 take home in recent years

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> > I think the best description is that I am cynical of the "mission"

Of course. Why wouldn't you be? The mission of a for-profit enterprise is to be able to continue being a for-profit enterprise tomorrow.

> How do I know what the source of the problem is?

If the work were something that someone would do for free, you probably wouldn't be paid to do it, certainly not the amount you are being paid. Wanting to believe in the mission is asking to be paid partially in a currency other than money. With a FANG salary, that extra compensation is probably going to be slight.

</comment><comment> o-__-o It's probably been said already, but you lose the sway you had by saying you command some high position at FAANG

FAANG: "oh you work at Apple? Please y'all I will listen to anything you say!"

Non-FAANG: "meh."

</comment><comment><USER83> I'm curious, how ridiculous? I'm not at FANG but I've considered making the jump.

But good luck to you. There are always game companies you can go work at for a lot less!

<comment><USER84> Good FAANG compensation data here: [https://www.levels.fyi/](https://www.levels.fyi/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> What would you do with your career if you could do anything you wanted? It's hard to give advice without a sense of what you'd rather be doing.

For whatever it's worth, I'm going through a similar dilemma. My compensation is high, but I don't feel fulfilled by the work and there are other things I'd rather do for less money. Unlike you I'm in a startup and leaving would really mess things up for them, so I'm holding out.

<comment><USER27> You do realize that this feeling is not mutual? Companies don't give a shit about their employees as long as it doesn't benefit them. They are not humans, they are "things" made out of humans. And the trick is that they use social structure to scam you into thinking that leaving the company makes things worse for your other "human" team mates. So yes, right now they want to keep you, but once you are not essential anymore, they will drop you like a hot piece of iron. It's funny that somehow companies manage to instill some sort of "compassion" in their employees and you seem to be an example that this actually works sometimes.

<comment><USER86> Perhaps quitting would tank the company performance and thus making their (presumably private) stock options worth nothing?

Unless this is all cash for a privately held startup in which case, where do I sign up?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER87> I was part of Intel's mass layoffs in 2016. I hated my job at the time, but looking back now I wish I was back in the spot where my compensation was not quite "ridiculous", but great.

I went to a startup after and it was terrible. Luckily I've transitioned to the parent company, but it's still not as ideal.

Can you deal with it for a few more years? Surely you can get to a point where you can retire early?

<comment><USER88> Can you add a bit more detail why you did not like the start up?

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> the preacher in me is saying: you have no idea how good you have it - here I am stuck with 'high end' market rate working in corporate IT making probably 1/3 or even less than high end FAANG salary with mortgage and kids. I have no idea how the heck can you feel bored? Do you have lots of free time at work or involved in repetitive task? if you are, FAANG companies offer avenues for their engineers to contribute to tech projects meant for greater good of the company or even to opensource projects.

Now, I got that out of way, to answer your question:

\- you won't get FAANG level salary AND perks unless you are a Quant working in wallstreet but then expectations are probably crazy high.

One thing that would be a shocker for you is how little influence IT department as whole or Engineers have when it comes to projects to work on and what tech choices to make. Often it is driven by your internal business stakeholders (VPs, Board of Directors, Finance, etc.), and for startups, sure there are unicorn startups out there but a vast majority tends to founded/run by folks who have very little industry experience or a newer trend where a startup (fintech/ai startup) is owned/backed by a forbes 100 corporate giant that really dictates the scope and direction of your projects.

But here is the best thing: anytime there is a hot new IT trend (containers, cloud, microservies, devops, Machine Learning, Agile, etc.) - in Corporate IT, unless you are part of corporate giant that sees itself as a tech company, you can bet on two things: innovators have a daunting task of convincing senior IT folks and their business stakeholders that it is worthwhile taking a look at something new and then, there is always that surprise element of: we will just buy a vendor solution and you can just be a fancy application support person.

</comment><comment><USER90> Two questions: (1) what are you currently doing, and (2) what workplace culture issues have you either observed or been impacted by?

Regarding (1), I've seen a lot of sentiment about certain types of work being a literally bor-ing grind, but as someone who doesn't have much of a finger on the pulse of industry, I have zero access to anecdata about _what_ it is that makes it so boring. So, yeah. Open-ended question :)

All the recent media and controversy notwithstanding/aside, I get the idea that culture generally plays a huge (if not the biggest?) part in the sense of work feeling like an imposing burden instead of a sense of empowerment to the individual and others around them (liberated customers, similarly-empowered teammates, etc etc). I'm curious what the impact there is. (Open-ended question here too.)

Trying to be very general to raise the chance it's possible to answer without having to get really specific :)

Others here will provide far better (experience-backed) advice about what to do next, I'd just make myself look silly if I tried to do that too.

Appreciate your time!

</comment><comment><USER91> Start a solo-founder business and you will be in for a load of surprises. You will discover a world where you are responsible for everything and there is no one to blame. There will be no mission statements, no company values declarations, no managers, and no fluff. Just you, your business and your customers.

Mind you, this might be a shock and not necessarily something you are prepared for.

</comment><comment> ur-whale Much depends on how much you saved from than ridiculous comp.

Do you have enough to retire and live out the rest of your days comfortable?

If so, then here's my advice : Do it. Today. Don't delay for a single second.

And go start working on that bucket list.

I did this 8 years ago. I have had exactly _zero_ regrets, spending my time between my family and a very long list of side projects I never had the time to before.

It's been an absolute blast, and as a fringe benefit, both my health and psychological well-being have improved tremendously.

[edit]: one thing I forgot to mention: life is finite. That's a very obvious thing to say, but for most people this is not a fact they've accepted at the gut level. ONce you do, your perspective on life and work will change. Just force yourself to do the actual Math: how many years do you objectively think you have left to live? And out of those, how many will you still be physically / mentally able to do all the stuff you've always wanted to? How much money will you need each of those remaining years?

</comment><comment><USER92> I left "big corporate" after 8 years (AWS, VMware) of which last 2 as executive/VP, to join a young startup as CTO, and then founding my own company as CEO. Both experiences have been extremely challenging and/or disappointing, for multiple reasons.

The startup I joined as CTO was a total disaster, despite a big series A and two seasoned serial entrepreneurs as founders, and it failed few months after I left.

Running my own company (with two co-founders) was incredibly tough, and we had to endure "crypto-winter" because what we were building was crypto-related (but no-BS, trust me on this). Thankfully, a year after I stepped down, the company seem to be on a promising track.

All in all, I "lost" millions of dollars in opportunity costs (VP total comp in Bay area is easily between 400/500k and 1M per year gross, all included), and having that extra money right now would have been useful for "peace of mind". But at least I tried to do things that I thought were interesting.

My humble suggestion is: make sure that if you quit your personal wealth situation is so good that if the new thing is not going to turn out great, you're still going to be ok.

Also, try to analyze in depth what it is that you don't like about your corporate job. In hindsight, I know that AWS or VMware were not the right type of environment for me (not in general; just the specific teams I was part of) going forward, but I would have probably thrived in a smaller company as CTO or similar.

Right now I'm an operating partner at a VC firm, I really like it (I think the specific VC firm I deal with is outstanding, compared to the average, in my experience), and things seem to be going ok.

Hope this was helpful. Not easy to share personal stuff, especially when it's about a tough period in life. (disclaimer: all is relative; first world problems; etc).

<comment><USER93> VP total comp only 500k-1m? Seems very low

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> I haven't worked for any FANG or FANG sized company, the worst I had to deal with was working a large European telco, so my experience may not be particularly similar to yours.

You make it sound like it's either a FANG company or startups, but there are tons of small companies that would love to have people like you. They don't necessarily pay well, but you're going to be important. Most likely there won't be much politics in the way of you doing actual work, and you have much more influence on technology choices, processes and the company in general.

From my experience the most fun jobs are for established companies who are relying on their employees to make a profit, rather than chasing VC funding. The ideal staff size to me is around 20 - 50 people. The majority of the staff shouldn't be doing IT related tasks.

<comment><USER23> I agree but dont let your self get conned into accepting markedly lower pay.

Also I suspect the politics might be worse in SME's than a start up or a Big company.

Oh and big telco Is bigger than a FANG when I worked for BT we had more developers in a single division that Google had employees in total

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> > I am cynical of the "mission", and I can't connect my work to people I care > about. How do I know what the source of the problem is?

You just answered your own question. You see that the work you're doing isn't really benefiting society in a way that's meaningful.

What you have is wonderful: you _care_ about people, and want to _improve_ people's lives, and not just superficially. Please don't ever lose that!

It sounds like you already have the money to just quit for a while. I suggest "taking a sabbatical", in other words just quit and spend more time with the people you care about, learn more deeply what are the source of their problems, and figure out how you can help solve them. Then start working full time at that.

And the solution usually isn't technology.

</comment><comment><USER96> Why you don't just retire or go in a sabbatical? Getting some distance will make this easier.

</comment><comment><USER97> You can still be burnt out and engerized or interested by a side project. Actually that might be even more of sign that you're burnt out. The burn out seems like it isn't coding fatigue but a disconnect with your work and customers/product.

</comment><comment><USER98> I know a guy, he worked at MSFT, and we worked together at FB. Combined he had 10+ yrs of tenure and at one point he was L8 I believe. I assume he has $10m+ net worth. He "quit big tech" and now has a non-profit startup, with funding from a philanthropic tech foundation. That seems like a good way forward, you can continue working in technology and code, it's exciting bc it's a startup, there's social good, but with the funding you can pay yourself a salary so you're not burning your net worth (which is invested and cumulating presumably), and since you're already rich you don't mind if it's non-profit.

</comment><comment><USER99> Sounds like you believed in their "mission". All that is PR. Changing to a startup will be to believe in someone else's "dream" who also will transform into selling out or a power struggle. And that will burn you out even more.

I'd use some of that money to invest in yourself. Take as much vacation and benefits as you can. Make the moves to achieve FIRE.

Pay someone to help you with your side projects or to teach you things, this can be a good exit with open source turning into a startup (perhaps pay someone to find your future clients before you take the jump). Be careful, your FAANG sting probably twisted your view of the world. See Lean Startup.

</comment><comment><USER100> Can understand what you mean in your post,started my career in a reputed consulting firm.Could not stomach the environment left in 2 years ,started freelancing made a name for myself after couple of years .Again due to financial circumstances had to work for a FANG couldn't see change in work environment other than some false promises from top and human resources.Trying to go full time remote and freelance to give more time for family and self. Academics is viable option unfortunately the current climate and economic conditions do not permit the move.

</comment><comment><USER101> You know, there are companies right nearby with mission that alone can keep you inspired and motivated. Those companies have very challenging and rewarding problems to solve.

(Shameless plug for Tesla software engineering!)

<comment><USER102> Do you do referrals?

<comment><USER101> Back end, data systems, esp. large scale. Shoot at theengway at gmail

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER103> I worked about 9 years at Facebook and Google. It's a little hard to answer this because people do all sorts of things after leaving, and your future life is defined far more by why you do, than it is defined by the job you left.

If you generally enjoy your job but just not the employer, go work for someone else. There are plenty of non-FANG companies that will give you a similar pay package.

If you don't enjoy the job so much, you can certainly do something else, but your future depends on what that something else is.

</comment><comment><USER104> I'm an ex pretty sr level exec at a few of those FAANG companies (we'll add an M on there to make that true). I transitioned out in 2016 to redesign my path and optimize for my quality of life. It's been the best decision I could have possibly made, though I'm not sure I could have made it earlier since the hindsight afforded by being in my 40s allowed for a far greater understanding of what was important than if I had tried the same thing in my 30s. That's a data set of 1.

I wrote about this transition (9 min read): [https://medium.com/@brandonwatson/designing-the-life-you- wan...](https://medium.com/@brandonwatson/designing-the-life-you- want-64607869d10)

I ended up in a very unexpected work situation which I am finding is exposing many interesting opportunities related to the potential for ex-FAANG folks that they may never have considered. If we all agree that software is eating the world, imagine what an unbelievably unfair advantage a FAANG-capable tech leader (or product leader) could have working as a leader inside of traditionally non-tech, smaller companies in industries not yet assaulted by tech workers.

This is the entire premise of why I joined the private equity firm at which I now work. To find people like me and get them plugged into our portfolio companies as leaders and support the hell out of them as the control investor. To innovate with our portfolio to give their employees unfair competitive advantage in their industry.

Chasing unicorns is all fine and good. The growth equity companies we target are already making money and we want them to grow faster. The risk of company failure is much lower when you have profits, and the risk of dilution to the employees goes way down when you aren't constant chasing funding. Many of the companies that we would target for investment would have no idea how to recruit an ex-FAANG, much less fully utilize them. That's my role across our portfolio.

To any FAANG-capable mid and senior leaders who want to learn more, reach out to me. I'm easy to find, eager to talk to you, and have a very heavy belief in the notion that you can design the life you want while working on interesting companies and still achieving the financial outcomes that are commensurate with your potential in FAANG.

<comment><USER105> Is this cheaper than paying a recruiter fee?

</comment></comment><comment><USER106> It's less stressful.

I show up to work, try my best to work with my team and accomplish something.

You do have plenty of people who think they're the greatest thing since sliced bread since they are going to go work for Google or Facebook but can't seem to actually leave... which is weird because they're so damn good. Unfortunately, they don't leave and are not so good and make your day hell and make you yearn for the sweet release of going home and playing some Outer Worlds.

But yeah, less stressful.

</comment><comment><USER107> I left corporate IT for good back in 2005. Then left the U.S. Moved to a small farm in the middle of nowhere. Never went back.

Regrets = 0. Well, there are no Mexican food restaurants here.

<comment><USER108> Do you still work remote/at all? Sounds like a pretty good life!

<comment><USER107> It's a great life! I just wish I'd been in a position to do it earlier. (I'm in my late 40s now.) I do a bit of IT, but nothing like before. Very basic. It amounts to desktop support and basic networking. I do other stuff too. I sold solar power systems for a while, for example. We have a solar power system and a Tesla Powerwall 2. That has almost totally eliminated the electricity bill. We produce a lot of our own food and we have no debt, so we don't need much money to survive.

People I know who are still in California tell me I wouldn't believe how bad things have gotten there. But the thing is, it was already "that" bad to me back in the early 2000s. I feel very lucky to have gotten out of there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER109> I work for big FANG. Even though my salary is not at the ridiculous level I feel it is more than enough to support my family and have a big chunk of saving aside. In contrary to what I assume, I never feel bored at work. I almost always find something more interesting to do. But maybe because I am lucky to have the trust and support from upper management to let me loose and find things to work on or improve.

<comment><USER110> I mean, good for you. Same here. But how does this address the question? The OP was not asking if everyone else working at big tech felt the same. Whether you like your job is irrelevant to whether OP likes theirs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER111> Seems to me that you need some time, not to ask HN, but to ask yourself. Take a break for a few weeks. Go to a silent meditation retreat? Wake up to the fact that your financial compensation may be high, but that you're currently feeling very poor because of the lack of authenticity in your life. Follow that authenticity, no matter where it's calling you, and you'll be wealthy.

</comment><comment><USER112> What you're experiencing indeed doesn't sound like burnout. It's plain old alienation. Big corporations are the prime example for this, small startups generally promise to alleviate this (though obviously this only holds true to a degree unless you hold a significant share in the company).

See also: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation)

At least having worked in Big Tech you have likely built up enough resources to be able to just do something else now, rather than being stuck in this situation until you can retire (or become physically unable to continue working).

</comment><comment><USER113> Don't think of your FANG job as a way of doing productive work. Instead, treat it as an opportunity to:

* Network with the smart people that the BigCo's HR has carefully vetted for you. Specifically, find the ones that share your interests and may want to found a startup together.

* Hone your presentation skills in numerous meetings.

* Make contacts to other companies and learn about some business models previously unknown to you.

* Put aside enough savings to not need a paycheck in the foreseeable future.

You need to be careful abiding the non-compete terms, but generally try to end up with a very solid understanding of some business problem you would want to solve with your startup, and a network of people with mutual trust that would gladly join you on your new cause.

Also be careful to not burn the bridges with BigCo, since most startups fail, bla bla, yada yada.

I would advise against joining a random startup as a rank-and-file employee. You won't have the same level of trust with the founders, as you could have with your ex-colleagues, and you will likely just spend working crazy hours making someone else's dream come true, only to get screwed with equity dilution once the startup hits the exit.

<comment><USER38> I don't know. I feel that most FAANG employees are too risk averse to start a startup (which is why they work at a big company in the first place). YC actually gave the advise to work at a startup to find cofounders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER114> I started working during the build up to the dot com boom at a small company. It was exciting and I threw myself into the work. Unfortunately, the company ended up going under and I scrambled to find the next gig. I kept chugging along making decent money (for the time) but was extremely bored. It started to feel like I was forced to sit in an office for 8 hours a day and do nothing (of value). I felt part of the problem was that I had transitioned away from coding to managing and missed the technical challenge of work.

I decided the best way to stop managing and go back to the hard technical challenges was to do a PhD. I was fortunate enough to financially have the option to quit working. I was 36 at the time.

Going back to do a PhD was great. I especially enjoyed the first 4 years where I was learning a ton of new stuff, meeting new people and going to conferences. I picked the subject, AI, based on what I had always been interested in. It was great to work fulltime on a subject that I found very interesting. It helped that I didn't care about the money or career prospects. The last two years of the PhD were a bit more difficult and I felt pressure to get the dissertation done, but it wasn't too bad.

After finishing I decided that the lifestyle required to pursue an academic career wasn't for me and ended up moving to a city my wife and I enjoyed and taking a job at a FAANG company. I've been there ever since making good money. I've been able to stay engaged with difficult technical problems. Unfortunately, although I find the problems technically interesting to solve, they aren't really addressing issues that I feel passionate about.

Now I'm starting to reach the point of thinking about quitting again. I'm currently more inclined to switch projects at the same company or retire rather than go to a startup or another FAANG company. A large non software focused company isn't that appealing because it seems like I would become part of a cost center. Working for another FAANG company feels like a sideways move and a startup seems like it would be a giant hit to the work life balance. I'm mainly planning on saving enough to not _have_ to work.

I see a lot of colleagues who started working around the same time I did and who ended up at a FAANG company and are now quitting to retire | startup | passion job. I feel very fortunate to be working in a field that I enjoy, for a company that pays me enough that I'll be able to retire relatively early.

</comment><comment><USER115> You might relate with the following article titled:

"Only Intrinsic Motivation Lasts Why I Quit a $500K Job at Amazon to Work for Myself"

[https://danielvassallo.com/only-intrinsic-motivation- lasts/](https://danielvassallo.com/only-intrinsic-motivation-lasts/)

<comment><USER116> I personally know several people who quit and left behind seven figure payouts who did so because they were stressed out and hated the environment in which they found themselves. Every single one of them has, at one time or another, noted that this was a stupid mistake and they should have just ground through to at least the next big vesting cliff. Without exception.

They're all doing OK now, and all of them had done OK before that, but I think that for every person who claims no regrets, there's someone like the people I know who did it for similar reasons but have decided that it was, all in all, a dumb thing to do.

Maybe when this author is past the "Last week I left my cushy job at Amazon" (first line of the essay) phase, he or she may also conclude this was silly. People have a way of re-evaluating things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER117> Can you power through another year - just 12 more months - this time saving as much as absolutely possible, so that you can better weather whatever comes your way. Write the goal down - save $xxx or leave in 12 months. Track the goal. See if you still want to leave once you hit the goal.

</comment><comment><USER118> I haven't read through most of the other comments, I'm getting my day started at one of the FANG companies. (: But I do have a very brief suggestion.

Just for the hell of it, why not find some hungry 30-60 employee startup? I've worked at two of those, and it's anything but boring.

</comment><comment><USER119> What do you usually work on? Since you say you're bored, can you ask to move to another project?

</comment><comment><USER120> To me, there seems to be a misalignment between your job and your expectations of a job. It sounds like there may be meaning of life questions or at least hidden emotions in this as well so I would go to a therapist to help me figure things out.

</comment><comment><USER121> To answer the question you didn't want answered (as no one has mentioned this yet):

Autonomy, mastery, and purpose are three psychological factors that impact the 'meaning' one can derive from work / a job. [1] is the first link I came across when trying to remember the specifics. For me, the work I was doing at the last two startups failed the 'purpose' part - I wised up and realized I was wasting my life making already rich people even richer and/or dealing with manipulative wannabe sociopaths (the downside of capitalism, right?) (it took two lessons, I'm a slow learner). For me, "purpose" got toxic and I kept at things far too long than I ought to have.

So I'd give a think about those three factors - whatever you do next should take those into account (it sounds like purpose is most relevant for you right now)

As for starting a company, make sure to do proper / thorough background checks on whom you partner up with. I was 'the contractor' who decided to help out the 'friend of a friend' and ... I'll spare the reader the usual sort of story. I wish I'd learnt that lesson far sooner, but of course wasn't aware of my blind spots. Starting a company is grueling - make sure to do the right research (and sufficient amounts of it) before starting down a particular path. Otherwise you may waste money and end up having to pay your contractor late all the time... ha. And most are not as dumb as me and will quit.

[1] [https://blog.deliveringhappiness.com/the-motivation- trifecta...](https://blog.deliveringhappiness.com/the-motivation-trifecta- autonomy-mastery-and-purpose)

</comment><comment><USER122> Take a sabbatical and then meditate on this. If you are serious then you will not go back or you will at least have seen the problem from distant. Its like debugging a bug :)

Traveling solo during sabbatical would also help.

</comment><comment><USER21> Maybe try consultancy at a large or medium firm? Gives you the opportunity to work on different projects to find out what you want, while also paying decently and giving you a stable basis.

</comment><comment><USER123> I'm not that experienced in SWE but I would assume this sort of move would be worse for a while before it gets better. The "better" might be substantial though

</comment><comment><USER124> Just as general advice, try to count your blessings and quit complaining so mcuh. If this is your attempt at humblebragging, then quit doing that as well.

</comment><comment><USER125> I left to work on tech at a trading firm. It pays more, and IMO the work is more interesting and less stressful.

<comment><USER126> I've toyed with the idea of working in fintech, but none of the job descriptions ever caught my idea. Can you describe your work and why you think it's interesting?

</comment></comment><comment><USER127> If your comp is ridiculous, cut your expenses, and stick it out until you have a nest egg. Then go off king.

</comment><comment><USER128> > I can't connect my work to people I care about

fyi that doesn't happen often anywhere else either

</comment><comment><USER129> What exactly is boring about it?

Not /s, I'm interested to know.

<comment><AUTHOR> Predictability of everything.

<comment><USER129> Are you a <some definition of normal> developer?

Personally, I am much more interested in mathematics than necessarily coding and a lot of my "this is super boring" rants are related to that. Automation for me (in the job context), for instance, is not nearly as interesting as it would be for someone else.

I am working on a large side project (in mathematical agriculture) that would aim to correct this personal imbalance, but I also wouldn't be upset if that failed and in 5 years from now I work for a big company, but with the ability to use my mathematics skills.

Maybe I am too young? Having said that, my current job _is_ boring. I think that the "my end goal is pointless" only becomes relevant after one ends the "at least I am learning skills" phase.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER102> 1 million as an IC. I need to join FANG.

</comment><comment><USER130> Just curious, which level are you?

</comment><comment><USER131> Just retire and make room for other people, the world doesn't need you.

</comment><comment><USER132> I did it a little over two years ago. I had a pretty high paying job, low- stress work and desire to make a difference. I definitely miss my fat paycheck but love my freedom of experimentation, learning and doing what I believe in. I learned a lot about building a company from the ground up, but most of the miseries could have been avoided. I had to learn most of this the hard way, which might have been easier when I was working in a big corporation. These are my learnings and may not be right for everyone:

TL'DR: Product is more than just code. It's building something that people love and would pay for. Learn marketing, sales, storytelling. Connect with folks who are not like you.

1\. I should have built a network outside of my immediate circle. I am an engineer and my entire work network was engineers.

2\. I should have identified some of the best folks in sales and marketing and learned from them. It is easier to know who are the best folks in your company and know them. It's easier when you are inside the company. They can also help you identify/interview other sales/marketing folks in their network when you need to hire them.

3\. I should have learned how software products are evaluated, sold and bought in my company. Just a hint, the quality of the product has little to do with whether it will sell.

4\. I should have learned the importance of UX design and why certain UX design decisions were made. I should have spent more time talking to designers and learn how to evaluate a good designer.

5\. I should have talked with engineers outside my organization. It helps to broaden your horizons and understanding the challenges.

6\. I should have understood how business development works and learn how they talk. Most of the sales decisions are made by folks who might not be using the product you are selling.

7\. I should have identified who are the M&A folks in my company and understood how the process works. These folks are well connected and usually know others as well.

8\. I should have learned storytelling from some of the amazing PM's that I worked with. Some of them were startup founders. I should have tried it internally and improvised.

9\. I should have learned from their story, their mistakes and what they could have done differently.

10\. I should have learned to talk less and listen more in discussions.

11\. I should have spent more time, validating ideas when I had all the time and more money. Some of the groundwork can be done when you are already working as long as you are not building a product that competes with your day job.

12\. I should have spent more time reading/writing. You'll spend a lot of time writing emails/ specs in addition to code.

13\. I should have taken YC summer school when I was working. I learned a lot when I took it this year.

<comment><USER133> I think this is great advice (having worked in "big tech" for over a decade).

It reminds me of this old Spolsky article I read yesterday on "the development abstraction layer". Replace Microsoft with FANG and I suspect it still largely applies.

[https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/04/11/the-development- ab...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/04/11/the-development-abstraction- layer-2/)

 _Management's primary responsibility to create the illusion that a software company can be run by writing code, because that's what programmers do. And while it would be great to have programmers who are also great at sales, graphic design, system administration, and cooking, it's unrealistic. Like teaching a pig to sing, it wastes your time and it annoys the pig._

 _Microsoft does such a good job at creating this abstraction that Microsoft alumni have a notoriously hard time starting companies. They simply can't believe how much went on below decks and they have no idea how to reproduce it._

Basically your work environment at big tech companies is shaped by their network effects and the corresponding profits, which (almost) none of us had any hand in creating. So yes being on the outside is very different.

Though, in retrospect I worked in Big Tech when I was young, and before it was called "big tech" (e.g. before Joel even wrote that post). So just learning to code at that level was a challenge, let alone do all the other stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER134> Xoogler here. Of note is the fact that your FANG "level" means very little outside of FANG, so if this is something you define yourself by, I'd think twice before leaving.

If you've earned your stripes fair and square though, you'll be fine, although you'll be making a lot less money (assuming you're at least the equivalent of Google Staff SWE money wise; if you're 5 and below, there's a good chance you'll be making _more_, not less).

Having been through an early stage startup wringer myself, I'd advise against starting a company right out of the gate. If this is something that you want to do eventually, go work at a startup for a couple of years - you don't have to be a front-line grunt and you don't have to commit indeterminate amounts of time to it. Get a position where you'll be exposed to what the execs do: head or VP of something or other, and to the business side of things. Stuff that _you_ will have to do if you start your own company.

It's a completely different existence, you might decide it's not for you, and it's difficult to get out of it without destroying your reputation once you've made promises to people and took VC money.

Plus also consider that your current FANG overlords might not necessarily want you to come back.

Also protip: if there's a chance that you eventually might decide to re-join the same FANG company, the best time to leave is right after a promo, or else they'll try really hard to pigeonhole you into your old level, no matter how ridiculous that is several years down the road.

<comment><USER93> L5 is 3-400k total comp. Expect to make more outside? Doubt it

<comment><USER134> 400k is an L5 who joined while the stock was still growing and got a few refreshes. With stagnant stock $300K is about the upper bound. Base 180 or so, stock another 120-130/yr, after you get a refresh or two. You can totally make more than $300K on the outside after spending a few years at Google if you have the right skill set.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER135> One thing that you should be aware of is that the skills to be promoted to a high level in a FAANG are not the same skills to succeed as an entrepreneur. Sure you're smart diligent and technically capable, but you should expect results, on average, to look like professional football players trying baseball.

</comment><comment><USER136> Along similar lines, albeit with a more international slant - I worked in California tech companies, and even was involved in building a few of the big ones, for 20 years before leaving the US in 2001 and moving to Europe.

The scene is a lot different.

I've watched European tech startups come and go - not as high frequency as those I observed in California, due to government subsidies/welfare being a much more influential aspect in Europe than in America. American startups are hungrier, and tend to fail faster - or indeed, succeed through hard work, whereas there is a decadence to the European tech sector that is truly difficult to avoid. European tech businesses prefer to have a safe and tidy lifestyle - American tech companies don't put as much emphasis on it. This has both good and bad repercussions on both sides.

I do miss the go-get'em/gung-ho nature of American tech businesses. You don't get much gung-ho in Europe, or if you do its very unusual. Conservative attitudes abound in the Euro tech scene; Americans still very much have a degree of frontier spirit you won't find elsewhere. I think this is why most big tech companies are American.

Anecdotally its my observation that Americans work much, much harder than Europeans, and tolerance for ineffective activity is very definitely different between the two spheres. American tech businesses will solve problems that will make profit - European tech companies will work harder to avoid problems, in order to save a bit more from the subsidies they apparently 'work to deserve'.

Still, European tech companies don't seem to have the identity confidence that Americans do. Americans are much, much better at creating a brand out of the ether and then adding value to it, whereas this seems to be distasteful to the Euro mindset.

I've had the opportunity to be involved in a few 'big' European startups, and those who have been successful seem to model themselves after American companies. Too often I've seen a European tech founder gain just enough success to move their asses to California - this definitely is a thing.

The American tech market seems to be a lot more resilient to the life/growth/death of smaller tech industries than in Europe, where things are homogenised by regulation and bureaucracy. Its not that American doesn't have bureaucratic impairment in the tech industry - just that Americans are far more willing to route around it as a source of damage.

I miss the California 'cottage tech' industry, but on the other hand I much, much prefer European hackerspaces.

</comment><comment><USER137> Just quit Google this year after 5 years to start a startup. Never going back. The network of people built over 5 years is incredibly useful.

</comment><comment><USER138> FAANG vs FANG. What does the extra "A" mean? I see people using both terms.

<comment><USER139> The two As are usually for Apple and Amazon. I think the shorter version of the acronym is just incorrect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER140> Instead of quitting FANG you can join a night college and acquire new skills/challenges;

</comment><comment><USER141> Yes, please stop selling out your neighbors' data for a few bags of silver.

</comment><comment><USER142> Get into education. Fund education if you can. Fund [http://thewalterhive.com](http://thewalterhive.com) if you can.</comment>