[HN Gopher] Changing jobs during the Great Resignation
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Changing jobs during the Great Resignation
Author : acconrad
Score : 63 points
Date : 2022-04-08 17:17 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.adamconrad.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.adamconrad.dev)
| bicepjai wrote:
| Unless base pay was way higher and can compensate on sinking
| equity value, I think Meta seems like a gamble.
| CoolGuySteve wrote:
| It's very funny/sad how little all this work had to do with
| actual software engineering management.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| What do you mean, you can't possibly manage SWEs if you can't
| do Leetcode Hards, everyone knows that.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| I remember the OP was in the AgTech space. I've been wondering
| recently if there's much growth in it either.
| renewiltord wrote:
| There's this class of engineer. They're remarkably successful.
| Essentially, they mechanize the process of the job hunt:
|
| - Optimize for comp at all costs
|
| - Work at full professional capacity for the 9-5
|
| - Excel at interviewing, often also fairly competent at their
| jobs
|
| - See the job as "just a job"
|
| Personally, I think that if you're a startup you shouldn't hire
| any of these people. But at big companies they will probably do
| really well. Essentially, just perfectly professional
| individuals, but I think I'd want people who care about the thing
| you're building a lot more so they can influence its direction as
| well.
|
| But that's okay for both parties in the FAANG world. The
| guaranteed high comp is a FAANG thing in general. For a while, in
| the Bay Area, we were easily the highest comp shop and that led
| to us encountering these people a lot and it was never a
| satisfactory outcome. One even signed and then reneged 2 w before
| starting when Amazon matched.
|
| Presumably in a year or so he will repeat the process and pump up
| his comp even more. I expect this guy to be quite wealthy in the
| next few years.
| strikelaserclaw wrote:
| Whenever there is a lot of money on the table, these types of
| individuals will definitely show up in droves. Hell, do you
| think CS is fast becoming one of the most popular majors
| because most people love computers? For 60-70% of software
| engineers, it is all about making money and retiring.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| I'll take it one step further. Most people doing CS don't
| have a love for generic crud apps pipelining information over
| the web, but that's the far majority of safe jobs paying well
| as a software dev.
|
| There are plenty of people who go into CS for more passionate
| fields such as game development. They often end up taking one
| of these safe jobs anyway.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I once worked with a former nuclear engineer who became a
| backend engineer slinging Rails code. The money, of course,
| was better.
| analog31 wrote:
| >>>> Get a referral for all of the jobs you apply for, study a
| standard list of questions, stack your interviews, and negotiate
| like a champ. Success is all but guaranteed.
|
| ELI5 what getting a referral for a job means. I've been out of
| the market for a long time.
| lucasyvas wrote:
| Always be networking!
| lelanthran wrote:
| "Once I showed the potential salaries to my wife, we both agreed
| it would be perfectly reasonable for me to ask for 30 minutes of
| additional "me time" per day to prepare for my next job,"
|
| What the hell? If he wants 30m to himself each day he needs to
| clear with his wife?
|
| Don't _most_ people get more than 30m free time each day away
| from their partner? Just what kind of unhealthy relationship is
| this dude in?
| Arubis wrote:
| That's 30m of not helping with a one-year-old. That time is
| _precious_.
| notch656a wrote:
| Yeah 30m of extra 'me' time could easily mean the wife loses
| half her free time. That breeds a TON of marital problems and
| issues if you don't clear it. A 1 y/o is basically a time
| vacuum.
| oe wrote:
| There's rarely a continuous 30min free time slot with a one-
| year-old running around.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| Are you people out there really setting up a daily calendar
| to deal with childcare?
|
| 4:30 - 5:00 Change Diaper 5:00 - 6:00 Bounce on knee 7:00 -
| 8:00 Contemplate on the poor life decisions that lead to this
| scenario
| daok wrote:
| The article says that he already spend about 1h to 1h30 for
| lifting (gym). Probably needed to ask to get even more time
| just to be polite. Always a balance when you live with someone
| and that you have children.
| thwayunion wrote:
| Phrased different: he asked his partner to babysit their 1yr
| old for an extra 30 minutes without his help every night.
|
| If you have a small child, locking yourself in a room and
| ignoring external stimuli is actually requesting someone else
| to do labor for you.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Article links to a video by Engineering with Utsav, which is a
| very good channel in my opinion. This is probably one of the best
| algorithm solving videos I've ever seen, since it does not rely
| on knowing any solutions beforehand but actually goes through the
| process of evaluating different techniques:
|
| https://youtu.be/FSycYs8RpsA
| notafraudster wrote:
| The proposed "blind referral" system, where people refer people
| they don't even know for jobs, seems like it should be a
| completely worthless signal on the hiring side. On the referrer
| side the benefit is obvious, if the person gets the job you get
| cash. But on the company side, what is the value of a referral
| that's predicated specifically on a shallow social interaction?
| fdgsdfogijq wrote:
| its basically the same as paying a recruiter, except your
| employee acts as the recruiter. it might even have more signal.
| blawson wrote:
| For now Blind might have a sufficiently high quality network to
| make this worthwhile even on hiring. You wouldn't find it
| unless you were serious "enough" about your career, even if
| there is a ton centered around LC grinding and TC chasing.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Probably it's less that it's high quality, so much as it's
| not huge enough to introduce too much noise into the referral
| pipelines yet.
| paxys wrote:
| The company is still getting a good lead, and the referral
| bonus is tiny compared to what you'd have to pay a recruiter.
| thebigspacefuck wrote:
| It's better for small companies it's since it incentivizes
| employees to advertise their company to other professionals.
| For a large company that has many applicants it's less valuable
| but it could also be an indicator that applicant at least hangs
| out in the same networking circles.
| kshacker wrote:
| Even at large companies, I have seen instances (not common
| but instances) if candidate playing one group against the
| other so I guess you are incentivized to pull them in your
| group.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| > notafraudster
|
| Well, there's your problem.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Seems like it's just a by-product of these megacorps being big
| clanking bureaucracies that haven't caught on to this trend
| yet.
| nly wrote:
| The incentives are aligned. You only get paid for referring
| (presumably) _good_ candidates that get hired, and the company
| saves a huge amount of money and hassle on not having to deal
| with and pay an external recruiter (which can cost something
| like 25% of a new hires first year base salary).
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > In the future, I will ask for referrals for all of my
| applications and not worry about prep.
|
| Already thinking of jumping ship, eh?
| maxfurman wrote:
| If you took an offer from Facebook, wouldn't you?
| maxfurman wrote:
| This whole process seems a bit psychotic. Is it really necessary
| to cram like you're taking the SATs again to get a good job as a
| software engineer? Is "has memorized some number of coding
| problems" really a test of engineering knowledge?
|
| I suppose it's appropriate that after all that work, the author
| wound up at Facebook, the most soulless company on the list.
| tuckerpo wrote:
| > Is it really necessary to cram like you're taking the SATs
| again to get a good job as a software engineer?
|
| Frankly, yes. Just as the SATs and ACTs are IQ tests with a
| shitty veil on top, FAANG interviews are meant to be the same.
| Everyone knows interview prep has basically zero correlation to
| job duties in software engineering, but you have to play the
| game.
|
| > the author wound up at Facebook, the most soulless company on
| the list.
|
| Who cares? Searching for meaning through work is fruitless,
| unless you're at a company that actually really aligns with
| your values and what you hope to see in the world.
|
| Huge comp packages allow people to pursue meaning in life
| outside of their 9-5. It pays the bills, and allows for
| hobbies. I'd attempt to be a MotoGP racer if I had unlimited
| free time, but I don't - what I DO have, is a pretty nice white
| collar job that pays well and is somewhat mentally stimulating.
| The paycheck allows me to do things I'm actually passionate
| about otherwise.
| belval wrote:
| > Is it really necessary to cram like you're taking the SATs
| again to get a good job as a software engineer
|
| He is explicitly optimizing for compensation so yes, he needs
| to nail the interviews. It's a bit of a "don't hate the player
| hate the game" situation. He does what is needed to achieve the
| objective.
|
| > Is "has memorized some number of coding problems" really a
| test of engineering knowledge?
|
| Absolutely not, but the blog post is not titled "On becoming a
| better software engineer".
| dhd415 wrote:
| I recently went through this process with a lot of the same
| companies on this guy's list although I limited mine to 100%
| remote roles. I do agree that some interview and coding prep is
| beneficial although not nearly as much as he suggests. I limited
| my prep to a round of "practice" interviews with 2 or 3 companies
| that I wasn't really interested in. I then applied to the
| companies I was interested in and ended up with a 60% pay raise
| in a 100% remote role. I'd encourage anyone who can tolerate the
| interview process to go out and see what's available these days.
| And I highly recommend the levels.fyi site for comp info. Based
| on my recent experience, their comp numbers are slightly on the
| low side, probably lagging slightly behind the recent rapidly-
| increasing comps for developers.
| prh8 wrote:
| He spends a good chunk talking about figuring out how to get prep
| work without negatively impacting his life, but it's interesting
| that there was no mention of how the actual new job would impact
| his life. Especially since he literally just picked the highest
| paying ones.
| lokimedes wrote:
| That is the saddest self-realization post I have ever read. Boils
| down to accepting being a tool and proceeds with optimizing ROI
| on said tool.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| A very _well-paid_ tool that can probably retire in a few years
| and never have to work again.
| 65 wrote:
| I feel like I'm the only person left who actually likes
| working and being productive with other people. I actually
| like programming and solving problems with other people.
|
| There's been a huge shift since COVID to embrace not working
| hard, but to me life isn't as interesting when you're
| spending 40 hours a week just kinda wasting your time, trying
| to get away with putting in the least amount of effort
| possible. Having a little pride in your work can be very
| healthy.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| "We're all puppets, lokimedes. I'm just a puppet who can see
| the strings."
| [deleted]
| babelfish wrote:
| > I would have the third-highest new offer on Levels out of over
| 200 offers on their site
|
| Looking at Facebook's salary data[0], does this mean the offer
| was in the ~$2M range?
|
| [0] - https://www.levels.fyi/company/Facebook/salaries/Software-
| En...
| strikelaserclaw wrote:
| managers seem to get much more money than their corresponding
| peers on the software track according to this website.
| chrisBob wrote:
| 8-10 YOE and new offers only means he was right around a cool
| $1M/yr
| simantel wrote:
| You missed the preceding "for my years of experience"
| statement.
| lordnacho wrote:
| How do they decide what band to put him in? Just based on the
| interview feedback + years of experience?
| rla3rd wrote:
| I did the opposite, collected a bunch of salaries for my
| experience level on levels.fyi, showed them to my boss, and asked
| for a raise. Got a 50K bump without having to do much. I'm only
| in the mid 200s TC mind you, but not bad for just looking up what
| I could be worth.
| strikelaserclaw wrote:
| seems like a rare place to bump you up 50k just like that.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| What's the approximate size/industry of your company?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| This sounds like a game for younger people. But then again, do
| FAANGs even hire middle aged developers? I ask because of genuine
| curiosity -- I have a decent network and could probably land
| another job pretty easily, but only one of my closer contacts
| works for a FAANG. So the only way I could even try would be
| through the front door, as it were.
| clpm4j wrote:
| Apple and Netflix definitely hire a fairly significant amount
| of middle-age devs... Not sure about the others.
| supertofu wrote:
| I'm confused about how OP asked for referrals. Can you do that on
| Blind?
| idontknowifican wrote:
| that's the point. eng at faang get paid referral fees and
| suffer no loss if you fail so they're happy to do it
| tester756 wrote:
| On one hand I do understand why somebody would want put a few
| months into grinding questions like this, it could be life
| changing salary jump.
|
| but on the other hand I feel like I'd feel like I've went into
| some bad direction with my life - where's the curiosity part?
|
| Idk, whenever I read about US software engineering market then I
| feel like it's one big game
|
| Here in eastern eu I've never been asked about anything that
| isn't day to day stuff.
|
| Of course sample size N=1, but also you don't need fanciness for
| crud apps :)
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| N=1 from West EU: things are slowly changing in the entirety of
| the West. Demands are increasing and compensations aren't
| matching up remotely. We're very much adopting the mentality of
| SV without the big paychecks.
|
| And we're still making the same crud apps as before. Just now
| they look a little fancier and we don't manually deploy. Maybe.
| hintymad wrote:
| I don't quite get the study plan, as it sounds more like
| cramming. Nothing wrong with cramming per se except that what you
| learn does not stick, and you will have to repeat the process
| when you need to switch jobs again.
|
| I think a better system is to regularly study fundamentals and
| always deep dive in your work. Case in point, I've never had
| problems passing interviews by FAANG or other hot startups, I
| always got title bump when switching jobs, and I never spent
| extra time prepping for interviews. Say you're an ML engineer who
| builds an image recognition pipeline using Spark and PyTorch. Do
| not just be content with assembling a number of open-source
| solutions to make your pipeline work. Instead, study the
| internals of Spark, understand the math and algorithms behind
| your image recognition models, read survey papers to understand
| the landscape of data processing and image recognition or
| further, machine learning, and implement a few models and try to
| optimize them. Similarly, if you work on database systems, do not
| just stop at being familiar with MySQL or Postgres or whatever.
| Instead, understand how transactions work, what consistency
| means, how principles of distributed systems play out. Study Jim
| Gray, Gottfried Vossen, Maurice Herlihy, Leslie Lamport, the
| database red book and its references... You get the idea.
|
| As for leetcoding, replace it with study of algorithm designs.
| Study Jon Kleinberg's book or Knuth's writings (no, you don't
| have to read through his books, but his writings are incredibly
| insightful even for mortals like us), for instance. Instead of
| working out hundreds of back-tracing problems, study
| backtracking's general forms.
|
| People tend to underestimate the effect of regular study for
| years. You'll find that in a few years your knowledge will
| converge and you will be able to spend less time to incrementally
| improve your skills, and you will have so many concepts to
| connect to greatly benefit your projects.
| claudiulodro wrote:
| It's wild to me that his way of figuring out what companies to
| apply for was to make a list of the top-paying ones and just pick
| the top 10 highest-paying. Is that a common strategy? No thought
| about product, industry, impact on the world, just $$$. It looks
| like it worked out for them though, since I guess they got like a
| million dollar offer, so maybe I'm the one approaching this the
| wrong way?
| FerociousTimes wrote:
| Different strokes for different folks
|
| You optimize your job hunting for these criteria and he did his
| chiefly for $$$, as you put it.
| nluken wrote:
| Just a case of different priorities for different people. Some
| people are just in it for the cash and in that case applying to
| the top-paying companies would be optimal.
| walrus01 wrote:
| I expect exactly this from a person who humblebrags about their
| exercise routine and says they "live and die by Asana"
| rootusrootus wrote:
| It's a blog post, I kinda expect a little bit of bragging
| about what they feel like they're doing right.
| jjulius wrote:
| >... so maybe I'm the one approaching this the wrong way?
|
| I wouldn't say that. Everyone views things differently. You may
| place more value on product/industry/global impact, whereas
| others don't care, they just want the cash.
| paxys wrote:
| There's no right or wrong way. He optimized for the money. You
| can pick personal interest or societal benefit or work life
| balance or whatever else.
| treyfitty wrote:
| I do something like this as a first pass, but prune based on
| Values. I wouldn't ever consider Amazon... but at $1MM...
| that's kinda "change your values" type money.
| Riseed wrote:
| I'm not sure there's "change your values" type money for
| everyone. Though for me, $1MM is enough to consider working
| for Amazon to attempt to change it from the inside. Perhaps
| we're saying the same things with different words.
| bally0241 wrote:
| Out of curiosity, what turns you off about Amazon?
| chrismcb wrote:
| Not the OP. But I interviewed once got a contract to hire
| position. The recruiter said after about six months I could
| apply for full time. If I got accepted then immediately the
| expectation is to put in 60 hours a week or more.
| UnpossibleJim wrote:
| At a certain point, I guess you'd have to say to yourself (or
| I'd have to say to myself, would be a better way to say it),
| "I'll whore myself out for X amount of time for X amount of
| money, then I can do whatever I want or work for whomever I
| want for X amount of time, after."
| chucksta wrote:
| "Everyone has a price"
| roenxi wrote:
| Money is a decent proxy for those things. You'll notice that
| his list scores pretty well on all those measures for someone
| with a typical set of moral standards.
|
| It is hard for a financially poor company to have good
| products/impact.
| anm89 wrote:
| 99% of people in tech aren't changing the world. They are
| building accounting and metrics and shopping and add platforms
| to get marginal increases to marginal revenue so some business
| can make a bit more money than they were making before.
|
| I'm honest that I trade my time for money. There are many times
| when I'll prioritize other things like working with people I
| like or not working with people I dislike, the same thing for
| processes or schedules or whatever.
|
| But I'm not going to sit around and lose hundreds of thousands
| of dollars so I can go play with the latest JS framework
| instead of the one that was cool 6 years ago or so I can be in
| a sexier sounding industry. I'm going to trade my time for
| money and work towards financial freedom so hopefully I can go
| work on stuff that's interesting to me on my terms at some
| point.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| On that note, is anyone else getting a little tired of all
| the pretentiousness going about in tech? Suddenly, every tech
| company is claiming to "change the world" and "not like the
| others". You know, hyping these adds, metrics, platforms,
| etc. up as if they're going to really change life in a
| noteworthy way for Average Joe. Whatever happened to just
| putting in a good day's effort and admitting we're doing it
| for the money so we can pay the bills and a nice dinner?
| hotpotamus wrote:
| I think it taps into peoples' inherent religious desires
| and motivates them to put in more work and possibly do
| things they wouldn't otherwise. There's a reason it's
| called drinking the kool aid.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| See I do agree on surface level it makes sense to
| decorate things. But I have yet to see any empirical
| evidence of this, let alone weighted against the long
| term costs of burnout, disillusion, embitterment,
| increasing costs using third parties to fix the problems,
| and more.
|
| Anecdotally, the far majority of "we really love to work
| here!" people I met seemed to either stop caring very
| soon, were clearly faking it or were barely
| distinguishable from their more skeptical co-workers
| performance-wise, bar a few individuals with a savior
| complex.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| That's a fair point - I've never really been in a
| position to measure the performance of such people. It's
| entirely possible that performance isn't actually all
| that relevant. It might just be that leaders prefer
| followers who "worship" them as leaders of the shared
| religion of work. I don't think this is all some sort of
| Machiavellian scheme either - I think a lot of it is
| unconscious on both ends of the deal.
| drewcoo wrote:
| I think everyone agrees that performance is difficult to
| define, let alone measure.
|
| Passion, though . . . aren't all startup founders issued
| a brand new Passionometer(TM)? I think that's in the
| rules or bylaws or somesuch.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| "Suddenly"? It's been going on for at least a decade,
| decade and a half, nearly two decades now, whenever Web 2.0
| was getting off the ground and startups started booming
| again post-Dot Com bubble.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| I believe it's extremely common? I don't really have any data
| though. Everyone I know changes jobs whenever someone comes
| along offering more.
|
| I'm the odd one out having been with my current employer for >5
| years. I've been getting healthy raises every year, but many of
| my friends have averaged a 40% pay increase every hop...
|
| I guess it depends on what you want. Do you want your job to be
| something you're excited about doing every weekday? Or is it a
| means to provide for the things you'd rather be doing?
| rhacker wrote:
| My salary did the same thing, practically doubled every hop.
| That ends eventually and you find out there's a ceiling.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| Well obviously, and then it would come down to who treats
| you better or lets you work on more interesting things. But
| the ceiling is typically way higher than what the people
| who don't hop around get.
| nly wrote:
| Strategy for me has just been to contact a 2 or 3 good
| recruiters and let them find me the best opportunities. Often a
| recruiter can get you in the door at big companies quicker than
| you can applying directly. I just never let a recruiter
| interfere with my instincts, since even the good ones can get
| pushy when they sense that they're close to a big pay-off.
|
| I felt bad for a really nice, hard working recruiter last year
| because, although i had 2 offers on the table through
| opportunities found through him, the companies just felt wrong.
| I ended up going with a company who head-hunted me directly on
| LinkedIn.
| tejtm wrote:
| I think it contributes to why we have what we have. The other
| part is a system which is free to pay for dodgy products with
| negative impacts.
|
| I can't imagine eliminating how I feel about what I do from the
| equation.
| AsusToss wrote:
| It's wild to me that the only reason his wife gave him 30
| mins/day of personal time was because of the financial payoff.
| Bizarre dude and story.
| hn_user82179 wrote:
| FWIW I assume that's because they parent a 1 year old, and
| it's important to trade-off on caregiving time.
| antisthenes wrote:
| Not if his wife doesn't work.
| rhizome wrote:
| Parenting is work.
| notch656a wrote:
| If his wife doesn't work then the 30m of me time becomes
| even more costly and even more important to clear. Work
| is often the only reprieve from a very young child. The
| first year of our child, my favorite thing in the world
| was to go to work, no matter how shitty the task. The
| thirty minute commute alone was orgasmic, without the
| sound of a screaming colicky child unrelenting during day
| and night alike.
| pianoben wrote:
| Tell me you aren't raising an infant without telling me
| you aren't raising an infant, lol
| itsmemattchung wrote:
| > Bizarre dude and story.
|
| My thoughts exactly. Just seems...very odd.
| trhway wrote:
| He is now manager of some lucky team at FB :)
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| But gets only 30 minutes a day with his wife...
| xwdv wrote:
| Yes you are wrong. You're confusing career with purpose.
| claudiulodro wrote:
| Could be. I got into this stuff because of hacker ethos stuff
| I read as a kid, not because tech is more lucrative than
| working in finance.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| This is me. I derive great satisfaction simply being around
| tech. Maybe it is from watching my father take apart and
| work with the family PC at age 4 or 5. Now I'm in a rat
| race against Adderall addicts on hedonic treadmills.
| Arubis wrote:
| I feel that, but remain indecisive if the best way to enjoy
| tech. Is it to just find the closest approximation of a fit
| in a job at a reasonable wage, or to crank compensation to
| generate better options? As I get older, the latter seems
| more sustainable.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Comp is king, everything else is window dressing; only the comp
| pays the bills and gets you closer to financial independence
| (wealth is options, options are freedom).
| xedrac wrote:
| Reminds me of the old story of the King's servant saying to
| the monk, "If only you'd learn to pander to the King, you
| wouldn't have to live like a monk." To which the monk
| replied, "If only you'd learn to live like a monk, you
| wouldn't have to pander to the King!"
| ForHackernews wrote:
| Cutting expenses also gets you closer to financial
| independence: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-
| shockingly-si...
|
| In fact, it's doubly effective. If you can learn to reduce
| your expenses by $10k and live happily, not only do you have
| an additional $10k to save/invest, but you _need_ less each
| year to live independently.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Some expenses you have no control over (alimony, child
| support, chronic healthcare costs, elder care come to mind
| from my circle of associates). Yes, don't spend frivolously
| (luxury vehicles, eating out all of the time), but
| sometimes (at least in tech), you have far more control
| over the income side of the equation. If you can switch
| jobs and make $100k/more a year, that's easier than trying
| to cut all of your expenses to the bone, or expenses that
| are non-discretionary and simply can't be cut.
|
| Run hard, every hour you work is an hour you'll never get
| back, so max the comp for each of those hours. Your future
| self will thank you.
|
| (Huge mmm fan btw)
| nixass wrote:
| Not just "huge mmm" but also huge "American problems
| only"
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| The massive amounts of money available for software
| professionals is an American problem I hope to some day
| have.
| notch656a wrote:
| Yeah the other issue is if you increase income, your
| imputed income for child support is now effectively
| permanently higher. Child support imputed incomes ratchet
| up with raises, generally not back down. You will never
| be able to 'relax' back at a slower/less lucrative job
| because now the judge says pay the higher rate or go to
| jail.
|
| Another way to view it: say you get a pay boost 90k ->
| 190k. The custodial parent will request the imputed
| income to be recalculated. You now owe an extra 20k PER
| YEAR. That's your new imputed income, even if you don't
| get a job like this again and it only lasts a year.
| Eventually you lose that job and can't find one like it
| again -- fast forward 10 years. You've paid an extra
| $200k, just to make an extra 50 or 60k net in one year.
| You lost $200k by working a higher paid job for a year.
|
| One year of raise followed by 17 years of a slightly more
| relaxed job at your original income means you LOSE money.
| In this example, falling from 190k back to your 90k
| income means child support went from 1/3 of your net
| check to 2/3 of your net check. A brutal risk to take if
| you don't think you'll be making the high wage for life.
| [deleted]
| jquast wrote:
| Please don't forget about social security, that one year
| would make up the largest contribution of your social
| security benefits, and if you worked at least 10 more
| years after that, the AWI-adjusted Gross Income would
| drastically increase your Average Indexed Monthly
| Earnings (AIME). Anyway I don't see why you wouldn't use
| your savings from that first year to lawyer up a case for
| child support modification, there is no law that promises
| past earnings indicate future earnings.
| notch656a wrote:
| >there is no law that promises past earnings indicate
| future earnings.
|
| Strictly no, but this is basically what imputed income
| does. It's saying you have the capability to earn it. If
| you actually HAVE earned that amount, it can be extremely
| difficult to convince a judge that the certainty that you
| HAVE earned that amount is countered by some vague
| uncertainty you may not be able to again. Fighting
| against a known factual salary history with some hand
| waving about not being able to do it anymore is a hell of
| a hill to climb. Plenty of anecdotes show people having
| extreme difficulties lowering child support.
| majormajor wrote:
| Increasing comp can be much more than "doubly effective."
| It's _unlikely_ to triple, quadruple, ten-times, etc, your
| comp, but in the industry talked about here it 's far from
| impossible and if you only ever focus on your expenses you
| might blind yourself entirely to those opportunities.
| Arubis wrote:
| I mean, that's not wrong, but TFA involves getting an offer
| with a total comp we can safely assume is over 500k/annum.
| Do that and don't increase you expenses and you end up in a
| good place fast.
| thwayunion wrote:
| _> If you can learn to reduce your expenses by $10k_
|
| 1. This is crazy to me. I could _maybe_ cut $3K by taking a
| huge hit to quality of life (that would probably not be
| sustainable with a full time job anyways). Getting the
| other $7K would involve either homelessness or cutting back
| on eating and visiting family. How do salary earners manage
| to rack up $10K _per year_ of purely unnecessary expenses?
|
| 2. That number is still _way_ too small to be a better
| strategy than income maximization in tech. Of course "and"
| is always better, but given the choice between an extra
| >$100K/yr in savings or $10K less in life expenses the
| choice is pretty obvious.
| brimble wrote:
| > 1. This is crazy to me. I could maybe cut $3K by taking
| a huge hit to quality of life (that would probably not be
| sustainable with a full time job anyways). Getting the
| other $7K would involve either homelessness or cutting
| back on eating and visiting family. How do salary earners
| manage to rack up $10K per year of purely unnecessary
| expenses?
|
| Cleaning services, vacations, picking the fancy and nice
| daycare using some trendy educational system (Montessori,
| unschooling, whatever) instead of the one run out of
| someone's house in a scary part of town, ordering food
| delivery, monthly subscription services for all kinds of
| crap, new car every 2 years instead of a used one every 5
| years... the list goes on and on.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Yeah...a lot of financial advice assumes you already make
| 6-figures when they talk about cutting expenses.
|
| 12 years ago, my food budget was $3/day, and the only
| reason it wasn't less than even that was because I worked
| at a Subway and could get 1, sometimes 2 meals a day free
| if I was working a long shift. Going to Taco Bell was
| considered splurging.
|
| I caught Mono and had to miss 3 days of work. I had to
| get an advance on my paycheck to pay the rent. At least
| my boss was cool about it.
| Spoom wrote:
| > given the choice between an extra >$100K/yr in savings
| or $10K less in life expenses
|
| The first option often isn't available to folks.
| thwayunion wrote:
| Right but this is an article about a situation where it
| is available.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| > The philosopher Diogenes was eating bread and lentils
| for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus,
| who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said
| Aristippus, 'If you would learn to be subservient to the
| king, you would not have to live on lentils.'
|
| > Said Diogenes, 'Learn to live on lentils, and you will
| not have to be subservient to the king.'
| antisthenes wrote:
| Also the businessman and fisherman story.
| [deleted]
| QuikAccount wrote:
| I find it weird that you find this weird. Most people I know
| and know of optimize like this. They are in it for the cash and
| trying to make as much as possible and then get out as soon as
| possible. Doesn't matter what the impact is, doesn't matter how
| unsavory the work is.
| [deleted]
| clpm4j wrote:
| I think the fact that he's a power lifter is an important
| factor to consider in your impression. Power lifters are
| generally obsessed with their physical metrics and numbers, so
| this just seems like an optimization exercise in a similar
| vein. Clearly not a "fulfill the purpose of my life" exercise.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Facebook is pretty evil, but there are of course people out
| there who've worked for much less, at much more evil
| organizations.
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