>My comment was not that I don't need to know algorithms it was that at a senior level the questions should be far more advanced than what leet code has.

Seniors (>=L5) go through a "pirate" round that's system design/arch in addition to the "ninja" round. But you're a CTO so you should be able to ace that (after handily passing ninja since you know all the algorithms). So what exactly are you waiting for? I mean like do you want a referral? I'd be glad to make a quick 5k for referring you since you're so confident that you're good enough.

Mostly because I stayed at my last job way too long and when I was finally ready to leave I started my own company vs job hunting.

I probably will start applying if my new company doesn't make it.

Though a lot of me wonders why I am working for no pay at my own company when it sounds like I can make enough to retire being an individual contributor. I do believe in my idea though and want to see it through.

I have friends at just about every one of the FAANG companies so a refferal's not the issue.

Edit: When I say way too long... I mean 10+ years.

Edit 2 because I just realized how it could have sounded: I didn't start a company then give myself the CTO title. I was CTO at my previous job (the one I was at 10+ years).

It sounds like you should leave your company and go make a guaranteed monster salary.

If you are great at algorithms, have 20 years of experience with a great track record and live near a great tech university so plenty of tech companies, then you are doing something really wrong if you just earn $175k a year. Or you intentionally choose to have a low salary and prioritize other things, but if you did that then you'd know about it instead of asking this question.

You're being downvoted (not by me) but you have a point. I did two things wrong that I know of:

- I graduated college right before the great recession and that effected my career starting rates

- I stayed at a company I knew was under paying me for far too long (because I had a lot of stock options and I valued them too highly)

If either of those two things were different I'd probably be making a lot more. But my point was, regardless, I am making the mean salary for my region and that mean is not what is represented in this article.

I feel like those 2 points are just excuses(no offense but plenty of people would kill for a chance to even go to college)...if you were to go back would you hold off graduating college until after the recession? It sounds like you are extremely proficient in the technical space, are you good at negotiating and/or identifying where the value is? There is really no reason for someone to stay on a linear pay progression when moving from one job to the next, or even one title to the next.

A lot of research has been done on how the recession stunted career growth for anyone who graduated into it. Effectively anyone who graduated during it got passed over for the people who did graduated right after it. Leaving the people who graduated during it in underemployment and unable to move on because companies were more willing to hire people who were fresh graduates than people who were underemployed.

So yes, actually... in hind sight I should have gotten my Masters degree instead of entering the workforce.

Edit: That job I stayed at too long... only reason I took it in the first place was because the recession left me almost no choices. No one was hiring in Boston. The job boards were empty for someone right out of college.

Yes, I mean hindsight is 20/20 and no one could have really predicted the fallout from and during the great recession. It generally sounds like you are doing fairly well now, and that is a fantastic accomplishment. Realistically speaking there are few times in our lives where we have 'almost no choice'. The truth is that you didn't see a choice that was appealing to you, but that's just my 2c, and with inflation nowadays the 2c is worth even less hahaha.

>I am making the mean salary for my region and that mean is not what is represented in this article.

the article didn't say it was representing the mean salary though, probably the salary they are representing is the average - so there are a few high earning outliers pulling that number way up.

Or maybe, the more you are experienced and able to solve problems. Any problems. And produce quality software that performs. Then maybe the more unique that makes you. Which is not what FAANGs are looking for. They want a smart enough human, that is replaceable enough. And they will pay a lot for people that accept to play by the rules.

Hey just a theory. I am probably wrong.

> My point was not that algorithms are irrelevant but they are table stakes

You're wrong. A previous team built a simple data processing pipeline for a big customer. The throughput is single digit per second. The customer was furious as they would have wait for days to get their data in. The reason is the team was not aware that their graph building and traversal algorithms are O(n^2), and they didn't understand how to distribute their processing logic. My team came in, fixed the algorithms with merely dozens of lines, and improved the throughput by more than 200 times in a matter of days. If you build large backend for data intensive systems, which pretty much every tech company needs, you will need algorithms and data structures. Probabilistic data structures? Check. Manually optimizing popular machine learning algorithms? Check. Rolling out our own implementation of graphs, trees, vector similarity search algorithms and indices, parallelization algorithms, cache oblivious data structures? Check, check, and check. You don't have to use those techniques, but your value to your projects will increase exponentially if you push the boundary.

What part of my statement is wrong?

I said algorithms are table stakes (a poker term for something you need to know just to play at the table). To continue the analogy, sounds like whoever designed that system didn't have enough to buy into the table.

> If you build large backend for data intensive systems

I have. Many.

ouch, my bad. Somehow I read “algorithm is irrelevant”, and you’re right, I didn’t get your analogy.

200x single digit/second still seems lowish? I’m not sure if I’d call that a large backend for a data intensive system.

Depends on how extensive your processing is of course.