Re:How to Not Get Screwed over as a Software Engineer
by Aurornis on Saturday November 04, 2023 @11:03AM
(#38141666)
> market-rate salary -- e.g. roughly as much as you could make at any other VC-funded enterprise, any FAANG company
From my experience, the group of people seeking FAANG jobs or prestigious roles at big companies doesn’t have all that much overlap with the group of people who like to build early stage startups.
Some people really liking going into a huge machine of a company, doing a lot of meetings and planning documents and consensus-building, playing the office politics game, and working with huge teams where everyone gets a narrowly defined slice of responsibility that they’ll be evaluated on 12 months from now in their performance review. These people usually struggle at startups and leave anyway.
Other people can’t stand anything resembling big company operations and won’t be working for FAANG or Series D behemoths for very long even if they’re making $400K or more.
This is why you’ll see companies like Oxide Semiconductor pay $200K, accept only the best candidates, and still have people lining up to apply.
If the only thing that matters to someone is cash, moving to a Tier 1 city and joining FAANG to play the game is just what you do. Just don’t be surprised when you find yourself surrounded by other people who care primarily about playing the game to maximize their comp, because they’re doing the same thing.
From my experience, the group of people seeking FAANG jobs or prestigious roles at big companies doesn’t have all that much overlap with the group of people who like to build early stage startups.
Some people really liking going into a huge machine of a company, doing a lot of meetings and planning documents and consensus-building, playing the office politics game, and working with huge teams where everyone gets a narrowly defined slice of responsibility that they’ll be evaluated on 12 months from now in their performance review. These people usually struggle at startups and leave anyway.
Other people can’t stand anything resembling big company operations and won’t be working for FAANG or Series D behemoths for very long even if they’re making $400K or more.
This is why you’ll see companies like Oxide Semiconductor pay $200K, accept only the best candidates, and still have people lining up to apply.
If the only thing that matters to someone is cash, moving to a Tier 1 city and joining FAANG to play the game is just what you do. Just don’t be surprised when you find yourself surrounded by other people who care primarily about playing the game to maximize their comp, because they’re doing the same thing.