notfaang
Yes, the game is predatory as you have to spend around $100-120 for a 50/50 chance of getting the banner character you want.
High powered weapons are another story. The chances are less than 50/50 and thus require more spend to obtain.
They made it that getting duplicates of the same character enhances it in powerful ways that incentivizes people to spend more for more power.
GI is not a play to win game since it is mainly a single player experience, but there are events with multiple plays cooperating with each other, and they can join your world but the quest interactions are limited.
Streamers will spend in the five digits to increase their viewership.
Other times, it's simply no longer fun / I don't feel I'm learning anymore / the level of competition is too strong to advance to another tier, and that's when I leave.
I'm at a point in my life where I have nothing to fear by leaving, so that also gives me a lot of sway as experienced engineers are hard to come by right now.
Any areas I lack, I am given the time to research into it, provide available options to management, then build it out solo or with a team.
If it's solo, it eventually is handed over to a team once in production or until the next big project comes across my way.
Also, I have spent a lot of time building rapport with important people that it is easy to get things started when multiple teams are involved (eg integration of multiple systems). I guess knowing how to deal with internal politics is another value-add.
Having institutional knowledge - if you were the original designer of a system (or multiple for that matter), you also become more valuable as you know how things work internally.
I have been doing this for more than 15 years.
Most of all, coding is my hobby. I'm extremely passionate about it, and work on projects outside of work (I have a home lab setup that I build things on, for example). I love reading articles on HN, and programming language reddits to discover what's new.
It's useful to know what's out there so when you encounter a problem, you'll have a lightbulb moment and go, "Oh, I remember reading about this.", and start to dive deeper into the subject matter.
Salary progression went like this at various large companies / startups:
- 100k
- 120k
- 140k
- 155k
- 175k
- 200k
- 340k
I have never been at a FAANG company, not a manager, and my time is spent 100% coding (if not on research).
I'm not saying you need to do what I do to command that kind of salary - it will be different for everyone. I'm describing what I think I'm doing to get that amount.
I would be okay taking a ~40% cut with good equity if I felt the startup / team was extremely solid. I have a friend who did that who made the same as I did. My friend does not regret the decision as the company is doing very well.
(I did not consider joining because of location - north bay vs south.)
These comp values are not an illusion, but you have to be good at what you do I guess, and show the company you're worth that much.
I do not have a college degree, btw.