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Comment by wyatty | Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised no one has asked this, but why don't you just go and work for a startup (or small company)? You mention that you are well positioned for a role where you have many different responsibilities.

Another option is that you can start your own (you mention this too). It doesn't have to be solo. From the experience you describe, it seems like you could partner with a technical cofounder and really compliment their skills. There's a lot to gain from experience like that and it can open the door to a lot of opportunities in the future that you don't know about right now.

You haven't made a mistake. You can provide a lot of value to an organization. You just have to find the right opportunity where you can do so.

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Maybe they want a higher total comp than $200-250k/yr. If they were a Director or VP at a big public company, they could easily bring in $500k+/yr TC.

Can speak from experience. My whole career has been in startups, and it's been great. But I just accepted an offer at Google. I expect to be bored out of my mind at work, but having WLB and making $400k+ a year -- without having to worry about getting a new job -- will be quite nice. I think it's a decent trade off.

But it's kind of sad that the place where I can get the most value is seemingly the place where my skills will be utilized the least. It just seems... strange.

> But it's kind of sad that the place where I can get the most value is seemingly the place where my skills will be utilized the least. It just seems... strange.

Think of it like this: The kinds of lawyers who get a lot of "on retainer" type work are the best ones. Because those people will not often utilize those lawyers, but they want to make sure they're available when needed, because when needed, they need the best of the best and they need them now.

Google is treating you the same way. They want to make sure they best of the best are available for them when needed, and not available for anyone else. By paying you $MAX_COMP, they ensure that you're there when they need you, and its a cost that is worth it to them. They hope that you do some great things for them in the interim.

I've noticed that the majority of my economic output so far has happened over a handful of weeks. The problem is that nobody had any idea when those golden weeks would happen: there always had to be some big problem that I was uniquely qualified to solve, and those don't just come along every day.

Your reasoning sounds right.

Not just reserving someone for themselves, but when your fingers are in enough pots, they’re unavailable to help a competitor and work against you.

Like buying a perfectly functioning goldmine, only to close it solely to drive up the price of gold.

But really, why be bored? If you find yourself bored, just use the new resources you have at your disposal to do something interesting! Being part of a large company comes with a number of benefits, whether it's access to smart folks, or access to IP, or access to infrastructure, etc etc ... you have an opportunity in front of you. Use it!

This is true. Thanks for the motivation. I'm hoping that I can pair with someone for the 20% time to try to launch a new project and satisfy my appetite for "starting up".

If you intend to find meaning in your 20% time I would advise you to find a way to make your project fit in to some greater picture outside the company. The FOSS community has seen a lot of side projects come out of Google and wither in a world that can’t really take advantage of them. Finding collaborators within Google should be a lower priority. It’s not quite as self-directed but you still have great latitude in choosing what to do and a better shot at making an impact on the world.

I didn’t think 20% time was still a thing?

It is. Most people don't have a 20% project though. It means less time to work on the things that might get you promoted.

But you can have one of you want one.

Sounds like you have internal knowledge of this process ... how does it work, do you have to formally tell your boss that your fridays will be spent on 20% time? do they need to give you permission? or do you just have to sneak the time in at your discretion?

The normal way it works is you accept a 20% role from another team. Teams post 20% opportunities in the same way they post transfer opportunities internally. You talk to the hiring manager and see if they'd like to "hire" you.

A common reason people do 20% work is to test the waters of another area of the company. It's also a kind of tryout for you.

You do tell your manager in this case, yes. They're not supposed to say no. Hard to say what the range of responses is in practice. In my experience managers are supportive of this.

Apologies upfront if this is a bit uncouth but if you don't mind my asking; what job are you doing which pays you $400,000 a year as a salaried employee?

I'm in europe, I guess we are a bit behind on the pay scales but that's an absolutely incredible amount of money to me; I'm genuinely curious what you're being paid to do for that level of compensation...

This is just for a regular SWE position at Google. The pay there is banana town. I'm glad to be a part of it.

Not for regular SWE. Def for one of the better ones.

SWE? Software engineer? What kind of software? For 400k I suspect you're not working on a CRUD ;)

I think CRUD gets an undeserved low reputation on HN.

A CRUD ceases to be a CRUD when one is dealing with Google-like scale and/or arbitrarily complex requirements behind each of those letters in the acronym!

I expect at Google scale C,R,U and D are each a separate specialized domains.

to own a house in mountain view.

Take a look at this table: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/20-companies-profit-per-emp...

There are no European companies on the list.

Companies that make enormous profits per employee can pay top employees a lot of money.

When people wonder why Americans work so much part of the reason is that these people desperately want to make it to the top where the rewards are lucrative. Is this rational? Probably not, because the top seems to get smaller in every field and most don't make it.

Also take a look at the BigLaw Profits per Partner. Top equity partners can make $4 million+ because they are at the top of a pyramid. Mostly this is in the US

Bored at google? Good luck.. there is so much to learn if you look.

Not using all of your skills can be a concern but you will gain new skills.

Hey,

So... not that I think it's necessarily easy but how did you score such a lucrative gig at google? How can I do the same? Do they hire generalists? Thanks.

I'm a generalist as well. I can't help you out too much. It's mostly luck.

If you study Cracking the Coding Interview, and you know that book inside and out, and you feel confident you can solve all of the questions in it (you can ignore the Java/C++ stuff if you're not applying for one of those jobs) -- you have a /chance/ to get hired.

But there's lots of smart people with those skills who fail the interview every day.

Just wanted to say thanks for your reply. This (CtCI) seems to be the most frequent advice. I guess I'll get cracking (ha!).

I think for many people, in particular people who are looking for personal development rather than just compensation, the difference between 200k and 400k is probably not meaningful.

Personally, I don't think I'd ever give up a software engineering job for a managerial position even if the compensation was higher.

> the difference between 200k and 400k is probably not meaningful.

Where these compensation packages are given so frequently (SV), it is very meaningful. It's the difference between being able to buy a home vs being forced to rent a 1-bedroom apartment.

And/or the difference between working for another 20 years while paying the mortgage, or stacking your extra cash and retiring in 10.

I'm not sure I understand your meaning. Are you saying that buying a house delays retirement? I'm not sure that is really true.

Mortgage payments gets you equity on your home, which goes a long way in retirement. Rent payments disappear, and you will have to continue to pay rent when retired.

They're saying if you make more then there's potential to save more and retire early.

Right, this, sorry if it wasn't clear. It all depends on how much extra you have. I mean, if 200k is just making ends meet, 400k means infinitely larger savings!

Well, in some cases it's considered a career change and not a promotion. In which case you might not even be paid more... :)

This is very similar to my own experience. Most of my career was at small startups doing generalist things. So I could get back into that job very easily. But going to a large public company can give a 50% comp boost, but job with more restricted scope.

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