Salary is a big factor for sure, but given an already good pay for technical talent why not to take a small pay cut and join a mission-driven startup, where you can be aligned in values and have an impact and growth?
2) I don't want to work for a "mission-driven" company. What does that even mean? Most companies lie about their mission anyways. They want to make money, not save the planet.
3) There is not a company out there that is "aligned" with my values. I value free time. I value spending time with my family and friends. I value doing separate things from work.
4) I do not care about having "impact" or about "growth". Been there; done that. It is overrated. Building up a company's value so that the executives get bigger & bigger bonuses does not motivate me at all.
If you are able to change the world, build your own company. Don't work for someone else and let them take the credit. If you can't change the world, then stop pretending you can. Work, get paid, and then go home and spend some quality time with your loved ones. Stop trying to trick me into wasting my limited time left by slaving for other people.
Survivorship bias is problem with startup stories. You will hear the great success stories of the few standing on the carcasses of the vast majority that burned out and crashed.
At startups you generally deal with less smarter colleagues, spending months putting out fires that stem from hacky code designs, and dealing with many absent bosses who are just there for passive income.
Many startups try to look mission driven, but what drives most of them is just growth. The more growth oriented ones might be dishonest. If you think Facebook is unethical, watch what happens to a startup running on 3 months runway, trying to raise a new round. You also have to deal with pivots, often by bosses who literally don't know the meaning of the word and just bounce aimlessly between different things.
I'm not at FAANG and I don't earn anywhere near FAANG money. I know the above is really jaded and skeptical view of things. But I suspect more than a few people feel what I feel after a few years in the workforce.
If you're getting good money, and your management is relatively sane, and you like the people you work with, think twice before you leave. I've been around enough to know that you can easily wind up in a much worse situation.
Do you feel lucky?
Either way, you're in for a bad time.
My theory was that there can be some complex set of criteria, including the emotional match, that can determine a better job fit for each person. The challenge here is to determine that set, and develop an assessment tool for both the job seeker and the company/team.
Did you do any research on the companies beforehand or had a set of criteria to ensure that the job won't turn out painful next time?
No, I don't want to "reinvent how companies handle employee wellness perks" or "help find people the right credit cards and mortgage rates" (real quotes from startups in my area). That stuff seems worse than what I'm working on now.
The biggest hurdle to overcome when wanting to switch jobs, for me and for all the people I know, is going through the interview process.
This isn't the sort of discussion you're looking for.
But I'd say for most people who are bored at work, working on a CRUD app in a startup isn't going to be intellectually stimulating.
And given the heated market employers should already streamline the process for their advantage.
How so? Most interview processes focus on finding folks who can solve totally arbitrary algorithmic questions that aren't used anywhere other than "Algorithms 401" at University.
While there are a handful of HN users that seem to gravitate toward that being a useful skill worth filtering for, the prevalent attitude seems to feel that it's outdated and asinine.
Its incredibly time consuming and can also be quite stressful and dehumanizing, as you'll be leaving a lot of interview rooms thinking you're an imposter when the process is just awful.
But being serious.. the thought of preparing for an interview is so demotivating. I do good work and I am good at pretty much anything I do in my current job but I don't match any job descriptions I see. I've moved out of a pure coding role in my current job but that is what I would like to apply for.
No thanks.
Besides, it's not salary that is the trap, but Lifestyle. Most people's lifestyles expand to consume their increasing salaries, so taking even a reasonable pay-cut means big changes to lifestyle ... and the loss of bragging rights of working for one of the FAANGs.
I stay with the company I hate (love the job, hate the politics) because it's almost insurmountably hard to get a good job somewhere else.
The pay is just okay here, but if someone else would give me a chance, I could easily make 20%+ somewhere else, for the same work.
It helps that I enjoy the interview process and don't find it taxing, which I seem to be alone in.