Comment by superrrrr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by superrrrr | Hacker News Reader

Software Engineer/Solutions Architect at a fairly large company from SF. They opened up a European office, and now I am getting well above average income for a German based engineer, plus 30 day vacation etc. So sort-of SF pay (not quite) plus German social security and all the best of vacation days.

I worked in StartUps for 10 years and used to high output everyday. Now everyone seems stressed at this company but we have mostly corporations s clients and I am fairly good at my job.

During December, I probably played more games on Stadia than putting hours into work, but I still got 2-3 shoutouts from clients how pleased they were with my job.

I get nice stock options and it‘s the first time in my life I just want to sit out the next few years, do a decent job and wait for my stocks to be granted. This and Bitcoin will set me mostly free in a couple of years so I can say goodbye to fulltime work.

It‘s almost sad to see the mentality from my US colleagues who consntantly cheer and push themselves over nonsense in Slack, but their quality of life depends so much on their employer.

So yeah, being in Europe and finding a US company to work for, 90% remote is probably the dream, because you merge the upsides from the social system without the downside of boring company culture, and you get the pay from the US without all the downside of overworking yourself.

I am 32 and just realized how stressful Sodtware Engineering is in StartUps. I didn‘t realize how much I learned and did before I took a break. Now I want to do a decent job, be a bit loud or annoying in internal meetings so people think I really care, finish my jon in 3 hours and read or learn something on the side the rest of the 5 hours I have to clock in.

I mostly used it last year to get into Crypto and now DeFi, and made 3-times the money I did with my full time job.

This also broke me mentally, because it‘s hard to engage in „real life“ work after that experience.

How did you find the position? Most remote jobs from the US are mostly restricted to the US.

I went from SE to Solutions Architect role. Many big US companies start a "Professional Services" divison where they help other big corps integrating their products.

These roles are, especially now, mostly remote. So it depends, this company wasn't afraid of big numbers and hired me. I get paid 120k Euro per year and 40k in stocks each year.

I have a family and we don't spend more than 3k each month all together. So 120k boils down to around 6.2k each month, plus my wife earns ok as well (teacher).

I know a few CTOs of smaller gompanies who make 120k without stocks.

So for me, that's a decent pay.

So yeah, look for other roles than SE.

I feel like there’s a bit of a moral dilemma here. You’re charging for a full day’s of work but only working a few hours a day. How do you deal with it?

Do you code 8 hours a day, every day? I pretty much zone out for more than half the day multitask thinking how I'd architect something, but also not really "working"...

Apologies if it came out sounding judgemental. This is something I’m trying to figure out for myself.

Wfh has dispensed away with a huge amount of office based busy work and bs socializing so I’m finding myself productive enough in less than 8 hours as well.

This is probably unhealthy to mix and not have a degree of separation (I'm a kid still and don't have many responsibilities), but personally I've been getting a lot more out of my work day by being free to do things, run errands, grab a healthier lunch for pickup around the times when I don't have meetings scheduled (my team is aware of this)

I am really not a morning person, but being able to split a 2 hour commute + 8 hour work day into just casually checking in even at 3 am, when you have an aha moment go code, I honestly feel like the company is extracting more value out of me this way and getting more even though I'm putting in less than half the "butts in seats" hours.

I pop in 10-15 minute blocks completing a quest in Path of Exile during a particularly boring meeting that was called for no reason and was already answered in documentation, while answering questions, I'm sure this would look terrible if I was physically doing this in the open plan office - but the work is getting done, effectively, any problems are being resolved in the same time or faster. My team is also pretty OK with this probably because I'm always happy to deal with on call incidents in the middle of the night so the people with kids don't have to - I'm online anyway...

I have a bit of trouble elucidate my discomfort with a similar arrangement. I explicitly signed up for 8 hours a day or so of "work". When I'm "productive" (how do you accurately meausre this) in 3 or 4 and then do other things; well that sounds like a "silent contract". There's no transparency there. If I was in the office tooling around or socializing, at least there's an implicit understanding that this is "ok". Maybe I'm being too naive.

I feel like it's to each their own, but I was never one for socialising or tooling around (I have Aspergers too), I am definitely more productive since full remote and asynchronous communication became the norm, my code quality is equal or better, and my time it takes to complete a story has dropped heavily.

I'm entirely confident that work is extracting more value from me for the same wage - and thus I don't feel bad about it.

It's also nice to not have multiple-hour commute in a completely packed metal tube with standing room only.

What they paid hasn't changed, but they get more value out of me than before (removing the constant interruptions, people always behind me, loud typing, the only thing for lunch being 8 different kale salad bars for $25 each with lines out the door, hours of commute wasted).

I mentally "stay later" because I don't need to leave early to catch the train right before peak hours that isn't so packed there is no room to board.

I used to feel same way. If I didn't produce 8 hours of code then I felt guilty. If I got stuck on problem for 8 hours then I felt guilty.

It took some time but now I realize that it is not code lines per hour that they hire me for but for my knowledge and experience. It is my ability to estimate work and deliver project on time. Also in knowledge professions, you are always thinking of the work even if not actively doung it.

What do you do in Defi? Just lend on your money for high returns or invest in the ccoins?

Lending BTC and swapping between ETH and SUSHI etc. Was lucky with some pre-sales rounds but most gains came from BTC. Sold all my stocks and went all in BTC in April. Paid off rather well.

Damn awesome. What % allocation of net worth did you go into BTC?

I bought in at the low in March, but was playing with it and didn't just let it ride and hodl. Still got a solid amount of the rise.

100% ;) Still have 99% in crypto. Watch realvision.com instead of reading Twitter or other stuff.

I plan to take 50% out by December, but honestly can't think of anything more valuable than BTC or ETH at the moment. Maybe India ETF.

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