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Comment by PragmaticPulp | Hacker News Reader

Which is fine! Nobody has to do LC and nobody has to apply to companies that use LC interviews.

The reality is that when most people sit down and think about the math behind the finances, avoiding LC on principle comes with a massive opportunity cost that can exceed millions of dollars over the span of a career. Which again, totally fine if that's not your thing, but we should still let people know what's at stake.

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I agree, it is fine if people choose to do this! It doesn't change my perspective on it however. There is definitely an opportunity cost. However, not in all cases. A single developer who is talented can take a variety of paths outside of this system to make significant or more money.

I'm going to get ahead of the idea of the risk of stability and the implication I'm saying a software developer would be banking on risk/reward of a technology startup. I'd like to say that they can also use all the skills and knowledge of a software developer in a non-tech company with great success and similar or higher compensation with similar risk profiles.

> A single developer who is talented can take a variety of paths outside of this system to make significant or more money.

Please write a post about this then. I'd love to know roles that are regularly paying $500k+/yr.

The reality is that's only from one super limited perspective and fails to consider the ideals of the applicant and how they think companies should operate ethically. Becoming wealthy isn't the only thing in life, this includes considering which companies you're willing to work for based on how they operate and what they do.

If we constantly have people buying into a damaging system just for the money, it compounds issues and they get worse down the road

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