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Comment by teaearlgraycold | Hacker News Reader

Kid’s making bank, congrats! But as an ex-L4 Googler I need to say, I’m sure he’s similarly frustrated as I was. I don’t live to maximize income - I want to maximize learning and fun. Compared to successfully launching a startup fixing bugs and launching minor features as an L4 is depressing as hell.

Not everyone will have it that bad. Hopefully he’s having a better time than I did.

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Not a bad place if they make the most of it. They'll learn pretty good SDLC best practices and get exposed to Google's internal tooling. All of these are useful for running a technical team at some point.

Yes. Doing commits the Google way was a positive learning experience. Not applicable to really small early companies but a good tool for most other situations.

Sometimes maximizing learning and fun is having enough money to pursue your interests outside of work.

Sure. But a kid that’s building a successful business as a high school sophomore probably has software engineering as a #1 interest with no close #2. I’ve got a healthy list of hobbies and it wasn’t enough for me.

Feeling the time wasted on mundane BS and thumb twiddling while at Google literally gave me nightmares. Granted, I need to and am working on healthy stress management. But that would probably just get me to recognize I need to quit sooner.

Sure but also maybe not? It’s weird to lament someone you don’t even know.

Can confirm - L4 is super depressing for ambitious engineer.

Quit! I did it and now I’m interviewing for roles where I could build the team from 1 to 5 engineers. Lots of good proven founders out there that want an ex-Googler.

I haven't worked there for 5+ years now.

Maximizing learning vs maximizing earning is a great way of saying this.

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