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Comment by whack | Hacker News Reader

I can empathize with the article. Earlier in my career, I would interview with any company that offered a significant pay increase. "Why would anyone turn down a 30% pay raise" was my mentality. Then I had a couple of jobs that didn't go well because of personality mismatches and politics. Which made me realize that even if I'm confident about my technical skills, that's no guarantee that I'll land on my feet at a new gig. Fast forward another few years, and the recession made me realize that I can't just snap my fingers and land a new better-paying job anytime I want.

Combine both these factors, and I'm now ignoring recruiters who are begging me to interview for insanely well-paying openings. I have a decently well-paying job with good work-life balance, and colleagues who respect me. And I have no interest in throwing that away just to navigate a political minefield at a new job

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Exactly where I'm at. It took a recent offer for ~30% more and all of the same benefits after a multi-stage interview to really slap me in the face with an appreciation of all of the other things aside from salary that I am happy about where I am at. It has taken me about a decade and plenty of other positions to realize how important those aspects are to me.

I once had a shift work job with a lot of overtime. The money was great, but I had an opportunity for a M-F nine-to-five for $20k less per year. I was at a crossroad and asked myself at the time "If someone right now told me I could be at home with my family every night and every weekend for the rest of my career but it cost me $20k/yr, would I pay it?" That helped me make that decision much easier, and now I reversed that same idea. Essentially, I sat down and thought "if I were to lose [great management|no work over 40hrs|remote without geographic restriction|great colleagues and no drama] would I be willing to pay $n to have it back?" It's too easy to forget what our goals were prior to achievement.

Sometimes I get the sense that these places offer a lot to compensate for a hellish work culture.

At Amazon and Netflix, that's exactly what they do.

Netflix does pay that well to compensate, but not Amazon.

This is a fair point. Earlier in my career I jumped ships so many times I had to move to another city to find 'new work'. It was a rather small city with companies buying off each others etc.

I learnt throughout these episodes that people make companies, not some branding or marketing dep.

My motto for the last 20 years has been "find good people, do good work". Emphasis on __good__, not great, best, immaculate, amazing, nonsense. But definitely good. My standards are pretty high though!

Sounds more like you have enough financial stability to not need a pay increase. People who are early in their career struggle to pay bills/rent/etc and so have to take every 30% they can - only until they don’t need to anymore.

Maybe, but it's more a matter of other kinds of luck and changing values. I'd make the same trade if I could, but because there's never been a time I could have chosen to stay on past the year and a half marker (always laid off or w/e), it's crucial I try and get as much as possible in that short time. Had I not been laid off, there'd definitely come a time where I'd prefer to just take half a year off and come back than start fresh.

My impression is that for people with that choice, they're often unable to convince themselves they don't need the money, since there's always a way to rationalize it, and so they continue making choices exclusively on that basis

>>"Why would anyone turn down a 30% pay raise"

One of my friends here in Bangalore took a offer on those lines from a start up, around COVID. He realised instantly these things are for people with a life that is problem free, disease free, responsibilities free linear progression.

Soon enough his parents had to be hospitalised for big surgeries and he realised the start up comp had a near 0 health insurance cover. A decade's worth savings wiped clean in one go.

It took a while even for me to get to this realisation, if you have a good going, things are stable, office culture is good and friendly, and you have a comp that is better overalls. You are likely to do well in such a place on the longer run than jumping 10 places and realising the comp at a lot of places is just straight up fraud. They just cut things in one place and add some where else. In many cases the comp is bloated with big numbers but with a dozen ifs and buts(often company/team linked variable pay etc).

Eventually you could say that making rapid changes to a process doesn't necessarily add to bigger gains. You see this in the stock markets as well. Profit is inversely proportional to the quantity of trades you execute. Big gains come from stability and sticking to one winning formula for long. Same with health, relationships and jobs. Do more of that one thing that works. Don't try to do many such things that could work or mostly fail.

I completely agree with your larger point. However:

> start up comp had a near 0 health insurance cover. A decade's worth savings wiped clean in one go

A typical employer provided health insurance probably wouldn't have made a difference here. The sum insured generally tops out around 10 lakhs.

Only if you are working at a good start up. Most places don't offer such good insurance package. In many cases parents are not covered.

Its true some people make it big working at start up. Most unfortunately don't.

Overall, I would advice if you are having non trivial life situations like old parents, unstable health care situations, or just can't afford to take risks, I would say just don't work at start ups.

For whatever reason, what you have come to learn was how I always felt from the start. I would rather make less in a job that I find all the aspects of it enjoyable.

Relaxed and comfortable environment, flexibility, great co-workers and great boss that I both like, company treats me well, no stress, etc.

I don't find I need all that much money to live comfortably and buy and do what I want. (computers/gaming, home theater, backpacking, skiing, scuba diving, pickleball, travel in general). And on top of those things I still manage to put away about half my income into retirement investments.

From that I assume no partner and certainly no children, which is everything to a lot of people. I'm similar, but a life of marginal disability has made things harder for me, and meant health insurance is direly important. I'm pretty happy to have found a place that is lower stress (can't imagine a job that pays and has no stress) as well.

No partner and no childern. Though if I get a partner then we will have dual income and no childern which to me seems like it would be even better.

Maybe no stress is being too generous. I never really feel stressed though at work, but maybe I am just also a low stress person.

this sounds a lot like the psychology of having nothing to lose vs something to lose. You play more aggressively and are more successful in the former case.

Define successful. I think you two had an opposite meaning of what successful is.

Having a job he likes that pays him money he wants. That’s the criteria outlined. He’s just afraid it might end up being a job he doesn’t like.

There is a myth that higher paying jobs must be more miserable, but it’s rarely true.