aliston

This is why I am going back to school for an MBA and looking for roles outside of software engineering. Being a SWE is a great way to make decent money immediately out of school, but the reality is that, unless you're a true standout, it's hard to justify your cost as a senior engineer versus someone a few years out of school. You might think you can "make better decisions in most practical situations," but the reality is that you probably can't - at least not in a meaningful enough way to justify your significantly inflated cost versus a younger engineer to an employer. The experience curve in pure software engineering is asymptotic or perhaps logarithmic at best, and the situations in which additional experience matters are rare. In contrast, the impact of a good manager, recruiter, financier and so on is limitless. My peers that went into investment banking, consulting, and the corporate world are now getting director and vp titles, making partner at prestigious firms and so on. In 5 years they will be blowing me away financially unless I change something.

Like you, I've come to realize our interview process is stupid, despite taking part in it probably 100s of times by now. In fact, I think the entire concept of rank and hierarchy in software engineering is stupid. I'm tired of the pendantic arguments we get into, the endless architecture debates, design docs, managers using phrases like "impact at scale", listening to L7 wind bags spout off abstract technobabble and so on. In the end, I had to conclude that most of it is bullshit. I've seen the pattern enough times at some of the most iconic companies of our generation to determine that this is actually the way it works in most cases. It's as though we took the corporate hierarchy from 1950's GE and tried to apply it to the software engineering profession, when, in reality, software is much more like a trade. Ultimately, I think it stems from some sort of superiority complex or need to feel as though we are progressing towards something, so we set up a bunch of rules and hoops to make it difficult for others to reach our status as a vaunted FAANG engineer.

Ultimately, I had to look at myself in the mirror and think about my business value. For now, it's possible to ride the tidal wave of demand for software engineers at a select group of companies that happened to stumble upon a money printing machine. However, I'm not particularly confident that abundance will continue. My advice would be to take this as an opportunity to pivot into something that will allow you to more dramatically differentiate yourself professionally. Everyone and their mom is studying computer science these days. Companies are discovering they can hire remote developers. And, as you're discovering, this is no career path for old souls.

"Trickle down stimulus" is not an economic theory. It's a criticism of supply side economics, equivalent to calling Keynesian economics "money printer go brrr" stimulus.

Arguably, corporate bailouts like we're seeing now ARE a Keynesian stimulus because they're meant to keep businesses afloat while consumer demand has fallen off a cliff so that they can continue to do business (i.e. maintain demand for business inputs). Few if any of these corporations are taking the bailout money and investing it in capital infrastructure.

The bigger issue is that the "current path" is to use both Keynesian stimulus and supply-side stimulus with no regard for the deficit. At some point, unless the US has another WWII-like economic expansion, all the debt we've created to fuel these policies will need to be paid back, either explicitly or implicitly through inflation.

Admissions committees at top universities are some of the most bleeding heart do-Goode types on the planet. There is no way disclosing a learning disability would get you Scarlett lettered. If anything, it would probably help your application.

The real scandal that I can't believe hasn't gotten more attention is that wealthy families are hiring psychologists to claim their child has a learning disability. They can then get more time to take the test and due to a policy change a few years ago, this information is hidden from the schools when students report their scores.

Theoretically an x billion dollar dividend results in the exact same outcome for a shareholder as an x billion dollar stock buy back. Not sure the time value of money factors in.

I was talking about the Dynamex decision, not ab5. Obviously legislation is not legislation from the bench.

Without going down the rabbit hole of Constitutional Law, I’ll just point out that there are folks on the Federal Supreme Court that disagree, in principle, that courts should be making laws.

That aside, if you think it’s a shallow criticism in this case, why do you think it required legislative action to have any effect? In other words, if this wasn’t legislation from the bench, ab5 is a noop.

The question isn’t whether they’re doing a job, it’s whether drivers are acting as contractors vs employees while performing the job.

Ironically, taxi drivers are also contractors. I’m surprised nobody has brought up the fact that the status quo pre-Uber was a contractor model as well.

The real problem is that the Dynamex decision is legislation from the bench that redefines “contractor.” The historical definition of a contractor was basically only c in the abc test. It will be interesting to see how the court decisions come down. As the press release points out, the precedent so far is mixed.

That’s just not true - they all became depth electives or not required at all.

OS is 140. Not required. Multi var calculus is math 51. Not required. As you note, compilers is not required. They also removed the EE hardware class in favor of a mishmash of core cs classes that are easier.

Please point out where something I said isn’t accurate.

Stanford has also dumbed down its undergrad CS major, removing all of the old engineering requirements that tended to filter out the SJW types.

Edit: seems the downvoters don’t like what I have to say, but that doesn’t make it less true. Compare the graduation requirements for CS at Stanford from a few years ago to now - no compilers or os, no multivariable calculus, no pointers. They literally eliminated all the hard classes. As a result, the degree has become more liberal arts focused and the makeup of the class has changed in sync. I’d guess more than 50% of cs majors at Stanford we’re asian and foreign born just a few years ago - folks who you generally don’t see leading direct action protests.

Just wanted to point out that typically in the US, the role you seem to be describing is that of an engineering manager, not a project manager. If your company is finding engineering managers in 2-4 weeks, it probably is not a top-tier tech company.

At the highest paying tech companies (FANG) there are usually 3 "manager" roles:

- Product Manager: Interfaces between marketing, engineering and design to manage the development of new features and products. Not necessarily a people manager and does not directly manager engineers.

- Project Manager: Manages scheduling, task assignment, communication between teams, assigns bugs. Does not directly manage engineers.

- Engineering Manager: Primarily a people manager, usually was a SWE previously. Does manage engineers.

Of the 3, the project manager path is probably the least lucrative at the same level. Product and engineering tend to have similar pay.

Good engineering managers have a unique blend of managerial skill AND technical skill. On the other hand, there are lots of anti-social weirdos that are great ICs in engineering. As a result, I'm inclined to say that supply and demand is working pretty well.

I wouldn't think about it as an either/or. In fact, from my limited circle of friends in Silicon Valley, I would actually say the most common route to entrepreneurship is something that starts as a side project.

There is a great deal of research showing the 20-year-old Mark Zuckerberg model of entrepreneurship to be a myth. Find a job that interests you, provides you with room for learning and pays the bills, and keep an eye on your entrepreneurial dreams.

[https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a-succes...]

Go look at the p&l... top line revenue was up ~3 billion while costs were only up ~2 billion.

That's not true RE: losses scaling with growth. Uber's losses last year narrowed while revenue still grew considerably. I think with the public market's emphasis on profitability, Lyft and Uber will both raise prices and cut incentive spend in sync, making them both more profitable over time.

The time decay will also be astronomical on options.

Employees get taxed on the value that they vest at IPO, but are locked up from selling for 6 months. The company withholds a percentage, effectively selling a portion at IPO, but it is less than the effective tax rate. I should clarify that this applies to RSUs, not options.

Edit: something similar can happen with options as mentioned, but the mechanics are slightly different.

They are going to get hammered on taxes, though. The IPO price sets the income they are taxed on while the price in 6 months determines what they actually take home. The result is that if you’re in California and the stock price falls to 30ish, you effectively take home nothing.

Article is titled "why a good deal has gone bad." My point is that winning does not make it a good deal.

To expand on it further, even if you are lucky to have joined a unicorn, you still didn't get a good deal in comparison to virtually everyone else involved in the company. The founders are likely billionaires and you made off with a low 7 figure outcome while taking on only marginally less risk. That's not a good deal by any reasonable definition.

If you go into a casino, put 1000 on green at the roulette table and win, did you get a good deal?

The fact that some people win at startup roulette doesn't mean that it's a good financial decision to join a startup, especially considering that you can make the same sort of money without the risk elsewhere.

That’s a pretty miserable way of looking at the college experience. Anecdotally, most college students I’ve encountered care a great deal about what they learn and appreciate college for more than a rubber stamp. But, likely depends on where you go and who you’re associating with.

The issue you raise with standardized testing could be addressed by subsidizing the cost for low income students or making the test free. The wealthy girl in the article apparently couldn’t get a good enough score regardless of how many times she could take the test. Personally I think we need some form of standardized testing because it’s the only standardized measurement tool that exists.

My point is not that going to a top college isn't a great opportunity. My point is that for someone who could have gotten into Stanford, the actual admission it isn't defining. Someone with that sort of intelligence and drive will find a way to meet the future CEO, get a great job and so on regardless of whether they attend.

I went to Stanford. I love my undergrad. But I also have faced plenty of rejection and adversity on the way and since graduating. What matters is how you respond to that rejection, which is what the struggle to earn admission reflects. Having your parents bail you out means you will never learn those lessons.

There's so much discussion from the perspective of the parents, but what about the message this sends to the kids that it's OK to cheat your way through life?

If you could get into USC with a ~1000 SAT score like Huffman's daughter, would you even want to go? I wouldn't. It is shortchanging the achievement, and really missing the point of what admission to such a university represents.

The reality is that the college you attend, especially for undergrad, has relatively little bearing on your life as a whole. If you're in the GPA/SAT range to get into Stanford, but end up attending UC Irvine instead, you'll be just fine. You might even graduate with less debt and at the top of your class. On the other hand, if your parents bail you out and buy your way into Stanford when you're not qualified, it sets you up for a life of disappointment. You'll likely struggle to keep up with classmates, and won't know what it feels like to achieve on your own. It teaches reliance on mommy and daddy rather than reliance on yourself, which is not a sustainable approach to life when you get into the real world.

I’m surprised nobody has mentioned an arbitrage sort of approach to starting a business. If you work at a FANG in the US, why not hire developers in another part of the world to build out your vision for you?

Out of curiosity, where did you get these numbers and data about when Uber was offering RSUs?

Why RSUs over options? In CA, in particular, if you're at a rocketship, the tax benefits of early exercised options can be huge, whereas with RSUs you're paying 30-40% to the government.

Why should California tax payers provide health insurance to illegal immigrants?

Wouldn't non-existent inflation be a reason not to increase rates?

My point is that we're talking about a prediction regarding something for which there will always be a degree of uncertainty. The reason the author is "suggesting" a recession is unavoidable is because there's no such thing as an unavoidable recession, just as there is no such thing as an unavoidable heads coin flip.

How can something "suggest" a recession is "unavoidable." If its a suggestion, then by definition it isn't unavoidable.

These articles are silly. You'll find them for every time the market sneezes.

October 2015, World Faces a Recession Next Year: https://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/13/citis-buiter-world-faces-rec...

June 2016, The Next Recession is Already Here: https://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/21/the-next-recession-is-alread...

There might be a recession next year, but the Fed might cut rates, Brexit might not happen, the EU might resume easing and the stock market might double in the next 5 years. Nobody knows.