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As an engineer, I revel in avoiding these monolithic supercorps. I don't know why anyone would want to work in centralizing innovation and creativity into the h

As an engineer, I revel in avoiding these monolithic supercorps. I don't know why anyone would want to work in centralizing innovation and creativity into the hands of a few greedy people.

Swizec 7y ago
It pays really well.
pheug 7y ago
The greed as well? Normal jobs aren't paying anything close to 200-300k+ that you'd be pulling at FAANG/HFT.
- akhilcacharya 7y ago
  $200k-$300k is now the 1-3 years out of new grad pay scale for those companies for what it’s worth.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- mav3rick 7y ago
  There is no greed in demanding to get paid market rates. Please stop peddling that as a negative trait.
  - omginternets 7y ago
    >There is no greed in demanding to get paid market rates That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about doing so despite negative ethical ramifications. This is (arguably) greedy behavior.
cheeze 7y ago
Money, "Impact", resources. This is a very HN comment, but I'm not sure how you can't see why someone would want to work for bigcorp...
- spaceribs 7y ago
  Money: Theres plenty of it elsewhere in our business, especially acting as a third party to these behemoths. Impact: The company seems more interested in restricting our landscape rather than innovating on top of it, what makes you think it's a company that accepts disruption anymore? Resources: All the resources in the world doesn't mean squat if you can't disrupt the existing system.
- matwood 7y ago
  There is a lot of money out there. And, if you don't have to live near a FAANG the money you do make can go much farther. Does the rank and file really have much impact at one of the FAANG companies? I've talked to some ex-Google employees who left so they could have an impact somewhere. The FAANGs do have effectively infinite resources, but compute has been for the most part democratized. Resources are very inexpensive now.
  - steelframe 7y ago
    > if you don't have to live near a FAANG the money you do make can go much farther I have a friend who moved to the Utah/Idaho region, giving up a FAANG job, in order to escape the spiraling cost of living where the FAANG jobs are. I respect that. I'm at my third FAANG living in one of the high-cost-of-living areas of the U.S. In the meantime I'm planning my escape. So long as income vastly outstrips my cost of living, I'm going to keep my FAANG and save like there's no tomorrow, and as soon as the math works out that I can maintain my current quality of life with a combination of a lower-paying job combined with interest on my savings (the proverbial 4% withdrawal rate) in a lower-cost-of-living area of the U.S., I'm out. Er, yeah, less effective application of that figure of speech. You know what I mean.
bsder 7y ago
Because they want a nice paycheck and to go home at 5:00PM.
- mav3rick 7y ago
  You have no idea how hard people work here. Some of the smartest and diligent people work here. It's a big company so your friends maybe doing 9 to 5. But HN will never mention all the people who put in the hard yards at Google.
  - akhilcacharya 7y ago
    People work hard at all companies, including mine. Google isn’t special, except the people there seem to work less on average from the people I know. > Some of the smartest and diligent people work here. Yikes. Y’all are not as special as you think you are.
    - mav3rick 7y ago
      "From the people I know " Cherry pick the 5 people you know. 99% of people will join Google on HN. So will most of Amazon. Don't kid yourself.
      - akhilcacharya 7y ago
        You can’t possibly know that to a high degree of certainty, especially since you haven’t explained why you think so. I sure hope this isn’t what happens inside of Google - doesn’t sound like an inclusive atmosphere to look down on others!
        mav3rick 7y ago
        Your post also exaggerated and extrapolated everyone working there as "slackers". Not too mention the combative attitude HN has toward Googlers anyway. "How can they work their morally" etc . Anyway I won't engage further. And I won't get personal. I still think it's a great company to grow as an engineer. You should definitely explore if you ever want to move on.
steev 7y ago
The scale and complexity of the problems is appealing to some people. There are very few companies where you get to work on problems with the same scale problems as Google.
- spaceribs 7y ago
  I admit, this is the one reason I can definitely see as appealing, but don't these big issues exist to an even more extreme extent with systems like Medicare, Veterans Affairs and Social Security?

As an engineer, I revel in avoiding these monolithic supercorps. I don't know why anyone would want to work in centralizing innovation and creativity into the hands of a few greedy people.

Swizec 7y ago

It pays really well.

pheug 7y ago

The greed as well? Normal jobs aren't paying anything close to 200-300k+ that you'd be pulling at FAANG/HFT.

akhilcacharya 7y ago
$200k-$300k is now the 1-3 years out of new grad pay scale for those companies for what it’s worth.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
mav3rick 7y ago
There is no greed in demanding to get paid market rates. Please stop peddling that as a negative trait.
- omginternets 7y ago
  >There is no greed in demanding to get paid market rates That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about doing so despite negative ethical ramifications. This is (arguably) greedy behavior.

cheeze 7y ago

Money, "Impact", resources. This is a very HN comment, but I'm not sure how you can't see why someone would want to work for bigcorp...

spaceribs 7y ago
Money: Theres plenty of it elsewhere in our business, especially acting as a third party to these behemoths. Impact: The company seems more interested in restricting our landscape rather than innovating on top of it, what makes you think it's a company that accepts disruption anymore? Resources: All the resources in the world doesn't mean squat if you can't disrupt the existing system.
matwood 7y ago
There is a lot of money out there. And, if you don't have to live near a FAANG the money you do make can go much farther. Does the rank and file really have much impact at one of the FAANG companies? I've talked to some ex-Google employees who left so they could have an impact somewhere. The FAANGs do have effectively infinite resources, but compute has been for the most part democratized. Resources are very inexpensive now.
- steelframe 7y ago
  > if you don't have to live near a FAANG the money you do make can go much farther I have a friend who moved to the Utah/Idaho region, giving up a FAANG job, in order to escape the spiraling cost of living where the FAANG jobs are. I respect that. I'm at my third FAANG living in one of the high-cost-of-living areas of the U.S. In the meantime I'm planning my escape. So long as income vastly outstrips my cost of living, I'm going to keep my FAANG and save like there's no tomorrow, and as soon as the math works out that I can maintain my current quality of life with a combination of a lower-paying job combined with interest on my savings (the proverbial 4% withdrawal rate) in a lower-cost-of-living area of the U.S., I'm out. Er, yeah, less effective application of that figure of speech. You know what I mean.

bsder 7y ago

Because they want a nice paycheck and to go home at 5:00PM.

mav3rick 7y ago
You have no idea how hard people work here. Some of the smartest and diligent people work here. It's a big company so your friends maybe doing 9 to 5. But HN will never mention all the people who put in the hard yards at Google.
- akhilcacharya 7y ago
  People work hard at all companies, including mine. Google isn’t special, except the people there seem to work less on average from the people I know. > Some of the smartest and diligent people work here. Yikes. Y’all are not as special as you think you are.
  - mav3rick 7y ago
    "From the people I know " Cherry pick the 5 people you know. 99% of people will join Google on HN. So will most of Amazon. Don't kid yourself.
    - akhilcacharya 7y ago
      You can’t possibly know that to a high degree of certainty, especially since you haven’t explained why you think so. I sure hope this isn’t what happens inside of Google - doesn’t sound like an inclusive atmosphere to look down on others!
      - mav3rick 7y ago
        Your post also exaggerated and extrapolated everyone working there as "slackers". Not too mention the combative attitude HN has toward Googlers anyway. "How can they work their morally" etc . Anyway I won't engage further. And I won't get personal. I still think it's a great company to grow as an engineer. You should definitely explore if you ever want to move on.

steev 7y ago

The scale and complexity of the problems is appealing to some people. There are very few companies where you get to work on problems with the same scale problems as Google.

spaceribs 7y ago
I admit, this is the one reason I can definitely see as appealing, but don't these big issues exist to an even more extreme extent with systems like Medicare, Veterans Affairs and Social Security?