3 ms·

I've heard of people who did this and went on to retire. OTOH I don't know of any engineer who left Big Tech to take advantage of their financial security to do

by pyb 6y ago

I've heard of people who did this and went on to retire. OTOH I don't know of any engineer who left Big Tech to take advantage of their financial security to do something _highly impactful_. In other words, the "Google mafia" was a lot weaker than the "Paypal mafia". The problem is this : most creative engineers don't have the mindset to mindlessly study for algorithms interviews, only to then have to spend years in constrained engineering roles.

username90 6y ago
> most creative engineers don't have the mindset to mindlessly study for algorithms interviews, only to then have to spend years in constrained engineering roles. I agree with this, but then they can't really complain about luck when they had the option to fix it. It was a choice they made and now they have to live with it. It is fine to gamble, but then you shouldn't complain about the outcome if you lose.