4 ms·

>If the market value of such incompetence if FAANG salary, how can I do good work and get paid preportionally? You're going to have to learn that, as a laborer

by Kapura 6y ago

>If the market value of such incompetence if FAANG salary, how can I do good work and get paid preportionally? You're going to have to learn that, as a laborer at a firm, the quality of work you do is, at best, loosely correlated to your monetary compensation. Sometimes you can do good work, sometimes you can do bad work, but how much you're paid is going to depend greatly on a number of surrounding factors. So, accepting that there is perhaps not a strong link between doing work that you're proud of at work and being paid well, which would you rather have first? If you finish work at the well-paid FAANG job feeling like you still have energy to do good work, you can contribute to open source, build some side project, or, even better, none of those things. You can use your extra time an energy learning new things or engaging in a hobby. You don't need to define yourself by your profession. If, on the other hand, you'd rather not feel like you're just collecting a check from your job, there are certainly positions and fields that will actually ask employees to move mountains. I'd imagine that firms like SpaceX don't have room for desk fillers. There are lots of scrappy upstarts trying to solve big problems, but you will almost certainly make more if you stay parked in FAANG. I personally am a game developer; the challenges are unique and satisfying and i don't have to worry about whether I'm contributing to something worthwhile. I also make probably less than 50% of what my friends at Amazon and Microsoft are making. C'est la vie.

throwaway9191a 6y ago
> You're going to have to learn that, as a laborer at a firm, the quality of work you do is, at best, loosely correlated to your monetary compensation. Sometimes you can do good work, sometimes you can do bad work, but how much you're paid is going to depend greatly on a number of surrounding factors. This is really good advice. Your organization is given tens of millions of dollars to meet a set of goals. Those goals take X SDEs to accomplish. SDEs get paid roughly the same amount, regardless of their day to day. At some point you will be in crunch mode on a highly visible project. Other times you will be updating wikis or doing things that don't need an SDE (I spend a lot of time getting paid as an SDE to work on tech documentation). The later are great times to do something you find interesting (maybe even loosely correlated with your org). If you are an enjoyable person who can get things done, you are well worth the money. (except at amazon where the first part is frustratingly optional :)
whoisjuan 6y ago
This is the fallacy of modern tech-based capitalism and I hate it. The job that I enjoyed the least and where I also did the least amount of work was the best salary I ever had. The value that I added through that job was nominal at best. Other jobs that paid less felt more challenging and exponentially more interesting. Needless to say that happiness was proportional as well. I came to terms with the idea of lowering my salary just to have more impact and work in interesting things in cultures that I enjoy. But there's something that feels so wrong about it. Imagine a Corolla being more expensive than a Mercedes C Class. This is the equivalent to that but in the opposite side on the equation. It doesn't make sense but there's probably little you can do about it. Big tech companies ruined the job market. Not because they pay well, but because they pay too well for mediocre IC and Manager positions that barely move the needle.
- dnautics 6y ago
  > This is the fallacy of modern tech-based capitalism and I hate it I hate to break it to you but no capitalism (and for that matter no non-capitalism) has ever been structured in a way that would satisfy you. For labor to be compensated for its "true worth" there needs to be a way to accurately judge what the "true worth" of the labor is, and honestly, the person to whom it matters the most is the laborer. This suffers from several problems: 1) most people don't know what they are worth, ofetn aiming too high (dunning-kruger) or aiming too low (impostor syndrome) and 2) even if they did, it's quite impossible to read the laborer's mind, because worth is tied up in different values, that are not necessarily in alignment with the values of the employer (or the state, in the case of non-capitalisms). I think these days things might even be a bit worse because we have a strong narrative of "do what you love"/"do what makes you happy" in most western societies (not necessarily a bad thing). But there is no corresponding "though may not correlate to what other people want of you, be prepared to pay the difference in price" narrative.
  - voxl 6y ago
    All you've said is that labor market is fundamentally flawed in terms of price efficiency.
pantaloony 6y ago
> You're going to have to learn that, as a laborer at a firm, the quality of work you do is, at best, loosely correlated to your monetary compensation. This has been one of the most disorienting and most important realizations of my career. Hard work, or even effectiveness, are only loosely correlated with comp. Often it’s even inverted, and that sense you get that your higher-paid betters aren’t very good and are barely even working is actually true when you get there yourself. It’s very weird but you must not tie expectations of effort or difficulty to compensation. Remember, we’re operating in an economic system where some of the best-compensated and richest people do essentially no work at all. It’s a topsy-turvy world out there. Your hardest work, highest stress, and most abusive job can easily be the one you’re paid the worst for.
- Zucburger 6y ago
  @pantaloony Isnt it interesting: Economic theory is so incomplete that it is wrong Currently taking note of economic inconsistencies and compiling them on the side so that we can create a more complete economic theory in a few years' time.
  - grzm 6y ago
    You don't need to @ the person you're replying to. It's clear from the comment threading and only adds unnecessary noise.
SeanBoocock 6y ago
As a fellow game developer I really identify with this. I found a job that I am passionate about, even though it came at a significant tradeoff in terms of total compensation compared to FAANG. I would rather optimize for personal fulfillment and building something worthwhile, even if it comes at the expense of money.
- bumby 6y ago
  Please don't take this as a disparaging comment because it's not meant to be, but...how to you define "worthwhile"? I had to read the OP's comment twice because it wasn't immediately apparent to me that coding in the gaming industry met my intuitive definition of a "worthwhile" endeavor. FWIW, I think it's awesome you found something that meets your personal goal, I'm just curious how you arrived at that definition of what constitutes "worthwhile".
  - Kapura 6y ago
    This is a compilation of people reacting in real time to the next game I'm working on. Nothing I could ever build at a FAANG company compares to this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtxaEDp3AFI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtxaEDp3AFI
    - tuxcall 6y ago
      That’s not gameplay. Actually playing the game will look completely different. You might as well just be making an animated film.
      - Kapura 6y ago
        ??? What are you talking about. That's people reacting to the announcement trailer for the game. The point being that nothing I could ever produce at Facebook or Amazon would ever produce that sort of genuine reaction from people.
        tuxcall 6y ago

by Kapura 6y ago

throwaway9191a 6y ago

> You're going to have to learn that, as a laborer at a firm, the quality of work you do is, at best, loosely correlated to your monetary compensation. Sometimes you can do good work, sometimes you can do bad work, but how much you're paid is going to depend greatly on a number of surrounding factors. This is really good advice. Your organization is given tens of millions of dollars to meet a set of goals. Those goals take X SDEs to accomplish. SDEs get paid roughly the same amount, regardless of their day to day. At some point you will be in crunch mode on a highly visible project. Other times you will be updating wikis or doing things that don't need an SDE (I spend a lot of time getting paid as an SDE to work on tech documentation). The later are great times to do something you find interesting (maybe even loosely correlated with your org). If you are an enjoyable person who can get things done, you are well worth the money. (except at amazon where the first part is frustratingly optional :)

whoisjuan 6y ago

This is the fallacy of modern tech-based capitalism and I hate it. The job that I enjoyed the least and where I also did the least amount of work was the best salary I ever had. The value that I added through that job was nominal at best. Other jobs that paid less felt more challenging and exponentially more interesting. Needless to say that happiness was proportional as well. I came to terms with the idea of lowering my salary just to have more impact and work in interesting things in cultures that I enjoy. But there's something that feels so wrong about it. Imagine a Corolla being more expensive than a Mercedes C Class. This is the equivalent to that but in the opposite side on the equation. It doesn't make sense but there's probably little you can do about it. Big tech companies ruined the job market. Not because they pay well, but because they pay too well for mediocre IC and Manager positions that barely move the needle.

dnautics 6y ago
> This is the fallacy of modern tech-based capitalism and I hate it I hate to break it to you but no capitalism (and for that matter no non-capitalism) has ever been structured in a way that would satisfy you. For labor to be compensated for its "true worth" there needs to be a way to accurately judge what the "true worth" of the labor is, and honestly, the person to whom it matters the most is the laborer. This suffers from several problems: 1) most people don't know what they are worth, ofetn aiming too high (dunning-kruger) or aiming too low (impostor syndrome) and 2) even if they did, it's quite impossible to read the laborer's mind, because worth is tied up in different values, that are not necessarily in alignment with the values of the employer (or the state, in the case of non-capitalisms). I think these days things might even be a bit worse because we have a strong narrative of "do what you love"/"do what makes you happy" in most western societies (not necessarily a bad thing). But there is no corresponding "though may not correlate to what other people want of you, be prepared to pay the difference in price" narrative.
- voxl 6y ago
  All you've said is that labor market is fundamentally flawed in terms of price efficiency.

pantaloony 6y ago

> You're going to have to learn that, as a laborer at a firm, the quality of work you do is, at best, loosely correlated to your monetary compensation. This has been one of the most disorienting and most important realizations of my career. Hard work, or even effectiveness, are only loosely correlated with comp. Often it’s even inverted, and that sense you get that your higher-paid betters aren’t very good and are barely even working is actually true when you get there yourself. It’s very weird but you must not tie expectations of effort or difficulty to compensation. Remember, we’re operating in an economic system where some of the best-compensated and richest people do essentially no work at all. It’s a topsy-turvy world out there. Your hardest work, highest stress, and most abusive job can easily be the one you’re paid the worst for.

Zucburger 6y ago
@pantaloony Isnt it interesting: Economic theory is so incomplete that it is wrong Currently taking note of economic inconsistencies and compiling them on the side so that we can create a more complete economic theory in a few years' time.
- grzm 6y ago
  You don't need to @ the person you're replying to. It's clear from the comment threading and only adds unnecessary noise.

SeanBoocock 6y ago

As a fellow game developer I really identify with this. I found a job that I am passionate about, even though it came at a significant tradeoff in terms of total compensation compared to FAANG. I would rather optimize for personal fulfillment and building something worthwhile, even if it comes at the expense of money.

bumby 6y ago
Please don't take this as a disparaging comment because it's not meant to be, but...how to you define "worthwhile"? I had to read the OP's comment twice because it wasn't immediately apparent to me that coding in the gaming industry met my intuitive definition of a "worthwhile" endeavor. FWIW, I think it's awesome you found something that meets your personal goal, I'm just curious how you arrived at that definition of what constitutes "worthwhile".
- Kapura 6y ago
  This is a compilation of people reacting in real time to the next game I'm working on. Nothing I could ever build at a FAANG company compares to this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtxaEDp3AFI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtxaEDp3AFI
  - tuxcall 6y ago
    That’s not gameplay. Actually playing the game will look completely different. You might as well just be making an animated film.
    - Kapura 6y ago
      ??? What are you talking about. That's people reacting to the announcement trailer for the game. The point being that nothing I could ever produce at Facebook or Amazon would ever produce that sort of genuine reaction from people.
      - tuxcall 6y ago