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This comment really did not help my depression as someone that makes $150k two years into a FAANG job. I've never even been able to get interviews from HRT or J

This comment really did not help my depression as someone that makes $150k two years into a FAANG job. I've never even been able to get interviews from HRT or Jane Street, and my Citadel offer was less than $200k...

fractionalhare 6y ago
Comparison is the thief of joy. You are more than your work, and I would say you'll always be unhappy if you define your identity or your success by how much money you earn. Someone around you will always earn more than you, or have some other successful characteristic that you do not. That being said: while it's not perfectly meritocratic, I would say tech and (this side of) finance is uniquely attainable for someone who has the determination and tenacity to build the requisite skills. You don't need to have gone to a particular school. Barring a felony, your past choices in life will not hold you back. If you already got into one of FAANG, you almost certainly have a strong baseline skillset already. If it's really important to you, focus on achieving further mastery of your craft and figure out what you need to do to pass an interview at this kind of firm.
- lowiqengineer 6y ago
  > or have some other successful characteristic that you do not. That's both fair and true, but I'm someone without any successful characteristics. > You don't need to have gone to a particular school. All of the interns in question went to top schools of course :) > If you already got into one of FAANG, you almost certainly have a strong baseline skillset already While I wish that were true, unfortunately, the FAANG is Amazon so I don't think that's much proof of anything. I would work towards achieving mastery of what I would need to do to pass an interview, but I can't even get an interview - again, because of my current company and undergrad.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    It's helpful for your mental health to not take anecdotal "salary reports" on HN seriously. Whenever salary comes up, everyone here knows someone whose brother's roommate pinky-swear definitely makes $400K at Facebook, therefore this must be "normal salary" there. I've worked for a number of companies talked about here and have never even made close to the "HN Quoted Average Salary." Voluntary online salary boasts from random people are going to tend to bias high. You're probably doing fine.
    - lowiqengineer 6y ago
      That's kind of you to say, but I do personally know lots of people at Facebook, Google, Lyft, Citadel, Stripe etc that _do_ make this much or more. Meanwhile, even the L6's at my company make around $300k - that's about what E4's make at Google. Plus, levels.fyi is generally pretty accurate.
      - ryandrake 6y ago
        How do you know? Have you seen their W2 forms? A lot of people are also full of shit, especially when it comes to things like compensation. How do you know "levels.fyi" is accurate? AFAIK they base their information on self-reported anecdotes too. How do they correct for bias? The only organizations I would trust to give accurate salary averages are payroll companies, who can properly do a uniform sample, and I don't think they publish their data for free. Personally knowing someone that makes $X does not necessarily mean that $X is an average or normal compensation.
  - tcoff91 6y ago
    You are making 3x the median family income for this country while getting to work from home and stay safe from COVID-19. The job market is imploding around us while we work cushy tech jobs. Abject misery abounds as people lose their loved ones and their livelihoods. It comes off as as quite tone-deaf when tech people complain about their $150k salaries. There are way too many entitled people in tech who have never worked a shit minimum wage job in their lives. Look, if you really want to make it to a company like Jane Street, there IS a path. It's not a path that many have the energy to take but it's there. If you are having trouble getting interviews you can do a ton to produce content needed to raise your online profile. You can make lots of meaningful open-source contributions on github. You can produce great blog content. You can code live on twitch and develop a following. If you combine that with actually developing the algorithmic chops to pass their interview process, you can get into a company like Jane Street. I personally don't view maximizing my income at the expense of all else in my life as a good way to live so I won't be grinding it out to get one of these jobs, but if that's what you really want then the path is there. But you probably will still be unhappy once you achieve it if you're unhappy right now. And don't be so hard on yourself. If you've made it as far as you have, you definitely have successful characteristics. You're not special, and that's OK. But just because you're not special doesn't mean you don't have successful characteristics.
    - Koshkin 6y ago
      People should not be complaining then about their $25k salaries, either. Because there are way too many people on this planet who do not have even that. (And, oh, by the way, one could be sent off to war only to die there after plenty of suffering.)
      - Twixes 6y ago
        Cut the bullshit please, $150k is simply good money even in Silicon Valley and great pretty much everywhere else on Earth.
    - lowiqengineer 6y ago
      > The job market is imploding around us while we work cushy tech jobs. Abject misery abounds as people lose their loved ones and their livelihoods. This is also the case for people at Google, etc but they still manage to find time to complain about not being able to expense their lunches [0] Overall I don't disagree, but the path to JS or equivalent companies seems to be astonishingly narrow given the fact that I didn't join there out of undergrad and I'm currently at a company that Jane Street recruiters don't consider to be impressive or noteworthy. > And don't be so hard on yourself. If you've made it as far as you have, you definitely have successful characteristics. You're not special, and that's OK. But just because you're not special doesn't mean you don't have successful characteristics. I'd say I'm exactly as hard on myself as society is. Everyone else gets constant external validation - all I get is signals to say I'm stupid. [0]: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/google-tells-employees-not-to-expense-food-perks-in-work-from-home.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/google-tells-employees-not-t...
andrepd 6y ago
Are you "depressed" that you are on the 99th percentile of world income? You make more in 2 years than my grandfather made all his life, in over 50 years of hard hard work. Or alternatively, you also make about as much in a month as I do in a year, at a very competitive PhD program.
- lowiqengineer 6y ago
  World income is irrelevant since I live in a nice part of America, not the world. And yeah, I do make about as much as your and my grandfather made over the course of their careers. Unfortunately, if I'm making an apples-to-apples comparison with people doing equivalent work (perhaps not at Jane Street, but definitely at Google or Facebook) I'm making about 80% or less. That means I'm worth 80% in the eyes of the fair labor market - I'm 20% less human.
  - fnord123 6y ago
    Your wage on the labor market is not your value as a human. Maybe it's time you leave your nice part of America and live among people who won't make you feel like you're part of a rat race but value you for who you are.
rubidium 6y ago
To help your depression, you can recall you make more than most people could hope to make every 2 years at age 50. Or than most engineers make at any point in their careers.
maximente 6y ago
since you seem to base your self-worth to some extent on your total compensation, what concrete steps (to include interviewing, working with recruiters, consulting, etc.) have you taken to increase your total comp either immediately or in the future?
- lowiqengineer 6y ago
  - Recruiting/resume updates (not many interviews lined up, and even with offers would max out likely less than what I'm currently making) - Interview preparation (not going well, but I blame my inherent intelligence for that unfortunately) - Promotion work in my current role (would max out at like $180k)

fractionalhare 6y ago

Comparison is the thief of joy. You are more than your work, and I would say you'll always be unhappy if you define your identity or your success by how much money you earn. Someone around you will always earn more than you, or have some other successful characteristic that you do not. That being said: while it's not perfectly meritocratic, I would say tech and (this side of) finance is uniquely attainable for someone who has the determination and tenacity to build the requisite skills. You don't need to have gone to a particular school. Barring a felony, your past choices in life will not hold you back. If you already got into one of FAANG, you almost certainly have a strong baseline skillset already. If it's really important to you, focus on achieving further mastery of your craft and figure out what you need to do to pass an interview at this kind of firm.

lowiqengineer 6y ago
> or have some other successful characteristic that you do not. That's both fair and true, but I'm someone without any successful characteristics. > You don't need to have gone to a particular school. All of the interns in question went to top schools of course :) > If you already got into one of FAANG, you almost certainly have a strong baseline skillset already While I wish that were true, unfortunately, the FAANG is Amazon so I don't think that's much proof of anything. I would work towards achieving mastery of what I would need to do to pass an interview, but I can't even get an interview - again, because of my current company and undergrad.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  It's helpful for your mental health to not take anecdotal "salary reports" on HN seriously. Whenever salary comes up, everyone here knows someone whose brother's roommate pinky-swear definitely makes $400K at Facebook, therefore this must be "normal salary" there. I've worked for a number of companies talked about here and have never even made close to the "HN Quoted Average Salary." Voluntary online salary boasts from random people are going to tend to bias high. You're probably doing fine.
  - lowiqengineer 6y ago
    That's kind of you to say, but I do personally know lots of people at Facebook, Google, Lyft, Citadel, Stripe etc that _do_ make this much or more. Meanwhile, even the L6's at my company make around $300k - that's about what E4's make at Google. Plus, levels.fyi is generally pretty accurate.
    - ryandrake 6y ago
      How do you know? Have you seen their W2 forms? A lot of people are also full of shit, especially when it comes to things like compensation. How do you know "levels.fyi" is accurate? AFAIK they base their information on self-reported anecdotes too. How do they correct for bias? The only organizations I would trust to give accurate salary averages are payroll companies, who can properly do a uniform sample, and I don't think they publish their data for free. Personally knowing someone that makes $X does not necessarily mean that $X is an average or normal compensation.
- tcoff91 6y ago
  You are making 3x the median family income for this country while getting to work from home and stay safe from COVID-19. The job market is imploding around us while we work cushy tech jobs. Abject misery abounds as people lose their loved ones and their livelihoods. It comes off as as quite tone-deaf when tech people complain about their $150k salaries. There are way too many entitled people in tech who have never worked a shit minimum wage job in their lives. Look, if you really want to make it to a company like Jane Street, there IS a path. It's not a path that many have the energy to take but it's there. If you are having trouble getting interviews you can do a ton to produce content needed to raise your online profile. You can make lots of meaningful open-source contributions on github. You can produce great blog content. You can code live on twitch and develop a following. If you combine that with actually developing the algorithmic chops to pass their interview process, you can get into a company like Jane Street. I personally don't view maximizing my income at the expense of all else in my life as a good way to live so I won't be grinding it out to get one of these jobs, but if that's what you really want then the path is there. But you probably will still be unhappy once you achieve it if you're unhappy right now. And don't be so hard on yourself. If you've made it as far as you have, you definitely have successful characteristics. You're not special, and that's OK. But just because you're not special doesn't mean you don't have successful characteristics.
  - Koshkin 6y ago
    People should not be complaining then about their $25k salaries, either. Because there are way too many people on this planet who do not have even that. (And, oh, by the way, one could be sent off to war only to die there after plenty of suffering.)
    - Twixes 6y ago
      Cut the bullshit please, $150k is simply good money even in Silicon Valley and great pretty much everywhere else on Earth.
  - lowiqengineer 6y ago
    > The job market is imploding around us while we work cushy tech jobs. Abject misery abounds as people lose their loved ones and their livelihoods. This is also the case for people at Google, etc but they still manage to find time to complain about not being able to expense their lunches [0] Overall I don't disagree, but the path to JS or equivalent companies seems to be astonishingly narrow given the fact that I didn't join there out of undergrad and I'm currently at a company that Jane Street recruiters don't consider to be impressive or noteworthy. > And don't be so hard on yourself. If you've made it as far as you have, you definitely have successful characteristics. You're not special, and that's OK. But just because you're not special doesn't mean you don't have successful characteristics. I'd say I'm exactly as hard on myself as society is. Everyone else gets constant external validation - all I get is signals to say I'm stupid. [0]: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/google-tells-employees-not-to-expense-food-perks-in-work-from-home.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/google-tells-employees-not-t...

andrepd 6y ago

Are you "depressed" that you are on the 99th percentile of world income? You make more in 2 years than my grandfather made all his life, in over 50 years of hard hard work. Or alternatively, you also make about as much in a month as I do in a year, at a very competitive PhD program.

lowiqengineer 6y ago
World income is irrelevant since I live in a nice part of America, not the world. And yeah, I do make about as much as your and my grandfather made over the course of their careers. Unfortunately, if I'm making an apples-to-apples comparison with people doing equivalent work (perhaps not at Jane Street, but definitely at Google or Facebook) I'm making about 80% or less. That means I'm worth 80% in the eyes of the fair labor market - I'm 20% less human.
- fnord123 6y ago
  Your wage on the labor market is not your value as a human. Maybe it's time you leave your nice part of America and live among people who won't make you feel like you're part of a rat race but value you for who you are.

rubidium 6y ago

To help your depression, you can recall you make more than most people could hope to make every 2 years at age 50. Or than most engineers make at any point in their careers.

maximente 6y ago

since you seem to base your self-worth to some extent on your total compensation, what concrete steps (to include interviewing, working with recruiters, consulting, etc.) have you taken to increase your total comp either immediately or in the future?

lowiqengineer 6y ago
- Recruiting/resume updates (not many interviews lined up, and even with offers would max out likely less than what I'm currently making) - Interview preparation (not going well, but I blame my inherent intelligence for that unfortunately) - Promotion work in my current role (would max out at like $180k)