4 ms·

A lot of us aren't gonna leave 5x the wage on the table.

by Redoubts 4y ago

lolinder 4y ago
Yup, it's all tradeoffs, and my preferred tradeoffs won't match yours.
- Redoubts 4y ago
  That's a pretty wild tradeoff though!
  - lolinder 4y ago
    Is it? At my current wage I make enough to pay for all my family's needs and retire at 50. Could I use more money? Probably. But would I be happier with more? The research suggests I wouldn't.
    - Panzer04 4y ago
      Presumably the tradeoff is more along the lines of retiring at 40, if you don't care about the money.
      - lolinder 4y ago
        Fair, but I actually enjoy my work (one of the things I feel like I have gained by avoiding FAANG), so retiring at 40 doesn't have that much appeal.
        zeroonetwothree 4y ago
        It's true, I could afford to retire now (I am <40), but I expect to keep working until I'm completely unemployable (or physically incapable). It's just more fun than anything I've found in my free time. I do work at FAANG btw so it can't be that bad ;).
    - cipheredStones 4y ago
      Daniel Kahneman, the famous psychologist who authored the paper you're probably thinking of (the one popularized as "no increase in happiness above $75k/yr") actually just released a new paper a few days ago, finding that for the large majority of people, happiness continues to rise with income far past that point. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2208661120 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2208661120
      - lolinder 4y ago
        That's a quite an interesting paper! That said, the final results still line up with my intuition, which is that there are diminishing returns, as evidenced by the log(income) relationship that that new study identifies. I already make a 90th percentile income for my area, and I don't feel that investing additional mental and emotional resources in maximizing salary is the best route forward for pursuing happiness. I think that at this point there are other axes to optimize on that provide greater marginal gains to happiness.
      - zeroonetwothree 4y ago
        A big issue with any analysis of happiness is that it's rated on a "capped" scale. For example they ask you "how happy are you 1-10". However income is "uncapped". That means there will always inherently be a sublinear relationship between the two in any analysis, because you are compressing the top end of happiness. I think for most people amounts up to something like 200-500k/yr (depending on COL) would provide increased happiness. Basically, if you ever have to worry about not having enough money, you could stand to make more. Of course that doesn't mean it's necessarily worthwhile to work more to achieve that, that would be a personal decision you have to make yourself.
throwaway675309 4y ago
Uhh.. what? I've never had an interview process with a live coding session and whiteboarding that lasted longer than an hour, and my salary as a senior engineer has annually been anywhere from 150 to 200k. I might be leaving a little bit of money on the table but I highly doubt it's anywhere near 5x. Most FAANG level jobs aren't paying above 300-400k except at the most prestigious.
- Redoubts 4y ago
  For anyone senior, it absolutely is. https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1627276892226322432 https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1627276892226322432
- zeroonetwothree 4y ago
  Level 7+ at FAANG can reach $1m+/yr. Obviously I can't say that you would be able to reach that (most don't), but it's a possibility at least. Part of the difference is that non-FAANG companies often don't have as much of a path to these high levels for ICs so you are forced into management if you want to keep raising your compensation.
- singron 4y ago
  Was the whole process <= 1 hour, the total amount of live coding was <= 1 hour, or any session of live coding was <= 1 hour? All the interviews at Google are 45 minutes, and when I interviewed only 2 had coding, so there was realistically 70-80 minutes of coding that day. I did maybe 15 minutes in a phone screen on an earlier date. Even if you did only 60 minutes for the whole process, you really aren't that far off from a typical FAANG.

A lot of us aren't gonna leave 5x the wage on the table.

lolinder 4y ago

Yup, it's all tradeoffs, and my preferred tradeoffs won't match yours.

Redoubts 4y ago
That's a pretty wild tradeoff though!
- lolinder 4y ago
  Is it? At my current wage I make enough to pay for all my family's needs and retire at 50. Could I use more money? Probably. But would I be happier with more? The research suggests I wouldn't.
  - Panzer04 4y ago
    Presumably the tradeoff is more along the lines of retiring at 40, if you don't care about the money.
    - lolinder 4y ago
      Fair, but I actually enjoy my work (one of the things I feel like I have gained by avoiding FAANG), so retiring at 40 doesn't have that much appeal.
      - zeroonetwothree 4y ago
        It's true, I could afford to retire now (I am <40), but I expect to keep working until I'm completely unemployable (or physically incapable). It's just more fun than anything I've found in my free time. I do work at FAANG btw so it can't be that bad ;).
  - cipheredStones 4y ago
    Daniel Kahneman, the famous psychologist who authored the paper you're probably thinking of (the one popularized as "no increase in happiness above $75k/yr") actually just released a new paper a few days ago, finding that for the large majority of people, happiness continues to rise with income far past that point. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2208661120 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2208661120
    - lolinder 4y ago
      That's a quite an interesting paper! That said, the final results still line up with my intuition, which is that there are diminishing returns, as evidenced by the log(income) relationship that that new study identifies. I already make a 90th percentile income for my area, and I don't feel that investing additional mental and emotional resources in maximizing salary is the best route forward for pursuing happiness. I think that at this point there are other axes to optimize on that provide greater marginal gains to happiness.
    - zeroonetwothree 4y ago
      A big issue with any analysis of happiness is that it's rated on a "capped" scale. For example they ask you "how happy are you 1-10". However income is "uncapped". That means there will always inherently be a sublinear relationship between the two in any analysis, because you are compressing the top end of happiness. I think for most people amounts up to something like 200-500k/yr (depending on COL) would provide increased happiness. Basically, if you ever have to worry about not having enough money, you could stand to make more. Of course that doesn't mean it's necessarily worthwhile to work more to achieve that, that would be a personal decision you have to make yourself.

throwaway675309 4y ago

Uhh.. what? I've never had an interview process with a live coding session and whiteboarding that lasted longer than an hour, and my salary as a senior engineer has annually been anywhere from 150 to 200k. I might be leaving a little bit of money on the table but I highly doubt it's anywhere near 5x. Most FAANG level jobs aren't paying above 300-400k except at the most prestigious.

Redoubts 4y ago
For anyone senior, it absolutely is. https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1627276892226322432 https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1627276892226322432
zeroonetwothree 4y ago
Level 7+ at FAANG can reach $1m+/yr. Obviously I can't say that you would be able to reach that (most don't), but it's a possibility at least. Part of the difference is that non-FAANG companies often don't have as much of a path to these high levels for ICs so you are forced into management if you want to keep raising your compensation.
singron 4y ago
Was the whole process <= 1 hour, the total amount of live coding was <= 1 hour, or any session of live coding was <= 1 hour? All the interviews at Google are 45 minutes, and when I interviewed only 2 had coding, so there was realistically 70-80 minutes of coding that day. I did maybe 15 minutes in a phone screen on an earlier date. Even if you did only 60 minutes for the whole process, you really aren't that far off from a typical FAANG.