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Ask HN: How do you know it's time for you to quit your FAANG job?
I know it's a completely different game for different people. Depending on your age, health, marriage, family, and many more, we all have different risk profiles. But can you share the metrics that you have used or plan to use?
- Raise seed round?
- Cashflow more than your full-time income?
- Huge traction tho no money yet?
or anything else?
- gregjor 3y agoDeciding to live in a van down by the river? Congrats on the FAANG job and the side gig throwing off so much cash you need to post this.
- pestatije 3y agoyour too late already...all that time wasted on the office pool table has given an edge to all your competitors, and since your still doubting itll only get worse
- Shatnerz 3y agoWhen you find yourself asking this question, the truth is that you probably should have left a few month earlier. Things rarely improve. Take care of your finances and never put yourself in a position where you are dependent on a job if it is avoidable. It really helps with keeping a clear mind in making these decisions and greatly reduces stress around job changes and uncertainties.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago"if you have to ask, then it's probably time to go"
- quantified 3y ago> Raise seed round? - Cashflow more than your full-time income? - Huge traction tho no money yet? or anything else? These sound like the real question is "when should I bail on my FAANG job to try my hand at my startup?", usually antithetical to making the finances more stable (should only do if you are not dependent on a job, which aligns with your advice.)
- Shatnerz 3y agoI completely missed the context. Thanks for pointing this out.
- vivzkestrel 3y agomake it FAAMNG F=Facebook A=Apple A=Amazon M=Microsoft N=Netflix G=Google
- greesil 3y agoMANGA
- mettamage 3y agoMAGMA Netflix should be deleted IMO
- arcanemachiner 3y agoI know what the acronym should be, but I don't think I'm allowed to post it.
- sdsd 3y agoI'll be your sacrificial lamb. The acronym is FAGMAN. I really wish the word "fag" wasn't a disgusting slur for a marginalized sexual minority, because if anyone deserves the nastiness of that word, it's not gay people, it's fucking FAGMAN.
- arcanemachiner 3y agoI was thinking about this, and it should be MAGMAN since Facebook is now Meta. This would be so much simpler without Microsoft. At least MANGA is a word.
- sdsd 3y agoWe just need a tech giant with an E and we can have MEGAMAN! Hey, if Netflix is allowed, why not EA (to represent the gaming industry too). There we go!
- simonebrunozzi 3y agoI left a FAANG-like job in 2016 (VP, CTO) to join a startup. It was a disaster. I then co-founded a startup. I left two years later, parted ways with the other two co-founders in a friendly way. All this time, I funded my life with my savings. I had enough on the side to do that, and thankfully other things went well in my life, so I don't really regret it, but... If I could go back, I'd simply tell myself that most of the time, quitting a well-paying job if you are not in a F*ck-you money [0] territory, is a bad idea. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XamC7-Pt8N0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XamC7-Pt8N0
- Dopameaner 3y agoSimilar story, but went back to FAANG
- ericmcer 3y agoAs I get older this more and more seems like the way. I have friends with 10+ years at a single job. They work 2-4 hours a day remotely and are so senior they would be very difficult to replace. They will easily be able to retire in their early 40s. Meanwhile I have done 1-3 years at a bunch of different places, tried to start my own things, and am still grinding out 10 hour days.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hipadev23 3y ago> They work 2-4 hours a day remotely and are so senior they would be very difficult to replace. Everyone is replaceable. I'd argue this is entirely the continuance of zero-rate interest phenomenon and corporations are waking up to it. e.g. Google just announced more layoffs this morning.
- quantified 3y agoIt's truly lame and over-resourced management that allows this practice. I'd argue it signifies a lack of good management practice if the bus factor is high and the actual utilization is low. I can't fault the engineer for taking advantage if they can.
- slavetologic 3y agoYou should realize that faang swe income, on a risk adjusted basis, is the best you will get. Hold on as long as possible and invest your earnings into the stock market. Ignore the noise. You quit when you have enough to retire
- barbazoo 3y agoWhat's the "risk" in this case?
- TOMDM 3y agoI assumed they meant compared to a startup where potential reward is massive but most of the time isn't.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- RobRivera 3y agoRemove 'into the stock market' But otherwise yea concur. I'm a stickler for diversified asset class allocation Edit: Normally I am not a fan of explaining myself, but the most fundamental principle of wealth management, diversification, calibrating your risk exposure to various markets, is being downvoted. Thank you for the reminder people
- practicemaths 3y agoWhere else are you supposed to get average ~10% returns? Or is your last bit just saying like do some other investments besides purely stock?
- RobRivera 3y agoThe latter
- jdewerd 3y ago(this post sponsored by Masterworks)
- blastonico 3y agoIs Microsoft considered FAANG?
- antonyt 3y agoDepends on who you ask. In a literal sense, no. But lots of people use "FAANG" as a shorthand for a wide range of established tech companies with relatively high compensation (and RSUs with actual value). In that sense, yes.
- auntienomen 3y ago"Options/RSUs with actual value" is a very nice way to put it.
- elcomet 3y agoWe should have stopped at "GAFA"
- dehrmann 3y agoThe other odd one is Netflix since it's much smaller than the others.
- sithlord 3y agowell its historically the highest paying, especially cash, also a lot of tech innovation back when the acronym became a thing.
- VectorLock 3y agoI think its less about size but more about paying ridiculous salary bands. Netflix does that, but to my knowledge Microsoft is still at "body shop" pay levels.
- dehrmann 3y agoIsn't Amazon like that, too?
- zach_miller 3y agoWhenever I have to make a big decision I think about what’s important to me. I give 3-8 things like money, learning, commute time, etc. a score from 1-5. Then I score different alternatives 1-5 based on how well I think they do on those things. Then I multiply and add the numbers together and I have a sense of what I should do. Usually it’s the highest score but sometimes I change a number because I realize something is more/less important than I thought. Only you know what is important to you, and I bet lots of folks here can help inform how different options might score.
- dmitrygr 3y agoWhen you have enough saved up to maintain your lifestyle for the expected remaining length of your life.
- csallen 3y agoYou might want to edit your post. It seems like you're asking when to go full time on your startup, but you haven't made that context sufficiently clear, and people will have to read between the lines to get that. A lot of people quit FAANG jobs for reasons that have nothing to do with going full time on a startup.
- shawnpang 3y agoThanks! I don't know HackerNews even have the editing feature... but will make that more clear next time!
- lacker 3y agoI quit when I had found a cofounder that I wanted to start a startup with, and enough money in the bank to keep me afloat if I didn't have a regular income for a couple years.
- kemayo 3y agoSince it sounds like you're asking when you should quit to focus on a startup... to avoid potential legal troubles, the answer is before you started working on the startup (or certainly before you launched the startup). Ergo it's when you've got enough saved up to support working until you think you'll make income / get funded. Otherwise, if you don't care about the legal / ethical risk, I'd say that you need to make a decision about where to focus once the startup is consuming enough effort that it's crowding your life.
- photochemsyn 3y agoFAANG is obsolete, the new acronym is MAAMA (change three letters to account for Facebook->Meta, Netflix->Microsoft, and Google->Alphabet). The goal here is to be able to say "Big MAAMA's outsized influence in the tech sector", of course. Also has some relevant historical antecedents, i.e. "Ma Bell".
- VectorLock 3y ago"Stop trying to make 'fetch' happen."
- greesil 3y agoIf you have an idea that you honestly think relieves people's pain, and those people have money, and you think you can put a team together to successfully execute on that in all ways (tech, sales, etc). I don't know your circumstances but this is a tall order. The people that do this well have a network already. You can start building the network and have a day job if you don't have kids.
- jes5199 3y agoyou cannot, you have become addicted to the salary
- iwangulenko 3y agoTech recruiter here in Switzerland with ~10 years of experience: People quit their teams/bosses, rarely do they quit for other reasons, like compensation or brand.
- karaterobot 3y agoI have heard this rule of thumb, but I'm not sure where it comes from, and haven't found it to be true personally.
- wccrawford 3y agoI think FAANG employees don't quit over compensation or brand. But I think employees of more normal companies do. A lot. And there's a lot more of them.
- bolobo 3y agoHum, our CEO said something along these lines at the last All Hands. I don't really know where he got that... I always liked my coworkers and I had the chance to have consistently amazing managers, but I still left previous jobs because was bored to death or got a better opportunity career or money-wise. There are definitely some types that only care about their colleagues and bosses (I talked to one in my team just recently), but that's probably not even the majority. These people probably tend to stay a loooong time so maybe they are more visible to the execs?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- gaws 3y agoSwitzerland operates on an entirely different plane of existence.
- quantified 3y agoIDK, seems frequent enough from my experience. A good boss doesn't make up for crappy comp
- geor9e 3y agoGet two FAANG jobs
- rgbrgb 3y agoI quit amazon as soon as I had enough to live on (very frugally) for 18 months and a team who was willing to go full-time on our app idea. We had made a little prototype but not released and no traction or biz model. A lot of my confidence came from the 2 extremely talented co-founders who were willing to do the same. We had realized that it would have been basically impossible for us to hit the milestones you mention without going all-in, full-time. That was the carrot. The stick was that I didn't like my job very much. I loved my co-workers at amazon and the pay for a new grad broke college kid was kind of surreal, but my inflated ego could not stand being such a lowly cog in such a giant machine. I had just spent almost 3 months on a 3 line tax calculation in a checkout flow (had to work on several continents and query a silly amount of internal java services). It also made me feel pretty safe that I had just done well in a perf review and my manager told me I could come back any time. Beyond my own story, I'd add that I've now seen many people do this and none of them have expressed any regrets despite most not getting a win with the startup. For a certain type of person there's just nothing like the high of building something you own and the way that stretches you abilities.
- glimshe 3y agoBy the way, "spent almost 3 months on a 3 line tax calculation in a checkout flow" sounds about right. You say it yourself "had to work on several continents and query a silly amount of internal java services". A problem in the scale of a giant company like Amazon is a different problem altogether. Getting these 3 lines wrong could have, I suppose, catastrophic impact so spending 3 months on it makes total sense for Amazon.
- asylteltine 3y agoYou don’t because there’s a 99% chance it will fail and you will waste money
- uptownfunk 3y agoSooner the better if you are really committed. You can only have one wife these days, the mistresses will remain mistresses until you put a ring on it.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- serjester 3y agoSounds like you're thinking about a startup. It's a terrible idea financially and you'll probably fail. But if you have a burning desire that you can't shake, here's my advice. Are you looking to for a lifestyle business that allows you to work on interesting problems with interesting people or do you want to transform an industry? Don't raise VC money if you're not sure on the latter. If you're bootstrapping, most startups take a minimum of 12 - 24 months to find sustainable cashflow. You'll want to have 1 - 2 years of expenses saved (at a very modest salary). If you already have cashflow coming in, you can cut this down.
- luizsantana 3y agoI left my FAANG job recently. Despite having a seed round when I left, which definitely weighted the decision, I pay a very little salary to myself, basically covering health insurance and a bit more, so I burn my savings. I made sure to have around 2 years of savings (not counting my little salary), so if in 10 months the picture is too bad, I can simply get a new job. Now, what really made the difference in my decision is: - You’re the average of the 5 people you hang out the most. My co-founders are great people with a great tracking record and this makes a huge difference - Learnings. You won’t learn nearly as much about building a business if you continue taking it as a side gig - we have already a product already generating some revenue. Not huge, but we believe in a great potential - as I mentioned, the seed round of course changes the perspective - “if I wouldn’t earn as much, would I stay at my job?”, every time I would think about this, the answer was a big NO! I really didn’t want to live this miserable day to day because of a pay check - lastly, which is very personal, every time I’d think of memories of my childhood and the “rich kids” friend of mine, none of them had parents that were employees. Even now, every “rich person” I know are entrepreneurs. Sure… the odds are low, but I rather take the risk and live the life I want
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- fnfjfk 3y agoWhen you have enough invested to FIRE.
- deanmoriarty 3y agoI am in a similar predicament and heavily conflicted. Mid 30s, at FAANG, making ~$1M/yr liquid for the past few years, a net worth of ~$5M liquid in Vanguard ETFs, and have an offer for a very popular AI "startup" you all know, and I am not able to understand if the risk (illiquidity of my offer) and quality of life hit (longer hours, worse commute, higher stress) are worth the tradeoff. On one hand, I am thinking that I really have no choice other than joining the opportunity presented in front of me, life in tech is either a constant uncomfortable growth and grind or I'll be left behind, there is really no "let's keep my current situation constant in my relatively cushy role". On the other hand, I am so tempted to not disrupt my life until an external force does it for me (layoff etc) because things are, relatively speaking, going well for me. Finally, since you mentioned seed etc, I would never, right now, start my own thing, but that's just me and my current circumstances.
- VirusNewbie 3y agodamn, very impressive. As I was reading your post I think the only thing that could tempt me away from a 1M a year job might be an offer from OpenAI, and sure enough it sounds like you have that option. >"and quality of life hit (longer hours, worse commute, higher stress) are worth the tradeoff." Looking back, the hours I put in were never the largest factor in my happiness, it's always been having a cool boss, having interesting problems to solve and having engaged coworkers that mattered most. YMMV. "there is really no "let's keep my current situation constant in my relatively cushy role". I don't know if that's true, if you're willing to take a (huge) pay cut. There are probably a ton of small companies that would take for a modest salary and some stock options that may or may not pay off, even if you were going to put in 30 hours a week or something.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]