
Ask HN: Quitting Big Tech, what is it like? - throwaway1m
I&#x27;ve spent the last decade in two FANG companies, and I&#x27;ve got to a high level where my total compensation is ridiculous.<p>The problem is that it bores me to tears, and I don&#x27;t want to do it anymore.<p>At first thought, maybe I am burned out? However, I can still come home and write code for a side-project, so I don&#x27;t think this is &quot;burn-out&quot;. I don&#x27;t know to be honest. I think the best description is that I am cynical of the &quot;mission&quot;, and I can&#x27;t connect my work to people I care about. How do I know what the source of the problem is?<p>However, I wanted to pose two questions.<p>First, what is the environment like for exiting high-level former-FANG employees?<p>Second, what are some of the surprises post-FANG that I would be in for if I wanted to start a company?<p>Thank you for your time.
======
sriram_malhar
I quit full-time work in 2001, after being burned out in the dot com boom. I
did well for myself financially after the startup I was in got bought. The
phrase "well" is of course subjective, considering that no colleague of mine
quit. I left a whole lot of money on the table, but never once have I
regretted it.

I decided that the name of the game is to optimise quality of life. That
means, infrequent brutal deadlines, minimal (pref. zero) commute, opportunity
to learn, and spend time with family and friends and be of use to society at
large.

This meant (1) I'd only do short-term assignments (less than a year) (2) I'll
keep my technical chops as current as possible, so no shortage of interesting
gigs to work on (3) Not hurry into the next gig when one ended.

I have never learnt the art of work-life balance, but now I'm able to amortise
it over the course of a year! Work my ass off when I have a contract, then
take off and putter around with different technologies and hobbies. There's
lots of time for family and friends. The money is of course considerably less
than what I could make, but more money comes at the cost of very high
expectations and brutal deadlines. I charge less, and I get more time to do a
quality job. Clients remember you for the quality, not for the time taken. Of
course, as I get older, I _need_ the extra time too; I just don't have the
stamina.

I love it. I am 55 and I code every single day, just for fun.

~~~
mertnesvat
Your answer is very inspiring and also perfect example for youngsters to
understand money and productivity are not the only things that matters in
life.

I had a similar junction in my life and I selected money instead of pursuing
family and academic life, now I'm starting to think maybe wasn't a good
decision. I'm getting older (38)

Do you mind if I ask did you also quit your job to pursue Phd? Nowadays
started working on my old projects, ideas and realised this is the only stuff
that I'm enjoyed right now!

~~~
sriram_malhar
Yes, I did. At the age of 42!

Funny you should ask. I posted about my experience in a recent thread a few
weeks back.

Search for my user name here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21299546](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21299546)

~~~
mertnesvat
Yes indeed, I've read with enthusiasm :)

Thanks for sharing, I want to congratulate you and your wife because I assume
as we get older big changes like quitting job, moving to another country or
even moving to another house is getting harder to decide. But I guess hard
choices are mostly fruitful in the long run.

~~~
sriram_malhar
Ha, thanks!

Some choices are hard because of uncertainty and fear of the unknonwn. People
live through terrible relationships, suffer terrible commutes, work in soul-
sucking places etc and are yet unable to quit because the alterntives are less
defined.

While I have enough finances to be comfortable (and reduce uncertainty), I
don't know of anyone personally who has made the choices I have, even though
many are vastly richer than I. They continue to grumble about expenses and
commutes and health issues. Middle class people vastly overestimate how much
they really need, and peg their lifestyles to that bar, often at the cost of
everything dear.

I have a very simple approach. I ask "What's the worst that can happen? Will
this affect me next year?". I find that once I quantify it, most fears just
melt away. Say my laptop gets stolen and everything in it is irretrievable. No
backup, say. What's the worst? It would be a royal pain to get back my life,
but by this time next year, I'd be just fine. Moving to a different country to
do a PhD? What's the worst? I'll perform badly and get chucked out, and I will
return and get another job. Five years from now it would be a fine story to
regale my friends with.

Sorry. I'm getting wordier as I grow older!

~~~
PascLeRasc
I really agree with your comment, but the problem with "What's the worst that
can happen?" for a lot of us is that it's so easy to go down a rabbit hole and
find a way that your life would end or be ruined, no matter how unlikely it
is. When I'm feeling anxious, like if I'm driving, I genuinely believe that I
will be hit and killed at any moment, and there's nothing I can do about it.

So the technique I use is I say to myself "It's pretty likely that I'll be 35
years old at some point, regardless of whether I try to get a post-bac or not.
It'd be really nice to be a doctor by then". Substitute in whatever long-term
goal you have like founding a company or running a marathon.

------
nvarsj
These kind of posts keep making me think I should go work for a FAANG so I can
actually retire one day. Anyways, as someone on the other side, who has never
worked for or applied to FAANG, I have a few reactions.

First, your salary is absolutely ridiculous. I know hard working people who
have built their own businesses with blood and sweat, and they still don't
make as much as a slacker engineer at FAANG. So I'd say try not to take it for
granted - you will find it difficult to even make a fraction of your comp if
you leave FAANG.

Second, in my experience working with ex-FAANG - these engineers, while they
all tend to be very smart, tend to be borderline junior engineers in the real
world. They simply don't know how to build or operate something without the
luxury of the mature tooling that exists at FAANG. You may be in for a reality
shock when you leave the FAANG bubble. On the other hand it could be a great
challenge if you're bored, and will broaden your engineering experience
greatly.

If I was in your position, I'd look into FIRE and then you can just relax and
do whatever you want without worrying about finances.

~~~
blablabla123
> mature tooling that exists at FAANG

I never worked at FAANG but even after more than 10 years working in tech, it
still surprises me how undervalued well working tooling is. I'm not talking
about 100% automation with infinite possibilities. Just really basic stuff,
like deployment or setting up a development environment. That should always be
a no-brainer.

~~~
mepiethree
I used to work at Google, and I find the tooling much better on the outside.
Heroku is much better than Google's deployment tool; Github is much better
than their review tool.

The only things I miss are the snacks and the searchable codebase

~~~
devicetray0
> and the searchable codebase

Do you mean that you'd search Google's entire codebase monorepo for code
examples, or that there was a better, searchable code snippet tool internally?

~~~
paulgb
> Do you mean that you'd search Google's entire codebase monorepo for code
> examples

As another former Googler, yes, searching the entire monorepo was a frequent
occurrence. Internal code search is pretty good (it's a search company, after
all) but I have to say that I don't miss it so much now that Sourcegraph
exists.

------
OnlineGladiator
> First, what is the environment like for exiting high-level former-FANG
> employees?

For most employers, it will be a positive. There may be a handful of very
small startups that see it as a negative, but the reality is a very small
startup is so different from a giant tech firm that the hiring team is
probably correct in assuming you've never had to do something incredibly
arduous without enormous support (I once had to spend 6 months reverse
engineering a video output because our customer refused to tell us what it was
- I ended up finding a clue on a Russian blog and I translated it with Google
- this is the sort of shit you will do at an actual hard-tech underfunded
startup. And if you care, it turned out to be a proprietary video signal
invented in the 80s that had long since been abandoned by almost everyone so I
then had to build a fucking circuit to decode it).

> Second, what are some of the surprises post-FANG that I would be in for if I
> wanted to start a company?

Your reputation will help you with investors, but it will not help you with
reality. Starting a company is much harder than you think it is - no matter
how hard you think it is; it's harder. That thing I said above about reverse
engineering a proprietary video signal because our customer was impossible?
That was one of the most enjoyable parts of my job.

If you want to start a company, and you're able to do so (don't put your
family savings into jeopardy over this), go for it! Just realize it's not
going to be anything like a giant tech firm, where you don't realize they
actually do 99% of the job for you. It will be far more rewarding. It will be
far more stressful. There is an extraordinarily high chance of failure. You
will likely make friends with new peers, and likely ruin some relationships in
the process.

The best advice I can give anyone that wants to start a company: ask yourself
why do you want to start a company? If the reason is anything other than
"there is this huge problem that needs to be solved and I know a way to do
it!" then you are chasing a bandwagon of the glory that comes from being a
successful technology entrepreneur, and aren't actually building a company
with any value behind it.

~~~
alasdair_
> Just realize it's not going to be anything like a giant tech firm, where you
> don't realize they actually do 99% of the job for you.

This. So much this.

All those teams of devops people, the SREs, the QA people, the network
engineers and all the other unsung heroes don't exist in a startup yet the
people who only ever worked at BigCo assume that they do and so forget about
all of the problems involved in building a codebase that can scale in a
meaningful way because it's always been someone else's job and they have been
focused solely on their KPI or singular deliverable.

All that build infrastructure or coding standards or documentation or
monitoring systems that you took for granted at Google or Facebook? None of it
exists. Not only that - you won't be rewarded for building it, instead you'll
be asked why the next person to come behind you got their work done faster
than you did.

~~~
bob33212
I almost got burned by this. The COO of the company basically asked my why I
wasn't getting anything done. I had to be direct and say that I'm happy to
spend 100% of my time coding new features, but he is going to have to answer
the phone when a customer says the site is down, because I will be too busy
coding.

~~~
alasdair_
I got burned by this. I worked at a Google spinoff as the first non-Google
backend engineer. The documentation was atrocious and so was the onboarding
process so I took the time to fix the problems for the next new hire.

I was then told the new hire got up to speed faster than I had (no shit) and
that this reflected negatively upon me.

------
nrp
I left Apple to join a startup that was then acquired by Facebook. I recently
left after five years there to start another company. It takes a few months to
get back out of the mind-set of consensus building, socializing ideas to avoid
surprising anyone, and getting sign-off at every step. All of that is
necessary to keep organization thousands and projects with hundreds of people
on them operating smoothly.

When you’re off on your own, have to remember that you yourself are usually
the main bottleneck. You have to figure out how to unblock yourself and
context switch efficiently as you take on every facet of the thing you’re
building, especially as it escapes purely technical work.

FANG companies do a great job of coddling you because it’s effective all
around. You have to find your own lightweight substitutes for all of that.

------
randomsearch
> How do I know what the source of the problem is?

You don’t like working for FANG. That seems like a totally normal sane
response to me. I’d be more concerned about the people who love that corporate
environment rather than those it doesn’t give meaning to. Some people like the
security and routine and structure (understandable), some people like the
politics (weird), but I don’t think you need to overthink this. There’s
nothing wrong with you.

I think in life we need a combination of meaning and joy to be reasonably
satisfied. Joy mostly comes from relationships, meaning from work and other
responsibilities eg being a parent, helping other people.

Working for a big corporation puts food on the table, but it’s hard to see any
meaning there. Actually, I can imagine working at old Apple or SpaceX could
give you meaning. But most corporates are not driven by meaning, but by
profit, which can be completely meaningless - travelling in a hundred
different directions, for example. And these giants can also disconnect you
from the world, like what is the impact of me writing this test suite for
FANG’s internal HR system, why do I even care.

Startups provide more meaning (ok, _some_ startups) but it’s a totally
different game and I’m not sure most people are suited to them. All the good
startup people I know are outliers - surprisingly they are not motivated by
cash; they are prepared or enjoy to work really hard; they have diverse skill
sets rather than being the best coders; they are not just fine with risk, they
like it because it’s a bit of gambling and they need that.

There are many other options to consider. What if you worked in tech for a non
tech company? Your skills then have a massive impact. What about an
organisation like the Khan Academy rather than a business? What if you made
tech your hobby not your career? Teaching, training, consulting? Working only
part of the year and spending the rest volunteering in developing nations (met
people who do that)?

As others have pointed out, take a break, get out of your environment, you
need to see the bigger picture and remember what your really enjoy. Travel and
spend time with people you love.

~~~
greggman2
> You don’t like working for FANG. That seems like a totally normal sane
> response to me. I’d be more concerned about the people who love that
> corporate environment rather than those it doesn’t give meaning to.

There are lots of people at Amazon, Google, and I'm sure Facebook that find
meaning in their job. Improving search actually does help people, billions of
them. Improving the web stack (Chromium) also helps billions of people. I'm
guessing the people at Oculus (Facebook) believe they are helping to invent
the future. Pocket computers used to = newton/palm/ce, VR is at that first
level but many believe it will advance to iPhone level (more ubiquitous)a at
some point. I know people working on robotics at Amazon who love it.

~~~
jpetso
Except that working on stuff for FAANG doesn't necessarily make things better
and instead just helps with monetization and/or lock-in.

Is it really an improvement to cover more of the search results page in ads,
centralize ever more functionality on that page which pushes out
smaller/independent competitors, track users more comprehensively and optimize
mobile loading times by creating a corporate-controlled, Google-hosted format
that companies are coerced into instead of doing the same thing with
standards-based, distributed technologies?

Is it really an improvement to the "web stack" if Chromium kills diversity in
the browser engine space, blurs the lines between client software and Google
account, then proceeds to limit ad-blockers' capabilities via extension API
changes? While at the same time Google web sites happily go about cross-
advertising for more monoculture and deliberately not supporting Firefox even
where it provides all required functionality.

(Similar examples exist for other market-dominating companies and products.)

One man's improvement is another one's trading the long-term health of tech
and business ecosystems for short-term convenience and stock market returns.
It's tempting to believe in the usefulness of one's work is when the massive
scale and complexity of FAANG companies make it so easy to miss the forest for
the trees.

------
pmoriarty
I burnt out decades ago. Unfortunately, I kept coming back to tech when I
could half-stomach it again and desperately needed money instead of doing what
I really knew I should have done, which was to make a career change to
something drastically different. This is one of my greatest regrets in life.

Now I'm old, my skills are out of date because I really don't give a crap
enough about tech to learn the latest buzzword technology out there, and that
and the gaps in my employment during my severe burnouts make for a CV full of
red flags, which means that even in this nearly ideal seller's market for
people with tech skills nobody wants to hire me. I don't blame them. I
wouldn't want to hire me either.

So if like me you're burnt out and feel you're really no longer suited to the
tech field, it might be better for you to permanently get out sooner rather
than later. Consider doing whatever it takes to make a career change to
something drastically different, even if it's risky and maybe you don't know
exactly what you'd rather do. Taking such a risk will be a lot easier when
you're younger.

~~~
72deluxe
That's a shame, what would you have done instead?

Also, at what age cut-off would you consider it being easier than being
labelled "old" ?

~~~
pmoriarty
_" what would you have done instead?"_

Maybe teach or try to make it as an artist... or try to get in to making
movies. I have so many other interests apart from computers. Trying to pursue
any of them professionally might have lead to something, and, honestly, maybe
I would have burnt out on whatever it was or just failed, but at least I
wouldn't have kept banging my head against something I hate and dread over and
over and over again.

 _" Also, at what age cut-off would you consider it being easier than being
labelled "old" ?"_

I'm not exactly sure I understand what you're asking there. Could you rephrase
your question?

~~~
72deluxe
Certainly. You said you would have made the change earlier but now consider
yourself to be "old" (and therefore your skills are out of date). At what age
would you have not considered yourself "old" and likely a more suitable
candidate for jobs?

I know that the "buzzword bingo" of tech doesn't help. What languages did you
write in?

I play a few instruments and it is enjoyable but I am not sure I would have
"succeeded" as an artist, simply because it is another industry set up to sell
things just like the software industry (particularly "rent-a-software" that
seems to be taking hold) and disillusionment would have set in (unrealistic
expectations?). I suspect I would have ran out of creativity or ideas, and I
wonder if the same would have happened to you?

It's a shame about you hating it and dreading programming. I don't like some
of the stuff I have to write but at least it is writing software - I try to
keep in mind that's it's still "better" than other jobs I would have gone
insane in (eg. basic administrative jobs).

~~~
pmoriarty
_" Certainly. You said you would have made the change earlier but now consider
yourself to be "old" (and therefore your skills are out of date). At what age
would you have not considered yourself "old" and likely a more suitable
candidate for jobs?"_

Well, being more suitable for jobs is less a matter of being young than of
having the right skills and a good CV. The reason I brought up being old is
because I think it's harder to make a career switch when you're older than
when you're younger.

 _" What languages did you write in?"_

I'm actually going to refrain from giving any more details about exactly what
I did. Suffice to say the tech I knew at my peak is, mostly, no longer in
fashion and that I knew a variety of languages.

 _" I suspect I would have ran out of creativity or ideas, and I wonder if the
same would have happened to you?"_

That's certainly possible, but there are ways to keep oneself fresh.. like
surrounding oneself with other creative people, who can be really inspiring,
or to work on many different projects at the same time, so it's more difficult
to get bored than working on the same thing over and over again. I do share
your concern, however, particularly in the long term, but now, looking back on
my life I wish I'd just tried more things career wise, and taken more risks...
even if they didn't work out in the end, they would have provided lots of
opportunities to completely change my life, learn new things, and meet
interesting people.

 _" It's a shame about you hating it and dreading programming. I don't like
some of the stuff I have to write but at least it is writing software - I try
to keep in mind that's it's still "better" than other jobs I would have gone
insane in (eg. basic administrative jobs)."_

Yes, there are plenty of worse jobs. I dread those too.

------
iamleppert
I’ve worked in both big tech and startups. Startups are nothing like big tech
companies. The work and needs of a small company are completely different than
somewhere like Google.

And here’s the bad news: going to a small startup or mission-driven company
probably won’t make you happy. You often have all of the same problems, with
none of the support or validation from a big company.

I’ve hired and worked with many who were in your exact same position. Almost
all of them quit after a year or less and went back to big tech.

In my eyes, hiring someone from big tech is risky for this exact reason. It
rarely works out, and the guys I’ve worked with end up getting sour when they
realize they traded a job with high salary, security and perks for what
amounts to at the end of the day another job with lower salary, few perks and
no security because they got restless or bored.

~~~
iuete
I don't think the only two options are big tech and chaotic startup. There are
non-tech places that just want someone to add some tech to their business, for
example.

~~~
donkeyd
There's also big consultancy, which allows you to see all kinds of companies,
work on different types of projects and still have a bit of consistency at
your firm. It's not for everyone, but if you value some consistency, decent
pay and working for different types of projects and companies, it's definitely
worth checking it out.

It's not the type of job to find a 'mission' though, usually.

~~~
ignoramous
I've seen consulting being suggested freq as a viable gig to support yourself
when you run out of money to pay the bills. How does this work? Register on
Upwork or fiverr? What if your capabilities as a consultant are inadequate?
What if you struggle more than you actually did at a full time job? How do you
position yourself for the gig?

~~~
donkeyd
I wrote 'big consulting', because there are many large consultancy firms that
would be happy to hire anyone with FAANG experience. Capgemini, Accenture,
Deloitte, PWC, etc. Many of them work with companies that are being disrupted
and are trying to stay relevant. This creates interesting opportunities.

~~~
C1sc0cat
From what I hear from someone who works at a big 4 it sounds soul destroying.

~~~
donkeyd
I work currently at one of the firms in my comment and it's not bad at all.
Currently working on a really fun project too. It really depends on the firm
and even the team within the firm.

------
skybrian
In a similar situation, I decided to take a leave of absence with no plan for
what I was going to do. Since I wasn't sure I'd go back, I made sure other
people on the team were prepared.

Then serious family stuff happened and I was happy to have the time to deal
with it. After the leave of absence was up, I still wasn't sure and asked
about extending, but they didn't go for that so I left the company.

Since then I've learned to play the accordion and now I'm tinkering with
electronics to come up with a new musical instrument. No real desire to get a
job. After a while I decided I'm fine with simply being retired.

So I'd say try the leave of absence?

~~~
cortesoft
How do you support yourself? Do you have a family to support?

~~~
dmoy
After a decade in FANG and living a not extravagant lifestyle, you could
easily have a couple million socked away.

That at least gives you breathing room to do whatever for a few years.

~~~
tempsolution
For a few years? What kind of lifestyle do you have that a few millions only
last a few years? I really doubt with that math you would have been able to
save a few millions in the first place, unless you won a lottery.

~~~
sidlls
Typical cash plus equity for an experienced engineer is going to top $300k/yr
at the low end. Million _s_ might be an exaggeration, but it's certainly
trivial to save well north of $1M in a decade on that salary, barring
misfortune like a health incident.

~~~
fooker
>barring misfortune like a health incident.

Here is a reminder to everyone that a health incident is only a financial
misfortune in the US.

~~~
ghaff
If a health incident makes you unable to work, that's a financial issue in
much of the world.

~~~
fooker
> that's a financial issue in much of the world.

Well, unless they have a pension. Which about half the countries in the world
seems to provide, at least for government jobs.

~~~
ghaff
There often are in the US as well for government jobs. But they usually depend
on a significant number of years of tenure and defined benefit plans are
pretty rare at this point for private employers. (Which isn't even necessarily
a bad thing unless you think retirement benefits should be heavily tied to
decades of employment with a single company.)

------
jefftk
I quit Google in 2017 to go work on something I thought would have a large
positive effect on the world: [https://www.jefftk.com/p/leaving-google-
joining-wave](https://www.jefftk.com/p/leaving-google-joining-wave)

I liked the startup work similarly to my work at Google, though it was very
different. I needed to be much more focused on "what's the number one thing I
need to be doing for the company now" and not "how can I design and build in a
way that will work for the long term".

After about five months the product failed (for non-technical reasons) and I
was laid off. I decided to come back to Google and start earning to give
again: [https://www.jefftk.com/p/rejoining-
google](https://www.jefftk.com/p/rejoining-google)

~~~
ignoramous
Thanks for sharing the write-ups: It was as much interesting as inspiring.
_Earning to give_ is such a noble way to live.

------
debreuil
Just left Google after ~4 years, and couldn't be happier (always been more
comfortable independent though). I liked everyone I worked with, but the work
was incremental at best, and most often about perf optics. You'll probably be
surprised how hard people work outside those companies, and how good they are
(even if you already knew -- it's easy to forget in there).

I'd say if you don't have something you really want to do, just take time off
and code for fun until you figure it out. I wouldn't just go work somewhere
else, esp somewhere that is impressed with such a resume, it would probably be
worse.

Mainly, you need to figure out how much of your soul is left, and if the rest
can heal or be repurposed. Because of your financial security, finding a
personal mission you care about will be essential. You could make a
difference. And you should.

~~~
auiya
> most often about perf optics

I've found once most companies reach a certain size, from an employee
perspective they become less results-driven and more perf optics driven.

------
jchoong
Starting up: expect lots of discomfort. There's so much bigCo support you have
to re-build and it is hard to hire. It might be better to spend 6mths - 1yr at
A/B stage co first then only to the founder stage. Alt, try doing something on
the side to begin with. Find a partner in crime.

L7 & single? You can afford to pay the outside co-founder a bay area
survivable amount (140-200 varies) and have that person work through some of
the early situations and then skip out when things are moving along (eg. think
A round). Risk-adjusted & safe but yet keeps a lot of the upside while
allowing you to taste what it's actually like.

L8? Risk-reward ratio is skewed towards staying at a FAANG. Find and fund a
few projects. See what happens. Get excitement outside of work (take all!
possible vacations)

Either way, maybe find some time to talk with a proper counselor/therapist
(and not HN...). Doesn't hurt and can help with the disconnected feel.

ps. funding env for form FANG, it's good assuming you are doing something sort
of close to what you were responsible for. Don't expect risk-reward to be
favorable though..

------
jasonkester
I worked into a similar position early on where, like you, I was bringing in
more than twice (or 4X) what I really needed to live on and save for
retirement. My personal path was Contracting rather than BigCo'ing, but with
the same result.

I worked out that an hourly rate paying you "Twice What You Need" in a year
will also pay you "As Much As You Need" in six months.

Once you're provably good at this stuff, you can pick up short term contracts
kinda whenever you want. And with each one you do, you get exposed to new tech
(upping the skills and thus bill rate), and to new people. People who will
have future need of good developers and friends with the same need (upping
your ability to pick up the next gig).

By the time I had moved on into my SaaS/Entrepreneur phase, I was repeatably
doing 3 month gigs with 9-12 month downtime in between to spend traveling and
doing the things in life that I actually wanted.

So I guess Phase One might be to figure out a way to get that first big chunk
of free time to see if you actually have other things in life you'd rather be
doing. But definitely don't ditch the BigCo gig completely or burn any
bridges.

I met lots of smart young people on the road working their way along on odd
jobs. Hostels hardly ever offer you $250/hr to watch the front desk. Your ex-
boss's new VC-backed startup just might though.

------
twblalock
> I've spent the last decade in two FANG companies, and I've got to a high
> level where my total compensation is ridiculous.

> The problem is that it bores me to tears, and I don't want to do it anymore.

One of the nice things about working at a FAANG is the ease of changing teams.
Most large companies have a formal process for doing that and it's not
normally frowned upon unless you do it very frequently.

You may find that staying at your company and changing teams will get you the
change you desire without sacrificing your FAANG compensation.

~~~
virgilp
Except when you get to a high level. Then, the powers-that-be have plans for
you, and you can't really refuse (e.g. how do you refuse the CTO who says "I
need you on this critical project?"). And there really aren't that many teams
that can take you even if they wished to. What OP _might_ be able to do is
"invent" his own project. If he has something that he believes is (longer-
term) for the company good, he probably can say "I'm just going to do this"
instead of quitting. What are they going to do, fire him? If he was planning
to leave anyway, it's not really a problem.... and one finds out that managers
are not so eager to fire good engineers. He might take a hit in compensation
though (bonuses/raises) especially if his plans don't pan out.

~~~
ma2rten
Google isn't like that. There is no CTO and even people in high levels can
change teams.

------
newsbinator
Before making the "jump", I recommend you take a leave of absence for 1 ~ n
months.

Go live abroad, make new friends, shake up your day-to-day, challenge yourself
in non-tech ways.

Then after n months test how you feel about going back to work (and to your
high salary).

If you're dreading it like it's torture, there's a strong indicator you should
be thinking of alternatives.

~~~
MetalGuru
I wish taking a sabbatical was this thing you could just up and decide to do.
A lot of times you’re needed to much by management. I guess you could give
them an ultimatum if you’re absolutely ready to follow through and leave.

------
traK6Dcm
I made a similar move a while ago, though I was not at the same level that you
are and worked at startups before joining FAANG.

> Second, what are some of the surprises post-FANG that I would be in for if I
> wanted to start a company?

The biggest changes for me were psychological. I'm a competitive person by
nature, and where I worked, most people were the same. It mattered a lot to me
that I was keeping up with my coworkers, both in terms of salary and peer
recognition. This was unconscious, and I never truly realized this until
quitting.

As a result, it had become difficult for me to enjoy my free time. I would
hate myself for doing nothing and wasting time. Let me give you an example.
When I was younger, I loved playing videogames. After quitting I thought it's
finally time to catch up with all those games I had missed. But after having
worked in tech for so long I found myself unable to enjoy them on the same
level I had before. Instead of taking my time appreciating the game and its
art and discoveries, I felt pressure to complete it with 100% as quickly as
possible, in the most efficient way possible. I believe that's what tech
culture did to me. It made me into a robot trying to compete. That also
spilled over into my relationships, where I would regularly cancel dates or
leave early in order to optimize my time.

Getting away from this mindset took a long time and I'm still working on it. I
am now slowly learning to enjoy the small things again, relax without worrying
about wasting time, or keeping up with everyone else around me.

------
asveikau
It's super cliché to quote this guy, but the first time I found myself
quitting a megacorp job that didn't fully resonate with me, but that others
would envy, I thought of this Steve Jobs quote:

> Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.

Good luck!

~~~
wojciii
Good one.

Saved for later use, as I'm in a similar situation. :)

------
DVassallo
I left Amazon 9 months ago, after working there for 8.5 years. My total comp
was over $500K when I left, which made it both easy (allowed me to save money)
and hard to leave (I left about $1M of granted RSUs+Salary for 2019-2020 on
the table).

At one point, I realized that a career as a full-time employee in at a "high-
stress" employer is not the ideal one for me. I'm working for myself right
now, but if one day I needed to go get a full-time job again, I would almost
certainly not go to big tech again. I'd rather get paid a fifth of what I was
doing, but do something that leaves me with some energy after I put in a day's
work. My compensation and status growth were not conducive to increased
satisfaction. I wrote more about my reasoning here:
[https://medium.com/@dvassallo/only-intrinsic-motivation-
last...](https://medium.com/@dvassallo/only-intrinsic-motivation-
lasts-92c0497cf97c?source=friends_link&sk=283bd1a40a3b79f94a763dab651f0da5)

~~~
iuete
I am at that "OK, what do I do now" point after having a couple of years off.
I started applying for the same places I left, and then realised how stupid it
was to do that. At some point I had to come to terms with what I really
wanted, and it wasn't a high wage. So now I am looking for jobs (and working
for myself) at places or in ways that I actually like, and don't care about
the wage at all other than that it is enough to pay the basic bills I have.

I can't work at a place where I am employee #8973235879 in a row of
programmers who never really see any benefit to what they are doing and have
to mindlessly fill tickets. I mean I literally can't, as in the same thing
will happen as before (I will go crazy and no longer function in general).

~~~
greggman2
What is your retirement plan?

------
downerending
I was basically forced out due to my ex flaying me alive in an ugly divorce.

Now a few years later, I'm working at a modest job. It's arguably beneath me
(at least in the minds of many here at HN), but there are more interesting
technical challenges than there were at the high-paying job. And my boss knows
very well that he's getting me cheap, so never gives me any static. I think
he'd come mow my lawn if I asked him. :-)

That said, I'm fairly poor now. The most valuable property I own is a four-
year-old Chromebook.

Pretty happy, though. There's more to life than money.

------
TACIXAT
I only made it a year. It was incredibly boring. I was the same way, enjoying
side projects at home so I knew I wasn't over programming. I realized that I
was not engaged with the work and prioritized that in my next (current) role.
Now I'm doing hard technical work in my domain for a small shop. I'm working
50% time so I have tons of time off. The pay is less than FAANG but I'm not
dreading my life everyday. I'm also trialing another company in the other 50%
of my working time, helping them solve some technical challenges.

It sounds like you're at a much higher level than me, but my biggest advice is
to decide what is important to you and prioritize that. You are in a position
to do whatever you want, so just decide what you want to do and go after it.

~~~
C1sc0cat
I am assuming this was your first job out of Uni?

It takes at least your first year to get comfortable and to start being a
useful employee even more so for a first job.

And you do need to realise that work is work and you need to approach it in a
professional manner and not bail after9 months.

~~~
mratzloff
If it takes a year to become a useful employee, something has gone horribly
wrong.

Although I do agree that "work is work" and the search for self-actualization
through work leads to a lot of unhappiness.

------
JDiculous
I never worked at a FAANG and have way less experience then you, but here's my
2 cents for whatever it's worth.

If I were in your shoes making a "ridiculous" compensation, then I'd calculate
how many more years you'd have to work to get to FIRE (financial
independence). If you're only 2-5 years out, I'd consider just sticking it
out. As far as I'm aware, nowhere outside of the FAANG pays anywhere close to
$500k comp. I'm guessing most startups generally don't pay more than
$250-300k, which is like a 50% paycut meaning you'll have to work at least
twice as long to retire.

At the same time, life is too short to be wasting it doing things you don't
enjoy and being bored to tears. Just be careful of "grass is always greener"
syndrome / FOMO. You might find startups to be way more work and way more
demanding, and then regret having taken a steep paycut to give up a cushy job.

Or maybe you'll find yourself working on projects you're much more passionate
about, start your own company that goes on to be successful, and be both
personally and financially better off. It's hard to say as everyone's
experience will be different.

I'd seriously consider the sabbatical route, and definitely wouldn't recommend
quitting without a plan. The beauty of making so much money is that you can
afford to hire people for your projects which you'll be doing anyways as a
founder, and if things fail it doesn't matter because it's play money.

------
auiya
Having left FAANG in 2012, what I discovered is you become so highly
specialized due to the way those orgs have to scale, that you are no longer
the "jack of all trades" type person small-to-medium sized orgs want to hire.
For instance, my background is large-scale threat hunting, blue team, red
team, penetration testing, APT attribution, and some tool development. I was
turned down in a recent interview because I didn't ALSO have reverse
engineering experience in addition. At FAANG, we had an entire shop dedicated
to just reverse engineering. I ended up joining another large company.

------
Abishek_Muthian
Sounds like missing Job Satisfaction? Research into job satisfaction says
those who perform 'Job Crafting'[1] at their jobs i.e. "the physical and
cognitive changes individuals make in the task or relational boundaries of
their work" tend to say that they are much more satisfied with their jobs.

May be jobs at FAANG have become strictly defined that job crafting is not
possible anymore?

> I can't connect my work to people I care about.

May be you can take a look at Social Good startups which tend to work closely
with the reasons you care about and contributing to society as part of the
work is generally associated with higher job satisfaction.

Or, you just look at the problems which need solving[2] and try to solve the
ones which resonate with you[3].

[1][http://justinmberg.com/wrzesniewski-lobuglio-
dutto.pdf](http://justinmberg.com/wrzesniewski-lobuglio-dutto.pdf)

[2][https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/](https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/)

[3][https://needgap.com](https://needgap.com) (disclaimer: I built it).

------
mark_l_watson
I planned on retiring in 1998 when my wife and I moved from San Diego to the
mountains of Central Arizona. I had some ‘getting bored’ issues and had some
concern that our savings wouldn’t last forty+ years so I started periodic
remote consulting gigs. In the last six years, I increased the amount of work
I did, going to Google in Mountain View, doing an on site gig in Singapore,
and lastly temporarily moving to Illinois to manage a deep learning team.

I had meant to start a small one person company when my wife and I returned
home to Sedona, but my heart is not in it. So, I have been retired for six
months and I am enjoying it immensely, no ‘getting bored.’

~~~
sah2ed
Oh, you are that Mark Watson that used to hang out on TSS [0] back in its hey
days?

0:
[https://www.theserverside.com/discussions/](https://www.theserverside.com/discussions/)

~~~
mark_l_watson
I think so. Back then I was the number 1 search hit for “java consultant” and
I posted a lot in shameless self promotion:-)

------
m0zg
Xoogler here. Of note is the fact that your FANG "level" means very little
outside of FANG, so if this is something you define yourself by, I'd think
twice before leaving.

If you've earned your stripes fair and square though, you'll be fine, although
you'll be making a lot less money (assuming you're at least the equivalent of
Google Staff SWE money wise; if you're 5 and below, there's a good chance
you'll be making _more_, not less).

Having been through an early stage startup wringer myself, I'd advise against
starting a company right out of the gate. If this is something that you want
to do eventually, go work at a startup for a couple of years - you don't have
to be a front-line grunt and you don't have to commit indeterminate amounts of
time to it. Get a position where you'll be exposed to what the execs do: head
or VP of something or other, and to the business side of things. Stuff that
_you_ will have to do if you start your own company.

It's a completely different existence, you might decide it's not for you, and
it's difficult to get out of it without destroying your reputation once you've
made promises to people and took VC money.

Plus also consider that your current FANG overlords might not necessarily want
you to come back.

Also protip: if there's a chance that you eventually might decide to re-join
the same FANG company, the best time to leave is right after a promo, or else
they'll try really hard to pigeonhole you into your old level, no matter how
ridiculous that is several years down the road.

~~~
scep12
L5 is 3-400k total comp. Expect to make more outside? Doubt it

~~~
m0zg
400k is an L5 who joined while the stock was still growing and got a few
refreshes. With stagnant stock $300K is about the upper bound. Base 180 or so,
stock another 120-130/yr, after you get a refresh or two. You can totally make
more than $300K on the outside after spending a few years at Google if you
have the right skill set.

------
cubicmeter
I was in your shoes working at a FANG after selling my first company and I
quit 2 years ago.

First of all I completely understand that your position bores you to tears.
Been there and I know how it feels, especially if you are the type of person
who could start a company.

Also, it is hard to connect with a company mission. All company missions boil
down to just serving users and making money.

I wanted to quit and start a company all the time.

The fact is though, startups are really really hard to pull off. I came to
realize this after building several, completed, shipped, but non-monetized
projects after quitting.

Especially if you are at a FANG, probably where you live is also not that
cheap. And given the loss of income, you will eventually come to a point of
struggle where you are both not making money and trying to bring up a really-
hard-to-bring-up startup project.

I'd say that is the surprise. Lifestyle-wise though, it has been awesome. E.g.
Your entire day is not programmed by somebody else and telling you what to do.
Be creative as you wish. Truly follow your dreams (the projects I built were
my dreams and glad I did them). Do a workout any time of the day when you feel
like to, these have been great, and my stress level has been lower.

You need to figure out how to make money though, and that's not easy if you
plan on doing a startup.

------
rdiddly
I believe you are mentioned in this excellent article I saw on HN just today:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21635896](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21635896)

If your compensation is ridiculous, and you've been at it 10 years, then
hopefully you've saved enough money that your every day of work is completely
voluntary. If not, you did it wrong. Live on way less than you make; save up
enough that the interest pays that amount; you could now retire, but instead
keep going to work, but just start saying what you really think.

~~~
bradlys
Their version of ridiculous might be another's "okay". I think most people
would consider $500k/yr to be ridiculous but it ain't enough to retire in the
bay - even if you saved all $2.8m you netted over 10 years. It's not enough -
you will pay off your mortgage and maybe afford the property tax for the rest
of your life but it won't pay for anything else...

~~~
henkslaaf
Or you move to a more reasonable place where that money sets you for a long
time.

~~~
bradlys
OP is likely completely invested in the region. It's easy to say "move
somewhere else" but I've done enough traveling and investigations in the rest
of the USA to know that moving somewhere else would mean a huge setback in
terms of career. (Which, go figure, many people here prioritize)

~~~
maehwasu
If you’re not able to think creatively enough to find a place in the US or the
world to live off a $1-2M starting point, then early retirement probably isn’t
for you.

Meant with no disrespect: some people are naturally better suited to be
employee types imo. Everyone fantasizes about life on their own, but most
aren’t willing to make the tradeoffs to do so.

Source: retired by 33, while making tradeoffs and living places that most of
my peers would find unacceptable. To each his own.

~~~
bradlys
I don't think the "think creatively enough" is the issue. It's more of a
lifestyle difference. Some people are happy with living off the $50k/yr they'd
get from a 4% slice of $2m for the rest of their life. Some aren't. I'm in the
"some aren't" group. The things I enjoy and the places I like being in require
a lot more money.

So - it's not just a matter of if early retirement is for someone but also if
they can enjoy the lifestyle they want with the savings they have. And, unless
I had like $10m+ saved - I doubt I could fully enjoy the life I'd like to
lead. And since I don't think $10m is just gonna land in my lap anytime soon -
I'll continue to work to get to the lifestyle I enjoy.

------
ronyfadel
I worked for Apple for 6 years on iOS/macOS.

Like any job, there was the good, the bad and the ugly.

It would surprise most people how small the iOS/macOS org is, and how big your
impact is. Your fresh code gets to run on hundreds of millions of devices, and
whatever you worked on is designed by a best-in-class design team and marketed
by a best-in-class marketing team.

Fresh out of school, I knew I wanted to join a startup/small company. The
hiring manager at the time told me that Apple operated like a startup so there
was nothing to worry about. In hindsight, joke's on me!

I didn't like was how compartmentalized the teams were: the engineers had
close to 0 contact with the design and marketing teams, and specs were ferried
over by upper management.

I also felt that I wasn't developing much as an engineer and as an individual,
which is why I quit. Management would be more than happy to keep you working
in your area of expertise without much incentive to let you develop other
skills.

The software org has recently made changes to make switching teams easier.
Previously, I could say that it was easier for an engineer to interview for
and get a job at Google than to change teams at Apple.

For me, changing teams 2 years in was a strategic mistake, and boy do they
make you pay for it.

------
mepiethree
I woke up at 5:15 this morning because I was so excited to go into work at my
startup. At Google, I wasn't excited a single day.

Think of something you care about, and do that. For me, that was renewable
energy. My friends who stayed probably make twice or three times as much as me
but who cares; they spend 3 hours a day on a bus and 8 hours at a desk they
hate. Most days, I spend less than 1 hour doing things that I don't want to
do.

~~~
nicooo
I would be curious to hear what your startup does exactly.

------
sixdimensional
All due respect to the scale that FANG/FAANG employees work at, but I can't
help feeling completely disconnected from this person's situation (being an
"exiting high-level former-FANG employee with ridiculous compensation"), and
like they come from a completely different walk of life/world.

I mean, I work in a global corporation with 6,000 employees, and yet I am not
experiencing a financial/social/career status that I think this person is.

And then, I realized that, minus the "FANG" part, I can't think of a single
person I know in tech that hasn't asked the same question about "burnout" at
some point in their career.

It's amazing what different scales we work on.. but yet the same common human
concern seems to be there. I don't really think it's specific to tech either,
but it seems such a common theme in tech.

I wonder if "burnout" has something to do with the fact that tech/digital work
involves so much repetitive mental labor (much like repetitive physical labor
also causes injury if not managed).

EDIT: Or maybe this person is simply questioning their mission in life and
finding that money and status isn't enough. If one persists in this condition
long enough, performing repetitive labor without inspiration, maybe that is
what causes the injury.

------
coopdis
I've been at similar sounding cross-roads a number of times in my career. For
me, the way that I've thought about this question changed a lot after 9/11\. I
lost a bunch of friends and colleagues. It was all of a sudden. Out of
nowhere. For me, and for them. Ever since, I try and live life as fully and
well as I can. Sometimes that has meant maximizing income. Other times it's
meant passion projects. I've been lucky in that I've been able to get great
high paying jobs when I've needed them. Try not to let fear get the better of
you and live your best at all times. If you are feeling like you are wasting
your time, then stop. Time truly is the most precious thing.

------
jamisteven
Most people with this complaint have never worked in finance or big banks.
Seriously, working in tech for a tech company is a techies dream, dont
squander it. It sounds to me like you are too dependent on your job for the
happiness in your life.

------
kccqzy
I've heard stories of people quitting Big Tech and going into early retirement
in their early 40s. It's totally feasible with the total compensation you've
been receiving and if you live below your means. It could be an extremely
liberating feeling not having to deal with any work at all. Now go travel
around the world or pick up new hobbies or do side gigs for fun.

------
klunger
I have never worked or applied for FANG. But, I have worked with several ex-
FANGers. So, my only advice is: Just don't be that person that wears your
Google (or whatever) jacket for the next 5 years. It sends strange signals to
your coworkers.

~~~
phendrenad2
How so?

------
meristem
Ex-FAANG here. Specifically about 'what the problem is'...Quite often people
work to support their lives--in the sense of food on the table/retirement and
in the sense of having space and money for intellectual or passion pursuits.
You seem to have the food-on-table thing figured out. Do you have an actual
fulfilling life outside work that helps create meaning to your work? This
meaning may even be "I love work", but feedback loops giving meaning to what
we do are key to feeling fulfilled.

What I can tell you is that people more successfully attempt to understand the
nature of their crisis _after_ they get out, because the daily grind occupies
most of their brain and life. If you can figure out _before_ leaving, however,
you can use a few months of work time to appropriately gear yourself to a new
endeavour. This may mean leaving your FAANG or changing jobs within it.

Other things to consider: shorter work week, sabbatical, work rotation, shoot
the sh*t with an EAP therapist if your FAANG offers HIPAA-compliant services
or your own outside person, make your side coding project a new company (your
FAANG may have policies about that though).

------
hintymad
A surprise can be that there are plenty of fulfilling and financially
rewarding jobs out there. See, it's not about FANG vs other companies. It's
about big Co. vs smaller ones. You'd be surprised to see how easy it is to get
challenging and meaning projects in a fast-growing small companies. You'd be
surprised to see that fewer people does not not mean more work, but less and
innovative work. You'd also be surprised to see that the financial reward can
be much higher.

Note I'm not saying big companies are bad. They are innovating. They can pay
you handsomely. They can be better managed. Most important of all, some people
are just really good at navigating company bureaucracy and moving things
forward -- they should stay at those companies. What I'm saying is that
smaller companies offer different dynamics without necessarily compromising
total package or meaning of your projects.

What? You're concerned that there are too few good smaller companies. Well,
let's just say the Bay Area disagrees, at least for the past 20 years.

------
eb0la
My case was not Big Tech, but Big Telco and the problem was a bit similar,
since doing anything involved a pay cut.

First, I took _a long_ time off to rethink my career. I was _really_ lucky to
have the time, money, and support from my wife to do that.

During my time off I discovered that beign in a "top" company for some time
was more a Handicap, than something valuable for the job market because my
rate was far off the market.

I rejoined the salaried employee club after two failed startup attempts.

I got the job because instead of sending a cv or contacting whoever, I started
sending a MVP to any potential employer.

I still do it now because I can discover beforehand if the job will motivate
me.

Suprises found:

\- Goverment status matters a lot. Lost one opportunity because the political
situation in my contry scared the investor.

\- I wanted to do both sales and technical stuff. It is _compicated_ because
you need both _deep_focus_ for some tasks and react quickly for others.
Balance is... interesting.

\- 2-3 months after I rejoined the salaried workforce, my wife told me It was
the first time she saw me happy to go to work.

------
Tangokat
I don't have experience working for FANG but here is what I think you should
do:

1) First appreciate that you are in a GREAT position, 99,999999999% of people
do not have your options.

2) Absolutely quit. Your life is short, making the most of it is not being
bored to tears.

3) Do not get a job immediately, you need to figure out what you want to do so
you don't get stuck in a boring position again. The way to do this in my
opinion is to get stimulus you would not normally get. Travel, try out
completely new technologies, learn a weird hobby, try going to a silent
retreat for a few days, climb a mountain etc.

It sounds like you still like to code so you need to figure out what motivates
you. Is it working for yourself? Do you just need a different work/life
balance? Do you need to try and help save the world?

4) Find something new to do, you won't be certain the new "job" is for you but
that's fine. Don't be afraid to try out new stuff, eventually you will find
something you enjoy.

------
kjgkjhfkjf
It's easy to get a job if you're ex-FANG, and often you can return to your
FANG job easily (e.g. without having to interview).

I suggest you do some interviews and see how you feel about the opportunities
that present themselves. Taking vacations to try doing your own thing is also
a good idea.

FWIW I wish I had left my FANG job long before I did.

------
paggle
One thing that you should be aware of is that the skills to be promoted to a
high level in a FAANG are not the same skills to succeed as an entrepreneur.
Sure you’re smart diligent and technically capable, but you should expect
results, on average, to look like professional football players trying
baseball.

------
fit2rule
Along similar lines, albeit with a more international slant - I worked in
California tech companies, and even was involved in building a few of the big
ones, for 20 years before leaving the US in 2001 and moving to Europe.

The scene is a lot different.

I've watched European tech startups come and go - not as high frequency as
those I observed in California, due to government subsidies/welfare being a
much more influential aspect in Europe than in America. American startups are
hungrier, and tend to fail faster - or indeed, succeed through hard work,
whereas there is a decadence to the European tech sector that is truly
difficult to avoid. European tech businesses prefer to have a safe and tidy
lifestyle - American tech companies don't put as much emphasis on it. This has
both good and bad repercussions on both sides.

I do miss the go-get'em/gung-ho nature of American tech businesses. You don't
get much gung-ho in Europe, or if you do its very unusual. Conservative
attitudes abound in the Euro tech scene; Americans still very much have a
degree of frontier spirit you won't find elsewhere. I think this is why most
big tech companies are American.

Anecdotally its my observation that Americans work much, much harder than
Europeans, and tolerance for ineffective activity is very definitely different
between the two spheres. American tech businesses will solve problems that
will make profit - European tech companies will work harder to avoid problems,
in order to save a bit more from the subsidies they apparently 'work to
deserve'.

Still, European tech companies don't seem to have the identity confidence that
Americans do. Americans are much, much better at creating a brand out of the
ether and then adding value to it, whereas this seems to be distasteful to the
Euro mindset.

I've had the opportunity to be involved in a few 'big' European startups, and
those who have been successful seem to model themselves after American
companies. Too often I've seen a European tech founder gain just enough
success to move their asses to California - this definitely is a thing.

The American tech market seems to be a lot more resilient to the
life/growth/death of smaller tech industries than in Europe, where things are
homogenised by regulation and bureaucracy. Its not that American doesn't have
bureaucratic impairment in the tech industry - just that Americans are far
more willing to route around it as a source of damage.

I miss the California 'cottage tech' industry, but on the other hand I much,
much prefer European hackerspaces.

------
ggm
(not an ex-FANG-er)

I've only dealt with medium-low level post FANG people, but none of them
expressed major downsides.

There is a certain "flatness" because being senior in a FANG is a unique
experience.

One basically went back to schoool: Audits university courses out of interest
only. Not a bad "gap year" approach to deciding what you really want to do.

Once maslow is out of the way, "have experiences" is good advice. It's not
impossible the voluntarist sector, more than start-up is where your energies
can be best applied: Start Ups are drowning in sources of competent FANG aware
advice. Charities, help, the NGO sector is not so aware and can use you.

Think about board positions on small local NGO entities.

Think about standing for office in your county.

Think about mentoring people outside your core area.

~~~
thomasjudge
Since the OP claims to feel cynical about the FAANG mission and the the work
is not connected to people that the OP cares about, if one is financially
secure enough to not have to worry as much about income or lifestyle, there
are plenty of opportunities and situations that could desperately use that
level of tech expertise (or even just another volunteer) but can't nearly
compete in terms of compensation. Anything at the state or local level in the
Health and Human services arena for example.

------
racketracer
I quit my job at a growing unicorn startup this month. It was my third tech
job in an IC role and after working for four years out of college I felt just
like you did. Completely bored going into work each day but making so much
money for my hourly work output it felt too trapped to quit.

But I did eventually because the decision to trade time for money felt worth
it. I felt that if you don't give yourself a break to try something besides
big tech work it's hard to do so again at a later point in your life with a
mortgage, kids, etc...

Now I'm surfing every morning, running a lifestyle business
([https://www.interviewquery.com](https://www.interviewquery.com)), and
hanging out with friends.

------
hos234
Work on your network.

If you aren't good at networking atleast put in work to know people who know
people.

The advantage big orgs provide is basically a network of specialists you can
count on to compensate for all your weaknesses and limitations.

If you have your own such network the transition isn't too bad.

------
greggman2
I am struggling with this as well. If you were there a decade I'm guessing you
are set for life financially? I know I would have been at a decade but left
after 5 years so I am not set for life which means I'm in this dilemma. go
back for the money (safe retirement) or do something more risky (dad took the
risk, failed, might be in the poor house except married a younger wife who has
good job). I'm 54 so not a lot of time to recover.

In any case I know other people who left. One told me he went stir crazy and
joined his friend's startup part time (because they can't afford him full
time) but he doesn't need the money, just doesn't want to feel taken advantage
of.

Another had enough that he mostly just enjoys is life with his wife. His kids
are adults and live around the world so he travels to see then. Him and his
wife attend investor meetups to invest in startups. He makes simple robots as
a hobby (and possibly a new company but so far just hobby). They also left the
USA, tried a year in Asia and so far 2 in Europe, a year in the first spot,
and starting a year in the second, no plans to move but of course they have
the means to switch.

I know for myself, looking back on my own happiness, I was happiest when
working with best friends on projects I liked. There are at least 2 companies
with close friends I could work with but their projects are not so clearly
projects I'm interested in and both would pay low compared to FAANG (guess is
1/5th to 1/6th) so it's not an easy decision. Also not clear if it would pay
out of they do well. I other words don't want to feel I'm selling them my life
for their success.

I was also happiest when I was part of the core team helping to make the
decisions of what ships, what the shape the product is. On at least one team I
was "just an engineer" and found it so frustrating to watch the leads go have
their meetings to decide everything and then just be told what the direction
was. Not sure how to fix that except to start my own thing which is easier
said than done.

Feels so stupid to be so worried about this spoiled engineer problem though.

~~~
Jach
How many FAANGs have you worked for? You could try a different one and see if
you can last 5 years there, thus making up the total 10 years needed to
accumulate what to an average salary is a career's worth of income.

Or even a second/third tier FAANG. BigCo, sure, maybe even not technically a
tech-company (I classify my own employer this way), but the base salaries are
still pretty nice even if you'll be demoralized at how much less you get in
annual RSUs compared to the first tier FAANGs.

I ask since I also ruminate on this question (a lot more commonly since my 5
year mark passed a few months ago) but I've also observed we get a lot of
incoming hires from places like Microsoft/Intel/even Apple. While I'm not sure
the frustrations at the other BigCos would be any more tolerable after a
prolonged period than my current BigCo, I do think they'd at least be
different, and eventually intolerable in different ways. That can be enough to
make it work out. For me, the stresses aren't so much the team or even the
project, but the higher level company policies/dysfunctions that can't be
solved by moving to a new team. (I think "not having any say in product
direction" is something that can be solved by moving teams -- or similarly
"tired of having to do the PM's job" for those who just want to code solutions
to given problems.)

Of course there are always the smaller companies available, and their base pay
isn't that much less than the FAANGs. Soon I'll get to welcome back a former
coworker who left our BigCo for the then not so big and just-recently-IPO'd
Tableau. There are many such pre-IPO or recently-IPO'd companies that are well
funded enough to offer comparable base salaries, with stock options that if
they pan out will tend to be a nice little boost on what you'd get just having
worked at a FAANG and receiving RSUs. (And if not, at least the base salary is
still quite a bit better than you'd get doing many other things instead.) I
know his mental sanity was a lot better for the move, it'll be interesting to
see how long it takes for him to leave again.

And of course there are various consulting routes. At my previous job we were
a 2 (and at times 4) person unfunded startup. To fill the coffers the founder
occasionally leveraged his consulting network he built prior to going full-
time startup and took on small projects that I'd also shift my focus to. The
change in work to deliver on those was fun, and if you do that all the time
instead you can make good money. I'm not that great at network building
though, but fortunately if you can't find your own clients to do a project for
(or a client who will have you work on a team of full timers for a fixed term)
there are plenty of intermediaries. One of my close coworkers in his early 40s
has had a good time alternating between long stints and doing contract work in
between. Unlike me though he doesn't want to reach a state of not working.
(Technically I see it as wanting "not having to work to live" rather than not
working ever again, but he doesn't want to stop working period, so "having to"
work isn't really a concern. My mom was like that and she was working until
she died, I didn't inherit that trait though.)

I think back to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7423626](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7423626)
a lot and consider "just suck it up" as a decent solution. Or take a year
break (easier for me, I'm only 29), then suck it up for another 5 somewhere
else in order to hit the threshold "effectively retired, barring a Great
Depression" investment number. Then I can do what I want, which could very
well be described as noodling, as opposed to something with a "mission" or
"meaning".

Like you I sometimes feel stupid for not just internalizing "work is work" and
carrying on. It's not such a terrible problem to face, wanting to get out of a
cushy-yet-soul-crushing gig with minimal hazards, yet here I am ruminating
about it.

------
guidoism
Begin by aggressively saving your ridiculous income. This sort of compensation
can work either as a trap (since few companies will match it) or a tool for
freedom. Start doing this now!

Everything else can be figured out once you can quit and not worry about
money.

------
bruntonjeeves
How much are you making? I know that's a taboo question but your account is
throwaway :-). I made $130k at a company called proofpoint with around 6-7
years experience as a software engineer and analyst, until I left tech.

~~~
Infinitesimus
In case OP doesn't give you exact numbers, you can probably make some guesses:
1\. ~10yrs in a couple of these companies means they're likely at E5/E6 (+1
level if Amazon) 2\. All those companies have had fantastic stock growth over
the past decade and they compensate heavily in stock 3\. Play around
[https://www.levels.fyi/](https://www.levels.fyi/) for those companies

So likely >500K W2 take home in recent years

------
madhadron
> I think the best description is that I am cynical of the "mission"

Of course. Why wouldn't you be? The mission of a for-profit enterprise is to
be able to continue being a for-profit enterprise tomorrow.

> How do I know what the source of the problem is?

If the work were something that someone would do for free, you probably
wouldn't be paid to do it, certainly not the amount you are being paid.
Wanting to believe in the mission is asking to be paid partially in a currency
other than money. With a FANG salary, that extra compensation is probably
going to be slight.

------
o-__-o
It’s probably been said already, but you lose the sway you had by saying you
command some high position at FAANG

FAANG: “oh you work at Apple? Please y’all I will listen to anything you say!”

Non-FAANG: “meh.”

------
vecplane
I'm curious, how ridiculous? I'm not at FANG but I've considered making the
jump.

But good luck to you. There are always game companies you can go work at for a
lot less!

~~~
pcbro141
Good FAANG compensation data here:
[https://www.levels.fyi/](https://www.levels.fyi/)

------
rubbingalcohol
What would you do with your career if you could do anything you wanted? It's
hard to give advice without a sense of what you'd rather be doing.

For whatever it's worth, I'm going through a similar dilemma. My compensation
is high, but I don't feel fulfilled by the work and there are other things I'd
rather do for less money. Unlike you I'm in a startup and leaving would really
mess things up for them, so I'm holding out.

~~~
tempsolution
You do realize that this feeling is not mutual? Companies don't give a shit
about their employees as long as it doesn't benefit them. They are not humans,
they are "things" made out of humans. And the trick is that they use social
structure to scam you into thinking that leaving the company makes things
worse for your other "human" team mates. So yes, right now they want to keep
you, but once you are not essential anymore, they will drop you like a hot
piece of iron. It's funny that somehow companies manage to instill some sort
of "compassion" in their employees and you seem to be an example that this
actually works sometimes.

~~~
emchamp
Perhaps quitting would tank the company performance and thus making their
(presumably private) stock options worth nothing?

Unless this is all cash for a privately held startup in which case, where do I
sign up?

------
imaffett
I was part of Intel's mass layoffs in 2016. I hated my job at the time, but
looking back now I wish I was back in the spot where my compensation was not
quite "ridiculous", but great.

I went to a startup after and it was terrible. Luckily I've transitioned to
the parent company, but it's still not as ideal.

Can you deal with it for a few more years? Surely you can get to a point where
you can retire early?

~~~
KKKKkkkk1
Can you add a bit more detail why you did not like the start up?

------
m23khan
the preacher in me is saying: you have no idea how good you have it - here I
am stuck with ‘high end’ market rate working in corporate IT making probably
1/3 or even less than high end FAANG salary with mortgage and kids. I have no
idea how the heck can you feel bored? Do you have lots of free time at work or
involved in repetitive task? if you are, FAANG companies offer avenues for
their engineers to contribute to tech projects meant for greater good of the
company or even to opensource projects.

Now, I got that out of way, to answer your question:

\- you won’t get FAANG level salary AND perks unless you are a Quant working
in wallstreet but then expectations are probably crazy high.

One thing that would be a shocker for you is how little influence IT
department as whole or Engineers have when it comes to projects to work on and
what tech choices to make. Often it is driven by your internal business
stakeholders (VPs, Board of Directors, Finance, etc.), and for startups, sure
there are unicorn startups out there but a vast majority tends to founded/run
by folks who have very little industry experience or a newer trend where a
startup (fintech/ai startup) is owned/backed by a forbes 100 corporate giant
that really dictates the scope and direction of your projects.

But here is the best thing: anytime there is a hot new IT trend (containers,
cloud, microservies, devops, Machine Learning, Agile, etc.) - in Corporate IT,
unless you are part of corporate giant that sees itself as a tech company, you
can bet on two things: innovators have a daunting task of convincing senior IT
folks and their business stakeholders that it is worthwhile taking a look at
something new and then, there is always that surprise element of: we will just
buy a vendor solution and you can just be a fancy application support person.

------
exikyut
Two questions: (1) what are you currently doing, and (2) what workplace
culture issues have you either observed or been impacted by?

Regarding (1), I've seen a lot of sentiment about certain types of work being
a literally bor-ing grind, but as someone who doesn't have much of a finger on
the pulse of industry, I have zero access to anecdata about _what_ it is that
makes it so boring. So, yeah. Open-ended question :)

All the recent media and controversy notwithstanding/aside, I get the idea
that culture generally plays a huge (if not the biggest?) part in the sense of
work feeling like an imposing burden instead of a sense of empowerment to the
individual and others around them (liberated customers, similarly-empowered
teammates, etc etc). I'm curious what the impact there is. (Open-ended
question here too.)

Trying to be very general to raise the chance it's possible to answer without
having to get really specific :)

Others here will provide far better (experience-backed) advice about what to
do next, I'd just make myself look silly if I tried to do that too.

Appreciate your time!

------
jwr
Start a solo-founder business and you will be in for a load of surprises. You
will discover a world where you are responsible for everything and there is no
one to blame. There will be no mission statements, no company values
declarations, no managers, and no fluff. Just you, your business and your
customers.

Mind you, this might be a shock and not necessarily something you are prepared
for.

------
ur-whale
Much depends on how much you saved from than ridiculous comp.

Do you have enough to retire and live out the rest of your days comfortable?

If so, then here's my advice : Do it. Today. Don't delay for a single second.

And go start working on that bucket list.

I did this 8 years ago. I have had exactly _zero_ regrets, spending my time
between my family and a very long list of side projects I never had the time
to before.

It's been an absolute blast, and as a fringe benefit, both my health and
psychological well-being have improved tremendously.

[edit]: one thing I forgot to mention: life is finite. That's a very obvious
thing to say, but for most people this is not a fact they've accepted at the
gut level. ONce you do, your perspective on life and work will change. Just
force yourself to do the actual Math: how many years do you objectively think
you have left to live? And out of those, how many will you still be physically
/ mentally able to do all the stuff you've always wanted to? How much money
will you need each of those remaining years?

------
simonebrunozzi
I left "big corporate" after 8 years (AWS, VMware) of which last 2 as
executive/VP, to join a young startup as CTO, and then founding my own company
as CEO. Both experiences have been extremely challenging and/or disappointing,
for multiple reasons.

The startup I joined as CTO was a total disaster, despite a big series A and
two seasoned serial entrepreneurs as founders, and it failed few months after
I left.

Running my own company (with two co-founders) was incredibly tough, and we had
to endure "crypto-winter" because what we were building was crypto-related
(but no-BS, trust me on this). Thankfully, a year after I stepped down, the
company seem to be on a promising track.

All in all, I "lost" millions of dollars in opportunity costs (VP total comp
in Bay area is easily between 400/500k and 1M per year gross, all included),
and having that extra money right now would have been useful for "peace of
mind". But at least I tried to do things that I thought were interesting.

My humble suggestion is: make sure that if you quit your personal wealth
situation is so good that if the new thing is not going to turn out great,
you're still going to be ok.

Also, try to analyze in depth what it is that you don't like about your
corporate job. In hindsight, I know that AWS or VMware were not the right type
of environment for me (not in general; just the specific teams I was part of)
going forward, but I would have probably thrived in a smaller company as CTO
or similar.

Right now I'm an operating partner at a VC firm, I really like it (I think the
specific VC firm I deal with is outstanding, compared to the average, in my
experience), and things seem to be going ok.

Hope this was helpful. Not easy to share personal stuff, especially when it's
about a tough period in life. (disclaimer: all is relative; first world
problems; etc).

~~~
scep12
VP total comp only 500k-1m? Seems very low

------
mrweasel
I haven't worked for any FANG or FANG sized company, the worst I had to deal
with was working a large European telco, so my experience may not be
particularly similar to yours.

You make it sound like it's either a FANG company or startups, but there are
tons of small companies that would love to have people like you. They don't
necessarily pay well, but you're going to be important. Most likely there
won't be much politics in the way of you doing actual work, and you have much
more influence on technology choices, processes and the company in general.

From my experience the most fun jobs are for established companies who are
relying on their employees to make a profit, rather than chasing VC funding.
The ideal staff size to me is around 20 - 50 people. The majority of the staff
shouldn't be doing IT related tasks.

~~~
C1sc0cat
I agree but dont let your self get conned into accepting markedly lower pay.

Also I suspect the politics might be worse in SME's than a start up or a Big
company.

Oh and big telco Is bigger than a FANG when I worked for BT we had more
developers in a single division that Google had employees in total

------
sdegutis
> I am cynical of the "mission", and I can't connect my work to people I care
> about. How do I know what the source of the problem is?

You just answered your own question. You see that the work you're doing isn't
really benefiting society in a way that's meaningful.

What you have is wonderful: you _care_ about people, and want to _improve_
people's lives, and not just superficially. Please don't ever lose that!

It sounds like you already have the money to just quit for a while. I suggest
"taking a sabbatical", in other words just quit and spend more time with the
people you care about, learn more deeply what are the source of their
problems, and figure out how you can help solve them. Then start working full
time at that.

And the solution usually isn't technology.

------
hyfgfh
Why you don't just retire or go in a sabbatical? Getting some distance will
make this easier.

------
Impossible
You can still be burnt out and engerized or interested by a side project.
Actually that might be even more of sign that you're burnt out. The burn out
seems like it isn't coding fatigue but a disconnect with your work and
customers/product.

------
Maro
I know a guy, he worked at MSFT, and we worked together at FB. Combined he had
10+ yrs of tenure and at one point he was L8 I believe. I assume he has $10m+
net worth. He "quit big tech" and now has a non-profit startup, with funding
from a philanthropic tech foundation. That seems like a good way forward, you
can continue working in technology and code, it's exciting bc it's a startup,
there's social good, but with the funding you can pay yourself a salary so
you're not burning your net worth (which is invested and cumulating
presumably), and since you're already rich you don't mind if it's non-profit.

------
alecco
Sounds like you believed in their "mission". All that is PR. Changing to a
startup will be to believe in someone else's "dream" who also will transform
into selling out or a power struggle. And that will burn you out even more.

I'd use some of that money to invest in yourself. Take as much vacation and
benefits as you can. Make the moves to achieve FIRE.

Pay someone to help you with your side projects or to teach you things, this
can be a good exit with open source turning into a startup (perhaps pay
someone to find your future clients before you take the jump). Be careful,
your FAANG sting probably twisted your view of the world. See Lean Startup.

------
karthie_a
Can understand what you mean in your post,started my career in a reputed
consulting firm.Could not stomach the environment left in 2 years ,started
freelancing made a name for myself after couple of years .Again due to
financial circumstances had to work for a FANG couldn't see change in work
environment other than some false promises from top and human resources.Trying
to go full time remote and freelance to give more time for family and self.
Academics is viable option unfortunately the current climate and economic
conditions do not permit the move.

------
theengway
You know, there are companies right nearby with mission that alone can keep
you inspired and motivated. Those companies have very challenging and
rewarding problems to solve.

(Shameless plug for Tesla software engineering!)

~~~
person_of_color
Do you do referrals?

~~~
theengway
Back end, data systems, esp. large scale. Shoot at theengway at gmail

------
BrandonWatson
I'm an ex pretty sr level exec at a few of those FAANG companies (we'll add an
M on there to make that true). I transitioned out in 2016 to redesign my path
and optimize for my quality of life. It's been the best decision I could have
possibly made, though I'm not sure I could have made it earlier since the
hindsight afforded by being in my 40s allowed for a far greater understanding
of what was important than if I had tried the same thing in my 30s. That's a
data set of 1.

I wrote about this transition (9 min read):
[https://medium.com/@brandonwatson/designing-the-life-you-
wan...](https://medium.com/@brandonwatson/designing-the-life-you-
want-64607869d10)

I ended up in a very unexpected work situation which I am finding is exposing
many interesting opportunities related to the potential for ex-FAANG folks
that they may never have considered. If we all agree that software is eating
the world, imagine what an unbelievably unfair advantage a FAANG-capable tech
leader (or product leader) could have working as a leader inside of
traditionally non-tech, smaller companies in industries not yet assaulted by
tech workers.

This is the entire premise of why I joined the private equity firm at which I
now work. To find people like me and get them plugged into our portfolio
companies as leaders and support the hell out of them as the control investor.
To innovate with our portfolio to give their employees unfair competitive
advantage in their industry.

Chasing unicorns is all fine and good. The growth equity companies we target
are already making money and we want them to grow faster. The risk of company
failure is much lower when you have profits, and the risk of dilution to the
employees goes way down when you aren't constant chasing funding. Many of the
companies that we would target for investment would have no idea how to
recruit an ex-FAANG, much less fully utilize them. That's my role across our
portfolio.

To any FAANG-capable mid and senior leaders who want to learn more, reach out
to me. I'm easy to find, eager to talk to you, and have a very heavy belief in
the notion that you can design the life you want while working on interesting
companies and still achieving the financial outcomes that are commensurate
with your potential in FAANG.

~~~
texasbigdata
Is this cheaper than paying a recruiter fee?

------
lacker
I worked about 9 years at Facebook and Google. It’s a little hard to answer
this because people do all sorts of things after leaving, and your future life
is defined far more by why you do, than it is defined by the job you left.

If you generally enjoy your job but just not the employer, go work for someone
else. There are plenty of non-FANG companies that will give you a similar pay
package.

If you don’t enjoy the job so much, you can certainly do something else, but
your future depends on what that something else is.

------
WrtCdEvrydy
It's less stressful.

I show up to work, try my best to work with my team and accomplish something.

You do have plenty of people who think they're the greatest thing since sliced
bread since they are going to go work for Google or Facebook but can't seem to
actually leave... which is weird because they're so damn good. Unfortunately,
they don't leave and are not so good and make your day hell and make you yearn
for the sweet release of going home and playing some Outer Worlds.

But yeah, less stressful.

------
wopwops
I left corporate IT for good back in 2005. Then left the U.S. Moved to a small
farm in the middle of nowhere. Never went back.

Regrets = 0. Well, there are no Mexican food restaurants here.

~~~
jakecopp
Do you still work remote/at all? Sounds like a pretty good life!

~~~
wopwops
It's a great life! I just wish I'd been in a position to do it earlier. (I'm
in my late 40s now.) I do a bit of IT, but nothing like before. Very basic. It
amounts to desktop support and basic networking. I do other stuff too. I sold
solar power systems for a while, for example. We have a solar power system and
a Tesla Powerwall 2. That has almost totally eliminated the electricity bill.
We produce a lot of our own food and we have no debt, so we don't need much
money to survive.

People I know who are still in California tell me I wouldn't believe how bad
things have gotten there. But the thing is, it was already "that" bad to me
back in the early 2000s. I feel very lucky to have gotten out of there.

------
mrbonner
I work for big FANG. Even though my salary is not at the ridiculous level I
feel it is more than enough to support my family and have a big chunk of
saving aside. In contrary to what I assume, I never feel bored at work. I
almost always find something more interesting to do. But maybe because I am
lucky to have the trust and support from upper management to let me loose and
find things to work on or improve.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
I mean, good for you. Same here. But how does this address the question? The
OP was not asking if everyone else working at big tech felt the same. Whether
you like your job is irrelevant to whether OP likes theirs.

------
wopila
Seems to me that you need some time, not to ask HN, but to ask yourself. Take
a break for a few weeks. Go to a silent meditation retreat? Wake up to the
fact that your financial compensation may be high, but that you're currently
feeling very poor because of the lack of authenticity in your life. Follow
that authenticity, no matter where it's calling you, and you'll be wealthy.

------
pluma
What you're experiencing indeed doesn't sound like burnout. It's plain old
alienation. Big corporations are the prime example for this, small startups
generally promise to alleviate this (though obviously this only holds true to
a degree unless you hold a significant share in the company).

See also:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation)

At least having worked in Big Tech you have likely built up enough resources
to be able to just do something else now, rather than being stuck in this
situation until you can retire (or become physically unable to continue
working).

------
john_moscow
Don't think of your FANG job as a way of doing productive work. Instead, treat
it as an opportunity to:

* Network with the smart people that the BigCo's HR has carefully vetted for you. Specifically, find the ones that share your interests and may want to found a startup together.

* Hone your presentation skills in numerous meetings.

* Make contacts to other companies and learn about some business models previously unknown to you.

* Put aside enough savings to not need a paycheck in the foreseeable future.

You need to be careful abiding the non-compete terms, but generally try to end
up with a very solid understanding of some business problem you would want to
solve with your startup, and a network of people with mutual trust that would
gladly join you on your new cause.

Also be careful to not burn the bridges with BigCo, since most startups fail,
bla bla, yada yada.

I would advise against joining a random startup as a rank-and-file employee.
You won't have the same level of trust with the founders, as you could have
with your ex-colleagues, and you will likely just spend working crazy hours
making someone else's dream come true, only to get screwed with equity
dilution once the startup hits the exit.

~~~
ma2rten
I don't know. I feel that most FAANG employees are too risk averse to start a
startup (which is why they work at a big company in the first place). YC
actually gave the advise to work at a startup to find cofounders.

------
plain4
I started working during the build up to the dot com boom at a small company.
It was exciting and I threw myself into the work. Unfortunately, the company
ended up going under and I scrambled to find the next gig. I kept chugging
along making decent money (for the time) but was extremely bored. It started
to feel like I was forced to sit in an office for 8 hours a day and do nothing
(of value). I felt part of the problem was that I had transitioned away from
coding to managing and missed the technical challenge of work.

I decided the best way to stop managing and go back to the hard technical
challenges was to do a PhD. I was fortunate enough to financially have the
option to quit working. I was 36 at the time.

Going back to do a PhD was great. I especially enjoyed the first 4 years where
I was learning a ton of new stuff, meeting new people and going to
conferences. I picked the subject, AI, based on what I had always been
interested in. It was great to work fulltime on a subject that I found very
interesting. It helped that I didn't care about the money or career prospects.
The last two years of the PhD were a bit more difficult and I felt pressure to
get the dissertation done, but it wasn't too bad.

After finishing I decided that the lifestyle required to pursue an academic
career wasn't for me and ended up moving to a city my wife and I enjoyed and
taking a job at a FAANG company. I've been there ever since making good money.
I've been able to stay engaged with difficult technical problems.
Unfortunately, although I find the problems technically interesting to solve,
they aren't really addressing issues that I feel passionate about.

Now I'm starting to reach the point of thinking about quitting again. I'm
currently more inclined to switch projects at the same company or retire
rather than go to a startup or another FAANG company. A large non software
focused company isn't that appealing because it seems like I would become part
of a cost center. Working for another FAANG company feels like a sideways move
and a startup seems like it would be a giant hit to the work life balance. I'm
mainly planning on saving enough to not _have_ to work.

I see a lot of colleagues who started working around the same time I did and
who ended up at a FAANG company and are now quitting to retire | startup |
passion job. I feel very fortunate to be working in a field that I enjoy, for
a company that pays me enough that I'll be able to retire relatively early.

------
emrehan
You might relate with the following article titled:

“Only Intrinsic Motivation Lasts Why I Quit a $500K Job at Amazon to Work for
Myself“

[https://danielvassallo.com/only-intrinsic-motivation-
lasts/](https://danielvassallo.com/only-intrinsic-motivation-lasts/)

~~~
foobiekr
I personally know several people who quit and left behind seven figure payouts
who did so because they were stressed out and hated the environment in which
they found themselves. Every single one of them has, at one time or another,
noted that this was a stupid mistake and they should have just ground through
to at least the next big vesting cliff. Without exception.

They're all doing OK now, and all of them had done OK before that, but I think
that for every person who claims no regrets, there's someone like the people I
know who did it for similar reasons but have decided that it was, all in all,
a dumb thing to do.

Maybe when this author is past the "Last week I left my cushy job at Amazon"
(first line of the essay) phase, he or she may also conclude this was silly.
People have a way of re-evaluating things.

------
op00to
Can you power through another year - just 12 more months - this time saving as
much as absolutely possible, so that you can better weather whatever comes
your way. Write the goal down - save $xxx or leave in 12 months. Track the
goal. See if you still want to leave once you hit the goal.

------
Diederich
I haven't read through most of the other comments, I'm getting my day started
at one of the FANG companies. (: But I do have a very brief suggestion.

Just for the hell of it, why not find some hungry 30-60 employee startup? I've
worked at two of those, and it's anything but boring.

------
handoff
What do you usually work on? Since you say you’re bored, can you ask to move
to another project?

------
sjg007
To me, there seems to be a misalignment between your job and your expectations
of a job. It sounds like there may be meaning of life questions or at least
hidden emotions in this as well so I would go to a therapist to help me figure
things out.

------
dfraser992
To answer the question you didn't want answered (as no one has mentioned this
yet):

Autonomy, mastery, and purpose are three psychological factors that impact the
'meaning' one can derive from work / a job. [1] is the first link I came
across when trying to remember the specifics. For me, the work I was doing at
the last two startups failed the 'purpose' part - I wised up and realized I
was wasting my life making already rich people even richer and/or dealing with
manipulative wannabe sociopaths (the downside of capitalism, right?) (it took
two lessons, I'm a slow learner). For me, "purpose" got toxic and I kept at
things far too long than I ought to have.

So I'd give a think about those three factors - whatever you do next should
take those into account (it sounds like purpose is most relevant for you right
now)

As for starting a company, make sure to do proper / thorough background checks
on whom you partner up with. I was 'the contractor' who decided to help out
the 'friend of a friend' and ... I'll spare the reader the usual sort of
story. I wish I'd learnt that lesson far sooner, but of course wasn't aware of
my blind spots. Starting a company is grueling - make sure to do the right
research (and sufficient amounts of it) before starting down a particular
path. Otherwise you may waste money and end up having to pay your contractor
late all the time... ha. And most are not as dumb as me and will quit.

[1] [https://blog.deliveringhappiness.com/the-motivation-
trifecta...](https://blog.deliveringhappiness.com/the-motivation-trifecta-
autonomy-mastery-and-purpose)

------
cryptozeus
Take a sabbatical and then meditate on this. If you are serious then you will
not go back or you will at least have seen the problem from distant. Its like
debugging a bug :)

Traveling solo during sabbatical would also help.

------
donkeyd
Maybe try consultancy at a large or medium firm? Gives you the opportunity to
work on different projects to find out what you want, while also paying
decently and giving you a stable basis.

------
whatitdobooboo
I'm not that experienced in SWE but I would assume this sort of move would be
worse for a while before it gets better. The "better" might be substantial
though

------
mynameishere
Just as general advice, try to count your blessings and quit complaining so
mcuh. If this is your attempt at humblebragging, then quit doing that as well.

------
badfrog
I left to work on tech at a trading firm. It pays more, and IMO the work is
more interesting and less stressful.

~~~
melshay
I've toyed with the idea of working in fintech, but none of the job
descriptions ever caught my idea. Can you describe your work and why you think
it's interesting?

------
efficax
If your comp is ridiculous, cut your expenses, and stick it out until you have
a nest egg. Then go off king.

------
tonyHwks
> I can't connect my work to people I care about

fyi that doesn't happen often anywhere else either

------
mikorym
What exactly is boring about it?

Not /s, I'm interested to know.

~~~
throwaway1m
Predictability of everything.

~~~
mikorym
Are you a <some definition of normal> developer?

Personally, I am much more interested in mathematics than necessarily coding
and a lot of my "this is super boring" rants are related to that. Automation
for me (in the job context), for instance, is not nearly as interesting as it
would be for someone else.

I am working on a large side project (in mathematical agriculture) that would
aim to correct this personal imbalance, but I also wouldn't be upset if that
failed and in 5 years from now I work for a big company, but with the ability
to use my mathematics skills.

Maybe I am too young? Having said that, my current job _is_ boring. I think
that the "my end goal is pointless" only becomes relevant after one ends the
"at least I am learning skills" phase.

------
person_of_color
1 million as an IC. I need to join FANG.

------
lcedp
Just curious, which level are you?

------
known
Instead of quitting FANG you can join a night college and acquire new
skills/challenges;

------
mainline
Just retire and make room for other people, the world doesn't need you.

------
sachuin23
I did it a little over two years ago. I had a pretty high paying job, low-
stress work and desire to make a difference. I definitely miss my fat paycheck
but love my freedom of experimentation, learning and doing what I believe in.
I learned a lot about building a company from the ground up, but most of the
miseries could have been avoided. I had to learn most of this the hard way,
which might have been easier when I was working in a big corporation. These
are my learnings and may not be right for everyone:

TL'DR: Product is more than just code. It's building something that people
love and would pay for. Learn marketing, sales, storytelling. Connect with
folks who are not like you.

1\. I should have built a network outside of my immediate circle. I am an
engineer and my entire work network was engineers.

2\. I should have identified some of the best folks in sales and marketing and
learned from them. It is easier to know who are the best folks in your company
and know them. It's easier when you are inside the company. They can also help
you identify/interview other sales/marketing folks in their network when you
need to hire them.

3\. I should have learned how software products are evaluated, sold and bought
in my company. Just a hint, the quality of the product has little to do with
whether it will sell.

4\. I should have learned the importance of UX design and why certain UX
design decisions were made. I should have spent more time talking to designers
and learn how to evaluate a good designer.

5\. I should have talked with engineers outside my organization. It helps to
broaden your horizons and understanding the challenges.

6\. I should have understood how business development works and learn how they
talk. Most of the sales decisions are made by folks who might not be using the
product you are selling.

7\. I should have identified who are the M&A folks in my company and
understood how the process works. These folks are well connected and usually
know others as well.

8\. I should have learned storytelling from some of the amazing PM's that I
worked with. Some of them were startup founders. I should have tried it
internally and improvised.

9\. I should have learned from their story, their mistakes and what they could
have done differently.

10\. I should have learned to talk less and listen more in discussions.

11\. I should have spent more time, validating ideas when I had all the time
and more money. Some of the groundwork can be done when you are already
working as long as you are not building a product that competes with your day
job.

12\. I should have spent more time reading/writing. You'll spend a lot of time
writing emails/ specs in addition to code.

13\. I should have taken YC summer school when I was working. I learned a lot
when I took it this year.

~~~
chubot
I think this is great advice (having worked in "big tech" for over a decade).

It reminds me of this old Spolsky article I read yesterday on "the development
abstraction layer". Replace Microsoft with FANG and I suspect it still largely
applies.

[https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/04/11/the-development-
ab...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/04/11/the-development-abstraction-
layer-2/)

 _Management’s primary responsibility to create the illusion that a software
company can be run by writing code, because that’s what programmers do. And
while it would be great to have programmers who are also great at sales,
graphic design, system administration, and cooking, it’s unrealistic. Like
teaching a pig to sing, it wastes your time and it annoys the pig._

 _Microsoft does such a good job at creating this abstraction that Microsoft
alumni have a notoriously hard time starting companies. They simply can’t
believe how much went on below decks and they have no idea how to reproduce
it._

Basically your work environment at big tech companies is shaped by their
network effects and the corresponding profits, which (almost) none of us had
any hand in creating. So yes being on the outside is very different.

Though, in retrospect I worked in Big Tech when I was young, and before it was
called "big tech" (e.g. before Joel even wrote that post). So just learning to
code at that level was a challenge, let alone do all the other stuff.

------
the_cat_kittles
i have nothing but contempt for the industry at large, even though there are
occasional companies that are not completely horseshit. its great to have the
inside experience so you can speak with authority about all the ways its
fucking garbage. most people here have their personalities too wrapped up in
it to realize. pretty pathetic overall, but everyone's motivations and
particular jobs differ, so i dont want to paint with too broad a brush. above
all, im truly grateful that i feel like ive made sense of the whole thing
sufficiently for my own peace of mind. its a huge part of where my politics
comes from. work is not that complicated if you dont stake your entire ego on
it, and recognize that money is not the be all and end all you think it is-
with that realization, you can work plenty of jobs and enjoy them for their
intrinsic value, while getting paid a nominal wage. pursuing money too
singlemindedly can easily wreck your life, as far as i can tell. tech
basically represents the pursuit of money- everyone here tries very hard to
focus on science and the tech part of tech, but its pretty obvious from what
gets upvoted that a primary focus is getting rich as quick as possible. i
truly despise this, but again, everyone's situation is different and for some
people its less egregious. at least finance bros admit what the game is. also
tech companies are largely built on lies- the products they produce are often
worthless, and ad sales, which prop up lots of other ones, are probably a
bubble. the ads and data are ultimately of limited value, and i dont think the
industry fully realizes it. i guess if i could summarize, i would say that you
shouldn't underestimate the negative effect of doing worthless work, no matter
how much you are getting paid. you cant connect with the people you work with
because none of you are there for the right reasons that foster connection,
most likely. and then every now and then, you find a tech company that does
something useful well, and so i guess its just very complicated.

~~~
C1sc0cat
Id suggest you chill out and get some therapy

------
datavirtue
I just spent five years in a mature startup where I could see a tangible
connection with the customers and my impact on thier lives (low fee fintech
for unbanked). It was laid back and family like enough to be fun but without
the drama of real family. Lots of good times.

Since that ended I landed in a very good job (huge Corp) with rediculous pay
but I can't see any connection to any real customer and our projects aren't
even mentioned in the business impact. I'm relied on to design and build tech
and teams but I am not fulfilled. Same as yourself I guess.

I miss being plugged into the business and seeing my impact on customers
lives. There is zero family like atmosphere, no joking around or healthy level
of hanging-out at all.

~~~
wpietri
Impact on customers is the thing I love as well. I just can't imagine doing a
job without it.

~~~
snypox
Same reason I left my previous company. Working on internal tooling for 2
years are not for me.

~~~
wpietri
Interesting! Could you say more about why? For me, internal tooling can be
really fun, in that my "customers" are people I get to see and talk to all the
time.

~~~
snypox
Sure! I've built a site that are used by internal sales people where they
record customer purchases. Around 10 people per day would use it. Found it
boring after a while. Luckily my ex-manager referred me to the company which
he joined, I'm happy now.

------
avocado4
Just quit Google this year after 5 years to start a startup. Never going back.
The network of people built over 5 years is incredibly useful.

------
Flockintosh
FAANG vs FANG. What does the extra "A" mean? I see people using both terms.

~~~
passivepinetree
The two As are usually for Apple and Amazon. I think the shorter version of
the acronym is just incorrect.

------
moron4hire
Yes, please stop selling out your neighbors' data for a few bags of silver.

------
blhack
Get into education. Fund education if you can. Fund
[http://thewalterhive.com](http://thewalterhive.com) if you can.

