granshaw

In all cases, you'll want to keep it to yourself, is my advice :)

Yes my point was more "this policy is nothing special or more lenient than the usual"

I didn’t read it as “significantly” affect work performance at all, it seemed more like it anything that DOES affect work performance is a problem

EDIT: Also it seems like they don’t like you doing things similar to what they paid you to do, even if it’s not in competition at all… so sounds like after hours coding consulting even in a complete different industry would be frowned upon even if it didn’t affect your performance

So all in all, still pretty strict

Even in the US you can quickly get to sw eng level after a few years in the trades, which are booming right now

And bonus, it’s a direct step from there to starting your own business in that trade then making way more

Of course you could start a software agency too but the competition is way more cutthroat

Thanks for sharing. What are you doing for income now? Are you retired?

This is what I hate about this industry at this point in my life. Just this morning I was fantasizing about being a dentist instead and just be able to work for as long as I like, not worry about ageism, and otherwise live my life, without needing to constantly “keep up”

Glad for you that you found this clarity

Learn to live on a ~50-75% of your salary is what I’ve been telling people. The good times for American engineers are gone

Why would you care what happens after you pass?

Bingo, exactly per my thoughts here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38986460

Do you worry that you won’t be able to keep up with the industry and get obsoleted and forced out of work or a certain comp level before you want?

Are you in a high cost of living situation that’s hard to get out of? Do you have kids?

If NOT, I would start by thinking if there’s ways you could drastically cut down your cost off living, like moving somewhere cheaper or even looking at Southeast Asia etc if that’s your jam

That would give you more options on the financial side of things in case you wanted to start over or have a go at something with a long ramp up time

One question I’ve set out to answer is: what would I do if I were fired tomorrow?

Understood that not everyone is in the position to switch to lower paying careers, start over, etc - but if you have some leash, what WOULD you do if you were fired tomorrow?

(And I don’t mean short term like take a vacation then find another tech job - mean longer term like what kind of job will you be looking for next, or business to start, etc)

Curious to hear your thoughts and anyone else who cares to share

Still young without dependents? Great.

Have a family and esp these employees in high CoL cities? Very tough.

Speaking from experience. Been there done that.

"We'll have all this new innovation via new startups now!" is such a feel good sentiment to layoffs but in reality is nowhere close to a solution for the affected employees

Cause they pay 2-3x as much, that’s why.

Unless you’re truly special, The days of multi hundred thousand total comp packages are over - you’d better learn to live as though you’re on a ~175k salary, and if that’s too low, start taking steps on cutting NOW

See also the other hiring post on todays HN front page that’s a Bay Area startup but only hiring for South America for engineering

Absolutely. Total comp, not to mention hiring in general at publicly traded tech firms has dropped significantly since the “software recession” and mass layoffs.

The current good times for employees are mainly in the economy outside of tech

It seemed free roaming was still widely accepted in the 90s though? What changed since the 2000s?

Bingo, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38937293

What makes it hard is the stigmatization of letting children roam free unsupervised, and the isolating nature of suburbs coupled with both parents being working parents.

Kids can’t go anywhere and are stuck at home. None of their friends are within walking distance. What do you expect them to do?

This mode of thinking is very prevalent on the left but it’s actually the opposite on the right, which is instead anti government. So it really isn’t a universal shift.

All this talk about “community” - what “community”? It simply doesn’t exist anymore even if you wanted it - short of arranging to stay near your extended family and in laws, what else is there in the modern western world?

Churches, I guess is the only other true community left…

From reading your first paragraph I thought you were heading to an opposite conclusion, but yes, completely agree that we should make it easier to go public

I know there’s equityzen and probably other marketplaces, but I think the main issue is most even late stage startups ban secondary trading

This knowledge might be outdated, I quit that game and opted to join public companies since a couple years ago.

Yes it’s an upfront risk that employees take when joining but man does it not also feel incredibly one sided and smelly, esp the later stage the startup gets

Separate of what did or didn’t happen here, I hope more companies crack the secondary market puzzle. The current environment really sucks for startup employee liquidity and might be going on for a lot longer.

It’s a fundamental trait of the publicly traded company system - the incentives are all aligned towards share price which incentivizes short termism

The alternatives are to stay private, or have a strong leader figure who cares about the long term and has retained strong voting rights ala Zuck

Maybe, but the salary part is true if you’re a new hire

In the ZIRP era esp going into 2021 this could be taken seriously, but those days are long gone

Average tech salaries have DROPPED to 2020 or before levels based on what I’ve seen lately

Yeah she much prefers cocomelon!

Just look for “good WLB” in the Glassdoor/blind reviews, AND that the company is healthy (doesn’t need to be a rocket ship) business wise