For everyone who doesn’t know, you’re getting shafted at that medium size startup/company. Most of these FAANG engineers are not geniuses, they just studied for the interviews
No comment on the "shafted" aspect, but the "not geniuses" thing is exactly correct, and I wish I had realized it sooner.
I didn't apply for google when I left college because I didn't feel like I would "meet the bar". ~4 years later, feeling like I was a much stronger candidate, I interviewed, hoping to barely scrape by and be the dumbest guy in the room to keep leveling up.
I was dumbstruck by just how totally normal everyone was. Everyone I met at google struck me as being in the 50-75th percentile of my peers in startup land. They're not some high-powered cohort of elite intellectual supermutants. They're regular people. I was ready at graduation, and sold myself short for no good reason.
Now that I work at a BigCo, I feel even more strongly that the bar is, if anything, on the low side, simply because an org that big needs a constant influx of warm bodies. We hire more people in a month than some of my past employers would hire in the lifetime of the company. It's flat out impossible to staff 5,000 people while demanding that they all be in the top 10%.
There are weird and arguably arbitrary hoops to jump through, but you can do it. Interview prep was radically simpler than EG buying a house (in terms of prep, context gathering, etc.)
I know. I get paid lower than an entry level engineer while managing, developing and maintaining the entire web presence for our company - public site, e-commerce store, etc.
I get paid 1/50th of what the company made in e-commerce sales (similar amounts through other channels).
I can’t quit and prepare for a job interview as I need to maintain visa status. And my workload averages ~60h/week.
The visa situation is just terrible, I knew so many smart coworkers who were afraid to move because of H1B uncertainties. Ultimately this hurts everyone in the industry because labor markets require a liquidity to function properly.
What uncertainties exactly? Just interview normally and if you get an offer then you can accept the offer and they will start the H1B process. You will get the H1B approval in about three weeks. Then you can put your two weeks notice. Overall it will take around 5 weeks from your offer date to your joining date which is pretty reasonable. If there is a delay in the H1B or it does not get approved, then you can continue to work at your old place. Pretty much everybody on H1B these days is following this process.
I'm curious: you've chosen to tie this pretty closely to your real world identity. Aren't you concerned at all that a company that you're beholden to and is willing to underpay you will just let you go if they find this?
It sounds like (guessing based on phrasing) ameen is the only, or only senior, technical staff member? Why would they let them go? If I were a cartoon-villain, mustache-twirling higher-up for said company, what this post tells me is that the situation is currently working, that my employee knows the score, and they don't seem liable to do anything about it except complain on the internet. In a really evil way, wouldn't it be reassuring to them?
I should be clear, I sympathize with the situation and hope that ameen's employer is not cartoonishly evil, and instead would maybe even realize they have improvements to make. But just thinking about possible outcomes of someone venting on the internet, firing doesn't seem like one that makes any sense.
If they are such a central team member to an ecommerce operation, likely the company feels equally stuck with them (e.g. how many sales would be lost if the site went down while looking for a replacement, and would the company even survive that?).
Totally, nail on the head. And folks from my company don’t really frequent HN (although I wish I worked for such a company).
I’ve learned a great deal about how not to run a business, treating employees right, delegating tasks/responsibilities, designing for automation, etc. I do hope when I get my green card to start my own startup (lifelong goal of mine) and try to set an example of everything I see wrong with our industry.
You're definitely getting shafted if you're working for a privately held start-up and they don't give you a 10 year exercise window. Many start-ups pay "median" salary or below, which make their numbers look bad versus levels.fyi. But in many cases if a start-up has an exit, then early employees will easily eclipse what they'd earn at FAANG. (Later employees, maybe not ..).
If I have learned one thing is that's much better to get paid very well for 20 years at a big tech company than it is to be paid median at some smaller outfit hoping to hit the jackpot.
Because even when the start-up has a successful exit, and even if you were an early employee, you'll still have a very small chance of out-earning your buddy who joined big tech.
This has been especially true in the past 10 years: look at the stock prices of Google, Facebook, Apple, etc. They've all gone up significantly, making those yearly RSU additions even more valuable. In a rising market, a 4 year vesting schedule works to the advantage of its owner.
Actually it’s rare for the options to be worth more than FAANG options. Only the earliest stage employees do well, and adjusted for the risk they take, it’s a really bad deal
Worst thing is when one of these average fuckers from FAANG decides they want a change and is now your director of engineering at $medium_startup despite knowing fuck all.
