[bzhang255]

I think it's shallow and not because it's short. To me, it just sounds very typical: "I joined Google back when it was fun. Now it's more bureaucratic and less fun. But I made a ton of money on the stock." I think there have been countless blog posts from Ex-Googlers like this. It's fairly shallow.

And it is worth noting that a lot of the bullet point lists do start with "I made a ton of money" in as many words, which is also just not very interesting to most folks, though it is certainly very relevant and important to the writer.

[lexlash]

The most interesting thing is the timeline at the end, which shows what they were successful at and promoted for (management-type roles) and what happened when they tried to transition from SRE management to SWE IC (they fell back into management).

I don't see that reflected in the rest of their postmortem learning - other than them being dissatisfied with doing what they were good at / promoted for - so that kind of helps me ignore the rest of the postmortem. :)

[tickerticker]

Level 1: a ton of money. Level 2: L1 + interesting work Level 3: L2 + intelligent co-workers Level 4: L3 + deep skills Level 5: L4 + mentor Level 6: L5 + awesome network Level 7: L6 + personal growth Level 8: L7 + meaningful contribution Level 9: L8 + work-life balance Level 10: L9 + recognized SME Timing and circumstances influence what you get....not always the same for equally talented ppl.

Making a "ton of money"....it matters because new people want to know what price is paid for exceptional comp.