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humansareok1 | 1 year ago
Say what you want about the morality of working for them, but almost no one is working 70 hours there and the true .1% engineers are making multiple $M per year so the tradeoff may be worth it.
>3. Work in a niche industry or a consulting firm doing interesting and important work, but always for one client at a time, having an extremely limited impact (and limited pay to match)
If you are just selling your labor as a butt in a seat then yes this is true. I know solo tech consultants making 200k/mo because they moved up in the meta chain and sell strategy to CTOs.
>4. Start my own business and work 90 hour weeks spending 95% of my time on organizational business things that I'm bad at, leaving virtually no hours for the thing I'm a phenomenal super-expert at.
This is just fantasy.
>'ve chosen #3, but I'm honestly sick of just continuing to just get better and better at software engineering and having it mean absolutely fuck-all. What's the point? Why would you ever bother becoming an expert?
I think you have a warped view of reality and frankly of the value of expertise. There are world class engineers all over the place making 7 figures a year very easily. They aren't working 80 hours a week, they aren't working for soul sucking corps on boring problems, etc. I suspect you also aren't accurately measuring your own skill relative to these people. At the minimum they aren't as cynical and defeatist as you and know how to market their abilities.
feoren|1 year ago
> This is just fantasy.
Are you saying starting your own business is an unrealistic fantasy? (On HN?) Or which part of it is fantasy? If starting a company is fantasy, it strengthens my point.
> here are world class engineers all over the place making 7 figures a year very easily. They aren't working 80 hours a week, they aren't working for soul sucking corps on boring problems, etc.
They're not "all over the place", they're in Silicon Valley. No software engineers outside of the valley make 7 figures as an employee. Maybe in New York at the Staff level. Maybe.
And if they're not working for soul sucking corps on boring problems, what are they doing? Where are the fruits of their labor? Because the majority of the software coming out of these companies gets used by approximately nobody and then thrown away, and the majority of the rest is user-hostile trash.
> I suspect you also aren't accurately measuring your own skill relative to these people.
"You're not accomplishing things because you're bad" -- maybe. That'd certainly be an easy resolution to this paradox. As an internet stranger you have no reason to believe that I'm as good as I say. But you should realize that this is completely circular logic: you're assuming that everyone who is poor is dumb and everyone who has not found fulfillment in life is bad; everyone who is successful is skilled. That doesn't match reality. Like, at all.
humansareok1|1 year ago
You have a fantastical view of what starting and running business entails
>And if they're not working for soul sucking corps on boring problems, what are they doing? Where are the fruits of their labor? Because the majority of the software coming out of these companies gets used by approximately nobody and then thrown away, and the majority of the rest is user-hostile trash.
You have some deep hatred for modern society or something. Maybe you should write a manifesto in your cabin in the woods.
>But you should realize that this is completely circular logic: you're assuming that everyone who is poor is dumb and everyone who has not found fulfillment in life is bad; everyone who is successful is skilled. That doesn't match reality. Like, at all.
In the specific domain of Software Engineering there is a clear path to success, talent is recognized and is almost always very well compensated. If you are a 'poor' software engineer I suspect it's not because the world just failed to recognize your genius. Sorry.
>As an internet stranger you have no reason to believe that I'm as good as I say.
Are you Grandmaster or above on Codeforces? Do you have IOI/IOM Medals? Did you win an ICPC Medal? Did you rank on the Putnam? Have you gotten job offers at Jane Street/HRT/Citadel/ETC? Are you Staff level or above at a FAANG? If you haven't done at least one of those how can you seriously think you are world class? There are lots of cracked people who have done Multiple! Are there people who have done none but are also world class? Yes! But they probably aren't crying about the shitty problems they work on or how poor and unsuccessful they are!