Ask HN: Career in flames?

[sillysaurus2]

Originally https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6789214, but it was autokilled. I don't know the author, but they obviously wish to remain anonymous, so I'll repost it on their behalf:

Hi HN: I've been working for 3-4 years in technology in SF and the valley. I feel lucky to have had a decent trajectory; worked at a famous tech company for about a year, then took a couple higher cash offers to work at post A round startups. I'm actually 2/2 for getting asked to leave these startup companies <1 year after joining, generally for questioning business plans too strongly and code-cowboying projects through on my own if they don't get approved. I actually lost my latest job sort of recently. I'm 26. I know I can still get another job as an engineer without too much pain. But I feel like even if I put 5 more years into my career, the jobs would still top out at $150k or a bit more-if-you're-lucky sort of pay.

I already want a family pretty badly but can't imagine the pressure of that in this city. I tell myself that it'll just be a few more years before I can score a little nest egg and move somewhere less crazy, but just on math it's 5 years, at least, and that's if I get really lucky, clean up my act and start really playing B-league office politics.

I guess I'm just looking for career advice. I have to take a job to stay afloat, and I'll probably stay in the city. I'll probably make $130k for two or three years, save $2-3k a month and then I guess try to start a company when I'm 29, barring injury or etc. I'm a smart guy, can code and sell anything, am pretty creative, driven as all hell but I know I'm rolling the dice. I'll probably only have $70k runway (if I'm very frugal compared to the average 25 year software engineer) in the bank given the realities of living in SF. I just sort of feel a little lost, and like my dreams are slipping away. Does my plan at least jibe with yours?

[kennethtilton]

Reading between the lines, you should be quite nervous about ending up living in a van down by the river (thank you, Chris Farley, rip) and you should forget completely about taking on the financial responsibility of starting a family.

Your plans B and C require surviving at a job for 2-3 and 5 years, but you wisely (good!) placed "clean up my act" in the conditional position of an IF form. Your sneering characterization of teamwork as "B-league office politics" means we are now in the ELSE branch in which you get terminated for cause two more times in the next six months and cannot defend your resume. You are an untouchable.

Tilton's Law: solve the right problem. Your problem is not finding a way to escape a geographical location, your problem is not being able to work with others. You will have that anywhere.

I recommend yoga, Buddhism, qi gong, meditation -- something, anything that will give you a little perspective, calm down your inner Young Turk, let you see yourself as others see you, and grow up.

hth.

[l0gicpath]

Sorry about your unfortunate situation. Hope things turn out well for you.

Strongly questioning business strategies of your employer is usually a red flag for most employers. Cowboying projects despite disapproval of your proposed strategy pivot or direction is a deal breaker for a lot. Specially if it's a consistent behaviour.

IMO, references are one of the most important aspects of your career. From the looks of it, it appears if your future employer does a thorough reference check, they'll likely get skeptical about hiring you.

Being a team player is not playing B-league office politics. Most of us at some point of our careers, didn't agree with our employer's business strategies and anyone who loved their work would have very likely voiced that loudly at some point. Depending on the work environment's culture, sometimes their voices would be heard and other times they'd be shun.

To each their place in the organization hierarchy and you should be humble enough to respect that. If you are not comfortable with the company's direction, or business practices then you could always look for another job.

So I don't know about the economy state there, whether jobs are plentiful or scarce, in Egypt our job market is dry. So if it's hard to get a decent job in SF, I suggest that you suck up whatever problems you have at your future job as long it serves your needs of putting food on the table and saving up for some future endeavour.

With regards to starting a company at 29 or later, I don't see a reason to worry about that. Majority of us truly reach our prime success at around mid 30s, disregard the young and fortunate you keep hearing about everywhere in the valley.

But if starting your own business is your passion and the eventual route you want to take, then maybe you should give it a try now.

TL;DR.

- Voice your opinion, be respectful, remember your place (that's one of the cons to working for someone) and don't be a fork in someone's back

- It's not too late to build a startup at 29

- You got pretty much nothing to lose now, so why don't you try building a startup now.

Edit: Fixed formatting

[samdz]

IMO, "strongly questioning" the business strategies and code-cowboying - means that you as an employee are not aligned to the company's goals. As a startup, they don't have the luxury to allow such people even if you are a smart, efficient developer. You also wasted a lot of their time. And from an entrepreneurial perspective, they do not want people who don't agree with their vision (if you challenged that).

I was a core team member and the best in a big-corporate when they decided to start off a new product. I too "strongly" questioned their plans - and had also backed that up with presentations, projections (and better EXCEL skills). They did not have a answers to my questions and said "Trust us, it will work". Slowly I got sidelined and one day "declared" as a pessimist in the project and that it was good to have my inputs. "Wow". It was just a nice way of saying STFU. 4 years later - my projections proved to be right, and the product is in a worse state than I had expected. But they still pump in money and sales is slowing moving it towards breakeven.

$70K and at 25 with no family, you have a decent runway - but not the most comfortable. If you try to be a minimalist and use it wisely (which is hard at 25), this will work out to be enough to startup.

However, before you do your startup - you need to mature a bit more about life and people in general. Life doesn't end at 29-30. $150k p.a. is not bad. Its okay to be ambitious, but learn to be grateful and respect yourself for what you have achieved. Those qualities will be required in a long journey of entrepreneurship. And you also have couple of years to allow yourself to fail, learn from it and start again.

[joeldidit]

I agree that you need to be aligned with the companies vision, but I think conforming as others have mentioned would kill the very fire that would make you a great entrepreneur. You should come up with ideas and start testing them on the side ASAP. If you find a winner, then start working on it. When it takes off quit. If you have to work solo and find an idea that allows you to do that, then fine. You can't wait for an exit from a startup, and that seems to be one of the things you are doing that's unwise.

"Code-cowboying" is just fine if you do it on your own time. If you were doing it on your own time and they had a problem with it, then they clearly have a problem. Otherwise, it's not as clear. Politics are a real part of life, and that's why many people flock to startups (in addition to hoping for a payday) and to doing their own thing. If they aren't actively doing it, then they are dreaming of it. While I don't side with those that say that you should become political, I think it's worthing knowing how to do so just to buffer yourself against those situations where you must.

The responses to this question were strange. Everything about them is promoting conformity to the very thing that puts out the fire in most young engineers in favor of conformity to "The man." I can't agree with that. There has to be another way.

[a3n]

You want to work on a team to get money, but you don't want to work as a team.

Learn to STFU and support the team. Make it your overall goal to make the team and other team members look good by virtue of your work. Your work has to be in direct support of the team's goals and vision, not your own.

Or go somewhere else and work on your own.

[fab13n]

TL;DR: you where hired as part of a team, acted individualistically, and got fired for it.

Two possible ways to fix that:

* stop selling yourself as a team member when applying to salaried jobs, become your own boss;

* do the job you applied to: be a team player, give your advice, then accept when it's not followed.