[aitrean]

Ugh. The mind of a narcissist on full display here.

Want to have a comfortable position with decent growth opportunities over time, and fair compensation? You must be some bottom-feeding moron who doesn't understand that [Unicorn Co]'s valuation just rose 4x YoY.

Think you can be happy at a company like Apple making six figures while unemployment is at record levels, and people are being bankrupted by hospital bills and shuttered businesses? clap emojis THINK ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL BRAND. This girl learned everything Apple had to teach her in 6 months. You can't possibly expect to just switch departments, or ask for more responsibilities to continue learning anything at a company like that!

It's incredible how insulated developers in the Bay Area can be. I would love to see how quickly all of this advice falls apart for an engineer in Portland, or Minneapolis, or just about any country besides the United States, where six-figure software jobs aren't so easy to come by.

[jason0597]

Pretty much this. The author really seems to live in a bubble. Additionally, if you're anything but a software developer, e.g. you're a process (chemical) engineer, this advice doesn't work in the slightest. New chemical companies don't open up in a bedroom every year, so you can't hop around that quickly. This applies to every engineering profession except for software development (/...engineering)

What about feelings of regret later down the line? I already regret not doing more in my life in my teenage years (I spent it all studying alone). I cannot imagine what feelings of regret I would have if I spent all of my 20s working non-stop.

[ryandrake]

I am pretty sure I am not going to be on my death bed, surrounded by loving family, yet thinking about that job working on the Uber-for-cats middleware stack that was technically challenging, so impactful and aligned so well with my future career goals.

[PascLeRasc]

I was reading the article going "Yeah! This is exactly what I need to hear!" until I got to the sentence "This is what we always say at UberEats" and had to close the tab.

[whack]

> Ugh. The mind of a narcissist on full display here.

Is this ad-hominem really necessary? The author didn't make character attacks on anyone, I don't see why you feel the need to do so.

> You must be some bottom-feeding moron who doesn't understand that [Unicorn Co]'s valuation just rose 4x YoY.

Contrast this to what the author actually said:

"Optimizing learning over money early in your career.

Since I left Apple, its stock has almost tripled while Uber's stock has been... I probably would be better off financially had I stayed. However, what I learned at Uber is way more valuable to me, given my career aspirations."

I'm genuinely surprised that the HN community thinks a toxic comment like this is upvote-worthy

[libraryatnight]

It's brash for sure, but if its garnering upvotes its likely because it struck enough of a cord to overcome HNs dislike for personal attacks. I think people are tired of blog posts telling them what to prioritize in life.

[aitrean]

> I'm genuinely surprised that the HN community thinks a toxic comment like this is upvote-worthy

Is this a̶d̶-̶h̶o̶m̶i̶n̶e̶m̶ [EDIT: attack] really necessary? I'm sharing a thought about the ridiculous nature of bay area hustle culture.

> Contrast this to what the author actually said: "Optimizing learning over money early in your career.

Contrast that to what she goes on to say in the article itself. She laments on how she missed out on Uber stock rising by not ditching Apple sooner. She then pulls a figure out of thin-air about how much net worth you're going to lose by "wasting" your career on any given year by not following her arbitrary framework for self-worth.

"Optimizing learning over money early in your career" would bear far more weight if she actually used an example like going into academia, or joining a tiny startup with low pay. Going from one 150k+ position to another 150k+ position with (gasp) lower performing stocks (!!) is hardly a sacrifice. Moreover, she speaks as if she already knew Uber stock was going to go down when she joined. Uber happened to tank Apple happened to rise. But she acts like she factored that into her decision before she left Apple.

I'm genuinely surprised some people still can't recognize how absolutely out-of-touch it sounds to lament over a "wasted" year of career at Apple, while most of the world is just trying to get by. Likewise, claiming you stopped finding opportunities to learn anything at Apple after only 6 months sounds like self-inflating bullshit.

So, I hope I have eased your surprise. It's toxic to tell people that they're wasting their career by valuing stability and work-life balance over weird learning frameworks, and net-worth. It's not toxic to call out such privileged fools for doing so.

[rsanek]

> Is this ad-hominem really necessary?

"toxic comment" is not an ad-hominem. The opinion of toxicity is scoped explicitly to the position ("comment"), not the person.

In contrast, your original post's usage of "the mind of a narcissist" is directed at the individual (and their mind), not just their opinion.

[aitrean]

This is true. I did write that hastily, and therefore mis-used ad-hominem.

[ghaff]

It's certainly a different mindset. I don't really do software development any longer. But if I were at Apple, barring a bad situation that I was unable to resolve for some reason--which I've been in before and have been able to switch managers--I'd think very long and hard before switching companies, perhaps especially to Uber.

Maybe if you really want to do a startup? Perhaps one could learn a bit more at Apple first. And to the point later in the post about the loss of net worth. I'm pretty sure sticking around Apple for a bit as a young person is not going to cripple your chances of retirement.