[wikibob]

How did that decision impact you financially?

Were you able to get something in a similar range as what levels.fyi lists for an Amazon Principle Engineer ($640,000 [0])?

Or did you become financially independent from the Amazon comp which allowed you to not care about the new lower salary?

[0] https://www.levels.fyi/company/Amazon/salaries/Software-Engi...

[spenczar5]

I saved most of what I made from the Amazon comp, and now have more than enough to feel comfortable.

Now, I get $110,000 per year. That's plenty. I have a family, but my wife works too in tech and has a good income.

The marginal value of the extra income from working in big tech just wasn't worth it for me.

[wikibob]

Thanks for the reply!

If you had it to do over again, would you chose to go into the area that you’re especially interested in and sacrifice ever getting the high FAANG comp?

Or do you feel that having that savings invested has given you the long term security to feel comfortable, but perhaps if you’d made ~80% less over your career you’d be less satisfied?

[spenczar5]

That’s something I think about often. Sometimes I do wish I had plunged towards passions, but I know a lot of people who burned out by doing that.

I think my path was probably a good one; it really is very psychologically nice to not worry at all about money and be able to advance my career in any direction I want now without feeling like I am being selfish, or neglecting my responsibilities as a father, or whatever.

I also certainly learned a lot at Amazon (although the thing I learned most was “how to be effective inside Amazon,” which isn’t a particularly great skill in the long run!). So it was not so bad.

[Raptor22]

> I also certainly learned a lot at Amazon (although the thing I learned most was “how to be effective inside Amazon,” which isn’t a particularly great skill in the long run!).

Can you speak more to this? Why is being effective inside Amazon different from being effective at any other large organization?

[spenczar5]

Oh, there's plenty of overlap between those, and I'm sure lots is applicable to other large organizations.

But I also learned things like:

- How do I most effectively advocate for headcount within Amazon's yearly budget process?

- Who is the right person to go to in AWS Networking when we think we have a possible performance problem in the network stack?

- What is AWS AppSec really looking for when a design is going through a security review? (and what are they not looking for)

These have a little applicability, but mostly they're the inside knowledge that just comes from time and experience inside the organization. You learn the shibboleths that open doors or get people to listen to you on the first try. Sorta useful, but mostly not very interesting to me personally.