[wpietri]

Is your theory here that money is the main motivator for job choices? Some people are surely like that, but for a lot of people, developers very much included, other things matter more.

I was just talking with a friend who recently left Google. He's now trying to figure out what to work on next and has spent the months since reading widely. As we were talking, he gestured at the wall of bookcases behind him and said, "I'm not really concerned with maximizing income. I can already buy all the books I can read."

And personally, I'm at a not-for-profit because I want impact. I could make a lot more money elsewhere, and I certainly have in the past. But when I look back on that stuff, a lot of it just looks like a waste of time to me. The financial traders I worked for took in money that would otherwise have been hoovered up by other traders. The excellent code base that never got any users because the business side was kinda fucked up. The enterprise system that limped along a while longer thanks to our stress and overtime. Life's too short.

And I really get hunterb123's perspective here. I'd rather be part of a small team getting shit done rather than a highly paid developer on a vast effort to shift some ad-revenue metric by 0.2% over the next quarter. Some people like that and it's fine. But in interviews I've asked enough former FAANG developers, "So why did you leave?" that I know it's not for me.