[vanusa]

More like you gradually come to a realization that your time in this world is extremely, extremely precious.

And that you just don't particularly see a need to cater to other people's made up (and sometimes downright farcical) rituals to such an excessive degree.

No matter how much money they may dangle in front of you.

[Hermitian909]

> More like you gradually come to a realization that your time in this world is extremely, extremely precious.

> And that you just don't particularly see a need to cater to other people's made up (and sometimes downright farcical) rituals to such an excessive degree.

> No matter how much money they may dangle in front of you.

I confess to not understanding this take, money can purchase back a substantial portion of time. Working at big tech can fairly easily reduce your working life to 10 years if you spend conservatively. Outside of big tech the norm seems to be more towards 20-30.

The cost of those decades of saved time? About 100ish hours of prep for your first interview, 40-50 from there on (based on personal experience, conversations with my colleagues, and a friend who runs a FAANG interview class). Assuming 3 job hops in your 10 year working life, that's 200ish hours to save 20 years. Is there a reason you don't think that's worth it?

[vanusa]

I'd say it's a combination of factors, based on:

(1) Most chiefly, the egregiously unethical behavior of nearly all of the "big" players (the rest being merely moderately unethical)

(2) Reports from close friends of the day-to-day grind at these places (literally none have anything more than superficially positive to say about it; some have suffered significant health problems, include one full-scale nervous breakdown)

(3) And the intellectual dishonesty implicit in the LC process also, but only as icing on the cake, as it were.

And independent of all that - it is by no means a binary (either you work or for big tech, or you grind along at for an extra decade or two at middle range). There are high-paying opportunities out there, if that's what you're out for -- they just aren't as immediately obvious to find as FAANG.

[Hermitian909]

> they just aren't as immediately obvious to find as FAANG

Sounds like you'd need to spend some time to find these :)

To your other points, I get feeling revulsion to Google or Facebook, but I feel there are other companies like Netflix or Stripe that are ethically fine. The idea that the employees are generally overworked doesn't mesh with my lived experience the bay area, I have a fairly wide social circle and I don't know anyone putting in more than 40 hours a week at a big tech company unless they're trying to climb the ladder super fast. I think we also may have to agree to disagree on whether all leetcode is intellectually dishonest. 4 leetcode hard problems is a silly way to interview, but when working on problems at scale I appreciate a gut check problem on big O and an algorithmic workhorse like depth-first search or something.

[vanusa]

I'm glad you understand the gut revulsion aspect, at least (which in my view applies to the 'A' companies as well, but that's a side topic).

Meanwhile your data points on 'N' and 'S' are appreciated and I will add them to my (mental) notes.

[cooervo]

Exactly. Couldn't have said it better