[tleilaxu]

To add something further to this excellent comment:

Join a start up with a legacy code base, e.g. dodgy old PHP that they’re pulling out into modern domain services.

Within a year you’ll be able to analyse performance and scalability issues and refactor them in your sleep.

[beebmam]

If you want to build your skills, sure go ahead.

But working at a company like this is not a good way to build your wealth. You're far better off working at a big tech company that has awesome benefits or a fresh startup. Startups that have been around long enough to have a legacy code base aren't a place to become wealthy.

[capableweb]

> But working at a company like this is not a good way to build your wealth

Common software engineering mistake: focusing on solving the wrong problem.

OP wants to practice hand-on system design. OP never writes about "building wealth" and doesn't even mention money anywhere. So where do you get that this is about building wealth?

[xiwenc]

Not everyone aims to be wealthy. Most companies do pay a decent salary (specially in europe) with good work life balance. High paying jobs often correlates with high stakes which means potentially higher level of stress.

[tomduncalf]

I don’t think the high paying job = big stress correlation is as strong as you might think. Sure a few places are known for bad work life balance but (especially if you are employed in Europe) I would guess many big companies offer better WLB than startups - in fact, I’m sure the pace might be “too slow” compared to smaller companies in many teams.

There are plenty of valid reasons to not want to work at big tech co’s, but if you’re discounting it for expected stress level alone I’d do a bit more research as I don’t think it’s as true as you think. Obviously read reviews of Glassdoor/Blind to get a sense of the company you’re applying to…

[throwaway7173]

I think the comment meant "wealth" in the pg sense https://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html