[throwarayes]

I’m starting to wonder what the upside of working at a big tech company really is.

Stability: no (who knows when the next layoffs will be)

Base Pay: maybe (probably higher on average)

Stock: maybe - but a complete crapshoot

Fulfilling work: maybe, but it could be disrupted by politics, maybe some side feature of a side feature, or you might just get laid off anyway

Frankly it’s hard to trust putting your energy into something new after being let go. At least at a small company market performance might be more closely tied to your performance, not random politics or idiotic decisions.

Seems you go to a large company to chill out, save up base pay, but not really give it your all as so much is out of your control.

Tech companies are shutting down their junior pipelines and turning their most senior talent into burned out careerists who don’t care. They’re managing to mediocrity, not growth. Which honestly maybe makes sense in a non 0 interest rate economy. I just wish they’d be honest about it

[shaftway]

It's the stock, but only when the stock is publicly traded.

I have zero trust in the long term outlook of my current firm. My stock vests every 3 months and I sell it immediately. This makes up about half of my total compensation.

If the company shows signs of going down I'll cut my losses and go somewhere else, probably when the stock drops to about 50% of my sign-on value. If the company starts going up then I get a nice little bump.

I joined Meta last year (and then got laid off 6 months later) right after their huge drop and several people (including my manager) were extremely vocal about how it wasn't fair that I got so many shares of stock. They compute the number of shares you get based on a dollar amount and the share price over the last month.

By comparison I feel bad for my brethren at large tech companies that aren't publicly traded. Stripe comes to mind here. My friends there say they've been told "we want to go public, but now just isn't the right time" all the way up until the valuation was cut by a third. Those golden handcuffs must be heavy.

[dzikimarian]

>I have zero trust in the long term outlook of my current firm. My stock vests every 3 months and I sell it immediately. If the company shows signs of going down I'll cut my losses and go somewhere else.

That's funny - every business-related thread on HN contains complaining about companies focusing on the next quarter results, yet even when people are given stock on preferential terms and have information unavailable for retail investors, they'll still behave in a way that incentives company to do that. And then complain during next layoffs probably :-).

[mejutoco]

That is an interesting observation. On one side we could say when it is your own money one behaves more egotistically.

On the other side, if OP was satisfied in the current firm (they admit they are not) and could have an impact in the direction of the company (instead of short-term results) maybe he would hold on to the stock for longer.

[dzikimarian]

Well that's why I think in the end a lot of current generation of IT engineers isn't very thoughtful.

They have tons of options for work which will align with your views, yet they keep choosing ones that pay the most in short term and will not accept anything more than 9-to-5 work with zero responsibility for the company.

I did the complete opposite and I think it went way better for me, but of course everyone is entitled to their own opinion. And their own place in layoffs.

[dv_dt]

The business commands the resources to decide if their strategy is long or short term. An employee selling stock grants has no such decision authority, and selling the stock is diversifying their risk in the long term.

[dzikimarian]

You can pick company where you have decision authority and/or you see they are picking long term strategy.

[boring_twenties]

I think it's totally fair. This is what the stock is worth today, and this is what they need to offer you in total USD. Why on earth should you accept a lower offer just because their stock is lower? And what a thing to have your own manager openly gripe about, yikes.

[ipaddr]

Then he recommended that person be let go.

[shaftway]

To be fair, I don't think this person ended up being involved in that decision. I've been in contact with them since and there doesn't seem to be any animosity.

There are plenty of more obvious reasons I was let go:

- I was in the last cohort hired before the hiring freeze.

- I had a terrible fit with my first team (this manager was on that team, but it wasn't with them) and put in for a transfer after about 3 months.

- The VP for that area came down pretty hard on me directly because this represented a permanent loss in headcount and made it clear that they'd be extremely upset if I pushed for it.

- I put in my transfer request anyway (the day that they announced transfers would be frozen), and was actually transferred about 5 minutes before the freeze happened.

- In my new team my new manager gave their two week notice on my first day.

- I enjoyed the work, but the new manager and I never really got along.

- I was one of two people on the team, the other person was in the same time zone as the new manager, and I wasn't.

Frankly I'd have been shocked if I hadn't gotten laid off.

[throwaway4837]

Tech stocks have high volatility. If, for example, I joined Amazon at peak in 2021, and the stock crashed 50% over the next few months, it would still totally be worth it to stick around and vest. Even the case with smaller tech companies that achieved meme status like Palantir which suffered the usual post-IPO crash -- if I believe outlook will be positive in the long term. Could be 2 years or 10, doesn't matter to me. The stock being public REALLY helps. I would think about it very differently if it was private.

[sacnoradhq]

It's not just tech or publicly-traded tech companies, but a corporate culture of a few CEOs paid 500x the average worker. It's an owner-take-all gambit off the backs of workers who have to resort to relieving themselves in bottles for borderline wages.

[akavi]

This feels like the job prospect equivalent of saying "there's a 50/50 chance the sun rises tomorrow, either it does or it doesn't".

If by "big tech" you mean FAANG cos (and assuming "startup" means bay area YC tier), then a more accurate analysis is something like:

Stability: Lower likelihood of being laid off than the median startup in any given economic conditions. Way lower likelihood (I'd estimate <1/20th the risk) than early stage (series A/B)

Base pay: Higher than early stage startups, around the same for later stage (series C/D)

Stock: Much lower variance than startups, slightly higher EV

Fulfilling work: YMMV hugely depending on what you find more fulfilling. Making O(100M) users' lives 0.1% better? Big tech. Absolutely making the day of O(10) people? Startups

[kaashif]

Interesting abuse of big O notation there, since O(100M) = O(10) = O(1). Your statements make more sense without the O.

[yccs27]

I've seen the O(n) notation used quite a few times already to mean "order of magnitude of", instead of the usual Landau-big O.

[smcg]

but we have E exponent notation for that.

[ulfw]

LOL you must have never heard of Facebook "Meta"

[arkadiyt]

> I’m starting to wonder what the upside of working at a big tech company really is.

As opposed to working at a startup? Stability is way worse, base pay is lower on average, stock is an even bigger crapshoot, less perks, worse work-life balance. Work might be more fulfilling

[mrguyorama]

How about as opposed to working for a generic normal business that isn't trying to play dumb games on the world stage and isn't some garage project that the CEO is incentivized to lie about consistently with the hope that it explodes?

I've worked for two very large (3000ish people) companies and it was great to have a day job that didn't have to become my identity, that understood that work-life balance is a thing, and that didn't pretend that "cool projects" were all that mattered. There isn't really any drama, there's no internal teams chats badmouthing management for a fake political stance (instead, these companies genuinely hire diversely, because those people are talented and perfectly capable of doing that job), and nobody is claiming my employer is the boogeyman. Neither company required me to pretend I wasn't working on blatantly immoral things that clearly make the world worse, and neither company has any intention of letting anyone go, because we didn't play cargo cult follow the leader blitzscaling during the pandemic in order to keep a death grip on the hiring market. This is despite one of those companies literally being in Silicon Valley

[bobolino123]

Well I'm working as the lead engineer at a startup for the past 3 years and can honestly say that fulfilling work is one of it. You are excited to go to work.. Another aspect might be softer things such as remote work and less bureaucracy. The company grew from 6 people to over 50 in that time with minimal funding.

That being said if someone has a .NET/React/NextJS/Node role (can also be 100% TypeScript) and I can work globally (wanna travel the world), I would switch in a heartbeat. European so not so expensive :)

[sirspacey]

Got a friend who does. https://www.cohere.live/about-us/

Needs a lead eng with .NET + React

[throwarayes]

Startup volatility is higher, yes, but I’m thinking in terms of upside. what’s the upside of giving a FAANG your all vs resting and vesting?

[fatnoah]

> what’s the upside of giving a FAANG your all vs resting and vesting?'

Granted, the economy is very different than it was 5 years ago, but my very senior role at a startup paid about $185k w/no bonus, and 0.1% equity. 50+ hour weeks were the norm. We were acquired and I got $0 for the stock, but I did a $300k bonus (paid in 3 tranches over 18 months). I felt like I'd hit the lottery!

A couple years later, I joined a FAANG that paid me $100k just to walk in the door. Total pay, including stock ranged between $750k and $850k. My work week was 40 hours and I had so many fringe benefits and in-office amenities that I could never use them all. The work itself was also completely unfulfilling. I made it a few years before returning to a startup.

[Demmme]

I earn much more at my big tech company than I did before.

And just because others got fired, I did not and still earn my good salary.

So is it worth it: yes for me it is.

Also my team is fun and my job is good.

[packetlost]

> Tech companies are shutting down their junior pipelines and turning their most senior talent into burned out careerists who don’t care. They’re managing to mediocrity, not growth.

I mean, how was this not the only possible outcome for current-day big tech companies? It's not like we haven't seen this exact thing play out before with the likes of IBM, Oracle (was Oracle ever 'cool'), etc.

[flashgordon]

Actually my experience has been than total comp (and perks) was higher (and guaranteed) until recently. The work frankly sucks (100s of leetcode to maintain yet another crud service), the passive aggressiveness, politics, infantilization all need the comp to be higher to justify selling an important part of your life sadly :(

[mcv]

I think pay is the only reason. Those big tech companies seem to pay a lot. They don't offer much stability, stock is only interesting for small but growing companies, and if you want fulfilling work, look for a company where you can really make a difference, and not a behemoth.

[dasil003]

I think you’re confusing RSUs with ISOs

[mcv]

I don't think the difference is all that relevant for this discussion. They go up if the company does well, they go down if it does poorly. Receiving them instead of money is only really interesting if the stock price will go up a lot.

[dasil003]

Sure, but big tech pay is comprised substantially of RSUs (like 20-80% of total comp in most cases), which are liquid, and those prices do swing quite a bit which dramatically impacts your take-home. There are tons of people who joined Meta in 2021 who are still making substantially less than the figures their offer letters, while some who joined in 2022 who are now making 7 figures based on the stock appreciation over the last half. At the end of the day, big tech gives you the highest floor, plus solid upside.

This is arguably a lot more interesting than ISOs or private RSUs, where you might have more upside, but dramatically more downside as well, including many scenarios where the equity is effectively worth zero.

[c7DJTLrn]

>Base Pay: maybe (probably higher on average)

I think you kind of underestimate the allure of this in a time where prices of goods and services are rising at a rate not seen in decades and the middle class is becoming locked out of decent, affordable housing.

[throwaway4837]

Lay-off fear negatively feeds into stock upside as well. I would be stressed about getting laid off before my cliff and getting nothing...

[_8j50]

You forgot "resumè" decoration.

[tjpnz]

>Stability: no (who knows when the next layoffs will be)

That has more to do with at will employment than big tech.

[giantg2]

Base pay... "(probably higher on average)".

Definitely. The median for a dev in the US is $110k.

[3minus1]

stock is not a total crapshoot when you get issued more stock at regular intervals. At least where I work, if the stock price goes down it means you will simply be issued more stock.

[sacnoradhq]

There is no stability it corporate and there are no meaningful regulations to reign-in strip-mining capitalism seeking short-term profit maximization.

If you want economic security, you either have to build your own business or findothers who want to form a worker-owned co-op that resists the unfettered greed of corporate hegemony.

[mrguyorama]

Or work for a boring company that isn't run by assholes trying to be the richest supervillain in their friend group.

[shahbaby]

This is spot on.

[rocket_surgeron]

I work at a big "tech" company.

But it's not a sexy tech company. We build actual physical products that do things-- we're not a Matryoshka doll of web services hiding an advertising service in the middle whose only purpose is to trick users into giving up private information so that dick pill ads can be served more efficiently to them.

Nor are we trying to figure out how to use AI to serve you ads better.

It's slow, boring, work that pays well and is easy (mandatory) to leave behind after you clock out at 5pm every day. PTO flows like water, and the benefits are platinum-plated.

Of course, since we don't sell dick pill ads like Google, Meta, and the others there's no chance that our stock will erupt and leave us all multi-millionaires, so it's not "sexy".

I started out as a tech writer, part time while going to school, in 2007 and am now a Senior Principal Engineer.

Because we work on slow, actually real, physical, projects there is a lot of stability-- schedules are made in five year increments.

That, to me, is a "tech" company.

Internet firms whose only purpose is the sale of ads are just ad companies masquerading as a tech companies and I imagine such an environment might be somewhat volatile.

[brainbag]

After a few steps in a row, this sounds great. Are you hiring?

[notyourwork]

Tech writer to Senior PE. Something’s amiss if we’re hiring non engineers and they become PEs.

[roarcher]

Allow me to introduce you to the concept of a "lateral move".

Plenty of tech-adjacent people like QAs (and tech writers) are self-teaching or going to school for CS. After a year or two they move into junior development jobs at the same company, provided management doesn't pigeonhole them. The rest of this person's 16 year tenure is plenty to climb the ranks from junior to PE.

[vdqtp3]

Did you miss the education and 16 years between those two steps?

[rocket_surgeron]

Luckily for me, education is a thing.