[redrix]

Isn’t this the whole point of working; particularly at a FAANG?

> It’s a shallow post-mortem

I respectfully disagree. It’s an 8 minute read. Sure, it’s mostly in dot-point form, but personally I’d rather that than some massive 80,000 word blog post that I’m going to drop 1/8 of the way through.

Since when does a personal blog post need to be a well constructed and lengthy document?

[bzhang255]

I think it's shallow and not because it's short. To me, it just sounds very typical: "I joined Google back when it was fun. Now it's more bureaucratic and less fun. But I made a ton of money on the stock." I think there have been countless blog posts from Ex-Googlers like this. It's fairly shallow.

And it is worth noting that a lot of the bullet point lists do start with "I made a ton of money" in as many words, which is also just not very interesting to most folks, though it is certainly very relevant and important to the writer.

[lexlash]

The most interesting thing is the timeline at the end, which shows what they were successful at and promoted for (management-type roles) and what happened when they tried to transition from SRE management to SWE IC (they fell back into management).

I don't see that reflected in the rest of their postmortem learning - other than them being dissatisfied with doing what they were good at / promoted for - so that kind of helps me ignore the rest of the postmortem. :)

[tickerticker]

Level 1: a ton of money. Level 2: L1 + interesting work Level 3: L2 + intelligent co-workers Level 4: L3 + deep skills Level 5: L4 + mentor Level 6: L5 + awesome network Level 7: L6 + personal growth Level 8: L7 + meaningful contribution Level 9: L8 + work-life balance Level 10: L9 + recognized SME Timing and circumstances influence what you get....not always the same for equally talented ppl.

Making a "ton of money"....it matters because new people want to know what price is paid for exceptional comp.

[stonethrowaway]

I would rather read an 80,000 word blog post. It would satisfy my curiosity and it’s exactly the sort of material I come to HN for. It’s Hacker News. Not Digest. It’s also why I don’t read the news often posted here from big media companies - they’re often just awful hit pieces against someone or something. Or are pushing a product.

But a well articulated, technically correct post that’s evenly paced? Heavenly. Its a David Attenborough documentary for tech nerds. It’s exactly what I am after.

I wouldn’t say anything against having an upfront summary for people who don’t have time/patience.

9 years working at a top tech company of bleeding edge work reduced down to “I made money. Oh, I made money. My stocks did well, so I made even more money” is the pinnacle of intellectual laziness. That’s not a postmortem by any stretch of imagination.