Well, I’m 51. I’ve had 10 jobs in my career including one at BigTech. I never grinded leetCode or even had a serious coding interview [1]. But from my time at BigTech I know interns I mentored and who got return offers were making more straight out of college than I made at 45 working as an enterprise “senior” developer in the burbs of Atlanta before I got into BigTech.
I was perfectly happy making $150K living in a 3200 square foot house I had built in the “good school system” in 2016 for $335K.
> I’m saying maybe you don’t have to join them. Get out of the mindset. Find jobs that value your time
Companies “value your time” by paying you to exchange labor for money. All other things being equal, I would rather trade my time for more money than less.
I have made the trade off in the last couple of years now that I’m out of BigTech to value working remotely and stress free over BigTech compensation. But let’s not blindly pretend that you aren’t making the trade off by refusing to post the game.
[1] A remote interview opportunity/job fell into my lap working at AWS Professional Services. My speciality was cloud + app dev. But the interview process was all behavioral. I’m not suggesting trying this route.
People jump through those hoops because the difference in pay is massive. You can practice leetcode for 2 months and land a job at Meta for a 7-figure salary or give up and work somewhere else where the total compensation is low six-figures.
C) you’re saying if I make myself suffer for several months I can have the privilege to work at one of the single worst companies on the face of this earth? _sign me the fuck up_
You can have the chance to probably double your income or at least make 50% more than an enterprise dev at the same level.
None of us are out here feeding starving children. Why not trade your labor for as much as possible? If I were 25 instead of 51, I damn sure would think the trade off was worth it.
Yes I did spend almost 4 years in BigTech and would rather get a daily anal probe with a cactus than do it again. But don’t underestimate the life changing difference in comp that a software developer can make in BigTech.
13 years as a dev, many jobs, countless interviews, and I have never once solved, been asked to solve, or even attempted to solve a leetcode problem.
Reading people talking about what they do here it sounds like voluntary torture. I would quit being a dev if that’s what it took.
OP: I’m saying maybe you don’t have to join them. Get out of the mindset. Find jobs that value your time.