I coast at work a lot... do you?
I work at a startup where I lost complete faith in management and the new swe people who are being brought on board. Being a very early employee and having built major projects in the company in the past, everyone else is essentially leaving me alone, so on a good day I do maybe 3 hours of work, and the rest I’m left to myself. In the meantime however, I don’t fuck around on YouTube (maybe I read some blind every now and then), I study and practice new technologies terribly diligently. For example, these days I’m studying modern C++ by reading several books. Prior to that was algorithms. And before that was a deep dive in the Linux kernel implementations. I want to get ready for FAANG essentially, and I also have a genuine interest in these things. I assume that this will eventually end after all the systems I built will be replaced by the new hires and someone will recognize that I’m not useful anymore, but it’s been like this for almost a year now and people don’t seem to have noticed (management is very dysfunctional). What do you think? Anyone shares the same experience? Do you think it might end up hurting me in the long term (and I don’t mean in this company, I mean in developing bad habits)? TC: 240k cash (and 2M in equity on paper at the current valuation)
How don’t they notice you not working ? Do you work remotely? . Also do you own any major components in your company’s workflow ?
I work from the office, but nobody looks at my screen. I have no management to report to, I maintain a few major projects I wrote and am usually called in for troubleshooting or for architectural meetings with the team. People just assume I’m busy lol. I was very early and as they hired managers and such they kept me out of the hierarchy, so technically I report directly to the VP but he doesn’t give a fuck, maybe he asks me to jump into some discussion every now and then. I think my knowledge of the system is good enough that people just assume that having me around just in case is worth it. But it’ll come to an end I’m sure, it just hasn’t happen in a year.
Same ⛵ as you, but not worried at all. All the learning makes me better when I do work, and both team and upper management appreciate higher quality results. Also actually don't want to move because worried I won't have the study time elsewhere and I enjoy it
We just went into super micromanagement. We have meetings for meetings. LOL. Enjoy while you can.
You get paid for impact, not for work. If the work you put in to maintain those projects is valuable for the company, you should not feel guilty for it. Preparing to jump ship to a better one is the right strategy. I ended up in a similar position in my previous job and I did the same thing you are doing: prepare to interview for FAANG. Worked out pretty well. Also, you do need a lot of algorithms and data structures, Linux command line tools and system calls, as well as how the Linux Kernel manages its resources. No need to know obscure kernel internals though it doesn’t hurt
What company?
Can’t say sorry, I was relatively early so if some of my colleagues or management read this my freedom could literally end :)
If they are reading this, they may already start doubting. What happens to paper money if you leave? Do you have any secondary market?
YOE?
7
Jealous =(
I’m probably jealous of your comp, since it’s all liquid my friend!
You don't need Linux kernel deep dive and modern C++ to crack the big companies lol
You do. I’m targeting production engineer role at FB and they do networking interview and systems (as in low level system) interview (on top of systems design and coding challenge). Same thing for performance engineer at Netflix.
Fair enough