I’ll try to summarize my thoughts - part of it is Amazon, part of it is big companies in general. Bureaucracy, politics, promotion-driven development, going the extra mile in the name of “career growth” rather than genuine passion - all this I dislike about my job. The TC is cushy though, so the selfish side of my doesn’t want to give that up. Are there any companies that pay top dollar (preferably the cash component can match or exceed where I’m at right now, 170k, with 3 YOE) that don’t feel too corporate? Early stage startups are the obvious answer, but looking for more stability. Thanks.
Companies that dont feel corporate will be smaller companies or startups, maybe some family businesses. there will be a tradeoff, either stability or pay.
Tc?
It varies widely by company, u will have to talk to recruiters to find out
Ironically, Amazon comes to mind as a company that could provide what you are looking for, provided you are not risk averse. Otherwise you might not feel empowered enough to make a real impact. With that said, as you try to make more impact on the world, you will find that the hardest part with any project is dealing with conflict of interest among groups, managing expectations and intentions. It is all about creating win-win scenarios in the face pf conflict. I'd argue that those are political and maybe sometimes bureaucratic , but they are also valuable in improving decisions and productivity. So if you see badly done politics, it is your chance to speak up and influence. If someone is doing a useless project to get promoted, that seems like a lack of strong political leaders than having too much politics. If an org is moving too slow, I would argue that it is also precisely because it neglected to build the right politics to speed things up. How do you solve these problems is valuable and political. I have consistently found people who complain about politics to be the most political at work. They can benefit by being vocal and constructive about it instead of complaining in private. If one assumes that this specific circumstance is outside of their control, most likely they will end up in the same circumstance no matter where they go. There is always politics, and it seems self-defeating to avoid learning it. There is no moral high ground here about being or not being political, only whether politics is useful in producing impact. There are some places where there is definitely too much superficial politics to be useful. Academia comes to mind as one of the worst places in terms of being toxic in such a way. The issue there is that you have little leverage to play the politics other than pleasing a very small clique of people who can make decisions about your income and career. Startups are similar in this manner. They certainly have a less complex political landscape overall, but that does not mean it is not there and does not mean it is easier to play - in fact you just have fewer options. If you ever had a bad manager, you need know that a bad professor or founder is much worse. Unlike dealing a bad manager, for a professor or founder, you have no one vertical to escalate to and no one horizontal to build allies with. Even if you manage to escalate to the school or the investors, it merely makes your situation more difficult since the people you just pissed off are most likely there to stay. In short, you will need to be more politically adept in those circumstances than at Amazon.
OpenAI
The cruise rocket 🚀 ship
You want small established companies paying lots of money? Palantir is the poster child of this.
But their work contract comes with clause to sell your soul
Yes, but keeping the soul intact wasn't part of the prompt