Perfect TC, remote job, but I want FAANG: am I crazy?
I was a very early employee at a startup that was fully remote from the beginning. The startup did well, and now my comp is pretty high, ~800k. The 800k is based on the last preferred share price (Series E late stage), so a big part of it is still illiquid, but my base of 250k is pretty good and I have been able to cash out some of my equity as well through buybacks the company offers for early employees (last year’s W2 was around 900k). So not totally illiquid. I live out of state and fly one week every couple months to the head quarter in the Bay Area. My living expenses are 30k/y (yes, you read that right): I share a nice 1bd apartment with my gf for 1k (split in 2) and spend about 2k a month for other discretionary expenses. I’m a pretty frugal person and the cheap location helps. I am a productive engineer but my work has become very boring, I can barely stand it and feel like I’ve been here too long and stagnating (4 years), so I recently interviewed with FB and got an E5 offer (190k base, 15% bonus, 600k equity/4y, 100k signon) which seems fair for my 8yoe, but it’s tough to move to the Bay for a lower TC. What would you do?
The grass is not greener. Stay put dude
The whole point of working for someone else is to retire early so that you can work on the things you want work on. Working for FAANG will take more hours in a day away from you, pay you much less and add several years to your retirement plan. TL;DR - Don't do it!
The things I would be working on at FB are fundamentally very interesting to me (infra work) and I wouldn’t be able to work on those by myself (no scale), and my startup is solving problems too dull for that.
All of the FAANG is under anti trust investigation and mostly there will be a lot of serious regulation coming up in Tech sector like it did post 2008 in the finance sector. Think about the long haul, if you are really that interested in working for FAANG you can join them even when you have enough in bank to retire and the marginal value of money starts diminishing for you. FAANG and those problems are here to stay, the money in your bank will not and by walking away you are leaving money on the table.
mind referring me to this startup. Sounds like it would be perfect.
I don’t think they pay that much for new hires, there’s almost no risk anymore as the business is solid. I’ve heard new packages for swe are around 200k TC (like 150k base + 50k equity)
It pays Bay area rates while being fully remote? Why doesn't it pay Asian/Russian/Indian rates?
Crazy to jump.
Yes you are crazy! Stay put.
Yeah, you're crazy
You already live pretty frugal plus have a solid amount of money saved up. It sounds like you are already pretty sick of your job so why suffer there. Come to fb do some good work and may be you can go remote again thru Facebook
Facebook doesn’t have a remote option. Can be worked out in rare cases but I have seen people leave FB because of no option to work remotely.
Have you think about investing? I'd recommend real estate and good startup. Think about the future of the current company then decide. Or there is a path inside the company called intrapreneurship, you might create a product and get some shares, it will be challenging.
I invest most of what I have in vanguard index funds and keep a bit of dry powder in municipal bonds to rebalance in when stocks go down, I’m comfortable with that.
Follow your heart.
You are crazy. Wait till you can cash out and retire.
I currently have 1.5M saved up, it’ll be a long way before I can retire. I wouldn’t consider that before reaching 4-5M.
Are you single? You're being silly if you think you need 4 million before you can retire when your living expenses are 30k. It's safe to assume a conservative 3% inflation adjusted return on investment. 1.5m gives you $45k passive investment income. Much more than you currently spend.