You think if you got hit by a bus tomorrow your employer would go out of business?
my current employer - no, I am winding down my career. my former employer obviously not since I am no longer there but they paid me 6 months extra to do nothing but train people when I was leaving and have also done “emergency” work for several years after.
companies should strive of course to not have 10(000)x irreplacable employees but in 1,000’s of places they are always there. and path to become one of such people is easier than slumming it at FAANG I guarantee you
Again, you think 1000s of companies would go out of business if one key person quit? Unless you are talking about something like a private practice one or two man shops
I am giving actionable, repeatable advice, not once in a lifetime lottery tickets.
Do you have actionable repeatable advice that would allow that junior developer to make $175K straight out of school and over $300K 3-5 years in the workforce?
Those FAANG and adjacent companies are paying collectively 10s of thousands of developers that every year.
Again, you think 1000s of companies would go out of business if one key person quit? Unless you are talking about something like a private practice one or two man shops
NOT at all what I am saying… what I am saying is that there is a path in this industry where you are not a slave to “FAANG” where no one knows your name. there are (tens of) thousands of companies where you can set your career such that you are more valuable to them than they are to you. and once you get that money is no object no more… and you get to stay decade (or two) in the same place vs doing the leetcode-change-jobs-like-socks dance.
actionable/repeatable advice:
- find a company which is at least two decades in the business they are in - preferrably some niche thing but not required
- make sure books look good (the barometer here is whether you would invest part of your 401k in the company)
- less than 100 dev/qa combined preferrably
when you start look for patterns, specifically things that no one wants to do. there will always be that. if you hear “don’t touch this code” spend months studying it and understanding it (on your own time). make sure to understand FULLY every aspect of the business your company is doing, suck up all the domain knowledge… every production issue, no matter how big or small you will volunteer to help and go through all post-mortems… on this path things will become clearer and clearer what you need to get done as time passes.
soon enough it will be YOU that is a go-to person for everything, most important customers will know you by name and will call you on your cell instead of creating ServiceDesk ticket…
above all - never look at your career as an employee - you are a corporation and your relationship with your “employer” is partnership between two business entities. no one bats an eye if company X pays 7-figure yearly to company Y for its services… and yet compensation for an “employee” in those figures would be like “huh? no way.” and yet just how Jira might bring enough value to company X to justify 7-figure compensation, so can your services as well if you position yourself appropriately. no one will teach this in America as America needs obedient employees…
> you can set your career such that you are more valuable to them than they are to you. and once you get that money is no object no more… and you get to stay decade (or two) in the same place vs doing the leetcode-change-jobs-like-socks dance.
How many of those companies that know your name will pay you straight out of college $160K-$200K and up to $400K-$500k+ within 5-7 years?
If you want to be at a company where everyone knows your name, it’s going to be a small company.
How many of those companies that know your name will pay you straight out of college $160K-$200K and up to $400K-$500k+ within 5-7 years?
the days of $160-200k out of college are slowly but surely coming to end (try to find some right now and see how many there are compared to say few years ago). Hard to compare but I started in 1999 at $117k which is “there” inflation-adjusted but overall I would say it is not easy starting in that range. $400k-$500k in 5-7 in definitely achievable, little bit of brain and little bit of luck.
All of the BigTech companies are still hiring - just in lower numbers. But so are the non BigTech companies. So if you are looking at a smaller pool either way, you might as well shoot for the moon.
Even if they do have to “settle” for enterprise dev, they still need to practice for DS&A to increase their “luck surface area” to get into those companies that pay top of range.
You think if you got hit by a bus tomorrow your employer would go out of business?