temp246810

Thanks for the detailed response. You certainly have an optimistic way of looking at the situation.

My problem is that I'm 32- the way I see it is I have 3-4 more years of going balls to the wall before my wife starts popping out kids and I'd really hate to waste this time doing low level unchallenging work.

The funny thing is I can see myself 10 years down the line WISHING I had a job just like this.

Just out of curiousity, which one did you go with?

We're in the middle of doing this ourselves and would like to hear a random HNers thoughts on the subject.

This is the quintessential hacker news post, IMO.

A topic that on the surface seems run of the mill (a train station)

Technical in its essence

Authored by someone notable (in this case really notable, which is not a requirement)

My comment on the other hand, not in the spirit of the discussions on HN but I like to celebrate good posts when I see them.

The truth is youre more likely to find the skills within a talented team and not individual.

Someone with a knack for product AND great engineering chops is extremely rare.

Not disagreeing with you, if anything bolstering your point.

Thanks, I did it quickly and thought I'd gotten the whole paragraph. Went ahead and added all of it, there was a page break in between.

Shit could always hit the fan though.

I joined Zenefits when everyone had dollar signs in their eyes. It felt like the roaring 20s (or at least the accounts I've heard of them).

How are they doing nowadays?

I always say don't compromise on salary for equity. Compromise for the experience, for an entrance into the field, because the chick at the counter was digging you, but not because of some payout you think you'll get in the future.

For the lazy:

>>> In 2014, 2015, and 2016, we generated $77.8 million, $340.8 million, and $795.4 million in net revenue, respectively, representing growth of 338% from 2014 to 2015 and growth of 133% from 2015 to 2016. In the three months ended March 31, 2016 and March 31, 2017, we generated $172.1 million and $244.8 million in net revenue, respectively, representing growth of 42%. In the years ended December 31, 2014, 2015, and 2016, we incurred net losses of $(30.8) million, $(47.0) million, and $(54.9) million, respectively, and in the three months ended March 31, 2016 and March 31, 2017, we generated net income of $3.0 million and incurred net losses of $(52.2) million, respectively.

Edit: there is a page break in between, added the rest of the sentence

I'm going through this change right now.

Some words of hard earned "wisdom": make sure the pendulum doesn't swing too far out in the other direction.

I went from being an accommodating person to an intense asshole - trying to dial it back now but it's hard, especially when you notice that people definitely respect you more for good or bad reasons when you're like that. Take it too far though, and it will of course go all the way around and bite you in the ass.

I'm 32 and work as a PM at a Big Hip Tech Co. in the bay area.

Once I was on a team with 2 QA analysts, 1 Eng Manager, myself as PM, 3 BA's (that I did not want), and 3 developers, and one platform architect. All this plus 1 director overseeing our tiny team. Not to mention the 1-2 BA's I worked with whenever I worked on something that impacted another team.

During my 1:1 with said director, I once lashed out - I hadn't slept well in 4 days and I simply sounded off. I literally said everything that's been said in this thread: everything from why the fuck do we have so many people, give me 5 engineers and fire everyone else, to all you care about is the headcount that reports to you.

Luckily, I was a top performer, and while this tarnished my reputation with this director, I was able to smooth things over over the course of a few months.

This director explained to me that I was no longer at a start up. That this team should be resilient - that anyone should be able to take 2-3 weeks off at a time without interrupting the work. That they didn't want us working pedal to the metal 100% of the time. That it was ok that it was slow, and that I shouldn't be so self-conscious or hard on myself if I wasn't always working my fingers to the bone.

Now, I still thought we had way too much fat. Some of those BA's had no business being on a technical team, even as BA's and we should have traded in the architect and dev manager for an extra QA and developer.

But what that conversation did was bring me back down to earth. So much of what we view as right and wrong is personal preference. While I still disagreed with the amount of waste, it removed the chip on my shoulder and now I simply make sure to join teams that I like.

That's more of a ramble, but gives you some context as to where I was coming from.

Meh - there are just as many people making the same accusation you are as to render it useless.

I read countless anecdotes on HN and hear many more in person of people with just the shittiest managers, of people who rarely see "competent" engineering organizations, of people who have "never" seen a competent project manager, that it really is a wonder we have any profitable companies at all.

In reality, if you don't understand the value someone is providing them, you should make an effort to understand what they might be doing before making claims like the ones you're making.

Yes - I agree.

If this were a TV ad there'd have to be the word 'Dramatization' in soft white lettering at the bottom of the screen because this is definitely going overboard.

I've gone through this process and it's pretty damn easy - contact anker, send the the serial number (the rep even tells you it's so they can do proper QA) and get a new one in the mail.

The alternative would be for them to make you send the old one back which would be significantly more annoying. I think asking for the serial is reasonable on their part. Helps them verify you have the cable, prevents people from filing multiple times on the same cable, and allows them to control quality better.

This is such a tired trope in the realm of mental health that it's become cliche.

CHOOSE to be happy and you will!!! Embrace change!!

What a load of crap, you shouldn't be commenting on things you aren't familiar with.

Go stay up for 6 days in a row and then tell me how well you function, how well you can make sound decisions and control your thoughts.

This is very similar.

My comment judging myself and about my childhood is in retrospect after now having spent a year in therapy. It's really brought these things to light and now that I am aware I can attempt to fix them.

And I can assure you fixing them is a lot more fucking work than making some trivial declaration that I choose to be X or choose not to be Y.

What a fucking a joke to hear people talk about this when they have no clue.

You have no clue how this works and you clearly didn't read the article.

It's not about identifying yourself as the victim etc., it's about identifying patterns that you're not even aware of.

My comment was now in retrospect - I didn't even at the time consider my childhood to be especially bad until after therapy.

This post is riddled with misunderstanding and you have provided a classic example.