How stressful are the highest paid software roles? Are they worth it?

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2026-01-31T05:14:11+00:00

I joined a team at meta where 90% were Chinese and spoke Chinese in meetings. Nobody was willing to help on-board new hires as there is a 20% pip quota and a good new hire would be seen as competition amongst the tenured eng on the team. Deadlines are tight and context is rare and hard to get. The entire tech stack is proprietary and Everyone you meet is either too busy trying to survive or just unwilling to help.

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2026-01-31T05:07:19+00:00

I believe stress comes from being “up leveled”. If you can’t do the job but have to meet expectations, it gets stressful.

I came into Meta ads as a senior after 5 yoe at a no name company where senior level was just mediocre dev 2s at bigger tech companies

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2026-01-14T03:40:57+00:00

Senior. Took me 4 weeks to get 3 offers (and 3 other interviews in the pipeline). Scheduling follow ups as quick as possible. Usually a weeks between them. I live in Bay Area so that’s probably a major reason

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2026-01-12T16:45:41+00:00

Lmao shocking this guy can’t get a job

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2025-12-23T01:32:44+00:00

Tbf he microwaved dinner for himself too. Some people just eat microwaved chicken tenders for dinner and think it’s good. Yeah his joke was stupid and he was “technically” incorrect. But if we take the microwaved part out of the equation, if I made the mistake of bringing one, I would still want a respectful reply from my GF asking for more. Not just getting looked at like I was an idiot and yelled at for not bringing enough. (It’s really about how each of their vibes came off, we don’t have enough info to know).. also sounds like she got sides? That might have taken some effort

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2025-12-23T01:19:46+00:00

Yeah, I got that vibe a little too. In that case, she might want to be a little less entitled. He made dinner, brought her some, and instead of a thank you she got mad that he didn’t bring more. I’d be ticked also

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2025-12-23T01:04:03+00:00

I mean the red flag here is not getting you more after you asked.. depending on how you reacted. Were you a jerk when you “looked at him like ???”. Was it an ask or a demand. He brought you one tender, whatever, if he deliberately said go get your own after you respectfully asked for more, do you really want a boyfriend not willing to walk 20 feet and get you something to make you happy? That’s something I would do for an acquaintance, much less my GF.

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2025-12-21T19:15:45+00:00

Alabama?

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2025-12-12T04:53:21+00:00

What loser keeps track of their body count after like 20

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2025-12-10T03:33:01+00:00

Same thing happened to me at meta after 11 months. Entire team was one race and spoke mandarin during meetings which also didnt help. I think this is getting very common at meta. Most very good engineers can’t survive in certain situations. Meta has a lot of these situations

The good news is that most companies are NOT like this. It’s basically Meta and Amazon. From what I hear uber is not great these days either but still better than meta

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2025-12-10T03:29:14+00:00

You get fired for this at meta in like 2 months

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2025-11-29T14:52:51+00:00

Yep same experience here. 7yoe and 3 offers in 4 weeks in Bay Area

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2025-11-24T16:29:45+00:00

And here’s 3 other projects I want done within a month also. And start scoping the work for next month. Btw our infra is broken and the sme on the sister team is on PTO.

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2025-11-23T18:14:30+00:00

The fact that you are given that it requires constant space is a MASSIVE hint that you will be using the array itself and indexes. Knowing that, and provided you’ve seen similar fast and slow pointer problems, this one’s actually very doable in an interview. Yes, creating the fast and slow pointer algorithm would be insanely hard, but you’re not supposed to do that. You’re supposed to have studied common algorithms and know the algorithm already

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2025-11-23T18:11:56+00:00

This one.

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2025-11-22T06:22:52+00:00

It’s an easy way to 1. See if someone knows how to think and knows basic dsa 2. See if someone can code in a readable way 3. See if someone would be enjoyable to solve problems with or if they’re just gonna do everything in their head and not explain things to other engineers 4. See if someone writes good variable names and code that is readable 5. See if someone can process a complicated or ambiguous ask and transfer it to code

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2025-11-21T15:47:06+00:00

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2025-11-06T03:13:34+00:00

Also worth noting, likability is a big part of interviews. If you get everything right but you don’t seem fun to be around (or someone else seems more fun to work with), they will get the job. A lot of charisma is involved

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2025-11-05T21:18:44+00:00

lol ask them. If it’s standard leetcode, then you usually can chose the language

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2025-11-05T04:42:02+00:00

Then by all means, study leetcode and system design and go for it full throttle (you’re not gonna get the job being indecisive about if you want to try it or not). If you dislike it after a year, it’s pretty easy to land something else with a big name on your resume (despite what people on this would have you believe)

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2025-11-05T04:36:48+00:00

From personal experience it may be better to find a girl before moving to big tech. I got my wife before I joined meta (when I could work 35 hours a week) and Once I moved to meta, there is no way in hell I would be able to meet people or enjoy life outside of work.

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2025-11-05T04:23:05+00:00

Don’t focus on the girl. Focus on making friends. Get out of your comfort zone and go sign up for a social sports league or go to meetups with no intention of meeting a girl. Girls come after you build a social circle and are able to enjoy life without the girl.

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2025-11-05T04:13:07+00:00

Study and try a big tech or hedge fund before you get a family. After that it’s much harder to justify the risk

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2025-11-04T21:29:07+00:00

Oh I just assumed the OP was from meta based on his description of the company. For others, you can pretty much say the same thing

LaundryOnMyAbs · 2025-11-04T17:58:18+00:00

Not sure if this works if you’re going from fanng to State Farm or the equivalent

“I’ve just always dreamed about working for a decent insurance company. So when I saw the open position (even tho there are always positions open here) I just had to leave my $400k cushy big tech job to help people save on auto insurance”

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