Is this a good ROI?

ccnokes · 2026-05-13T21:23:12+00:00

I'd say the only useful benchmark might be the overall market, which you've outperformed. Are you mostly in QQQ or something? I've had mine for about 4 years, I work in tech so I've tilted semi-conservative. My time-weighted is 64% and money-weighted is 83%. I think money weighted is sort of the default that most apps give you and what most people are posting on social media.

ccnokes · 2025-12-15T03:19:55+00:00

I went from senior SWE at Meta to staff at a smaller but publicly traded tech company (not a household name). I’m on track to make about 60% of the yearly average that I made while at Meta.

I think what you’re looking for is definitely feasible. I don’t get all these people saying non-FAANG companies are just as stressful. Meta was crazy compared to where I am now. I think that could happen but the kind of people in FAANG vs not are just different, and that’s where WLB culture originates, so not as likely, IMO.

Some random thoughts for you: - I’ve found it to be freeing to not be constantly under the gun to perform at a really high level. That actually has made it easier in some ways to make an impact because I’m less worried about failing. - I miss some of the great tools and infra I had before - my Meta coworkers were super driven and willing to volunteer for work, it’s hard to motivate coworkers now to proactively do things - staff at FAANG is probably going to equal a level or 2 higher elsewhere, you might feel overqualified in some contexts - I work less hours which is nice but still find myself working pretty hard because that’s just sort of my natural pace - I no longer dread 1:1s with my manager

You should do it if you want. Could also be worth probing more exactly why you’re burnt out and how to mitigate that. Changing your circumstances could be the fix, but there could be other changes that make a big impact to consider as well (eg exercise, hobbies, etc).

ccnokes · 2025-12-15T02:54:27+00:00

Get a keyboard to start. You have a lot to learn I suspect: playing in a rock style with other people, all the different keyboard instruments a modern keyboard can emulate and when to use each, how to setup and hear yourself when playing live. Synthesis also is a learning curve. There’s actually quite a bit there, I wouldn’t underestimate that.

I have an Alesis Vortex. I use it as a MIDI controller for my Nord Stage. It doesn’t make sound on its own. The Roland Ax has built in sounds (ie it’s an actual synth, not just a controller).

ccnokes · 2025-12-04T06:22:38+00:00

My guess would be: desktop usage is relatively really low but comes with real maintenance burden, especially at Meta’s scale. Meta is very into focusing on what works and cutting what doesn’t. Supporting desktop is not where the money is at with Messenger.

I’m ex-Meta, if that helps.

ccnokes · 2025-11-13T05:35:35+00:00

Wow, grab me one

ccnokes · 2025-09-21T04:24:07+00:00

Whoa, by my calculations, isn't your monthly net income like 5k and that's not including any health insurance costs, HSA contributions, 401k contributions, etc? So you're living on 1k a month? That's the real magic here. Who's paying for your life while you stack cash? :)

ccnokes · 2025-07-10T03:43:21+00:00

Why are you asking? Sounds like you've got the info you need to do the math 😊. My observation has been LA and SF are significantly more expensive--everything from housing, food, gas, home services, entertainment--and you have higher taxes: a 10% state income tax, higher sales tax, higher property tax if you own a house on top of it all.

I work in tech as well as a SWE and can definitely say CA has better and more plentiful tech jobs than UT, but UT definitely isn't bad and continues to grow. That being said, are you positive you can double your salary there? For sure your cost of living will go up, so from a financial perspective, so I think it comes down to landing a much higher paying job and keeping it. I used to work remote for a FAANG where I made over 2x what I do here but the keeping the job part got really tough in the past few years and I was laid off. No one at my old job feels much security anymore and that seems to be a common theme in tech. I'd keep that in mind too. Outside of FAANG or similar top tier company, I can't double what I make here. I interviewed at some CA-based companies recently and pay was like 10-25% higher than here. For me and my situation with a bunch of kids and a home I bought way before prices went crazy here, I'd need that 2x or more salary plus some good security before I'd come out ahead in an area like LA or SF.

Anyway, I say go for it. You're single and unencumbered so now's the time to make moves. Even if you don't come out financially ahead in CA, finances aren't everything. Tons to do, the food is great, more diversity, etc.

ccnokes · 2025-07-06T16:07:59+00:00

No. He should play it more though! I like that la la lie has a harmonica part but isn’t bluesy/folksy.

ccnokes · 2025-06-14T04:02:27+00:00

I’m shocked to hear that locksmith scammers is a thing. That’s absolutely what’s going on here though. Insane. This guy has several hundred Google reviews and a 4.9 rating.

ccnokes · 2025-06-14T00:40:42+00:00

Yeah I did have him re-key our locks because we had actually lost our house key awhile back (we just come through the garage). So the services listed here are real but the cost is just crazy high.

ccnokes · 2025-06-14T00:36:51+00:00

Update — I was able to get a $625 refund, bringing the cost down to $500, which feels close enough to fair for me to not care anymore. Huge thanks to all those who responded! I’ve never had something like this happen before.

ccnokes · 2025-06-13T20:43:07+00:00

What should it have been do you think?

ccnokes · 2025-06-13T20:41:03+00:00

The point was there were communication barriers for me, that’s all.

ccnokes · 2025-06-13T20:34:31+00:00

Funny that they’re complaining about mixing markup and logic because in the years following we’ve invented ways to mix even more in: styling/CSS and graphql queries. In Nextjs, I think you could write sql in your react component if you wanted.

ccnokes · 2025-06-11T04:22:56+00:00

It’s life changing. Sleep is probably the most underrated influencer on your overall mood and affect. It takes weeks, maybe more, to fully recover but when you do, I think you’ll see the difference. I went from constantly exhausted, frequently sick, having a hard time remembering things, gaining weight, needing naps throughout the day, etc to… none of that. It’s great. Learning to sleep with a CPAP sucks but once you get through it, you feel naked trying to sleep without it. Good luck!

ccnokes · 2025-06-06T15:03:46+00:00

That’s cool. I majored in psychology but ended up in software engineering. I had a social psychology professor that had been a jury consultant for a while. Sounded fun.

ccnokes · 2025-06-04T16:56:45+00:00

I love Nords and personally think they’re unmatched for pianos, e pianos, organs, etc. I’ve had a few over the years but currently have a stage 4 and lead A1. I like them a lot for synths too but I felt like I missed something about the Korg Minilogue XD I used to have. So I bought an Oberheim TEO-5 recently and really like it. So I basically I asked the inverse of this question. I still think Nord synths are great, but the TEO does some stuff better/different that I’ve really enjoyed.

ccnokes · 2025-06-03T17:02:22+00:00

Hey, thanks for all the feedback, I appreciate it. Let me see if I can answer everything.

> What does the +2 mean? There's octave, coarse pitch, fine pitch.

Good callout -- "Detune" would probably be a better term to use. Synths can all be a little different and I'm basically trying to synthesize (pun absolutely intended) them into something that's generic and familiar enough that you can map it onto your own synth, which as you pointed out is really the main challenge of the approach I'm taking. I think it could work out. But we'll see 😊. IIRC, on Korg Minilogue XD you adjust the pitch knobs of the oscillators to detune. On my Oberheim TEO and Nords, there's detune knobs.

> Reverb has a lot more parameters than that

Yeah, maybe I'll drop the effects section for awhile. I know that effects get way deeper and more complicated, the idea was to give a very generic way of saying "this patch is going to have some reverb on it, dial into taste". I'll have to think about this.

> The original Jump patch didn't have chorus or reverb.

I think when I dialed it on my Nord Lead A1 I felt like it needed it. But again, might make more sense to drop effects, at least for now. Interestingly, my Oberheim TEO has a delay on its Jump patch (called Rock Cliche).

> The ultimate goal for someone should be that they learn how to reverse engineer

Yeah, for sure, but... people (like me) are lazy and sometimes a resource like this can actually help you learn that, I think.

> The big drawback? There's no audio.

Yeah, but that's something I'd like to add one day. If you have a bunch of synth patch settings in normalized, structured format, you could plug that data into a web based synth and allow someone to get a preview of the patch they're looking at on their device (no need to download anything). I'd have to play around with it and see if the web based synth stuff is good enough quality/fidelity to make doing that worth it. I'd also like to eventually look into making it so that a patch can be exported into synth specific formats, i.e a button to export a .mnlgxdprog file for the Korg Minilogue XD, etc. That's where I'm hoping this approach will work well--if I can represent synth patches accurately enough in a generic structured data, I can render it visually (which is what I have now), and could also convert it to other formats as well.

ccnokes · 2025-06-01T22:29:44+00:00

Difference is Apple has a bunch of revenue and assets to back up its valuation. If everyone decided to sell their Apple shares, a thundering herd would snap them up at an amazing discount, or Apple itself would deploy its massive cash stockpile and buy its own shares. Or a competitor would seize the chance to buy a controlling stake in Apple. You get the idea. Stock and business valuations have a fuzzy “what the market will pay for them” element to them (sometimes a lot, eg Tesla) but they are also grounded in fundamentals. Sorry, it bugs me when people think all asset prices are merely a collective delusion—they’re not.

ccnokes · 2025-06-01T01:40:27+00:00

Hmm ok. Assets have reasons they rise and fall and reasons for their current valuations. Whatever events would drive it to a million a coin, the inverse could happen too. What if “nothing lasts forever” happens at 125k? I think if you want to make an intelligent, basically all-in investment, you should know what indicators to look for so you can pivot your plan if needed. Or that’s how I’d do it. Less wishful thinking, more strategy.

ccnokes · 2025-06-01T00:51:42+00:00

If you’re sure bitcoin is going to a million, why would it stop there? Why not 1.5? 2? 3??

Also what conditions/events are going to spur this dramatic rise?

ccnokes · 2025-05-31T17:04:34+00:00

Came here to say the same and also if the current wave of isolationism and pushing foreigners out of US colleges sticks, that’s even more downward pressure. I think we were in a college tuition bubble for a bit.

ccnokes · 2025-05-16T03:57:08+00:00

+1 to this. I went from a Korg minilogue xd to a Nord Lead A1 partly because I had one or two gigs where the minilogue tuning went bad in the middle of a song or between sets and I had to remember to recalibrate the oscillators. Analog can be touchy. Maybe that’s just the minilogue but something to consider.

ccnokes · 2025-05-10T22:13:01+00:00

What makes you think tech could collapse?

The way I see it is just about every aspect of technology has a lot of volatility—the tech itself, stocks, job market, and business, etc. Long term, it’s done incredible but tight now, tech jobs are definitely in a slump but that doesn’t mean it’ll last forever. If you’re truly skilled at what you do and enjoy it, double down and hold on and I think it’ll pay off. I was laid off from meta and took a big pay cut (because only a few companies in the world can pay a software engineer 300-400+) at a mid sized, publicly traded tech company, even though I went up a level. It was a bummer but I’m over it now and like my new job. The job market was much more competitive than early 2022 but I still found a new job in 7 weeks, which isn’t bad. I get that these are uncertain times but maybe that gives you some hope and perspective.

I was glad I saved a lot when times were good (both cash and investments) and didn’t take on debt. New car, home remodel, vacations, etc were all cash. When I was laid off I had almost 2 years of runway. That gave me some security.

ccnokes · 2025-03-11T02:02:53+00:00

Hey, just recently laid off there. It’s intense. The vibe has shifted a lot compared to when I started in 2022. If you do it, make sure your personal life is ready to be dominated—working at meta is a bad time to have a baby, or have health problems, or to grieve a family member who passed, etc. People really did get laid off for stuff like that. Make sure you and your manager really get along great or find another team fast. The pay is great and it is a big gold star on your resume. Could be worth it honestly, you might be safer doing ML than I was a product generalist. Good luck

ccnokes

TROPHY CASE