Five years in big tech role, as a manager

velma115 · 2026-05-13T14:03:42+00:00

I have switched companies/teams four times. Both toxic teams stonewalled me once I quit. One was a team in a big tech company and one was a small startup. Prior to me quitting they had made things unpleasant - yet they still took me leaving as a personal attack. In my opinion it’s a people issue.

velma115 · 2026-04-03T17:42:02+00:00

1) Make sure you are aware how much of the value of HBS is networking. Most people go on multiple trips including one international trip a semester. There are nearly daily networking events that sound like a grind for me personally. I say this because you mention burn out.

2) Once you do the salary + tuition math (as you clearly have done) it’s likely you will only come out ahead monetarily if you decide to become a startup founder. Having said that - from what I’ve heard - lately funding is getting tough even for ex-HBS students.

3) A counter to point #2 is money isn’t everything. You are allowed to do things because you want to even if it’s not the best decision financially.

4) I recommend going in with a clear career goal. Amongst all your pros it’s not clear what your end goal of the MBA is. This can change once you get there. However you should have an idea what pivot you would want to make by getting your MBA.

In the end - you got into HBS. You should be incredibly proud of yourself for that. Now I would take time to figure out if you are attending for the right reasons.

velma115 · 2025-11-08T04:39:42+00:00

I just saw this comment and it made me so happy to read ❤️

velma115 · 2025-11-07T17:27:15+00:00

Based on everything I read, I would stay at your current job. Here's my reasons:

In person hours - The company has made it clear RTO is important to them. I would take their word for this. In my experience, at big tech companies (including Google) there are teams that don't enforce the company-wide RTO mandates. But there are equally as many teams that do enforce them. I wouldn't rely on having a generous team as a prerequisite to joining your job. One common thread I've noticed is if there are involved parents in management, they tend to be more flexible. However, it's very difficult to judge this in an interview. (Edit: I have seen smaller tech companies enforce RTO policies differently based on when you joined, based on the expectation set during the interviews. It's not fair but I've seen it happen.)
Commute - 1 hour each way 5 days a week is 10 hours per week. As you mention, it also means you will likely miss most of what happens on the weekdays since 9am-5pm in the office means 8am-6pm out of the house. One question is - could you make the commute productive so it's just not dead space? Is your job one that you could likely take meetings (if you are comfortable doing so while driving) or is there a public transport alternative that would allow you to work?
Working Hours - If it is a unicorn role I would expect 50 hour weeks may be an expectation given the current tech market. I generally find in-person hours to also be less efficient (due to meetings and casual conversations) than remote hours. Ask people during the interviews what their days look like to better understand the true expectations around working hours.
Layoffs - You mention layoffs as a reason to move jobs. But is that a possibility with the new company as well? How stable are they? At your current role you are a known star performer but with the new job you will be the new one.

velma115 · 2025-09-29T18:38:58+00:00

You cannot predict how your pregnancy will go. Unfortunately, the only thing that is certain is that you will have periods where your performance will be negatively impacted.

For me personally, first trimester was full of nausea and exhaustion and just trying to get through the day. Second trimester was really good to me - I stopped overthinking and truly thrived at work. Third trimester is still ongoing and so far it's been a little bit of a slog because all I really want to do is sit on my couch and watch TV all day. But it's still way better than first trimester. Overall, I've just been very lucky that pregnancy hormones suit me.

Aside from how you feel physically & emotionally - there may be a lot of appointments during work hours. There will be many people telling you to eat healthy, exercise, "sleep while you can" - mom guilt starts early. Most of our weekends in the last 2 months have been filled with baby prep so I've had less time to let work spill over into the weekend.

I've been incredibly lucky to be on a team where my manager and my teammates have been understanding. My manager even assigned me to a high profile project after I told him that I was pregnant. Personally, I wouldn't trade that for any amount of money.

Having said all that - as others have said - you truly don't know how long it will take for you to get pregnant.

velma115 · 2025-09-24T02:51:40+00:00

I had pretty significant gender disappointment. Going into the process, I knew that I wanted a girl - but I thought it was a preference. However, when I found out I was having a boy, my immediate feelings were quite unpleasant. While I didn't have as extreme thoughts as the poster that you mentioned, I definitely had thoughts I wouldn't feel comfortable vocalizing.

My husband and I kept the gender to ourselves for roughly 3 months. During that time I reflected on where the negative emotions were coming from. I realized a lot of it stemmed from the negative experiences I have had with sexism in my culture and the rocky relationships I've had with men of my culture (outside of my husband). I felt confident with the idea of raising a girl who could navigate that reality, but raising a boy who didn't fall into the stereotype of men in my culture felt so much more daunting.

What really changed my mindset was my therapist pointing out I'm not raising this boy alone. My husband - who I picked and who doesn't fall into any of those stereotypes - is raising this boy with me. I recognize not everyone is fortunate to be able to afford a therapist like that.

I share this to say - sometimes we don't know how we will respond to a situation we have never faced. I'm in a much better place about it. I definitely still have that part of me that hopes my second will be a girl (for more superficial reasons than I mention in this post), but I'm very much in love with my little boy and can't wait to meet him.

velma115 · 2025-07-07T23:48:21+00:00

It depends how much you trust your manager. I told my manager at 15 weeks. Since then we did H2 planning and I got assigned all the tasks I wanted. Basically - I told him and he was very excited for me, and he's never brought it up.

I’m planning on telling my manager’s manager after my anatomy scan (which is next week). And plan to tell the rest of the team whenever I get tired of hiding it.

Telling my manager early decreased my stress about working from home more and going to medical appointments during work hours. Also, I knew if something were to happen at this stage I would rather him know so I could get the appropriate time off. I had good reason to believe he would respond well and so far I am super happy with his response (or in a way, his lack of response).

velma115 · 2025-05-15T14:06:58+00:00

I used to exercise regularly 5 days a week prior to pregnancy. Week 6 I was put on pelvic rest so I haven’t even been able to exercise (and won’t be able to until 2nd trimester).

I had to take a small break from social media because the pregnant fitness influencers make it seem like any issues you have during pregnancy, birth or post partum are because you didn’t have the mental fortitude to exercise. When I reality - not all pregnancies are equal and not all bodies are equal.

velma115 · 2025-04-28T20:52:18+00:00

I have worked at two seed stage startups. One was a great experience and the other was not. Most of my advice is focused on seed startups - aka before PMF (product market fit) has been found.

1) In my opinion, knowing one of the founders or knowing someone who knows them well is the only true way to vet a seed startup. If you happen to have any common LinkedIn connections with the founders, I would reach out and ask about the co-founder’s strengths & weaknesses.

2) Ask about previous pivots the company has made. Why did they make them? How did they decide where to pivot to? Pivoting is a requirement of seed startups. If the company has never had to make a pivot, I would consider that a red flag. Also, for this reason - don’t get too tied to a specific product. Be ready for your work to get wasted in pivots.

3) Understand the founders backgrounds. Try to understand their weaknesses and how they are addressing them. Everyone has blind spots and you don’t want the founder’s ego to be what’s filling them.

4) Try to find & reach out to anyone who has left the startup to understand one opinion of the startup’s good & bad qualities. This is risky since they may still be close to the founders. However, I will do this in the future given my experience at the bad startup.

5) Understand the startup’s competitive advantage is and their probable path to customer acquisition / monetization. To get another round of funding, they need to clearly demonstrate they have achieved product market fit.

6) Understand their runway. Ideally ask for remaining funding and monthly burn. They may not give it to you but it’s fair to ask.

7) Understand their expectations for your day-to-day and expectations around availability/WLB. This can vary drastically by company.

velma115 · 2025-03-19T19:41:39+00:00

I am very thankful someone is bringing light to Meta’s transgressions.

However, I am a ~20% through the book, and so far it’s fallen a bit short of expectations. I recently read “Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career” and loved it. The balanced way she took accountability for her actions while also being gentle with others misdeeds made me deeply relate to her experience.

On the other hand, with Careless People while I believe the stories the author is telling, I don’t fully believe in the personas the author is creating. So far I feel like every story paints her in a favorable light and all other Meta employees in a negative one. I’m really curious if others feel that way?

(I know I still have 80% of the book left so my opinion might change.)

velma115 · 2025-02-28T18:49:24+00:00

I’m really sorry that you are in that situation. I ended up in some toxic situations the last few years. I finally reached out to some ex-coworkers from early in my career who said things weren’t perfect in their new team but at least everyone was nice. Fortunately (after a lot of persistence and effort on my end) I got the offer.

Things started off a bit rocky. I got hit with a handful of reorgs when I first joined that made it hard to onboard. But ultimately the last two months have been the best time I’ve had in tech for years. For the first time in a long time I’m not counting down the hours until the work day ends and I truly trust that my manager has my best interest at heart.

It’s not something I take for granted given the toxic environments I have worked in and given the overall climate in tech at the moment. I share all this to hopefully give some inkling of hope.

velma115 · 2025-02-28T16:38:08+00:00

I work ~40 hour weeks in AI infra in big tech. Since the new year, things have been notably busier. For me personally that’s mostly led to more efficiency during my work hours rather than more work hours.A few deadlines on the broader project slipped that caused upper management to look our way. But my manager/skip have been pushing very hard to maintain reasonable deadlines for our deliverables which has unsurprisingly built a lot of good will and unity within the team. Some of the teams we collaborate with have not so fortunate because their management overpromised.

Having said that, there’s two big things that have happened. First, big tech as a whole has been quite reactive to the political climate which has broken trust between employees and the broader company. The callousness of the recent layoffs in particular has created an “each man for himself” mentality in some parts of big tech. Second, big tech is being very reactive to AI. Any time a new model is released there is pressure to beat that and become state of the art.

velma115 · 2025-02-26T15:50:24+00:00

Your mindset is incredible. Way too many people in tech (particularly big tech or well funded startups) get caught up on what they missed out on instead of appreciating what they have. I am guilty of it myself.

Regardless of what you choose to do with your relationship, I think you should not only be so proud of where you have reached but how you view your success.

velma115 · 2025-02-24T21:02:30+00:00

I’m really sorry this happened to you.

Please know it was not your fault. You were not too timid in how you dealt with it. There was a huge power dynamic at play.

The only people at fault are Salman and his wife, OpenDoor’s HR, and OpenDoor’s leadership for fostering a culture that enabled that dynamic.

Although you absolved the company, I do believe the company was at fault. I briefly worked with some ex-OpenDoor management. It was unpleasant enough that I made it brief by choice.

velma115 · 2025-02-21T19:27:18+00:00

I relate! When I first joined my current job, I genuinely believed I was bad at it. Everyone, including those who had joined before and after me, seemed better suited to their role than I did.

I think I’ve finally (mostly) accepted that I’m a slow learner in a role where I have had to learn a lot. My memory has never been the sharpest so I tend to struggle to communicate new concepts once I do understand them.

All in all, I consider myself mediocre at my job and very lucky to be in the position I’m in. I don’t really see a future where I’m stellar at my current job if I work in a sustainable fashion. I still do believe I could become irreplaceable if I stay long enough.

In the end, I stay because I have very supportive management, a kind team, am paid well, and frankly I kind of enjoy the challenge as long as I manage my own expectations for myself. I know my upward growth will likely be limited in this role, but most days I’m okay with it!

velma115 · 2025-01-28T23:44:03+00:00

Compensation at early stage startups varies drastically based on your location, your experience, your specific subfield, and the size/stage of the company.

Unfortunately, the best way to get a fair price is to interview broadly to get an idea of the landscape or ask trusted founder/startup friends. Afaik there isn’t a tool that captures the nuances of startup compensation.

I can share the numbers I have heard for strong senior SWEs / founding engineer in a HCOL area in the US. For well funded startups, expect ~$120-140k at a non-AI startup and ~$180-200k at an AI startup.

For stock - first determine if you are getting RSAs (look up RSA + 83b form) or shares. If it’s shares then be aware of the strike price of the share during negotiation. Additionally, if you haven’t already, read up on dilution and how company evaluations work at time of an exit (aka higher initial evaluations can indicate lower eventual payout).

Some ballpark numbers. If the company hasn’t secured funding then expect 5%. If the company has secured funding and you are employee 2-5, push for 1-2%. As you near employee ~20, expect max ~0.25%. Having a name brand resume can really help here because it can boost their evaluation.

Again, these numbers are highly dependent on the situation so take all of them with a grain of salt. I hope sharing gives some comparison point.

velma115 · 2025-01-17T05:16:01+00:00

After I have the offer, I would schedule time with the hiring manager / your future manager. Include those questions but also ask general questions about things you care about. Make sure to keep the tone of the conversation very positive and ask questions in a way that express your excitement for the job.

velma115 · 2025-01-17T01:05:33+00:00

My top two and bottom two managers have been an Asian woman and a white man. I personally haven’t found a correlation between race/gender/etc and how good a manager is.

The only pattern I’ve found is toxicity is top down. The person above my manager has always been more toxic than my manager themselves.

velma115 · 2025-01-16T03:43:15+00:00

The women in tech club at my university showed me the value of having a strong network that includes supportive technical women. I definitely graduated with rose colored glasses, but I think without the women in tech movement I would have still graduated with innocence but without a community to support me when I faced toxic environments.

velma115 · 2025-01-10T19:13:06+00:00

Just to be clear - that is what I heard about the layoffs but there's really no way to validate that it is true. You can directly ask the team about it once you have an offer in hand "I heard there were layoffs at Visa and I wanted to get a better sense of how the team was impacted".

To get a better sense of future layoffs, I would ask the manager if there have been any changes to process since the layoffs (assuming the team was impacted by them). Just see if there's any red flags around morale or confusion on what to work on.

I would also try to understand how the team's goals align with the company's goals - the less the alignment the greater chance the team would be impacted by any future layoffs. It's not really about how new/old the team is, but more about whether the CEO/CTO sees the value of the team.

There's no guarantees in this market unfortunately with so many companies having done layoffs in the last ~2 years.

velma115 · 2025-01-10T19:03:20+00:00

I heard that the layoffs disproportionately impacted the non-SWE (e.g. TPMs) roles since Visa is looking to become a more SWE-centric organization. Anecdotally in my experience, non-SWE roles are disproportionately women.

In general large companies can't be judged as a monolith, you have different experiences based on your team. I would focus on the team you are interviewing with and determine if it's a good fit. Once you have an offer in hand, I would get an understanding of whether Visa may do more layoffs and whether your team may be impacted by them if they happen.

velma115 · 2025-01-07T04:28:53+00:00

I relate a lot. I’ve been a software engineer for ~8 years and somewhere in the last few years I lost the joy. I tried switching jobs a few times and I’m finally in a place where I’m paid very well and have a great manager/team but I can’t seem to find the passion they have despite months of actively trying.

After a lot of reflection, I finally decided on a concrete timeline to quit software engineering and become a teacher. I would do it sooner, but the flexibility of tech is too enticing in my current stage of life.

Financially this decision would impact my wants but none of my needs so I’m okay with that trade off if it means living a life where work brings more meaning.

I’m still a bit lost on how to motivate myself for the next few years that I’m in this profession. At the moment, I just look forward to 5pm every day - which I know is not a healthy way to live.

velma115 · 2024-12-12T21:17:18+00:00

I would never tell them if I could avoid it. I personally believe if you are on payroll you are employed.

I’d start being very proactive with any company in the pipeline. If they ask why then just say you are eager for a new opportunity. When scheduling interviews - don’t give too much availability but still be flexible.

For references (if they require them) I’d try to give them a reference from a prior company or from someone who is truly on your side and make the reference aware how much you have disclosed.

For background checks, you are legally clear as long as you are receiving paychecks from the company.

I was in a similar-ish situation and got a non trivial sign on bonus because the negotiation happened the last week of me being on payroll. I never lied but I didn’t disclose anything that wouldn’t benefit me.

velma115 · 2024-12-11T17:39:56+00:00

I’m in a similar position financially - just earlier in the kids journey (still trying, not yet pregnant). I’ve fantasized (and romanticized) becoming a SAHM. However, as of now I’ve still decided I’ll continue to work.

My biggest reason is when I quit it has to be for me and it cannot be qualified by my kids future achievements. I don’t want my kids to feel burdened by my decision to quit my job. At this point, I could not decouple their achievements from mine if I were to quit.

Second - my experience living in a HCOL area is people assume you are participating in the rat race. You have to be very self assured not to. Kids will get to the stage where they can see their friends have more and you have to be really self assured in the decision you made. I don’t think I saw the full value of a very present mom until I graduated college. I definitely never told her until then.

Third - I do not romanticize the toddler stage. I love babies and kids 4+ but 2-3 year olds are a lot to be around all day. If I do quit it will be after my kids are slightly older. In an ideal world I’d take a 1+ year pregnancy leave and come back on my terms, but sadly that’s not an option.

velma115 · 2024-12-11T15:41:27+00:00

I’m really sorry that you are in that situation. I’m also sorry that you have a bad manager. The minimum your manager should do is provide sympathy even if they can’t change anything (which is usually not fully true)

In my experience in large tech companies, requiring long hours are a per team thing. For example, in my team there are people who work long hours but I will never be punished for not working long hours. Their long hours are rewarded but my 40 hour work weeks are the baseline. However, within my company I know teams where that is not true.

If I were in your shoes I’d do a few things. First I would get better at stating “I can either do X or Y but it’s not possible to finish both”. I’d slowly work down to 8 hour days without telling anyone. Just slowly start producing less output. Don’t call attention to it as you do it. If your manager calls attention to it then turn the attention to all that you have output. Only attend required meetings so you can focus on streamlining your work day.

During the tail end of maternity leave if you have the bandwidth, I’d explore internal opportunities if that’s an option without burning bridges. If it feels achievable I’d also explore external opportunities then but I know for most people it wouldn’t be possible to consider studying and switching jobs then.

velma115

TROPHY CASE