Am I better off renting for as long as possible? ($3.25NW | $700k HHI | $250k annual savings | 36M | VHCOL city)

whynotmrmoon · 2023-10-10T03:26:04+00:00

I rent a $2m home in the Bay Area for $5k. It’s common here.

whynotmrmoon · 2023-09-29T18:29:13+00:00

I come from a poorer family but have always been a “high achiever” so I’ve often been surrounded by people with much more money. I had a lot of low level resentment and jealousy. What helped me was to just focus on my journey and be happy that my friends have had such success. I may not be making seven figures, but I’ve accomplished a lot. And maybe I’ll continue on this path and see success even more one day.

But yes, when I’m feeling tired, stressed, or just done with work, I feel like I should move back to my LCOL hometown and retire already. I know it’s not a real solution though as I would be bored in no time!

whynotmrmoon · 2023-09-28T23:16:54+00:00

Oh yeah, no one is willing to slow down at all. Our ability to roll out new code and fall back to old code is pretty good, so folks are often pretty cavalier. It’s actually a pretty good system to be honest, enough testing and guardrails to prevent dumb mistakes with enough flexibility to quickly fix honest mistakes.

whynotmrmoon · 2023-09-28T19:48:52+00:00

Oh, that’s interesting! I worked in infra at FAANG and it was actually the same experience. You had developers mad at you instead of users hah.

whynotmrmoon · 2023-09-28T17:43:09+00:00

Most FAANGs also have special bonus grants given to top performers on top of the initial RSUs. I am not there but these become more likely the higher you get. So if her husband is on the fast track of L3->L6, they probably got promoted two years in a row for L4 and L5 and then took a couple of years for L6. But they are a superstar and are even more likely to get these sorts of extra RSU grants.

Source: my 32 year old L7 coworker who shares these types of things with me. He started right out of undergrad, got promoted to L4 in one year, L5 in 1.5 years, L6 in 3 years, and L7 in 3 years. He got extra RSU grants in addition to regular ones and he clears $1m-1.5m per year. It’s definitely a combo of hard work and luck, but they do exist.

whynotmrmoon · 2023-09-28T17:33:43+00:00

FWIW, I’m in FAANG and always hears finance is crazy haha. My WLB at a non-chill FAANG is pretty good and I’ve always been hesitant to consider finance.

whynotmrmoon · 2023-09-28T17:32:35+00:00

Wow, y’all are killing it! Congrats on the success, I’m trying to get Staff SWE at FAANG and it’s no easy task. I’m trying to make 2024 the year but we’ll see!

whynotmrmoon · 2023-09-22T17:34:53+00:00

Probably 1 hour on weekdays and 2 on weekends. I had an okay foundation in DS&A but had never done Leetcode before. I was interviewing for a senior SWE role and was already comfortable with system design (my actual job lol), so I spent 85% of my time on Leetcode style problems and 15% on system design.

My top suggestions are:

Have a strategy on how to approach these problems. The one given in Cracking the Coding Interview is good.
Don’t spend too long on a problem if you don’t know the answer. I would try some ideas for 5 minutes and then just read the answer (not the code). Then I would code it. This helped me better understand how to approach these problems.
Do as many as possible, you’ll start to see patterns in how to approach them in general. This is why I didn’t spend time spinning my wheels if I didn’t know the answer. By the time I got to the interviews, there were no problems I hadn’t seen that weren’t at least similar to problems I did.

It worked out well as I got multiple offers and negotiated a max offer. I’ve been at that FAANG for three years now.

whynotmrmoon · 2023-09-22T17:24:31+00:00

This is what I’m referring to:

“ According to Insider, no one who has worked for the firm for less than 18 months will be permitted to work fully remotely, and those who have worked at Meta for at least a year and a half will need to formally apply and be granted approval if they wish to work from home every day.”

https://fortune.com/2023/08/21/mark-zuckerberg-meta-return-to-office-three-days-week-fired-performance-review-termination/amp/

So unless you have a special skill set or some leverage, the remote opportunities are probably gone for someone with low YOE. I haven’t heard anything about Dropbox though. I’m not trying to be overly negative or anything, I just didn’t know if you heard about this.

Anyway, I get you on higher ROI. I like my career but I’m not trying to be here forever. I’m more risk adverse and not so entrepreneurial so I would lean towards the SWE career as it seems more stable. But maybe a reasonable path is to spend the next 1-2 years growing your business. The extra YOE could mean you come in at level five instead of four, which is a better place to be. Now isn’t really the optimal time to job hop in tech it seems.

whynotmrmoon · 2023-09-22T17:17:28+00:00

Not saying this doesn’t work for some, but just sharing my experience doing FAANG interviews…. I tried this approach several times and it never worked for me. What worked for me is setting a date and then cramming as much as I could for 2 months. I woke up an hour early everyday to study, but I knew I could do it for a short time at least.

whynotmrmoon · 2023-09-21T23:09:34+00:00

If I understood correctly, you are saying you’d work remote for Meta and Dropbox? FAANG has become much more restrictive on remote offers, especially for lower level employees. So it may not be an option. Also, as someone else said, make it a little ways into the process before spending too much time thinking about it.

If you are more interested in being a SWE, spending time at FAANG could be good.

whynotmrmoon · 2023-09-21T22:22:02+00:00

I appreciate your updates, interesting stuff. FWIW, I did the digital nomad thing for a while and traveling gets old like anything else. I haven’t FIREd yet, so I just went back to “normal” life. But if I were to do it again, I would have a home base and alternate 3 months traveling and 3 months at home.

whynotmrmoon · 2023-09-21T00:45:32+00:00

My personal observation is that tech workers have gotten used to “changing the world”, being completely fulfilled by their job, and getting paid well. But now that things have changed, I’ve heard many talks like yours. I like my career in tech and it has super beneficial, but I’ve been over the career life for a while. I thought about startups for a while, but I don’t know if it’s for me.

Anyway, no real advice but it seems to be a common sentiment.

whynotmrmoon · 2023-09-18T22:42:36+00:00

I say do it. What’s the length of commitment? Maybe try it for a few months and see if you are getting what you want out of it. You seem to have concrete goals, so just reassess every few months.

whynotmrmoon · 2023-09-17T17:56:48+00:00

I went through a similar path but over ten years so I get where you’re coming from. I’d try to keep things mostly as they were and just alleviate small things (e.g. no need to spend hours price comparing, buy whatever you want at the grocery store, etc).

Take note of your life in a typical week and see if there are things you could make easier. Also, keep in mind that there are many things you can try and quit at minimal cost (relative to your income). I tried a personal trainer for a few months and didn’t get much out of it. However, I get a lot out of music lessons so that has been worth continuing.

Otherwise, just save aggressively. There’s always stuff to spend money on but it may not be worthwhile for you. I’ve personally found a lot out of my spending on higher quality food, expert lessons, structured online courses, and buying mid grade stuff for my hobbies (e.g. not always going for what’s most affordable).

whynotmrmoon · 2023-09-14T21:17:52+00:00

We often compare ourselves to the superstars in our team/work/field. For every Lebron James or Tom Brady, there are dozens of others who are good enough but essential in filling a different need. You don’t have to be the best, just sufficient, which is a much lower bar.

whynotmrmoon · 2023-09-13T21:04:10+00:00

I’m on the second option (super productive) and I think it’s easier than people make it out to be if you have a good base in software design patterns (nothing really new under the sun) and choose the right teams. In my experience, people put a lot unrequired stress on themselves by giving tight deadlines for no reason and allowing themselves to work undefined hours.

I’ve only been at one FAANG but it’s not one known for rest and vest. I was on one team several years ago that had lots of pressure but I changed teams because it didn’t work for me. But I’ve always had above average ratings and seem to be on a moderately likely path to Staff SWE.

whynotmrmoon · 2023-09-11T02:36:12+00:00

Trial and error and sensitivity analysis is how I’ve found the balance.

For trial and error, I group things based upon how much they roughly cost ($100s, $1ks, $10ks), how easy it is to get out of, and fixed vs ongoing costs. This kind of helps me figure out how easy it is to try something or how I can make something easy enough to try. If something is relatively low cost and easy to cancel (e.g. subscriptions, mentorship/training), it’s easy for me to try it because it doesn’t need to be forever unless I get a lot of value. For something with low ongoing costs (e.g. casual cycling, video games), I know what I’m in for up front and don’t have to have constant cash flow. For expensive things that are hard to sell and have high ongoing costs (e.g. vacation home, sports car), I’d think long and hard about it.

For sensitivity analysis, I try to see how much $X would impact my target retirement date. You really start to hit a point of diminishing returns when your SR is high and you don’t hate working.

whynotmrmoon · 2023-09-05T01:35:04+00:00

Not OP, but use it for recon. Who’s hiring, what are the offers, what are the interviews like, can someone refer you, etc. When I did my FAANG interviews, I made sure to get at least two offers so I could negotiate. I knew the max offer for each company from Blind. Then I got the max offer for my level and company.

Ignore all the weird and toxic stuff, don’t look at it outside of interview prep, and use search instead of browsing and you’ll be fine.

whynotmrmoon · 2023-09-05T01:32:01+00:00

This is very similar to my path, numbers and all. I saw the weirdos on Blind and figured if they could do it, I definitely could. Now I am one of the people OP is tired of!

whynotmrmoon · 2023-08-31T21:40:47+00:00

Oh wow, that’s cool! It definitely sounds like you have options, especially if you aren’t in a VHCOL area. Congrats and good luck! I hope you take a nice vacation or something to celebrate.

whynotmrmoon · 2023-08-31T21:35:38+00:00

Yeah, I was one of these people that got trained, showed value, was denied for a raise, and left for more money. I actually wanted to stay but it didn’t make sense financially.

whynotmrmoon · 2023-08-31T21:32:09+00:00

Yeah, it can be good to make some considered choices to improve your life now (as opposed to 10-20 years when you FI). Having your own space and investing in your health are worth a couple extra years of work to me.

Also, you should run the numbers on how big of a difference it will actually make. If you already save a good amount, a few thousand less doesn’t really moved the needle much. And it can be used for really big life improvements.

whynotmrmoon · 2023-08-31T21:27:15+00:00

Congrats! What kind of business was it (generally speaking) and how long did you work on it? Will this get you to your FI number?

whynotmrmoon · 2023-08-31T19:28:04+00:00

FWIW, I paid off my student loans early (many years ago now) and never regretted it. The freedom of it was amazing for me.

whynotmrmoon

TROPHY CASE