Avoiding the temptation of a high-paying job?
The other day I saw this post on Indie Hackers called "the job market is completely insane right now".
I can confirm that there are companies paying INSANE amount of money right now for software engineers. The funding for software is also crazy.
How (and should) you avoid the "temptation" of a high-paying job vs. doing something on your own? Anyone here who consistently declined high-paying job opportunity to build your own thing? What was your experience?
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I think the mindset should not be: I must avoid high-paying jobs.... what if you find a high-paying job of a recently Series A funded startup, that has the potential to become a Unicorn and you can play a pivotal role in this? With autonomy, a great team and doing what you enjoy doing?
I would also add that most founders of successful start ups are older.... they've experienced the pain of working in larger companies and any successful start up ends up being a large company....
So my 2 cents are: if you're in demand, great. Take it as an opportunity to learn, save and prepare your own project. Of course, if you're already experienced, have some savings and have a great idea you're already working on, then its easy to just say, thanks, but no thanks.
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Unpopular opinion:
High-paying jobs are only tempting if your startup isn't doing well.
I think first, it's not necessarily a bad idea to take a high-paying job and build your startup as a side project. Once you've proven some traction and are earning money from the side project you can switch over to the side project full time.
Something that always struck me about working for a company versus starting your own is that the upside is unlimited when building your own thing versus capped at a job.
Also you need to find a high paying job that doesn't require working nights/weekends and leaves you mentally exhausted since this will negatively affect any side projects. In my experience salary is directly proportional to the amount of stress and workload of the job.
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My experience has provided accurate data for working at FAANG organizations in the United States. I'm not aware of anyone in management who wasn't working 70+ hr weeks and many worked through their vacations in hotel rooms etc.
At the end of the day its all about the company that you work for, the associated culture and the country in which you work. For example, my counterparts in the UK were able to work a lot less since they were protected by UK employment law and could take 5 weeks vacation/yr etc. Not the care in the US in which not even maternity leave is guaranteed by law and is left to the companies discretion.
In summary, WLB is difficult in any FAANG due to the culture and "stack rank" processes which means even if you're fortunate enough to not have much work then you will need to quickly invent work if you don't want to get cut.
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Haha yes it does! Luckily I saved up some runway and quit a few months back to work on my own projects.
I agree with this completely, and went this route -- worked at a high-paying job for two years, kept pushing my project forward on the side (always with the intention of leaving the job at a certain point), and saved enough money to build up some personal runway.
Did the same ! :)
To me, Entrepreneurship or working for yourself is never about getting more money. Otherwise, I would've stayed at my corporate job.
Instead, it's all about pursuing personal freedom and choosing how I spend my energy and time.
My team and I have been coaching candidates on instamentor to land a high-paid tech job in the last 15 months, and I've noticed a few things/changes.
This is probably because of the remote work culture that makes it hard to communicate and share internal knowledge with a new hire.
I've seen more and more system design and cultural fit-related questions for software-related roles.
More leetcode medium-level questions have been asked (with some adjustments) rather than hard levels ones.
I think more and more companies are realizing the candidates were simply mesmerized by the answers rather than understanding them, it's not a good way to predict their work performance or problem-solving skills.
Two words: Endless meetings. It's just gotten worse since Covid. Meetings that prevent me from doing actual work and drain all my energy.
^^ THIS. ^^
A high paying job is not going to give me the lifestyle i want
I turned down a high paying job before co-founding my business almost two years ago.
Honestly, it has been fine. It's actually been great. It's worth noting that I don't have too many life commitments yet (kids), and a couple of downsides:
Difficulties:
But generally the pros massively outweigh the cons for me:
I'm now patient and I'm able to deal with stress, fear and tough times much better!
I've taken the above directly from this post that I recently wrote on this topic. It may be interesting to you.
I think we can learn so much by pushing our limits and taking the leap with a startup. If it doesn't go to plan, you'll be even more employable in 2 years.
By remembering that getting hired to one of these high paying jobs involves outrunning other 100+ gold rush participants in an annoying, insulting, degrading seven-level obstacle course that may involve some HR dweeb asking "what is your greatest weakness?"....
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Thermonuclear weapons; failing that - high velocity lead. That's my honest answer, but in reality I would probably be saying some inauthentic nonsense that I would suppose the interviewer wanted to hear.
But here's the thing... In a normal conversation that very question would be off-limits. Imagine asking that - or something else that invites other party to speak negatively about themselves - during the first 15 minutes of meeting them in a conference. What face would they make? How would you react if someone you just met in a normal social situation asked that? Compare and contrast with social dynamics between interviewer and a candidate that are predicated on power differential between company that has a big sack of money and long list of people vying for that sack of money. I do understand that passing interviews is a skillset in itself and that in extreme cases people may get hired for work they have no business doing, but in my heart I truly hate doing the obstacle course thing.
I am indeed not the person you would ever want to hire and I'm not looking to get hired (although I do some freelancing). There's a lot not to like about me and autonomy is a hard requirement for me. This is my Why.
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I am a developer turned bootstrapper. At the moment I am making $190/mo from my entrepreneurs community while my friends are all making tons of money... It's not easy! I might be close to finding a job but at the same time I much prefer doing my own thing...
You should not avoid them!
Get the job, work after hours and on weekends, and hire remote developers. Specially if you can find people you can hire as your core team when the idea flies that's ideal.
At least that's what I'm doing
Every time I see a high-paying job offer and feel the temptation, I ask myself: 'Is it worth trading 8 hours per day 5 days per week to get that salary?'.
And the answer is always 'No'.
I can put in those hours on my project and make progress. Job offers are always there, so I can apply whenever I want. It's a nice-to-have backup plan.
'Quitters never win and winners never quit', as they say.
I presume this is for people that don't make enough to live from their side hustle...
If possible, go for well/high paid but that leaves you some flexibility. Instead of looking for a job as an employee, look for freelance jobs.
For instance, I am currently working as a software contractor in the UK on a full-time basis, while building my company on the side.
In my contracting job, I work for specific times and charge a given rate. I don't do extra hours and don't kill myself on this jobs. This gives me extra energy in the mornings or evenings before/after the contracting job.
Plus one on this!
I'm currently self-employed / freelance, and it's make a HUGE difference in my ability to find the time and mental energy to get my startup off the ground.
I was previously also juggling a full-time job, and while I did make progress on the startup while employed, I wasn't exactly loving life for a period of time - but I did it, because I knew that I was setting myself up for the life I wanted to live. Just had to grind through it for a little while there while I built up enough of a financial cushion that the freelance life felt a little less scary.
Is money gonna make you happy? If yes, go for the job and leave your project. If not, keep building.
I live in Israel. I worked for several cyber companies and startups over the years. Each year I found it difficult to stay. It is a character thing. I would be happy if I could be happy in employed positions. Unfortunately I can't take it anymore these days but I have found a balance. I work as freelance with high-ish rates (for Israel) for 3 days and the rest for bootstrapping. Everyone are happy, my wife, my kids, my parents (more or less, my father thinks I should maximize the earnings. But it will be soul crushing for me). Over the years I comes to realize it is not 1 or 0 and all or nothing. I have made some short blogs about it in my site if you want to see some techniques I use. http://tzahifadida.com and about financing bootstrap attempts: https://tzahifadida.com/2022-03-10-bootstrapping-is-possible---building-the-runway/
Good savings and a project that is growing will help a lot.
Trying to start and bootstrap a SaaS with a small runway is a recipe for failure and stress.