I have a certain amount of ennui lately. My team at FaceAppleMicroNetoogle is maybe growing in a different direction than I am. With respect to software engineering practices in my particular vertical. I'm working on something that I don't think will matter. But it has to be done anyway to meet some goals. I can and will do that thing.
I feel a certain amount of job security at FaceAppleMicroNetoogle. I can probably continue to contribute there. At a high level for the foreseeable future. And I think it's unlikely that I'll be fired or laid off any time soon. I said the thing I'm working on won't make an impact. But that probably won't significantly count against me. I've told several levels of managers that it won't make an impact, for what that's worth. But it still has to happen and so I'll finish it. Once that's done, the next thing I work on might make an impact...but even if it does, I'm not sure that would move the needle for me as far as job satisfaction.
I've thought about leaving Silicon Valley. Going somewhere cheaper. But how can someone give up an earning opportunity like this? On the one hand I feel kind of prisoner to it. And on the other hand I feel incredibly ungrateful and entitled to be even considering giving up a paycheck that's 10x what a lot of people would be grateful for.
I think to some degree the crazy pay and the crazy costs are a treadmill. I guess my question is, if anyone else has gotten off that treadmill. And if so, how has it affected your life?
Perhaps first take a vacation to decompress and get perspective. In the likely event you still want to quit, cut back on your spending as much as possible. Create a plan and set a deadline and or savings amount where you will feel comfortable leaving. If this takes more than 3 years at $800k income you are doing it wrong.
A word of caution appears in the next paragraph as I write from personal experience. Long ago I told myself I will quit in 3 years based on my assumed savings rate. I then spent the next 3 years evaluating cities where I'd like to live, actively listening to people who have ideas in case they want to partner later, thinking up business ideas, etc. This secret mission gave my work/life a renewed level of enthusiasm.
Then the day came and I couldn't do it. I felt pathetic and I called my girlfriend to confess my failure during my lunch break. But she reminded me this is a life defining moment from which my ego may never recover. "If not today then assume never". So I quit according to plan that afternoon.
The highs have been high and the lows have been low since then but I have had a rich, full, and memorable life. It's still going great almost 2 decades later.
[0]"Keep your identity small" is a Paul Graham quote and great advice.
Escaping, really escaping requires learning survival skills such as how to sell, design activations and projects that customers can be sold on, paying your own money to hire designers, developers, etc.
I wished to escape for years. Then I stopped wishing and started trying to claw my way out. And failed. For years. Then I started building a side project and learned how to sell, hire, present, project manage.
I had to do all that by working twice as hard or more. I recommend closely studying Alan Weiss for the mindset you need to have.
And now I’m almost out but not quite.
The gap in skills is tremendous. You simply cannot learn the key skills you need while working at these companies. Their employement agreements specifically prevent you from developing them.
I recommend organizing something small that forces or requires you to sell, hire a designer, programmer. The goal is not to quit, just a sandbox. Something outside of work, something fun, something you can make a little money on. Do a little three month project that actually requires you to get money from customers.
You will learn more in three months that can enable you to escape than you will learn staying at faaang another five years.
I recently did such a small project, and in three months I have learned almost everything I need to know to run my own business. I did it on the side in a low key way, but it taught me survival skills. Now I’m actively planning my exit.
How do you feel bad about stepping aside so someone else can have that? It seems generous to let someone else take that job, and you'll go do the same for less elsewhere. (Or maybe just retire)
If I were you, I'd make a plan to leave, and once you have the plan and move along it, you'll likely feel better about the job (because it's a step in the plan) and you can stay longer if you're happy, etc.
If your end goal is to move somewhere else when you have enough money, you need to figure out how much is enough and where you want to be. Of course, how much is enough kind of depends on where you want to be as well.
If you're thinking of moving, you also want to consider when is good or bad time to move for your kids. You probably don't want to move during the school year, if the kids are school aged, and you may have thoughts about what grade you might want to have moved by.
You also need to figure out where your salary is going. Sure, let's lop off half for taxes, that leaves you with $400k/year. Even if you spend half of that on housing (which seems high, but I left the bay area in 2018, so I dunno), there should be a lot left over.
Use your vacation time to visit places you might want to live. Check out the neighborhoods, check out the weather, check out the traffic, check out the food and entertainment, etc.
A sibling comment mentioned remote work. That's something to explore too, but you need to figure out where first. There are also some other areas with lots of tech offices, but maybe not quite as concentrated. You might earn less, but not that much less.
Personally, I left, the bay area is crazy and high stress, but I left to early retire after a windfall; so I don't have the working for less experience, I just don't work.
What is your net income after expenses? How much equity do you have in your home?
It's possible that the actual value you're receiving could be higher in other locations, even if your salary is significantly lower (1/2 even). I'm guessing you could sell your current home and buy a similar one in a low cost area for cash (not that you should use cash) and have some left over.
I have no interest in SV and never have. But if I had a do-over in life, I would have moved there for maybe 5-8 years and left for a low cost area.
Throw in 5k / month on vehicles. You now have 15k after food housing and transportation. Are you really spending that much on child care and insurance?
I have a feeling this person is really saying that they are only saving 20k a month but thats not a lot to them.
Do that for 3-4 years. Congrats! You're flyover country retired now. From here you can move somewhere else, keep working for FAANG, do startups, volunteer, start a band, write a book, goof off, teach people to code, attempt things people insist are impossible.
Fresh out of college I still wanted to be an (actual) rock star so I moved to Los Angeles instead of SF. Instead of bussing tables when I was trying to "make it" though I had had a couple of nice tech gigs where I learned a lot.
I wanted to shift my focus to learning Chinese so I moved to Taiwan and found some remote startup tech roles. As a side effect, I've managed to escape the treadmill entirely (since a "good" salary in Taiwan is about $35k-$40k USD/year). My goal wasn't to _save_ money though, it was to learn Chinese.
Figure out exactly what you want first than go down that direction. Emphasis on what _you_ want, not what society wants. Maybe you want to spend more time with your family. Maybe you want to work with some cool esoteric programming language with a small team. Maybe you want to career shift entirely and pursue a career as an English speaking stand up comedian in Asia (OK, maybe that's just me ;-)).
The point is you're already set financially. Even if you lose ALL of your money tomorrow, you'll _always_ be able to earn in the top 10% of _any_ region by picking up random Wordpress website fixes at the bare minimum.
Before you make a decision, look at where your net income is going. Assess what you are willing to give up and of those that you retain, how much you would be spending in a lower cost location. You need to involve your wife in such an analysis and discussions. If you are still interested, take a vacation and visit some of the places you are considering. See if you do like the environment and what it has to offer.
I moved to Vegas from CA and twisted some arms in upper management/HR of my company to keep my salary.
Most HR's has abusive practices to cut salary if you move to cheaper place but if you have personal connections and good relationships in upper management you can solve it.
Benefits are clear.
I’m not actually complaining. I’ll still be able to retire around 40 so that’s definitely better than most. Still feels bad to be trapped and not have the freedom to change.
When exactly did that start happening? How do you know the treadmill is the cause?
Make that 15x. I wish I was born in the US and not in Europe. Then again, I'm happy I'm born in western Europe and not in India (when it comes to earning opportunity).
After much soul-searching I found I couldn't reasonably justify quitting from an economic perspective. So I stayed some more years, living quite comfortably but intentionally under my income level to bank more money. The timing turned out well for me because, during this period, the company's stock increased even more than the overall market (which was doing quite well). Bonuses were higher than expected too. Some projects were satisfying. Then some weren't. I got bored again and became "less happy" (because it's hard to even say "unhappy" given the circumstances).
But now with several million banked in diversified long-term investments my perspective changed, though it was still hard to reasonably justify just quitting. I finally decided to intentionally increase my career risk-taking within the company. I sought out nascent projects which were more speculative and in business units that were considered less career "safe". The first couple projects luckily worked out well and I banked even more cash for a couple years while enjoying the challenges and feeling of "living on the edge".
I kept scaling up the career risk-taking and eventually joined a cool new project that didn't work out. I actually had more fun than I'd had in years because the project concept was quite bold and different. But luck ran out mostly due to bad timing. Macro economic turbulence collided with a political shake-up at the SVP level. The executive appetite for funding explorations in unproven new markets dried up. The project was cancelled. And the next week the whole group was cancelled. As a now-senior person with a proven track-record, I was given the option of taking a few months to find a new project somewhere in the company. I looked around for something interesting but, frankly, I didn't look that hard and everything I did see wasn't very exciting. I finally decided it was time to leave. It had been almost a decade since my initial dissatisfaction. My diversified investments had done very well. The company's stock had done even better. So I decided to retire early. It's surprising how inexpensive a very comfortable, even luxurious, life can be in other states compared to astronomical bay area costs.
It's been a couple of years and so far it's been working out very well. Loving time with family and especially the time for myself. Sure, sometimes I miss the go-go and challenge of the valley grind. But not very often.
Money is a tool to achieve your goals, but should not be the goal in the first place. Once you have a certain amount of money, your goals and identity tend to revolve around that money.
There are plenty of other goals to achieve - creating works of art, making lives better, physical accomplishments (winning a sports medal/Ironman/climbing a mountain). At a certain level of wealth, you tend to add traveling, eating at Michelin restaurants, buying cool stuff... but you should check whether that's what truly makes you fulfilled or is it just the low hanging fruit?
Personally, I like to climb the skill tree, just building stuff better/faster/cheaper. I always admired people who could build stuff well. I somehow don't feel that Silicon Valley is the path to doing that -- you're just likely to end up spending your days dealing with PRs and building features around some focus group rather than listening to what users really want.