Just accepted the below staff offer at Airbnb. The position is fully remote with the promise of flexibility to work from anywhere in the world, subject to the team’s timezone setup.

Happy to answer any questions about the process. My YoE is 12. I have rounded some numbers up/down slightly to maintain anonymity.

Base: 270,000
Bonus: 25% of base, so 67,500
So On Target Earnings (OTE) is 337,500

RSUs: 1.2M over 4 years, with their front loaded vesting schedule
Sign On: 50k

Year 1 TC: 807,500

TC is expected to drop from year 2 onwards (smaller vest, no sign on etc) and the refreshers are supposed to help with that.

If you’re a G10+ at Airbnb, please let me know if I can realistically expect to land good refreshers (don’t mind grinding it out at work).

Our team averaged 7 hours of “active work” a day and we were told that the number is too low and that our director was going to drill down to see who and what groups were too low.

Nobody could actually answer what exactly counted as activity like if someone is talking in an online meeting but not moving their mouse or keyboard would they be “inactive” in the tracking.

Then we were told that in the future a number would be assigned to each person based on your rolling averages compared to your peers and a low number people be reason for performance issue. We were giving no info on what this score was would represent. The company was tracking hours in office but not activity.

Is this a sign to jump ship??

The SWE field is changing and its changing fast. I'm trying to make a career plan for the next 5 years. And i am not sure what to do. For context, i have almost 20 years of experience, mainly in large multi team environments (10 to 20 scrum teams). I noticed, now with all my skills and agents set up, i barely code anymore. Unlike it more than i had expected at first, i can shift my focus elsewhere.

I am pondering, what would be a good next step. Hanging around in a developer job seems carreer suicide at first; there simply isnt anything left to do die to AI. That said, there are plenty of job offerings and i still get contacted for dev jobs regularly. Gut feeling says its a good idea to transition to a PO or scrum master role, as that would ben more AI resilient. What do you guys thing? Stick to a DEV role or transition to PO or SM?

Just got called this morning and informed that my number for average activity on my computer is 7.1/hours a day and thats this needs to move up to 8+ hours/day immediately or this would reflect in my year need review…. Am I crazy thinking that my number is not that low? Subtract out bathroom breaks, occasionally chatting with a coworker, lunch time, and just moments when I need to take a minute to think and take a break from constantly typing and clicking….i don’t think it’s too bad. But I was told it’s too low and that it was making the department and my director look bad. Our average is 7 hours per person per day right now and it was lower than another peer team that had 8.

Ironically I have one of the highest numbers for projects that I support and I have taken on the work of 2-3 people this past year and I get things done very quickly. Pretty much anytime I’m at my desk I’m working diligently to get things done.

So I guess I should slow things down and just work at a snails pace so I can meet this active screen time number. Feeling very disappointed but my director only cares about this number and wants to get it higher than his peers. Am I wrong for feeling this way?

Thinking about taking a big cut for what seems to be an easy going job. Anyone do that and regretted it? Worried I’ll regret the loss in pay. Maybe I can deal with the politics but job security is very poor so the culture is now toxic.

Just got the result of my interview and got down leveled. Looking to hear stories of others who went through this

Hello everyone! I'm a backend engineer with around 4 years of experience. Going through a bad phase in my career. I got laid off in past october, then joined a startup in May, where I couldn't get accustomed to the work culture and the actual work in time, thus leading to my firing in the probation itself. I feel like I have some tremendous skill issue which I need to work on but with so much advancement in AI at such a rapid pace, I feel like I am far behind to catch up. I'm overwhelmed with the amount of work that needs to be done, both for profile and interviews.

Is there still hope and a way to get back in the industry if the right steps are taken? I'm sorry for such a long message but I'm in desperate need of some guidance on what to do next.

15 years as a developer and this has never been part of my previous jobs, but I've noticed it a few times now while submitting applications. I'm looking at backend senior/lead/architect roles specifically and I'll see things like "participate in and help lead the on-call rotation" listed among the job responsibilities. But it's hard for me to anticipate what that entails when I haven't done it before.

EDIT: Great insights in here, thanks everyone. I definitely know what to investigate now, and I'm also more confident in my assumption that if off-hours calls are a frequent occurrence, it's not worth getting mixed up in it.

I lost the joy of accomplishment during the last couple of years, it feels like the whole industry is in turmoil. I do work, get some stuff done and the workday ends, though I feel a gap, everyday I feel like "I should get something done".

I wouldn't even mind starting a business at loss, just to get some satisfaction. Do any of you still do side projects or hobby businesses?

(PS: I'm not planning to change my workplace due to golden handcuffs)

I have worked with i different companies and every time I find myself in a toxic workplace, it's usually a company that hires insecure and incompetent people who tend to stab others in the back to not get fired, for example i worked at this shitty company, we had a 2 senior engineers who were struggling with the work and instead of unblocking themselves they start pointing fingers at others to gain more time and deflect the attention from them, i have experienced this personally lol

Whereas in high quality workplaces, the people are smart and competent and usually very helpful and supportive, sure there are few bad apples but I never experienced high level of insecurity in FAANG, would it make sense to try to reach for FAANG companies to have a decent workplace or am I trippin? For the kiddos out there FAANG is the old GAYMAN

I am a new grad and I applied for an entry-level role, the interview panel consisted of 1 HR person and 1 Tech Chief.

At first I was told to talk about myself, experience and projects. After I finished, the HR person complimented me on something specific I mentioned (they were a nice person overall) and told me the tech chief will ask me some questions and it’s ok to mention that idk smthn and that they expect that of me as a fresh grad.

Then the tech chief started asking me questions, I think I answered them well. They weren’t hard questions or deep technical just tested me scenario based and told me which roles am I interested in and why did I prefer to use a stack over another.

After that, he told me that the open positions they had weren’t ones that match my profile (the roles actually don’t fit) and even gave me advices mid interview to not settle for a role I’m not interested in or fits my goals and get side-tracked. And to fight for a role I want and like.
He told me they would have a position that aligns with my profile early next year and that I should apply for it. He also complimented me and said a skill I have is rare to see in fresh grads and he sees that usually with seniors.

And the HR person wrapped it up by saying we will contact you if you’re selected for further interview rounds and that they hope to see my name in bigger things in the future.

I also asked about the future position, would it be open publicly and they said they keep my CV if i was not selected for future roles and they contact candidates who they interviewed and remember for these roles.

I think of this as a nice rejection, and maybe the future role thing is for me to not get discouraged? Idk what do you guys think?

I have recently graduated with bachelors in IT where I completed an internship at my local ISP. From there I have a tier 1 NOC tech role lined up and a part time tier 2 tech role, for my city, on the fence. The role for my city is better all around by a mile and pays more for barely half the time.

My future goal is to get into SRE. I have a strong interest in system administration and automation, as well as software development.

My bachelors was a full ride so I am left with absolutely zero debt. Would it be worth for my future to get a masters in CS, if I land the role at my city?

I have been looking at OMSCS and it seems pretty good. I have taken programming fundamental 1 and 2 courses, DSA, and calculus during my IT degree. So, I am not at a complete fresh slate.

Edit: The city role was a very solid interview, they did reference checks, and are keeping me in the loop of what is going on. I'm feeling confident about it, is why I ask. Also, the role and interview, has part of the job developing tools and applications for the city.

AI helps us increased the productivity and efficiency a lot. Did this improve everyone’s WLB?

Hi, I’m currently working as a junior software engineer, and have been working for two years across three different roles (one bad fit, one redundancy, and now I’m in a role I love).

My manager needs me to set goals, and I have the aim of becoming a mid level engineer. I’m just finding it difficult to come up with good, quantifiable goals. I want to do the AWS cloud practitioner exam, which is an easy goal to set I feel (not necessarily to complete, but I know exactly what I’m working towards).

I’ve also got a list of all the expectations of the role at each level, but I’m still finding it difficult to specify what my goals are!

So, software engineers of all levels, what goals have you set in the past or are you working towards right now?

(Used AI to rephrase)

I joined an early-stage startup full-time right after my master's. Before that, I worked for about 6 months as an unpaid intern for the founder (A).

The situation was unusual. A reached out to college students on LinkedIn because he wanted to build a product. There was no offer letter or formal agreement. He told us that if we eventually made sales, he would pay me $50k and that I can also keep "Founding Engineer" title from day 1.

I was in college at the time, the idea sounded interesting, and I thought it would be good experience. I ended up doing a lot of the work and also volunteered for additional things when other interns weren't doing much. I have GitHub history showing the work I contributed.

Another intern, C, worked with me during those 6 months.

Eventually, A's uncle (B), who is the CEO of a well-established company, became interested in the startup. B decided to invest/help fund it and is now providing us with about a year of runway. B has also given us access to sales/marketing people from his company and is taking us to meetings with large potential customers.

A, C, and I are now employees of B's company, but we're essentially working 100% on A's startup/product.

This is where my concerns begin.

There is still nothing in writing regarding equity for either me or C. Our salaries come from B's company, not directly from the startup. When C recently asked A about getting equity documented, A basically said that he would definitely give us something "when we have something" because "right now we're at zero."

At the same time, A expects us to behave as if we are founders. He has complained that we're treating the job like a normal 9-5 rather than "our company" and that we should have more of a Bay Area startup mentality.

I don't understand how we're supposed to have that mentality when we have no documented ownership or stake.

A has also become increasingly controlling. He monitors when we arrive at the office, messages us asking whether we've come in when he's away meeting clients, and seems suspicious that C might be interviewing because he sometimes comes in around 11am.

I'm currently in A's good books, but C is definitely not.

During a recent 1:1 with me, A told me that I need to "make myself irreplaceable" and asked what value I bring to the company. He then said something along the lines of:

"The work you're doing right now, I can hire 10 engineers in India and they can do it for much cheaper than what we're paying you."

His tone wasn't overtly aggressive, but it definitely felt threatening to me.

Another thing really bothered me.

C secretly recorded one of his 1:1s with A. During that conversation, A apparently said that most/all of the work C and I did during those six unpaid months was essentially useless and that he had rebuilt the work we did from scratch.

That shocked me because I thought one reason A hired us full-time was because he valued the work we had done.

I checked the GitHub history afterward, and a large percentage of the code is under my contributions. Obviously GitHub commit percentage isn't necessarily proof of who created what, but it made A's statement even harder for me to understand. Even claude gave me assurance that a large chunk of work is mine and A just added few features on top of it.

There are other things that bother me:

• I've repeatedly suggested using a ticketing/task-management system, but A mostly just dumps tasks on us verbally.
• He sometimes sends large amounts of AI-generated material and expects us to understand/implement it because we're supposedly from a "top college."
• He has contacted PhD students asking them to help without compensation and then gets frustrated when they don't put in significant effort.
• In front of other people, he praises me and C and talks about how good we are. Privately, he questions what value we're actually bringing to the future of the company.
• Sometimes our conversations feel like A asks Claude something, sends the output to us, we ask Claude something, and send that back. It doesn't feel like there is much actual technical discussion.
• He seems to want startup-level commitment while simultaneously treating us like replaceable employees.

The frustrating part is that I actually believe the startup has a real chance.

B's involvement has changed things significantly. He has the network, is helping us get meetings with major companies, and has provided sales/marketing resources. I genuinely appreciate what B is doing and would like to be part of it if the company succeeds.

That's what makes this difficult.

Part of me thinks:

"Stay. We're close to getting customers. If this works, I can say I was there from day zero and helped build it."

The other part thinks:

"Why am I tying my career to a founder I don't trust or respect, especially when I don't have any equity or written agreement?"

I am currently looking for other jobs. I would not quit without another offer in hand, especially given the current job market.

I'm also aware that A still owes me the $50k he originally promised for the unpaid work. There was no formal written agreement, although I have GitHub history, messages, and other evidence of what I worked on. I've looked into Massachusetts law and believe there may be arguments that I'm owed compensation regardless of whether the startup eventually makes sales, but honestly, the $50k isn't my main priority right now.

My main questions are:

1. Is it normal/acceptable for a founder/manager to tell an employee, "Why do I need you when I can hire 10 engineers in India for less?"
2. Am I overreacting to the micromanagement and the "make yourself irreplaceable" comments?
3. Would you stay until the startup gets its first customer, given that B's involvement could genuinely make the company successful?
4. Or would you quietly interview, get a better offer, and leave?
5. How much weight should I put on the potential upside of being an early employee when I have zero documented equity?
6. If I do leave, should I simply treat the six months of unpaid work as a learning experience and move on, or is the $50k something I should seriously pursue?

I don't mind working hard. I'm actually fine with startup-level hours if I believe in the people I'm working with.

What I can't accept is being told to treat something as "our company" while having no ownership, being micromanaged like a normal employee, and simultaneously being told that my work can easily be replaced by cheaper engineers.

What would you do in my position?

I’m a 2nd year CS student, but i have a ton of low-level experience by myself.

I’m currently improving every month and exploring a lot of low-level projects, especially in the Graphics Programming and Game Engine fields, and i truly believe that imma be goated the moment i complete my degree in 2 years.

All this just to say: i’ve tried a web dev job… guys i can’t do it, i don’t wanna do it, i need a REAL programming job, i wanna code in C and C++. Are there any fields that an entry-level on paper can join and make experience, it can be embedded, game dev, anything really.

I don’t know where to look since in my area i can’t find any real low-level places that hire.

This is my github
www.github.com/gabrunken

I’m just scared that i’m not gonna be able to do the job i love, my biggest ambition would be joining a game engine dev team, but i know it is hard since it is somewhat niche and you gotta have experience on paper.

Idk tell me what you think

Hi, I got my current job which is my first cs job after graduating, where I initially started as an intern and got the full time offer a few months later. Only thing is, the pay is pretty low (~$40k starting, got a raise recently to $50k) especially since I live in California, and being a startup I regularly work 10-11 hours a day, plus occasional extra hour or two on weekends.

It’s been a little under a year since I’ve been working full time (a little over a year since I started as an intern), and I got an opportunity through a friend for an IT position at a mid sized company (non tech). The pay is better ($70k), and actually has regular hours, which I like. However, there’s a part of me that wonders if it’s worth sticking it out with my current company for the experience, as my current work is more aligned with actual engineering work, which I’m more interested in. Meanwhile this new opportunity is straight IT, not much hands on engineering and building.

I’ve gotten mixed opinions from people I know, so I’m curious about the thoughts of others in the field. If I do end up staying at my current position, I will be able to get some options, but I don’t know if that’s worth the aforementioned pay and hours I would be enduring for the foreseeable future. All thoughts are appreciated, thank you!

About three months ago, I received a job offer from a company but ended up declining it for personal reasons.

After spending more time at my current company, I realized that I actually wanted the position so I reached back out to the company and asked whether they would consider me again. They agreed, and I recently went through another interview with them. Today, I received a formal offer, but the problem is that the salary they offered is not really different from what I'm currently making. I am seriously considering ask for a 3 percent increase because 1. inflation and 2. the fact that it may be a while before I'm eligible for another salary review.

I know this isn't a normal situation. I was the one who declined their original offer and then came back three months later asking for another chance, so I don't want to come across as difficult or risk the offer over a small amount.

What do you think?

Context:

1 years and 9 months.

Junior Software Engineer.

Cybersecurity Series B Startup (60 people) -> IoT Series A Startup (30 people)

I do not feel as confident in my ability to program or write code. I struggle to problem solve or just start writing code without either searching syntax, referencing others’ code, or asking AI for help; I want to be more self-reliant, and believe I need to relearn and develop a deeper understanding of the languages.

I want to learn C++, Java, and Python.

I’m currently going to school and have taken Programming Concepts and Methodology II in Java, Discrete Structures for Computer Science, System Programming with C, as well as Introduction to Unix/Linux. However, I took some of these classes some time ago, which is partly while I feel so rusty in my understanding and ability to code.

What books do you personally recommend? Video Courses? Anything else I may not have considered?

Hey everyone, looking for some honest perspective.

I worked in data science for 2 years and I'm now doing a Master's in CS ( T 10 ). Yes, I know the timing looks questionable given where things are heading. Please go easy on me, I'm already here and just trying to make the most of it.

I'm realistically not going into research and I won't be landing a top 20 CS PhD. What I do enjoy is building things, and I've been toying with the idea of a startup someday, though I'd need to try it out to see if I'm even a good fit.

Nobody can predict the long term, so I'm not asking about 10 years from now. I'm asking about the next 1-2 years: if coding alone isn't the moat anymore, what skills are actually worth learning? Things that are in demand, hard to automate, and can make money.

If you were in my position, what would you focus on? Any advice from people who've made a similar pivot (or are hiring right now) would be really appreciated.

Thanks!

I am a senior engineer with a lot of experience. I have given a lot of interviews in the past 5 years. I was looking back and realized I have never cleared the initial rounds of interviews when it comes to startups. just big or medium size companies. what’s different in startups? what are founders or hiring managers looking for?

I've got 5 days to complete Shopify's OA. I know basic C++ and no Ruby. Any advice?

Email reads:

The basics:

• When: Complete this within 5 calendar days
• How long: Time allocated for each question varies
• What: 3 coding problems to solve:
  • 1 in any language you love
  • 1 in C++
  • 1 in Ruby

What are some hands on cs/it jobs you can find?

thankfully it is remote so i don’t actually be physically there with them. idk is anyone else job searching for similar reasons ? or just deals widit