TheDom

I recently discovered Kanopy and was surprised by the amount of A-tier movies you can stream there for free with a library membership (SFPL in my case)!

Just the standard advice: It's usually much easier to switch into a new role (MLE, manager,...) at your existing company than landing those roles directly at a new company. So if your current employer does not employ any MLEs, consider joining another company that does– but apply for a role you're currently well qualified for, and then try to make the switch internally. Consider being up-front about that in the hiring process to get signal on how supportive a company is.

It only talks about the business perspective, sorry!

One of my favorite genres!

Any book by Steven Levy is great, he is the master! He wrote multiple books about Apple, and also about Google, Facebook,…

Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal by Nick Bilton

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation by Blake J. Harris

The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley by Jimmy Soni

That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea by Marc Randolph (Netflix Cofounder)

I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59 by Douglas Edwards

Their packaging is also careless! They have ruined so many books I ordered, and I am now buying most from other online stores instead (even though they are often more expensive).

Not necessarily, the market is very competitive here. But to get to $500k TC as an IC (<= L5), your company will have to do well to increase the value of your grants by ~50-100%. But that is not uncommon or unrealistic.

It's not a terrible deal, ISOs can be very advantageous from a tax perspective.

Absolutely, I like it a lot!

I am from Austria and moved here 2.5 years ago. In between I lived in Dublin, Ireland for 1.5 years (can't recommend unless you like rain).

The main reason I moved to SF and why I also see myself here for the foreseeable future is the job market. No other place in the world can match the density of exciting tech companies of the SF Bay Area.

I LOVE my job but if I would not, then there would be tons of other interesting companies I could work for. If you’re a good engineer, then you can basically choose which company to work for (assuming you’re good at the interviewing game). Recruiters reach out all the time, and over time you will also build up a network of friends at other companies.

All these exciting opportunities attract great talent from all over, and companies try hard to attract and retain that talent. It’s a lot of fun to work on a strong team!

The other thing that’s fairly unique to the Bay Area is the high total compensation for engineers. Based on what I hear and read, I would assume that the TC for a regular engineer with a few years of experience is at least $300k on average. AFAIK that’s impossible to find outside of the US, and only in a few other places inside the US (Seattle, NYC). Also, since the Bay Area is home to a lot of fast growing companies, the potential financial upside is huge if you're lucky enough to choose such a company!

The best advice I can give is to choose the company you work for carefully. Ensure the business has the right trajectory, the hiring bar is high, and the compensation is fair.

The city itself has been discussed here and elsewhere extensively. I agree with many of the points but overall I quite enjoy it. I live in a nice neighborhood (Inner Sunset) and for me the job market far outweighs the downsides of living here. At the moment I can not imagine moving back to Europe.

In the end, it depends on what you’re looking for and which set of trade offs is the right one for you.

A 6 year vesting schedule would be highly unusual. AFAIK it’s usually 2 (or maybe up to 4) years after an acquisition. Therefore I don’t think that this was a factor in his decision.

The strategy is called dollar cost averaging: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_cost_averaging

Uber: https://twitter.com/alanzeino/status/1101167947874103296

I also talked to someone from Fb recently, and he said that even some internal teams have moved away from it.

I am from Austria, and just want to say that this assessment matches my own experience. Sadly I don't have an explanation for it either. I moved away 4 years ago but that's one of the many cultural reasons why I don't miss Austria much.

AFAIK it's at least not unusual. It e.g. also pauses at Salesforce.

Earlier this year Recode compiled a list of parental leave policies from various tech companies: https://www.recode.net/2018/1/31/16944976/new-parents-tech-c...

Asana: 16 weeks for either gender to be taken in the first year following birth or adoption. The leave can be split into two parts (e.g. 2+14, 8+8).

Full salary and benefits but vesting is paused.

Yes. My headphones (Bose QuietComfort 25) are not wireless. While the extra adapter is only a minor annoyance, I am mostly frustrated by the fact that I can not charge my phone and use my headphones at the same time.

I'm kind of bummed out that they didn't update the Voyage too. The Voyage still seems to be better but I don't want to buy an "old" model. I specifically waited for the next Kindle generation to update mine...

Take a look at LibEtPan, an open source Mail framework for C: https://github.com/dinhviethoa/libetpan

This is by one of the guys from Sparrow (RIP) [1] and powered it under the hood.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparrow_(email_client)

Kevin's Medium post regarding that subject: https://medium.com/@kevinrose/hodinkee-watchville-join-force...

At my previous company we used Mandrill and were extremely happy with it. I like their Web UI a lot.

I never used Sendgrid though so I can't compare the two.

Pick the unicorn.

* Your stock options should be worth a lot more down the road. * It's fun and a better learning experience to be part of a growing company. * The unicorn's name will also look good on your CV. So don't pick the giant for that reason.

Imagine joining Google or Facebook when they were small and considered a unicorn!

Of course there's the unlikely scenario that the unicorn will fail but even then the overall experience will teach you a lot more.

Sure. Just write me an email and I'm happy to share more information.

California New Wave of systems programming languages

Love it!

In this case, yes. However, if you own land you are often required to build something on there within a certain period. (At least in Austria.)

It is possible if you go for an L-1 visa where a degree is not a prerequisite.

If you work for a subsidiary of a US company outside of the US for at least one year then you can transfer on the L-1 visa to their US office. Just be aware that you can't switch companies like you could on an H-1B. However, L-1 visa holders can still apply for a green card. Once you have that you're free to change employers.

One technicality: If you work for a big company (like Google) then you're basically guaranteed to get the L-1 after one year since those companies typically hold the so called L-1 blanket. Otherwise it's a more involved process where you might get rejected.

I have friends who are currently on an L-1 in SF through big companies (= L-1 blanket holders) and getting it was basically a formality.

The L-1 also has the advantage that there is no annual cap like there is on the H-1B. You get it or you don't. No lottery. One big startup that I interviewed with opened up an office in Vancouver specifically for H-1B rejects to get them to their main office in SF through the L-1 one year later.

More information on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-1_visa

Take a look at spray.io (Scala) then. The project has been acquired by Typesafe and a new version will soon be integrated into Akka as Akka-HTTP.

All I know is that Tim Ferriss, who is running a very successful podcast too, is asking for $7k to $12k per episode from a sponsor. He has up to two sponsors per episode.

https://4hb.wufoo.com/forms/the-tim-ferriss-show-sponsor-int...

I discover new artists mostly through these ways:

* Media: When the name of an artist repeatedly pops up (on tour announcements, on music sites, on social media accounts of artists I follow,...) then I usually go check them out at some point. I also trust some sites with their reviews and listen to well rated records.

* Last.fm: I submit every track I listen to to Last.fm since 10 years (Over 100k "scrobbles" at this point) and therefore their recommendations for me are really good by now.

* Friends telling me to listen to something. With some friends I also exchange a "Best of 20XX" Spotify playlist at the end of the year.

Interestingly enough, I attended a few hundred live shows in my lifetime and it only happened very rarely that I became a fan of an artist I didn't know in advance.

Check out http://www.yes-www.org/why-use-www/ if you're not aware of it already. I agree with all the points raised there and would use www myself.

Location: Vienna, Austria

Remote: Yes but I'd prefer relocation

Willing to relocate: Absolutely, I'm looking to relocate to either SF or NYC.

Technologies: iOS, Scala (Play, Akka, spray), JavaScript (AngularJS), Java

Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominikgruber

Blog: http://www.dominikgruber.com

Email: mail▓dominikgruber.com

My name is Dominik Gruber and I was involved in creating multiple iOS apps that reached No. 1 in the App Store in Austria. On the server-side of things I am mostly interested in Scala and I am currently also organizing the Vienna Scala User Group with over 200 members.

Two things that are very important to me are user experience and performance. Also, I think that code quality matters–a lot.

I am looking to relocate to either San Francisco (and surroundings) or New York.