Essay · 12 min read

Why I Quit a $450k Engineering Job at Netflix

Michael Lin · Michael Lin Writes (Substack) Free Intermediate

This is the golden-handcuffs essay written by someone who actually walked: a senior engineer who left half a million a year because the salary was the only thing keeping him there. He names the exact trap you are in, that a salary is a hard number while the value of your youth feels intangible, so you keep overweighting the paycheck. Read it for the reframe that the real cost of staying is not money, it is the years, and for the tactical move of negotiating a preemptive severance instead of dragging out the leap.

  • The paycheck feels concrete and your time feels abstract, which is exactly why smart people stay too long in jobs they have outgrown
  • Once the learning curve flattens, a high salary is buying your continued boredom, not your growth
  • You can often engineer your exit (he negotiated a severance) rather than waiting to be pushed or waiting for a vesting date
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The question it answers

  1. How do I make the leap from a well-paid MNC or FAANG job when the salary itself is the trap?

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