You might want to edit your post. It seems like you're asking when to go full time on your startup, but you haven't made that context sufficiently clear, and people will have to read between the lines to get that. A lot of people quit FAANG jobs for reasons that have nothing to do with going full time on a startup.

I left a FAANG-like job in 2016 (VP, CTO) to join a startup.

It was a disaster.

I then co-founded a startup.

I left two years later, parted ways with the other two co-founders in a friendly way.

All this time, I funded my life with my savings.

I had enough on the side to do that, and thankfully other things went well in my life, so I don't really regret it, but...

If I could go back, I'd simply tell myself that most of the time, quitting a well-paying job if you are not in a F*ck-you money [0] territory, is a bad idea.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XamC7-Pt8N0

You should realize that faang swe income, on a risk adjusted basis, is the best you will get. Hold on as long as possible and invest your earnings into the stock market. Ignore the noise. You quit when you have enough to retire

I quit amazon as soon as I had enough to live on (very frugally) for 18 months and a team who was willing to go full-time on our app idea. We had made a little prototype but not released and no traction or biz model. A lot of my confidence came from the 2 extremely talented co-founders who were willing to do the same.

We had realized that it would have been basically impossible for us to hit the milestones you mention without going all-in, full-time. That was the carrot.

The stick was that I didn't like my job very much. I loved my co-workers at amazon and the pay for a new grad broke college kid was kind of surreal, but my inflated ego could not stand being such a lowly cog in such a giant machine. I had just spent almost 3 months on a 3 line tax calculation in a checkout flow (had to work on several continents and query a silly amount of internal java services).

It also made me feel pretty safe that I had just done well in a perf review and my manager told me I could come back any time.

Beyond my own story, I'd add that I've now seen many people do this and none of them have expressed any regrets despite most not getting a win with the startup. For a certain type of person there's just nothing like the high of building something you own and the way that stretches you abilities.

When you find yourself asking this question, the truth is that you probably should have left a few month earlier. Things rarely improve. Take care of your finances and never put yourself in a position where you are dependent on a job if it is avoidable. It really helps with keeping a clear mind in making these decisions and greatly reduces stress around job changes and uncertainties.

Deciding to live in a van down by the river?

Congrats on the FAANG job and the side gig throwing off so much cash you need to post this.

Tech recruiter here in Switzerland with ~10 years of experience: People quit their teams/bosses, rarely do they quit for other reasons, like compensation or brand.

Whenever I have to make a big decision I think about what’s important to me. I give 3-8 things like money, learning, commute time, etc. a score from 1-5. Then I score different alternatives 1-5 based on how well I think they do on those things. Then I multiply and add the numbers together and I have a sense of what I should do. Usually it’s the highest score but sometimes I change a number because I realize something is more/less important than I thought.

Only you know what is important to you, and I bet lots of folks here can help inform how different options might score.

Since it sounds like you're asking when you should quit to focus on a startup... to avoid potential legal troubles, the answer is before you started working on the startup (or certainly before you launched the startup). Ergo it's when you've got enough saved up to support working until you think you'll make income / get funded.

Otherwise, if you don't care about the legal / ethical risk, I'd say that you need to make a decision about where to focus once the startup is consuming enough effort that it's crowding your life.

I left my FAANG job recently.

Despite having a seed round when I left, which definitely weighted the decision, I pay a very little salary to myself, basically covering health insurance and a bit more, so I burn my savings.

I made sure to have around 2 years of savings (not counting my little salary), so if in 10 months the picture is too bad, I can simply get a new job.

Now, what really made the difference in my decision is: - You’re the average of the 5 people you hang out the most. My co-founders are great people with a great tracking record and this makes a huge difference - Learnings. You won’t learn nearly as much about building a business if you continue taking it as a side gig - we have already a product already generating some revenue. Not huge, but we believe in a great potential - as I mentioned, the seed round of course changes the perspective - “if I wouldn’t earn as much, would I stay at my job?”, every time I would think about this, the answer was a big NO! I really didn’t want to live this miserable day to day because of a pay check - lastly, which is very personal, every time I’d think of memories of my childhood and the “rich kids” friend of mine, none of them had parents that were employees. Even now, every “rich person” I know are entrepreneurs. Sure… the odds are low, but I rather take the risk and live the life I want

If you have an idea that you honestly think relieves people's pain, and those people have money, and you think you can put a team together to successfully execute on that in all ways (tech, sales, etc). I don't know your circumstances but this is a tall order. The people that do this well have a network already. You can start building the network and have a day job if you don't have kids.

I am in a similar predicament and heavily conflicted. Mid 30s, at FAANG, making ~$1M/yr liquid for the past few years, a net worth of ~$5M liquid in Vanguard ETFs, and have an offer for a very popular AI "startup" you all know, and I am not able to understand if the risk (illiquidity of my offer) and quality of life hit (longer hours, worse commute, higher stress) are worth the tradeoff.

On one hand, I am thinking that I really have no choice other than joining the opportunity presented in front of me, life in tech is either a constant uncomfortable growth and grind or I'll be left behind, there is really no "let's keep my current situation constant in my relatively cushy role".

On the other hand, I am so tempted to not disrupt my life until an external force does it for me (layoff etc) because things are, relatively speaking, going well for me.

Finally, since you mentioned seed etc, I would never, right now, start my own thing, but that's just me and my current circumstances.

Sounds like you're thinking about a startup. It's a terrible idea financially and you'll probably fail. But if you have a burning desire that you can't shake, here's my advice.

Are you looking to for a lifestyle business that allows you to work on interesting problems with interesting people or do you want to transform an industry? Don't raise VC money if you're not sure on the latter.

If you're bootstrapping, most startups take a minimum of 12 - 24 months to find sustainable cashflow. You'll want to have 1 - 2 years of expenses saved (at a very modest salary). If you already have cashflow coming in, you can cut this down.

FAANG is obsolete, the new acronym is MAAMA (change three letters to account for Facebook->Meta, Netflix->Microsoft, and Google->Alphabet).

The goal here is to be able to say "Big MAAMA's outsized influence in the tech sector", of course. Also has some relevant historical antecedents, i.e. "Ma Bell".

When you have enough saved up to maintain your lifestyle for the expected remaining length of your life.

I quit when I had found a cofounder that I wanted to start a startup with, and enough money in the bank to keep me afloat if I didn't have a regular income for a couple years.

Sooner the better if you are really committed. You can only have one wife these days, the mistresses will remain mistresses until you put a ring on it.

Is Microsoft considered FAANG?

you cannot, you have become addicted to the salary

When you have enough invested to FIRE.

Get two FAANG jobs

make it FAAMNG F=Facebook A=Apple A=Amazon M=Microsoft N=Netflix G=Google

You don’t because there’s a 99% chance it will fail and you will waste money

your too late already...all that time wasted on the office pool table has given an edge to all your competitors, and since your still doubting itll only get worse