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Most of the more straightforward answers to this question end up with you making the majority of that million from your entrepreneurial skills rather than softw
by patio11 10y ago
Most of the more straightforward answers to this question end up with you making the majority of that million from your entrepreneurial skills rather than software development skills. (For example, "Found a software development consultancy and grow it to 8~12 employees.")
In terms of straight up W-2ing without taking entrepreneurial levels of risk, I think you're looking at either finance or (restricting 25% to ~10%) AppAmaGooBookSoft. Note that you're not aiming to have the engineering skills of Jeff Dean but rather looking to have the business impact of the guy who coded the credit card processing for AdWords. (An identifiable person who actually exists, or I would be more explicit about the returns to that example.)
There's also "Join a startup as a very early engineer" but you're primarily compensated for picking the winner there -- there's many great businesses in the ranks of e.g. YC companies but if you had joined as the first non-founding engineer the majority do not result in the outcome you're looking for.
I'll leave the obligatory disclaimer "What motivates this goal? There are probably more interesting goals if you consider your values carefully."
- zump 10y agoI doubt top 10% at Big 4 are getting $1mn/yr in wages.
- patio11 10y agoPay packages are structured as base salary, bonus, and RSU grant. The RSU grants can be almost arbitrarily generous. Google paid out ~$6.7 billion in them last year. You're welcome to your own estimate as to the percentage -- I suppose it's quite sensitive as to whether you're thinking "percentage of engineering staff at AppAmaGooBookSoft" (which is weighted towards < 5 years of professional experience) or "my percentage odds of reaching that level mid-career given 5 years of competent execution at one of AppAmaGooBookSoft."
- chipperyman573 10y agoWhat is the "book" in AppAmaGooBookSoft?
- cpach 10y agoFacebook
- tazjin 10y agoFacebook?
- chipperyman573 10y agoAah, it confused me because the first three names were all the first three letters. Now that it's pointed out to me it's pretty clear.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- andyjsong 10y agoFacebook?
- shubhamjain 10y ago> (restricting 25% to ~10%) AppAmaGooBookSoft I would even be skeptical of the ~10% estimate. Even accounting for contributions in cash machines like AdX and Adwords, commanding one million dollars in engineer's pay seems to be a matter of having a rare set of skills in working on outrageously difficult problems (deep learning, managing complex networks, or large-scale cloud computing setups). I am not too sold about cashing on "creating business value". It's not like Google lacks technical expertise to understand the scale of their problems. Likely, if you are working amongst super-technically-able people, the only way to reach that figure is pushing yourself to gain expertise in a valuable domain or move into management where your product decisions have a direct impact.
- kamaal 10y ago>>There are probably more interesting goals if you consider your values carefully. Would be interested in learning more about this.