4 ms·

$800k/year is possibly unusual, but these are unusual people. I see nothing unlikely about a highly skilled contractor with 30 years of experience, a good netwo

$800k/year is possibly unusual, but these are unusual people. I see nothing unlikely about a highly skilled contractor with 30 years of experience, a good network and in the right location to be pulling down $800k/year.

stickfigure 10y ago
Do you know anyone who does? "Without working too hard"? The chance that the OP is billing $800k/yr is vastly smaller than the chance that the OP used a bad figure of speech. The number of technology professionals who can sustain $400/hr billing for a full year is tiny. The number of technology professionals who are bad at communication is huge. Bayes' Theorem is relevant here.
- mseebach 10y ago
  I know someone who makes half that and who is utterly unremarkable (nice guy, competent - but unremarkable, he's just played his card very well. Not playing politics, but being a consultant, not FTE, in a lucrative niche, and possibly having a nose for ending up on good projects). So I can believe that a tiny number (which is what we're talking about, they can make this much exactly because there is only a tiny number of them) can make this much. "Without working too hard" is quite subjective. I suspect they are quite disciplined and works quite hard, but are very rarely in the office after 5, nor working much more than 35-40 hours a week. As to (bad) communication, $200k/yr is high but unremarkable for SV/NYC careerist professionals. The notion that someone with decades of rare, in-demand experience should somehow be capped at what a (lucky) 35 year old engineering manager makes is just silly.
  - stickfigure 10y ago
    There is a steep power law in bill rates. It is not twice as hard to get $400/hr as $200/hr, but orders of magnitude harder. And my observation - as someone who bills more than these numbers sometimes - is that the higher the rate, the shorter the gig. You have to look at this probabilistically. Contract programmers taking home $800k/yr are very rare, but folks misusing "upper six figures" to mean $180k are common. I'm not a gambler, but I would happily place bets on the meaning of the OP. This is classic Bayes' Theorem. The fact that everyone here is jumping into this thread to justify how it could be possible probably says a lot about the psychology of HNers.
    - mseebach 10y ago
      And the fact that everyone else is jumping in to categorically deny that its possible says a lot about the psychology of other HNers.
      - stickfigure 10y ago
        Nobody is denying the possibility that the OP spoke correctly. The realm of possibility is broad. We can, however, assume with a fairly high degree of confidence that he misspoke.
    - gech 10y ago
      If the systems they build and maintain generate magnitudes larger revenue for their overload owners, then why not 800k salaries. Time for labor to actually be valued.

stickfigure 10y ago

Do you know anyone who does? "Without working too hard"? The chance that the OP is billing $800k/yr is vastly smaller than the chance that the OP used a bad figure of speech. The number of technology professionals who can sustain $400/hr billing for a full year is tiny. The number of technology professionals who are bad at communication is huge. Bayes' Theorem is relevant here.

mseebach 10y ago
I know someone who makes half that and who is utterly unremarkable (nice guy, competent - but unremarkable, he's just played his card very well. Not playing politics, but being a consultant, not FTE, in a lucrative niche, and possibly having a nose for ending up on good projects). So I can believe that a tiny number (which is what we're talking about, they can make this much exactly because there is only a tiny number of them) can make this much. "Without working too hard" is quite subjective. I suspect they are quite disciplined and works quite hard, but are very rarely in the office after 5, nor working much more than 35-40 hours a week. As to (bad) communication, $200k/yr is high but unremarkable for SV/NYC careerist professionals. The notion that someone with decades of rare, in-demand experience should somehow be capped at what a (lucky) 35 year old engineering manager makes is just silly.
- stickfigure 10y ago
  There is a steep power law in bill rates. It is not twice as hard to get $400/hr as $200/hr, but orders of magnitude harder. And my observation - as someone who bills more than these numbers sometimes - is that the higher the rate, the shorter the gig. You have to look at this probabilistically. Contract programmers taking home $800k/yr are very rare, but folks misusing "upper six figures" to mean $180k are common. I'm not a gambler, but I would happily place bets on the meaning of the OP. This is classic Bayes' Theorem. The fact that everyone here is jumping into this thread to justify how it could be possible probably says a lot about the psychology of HNers.
  - mseebach 10y ago
    And the fact that everyone else is jumping in to categorically deny that its possible says a lot about the psychology of other HNers.
    - stickfigure 10y ago
      Nobody is denying the possibility that the OP spoke correctly. The realm of possibility is broad. We can, however, assume with a fairly high degree of confidence that he misspoke.
  - gech 10y ago
    If the systems they build and maintain generate magnitudes larger revenue for their overload owners, then why not 800k salaries. Time for labor to actually be valued.