5 ms·

So in the bay area you can make 350k/y (saving, living, taxes) average for 20 years starting as a 25 year old?

by ju-st 8y ago

deanmoriarty 8y ago
You don't exactly need 350k/y to get those numbers (at least I don't). I don't know what the history will be over the next 20 years if you start now, but for the entire 8 years of my career so far (started at 24), my pre-tax compensation has been roughly 260k/y averaged (I'm at 350k now and started at ~120k), which has allowed me to comfortably save 120k+ a year. My career has been a mix of a couple startups (one with decent exit, but nothing life changing, say 1.5 years worth of salary as financial outcome of the vested equity) and a big solid growing company (no FAANG though).
- richrichardsson 8y ago
  Well, that's given me some insight into bay area dev pay! I've never even heard of anything near those levels in the UK except for contractors.
  - brianwawok 8y ago
    UK programmer pay is a whole other league. (Maybe the rest of the world? Not sure who else pays like SV, no one that I know)
  - paulgrant999 8y ago
    Most of the jobs I saw were in the 120-190 range. you don't start hitting 220+ unless you're already on the tech pump-n-dump wagon i.e. have "internet-scale" experience. And with the rent and cost of living so high, 165 is basically the poverty line. If you want to actually enjoy some of your money before you die from the politics. tops out at 300-400k unless your management. and thats usually phd-grade stuff (cutting edge). minus "acquisitions" (employees that came over from acquisitions for talent). blockbusting using h1b's and hiring fresh grads keeps the real rates low. thats why theres so much of an emphasis on constant meetings and mentoring. you train your lower paid replacement. its even worse when you consider the level of automation being dev'd and deployed even as we speak. Call it what you will, but coding yourself out of a job, does not strike me as a very rewarding job. Same thing with "frameworks". Count how many horror stories you hear about a company bringing on x-tech, to implement, only to realize there's serious design flaws in the stack they've chosen. I think the best company I saw, did all their development, in-house (for the money-making stuff). C/C++ coders. And they only bring in "mature" technologies (10+ years) -- where the tradeoffs and fixes, are pretty much well known. SANE. I was not much impressed by the quality of engineers out there. Theirs way too much "compartmentalization". Even worse now with the microservices (circa 2015-2017) implementations that failed to grasp basic architectural decisions that still need to be made. If anyone's hiring for those 300+ k jobs, drop me a line. I only have one requirement. Get the fuck out of my way. M.O.V.E. :) One other note: When you're applying, don't do the end of the year (normal cycle for a normal co; they know how much they made, what their next quarter's budget is going to be, prospects are closer etc). H1'bs are all busy getting imported. Wait until they run out of their H1B's and give a month or two to clock their new wage-slaves through their "onboarding". The experienced engineers will get a good sense of what material they're working with and call out for more labor ;) Retarded, but hey, "silicon valley".

So in the bay area you can make 350k/y (saving, living, taxes) average for 20 years starting as a 25 year old?

by ju-st 8y ago

So in the bay area you can make 350k/y (saving, living, taxes) average for 20 years starting as a 25 year old?

You don't exactly need 350k/y to get those numbers (at least I don't). I don't know what the history will be over the next 20 years if you start now, but for the entire 8 years of my career so far (started at 24), my pre-tax compensation has been roughly 260k/y averaged (I'm at 350k now and started at ~120k), which has allowed me to comfortably save 120k+ a year. My career has been a mix of a couple startups (one with decent exit, but nothing life changing, say 1.5 years worth of salary as financial outcome of the vested equity) and a big solid growing company (no FAANG though).

richrichardsson 8y ago
Well, that's given me some insight into bay area dev pay! I've never even heard of anything near those levels in the UK except for contractors.
- brianwawok 8y ago
  UK programmer pay is a whole other league. (Maybe the rest of the world? Not sure who else pays like SV, no one that I know)
- paulgrant999 8y ago
  Most of the jobs I saw were in the 120-190 range. you don't start hitting 220+ unless you're already on the tech pump-n-dump wagon i.e. have "internet-scale" experience. And with the rent and cost of living so high, 165 is basically the poverty line. If you want to actually enjoy some of your money before you die from the politics. tops out at 300-400k unless your management. and thats usually phd-grade stuff (cutting edge). minus "acquisitions" (employees that came over from acquisitions for talent). blockbusting using h1b's and hiring fresh grads keeps the real rates low. thats why theres so much of an emphasis on constant meetings and mentoring. you train your lower paid replacement. its even worse when you consider the level of automation being dev'd and deployed even as we speak. Call it what you will, but coding yourself out of a job, does not strike me as a very rewarding job. Same thing with "frameworks". Count how many horror stories you hear about a company bringing on x-tech, to implement, only to realize there's serious design flaws in the stack they've chosen. I think the best company I saw, did all their development, in-house (for the money-making stuff). C/C++ coders. And they only bring in "mature" technologies (10+ years) -- where the tradeoffs and fixes, are pretty much well known. SANE. I was not much impressed by the quality of engineers out there. Theirs way too much "compartmentalization". Even worse now with the microservices (circa 2015-2017) implementations that failed to grasp basic architectural decisions that still need to be made. If anyone's hiring for those 300+ k jobs, drop me a line. I only have one requirement. Get the fuck out of my way. M.O.V.E. :) One other note: When you're applying, don't do the end of the year (normal cycle for a normal co; they know how much they made, what their next quarter's budget is going to be, prospects are closer etc). H1'bs are all busy getting imported. Wait until they run out of their H1B's and give a month or two to clock their new wage-slaves through their "onboarding". The experienced engineers will get a good sense of what material they're working with and call out for more labor ;) Retarded, but hey, "silicon valley".