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What would your recommended best course of action to someone in this position be? Say you've worked 8 years and went from $75k to $550k pre-tax total comp - wo

What would your recommended best course of action to someone in this position be? Say you've worked 8 years and went from $75k to $550k pre-tax total comp - would you recommend that they continue slogging for another 2-3 years or? I'm personally planning on working for large companies the first 3-4 years of my career (out of college) saving ~50% of my earnings post tax then giving some early stage companies another go (whether it be joining in early growth stages or as a founder). I find it hard to believe that more than say the top 10% of engineering or management talent in tech is making $500k+ total comp in 2019. But I'm open to being corrected.

ignoramous 7y ago
Tenuring at BigTech is likely to be beneficial more often than not: http://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/ http://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/ If you're really into making wealth in short amount of time, then you might be right in wanting to be a founder or join a hypergrowth startup: http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html
screye 7y ago
If you are still college, you might not want to strictly plan too far forward. People, priorities and goals change drastically over a span of 3-5 years. The top 10% of all reported employees at Google are predicted to make ~$300k a year. This is after selecting every variable in your favor. I preselected for the highest paying big company, most paying country, chose stats from Paysa (anecdotally they inflate numbers the most) and judged all TC as cash. Even levels.fyi (more reliable) and blind put a Google L7 at 550k. Most optimistic guesses put 5% of people at Google at L7 and above. So even in the most optimistic case it isn't 10%. If, I had to guess I would say the top 0.05% make 500k or more. At best.
- gowld 7y ago
  Levels.fyi says Google L5 engineer averages $300K. That's top 30-40%, not 10%
HillaryBriss 7y ago
IDK what course of action they should take. I just think it's easy to lose sight of the fact that the unicorns account for a big share of the cash stream which is actually accessible to a working software developer. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that software dev skills aren't worth all that much in isolation. A developer who spent many of their prime earning years (15 - 30 years of age) tapping into that stream at a unicorn will find it more difficult, if not impossible, to do that again later in their career.
- DVassallo 7y ago
  Author here. I’m perfectly fine if I never get that level of income ever again in my life, or even anything close to it. If I can get more control on my lifestyle and how I spend my time, it would be a great trade off for me.
  - HillaryBriss 7y ago
    Thank you for commenting on my comment. It's just my dumb opinion, like everything else I post on HN. Quite possibly you and others will prove my statements wrong. Good for you and good luck to you. Sounds like your work at Amazon as well as your resignation are both well-played career moves.

ignoramous 7y ago

Tenuring at BigTech is likely to be beneficial more often than not: http://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/ http://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/ If you're really into making wealth in short amount of time, then you might be right in wanting to be a founder or join a hypergrowth startup: http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html

screye 7y ago

If you are still college, you might not want to strictly plan too far forward. People, priorities and goals change drastically over a span of 3-5 years. The top 10% of all reported employees at Google are predicted to make ~$300k a year. This is after selecting every variable in your favor. I preselected for the highest paying big company, most paying country, chose stats from Paysa (anecdotally they inflate numbers the most) and judged all TC as cash. Even levels.fyi (more reliable) and blind put a Google L7 at 550k. Most optimistic guesses put 5% of people at Google at L7 and above. So even in the most optimistic case it isn't 10%. If, I had to guess I would say the top 0.05% make 500k or more. At best.

gowld 7y ago
Levels.fyi says Google L5 engineer averages $300K. That's top 30-40%, not 10%

HillaryBriss 7y ago

IDK what course of action they should take. I just think it's easy to lose sight of the fact that the unicorns account for a big share of the cash stream which is actually accessible to a working software developer. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that software dev skills aren't worth all that much in isolation. A developer who spent many of their prime earning years (15 - 30 years of age) tapping into that stream at a unicorn will find it more difficult, if not impossible, to do that again later in their career.

DVassallo 7y ago
Author here. I’m perfectly fine if I never get that level of income ever again in my life, or even anything close to it. If I can get more control on my lifestyle and how I spend my time, it would be a great trade off for me.
- HillaryBriss 7y ago
  Thank you for commenting on my comment. It's just my dumb opinion, like everything else I post on HN. Quite possibly you and others will prove my statements wrong. Good for you and good luck to you. Sounds like your work at Amazon as well as your resignation are both well-played career moves.