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$100k isn't successful, it's the bare minimum as a professional. If you're an engineer, all that's required to earn that much is show up on time and be good at

$100k isn't successful, it's the bare minimum as a professional. If you're an engineer, all that's required to earn that much is show up on time and be good at your job. The cold, hard truth is if you don't earn at least that much, you either suck at your job or suck at negotiating. Your bosses and many of your peers earn twice as much as that. Edit: IF you work in the corporate world. Clearly if you're a lifestyle-biz/consultant working over wifi at the beach in Thailand this doesn't apply at all. In fact, congratulations, if you're this guy, you probably win the game. If you asked a lawyer, a CPA or a banker if they'd take $100k to work their ass off for a corporate master, they'd laugh in your face. Edit: It's quite typical of HN when this topic comes up for someone to be downvoted by people who make very little money when they come out with the cold, hard facts. This place is full of millionaires and super-successful entrepreneurs who mostly stay quiet in threads like these. Wake up and smell the coffee.

neilc 16y ago
In the Bay Area and a few other places, you're absolutely right -- but there are other places where $100k for a software engineer is pretty generous pay. Of course, the cost of living in those places is typically a lot less than in the Bay Area.
- tastybites 16y ago
  I've worked with professionals located in SF, LA, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Omaha, Atlanta, St. Louis, Ann Arbor, Boston, New York, DC, Miami, and Charleston. $100k is still the minimum professional salary for someone who has a highly skilled, technical job like sr. engineer, architect, investment banker, CPA, attorney, etc.
  - pxlpshr 16y ago
    You're arguing a point that's a given; a professional that's highly skilled. I believe the intent of the question posted on Reddit was what it took to get there.
  - natch 16y ago
    $100k is so ten years ago. Things have gone up now, at least in the bay area.
idlewords 16y ago
Maybe true for the people you hang out with. In the rest of the world, there's plenty of people who prefer doing meaningful or engaging work over earning the highest possible salary.
- tastybites 16y ago
  $100k isn't anywhere near the highest salary possible. What in the world are you talking about?
- reason 16y ago
  And I take it physicians, lawyers, dentists, and other professionals, on top of all of the entrepreneurs who have sold their beloved companies for millions, aren't doing meaningful or engaging work. If you're good at any of the careers I just listed, you can easily make at least $300-400k+ per year. It's attainable, and there's a ton of meaningful work to be had at those levels. Success and meaning can be found at levels other than the dude settling for $20/hr because he gets good free time to really 'discover' life and find 'meaning.' Maybe you're hanging out with the wrong people.
  - fromfargo 16y ago
    Maybe you're a douche. I'll take my 'meaning' over your dogshit personality.
  - wazoox 16y ago
    Personally I have two (unrelated to each other) friends who've been living without really working for the past twenty years. They're really happy, and live on 500 euros per month each. YMMV.
defen 16y ago
It depends where you live. In San Francisco or New York, 100K isn't going to go very far. In Houston or a rural area, it will. According to a cost of living adjustment calculator I found online, 100K in Houston is equivalent to 186K in San Francisco. http://swz.salary.com/costoflivingwizard/layoutscripts/coll_start.aspx http://swz.salary.com/costoflivingwizard/layoutscripts/coll_...
- jamesaguilar 16y ago
  Isn't going to go very far is such an interesting statement. When I was making 100k a year in SF, I felt plenty wealthy. I guess if you have really expensive tastes 100k won't seem like much, but it's more than enough to be happy and do everything you could reasonably need to do.
  - kooshball 16y ago
    did you buy a house? did you plan to? the main increase in cost of living compared to other parts of the country is the rent or down payment + mortgage.
- nostrademons 16y ago
  That is so incredibly misleading. The problem with these cost-of-living adjusters is that they don't consider which goods are location-dependent and which aren't. So yes, your rent will probably be double in SF what it is in Houston. However, if you make $100K, rent is only a small portion of your income. And a dollar of savings in SF is just as good as a dollar of savings in Houston. The way COL-calculators should work is that they should take a basket of monthly expenses typical for someone in the given income bracket, index that to the given location, and then subtract that from your salary offer in the new area. It's not a straight linear sliding scale. I would much rather be making $186k in SF than $100K in Houston, because I'd only be spending about $40K in living expenses in SF vs. $25K in Houston, and $186k - $40K = $146k is much greater than $100K - $25K = $75k.
  - akgerber 16y ago
    One big thing: you probably need to maintain one car per adult member of the household in Houston, but can live well with <=1 car in San Francisco proper. With insurance, maintenance, and amortized vehicle cost, you're probably $1500/year/car minimum. More if you want a car that's a status symbol.
apsurd 16y ago
Just want to chime in real quick re: all that's required to earn that much is show up on time and be good at your job. I liked the "all thats required" bit, because as it were, I am fully employed remotely, and while I don't make $100k, I seriously wake up at noon, code at 3am when I damned well feel like it, and overwhelmingly love managing myself. (oh yeah, zero commute). So I guess you'd be right, "all you have to do is show up", ehhhh I'd much rather not show up! I'd imagine a lot of people's idea of success involves a whole lot of Freedom so I'd hesitate to be so overly critical of people not making your "baseline" figure of $100k and then assuming it has to be because they suck.
- tastybites 16y ago
  Clearly it's subjective. Working a schedule that fits your preferences has a huge value associated with it. Others prefer cash, and lots of it.
  - apsurd 16y ago
    fwiw, just read your updates. I think your post came off as confrontational so naturally people get defensive. Since rereading it, I think you mean well; people should know their worth and work toward maximizing that worth. So recognizing that there are farther stars out there to shoot for is a good thing! And for those engineers that get offended by the OP's comment, actually its quite good news! You are worth way more than you have settled for. I don't have an opinion one way or the other, just my two cents.
- nandemo 16y ago
  You might be taking it too literally. In your case, "just show up on time" means you still have to work (almost) every weekday, even if it's remotely. The implication is that you don't have to be a super ninja rockstar, just do your job and eventually you'll earn 100k (assuming you're an IT professional in US).
jonah 16y ago
My lifestyle-biz friends working over wifi at the beach in Thailand are making 1/4 - 1/2 million/year. Just like any other job, you just have to know what you're doing and do it well.
- tastybites 16y ago
  Then they are winning the game.
- nerfhammer 16y ago
  I'm amazed, what kind of work is entailed by that exactly? I don't have a clear concept of what lifestyle biz work even is!
  - jonah 16y ago
    These two are doing affiliate marketing but there are many other ways.
sliverstorm 16y ago
$100k at what point in your career?
jberryman 16y ago
> $100k isn't successful, it's the bare minimum as a professional. As a professional what? Man this place can be a fucking drag sometimes.
- rorrr 16y ago
  Professional is almost any area that requires either higher education or some hard to learn skill.
  - nepenthe 16y ago
    I used to associate professional and one's education or income until I realized that often the most professional people I've encountered don't make much money. Professional to me means excellence at a service for which someone is paid to perform. Improving the human condition or chasing money both attract professionals of a completely different definition.
    - rorrr 16y ago
      It's true, there are idealists out there who don't care for money. However if you're skilled and/or educated, getting $100K shouldn't be a problem. Now getting $500K/year is a much more serious problem. I'm failing to get to that level by just being professional (and good). It requires more of a business type of mindset (or lots of luck).
      - crocowhile 16y ago
        my wife has my same background (PhD molecular biology). a couple of years ago she decided she didn't want to stay in academia for pressure and competition are too high and moved to a company, making 2-3x times as much as she was making before (and than I am making).Funny thing is that the common silent opinion in academia about those like her is that they are dropouts....
        apl 16y ago
jhamburger 16y ago
This post is a good example of a phenomenon I keep seeing when it comes to how people view incomes- People pay much more attention to their own circle and to those making more money than them, so they get a skewed outlook on what is 'normal' and 'average'. That's why everyone in America thinks they are 'middle class', whether they make 30k or 500k. Lawyers and i-bankers are a different story, but you won't find any statistic to back up your claim that pedestrian engineers who just show up regularly make 100k+.
- nandemo 16y ago
  Here you are: http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=%22senior+software+engineer%22&l1=san+francisco%2C+ca http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=%22senior+software+engineer%... http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=%22senior+system+administrator%22&l1=san+francisco%2C+ca http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=%22senior+system+administrat... http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=dba&l1=san+francisco%2C+ca http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=dba&l1=san+francisco%2C+...
  - DannoHung 16y ago
    Things shift significantly when you start looking outside the 10 most populous cities in America. I'd even bet that if you exclude SF/The Valley, Seattle, and New York, you'll find a pretty decent cliff.
    - cookiecaper 16y ago
      Agreed. As a software engineer around here (Utah), $100k-$120k is a senior position. Just look at the job listings or Glassdoor ranges from companies in the area if you don't believe me. In fact, most senior positions start around $70k-$75k, so if you make $100k-$120k you're doing better than many of your peers. In Kansas City or other midwestern localities, the salaries are even less.
      - juiceandjuice 16y ago
        I was just gonna comment about Utah. I'm 25 and I just moved out of SLC to the Bay. I'm starting out at 85k in sort of a mid-level position, and I was hoping just to get 60k coming from Utah. I had absolutely no clue what to even ask for. I asked for 60, hoping to get 55, the HR person put it in as 60-70, and they came back and offered me 85. Put in in perspective from a working student: In my 2009 taxes, I filed for 13k. 2008, 12k, 2007 15k. Average salary of my friends is probably somewhere around 40-60k, with educations varying from some college to a masters degree. I work at a national lab, but I'm completely within the confines of the Office of Science. I make 30k more than the Research professors I worked for at the U. On the other hand, I'm thinking of saving up to buy a house back there and just renting it out because there's no way I could buy one here unless I was making 150+.
Rariel 16y ago
"If you asked a lawyer, a CPA or a banker if they'd take $100k to work their ass off for a corporate master, they'd laugh in your face" Actually, I know plenty of lawyers who would GLADLY take 100k to work their ass off for a corporate master. You must be out of touch with the state of the legal job market. Top firms have cut summer programs or significantly scaled them back which has a trickle down effect--the top candidates usually took jobs at top firms. When these top firms stopped hiring 50-100 new associates straight out of law school the top candidates had to find other places to go--the places that the less desirable candidates would often count on (gov jobs, mid level/small firms, nonprofts, political work etc). 75-90k was considered a good wage for a person coming from a decent law school with decent grades. Now you have top candidates from decent/top schools clawing for these jobs. It's really a sad state of affairs right now. Many people I know are unemployed lawyers.
nostrademons 16y ago
You've got a pretty narrow definition of professional. Where're all the elementary school teachers? And if you think that teaching is not highly-skilled, professional work, I'd like to see you keep a class of 5th graders from destroying the place.
- foljs 16y ago
  Actually he has a pretty narrow definition of wages also. Here are the mean wages in various sectors: http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/naics4_511200.htm http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/naics4_511200.htm As it shows, $100K/year is FAR from common and very far from what you get for "barely showing up"... It's just that people are just so narrow minded and only notice trends in their circle of friends and colleagues. He's like Warren Buffet saying "Surely, everybody makes one billion dollars a year, else you're just not trying enough"...
petercooper 16y ago
$100k isn't successful, it's the bare minimum as a professional. If you're an engineer, all that's required to earn that much is show up on time and be good at your job. The cold, hard truth is if you don't earn at least that much, you either suck at your job or suck at negotiating. This appears to be true of the Americans I know but this level of salary is.. uncommon amongst the Europeans (particularly the British) I know. I know you weren't speaking for other countries, but salaries are a lot 'flatter' over here. Contractors will be earning at that level without too much difficulty but for a typical full-time employee to be earning $100K in London, say, they'd need to be an experienced manager or be into the 15+ year point of their career in my experience. It's night and day from the US experience. This is part of the reason I work for myself. If I were in the US, I could earn $100K full-time pretty easily with my skillset. In the UK, it would be really hard work getting a similar position. Self employment wins for that here since I can just have American customers used to American prices anyway ;-)
- willyt 16y ago
  $100k == £60k. 60 less 33% / 12 = 3300 take home per month. London rent for 2 bedrooms is about £1500-2000 anywhere you would want your kids to go to school. £100 for commuting. £200-£300 for food. Car £150. Local tax £200 ...
  - petercooper 16y ago
    That's why it's not very common for young professionals to live alone in London. Anyone earning a typical software developer salary in London and renting somewhere in town at £2000 a month just for them is a fool. Most people live out in the suburbs and commute in or live with other people and split the costs. You can get a nice flat in somewhere like Croydon or Kingston (hardly bad places to live and only 30 minutes out on the train) for £800 a month - call it £1000/mo after council tax and utilities. Split that with the girlfriend/roommate and you're spending peanuts. All that said, the point is that £60k/$100k isn't a common salary for this sort of full-time worker outside of management or in an early stage of their career (<10 years). Clearly people are managing on a lot less because that's what people are earning. The most common solution for the older family types is to have multiple earners in the home which, again, splits the costs down. I can't think of any British family I know around my age where both partners aren't working except for me and my wife..
HaloZero 16y ago
being a little pretentious aren't u? 100K a year is damn good. It's not "Fuck you" money but it's a damn good and a comfortable life. That's successful in my book.
- jsvaughan 16y ago
  $100k = £62k which might be enough to get you a mortgage on a 1 bedroom house round here in the SE UK (based on 3x income)
foljs 16y ago
> $100k isn't successful, it's the bare minimum as a professional. If you're an engineer, all that's required to earn that much is show up on time and be good at your job. And how much do you earn living with your parents and offering such insights? Because out in the real world, even 50K are hard to get to sometimes, depending on professional field and/or state/city of residence.
retube 16y ago
$100k puts you in the top 15%. Maybe that doesn't fit your definition of successful, but I'd argue that having a good, stable, professional job was not only successful, but being, in the majority of cases, off the back of a decent education, pretty fortunate too. Source: http://www.americablog.com/2011/01/us-income-distribution-2010-edition.html http://www.americablog.com/2011/01/us-income-distribution-20...
- jasonkester 16y ago
  That list includes everybody in the US, gas station attendants and CEOs included. Computer programmers live in a tiny slice of that graph, way over on the right.
  - retube 16y ago
    Well that's sort of my point. You're pretty fortunate if you've got that kind of job no? The problem is everything is relative. The banker who takes home a million probably thinks he's underpaid when he compares himself to a hedge bond boss. But sometimes you have to a look at the bigger picture.
    - jasonkester 16y ago
      Indeed. As you say (and I tell every dev I find whining about it), computer programming is the single best job you could ever hope for. Where else can you convince people to pay you well into six figures to sit at home in your boxers and solve puzzles? Of those industries, how many of them not only allow, but encourage you to work short contracts at your whim, allowing as much free time in between as you'd like to spend that massive overpayment. A good developer can produce so much value in such a short time that companies can afford to pay you pretty much any number you can say with a straight face. And if they balk, the bad/cheap developer they hire in your place will teach them such a lesson that when they finally come back you can double your figure again and they'll probably take it. I tell ya, I used to bag groceries for a living. It was nowhere as good as this.
- sp_ 16y ago
jasonlotito 16y ago
> $100k isn't successful While I don't disagree with the sentiment, I think you miss a couple things. First, the question wasn't geared toward defining success; rather, what was the key to your success in obtaining $100k+. Sure, the person's perception of success is defined by an arbitrary number, but that's beside the point, and meaningless in context. Granted, strictly defining success based on income is silly (which I'm not saying you are). As you said, it depends on your lifestyle and chosen profession. Outside the context of the original discussion, successful people aren't strictly defined by just their job. For example, numerous people mentioned other professions where the standard pay is lower. Take 5th grade teachers for example. Basing success strictly on their salary as a teacher is ignorant (same for anyone, really). Successful teachers will achieve more than their base salary. Basically, success is more than just salary, but salary usually follows success. > It's quite typical of HN when this topic comes up for someone to be downvoted by people who make very little money Leave the karma discussion on reddit.

neilc 16y ago

In the Bay Area and a few other places, you're absolutely right -- but there are other places where $100k for a software engineer is pretty generous pay. Of course, the cost of living in those places is typically a lot less than in the Bay Area.

tastybites 16y ago
I've worked with professionals located in SF, LA, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Omaha, Atlanta, St. Louis, Ann Arbor, Boston, New York, DC, Miami, and Charleston. $100k is still the minimum professional salary for someone who has a highly skilled, technical job like sr. engineer, architect, investment banker, CPA, attorney, etc.
- pxlpshr 16y ago
  You're arguing a point that's a given; a professional that's highly skilled. I believe the intent of the question posted on Reddit was what it took to get there.
- natch 16y ago
  $100k is so ten years ago. Things have gone up now, at least in the bay area.

idlewords 16y ago

Maybe true for the people you hang out with. In the rest of the world, there's plenty of people who prefer doing meaningful or engaging work over earning the highest possible salary.

tastybites 16y ago
$100k isn't anywhere near the highest salary possible. What in the world are you talking about?
reason 16y ago
And I take it physicians, lawyers, dentists, and other professionals, on top of all of the entrepreneurs who have sold their beloved companies for millions, aren't doing meaningful or engaging work. If you're good at any of the careers I just listed, you can easily make at least $300-400k+ per year. It's attainable, and there's a ton of meaningful work to be had at those levels. Success and meaning can be found at levels other than the dude settling for $20/hr because he gets good free time to really 'discover' life and find 'meaning.' Maybe you're hanging out with the wrong people.
- fromfargo 16y ago
  Maybe you're a douche. I'll take my 'meaning' over your dogshit personality.
- wazoox 16y ago
  Personally I have two (unrelated to each other) friends who've been living without really working for the past twenty years. They're really happy, and live on 500 euros per month each. YMMV.

defen 16y ago

It depends where you live. In San Francisco or New York, 100K isn't going to go very far. In Houston or a rural area, it will. According to a cost of living adjustment calculator I found online, 100K in Houston is equivalent to 186K in San Francisco. http://swz.salary.com/costoflivingwizard/layoutscripts/coll_start.aspx http://swz.salary.com/costoflivingwizard/layoutscripts/coll_...

jamesaguilar 16y ago
Isn't going to go very far is such an interesting statement. When I was making 100k a year in SF, I felt plenty wealthy. I guess if you have really expensive tastes 100k won't seem like much, but it's more than enough to be happy and do everything you could reasonably need to do.
- kooshball 16y ago
  did you buy a house? did you plan to? the main increase in cost of living compared to other parts of the country is the rent or down payment + mortgage.
nostrademons 16y ago
That is so incredibly misleading. The problem with these cost-of-living adjusters is that they don't consider which goods are location-dependent and which aren't. So yes, your rent will probably be double in SF what it is in Houston. However, if you make $100K, rent is only a small portion of your income. And a dollar of savings in SF is just as good as a dollar of savings in Houston. The way COL-calculators should work is that they should take a basket of monthly expenses typical for someone in the given income bracket, index that to the given location, and then subtract that from your salary offer in the new area. It's not a straight linear sliding scale. I would much rather be making $186k in SF than $100K in Houston, because I'd only be spending about $40K in living expenses in SF vs. $25K in Houston, and $186k - $40K = $146k is much greater than $100K - $25K = $75k.
- akgerber 16y ago
  One big thing: you probably need to maintain one car per adult member of the household in Houston, but can live well with <=1 car in San Francisco proper. With insurance, maintenance, and amortized vehicle cost, you're probably $1500/year/car minimum. More if you want a car that's a status symbol.

apsurd 16y ago

Just want to chime in real quick re: all that's required to earn that much is show up on time and be good at your job. I liked the "all thats required" bit, because as it were, I am fully employed remotely, and while I don't make $100k, I seriously wake up at noon, code at 3am when I damned well feel like it, and overwhelmingly love managing myself. (oh yeah, zero commute). So I guess you'd be right, "all you have to do is show up", ehhhh I'd much rather not show up! I'd imagine a lot of people's idea of success involves a whole lot of Freedom so I'd hesitate to be so overly critical of people not making your "baseline" figure of $100k and then assuming it has to be because they suck.

tastybites 16y ago
Clearly it's subjective. Working a schedule that fits your preferences has a huge value associated with it. Others prefer cash, and lots of it.
- apsurd 16y ago
  fwiw, just read your updates. I think your post came off as confrontational so naturally people get defensive. Since rereading it, I think you mean well; people should know their worth and work toward maximizing that worth. So recognizing that there are farther stars out there to shoot for is a good thing! And for those engineers that get offended by the OP's comment, actually its quite good news! You are worth way more than you have settled for. I don't have an opinion one way or the other, just my two cents.
nandemo 16y ago
You might be taking it too literally. In your case, "just show up on time" means you still have to work (almost) every weekday, even if it's remotely. The implication is that you don't have to be a super ninja rockstar, just do your job and eventually you'll earn 100k (assuming you're an IT professional in US).

jonah 16y ago

My lifestyle-biz friends working over wifi at the beach in Thailand are making 1/4 - 1/2 million/year. Just like any other job, you just have to know what you're doing and do it well.

tastybites 16y ago
Then they are winning the game.
nerfhammer 16y ago
I'm amazed, what kind of work is entailed by that exactly? I don't have a clear concept of what lifestyle biz work even is!
- jonah 16y ago
  These two are doing affiliate marketing but there are many other ways.

sliverstorm 16y ago

$100k at what point in your career?

jberryman 16y ago

> $100k isn't successful, it's the bare minimum as a professional. As a professional what? Man this place can be a fucking drag sometimes.

rorrr 16y ago
Professional is almost any area that requires either higher education or some hard to learn skill.
- nepenthe 16y ago
  I used to associate professional and one's education or income until I realized that often the most professional people I've encountered don't make much money. Professional to me means excellence at a service for which someone is paid to perform. Improving the human condition or chasing money both attract professionals of a completely different definition.
  - rorrr 16y ago
    It's true, there are idealists out there who don't care for money. However if you're skilled and/or educated, getting $100K shouldn't be a problem. Now getting $500K/year is a much more serious problem. I'm failing to get to that level by just being professional (and good). It requires more of a business type of mindset (or lots of luck).
    - crocowhile 16y ago
      my wife has my same background (PhD molecular biology). a couple of years ago she decided she didn't want to stay in academia for pressure and competition are too high and moved to a company, making 2-3x times as much as she was making before (and than I am making).Funny thing is that the common silent opinion in academia about those like her is that they are dropouts....
      - apl 16y ago

jhamburger 16y ago

This post is a good example of a phenomenon I keep seeing when it comes to how people view incomes- People pay much more attention to their own circle and to those making more money than them, so they get a skewed outlook on what is 'normal' and 'average'. That's why everyone in America thinks they are 'middle class', whether they make 30k or 500k. Lawyers and i-bankers are a different story, but you won't find any statistic to back up your claim that pedestrian engineers who just show up regularly make 100k+.

nandemo 16y ago
Here you are: http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=%22senior+software+engineer%22&l1=san+francisco%2C+ca http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=%22senior+software+engineer%... http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=%22senior+system+administrator%22&l1=san+francisco%2C+ca http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=%22senior+system+administrat... http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=dba&l1=san+francisco%2C+ca http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=dba&l1=san+francisco%2C+...
- DannoHung 16y ago
  Things shift significantly when you start looking outside the 10 most populous cities in America. I'd even bet that if you exclude SF/The Valley, Seattle, and New York, you'll find a pretty decent cliff.
  - cookiecaper 16y ago
    Agreed. As a software engineer around here (Utah), $100k-$120k is a senior position. Just look at the job listings or Glassdoor ranges from companies in the area if you don't believe me. In fact, most senior positions start around $70k-$75k, so if you make $100k-$120k you're doing better than many of your peers. In Kansas City or other midwestern localities, the salaries are even less.
    - juiceandjuice 16y ago
      I was just gonna comment about Utah. I'm 25 and I just moved out of SLC to the Bay. I'm starting out at 85k in sort of a mid-level position, and I was hoping just to get 60k coming from Utah. I had absolutely no clue what to even ask for. I asked for 60, hoping to get 55, the HR person put it in as 60-70, and they came back and offered me 85. Put in in perspective from a working student: In my 2009 taxes, I filed for 13k. 2008, 12k, 2007 15k. Average salary of my friends is probably somewhere around 40-60k, with educations varying from some college to a masters degree. I work at a national lab, but I'm completely within the confines of the Office of Science. I make 30k more than the Research professors I worked for at the U. On the other hand, I'm thinking of saving up to buy a house back there and just renting it out because there's no way I could buy one here unless I was making 150+.

Rariel 16y ago

"If you asked a lawyer, a CPA or a banker if they'd take $100k to work their ass off for a corporate master, they'd laugh in your face" Actually, I know plenty of lawyers who would GLADLY take 100k to work their ass off for a corporate master. You must be out of touch with the state of the legal job market. Top firms have cut summer programs or significantly scaled them back which has a trickle down effect--the top candidates usually took jobs at top firms. When these top firms stopped hiring 50-100 new associates straight out of law school the top candidates had to find other places to go--the places that the less desirable candidates would often count on (gov jobs, mid level/small firms, nonprofts, political work etc). 75-90k was considered a good wage for a person coming from a decent law school with decent grades. Now you have top candidates from decent/top schools clawing for these jobs. It's really a sad state of affairs right now. Many people I know are unemployed lawyers.

nostrademons 16y ago

You've got a pretty narrow definition of professional. Where're all the elementary school teachers? And if you think that teaching is not highly-skilled, professional work, I'd like to see you keep a class of 5th graders from destroying the place.

foljs 16y ago
Actually he has a pretty narrow definition of wages also. Here are the mean wages in various sectors: http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/naics4_511200.htm http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/naics4_511200.htm As it shows, $100K/year is FAR from common and very far from what you get for "barely showing up"... It's just that people are just so narrow minded and only notice trends in their circle of friends and colleagues. He's like Warren Buffet saying "Surely, everybody makes one billion dollars a year, else you're just not trying enough"...

petercooper 16y ago

$100k isn't successful, it's the bare minimum as a professional. If you're an engineer, all that's required to earn that much is show up on time and be good at your job. The cold, hard truth is if you don't earn at least that much, you either suck at your job or suck at negotiating. This appears to be true of the Americans I know but this level of salary is.. uncommon amongst the Europeans (particularly the British) I know. I know you weren't speaking for other countries, but salaries are a lot 'flatter' over here. Contractors will be earning at that level without too much difficulty but for a typical full-time employee to be earning $100K in London, say, they'd need to be an experienced manager or be into the 15+ year point of their career in my experience. It's night and day from the US experience. This is part of the reason I work for myself. If I were in the US, I could earn $100K full-time pretty easily with my skillset. In the UK, it would be really hard work getting a similar position. Self employment wins for that here since I can just have American customers used to American prices anyway ;-)

willyt 16y ago
$100k == £60k. 60 less 33% / 12 = 3300 take home per month. London rent for 2 bedrooms is about £1500-2000 anywhere you would want your kids to go to school. £100 for commuting. £200-£300 for food. Car £150. Local tax £200 ...
- petercooper 16y ago
  That's why it's not very common for young professionals to live alone in London. Anyone earning a typical software developer salary in London and renting somewhere in town at £2000 a month just for them is a fool. Most people live out in the suburbs and commute in or live with other people and split the costs. You can get a nice flat in somewhere like Croydon or Kingston (hardly bad places to live and only 30 minutes out on the train) for £800 a month - call it £1000/mo after council tax and utilities. Split that with the girlfriend/roommate and you're spending peanuts. All that said, the point is that £60k/$100k isn't a common salary for this sort of full-time worker outside of management or in an early stage of their career (<10 years). Clearly people are managing on a lot less because that's what people are earning. The most common solution for the older family types is to have multiple earners in the home which, again, splits the costs down. I can't think of any British family I know around my age where both partners aren't working except for me and my wife..

HaloZero 16y ago

being a little pretentious aren't u? 100K a year is damn good. It's not "Fuck you" money but it's a damn good and a comfortable life. That's successful in my book.

jsvaughan 16y ago
$100k = £62k which might be enough to get you a mortgage on a 1 bedroom house round here in the SE UK (based on 3x income)

foljs 16y ago

> $100k isn't successful, it's the bare minimum as a professional. If you're an engineer, all that's required to earn that much is show up on time and be good at your job. And how much do you earn living with your parents and offering such insights? Because out in the real world, even 50K are hard to get to sometimes, depending on professional field and/or state/city of residence.

retube 16y ago

$100k puts you in the top 15%. Maybe that doesn't fit your definition of successful, but I'd argue that having a good, stable, professional job was not only successful, but being, in the majority of cases, off the back of a decent education, pretty fortunate too. Source: http://www.americablog.com/2011/01/us-income-distribution-2010-edition.html http://www.americablog.com/2011/01/us-income-distribution-20...

jasonkester 16y ago
That list includes everybody in the US, gas station attendants and CEOs included. Computer programmers live in a tiny slice of that graph, way over on the right.
- retube 16y ago
  Well that's sort of my point. You're pretty fortunate if you've got that kind of job no? The problem is everything is relative. The banker who takes home a million probably thinks he's underpaid when he compares himself to a hedge bond boss. But sometimes you have to a look at the bigger picture.
  - jasonkester 16y ago
    Indeed. As you say (and I tell every dev I find whining about it), computer programming is the single best job you could ever hope for. Where else can you convince people to pay you well into six figures to sit at home in your boxers and solve puzzles? Of those industries, how many of them not only allow, but encourage you to work short contracts at your whim, allowing as much free time in between as you'd like to spend that massive overpayment. A good developer can produce so much value in such a short time that companies can afford to pay you pretty much any number you can say with a straight face. And if they balk, the bad/cheap developer they hire in your place will teach them such a lesson that when they finally come back you can double your figure again and they'll probably take it. I tell ya, I used to bag groceries for a living. It was nowhere as good as this.
sp_ 16y ago

jasonlotito 16y ago

> $100k isn't successful While I don't disagree with the sentiment, I think you miss a couple things. First, the question wasn't geared toward defining success; rather, what was the key to your success in obtaining $100k+. Sure, the person's perception of success is defined by an arbitrary number, but that's beside the point, and meaningless in context. Granted, strictly defining success based on income is silly (which I'm not saying you are). As you said, it depends on your lifestyle and chosen profession. Outside the context of the original discussion, successful people aren't strictly defined by just their job. For example, numerous people mentioned other professions where the standard pay is lower. Take 5th grade teachers for example. Basing success strictly on their salary as a teacher is ignorant (same for anyone, really). Successful teachers will achieve more than their base salary. Basically, success is more than just salary, but salary usually follows success. > It's quite typical of HN when this topic comes up for someone to be downvoted by people who make very little money Leave the karma discussion on reddit.