9 ms·

$3.7 million sounds like a lot of money, but he could have earned more than that over 7 years if he just took a mid-level job at a FAMANG company. EDIT: saw th

by dimva 6y ago

$3.7 million sounds like a lot of money, but he could have earned more than that over 7 years if he just took a mid-level job at a FAMANG company. EDIT: saw that the founder lives in Birmingham, Alabama. So yes, $3.7 million IS a lot of money.

ccmcarey 6y ago
I imagine he paid himself a salary during that time, and 3.7/7 would be >$500k/y which is >mid level at a FANG+ company.
draw_down 6y ago
Yeah, I was gonna say something like that. Nothing to sneeze at but I’ve made slightly more (not even considering my salary) by just working a software engineer job over the last 4 years. Nothing fancy, lots of afternoon naps. Not a staff engineer, not a VP, just a regular old mid-level engineer. A hump, you may say. To each their own. But you won’t see a blog post about mine because it would be a very boring read. I see posts here refusing to believe this could possibly be true. You must be a VP! Normal coders don’t make that kind of money! You don’t have to believe it- but you’re not hurting anyone besides yourself if you don’t.
Shpigford 6y ago
So true. I could have also hated my life for those 7 years. I make a terrible employee. :)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
mattmanser 6y ago
That assumes he took no salary or dividends for 7 years, which seems highly unlikely given their ARR.
- Shpigford 6y ago
  Right. I've been paying myself $100-150k a year for most of that.
  - mattmanser 6y ago
    dimva also has his sums very wrong, 3.7 mill over 7 years is over 500k per year, you won't get that at any FAANG for a mid-level position.
    - dimva 6y ago
      GOOG has 3x'd in the past 7 years, FB has 10x'd, AMZN has 10x'd, etc. The initial stock grants would be worth a lot more, plus all the refreshers. My friends who are decent software engineers with a few years of experience are getting offers in the >$500k range right now. And I'm assuming that he would have been promoted at some point. I am comparing what someone with his skills could have earned at a FAMANG, not what an average software developer would earn (they wouldn't even be able to get a job there tbqh).
      - mgkimsal 6y ago
        > My friends who are decent software engineers with a few years of experience are getting offers in the >$500k range right now. ... not what an average software developer would earn... Which is it? "Decent" developers being courted with $500k+ offers or "average" developers can't get jobs?
      - chourobin 6y ago
        might not be a fair comparison if you consider taxes on salary+rsu vs. being taxed on capital gains.
      - toasted_flakes 6y ago
        That's no different than me buying GOOG/FB/AMZN stock at the time of the grant, it's nothing more than betting on the stock market.
pc86 6y ago
It averages out to $420k/yr. There's this sentiment on HN that "all you have to do" is get a job at a big tech company and you'll make a million dollars a year. It's idiotic, and not true. Yes, there are people who make $500k+ writing code in a cubicle for 40 hours a week. They are the vast, vast, vast minority compared to the people a) making $100-200k doing the same thing; b) making that $500k+ doing everything but writing code. Unless you're doing infrastructure stuff at Netflix, ad work at FB or Google, or some high level stuff at Microsoft you're not making half a million a year, and you're not doing it at a mid-level anything, anywhere.
- twox2 6y ago
  To make those figures doing "ad work" at FB or Google you probably have to come in as a VP or higher, which already comes towards the end of a very long career arc.
  - pc86 6y ago
    So even more pessimistic than my already prone-to-pessimism self thought!
  - objclxt 6y ago
    Not necessarily. Bear in mind Facebook's compensation is heavily performance orientated, the bonuses can rack up. You can easily clear $500k at Facebook as a senior engineer, especially if you're getting high evaluations.
    - twox2 6y ago
      Fair enough, I'm talking about the non software engineering side of ad tech.
  - creddit 6y ago
    This is untrue. A Level 6 Engineer or Manager and higher makes $500k+ VPs likely make millions.
    - 6y ago
petercooper 6y ago
This reminds me of a recently decried point the British government made encouraging people in the arts to consider technical jobs: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/12/ballet-dancer-could-reskill-with-job-in-cyber-security-suggests-uk-government-ad https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/12/ballet-danc... Josh seems to be extremely entrepreneurial and independent (https://joshpigford.com/projects https://joshpigford.com/projects) and maybe being a part of a trillion dollar machine isn't worth the $ to him. He succeeded doing what he wanted to do and that's fantastic. Admittedly, people's attitudes to work differ immensely and being able to live the entrepreneurial life is a privilege, but from my POV, you only live once, so $3.7m made from several years of doing things your own way would handily beat even $10m made from several years of employment (and neither are guaranteed).
dvnguyen 6y ago
$500k is staff/principal level compensation at FAANG companies. No way mid-level engineers make as much.

by dimva 6y ago

ccmcarey 6y ago

I imagine he paid himself a salary during that time, and 3.7/7 would be >$500k/y which is >mid level at a FANG+ company.

draw_down 6y ago

Yeah, I was gonna say something like that. Nothing to sneeze at but I’ve made slightly more (not even considering my salary) by just working a software engineer job over the last 4 years. Nothing fancy, lots of afternoon naps. Not a staff engineer, not a VP, just a regular old mid-level engineer. A hump, you may say. To each their own. But you won’t see a blog post about mine because it would be a very boring read. I see posts here refusing to believe this could possibly be true. You must be a VP! Normal coders don’t make that kind of money! You don’t have to believe it- but you’re not hurting anyone besides yourself if you don’t.

Shpigford 6y ago

So true. I could have also hated my life for those 7 years. I make a terrible employee. :)

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

mattmanser 6y ago

That assumes he took no salary or dividends for 7 years, which seems highly unlikely given their ARR.

Shpigford 6y ago
Right. I've been paying myself $100-150k a year for most of that.
- mattmanser 6y ago
  dimva also has his sums very wrong, 3.7 mill over 7 years is over 500k per year, you won't get that at any FAANG for a mid-level position.
  - dimva 6y ago
    GOOG has 3x'd in the past 7 years, FB has 10x'd, AMZN has 10x'd, etc. The initial stock grants would be worth a lot more, plus all the refreshers. My friends who are decent software engineers with a few years of experience are getting offers in the >$500k range right now. And I'm assuming that he would have been promoted at some point. I am comparing what someone with his skills could have earned at a FAMANG, not what an average software developer would earn (they wouldn't even be able to get a job there tbqh).
    - mgkimsal 6y ago
      > My friends who are decent software engineers with a few years of experience are getting offers in the >$500k range right now. ... not what an average software developer would earn... Which is it? "Decent" developers being courted with $500k+ offers or "average" developers can't get jobs?
    - chourobin 6y ago
      might not be a fair comparison if you consider taxes on salary+rsu vs. being taxed on capital gains.
    - toasted_flakes 6y ago
      That's no different than me buying GOOG/FB/AMZN stock at the time of the grant, it's nothing more than betting on the stock market.

pc86 6y ago

It averages out to $420k/yr. There's this sentiment on HN that "all you have to do" is get a job at a big tech company and you'll make a million dollars a year. It's idiotic, and not true. Yes, there are people who make $500k+ writing code in a cubicle for 40 hours a week. They are the vast, vast, vast minority compared to the people a) making $100-200k doing the same thing; b) making that $500k+ doing everything but writing code. Unless you're doing infrastructure stuff at Netflix, ad work at FB or Google, or some high level stuff at Microsoft you're not making half a million a year, and you're not doing it at a mid-level anything, anywhere.

twox2 6y ago
To make those figures doing "ad work" at FB or Google you probably have to come in as a VP or higher, which already comes towards the end of a very long career arc.
- pc86 6y ago
  So even more pessimistic than my already prone-to-pessimism self thought!
- objclxt 6y ago
  Not necessarily. Bear in mind Facebook's compensation is heavily performance orientated, the bonuses can rack up. You can easily clear $500k at Facebook as a senior engineer, especially if you're getting high evaluations.
  - twox2 6y ago
    Fair enough, I'm talking about the non software engineering side of ad tech.
- creddit 6y ago
  This is untrue. A Level 6 Engineer or Manager and higher makes $500k+ VPs likely make millions.
  - 6y ago

petercooper 6y ago

This reminds me of a recently decried point the British government made encouraging people in the arts to consider technical jobs: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/12/ballet-dancer-could-reskill-with-job-in-cyber-security-suggests-uk-government-ad https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/12/ballet-danc... Josh seems to be extremely entrepreneurial and independent (https://joshpigford.com/projects https://joshpigford.com/projects) and maybe being a part of a trillion dollar machine isn't worth the $ to him. He succeeded doing what he wanted to do and that's fantastic. Admittedly, people's attitudes to work differ immensely and being able to live the entrepreneurial life is a privilege, but from my POV, you only live once, so $3.7m made from several years of doing things your own way would handily beat even $10m made from several years of employment (and neither are guaranteed).

dvnguyen 6y ago

$500k is staff/principal level compensation at FAANG companies. No way mid-level engineers make as much.