6 ms·

I think after you are 35 you don't want to see progression in salary but in life quality. Of course unless you were terribly underpaid or you spent all the mon

by ozim 5y ago

I think after you are 35 you don't want to see progression in salary but in life quality. Of course unless you were terribly underpaid or you spent all the money on whatever... I am going to be 35 this year and I was working on FIRE - while I cannot really drop the job for the rest of my life. I think I have enough, like flat with no mortgage in quite OK place so I don't have to spend most of my salary on renting. Now I am looking into cutting my hours, because with my current rate working 4 days I still could save money. I will probably stick with current company as long as possible because I hate interviews and then if I will have to I will take whatever job will be there if things go south. But that is me I like low fuss life, keep it small and steady. Happy that I can get some beers over the weekend and play with some raspberry PI. No need to get a sports car at all :)

Silhouette 5y ago
I think after you are 35 you don't want to see progression in salary but in life quality. As someone in that age bracket, but not working in the big US tech bubble we often discuss on HN, I don't entirely agree. I have other commitments now that I didn't have in my 20s, things that can cost a lot more money, yet which have improved my quality of life greatly and are of immense value to me. For a 35+ year old developer here in the UK, even a good one, if they're still working most as a hands-on employee they will probably have spent the majority of their career earning a salary that is above average by UK standards but less in TC than a new grad with zero experience would get at a FAANG in a US tech centre from day one. Almost no-one with that kind of role has been earning FU money here, and we're still doing better than most of the world outside the US. For a long time, if you wanted more you either went freelance or started your own "real" business. Today that situation is changing, slowly. Upward pressure from the crazy amounts of money in the industry both in the US and increasingly in other places as well, combined with demand for decent developers outstripping supply, means salaries that were almost unthinkable even five years ago are starting to become viable and a whole scale of technical roles above "senior" is starting to appear at larger companies. We're still nowhere near US levels, but someone recently asked me whether I'd consider taking on what we might call a senior staff or principal level role at a UK-based tech company where I'd been consulting, and the kind of salary they were asking about was at least 3x where the salary ceiling was for most UK developers just a few years ago (which many of those developers would have hit well before the 10 year mark). So while the argument above might work in parts of the industry in the US it's not necessarily the case in other parts of the world, where new options have been opening up for highly experienced developers in recent years that could break through a long-standing ceiling and make a huge difference financially.
- GoodbyeMrChips 5y ago
  I suggest OP isn't talking about 'FU' money, but about realising that (at about 35!) they would rather have better life quality then more money. Unlike the USA, we don't have massive heath care or social security / private retirement costs to save for and worry about. So, aged 39 in the EU, I'd rather work for less and live on the coast, rather than 'bust my balls' working for the man, just to buy a fancy new car/house/phone (or need to save in case we get cancer and a massive USA style medical bill).
  - Silhouette 5y ago
    I understand that point. However at least in the UK there are many things that could make a big difference to current or future quality of life -- including several you mentioned that are definitely still relevant here -- that someone would find a lot easier to achieve if they were earning more than most of our age 35+ software developers will have made for most of their careers. In other words, the ability to increase how much you are making at work and how much you can improve your quality of life are still going to be significantly correlated for plenty of age 35+ devs here. An increase of say 20% or 50% in TC could make a big difference to things like whether you can afford to live in a nice area, take your family on a nice holiday, pay for private healthcare or education if you have a reason to, or retire early. I suspect that kind of marginal difference in income is much less relevant to those things, except possibly for healthcare, for a typical age 35+ dev working for a FAANG in a US tech hub, whose TC might have been so high for so long that the idea of not being able to afford any of those things might not even occur to them.
- fy20 5y ago
  > salaries that were almost unthinkable even five years ago are starting to become viable and a whole scale of technical roles above "senior" is starting to appear at larger companies Could you elaborate more on the roles you've seen? I'm a developer with 12 years experience and have had "Senior" on my CV for a better part of a decade, as I don't really want to go into management. I'm currently looking for something new and it seems that the top roles for something like a "Senior <insert tech stack> Developer/Engineer" are paying around £100k (+ comp) in London, which hasn't really changed much over the past decade after adjusting for inflation. The take home pay as a contractor is still quite a bit more though, so that's probably the route I'll go.

by ozim 5y ago

Silhouette 5y ago

I think after you are 35 you don't want to see progression in salary but in life quality. As someone in that age bracket, but not working in the big US tech bubble we often discuss on HN, I don't entirely agree. I have other commitments now that I didn't have in my 20s, things that can cost a lot more money, yet which have improved my quality of life greatly and are of immense value to me. For a 35+ year old developer here in the UK, even a good one, if they're still working most as a hands-on employee they will probably have spent the majority of their career earning a salary that is above average by UK standards but less in TC than a new grad with zero experience would get at a FAANG in a US tech centre from day one. Almost no-one with that kind of role has been earning FU money here, and we're still doing better than most of the world outside the US. For a long time, if you wanted more you either went freelance or started your own "real" business. Today that situation is changing, slowly. Upward pressure from the crazy amounts of money in the industry both in the US and increasingly in other places as well, combined with demand for decent developers outstripping supply, means salaries that were almost unthinkable even five years ago are starting to become viable and a whole scale of technical roles above "senior" is starting to appear at larger companies. We're still nowhere near US levels, but someone recently asked me whether I'd consider taking on what we might call a senior staff or principal level role at a UK-based tech company where I'd been consulting, and the kind of salary they were asking about was at least 3x where the salary ceiling was for most UK developers just a few years ago (which many of those developers would have hit well before the 10 year mark). So while the argument above might work in parts of the industry in the US it's not necessarily the case in other parts of the world, where new options have been opening up for highly experienced developers in recent years that could break through a long-standing ceiling and make a huge difference financially.

GoodbyeMrChips 5y ago
I suggest OP isn't talking about 'FU' money, but about realising that (at about 35!) they would rather have better life quality then more money. Unlike the USA, we don't have massive heath care or social security / private retirement costs to save for and worry about. So, aged 39 in the EU, I'd rather work for less and live on the coast, rather than 'bust my balls' working for the man, just to buy a fancy new car/house/phone (or need to save in case we get cancer and a massive USA style medical bill).
- Silhouette 5y ago
  I understand that point. However at least in the UK there are many things that could make a big difference to current or future quality of life -- including several you mentioned that are definitely still relevant here -- that someone would find a lot easier to achieve if they were earning more than most of our age 35+ software developers will have made for most of their careers. In other words, the ability to increase how much you are making at work and how much you can improve your quality of life are still going to be significantly correlated for plenty of age 35+ devs here. An increase of say 20% or 50% in TC could make a big difference to things like whether you can afford to live in a nice area, take your family on a nice holiday, pay for private healthcare or education if you have a reason to, or retire early. I suspect that kind of marginal difference in income is much less relevant to those things, except possibly for healthcare, for a typical age 35+ dev working for a FAANG in a US tech hub, whose TC might have been so high for so long that the idea of not being able to afford any of those things might not even occur to them.
fy20 5y ago
> salaries that were almost unthinkable even five years ago are starting to become viable and a whole scale of technical roles above "senior" is starting to appear at larger companies Could you elaborate more on the roles you've seen? I'm a developer with 12 years experience and have had "Senior" on my CV for a better part of a decade, as I don't really want to go into management. I'm currently looking for something new and it seems that the top roles for something like a "Senior <insert tech stack> Developer/Engineer" are paying around £100k (+ comp) in London, which hasn't really changed much over the past decade after adjusting for inflation. The take home pay as a contractor is still quite a bit more though, so that's probably the route I'll go.