4 ms·

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 bu

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.
- Silhouette 5y ago
  Anything close to £100k for a hands-on employee position was almost unheard of in the UK a decade ago, even adjusting for inflation. You might have found that much working in a particularly well paid field, which mostly meant finance in those days, for a big firm in London. For most of the industry the salary probably capped out at around £60k in today's money or maybe a bit more in London, but you could hit that ceiling and get a senior title in maybe five years if you were OK at your job. If you were lucky you might also have landed a nice bonus from a profit-sharing scheme or some stock options that came good. A formal technical career path stretching well beyond senior level, six-digit developer salaries and the kind of additional compensation in bonuses and stock that we see today are all much more recent shifts in the market. We seem to be tracking a few years behind similar developments in the US as the big money and demand for more capable developers find their way over here. You can definitely still make more going independent than most will as an employee if you have the ability and inclination but the market has been seriously distorted by the IR35 changes recently (or more accurately, by many clients who don't understand those changes and reacted negatively at the same time) so beware of that if you are thinking of a big career shift. Everyone I know in the UK who made Serious Money(TM) by developing software made it from an exit when they were a founder or early employee.

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.

Silhouette 5y ago
Anything close to £100k for a hands-on employee position was almost unheard of in the UK a decade ago, even adjusting for inflation. You might have found that much working in a particularly well paid field, which mostly meant finance in those days, for a big firm in London. For most of the industry the salary probably capped out at around £60k in today's money or maybe a bit more in London, but you could hit that ceiling and get a senior title in maybe five years if you were OK at your job. If you were lucky you might also have landed a nice bonus from a profit-sharing scheme or some stock options that came good. A formal technical career path stretching well beyond senior level, six-digit developer salaries and the kind of additional compensation in bonuses and stock that we see today are all much more recent shifts in the market. We seem to be tracking a few years behind similar developments in the US as the big money and demand for more capable developers find their way over here. You can definitely still make more going independent than most will as an employee if you have the ability and inclination but the market has been seriously distorted by the IR35 changes recently (or more accurately, by many clients who don't understand those changes and reacted negatively at the same time) so beware of that if you are thinking of a big career shift. Everyone I know in the UK who made Serious Money(TM) by developing software made it from an exit when they were a founder or early employee.