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Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

• ThePhysicist 5y ago
  You should think about it from the company's perspective: Why should they hire someone at twice the rate at which they can find very good people? As you say most remote companies pay either average or slightly above-average local market salaries as that's good enough for most developers to find these jobs attractive enough (since many prefer remote work) for the companies to fill up their hiring pipeline with lots of good candidates. That said I think $250k is definitely possible for non entry-level positions if you bring strategically important knowledge into a company. If you e.g. work for a startup/scaleup/enterprise in given space go talk to other companies in the same space that want to break into the competitors market or pull off a similar business model. Then you can e.g. say "I helped company X to scale their backend infrastructure to support 100 MM customers and I'm looking for a position where I can apply that knowledge and help you do the same, while having more responsibility / ownership / decision power". That will make you more valuable to a company than saying "I'm a really good Golang programmer". It's all about selling you as an individual with very specific market knowledge that a company wants.
  • ssijak 5y ago
    I'm close to 250k range, with bonuses in the range. And I'm from Eastern Europe. But yeah, your second paragraph is key for enabling that. Or being very lucky.
• ayoubElk 5y ago
  An alternative scalable way is to switch from a full time job to becoming a freelancer/consultant and set your own rates. In order to be able to land high paying projects as a consultant, you would need to showcase your skills somehow (open source, portfolio, etc...). This can happen later on though and as a start the easiest way would be to ask for referrals and make it known to your network that you're looking for consulting opportunities. Making this transition though would imply that you'll need to think about it as a business instead of a job, and start cultivating new skills i.e. communication, marketing, sales, etc...
  • k__ 5y ago
    This. Freelancing is a good option. 250k a year is 20k a month, for 12 months a year. 20k a month is 1k a day, for 20 work days a month. How to make 1k a day? Write 2 technical articles. Btw. as a freelancer you could end up paying less taxes, because more things are deductible. This could mean, you can end up with the same money after taxes without making 250k a year.
    • Lordarminius 5y ago
      > Write 2 technical articles. How do you monetize technical articles at the rate of $1k / article ? Most firms wont pay that much.
      • k__ 5y ago
        $1k / 2 articles.
      • ayewo 5y ago
        The technical articles can serve as highly effective ads to lure your potential customers. The kind of technical writing that will leave no doubt in the minds of your readers that you demonstrate deep expertise in the technologies you are an expert in. Here's an example https://burke.services/segment.html https://burke.services/segment.html taken from https://burke.services/ https://burke.services/
• xwdv 5y ago
  Here’s a cheap and easier trick: find two easy remote jobs each paying $125k. There’s your $250k a year. You don’t need any particularly distinguished resume. With the right job responsibilities, this is doable for a software engineer. If you can offset the two jobs a bit by time zone it’s even better. But you better hurry, once people catch on that this is possible the supply of developers can quickly increase overnight, leading to a fall in salaries from oversupply.
  • aristofun 5y ago
    This is actually great advice, though Im very bad at shitty work, i need hyperfocus and challenging task to feel good about the job :( But I wonder if there are companies who understand that 250k developer is not even close to 2 125k developers, but can be much much more valuable asset with proper management.
    • headmelted 5y ago
      Well, sure, but this line of thinking suggests you’re worth more than double what someone else is at the same job. What makes you think this is so?
      • ForHackernews 5y ago
        Under market capitalism, you're "worth" whatever you can convince somebody to pay you.
      • raman162 5y ago
        Everyone has their unique value to a company. That could range from large expertise with certain libraries/type of problems to deep knowledge of an industry or even your network (more applicable to sales/leadership). Not all developers do the same exact job and I think we can universally agree that some work performed is more valuable to a company than others.
        • headmelted 5y ago
• PaywallBuster 5y ago
  That's high enough that it would be difficult to find alternatives to FAANG and some of them may accept remote or not (highly uncertain), employees are certainly pushing for it but may be difficult to justify the high salary without coming to office in the future when things start getting back to normal
  • k__ 5y ago
    They could be lucky and score a job in an overfunded startup.
    • johnebgd 5y ago
      Until said startup fails..
      • rco8786 5y ago
        If it’s overfunded they probably have cash to burn for a few years at least
        • wpietri 5y ago
          If you spend more time at something doomed to fail, is that better or worse?
          • c_o_n_v_e_x 5y ago
            The failure rate of the average start up is heavily against you. My outlook is that you will have to work through a few failed start ups before you finally build/find employment with a successful one. That being said, it can be soul destroying to see a product/system you’ve worked hard on to never go to market / go live.
            • wpietri 5y ago
              Oh, for sure. I have been there more than once with the technically sound product that isn't going anywhere. It's awful. So another way to put my question: Once you figure out why the current startup isn't going to make it, why stay? For some people the answer is, "They keep paying you." But for me the answer is, "You probably shouldn't. Move on to something with a chance."
• RortyPorty 5y ago
  Go work for Meta (other MANGA companies would likely work but I'm not as familiar with them). Meta is shooting to have a significant portion of their workforce be remote over the next five years so they're pretty much always willing to offer full time remote. As someone working remote, I can say their location-based pay adjustments really doesn't scale to local cost of living (in a good way). Plus thanks to all the bad publicity they're struggling to fill roles. Note: I'm talking about working remotely in the US, if you want to be remote from a different country Meta may not work for you.
  • sgt 5y ago
    MANGA companies. It didn't take HN long, did it.
    • moreira 5y ago
      What I will never understand is how harmless old Netflix found its way into an acronym for the big beasts of tech. Not even Microsoft gets that privilege (for some reason).
      • brobinson 5y ago
        $600,000/year compensation for programmers
        • sgt 5y ago
          Is this for real? I thought $400k was sort the max for regular high end engineers.
          • rco8786 5y ago
            Easily over a million for high end/staff eng at FAANG/ish companies.
          • mdm12 5y ago
            Oh, it's for real alright: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Netflix/salaries/Software-Engineer/Senior-Software-Engineer/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Netflix/salaries/Software-Eng...
• sh4un 5y ago
  If you are worth 250k companies find you. I used to get companies calling to offer work because I was able to prove my worth and have companies refer me to other companies. Harder for you to put a number on your head and try to convince anyone you are worth it.
• fxtentacle 5y ago
  Leverage. If your work improves the productivity of 100+ other people, you're surely worth the price. If your work saves $500k+ in annual costs, you're surely worth the price. If hiring you cripples key competitors, you're surely worth the price. If you can enable new revenues streams through knowledge that only you have, you're surely worth the price. If hiring you does not increase productivity, reduce costs, fend off competition, or bring in more revenue, then you'll be fighting an uphill battle to justify that salary. But if you do, talk about it. People gossip and those companies who have the biggest multiplier to benefit off your work will be working hard to reach you. In my opinion, remote or not is less important than you think. The key decisions will be based on whether hiring you at that price is a net positive for the company or not. EDIT: And if you're outside of the US, set up a local LLC so that US-based companies can treat you like an independent contracting business. That'll make it much easier to hire you across borders. And at that price, you can surely afford the $1000 annually for a tax advisor retainer.
  • Lordarminius 5y ago
    > ...And if you're outside of the US, set up a local LLC so that US-based companies can treat you like an independent contracting business.... This has to be one of the top ten best pieces of advice I have seen on HN.
    • haint 5y ago
      Would you mind sharing the remaining 9? Thanks.
  • jacknews 5y ago
    > EDIT: And if you're outside of the US, set up a local LLC so that US-based companies can treat you like an independent contracting business. By local, do you mean a US-based company (eg delaware), or local to where you are?
    • mongol 5y ago
      Good and relevant question! Hope to see an answer to it
• amacasubstack 5y ago
  My main trick has been to specialize in things that all companies like a lot (AWS, js, python), jumping gigs, and leveraging Remote Contracting networks [1]. To get to ~200k remote salaries is hard, but not impossible if you make clear what kind of business leverage you bring and what responsibilities you can take. In addition, you might not actually need such a high Remote salary if you choose to live in cheaper towns. You don't need a $200k salary if you can make your $120k feel like $1M by living in the countryside. [1] "How I got wealthy without working too hard": https://amaca.substack.com/p/how-i-got-wealthy-without-working https://amaca.substack.com/p/how-i-got-wealthy-without-worki...
  • fxtentacle 5y ago
    Great article.
    • mgh2 5y ago
      That article's thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29267070 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29267070
  • StefanWestfal 5y ago
    Interesting point, would you say it makes more sense to focus on adopted technologies rather then interesting ones in thier growth phase? Concrete: I learned React a while ago but find Svelte interesting and think it has potential. I am no SWE but interested.
    • Consultant32452 5y ago
      I'm in that $250k range. When I'm looking for a new gig I would much rather have skills that 100 companies are hiring for than skills that 5 companies are hiring for. That said, I do need something to differentiate myself from any other rando they might hire for less. That could hypothetically be a niche technology. I once met someone who specialized in making databases of 3D artifacts. He made a ton of money bouncing form one defense contractor to another creating their object databases for simulation purposes. That's the "niche knowledge" path. In my case, that's soft skills. I'm a great communicator with a history of using those skills to land big project successes. In particular, I don't make the business people feel dumb when I explain technical things to them, and being a small business owner myself I have a better balance of understanding between business needs and technical needs compared to most devs.
• mdm12 5y ago
  It is definitely possible to achieve the total compensation you're looking for working remote. The companies generally fall into two categories: FAANG/MANGA/BigTechAcronymOfTheWeek companies that are remote-tolerant, and remote-first companies that are either late-stage startups or recently IPO'ed. The first category can certainly support 250k+ for an SWE at a level similar to L5 or higher. The bar will certainly be higher for the second category (as they don't have stupid amounts of money that FAANG does), so Staff+ will likely be the only positions that offer that type of compensation. Levels.fyi is a great resource to see current TC levels for offers being given by these companies. I have been recently going down the same path you have, so I can list some options I have encountered, for whatever that may be worth: * Coinbase * Confluent * Addepar * Gemini * Ramp * Reddit (doesn't change compensation based on location like many companies, by the way!) * Socure * Benchling ...
• rob_c 5y ago
  Get really good. By that I mean get fluent in the code, the sales pitch of a product, corner cases and examples of where this has saved real or hypothetical customers money and how. Always looks good to be active on their support groups just incase you encounter a tech person at interview. Then become a consultant.
• lngnmn2 5y ago
  To have an above average pay you have to show above average abilities on GitHub.
  • rco8786 5y ago
    Not remotely true. Having an active GitHub might help get a foot in the door, but that’s it, nor do companies look at this as a requirement unless it’s specifically for some open source work.
• neximo64 5y ago
  It's quite easy to do that find good companies and do good work in a very particular niche that underpromise and overdeliver (and go under on pricing) and use that to get more work at other companies. Then progressively go higher on pricing and do more than 1 (so you end up at 400k+) then pick the one you want and drop the other work. But if you start high you'll have a hard time proving your work easily, especially if its not specialised and you're not recognised in any way. It's alot of hard work to do the multiple at a go but you get there in the end. If you simply want the $250k because thats what others are getting or something but cannot actually create the value you'll have a hard time getting there. An easy test for this is you feel you are underpaid at $250k vs being in a situation now where you can't get $250k at any job (non remote or otherwise)
• gorgoiler 5y ago
  You need to passively attract the attention of multiple potential employers with lots of money — either revenue or funding — and then let them outbid each other until you find your true maximum market value. That means getting found by sourcers (recruiters) without explicitly making contact with them. Recruiters are, alas, still prejudiced against active candidates when you are trying to claw your way up the seniority ladder. You need to show up in their searches somehow e.g. sign up for tech talks / seminars, update your LinkedIn and visit their LI profiles (LI will tell the recruiter / exec that you are looking at their profile, unless you have a pro account.) None of this is particularly duplicitous. If you don’t have the chops you won’t get an offer. But it certainly helps tip the negotiation in your favour a little bit.
  • halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
    Anecdotally, I got what the OP was looking for with only one offer. Didn’t need to pit any offers against each other, didn’t go through any external recruiters. As with any advice, YMMV but it’s completely possible to find a singular role that the OP is looking for with a bit of luck (and being skilled in your job as well).
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  Just get a remote job at FAANG.
• AlchemistCamp 5y ago
  If it's difficult for you to earn $X/year in person in a high income area, then you'll probably find it even more difficult to earn $X/year remotely.
• DrNuke 5y ago
  As a salesman, maybe… you may even be able to land a few appointments and treat them all as a boutique. As a developer, a marginal chance exists in the fintech, if you are able as a quant or as a janitor for very exotic and often old codebases.
• throwawaywork14 5y ago
  The easiest way to make a lot more money… Get a job making 120-180 but 4 days a week. It is possible to do this. Make sure it is not an exciting company, but rather a corporate, slow moving one. Now you can pick up a contract making 100+ per hour. 15-20 hours a week. Do 4 hours of the main job. Do 4 hours of the freelance work. You’ll easily be making 250k. Another thing to note, as a developer you can solve a problem in 1 hour that may take others 4,5, or 10. At your full time job, schedule your work and spread out when you complete tasks. I’ve found this is a solid way to make a lot of money 200-300k, at non FAANG, and I have been able to fit it all into 4 days every week. I also work less than 40 hours on average. I’m not affiliated with it, but there is a site called overemployed with more tips on doing this. The key is getting a really slow, easy remote job first. This is easy to manage if you’re a good senior dev
  • PragmaticPulp 5y ago
    > The easiest way to make a lot more money… Finding two separate jobs that each pay median developer salaries while requiring only half-time input, working them concurrently, and then constantly finding new contract jobs that fit your criteria is not what I’d call “easy” FWIW, I’ve managed remote teams for a long time. It’s not hard to spot the people who are playing games like this to put in half-time.
    • kortilla 5y ago
      > It’s not hard to spot the people who are playing games like this to put in half-time. Only if they suck.
      • throwawaywork14 5y ago
        Exactly, if they’re doing a good job, how will you know. You are biased because you’ve found people out, you don’t know how many others are doing extra work on the side, that you don’t ever catch.
      • gorbachev 5y ago
        Does it matter, if they don't suck?
• rco8786 5y ago
  You just need to apply for roles with public companies that offer liquid equity. Very few of us are getting 250k+ on base salary alone. Most of us have the salary bands you’re already in, but have additional equity pay on top. It doesn’t have to be a FAANG either. There are loads of public companies out there hiring engineers at 250k total comp.
  • 300bps 5y ago
    $150 per hour is $300,000 per year including two weeks vacation per year. I have a side client that I met 11 years ago that I charge $150 per hour for remote development. They feel lucky to get that rate! Most people around us charge $200 per hour but since I work full time for someone else and can’t always be available I give them that discounted rate. I don’t think they’re hard to find at all for consulting. Being a full time employee for $250k, I agree with you that those are more rare. In my experience you have to possess an in-demand specialty for that or get into management.
    • sofixa 5y ago
      2 weeks vacation per year is pitiful. Do people really get on and are happy with only that? I get 5 weeks ( minimum legal in France), i use it to the max and it's okay, but sometimes insufficient.
      • temp234 5y ago
        In my experience Americans are very stressed out but they're just used to it and don't know any other way and don't make the connection to lack of leisure time. Hardly anyone here gets 5wk
      • dan-robertson 5y ago
        2 weeks makes the arithmetic easy (as you work 50 weeks in a year and 50 is an easier number) but I think it’s not really relevant: you can just plug in a different number of weeks or hourly rate and get your own answer.
      • PragmaticPulp 5y ago
• mgaunard 5y ago
  Personally I would just identify a technical niche that is highly valued by certain industries, and specialize in that. For example in high-frequency trading, there is a small niche developing ultra-low-latency FPGAs or ASICs for trading systems. The work in question is fairly straightforward compared to other industries, but most of the people with the right skillset tend to go to aerospace or other big user of sophisticated electrical engineering instead. The number of positions in the relevant niche is low, but given that there are so few people, they won't care where they are, could sponsor a green card and will pay very well.
  • cushychicken 5y ago
    I run a job board for FPGA people and hoo WEE do the HFT firms compensate amply. Talking two to three times the salary of a comparable position at a defense or chip company. That's not to say you won't be earning it. The corporate culture sounds absolutely savage: https://www.reddit.com/r/FPGA/comments/pj43ar/my_experience_with_fpgas_and_high_frequency/ https://www.reddit.com/r/FPGA/comments/pj43ar/my_experience_...
    • yob28 5y ago
      Not to mention the fact that your job would be less than meaningless
      • mustyoshi 5y ago
        What kind of meaningful job produces enough value to justify making 7x what the median US worker makes?
        • treeman79 5y ago
          When young, I was asked to take over reporting for a couple weeks while someone went on vacation. It was a full time position that required 7 solid hours a day of work. I had the position fully automated by the time person got back. Thankfully they took it well and they got more interesting assignments. 2 weeks of my time saved several years of salary for company. I did this many times.
• jph 5y ago
  Consult. When you are able to advise company leaders, then you magnify your worth and theirs, because you advance their projects and their employees. This makes you significantly more valuable in ways that the leaders are seeking. In my experience, this necessitates you becoming an expert, such as in one specific technology, or one kind of integration, or one industry sector need, or in one kind of business leadership technique.
• mabbo 5y ago
  Oh hey, I did this recently. The pandemic seemed like it was winding down (remember those naive days of 5 months ago?) and I decided I don't want to go back to the office, ever. Got a kid on the way, and I decided that the time I spend commuting would be better spent with my child. And my employers was making lots of whining noises that sounded like "we're never going to make this easy on you". First, pick the right companies to apply to. Are you applying to one that 'also offers fully remote positions', or one where everyone is remote? Are remote employees first class citizens? A simple way to measure this: how high in the leadership do you have to be before you must live in a particular city (or some set of cities) to do the job? If the CEO is working from home, you know this company takes remote pretty seriously. Edit a bit later: The reason I mention 'do they take remote seriously' is that companies that don't take remote seriously are the ones who still think in terms of 'city = salary rate'. Remote companies don't care. In terms of CVs, no need to make it much different, imho. Maybe call out that you worked well remotely during the pandemic, and any other 'my coworkers aren't in the same physical space as me' experience. Don't reveal your current salary during the interview process. The only salary you need to share with them is another company's competing offer. Good luck. The market is excellent for developers right now.
  • aristofun 5y ago
    In what niche in what country is the company you got into?
    • mabbo 5y ago
      I'm a pretty general Staff Developer at Shopify. No niche. I live in Canada.
      • aristofun 5y ago
        So you negotiated around 250k US dollars for remote work at Shopify? Could you share your cv please? boatman at list dot ru
        • 5y ago
• revorad 5y ago
  In my experience, the easiest way to earn more is to work as a contractor. You can charge more, have more control over your time, get raises more often and go on holiday more often (every 6 months). I made a whole video series about getting into contracting. This first one lays out my take on why you should consider it - https://learnetto.com/tutorials/why-should-you-become-a-contractor-the-3-big-benefits-of-contracting https://learnetto.com/tutorials/why-should-you-become-a-cont...
  • aristofun 5y ago
    How hard was it for you to find a client ready to pay 130$+/hour?
    • revorad 5y ago
      Not sure where you got that number from, but getting about that much after a few years of experience is not very hard at all. I've only worked for a daily rate, never hourly. I'm based in the UK where a senior developer can get contracts upwards of £600 per day pretty easily. Now with remote work being the standard, you can get much more if you work for good US companies.
• vadym909 5y ago
  Almost every large tech company now has fully remote tech roles for senior developers. $250k total comp is average for someone w 4-8 years experience. You just need to be good in coding, data structures and system design - and be able to show this in the interview - achievable with some practice.
  • randomopining 5y ago
    You mean FAANG or just general “tech” companies that are working on user software stuff?
    • ivanech 5y ago
      Not just FAANG. Public and large private cos have caught up.
  • quaffapint 5y ago
    What do you consider large tech companies? I find that number for only 4-8 yrs experience to be much higher than most people see even with a total comp perspective. Just look around on the job boards or like SO - Not seeing numbers like that unless you're up there in mgmt levels.
• gondo 5y ago
  When you say "fully remote", do you mean partially remote within USA? Or within your region but working from home? Companies advertising "remote" or "fully remote" jobs are almost never looking for worldwide remote candidates. Your location and cost of living always play an important role in compensation.
• biztos 5y ago
  I did something close to this before "fully remote" was popular. This probably isn't the answer you're looking for, but it worked for me: Take a non-remote job (as far as possible under Covid conditions) and spend a couple years proving your worth, then sell your manager on fully-remote. Be flexible but respect your non-negotiables whatever they are. At this point, if you're good, your manager is highly motivated to keep you and if you're being reasonable, they will try to make it happen. Note that there are some companies -- particularly FAANGs -- that have very strict rules about this, so if your "ask" is "digital nomad" and you go to Google, that's not gonna work. But if it's "WFH in Tahoe" you can probably pull it off. Good luck with it! I'm going to try the same next year if "starting my own startup" doesn't gel.
• z3t4 5y ago
  There is only one thing that will affect your salary - it's what you are able to get at other companies. So the best strategy is to have several companies outbid each other. When you search for jobs, don't just get an offer from one job, try to get an offer from at least 10 jobs. You can compare the company with yourself trying to buy an house: The house is on sale for $140 (the seller is the developer). If there is only one bidder, you could even buy the house for $130 (you are the only company to give an offer to the developer), but if there are 10 bidders, you will probably end up buying (hiring) the house (developer) for $250. It's a matter of how desperate the employer are. If they already have many developers - lookup their salary and if it's low they are not desperate enough, eg. they already have a stream of cheap talent.
• t8e56vd4ih 5y ago
  If you have to ask here, you won't find it.
• loydb 5y ago
  If you want a base salary that high, move into Product Management or Sales/Sales Engineering. Maybe Data Analytics/Engineering if you're really good at math and find the right company. Or, as others have said, start your own company.
  • omosubi 5y ago
    What exactly is sales engineering? I have never understood this term or what the work these people do is. To be fair I haven't spent much time looking into it but any insight you have is appreciated
    • nathanfig 5y ago
      It goes by a lot of names (sales consulting, solution engineering, sales engineering, etc) but sales engineer is probably the best literal descriptor: basically your job is to go to prospective customers and engage their engineers/architects and work with them to solve their problems using your company’s software or techniques. If you do a good job, the prospect signs up and you make a commission. Engagements vary- you might just be presenting slides, or you may be writing code to implement proofs of concept. Usually report to sales, which can be good or bad depending on sales culture at your company. It can be a lot of pressure since it is a customer facing role and requires being able to solve technical problems on your feet (not unlike a whiteboard interview at times). Requires you to learn quickly (may have to consult on software that hasn’t been released yet and has no documentation, better be good at reading code and asking questions). Also often requires a lot of travel, hence remote okay. If you’re a sociable engineer who likes variety and to travel, it’s definitely a good role to check out. If you meet your commission targets you will probably make significantly more than you would in a strictly salaried engineering role. Can be really flexible since work is largely driven by customer demand, just be prepared for some really intense weeks and late nights preparing for critical engagements.
      • mnemotronic 5y ago
        In my limited (2 years) experience, the pre-sales engineer, "solution architect" is someone who knows the product and about 85% of the client's environment and requirements. Their job is to say "Our product can meet all your requirements easily. I could code it up in a week." The sales staff moves in and gets the signature, collects the bonus and they and the pre-sales engineers spend the next 5 days on a private beach in the Caribbean. Meanwhile the company's Customer Consulting group sends in a developer and tells them they have a week to understand the requirements and get the thing designed, built, implemented, tested and signed off by the client. By the 2nd day on-site, the developer discovers a customer requirement missed by the pre-sales engineer that will require at least 3 weeks to implement correctly. The developer's boss says "fuck correct and fuck maintainable. Just make it work good enough so they'll let you leave. We're only charging them for a week of consulting". The developer spends 20 hours a day getting something working then leaves the customer with a fragile hodge-podge that mostly works with ideal data as long as the users and IT dept don't do anything unexpected. The developer gets home at 3 am Saturday, does his or her laundry then on Sunday afternoon gets on a plane headed for the next poor schmuck who bought the pre-sales BS.
• jerrygoyal 5y ago
  Many commentators are suggesting exploring a freelance/contract role instead of a full-time job to make $250k. Now, If we do the math you should be charging ~$125/hr working 8hrs 5 days a week to annually make 250k. You need to charge even more if you plan to take leaves. My question is where do you find these generous clients? From what I've heard even the top paying freelancing sites like Toptal don't have clients that pay that much to senior developer (after deducing platform commission).
  • aiisjustanif 5y ago
    Work in a more of a niche. Development in of itself is not a niche, and web development is but doesn’t pay as much freelance. Setting up and configuring and managing firewalls and automation around them? $200+/hr. Setting up CI/CD pipelines, build processes, automated notifications, vulnerability scanning, and logging? $200+/hr.
  • karmajunkie 5y ago
    if you want to make $250k, you need to charge much closer to $250/hr. Billing hours as a contractor or consultant is not the same as working hours as a FTE. You need to basically figure you’re going to average 20 hours/week to cover non-billable time, leave, taxes, etc. The good news is that clients paying these rates will actually listen to you rather than treat you as a cog in a machine. (Another reason i prefer the term “consultant” to “contractor”)
  • elbows 5y ago
    In my experience (doing consulting/freelance work for a few years now), you have to get away from "freelance" kinds of jobs into "consulting". The terms are not well defined and there's a lot of overlap. But generally consulting seems to imply jobs where the client is relying on your judgment and you're responsible for the project as a whole. Freelancing is more about doing narrowly-scoped pieces of technical work. Sites like Toptal mostly offer freelance type jobs, and there's a lot of price competition among freelancers. For consulting work, clients don't think twice about paying $200/hour, even when the actual technical work is pretty straightforward. Higher rates are definitely possible if you have specialized skills and/or find the right clients. But you can really only find these jobs through personal connections.
• natas 5y ago
  When I came to the US I worked and earned $47/hr as a developer, I was employed as a consultant and had one client whom paid the consulting company $550/hr for my services. I worked over 40h/week but my pay was capped at 40h. I worked this job for 3 years. It was a bit of a sweat shop, but it worked out as after 3 years I was able to get a much better paid job.
• renewiltord 5y ago
  Lots of SF companies that do remote without price alterations. A friend used to work at one: Safegraph. I gotta tell you, though, that life at these SF startups isn’t the same as the low-output stuff you see at big companies. I’ve worked at a few and the expectation is that you are actually senior, i.e. you take ownership over things. A lot of complaints you hear on HN are not meaningful in these environments: like when HN users complain about “management” telling them to do things and so on. Your job is execution on the product, not to be a func :: Specs -> Code. Lots of engineers don’t want that sort of responsibility, so if you’re one of those people who prefer to just be someone supplied a detailed spec and then write code that matches then it’s not an environment you’re suited to. It does pay well, though.
• ykevinator2 5y ago
  Why stop at 250?
• wayoutthere 5y ago
  Consulting for me; I work for a large firm but bonuses put me well over $250k. Most of my job is also not tech; I largely manage development teams these days. As a pure engineer, you should be looking at product companies selling SaaS. To command that level of salary and industry, you need to have at least 10 years experience, with half of that at a “digital economy” product company. If you’re not at a larger product company working on production systems, your title will probably be a level below where you’re at now (so expect to come in making about what you do now, albeit with a higher ceiling for comp and promotions). Startups aren’t necessarily the best entryway either. The job of working at a startup is very different from working on a relatively mature codebase. It takes a different mindset and a much more methodical approach. Less “move fast and break things” and more “readable code, complete documentation, good tests”.
• ransom1538 5y ago
  Sales. When I lived in an expensive part of SF (not long) I was eager to ask around "What do you do for a living?" Sales. One guy managed to bring in 20 million dollars worth of contracts into a tech company by calling his friends. His comp was north of 1 million for one year. He wanted 2 million for the next. That is a good deal for a company and easy to justify that comp. Another lady sold energy contracts. Another lady sold real-estate. Another guy worked in Oracle sales. What I learned: what revenue they generated for the company they got a cut. These people could walk into any company and add IMMEDIATE value. Their personal freedom was also astonishing, their employer couldn't care less where they were or what they were doing. Just bring in a sale.
• MaxMax11 5y ago
  [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page[/url] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page]https://en.wikipedia...
• pembrook 5y ago
  If you're inside the US, just apply to any private unicorn or public tech company (the ones that get media coverage). Anecdotally, roughly 50% of them are now cool with full remote and virtually all will pay 250k or more in total comp. If you're outside the US, forget about salaried roles. I've found that a vast majority of companies mentioned above will have blanket policies against hiring non-US workers (most HR departments are still living in the past and don't know services like Pilot, Deel, Remote.com, etc exist). Also, there's virtually zero non-American companies that pay those kind of salaries--save for a few select places like Singapore, Zurich (and funny enough, its also the American companies in those cities that pay the highest). Contracting for sleepy European big companies is probably your best option if outside the US. In most European countries, there's insane cost benefits to having contractors vs. employees due to the social welfare systems and impossibility of firing an employee. So contractor rates can match US ones. For all the talk about COVID unlocking the global marketplace of talent, I don't see any evidence of that happening yet. Covid has eliminated geographic barriers to talent within countries, but the barriers between countries are still too scary for risk-averse, late-adopting HR/Compliance/Legal types to deal with. Give it another 5 years before the FUD clears.
  • yosito 5y ago
    > any private unicorn or public tech company (the ones that get media coverage) Can you give some example companies?
    • deagle50 5y ago
      Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • yosito 5y ago
        IIRC these companies aren't really hiring remote.
  • 5y ago
• unbanned 5y ago
  What makes you think you're worth anything anywhere near that?
  • aristofun 5y ago
    For example faang salaries of the similar roles i’m currently in. Not to mention that i’ve overgrown it.
    • unbanned 5y ago
      Okay so arrogance determines it then?
      • mmmmmbop 5y ago
        $250k is a decent new grad offer at FAANG in the Bay Area. Assuming that you're at L5 level, you should be easily able to clear that with a remote position.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
• jokethrowaway 5y ago
  You need to find companies who pay enough. 99% of recruiters, jobs on LinkedIn are not paying enough, you need to network, find job opportunities through friends. Use your references from previous jobs. Join tech communities and make friends / show your technical prowess. Most of the jobs I accepted in my career were via word of mouth and with ex coworkers inside the company to put a good word. I'm living in Europe, working for a European company and pulling 200k$ in base salary with no equity (as a contractor in a different country, treated like an employee, but no sick pay or paid holidays) + some other online businesses netting some variable amounts. I live in a low cost and low tax location - so I can pocket roughly 85% of the profits. One way that really helped me to negotiate higher salary is to have recurring revenue on the side which could support my lifestyle. I'm transparent about that with employers and they know I'm running some side businesses. Given you're already making a significant amount of money I would focus on optimising taxes / location and then focusing on creating other passive / semi passive revenue streams.
• mark_l_watson 5y ago
  Well, it is a workers market right now. Professionally there is nothing special about me except that I really enjoy working, but for the last two remote jobs, the offer letter I received was more than what I verbally agreed on with HR. Since I am also 70 years old, I take this as good evidence of how pro-worker the job market is right now. I offer free mentoring (see my web site) and always talk about the importance to having a beginner’s/learner’s mind. I think that what companies want is: prioritizing the company’s interests, being flexible, and being observant looking for opportunities to improve the business. Fairly straightforward strategy. Good luck reaching your financial goals/salary number but also please remember money isn’t everything, and is much less important than our relationships with other people.
  • sidcool 5y ago
    Mad respect for you sir. What advice would you give a 35 year old software engineer who's worried about being obsolete in 10 years?
    • mark_l_watson 5y ago
      Keep learning new tech. I would expect major retraining to be required much more often than even 10 or 20 years ago. Personally, I am a big fan of Coursera and eDX online courses, but any form of study is good. Someone from HN just emailed me about this HN thread, and I will make the same comment to you as I did in an e-mail: “”” Every morning first thing, I spend a minute or two thinking of everything that I am grateful for, and having a useful job is on my gratitude list. If I don’t do this, then sometimes I find it more difficult to be motivated at my remote job.””” A feeling of gratitude gives me energy to keep learning and maintain curiousity.
      • jason-phillips 5y ago
        I agree. I'm 50 and don't feel as though the sun has set on my usefulness yet. I'm definitely experiencing more demand than ever. My personal philosophy is similar and I very much love the work I do. 1. My role is to help the team. 2. Stay humble. There is always a better way to do something and we're very lucky to be in our position. 3. Practice not talking. Let others have the experience of figuring it out for themselves. Interject if you can help get them unstuck. 4. Always be learning.
• destitude 5y ago
  I was able to recently get a close to $200k base salary job as Sr. software engineer for a startup. Fully remote with benefits. Have a lot of experience though and may be considered somewhat of a niche area.
• vmlinuz 5y ago
  This kind of post is somewhere between depressing and surreal to me. I live a long way outside the US - UTC+8 - and these sort of numbers are utterly unreal for most of the world. In my recent experience, pre-, during- and 'post-'pandemic, the vast majority of remote companies aren't willing or able to consider people outside their local timezone(s) and/or tax jurisdictions, while my local market is masssively under-developed compared with most other developed parts of the world, unless you can break into banking. My most recent income was a little over a third of this, and that was with a bank, albeit on a devops-ish contract. I am a senior engineer - you could say mid-senior if you really wanted to pick holes in my CV - and I'm pretty much ready to quit the local market, and then likely relocate due to inability to pay rent otherwise... Meh. Have a good end of year and stay safe, y'all.
  • noogle 5y ago
    The logical conclusion is to move to the US, then. But seriously, the software industry concentrates in the US. The high salary represents (in part) this concentration rather than something about the US itself. Thus, it makes sense that companies are not looking outward - employees that are worth this kind of salary have already moved to the US. Similar to how other industries chose other places to concentrate. Any "market" of numerous agents requires an agreed-upon "marketplace" - not just geographically, but also legally.
• visaals 5y ago
  I found this article to be pretty enlightening about the nature of of the software engineering job market, which should help you figure out what companies can afford expensive developers. https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-salaries-in-the-netherlands-and-europe/ https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-sala... If you're okay with a little risk, it's probably easier to join a remote series S-ish startup where you get a solid base salary (130k-180k based on your experience) and where the stock could be worth anything from 0k/yr to $100k+ per year. I would highly recommend only joining these types of companies if they have technical founders who have worked in BigTech and understand the value of high quality engineers and maintaining a good engineering culture (aka blameless post mortems, predictable deadlines, no-overworking, etc.)
• anticristi 5y ago
  Somewhat of a tangent, does anyone know how to convert a US-working condition total comp of 250k$ to, say, Swedish-working condition total comp? The highest Swedish total comp for Software engineer I ever heard is (75kSEK / month). This is 2.5 times lower than the above figure. However, to be fair, total "Swedish" comp should also include public benefits, like pension, parental leave, free "stay at home with sick child", free university, free healthcare, etc. How can one determine if Swedes are underpaid or just pushed into mandatory savings?
  • wreath 5y ago
    > However, to be fair, total "Swedish" comp should also include public benefits, like pension, parental leave, free "stay at home with sick child", free university, free healthcare, etc Does it? don't you pay really high taxes on the 75k to cover for the benefits you just listed? Whereas in the US, you pay a lot less taxes and probably equal or better health insurance coverage if you're a SWE. I think another thing to factor in is housing and purchasing power. 200k in SF is different from 150k in the midwest or 90k in Malmö
• dyeje 5y ago
  1. Fill out your LinkedIn profile with keywords related to the job you're looking for. This gives you inbound leads. Discuss comp on the first call. 2. Practice LeetCode. 3. Practice system design. 4. Come up with compelling anecdotes in the STAR format for the common behavioral questions. 5. Use levels.fyi to target applying to places that will meet your comp expectations. 6. Keep going. Practice makes perfect.
• moooff 5y ago
  This is very hard in Germany or not possible at all (beside maybe FAANG). I have a PhD in Machine Learning (including Papers at SIGKDD / ECML / ACL etc.) as well as relevant working experiences and it is just not possible to get this numbers. I tried really hard to get something that pays this well (beside FAANG) that hire here because i can not move (family stuff). I once talked with Google and Amazon Research (before Covid) and they told me no remote only (thats why i skipped them for now). Did this policy changed?
  • piatra 5y ago
    afaik yes the policy changed, there now is Germany-remote as a „location“ but this doesn’t come by default you put in a request and it needs Director or someone equally as high to approve it. Easier to do internally rather than as a new hire (when you’re not applying for a very experienced role). Sometimes teams have a „remote ok“ policy when specialists cannot be found locally but this is rare.
  • p1esk 5y ago
    It would have been easier for you if you had papers in NeuroIPS, ICML, ICLR, or CVPR. The ones you mentioned don’t impress anyone. A few months ago I made a 180k offer to a guy in England who wanted to be fully remote. He rejected it because he got a better offer. He had two papers (ICML and ICLR).
• funkaster 5y ago
  depending on where you live and how much experience you have, it shouldn't be too hard to get a ~$200k (base comp) fully remote. $250k base comp sounds harder though. I'm a hiring manager at a FAANG and we're hiring a bunch of positions right now, remote is really taking off.
• United857 5y ago
  How much experience do you have? Assuming you're not a new grad, any FAANG (or company that wants that level of talent) should give you more than $250K for a mid-level or higher SWE role, even remote.
• mnemotronic 5y ago
  $250k. Wow. I'd have to say you'd need multiple doctorates, you'd written at least one book that every programmer regards as "The" reference manual, and gotten a Nobel Prize for something. I've been writing software professionally since 1979 and I'm at not quite 3/4 of your goal. Maybe location and choice of tool set has something to do with it. Good luck.
  • halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
    Nope, can easily clear 300k+ TC as a senior/staff/principal at FAANG fully remote without any of those accolades. Just need skill and a bit of luck.
  • seattle_spring 5y ago
    I think you might want to reexamine the market. I'm several multiples more than $250k and have a BS and ~15 years of experience working in web development.
    • aristofun 5y ago
      Where do you work?
      • seattle_spring 5y ago
        Not FAANG or related.
    • mnemotronic 5y ago
      Please don't take it personally, but that's hard for me to swallow. I've probably got coffee mugs that are older than you from places where I've written code. And thus does the clueless old man fade off into the sunset ....
• FloNeu 5y ago
  I once heard the saying 'developers are like prostitudes - pretending to be excited costs extra...' so i take from that you should pretend to be very excited about every idea your higher-ups managers throw at you - i mean that will make everybody else that has to deal with the shit they come up with hate you - but they will surly pay your gratefully because you make them think they are not retarded worthless space (most of the time they are - don't know if anyone doesn't know that open secret).
• throwaway05112 5y ago
  becoming an expert in leetcode is a proven strategy
• aiisahik 5y ago
  I'm CTO for a Series A startup. We have 4 engineers who are making $200k - $300k in cash (excluding options). They are all referrals with 10+ years of experience (in some cases 15+) and they also have deep technical expertise in specific areas we need: Payments, Banking, Data Engineering etc. Your CV matters but your prior work relationships matter more. Ask yourself: who, among all the folks i have ever worked for would refer me to their current employer and say: "We really need to hire this person - pay them as much as we can afford".
• Gunax 5y ago
  I just scored my first 250k at a faang after being erm... stuck at a regular/non-prestigious company for 3 years. There's basically a cottage industry of 'cracking the faang interview' so I don't feel like repeating it here. But basically any faang/adjacent will pay mid level engineers mid 200s.
• darthrupert 5y ago
  I'm a senior with 20 years experience from a first world country and my salary would more than double if I got what you currently get.
  • aristofun 5y ago
    You’re obviously underpaid. Or not as senior as you think of yourself.
    • darthrupert 5y ago
      Could also be that you're seriously overpaid.
      • aristofun 5y ago
        I would be the case if not many other developers I personally know and their salaries
        • darthrupert 5y ago
          The answer to this riddle is that I live in an area where salaries are low (Finland, well outside the capital) and I usually value human connection enough that I haven't sought remote work. But now that everything is remote, I might just as well try for that 2x salary
          • aristofun 5y ago
            Wish you best of luck!
• TimJRobinson 5y ago
  Look for something in web3 / Decentralized Finance, there is a ton of money flowing into it right now and almost all jobs are remote.
• devops000 5y ago
  Find a way to generate $500-750k/year for your company. They will be happy to hire you for $250k/year.