8 ms·

> Healthcare, 30 paid holidays, unions, paid overtime, weekends and calls off work come extra (it is 40h week period, want more pay for it), retirement, flex ti

> Healthcare, 30 paid holidays, unions, paid overtime, weekends and calls off work come extra (it is 40h week period, want more pay for it), retirement, flex time, ... If you are in your 20's, it is totally worth moving to the US where you can get paid 500K+ per year if you navigate your career efficiently. I posit that making this much money more than covers any of these additional expenses that you call out.

exdsq 5y ago
Anyone here earning $500k in their 20s like this person suggests? I’m sure some can but this is not the norm and expectations need to be checked and called out when wrong.
- rpmisms 5y ago
  I recently hit six figures at 20. By far not the norm.
  - maccard 5y ago
    There's a huge difference between 100k and 500k though.
  - exdsq 5y ago
    The gap between 250 and 500 is far wider than 0 and 250. Six figures at 20 is awesome but it’s not continuous explosive growth
- chifintech2021 5y ago
  Most of the devs at prop trading companies in Chicago or New York will hit 500k/yr after a few years if they can hack it and stomach it. Depending on how close to the money they are, it could be 2-6 years.
  - exdsq 5y ago
    The fact we’re specifying specific types of roles in specific cities indicates it’s not a case of “just moving to the US to earn $500k”
    - aix1 5y ago
      Yes, and those aren't your typical 9-5 gigs either.
  - nvarsj 5y ago
    Unless it changed dramatically in recent years, when I was in Chicago prop trading firms were paying mid 200 to 300 after a few years. 500k was definitely not normal comp for most engineers at any trading firm, although obviously there are exceptions.
    - exdsq 5y ago
      Thank you. This is really my point. People share these rumors of a small minority making huge sums and normalize it as what anyone can do, which just does harm to the industry and to individuals. People actually in the sector/area know it’s not true yet there are those just sharing things they heard like facts.
      - comp_throw7 5y ago
        Entry-level SWE comp for top-end finance shops in Chicago & NY is 400k+, so, ah, no. See levels.fyi.
        nvarsj 5y ago
        While I think salaries have gone up in recent years, I'm also going to call BS on 400k for entry level. I just looked at levels.fyi, and I'm not seeing that all. A couple unverified outliers for Citadel doesn't represent the majority of devs. I'm mostly seeing in the 100-200 region for the firms I checked, with Citadel at the top in the 200-300 region. Also keep in mind bonuses are rarely guaranteed or part of packages, so they are completely speculative for new grads.
- dastbe 5y ago
  are you interested in the norm in terms of raw numbers, or where you would need to work to achieve this? and are you interested in people who have won the stock lottery, or just people who have their total comp pegged at 500k+? assuming the latter, you're looking at getting hired in at level as a senior engineer (maybe one level higher depending on the company) at most of your brand name tech companies that value engineering talent.
  - exdsq 5y ago
    Okay sure, but it’s hardly the case one can just join a FAANG company at a senior level to earn $500k easily as OP suggests. Want to retire early? Easy! Just become a managing partner at JP Morgan in your late 20s and you’ll be rich enough by 30.
    - dastbe 5y ago
      i would guess as a percentage there are two orders of magnitude more senior engineers at an arbitrary tech company vs managing directors at an arbitrary investment bank. senior engineer is ~5 years of experience to achieve, with maybe 1-2 years extra if you're meandering.
      - exdsq 5y ago
        I was being facetious - advising someone to become rich and retire early by getting a very difficult to achieve role in another country 10x that counties annual salary in their 20s is not much better than saying to someone if they want to become rich they should just become a world famous actor or something. It’s just unrealistic advice that does more harm than good (and it rubs me the wrong way hence these responses lol). It seems to be a view perpetually shared by someone who knows someone who heard something and then treats it as the norm.
        comp_throw7 5y ago
        It is actually a lot better. The hard part is getting into the US, not getting one of these jobs. People meme about practicing leetcode for months but the reality is you should be able to land an offer with no more than 50-100 hours of practice (sure, you might need to do more if you're not actually that strong, but FAANG literally employees 5%+ of the engineers in the country, their standards aren't _that_ high).
- 0xfaded 5y ago
  I was in startup land over in SF, so my salary topped out lower at 160k USD but with ~2% equity. I was in a partnership in a small plane, and one of the guys was "in his 20's making $500k+" at google as an L6 plus retention bonus. Several engineers in my circle (early 30's) are on $500k+. Currently I'm living in Europe but leaving back to SF. I tell people all the time about salaries in the US and point them to levels.fyi, but these salaries are so detached from their realities that they seem simply unable to believe them. Go look at levels.fyi, it matches very well with what I've heard on the ground.
  - exdsq 5y ago
    I live in Palo Alto so I’m aware - but it is not easy to get to that point. It’s not a case of “oh, move to the US and earn $500k!”.
  - mcv 5y ago
    I think the big question is: can you reach these salaries on a normal work week, or does this require sacrificing your personal life?
    - michaelt 5y ago
      For some jobs, higher salaries correlate with worse working conditions. The warehouse worker who moves from day shift to night shift, or the oil worker who moves from onshore to oil rig work, can demand a higher salary. But more broadly, higher salaries correlate with better working conditions. That warehouse worker will have targets to hit every single shift, get in trouble for being five minutes late, will get written up for taking sick leave without a doctor's note, and will have to pay for their own food and drinks. On the other hand, most jobs that pay a six-figure salary? There might be quarterly department-level targets, but you won't get fired for missing them. Flexible working hours, and no checks you're putting in your hours. Illness? Take as long off as you need. Of course there's free tea, coffee and snacks. Maybe there's also free breakfast, lunch and dinner. Just because a job is highly paid, doesn't mean it'll be particularly onerous - in fact, often the opposite!
      - 5y ago
- dan-robertson 5y ago
  I think it feels like a bit of an extrapolation from recent market conditions. But someone who’s 28 is still in their 20s and can have enough experience to be considered a senior engineer. Big tech companies will pay >$250k for that and recently those companies have done very well in stock markets so if you were offered $x of shares (at the current price) over 4 years at the start of the job, they would now be worth say $2x. If you combine that with a job market where those companies are all competing for the same people it is likely one could do well by being in the group that is being competed for. So I think it is reasonably plausible for someone towards the older end of the range with a bit of skill and good fortune. It feels unlikely that the trend which I described above (of company stock going up 2x every two years) will continue so I would expect effective compensation to go down a bit. But on the other hand compensation can be pretty sticky and plenty of people will be willing to quit after reaching the 4 year cliff (where their stock awards would no longer be worth 2x what they were meant to be worth) to look for high pay elsewhere.
suifbwish 5y ago
I will bite. Show me links to the data on this.
- menzoic 5y ago
  https://levels.fyi https://levels.fyi
  - mcv 5y ago
    Looks like there are plenty of $200k SE jobs in Amsterdam. It's just that most of them are at Booking and Adyen.
    - weatherlite 5y ago
      Plenty idk. Could be that high earners really like reporting about their salaries? I mean it must feel much better to go into a salaries website and tell everyone you're making 200K than it is 70K, so it could be biased upwards. Truth is these Dutch companies don't have to pay that much - so many people from all over the world want to work there 80-100K is more than plenty. Maybe super high management will get 200K.
      - mcv 5y ago
        That's possible, but if Amsterdam has big name tech companies, Booking and Adyen are definitely it, so perhaps it makes sense that they pay more. Sadly I'm not that interested in working for them; Booking uses way too many dark patterns for my taste, and I've been to Adyen's office, and they had dozens of programmers working in a single noisy room. That didn't appeal to me at all.
        frockington1 5y ago
        What are the big name tech companies in Amsterdam (sorry, dumb american here)
        5y ago
pjmlp 5y ago
Assuming success and a better career outcome away from home without support from anyone.
- b112 5y ago
  Yes, but, it is trivial to pack bags when young, show up for job, rent a furnished place, and just start living. If the job doesn't work out, you can just pack and go home. Worst case, you get to see a new city, meet new people, and have some memories.
rojcyk 5y ago
It used to be like that. I was playing with the idea a couple years ago as well. But looking at the social climate in the states, I'll rather keep my low paying job (in comparison to the FAANG) and enjoy the general safety.
nly 5y ago
You say that like moving to the US is as easy as pie. Emigration to the US is incredibly difficult.
- marvin 5y ago
  It depends. A friend of mine has been working for Microsoft in Ireland for a few years, and immigration to the US (green card track, two years if employed, I think) for him was practically a formality.
- drcoopster 5y ago
  It goes both ways. Emigration _from_ the US to another western country is also incredibly difficult.
Broken_Hippo 5y ago
Is it really? I mean, you more than likely aren't going to get paid 500k+ per year, even if you "navigate your career" efficiently. And in so many cases, you might be losing out. Did you want vacation time or do you simply want to work while you are young? Do you want to have children in your 20's? If so, maybe not move to the US. Your child probably will have citizenship of your home country - but maybe not, especially if you don't move back. Worse, though, is that the child automatically becomes a US citizen. This means that if you move away, your child must have a US passport if they ever want to visit again... or must pay $2350 to renounce. It means that the child will, until they renounce, be taxed by the US government on their global earnings. You probably won't get 4-5 weeks of vacation a year - and even if you do, it isn't a legal requirement that they let you use much of it. And they probably won't let you take 3 weeks off at a time. Or you might find that you get sick and lose your job. You might fall in love and realize that your partner isn't eligible to move to your country with you. You might find that your retirement in your home country isn't as much because you haven't paid into it as much (depending on the system). Or you could very easily find that your retirement is tied up in a 401k that failed miserably, leaving you without. If you have dark skin, you might find yourself dealing with a US police force at a traffic stop in ways you didn't in your home country. Good luck if you are trans, and in some places, a same-sex relationship will get you ostracized. Of course, the places in the US where that happens most aren't places paying 500k - in no small part because those places are few. So no, it isn't totally worth it to move to the US.
- faiD9Eet 5y ago
  I would like to second that. I would even take education options into account, if I had kids. I did the calculation for my current job (Germany, huge telekommunications company, city of 200.000 inhabitants). It goes like this * 72'000€ a year * 38 hours of work per week, distributed to my choosing * 44 days of paid vacation per year * approximately 20 days of paid sick leave per year * 10 days of paid child sick leave per year * covered health insurance To match those conditions, a job in the US must pay 180'000$ per year (in cash) plus health insurance for me, my family and their education. Though I do not know what equity is worth. Can those 500k$/y earners get their compansation in cash?
- 5y ago
eertami 5y ago
Moving from Western Europe to the US is such a QOL decrease that even for 500k, people are only going to do it if they are desperate.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Because Western Europe and the US are such homogeneous entities.

exdsq 5y ago

Anyone here earning $500k in their 20s like this person suggests? I’m sure some can but this is not the norm and expectations need to be checked and called out when wrong.

rpmisms 5y ago
I recently hit six figures at 20. By far not the norm.
- maccard 5y ago
  There's a huge difference between 100k and 500k though.
- exdsq 5y ago
  The gap between 250 and 500 is far wider than 0 and 250. Six figures at 20 is awesome but it’s not continuous explosive growth
chifintech2021 5y ago
Most of the devs at prop trading companies in Chicago or New York will hit 500k/yr after a few years if they can hack it and stomach it. Depending on how close to the money they are, it could be 2-6 years.
- exdsq 5y ago
  The fact we’re specifying specific types of roles in specific cities indicates it’s not a case of “just moving to the US to earn $500k”
  - aix1 5y ago
    Yes, and those aren't your typical 9-5 gigs either.
- nvarsj 5y ago
  Unless it changed dramatically in recent years, when I was in Chicago prop trading firms were paying mid 200 to 300 after a few years. 500k was definitely not normal comp for most engineers at any trading firm, although obviously there are exceptions.
  - exdsq 5y ago
    Thank you. This is really my point. People share these rumors of a small minority making huge sums and normalize it as what anyone can do, which just does harm to the industry and to individuals. People actually in the sector/area know it’s not true yet there are those just sharing things they heard like facts.
    - comp_throw7 5y ago
      Entry-level SWE comp for top-end finance shops in Chicago & NY is 400k+, so, ah, no. See levels.fyi.
      - nvarsj 5y ago
        While I think salaries have gone up in recent years, I'm also going to call BS on 400k for entry level. I just looked at levels.fyi, and I'm not seeing that all. A couple unverified outliers for Citadel doesn't represent the majority of devs. I'm mostly seeing in the 100-200 region for the firms I checked, with Citadel at the top in the 200-300 region. Also keep in mind bonuses are rarely guaranteed or part of packages, so they are completely speculative for new grads.
dastbe 5y ago
are you interested in the norm in terms of raw numbers, or where you would need to work to achieve this? and are you interested in people who have won the stock lottery, or just people who have their total comp pegged at 500k+? assuming the latter, you're looking at getting hired in at level as a senior engineer (maybe one level higher depending on the company) at most of your brand name tech companies that value engineering talent.
- exdsq 5y ago
  Okay sure, but it’s hardly the case one can just join a FAANG company at a senior level to earn $500k easily as OP suggests. Want to retire early? Easy! Just become a managing partner at JP Morgan in your late 20s and you’ll be rich enough by 30.
  - dastbe 5y ago
    i would guess as a percentage there are two orders of magnitude more senior engineers at an arbitrary tech company vs managing directors at an arbitrary investment bank. senior engineer is ~5 years of experience to achieve, with maybe 1-2 years extra if you're meandering.
    - exdsq 5y ago
      I was being facetious - advising someone to become rich and retire early by getting a very difficult to achieve role in another country 10x that counties annual salary in their 20s is not much better than saying to someone if they want to become rich they should just become a world famous actor or something. It’s just unrealistic advice that does more harm than good (and it rubs me the wrong way hence these responses lol). It seems to be a view perpetually shared by someone who knows someone who heard something and then treats it as the norm.
      - comp_throw7 5y ago
        It is actually a lot better. The hard part is getting into the US, not getting one of these jobs. People meme about practicing leetcode for months but the reality is you should be able to land an offer with no more than 50-100 hours of practice (sure, you might need to do more if you're not actually that strong, but FAANG literally employees 5%+ of the engineers in the country, their standards aren't _that_ high).
0xfaded 5y ago
I was in startup land over in SF, so my salary topped out lower at 160k USD but with ~2% equity. I was in a partnership in a small plane, and one of the guys was "in his 20's making $500k+" at google as an L6 plus retention bonus. Several engineers in my circle (early 30's) are on $500k+. Currently I'm living in Europe but leaving back to SF. I tell people all the time about salaries in the US and point them to levels.fyi, but these salaries are so detached from their realities that they seem simply unable to believe them. Go look at levels.fyi, it matches very well with what I've heard on the ground.
- exdsq 5y ago
  I live in Palo Alto so I’m aware - but it is not easy to get to that point. It’s not a case of “oh, move to the US and earn $500k!”.
- mcv 5y ago
  I think the big question is: can you reach these salaries on a normal work week, or does this require sacrificing your personal life?
  - michaelt 5y ago
    For some jobs, higher salaries correlate with worse working conditions. The warehouse worker who moves from day shift to night shift, or the oil worker who moves from onshore to oil rig work, can demand a higher salary. But more broadly, higher salaries correlate with better working conditions. That warehouse worker will have targets to hit every single shift, get in trouble for being five minutes late, will get written up for taking sick leave without a doctor's note, and will have to pay for their own food and drinks. On the other hand, most jobs that pay a six-figure salary? There might be quarterly department-level targets, but you won't get fired for missing them. Flexible working hours, and no checks you're putting in your hours. Illness? Take as long off as you need. Of course there's free tea, coffee and snacks. Maybe there's also free breakfast, lunch and dinner. Just because a job is highly paid, doesn't mean it'll be particularly onerous - in fact, often the opposite!
    - 5y ago
dan-robertson 5y ago
I think it feels like a bit of an extrapolation from recent market conditions. But someone who’s 28 is still in their 20s and can have enough experience to be considered a senior engineer. Big tech companies will pay >$250k for that and recently those companies have done very well in stock markets so if you were offered $x of shares (at the current price) over 4 years at the start of the job, they would now be worth say $2x. If you combine that with a job market where those companies are all competing for the same people it is likely one could do well by being in the group that is being competed for. So I think it is reasonably plausible for someone towards the older end of the range with a bit of skill and good fortune. It feels unlikely that the trend which I described above (of company stock going up 2x every two years) will continue so I would expect effective compensation to go down a bit. But on the other hand compensation can be pretty sticky and plenty of people will be willing to quit after reaching the 4 year cliff (where their stock awards would no longer be worth 2x what they were meant to be worth) to look for high pay elsewhere.

suifbwish 5y ago

I will bite. Show me links to the data on this.

menzoic 5y ago
https://levels.fyi https://levels.fyi
- mcv 5y ago
  Looks like there are plenty of $200k SE jobs in Amsterdam. It's just that most of them are at Booking and Adyen.
  - weatherlite 5y ago
    Plenty idk. Could be that high earners really like reporting about their salaries? I mean it must feel much better to go into a salaries website and tell everyone you're making 200K than it is 70K, so it could be biased upwards. Truth is these Dutch companies don't have to pay that much - so many people from all over the world want to work there 80-100K is more than plenty. Maybe super high management will get 200K.
    - mcv 5y ago
      That's possible, but if Amsterdam has big name tech companies, Booking and Adyen are definitely it, so perhaps it makes sense that they pay more. Sadly I'm not that interested in working for them; Booking uses way too many dark patterns for my taste, and I've been to Adyen's office, and they had dozens of programmers working in a single noisy room. That didn't appeal to me at all.
      - frockington1 5y ago
        What are the big name tech companies in Amsterdam (sorry, dumb american here)
        5y ago

pjmlp 5y ago

Assuming success and a better career outcome away from home without support from anyone.

b112 5y ago
Yes, but, it is trivial to pack bags when young, show up for job, rent a furnished place, and just start living. If the job doesn't work out, you can just pack and go home. Worst case, you get to see a new city, meet new people, and have some memories.

rojcyk 5y ago

It used to be like that. I was playing with the idea a couple years ago as well. But looking at the social climate in the states, I'll rather keep my low paying job (in comparison to the FAANG) and enjoy the general safety.

nly 5y ago

You say that like moving to the US is as easy as pie. Emigration to the US is incredibly difficult.

marvin 5y ago
It depends. A friend of mine has been working for Microsoft in Ireland for a few years, and immigration to the US (green card track, two years if employed, I think) for him was practically a formality.
drcoopster 5y ago
It goes both ways. Emigration _from_ the US to another western country is also incredibly difficult.

Broken_Hippo 5y ago

Is it really? I mean, you more than likely aren't going to get paid 500k+ per year, even if you "navigate your career" efficiently. And in so many cases, you might be losing out. Did you want vacation time or do you simply want to work while you are young? Do you want to have children in your 20's? If so, maybe not move to the US. Your child probably will have citizenship of your home country - but maybe not, especially if you don't move back. Worse, though, is that the child automatically becomes a US citizen. This means that if you move away, your child must have a US passport if they ever want to visit again... or must pay $2350 to renounce. It means that the child will, until they renounce, be taxed by the US government on their global earnings. You probably won't get 4-5 weeks of vacation a year - and even if you do, it isn't a legal requirement that they let you use much of it. And they probably won't let you take 3 weeks off at a time. Or you might find that you get sick and lose your job. You might fall in love and realize that your partner isn't eligible to move to your country with you. You might find that your retirement in your home country isn't as much because you haven't paid into it as much (depending on the system). Or you could very easily find that your retirement is tied up in a 401k that failed miserably, leaving you without. If you have dark skin, you might find yourself dealing with a US police force at a traffic stop in ways you didn't in your home country. Good luck if you are trans, and in some places, a same-sex relationship will get you ostracized. Of course, the places in the US where that happens most aren't places paying 500k - in no small part because those places are few. So no, it isn't totally worth it to move to the US.

faiD9Eet 5y ago
I would like to second that. I would even take education options into account, if I had kids. I did the calculation for my current job (Germany, huge telekommunications company, city of 200.000 inhabitants). It goes like this * 72'000€ a year * 38 hours of work per week, distributed to my choosing * 44 days of paid vacation per year * approximately 20 days of paid sick leave per year * 10 days of paid child sick leave per year * covered health insurance To match those conditions, a job in the US must pay 180'000$ per year (in cash) plus health insurance for me, my family and their education. Though I do not know what equity is worth. Can those 500k$/y earners get their compansation in cash?
5y ago

eertami 5y ago

Moving from Western Europe to the US is such a QOL decrease that even for 500k, people are only going to do it if they are desperate.

ghaff 5y ago
Because Western Europe and the US are such homogeneous entities.