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"Pretty hard" is an understatement. In ten years, somebody receiving a 30% raise each year sees their pay go up by a factor of nearly 14. Over a 30 year career

"Pretty hard" is an understatement. In ten years, somebody receiving a 30% raise each year sees their pay go up by a factor of nearly 14. Over a 30 year career it is a factor of 2600. Somebody starting at 50k would end their career making 130,000,000 annually.

Retric 5y ago
Some people do actually end up at that kind of a multiple of their initial salary. It’s not that such growth is impossible it’s just really really uncommon and generally takes regularly changing roles.
- pc86 5y ago
  "Some people" are also born in poverty and become billionaires. Not nearly enough to make it worth talking about like it's anything but a statistical aberration.
  - Retric 5y ago
    Quite a few people do cap out in the 7 or low 8 figures though. The old “climbing the corporate ladder” adage is based on actual people even if most people never climb vary high it’s a real possibility if you actually want to make serious money. Personally, I and most developers don’t think it’s worth it which is one of the reasons why it’s not actually difficult to get started.
    - chipotle_coyote 5y ago
      > Quite a few people do cap out in the 7 or low 8 figures though. Gonna be the [citation needed] guy here again; "quite a few" is doing an awful lot of work in that sentence. According to the most recent wage statistics from 2020, there are less than 100,000 people reporting incomes of $1M or over; that alone doesn't just put you in the top 1%, it puts you in the top 0.1%. "Low 8 figures" is in the low thousands. https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2020 https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2020 I'm not the first person to point out that Silicon Valley (and SV-style) software engineering incomes seem to have skewed HN's idea of what "average" salaries are and I won't be the last, but I think it's really true. If you make a six figure income, you're pretty much in the top 10% of that wage statistics chart; the median income is around $30K. > Personally, I and most developers don’t think it’s worth it The number of people who started as developers and increased their salaries to that $1M+ level have got to be very, very low, and I don't think you can really imply that most developers have the opportunity to do so and simply choose not to. That kind of "engineering founder" success requires skills beyond engineering (and, as much as we sometimes like to pretend otherwise, a certain amount of good fortune).
      - Retric 5y ago
        First you read that chart wrong. 94,130 people make between 1M and 1.5M from the data you linked, an additional 34,060 make 1,500,000.00 — 1,999,999.99 etc. The actual number is (167,593,971 + 358 - 167,409,340) = 184,989 Americans make over 1M per year based on SSA data. Next that number is a massive underestimate based on how SSA calculates wages due to how Federal income taxes are calculated and the normal tax avoidance strategies used to minimize that W-2 number. Beyond that the relevant question is not what percentage of people currently make that much money out of all people or even all workers. The relevant question is what percentage of people that aim for it eventually make that money. If hypothetically people make 1+M for on average 7 years of their life then your looking at something like ~10 x 184,989 people or roughly 1 out of every 180 people in the population. But again not everyone is in the running, a Teacher is hardly aiming to climb the corporate ladder to millions. Depending who you cut out the actual odds might be as high as 1-5%. And of course ignoring actors etc who might make that much money but aren’t getting it on a W-2. PS: To see just how biased official income statistics are try and calculate Bill Gates official lifetime taxable income some time vs how much his current net worth + total donations + 2.4B divorce added up to even ignoring all actual spending.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  It doesn't just require changing roles. People making 140,000,000 annually are basically only the founders of the very largest tech companies. CEOs of the very largest tech companies will get stock grants in the nine figures on occasion, but not annually. No staff engineer who changed jobs every three years for three decades is making nine figures. So yes, if you start as a junior engineer and end your career as a CEO of one of the most successful companies on the planet then you can see this growth. But those aren't regular raises for doing good work. Those are completely different pay strata for completely different jobs.
  - Retric 5y ago
    I agree, anyone who thinks 9 figures is likely would have to be smoking something. But, failing to reach the absolute top number possible is hardly failure. Last year over 4,000 Americans made 10+ million in direct W-2 compensation Aka not stock options or capital gains etc.
    - oblio 5y ago
      4 000 out out 330 000 000. So 4 out of 330 000. That's a bit more than 1.2 every 100 000. Good luck with those odds!
      - Retric 5y ago
        Lifetime odds don’t work like that. That’s just last showing years W-2. Someone that made that much but retired in 2019 doesn’t count. It also excludes anyone that will cross the threshold at some point in the future. It even excludes people that got stock options worth that much but can avoid calling them taxable income right now. Lifetime odds for a random American might be ~1:10,000. But not everyone tries to make that much money from a W-2 either. Becoming a school teacher is hardly putting your hat in the ring for that kind of compensation. Which arguably drops lifetime odds closer to 1 in 1,000 if not better for people that make a real attempt. I am trying to avoid any kind of truss Scotsman argument, but IMO there is a meaningful difference between random chance and stuff people work for.
pembrook 5y ago
Thank you for hilariously illustrating how bubble-y the current moment feels. If you think dramatically increasing compensation is going to continue in the next decade like it has in the last one, I think you might be disappointed. Now that companies are comfortable with remote, HR departments are eventually going to realize that services like Deel exist, and that its not actually that hard to hire employees overseas. Once job ads start removing the "US only" part from the requirements, comp is going to come crashing back to earth. A remote worker in the US being paid 4-5X as much as a remote worker in Europe is a massive market inefficiency just waiting to be arbitraged by companies. As the tech giants growth inevitably slows over the coming years, they're going to have to start looking more closely at their cost structure to meet investor expectations.
- ramphastidae 5y ago
  Nope. Cheap, outsourced labor has been available for decades. If what you’re saying was true, the shift would have already happened. The reality is that the vast majority of outsourced labor is significantly lower quality than the onshore talent. Mix that with poor communication and a ten hour time zone difference … it’s usually net negative.
  - tellmemore9 5y ago
  - abletonlive 5y ago
    This is an easy observation to make yet so many fail to see it. We already have contractors at my company and they aren't that productive. They are handed the easiest tasks with no business knowledge required because well, they are just contractors. Well, that and the fact that they live in a completely different timezone which means communication is async which means slower cycles of understanding and learning.
  - ThrowawayR2 5y ago
    Instead of outsourcing, even relatively small businesses are now opening international branch offices with full time local employees, tapping the pool of talented engineers who would prefer not to emigrate. The grandparent poster is correct: if there's real savings to be had, eventually someone will find a way to get to it.

Retric 5y ago

Some people do actually end up at that kind of a multiple of their initial salary. It’s not that such growth is impossible it’s just really really uncommon and generally takes regularly changing roles.

pc86 5y ago
"Some people" are also born in poverty and become billionaires. Not nearly enough to make it worth talking about like it's anything but a statistical aberration.
- Retric 5y ago
  Quite a few people do cap out in the 7 or low 8 figures though. The old “climbing the corporate ladder” adage is based on actual people even if most people never climb vary high it’s a real possibility if you actually want to make serious money. Personally, I and most developers don’t think it’s worth it which is one of the reasons why it’s not actually difficult to get started.
  - chipotle_coyote 5y ago
    > Quite a few people do cap out in the 7 or low 8 figures though. Gonna be the [citation needed] guy here again; "quite a few" is doing an awful lot of work in that sentence. According to the most recent wage statistics from 2020, there are less than 100,000 people reporting incomes of $1M or over; that alone doesn't just put you in the top 1%, it puts you in the top 0.1%. "Low 8 figures" is in the low thousands. https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2020 https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2020 I'm not the first person to point out that Silicon Valley (and SV-style) software engineering incomes seem to have skewed HN's idea of what "average" salaries are and I won't be the last, but I think it's really true. If you make a six figure income, you're pretty much in the top 10% of that wage statistics chart; the median income is around $30K. > Personally, I and most developers don’t think it’s worth it The number of people who started as developers and increased their salaries to that $1M+ level have got to be very, very low, and I don't think you can really imply that most developers have the opportunity to do so and simply choose not to. That kind of "engineering founder" success requires skills beyond engineering (and, as much as we sometimes like to pretend otherwise, a certain amount of good fortune).
    - Retric 5y ago
      First you read that chart wrong. 94,130 people make between 1M and 1.5M from the data you linked, an additional 34,060 make 1,500,000.00 — 1,999,999.99 etc. The actual number is (167,593,971 + 358 - 167,409,340) = 184,989 Americans make over 1M per year based on SSA data. Next that number is a massive underestimate based on how SSA calculates wages due to how Federal income taxes are calculated and the normal tax avoidance strategies used to minimize that W-2 number. Beyond that the relevant question is not what percentage of people currently make that much money out of all people or even all workers. The relevant question is what percentage of people that aim for it eventually make that money. If hypothetically people make 1+M for on average 7 years of their life then your looking at something like ~10 x 184,989 people or roughly 1 out of every 180 people in the population. But again not everyone is in the running, a Teacher is hardly aiming to climb the corporate ladder to millions. Depending who you cut out the actual odds might be as high as 1-5%. And of course ignoring actors etc who might make that much money but aren’t getting it on a W-2. PS: To see just how biased official income statistics are try and calculate Bill Gates official lifetime taxable income some time vs how much his current net worth + total donations + 2.4B divorce added up to even ignoring all actual spending.
UncleMeat 5y ago
It doesn't just require changing roles. People making 140,000,000 annually are basically only the founders of the very largest tech companies. CEOs of the very largest tech companies will get stock grants in the nine figures on occasion, but not annually. No staff engineer who changed jobs every three years for three decades is making nine figures. So yes, if you start as a junior engineer and end your career as a CEO of one of the most successful companies on the planet then you can see this growth. But those aren't regular raises for doing good work. Those are completely different pay strata for completely different jobs.
- Retric 5y ago
  I agree, anyone who thinks 9 figures is likely would have to be smoking something. But, failing to reach the absolute top number possible is hardly failure. Last year over 4,000 Americans made 10+ million in direct W-2 compensation Aka not stock options or capital gains etc.
  - oblio 5y ago
    4 000 out out 330 000 000. So 4 out of 330 000. That's a bit more than 1.2 every 100 000. Good luck with those odds!
    - Retric 5y ago
      Lifetime odds don’t work like that. That’s just last showing years W-2. Someone that made that much but retired in 2019 doesn’t count. It also excludes anyone that will cross the threshold at some point in the future. It even excludes people that got stock options worth that much but can avoid calling them taxable income right now. Lifetime odds for a random American might be ~1:10,000. But not everyone tries to make that much money from a W-2 either. Becoming a school teacher is hardly putting your hat in the ring for that kind of compensation. Which arguably drops lifetime odds closer to 1 in 1,000 if not better for people that make a real attempt. I am trying to avoid any kind of truss Scotsman argument, but IMO there is a meaningful difference between random chance and stuff people work for.

pembrook 5y ago

Thank you for hilariously illustrating how bubble-y the current moment feels. If you think dramatically increasing compensation is going to continue in the next decade like it has in the last one, I think you might be disappointed. Now that companies are comfortable with remote, HR departments are eventually going to realize that services like Deel exist, and that its not actually that hard to hire employees overseas. Once job ads start removing the "US only" part from the requirements, comp is going to come crashing back to earth. A remote worker in the US being paid 4-5X as much as a remote worker in Europe is a massive market inefficiency just waiting to be arbitraged by companies. As the tech giants growth inevitably slows over the coming years, they're going to have to start looking more closely at their cost structure to meet investor expectations.

ramphastidae 5y ago
Nope. Cheap, outsourced labor has been available for decades. If what you’re saying was true, the shift would have already happened. The reality is that the vast majority of outsourced labor is significantly lower quality than the onshore talent. Mix that with poor communication and a ten hour time zone difference … it’s usually net negative.
- tellmemore9 5y ago
- abletonlive 5y ago
  This is an easy observation to make yet so many fail to see it. We already have contractors at my company and they aren't that productive. They are handed the easiest tasks with no business knowledge required because well, they are just contractors. Well, that and the fact that they live in a completely different timezone which means communication is async which means slower cycles of understanding and learning.
- ThrowawayR2 5y ago
  Instead of outsourcing, even relatively small businesses are now opening international branch offices with full time local employees, tapping the pool of talented engineers who would prefer not to emigrate. The grandparent poster is correct: if there's real savings to be had, eventually someone will find a way to get to it.