8 ms·

Ask HN: How to reset expectations with a lower paying job

21 points by nonprofit_ta 5y ago

I’m currently working as a dev at a non-FAANG (but still big and well known) tech company. The job pays really well, work life balance is great, and it’s overall a very cushy gig. But… I hate it. I don’t like the day to day work and am completely uninterested in the larger company mission. So I started job hunting and got an offer doing dev work at a small nonprofit. It feels like a perfect match, but the pay is going to be much lower (My total comp will drop from 300k to 100k USD), and I’m surprised to find myself getting nervous about the financial consequences. It’s still a six figure job, so I won’t be living in poverty but I’ll clearly need to make some lifestyle adjustments. I’m hoping some other HN users have made a similar transitions and have tips/tricks/stories about undoing years of lifestyle creep and resetting some of the hedonic adaptation I’ve built up? Is making such a career switch a stupid idea?

ldjkfkdsjnv 5y ago
Why not just switch teams at your current job? Its common for different organizations to be completely different working experiences. Also, I would say dont let your momentary distress trick you into a long term financial decision...
- weq 5y ago
  "Momentary"? At age 28 i quit the rat race, took a pay cut, and never looked back after starting my career on 100k straight out of uni. 10yrs later i see my ex-collegues earning double me, but i couldnt imagine how much of my life i would have wasted if i had "stuck it out". Case and point, natural disaters, covid, has changed the world forever - if u were waiting for retirement to travel, you already lost your chance to see the world. Its not the same world we grew up with. Some people get drive from money. My experience is these people are either never satisfied, or find out too late that actually no, the money was only there to distract them from their real desires which required guts determination to persue - counter to popular rhetoric of the motivation pr0n blick bait generation. If you equate money to success, one only needs to look at the raft of multi-million-billionaires who still wake up at 60, put on a suite, and got into a board room, looking for the next big thing. That person, they never woke up. They think they have the respect, but they actually represent a different kind of person in my books. A complete failure in every way to be true to themselves. Thats what makes us all different right? Choices. The person who quits their cushy life - to listen to their heart -- is in my opinion --- so much smarter and more motivated then any unicorn founder.
  - ldjkfkdsjnv 5y ago
    Yeah I mean I get you, but it doesnt have to be this drastic. I was exactly in OPs position, at a FAANG, making a few hundred grand a year, HATED it. I switched teams once, made it nine months, switched teams again. Now I am leading a team, working 30 hours a week, while travelling around the USA remote, making top 1% income for my age group. this all or nothing quit is a fallacy, it takes time to find the right position in a company, and if they are paying you well, its worth finding.
  - ehnto 5y ago
    > if u were waiting for retirement to travel, you already lost your chance to see the world The world is always changing, I wouldn't be so pessimistic about travelling post-covid. It may even be better in some regards. It might be different, but so were the twenty years prior that, and so will be the 20 years after now. I only nitpick this as I wouldn't want anyone to be discouraged from travelling, you'll still be doing the exact same thing everyone else did when they travelled: Experiencing the world in the moment, immersed as it exists. That's not to say that I don't hear what you're saying. I travelled to Japan in Nov 2019, just before Covid, and have wanted to go back ever since. It's been sad to see some of the things change while I watch from afar, but that's just life. Also regarding happiness > money, totally agree. I realized pretty quickly that a 9-5 wasn't a good fit for me, I've been part time contracting instead for maybe 7 years now, mostly remote, less money total but more per hour. I get paid more for my time, and get more time for myself.
mchaynes 5y ago
Jump ship. Happiness > Money any day. You always have the opportunity to make more later on in life. When you see your money start to drain it’ll be a lot easier to start cutting the fat out of your lifestyle.
specproc 5y ago
I'm a non profit guy and love it. I don't get so worked up about the mission, I've been doing this sort of thing in various roles for years and am pretty jaded, but the work is magnificent. I'm a pretty junior, inexperienced dev, having retrained a few years back, but I get to play with all the things. Stuff I wouldn't be let near at a large Corp. I find my work very diverse, engaging, and as the go to guy for most things technology, I get a tonne of respect. I guess it depends where you live and what your commitments are, but a six figure salary is still huge for most people. If you can cope with the pay cut, why not take the plunge? Worst case scenario, it doesn't pan out: you've still got a FAANG on your CV, and it's a completely acceptable narrative when looking somewhere big again to say you wanted to do something meaningful for a while.
- blaser-waffle 5y ago
  How'd you do the retraining?
  - specproc 5y ago
    Not a normal route. I took a masters degree in public policy at a quant heavy school. I'd coded a lot as a kid, but hadn't done anything beyond VBA since then. Picked up python, and an understanding of stats, network analysis and NLP, loved it. Next job was a small think tank, I did a study or two with the skills I picked up. Applied for a data engineer job on the back of that a few years later and here I am. My in was ticking enough of the tech skills whilst having a load of domain knowledge.
GianFabien 5y ago
Taking a large pay reduction also means that you will drop tax bracket(s), which slightly improves your take home pay. You really need to take stock of your spending. If you don't have much by way of savings, then it would indicate that you are spending most of what you earn. So how are you going to live on less than half the income? You should draw up a realistic budget ahead of time. Once you make the jump, it might be difficult to get back to your earlier higher income.
- bulatb 5y ago
  In the US, going up a tax bracket can't under normal circumstances lower your effective pay. The higher rate is only for the income over the floor: if a $1 raise puts you over, only that dollar gets taxed at the new rate. It's possible you'll trigger an alternative tax regime like AMT or meet a benefit cliff, but you'll never make less money after tax just because your income went up.
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    Phrased incorrectly, but I suspect OP means it's deminishing returns on dollars earned after a certain point. You keep a higher percentage of 100k vs 300k.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Scarblac 5y ago
  Nah, his new 100k will be taxed like the lower 100k of his current income. That's true regardless of how the 200k above that is taxed.
pknomad 5y ago
I did a similar thing. I burned out hard at Peloton and left back in November to join a hybrid private/state/federal entity. I get paid 30K less but I do make up for it with MUCH better work life balance. I'd say look inside and see how this new job might be better aligned with your core values? I got tired of the rat race (always chasing higher comp, bonus, etc) and sick of the scrappy work attitude of startups and wanted to find a place that will let me focus on ME and not on the company. That usually makes me feel better. You can always join another higher paying job (including FAANG down the road). Let me know if you'd like to chat. At the very least I can just be an ear for you to voice out your thoughts out loud. Cheers.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jstx1 5y ago
You can either (1) stay at a job you don't like (2) take a 67% pay cut (3) find a different job that pays as well or better than the current one Pick option 3.
- WestCoastJustin 5y ago
  +1 pick 3. You need to extrapolate this out 5 years and realise you're throwing away a 1 mil+ because things suck right now (future comp, promotion, bonus, etc). Tough spot right now for non-profits too since people are tightening things up re: inflation/war.
- jameshush 5y ago
  I burst out laughing reading this. I agree 100%. You have three options, but only one right option ;-)
- nonprofit_ta 5y ago
  The trouble with option three is that the only was to stay at this salary level is to stay in the world of big tech companies, and 90% of my unhappiness is because I'm at a huge company. I'd love it if I could find a 20-person startup that could match my current salary, but that's just not very likely.
  - BadCookie 5y ago
    I agree that making $300k+ at a small company is a big ask (though it might be possible in the Bay Area). But $200k is achievable at a small company (<100 employees) even for remote workers. So I am sure that there are options in between the two extremes you’ve mentioned if the nonprofit’s mission isn’t very important to you.
ge96 5y ago
A side anecdote I never broke $100K but I was close last corp I worked at. I was working a side job that became my main thing. They agreed to pay my base bills per month eg. $3K/mo and we would try to get this company off the ground. I'm a 10% partner at least but it's 10% of $0. Anyway so far we have not gotten traction so it's interesting I'm developing another version of our app. But I came out of my job at 59% loss in pay and in debt from crypto tanking... So I'm concerned there but I'm single. Could just get a job (I'm sad I turned down Amazon Prime Air recruiter even though I probably would not have been qualified). But I wanted to say the break from a 9-5 that I had been doing for years has been great. I've been working projects more/getting blogs/videos out. I've been enjoying it other than the debt that's building up since I don't make more to pay it down. Eventually something will have to happen. I'm a co-inventor though that's cool I guess. My end goal is to FIRE but I'm far from it right eg. ~-$50K net worth (mostly student loans). I will say my negative worth is not entirely me I have donated $40K+ to my own blood families (in a third world country) so far and donate to food shelters and what not not a virtue signal I'm just stupid.
- jakupovic 5y ago
  Keep up your donations, that's a sign of strength not a weakness! Helping others in need, especially family, is awesome. Great work.
nivenkos 5y ago
100k being "low paying" - certified HN moment. That's almost peak career level anywhere outside the US.
- iExploder 5y ago
  its a peak career moment in europe where tax rate is as high as 50% and commodities are more expensive than in the US due to VAT among other things... its an unheard of salary in rest of the world yeah, first world issues confirmed! :)
  - orf 5y ago
    100k USD is “only” 76k GBP, which is high but not peak especially somewhere like London. You’d take home ~70k$ of that 100k.
    - jstx1 5y ago
      London salaries are such a mystery. I still have no idea what the high range of salaries is, or how difficult it is to get there.
      - durnygbur 5y ago
        Haven't seen the "London salary" in real life. All I get is recruitment spam from co.uk addresses: "contract position 300 GBP per day, 3 months contract onsite, we don't care how you relocate". Daily commute and hotel alone are 150-200 GBP per day in Londongrad. Bugger off mate.
        durnygbur 5y ago
        ...and I've received another one just after this post. HN you evil feckers.
      - rosndo 5y ago
        300k GBP/yr TC is pretty normal with some years of experience. How to get there? As always it’s more about your networking ability than specific technical skills.
rasz 5y ago
Keep current job. Get a hobby and friends outside of work.
AlchemistCamp 5y ago
Has your lifestyle actually expanded to consume 300k/year? If so, what is your lifestyle like? Maybe you could work 1 more year, living off of 50k post taxes (which is already considerably more than most in the US make post-tax) and save the difference. Then, you can quit being confident that you can control your spending enough to take a job with merely good as opposed to extravagant compensation!
- Ajef 5y ago
  I think trying out the lifestyle/budget that you would expect is good advice. At the same time you would be building up a financial buffer. If you're already spending below your means then you may want to contemplate what value money has to you and/or what you want out of it in the long run. Maybe it's a social status thing, maybe you have practical goals like buying/paying off a house. A financial plan can help to see what you need/want and how much money/stocks etc. your saving without the intent to spend it. To me personally if I have money that I don't see myself spending it's value (my personal evaluation) goes down significantly. For example: I earn significantly less than $100k a year. Doesnt stop me from spending $200 on a dinner for two at a french restaurant. I can't do this every week - but I wouldnt want to. That wouldnt feel special. These $200 are above my usual expenditures and would potentially be over $1000 when I retire if invested properly... and yet I believe it's worth it.
devoutsalsa 5y ago
You'll benefit from dropping any notion of having expectations at all. Expectations usually lead to being disappointed.
culopatin 5y ago
I’d be wary of non profits if you’re the kind of person that wants to get too involved and will pull their hair if they don’t like how much of donations gets spent in fundraising. There are good nonprofits out there, but in my experience and my close friends’, it can be a shit show of spinning wheels and never getting anywhere.
gnz11 5y ago
First off, what city? 100K in the middle of Iowa goes much farther than a HCOL area like SF or NYC. But, even then, don't do it. 300K to 100K is too big of a swing. Depending on your lifestyle, it will also be the difference between retiring early or later in life. The non-profit world isn't a utopia and will come with all the same baggage as regular, for-profit companies. If you still decide to go through with it, I would try to negotiate that 100K up as much as possible. Get the whole notion of non-profit out of your head, they are still competing for your time/expertise and should pay according to the market. Have a look at their public tax disclosures and see what the top brass is claiming as income. If you do a little digging, you will find many non-profits that have board members/c-suites/VPs/etc making quite large salaries while they pay peanuts to the grunt workers.
smileysteve 5y ago
The biggest concern that I would have about the pay cut is the possibility in decreasing the caliber of team you'll be working with. If you're experienced and taking this cut, what are the expectations of peers, juniors, even managers who aren't taking this paycut consciously.

21 points by nonprofit_ta 5y ago

ldjkfkdsjnv 5y ago

Why not just switch teams at your current job? Its common for different organizations to be completely different working experiences. Also, I would say dont let your momentary distress trick you into a long term financial decision...

weq 5y ago
"Momentary"? At age 28 i quit the rat race, took a pay cut, and never looked back after starting my career on 100k straight out of uni. 10yrs later i see my ex-collegues earning double me, but i couldnt imagine how much of my life i would have wasted if i had "stuck it out". Case and point, natural disaters, covid, has changed the world forever - if u were waiting for retirement to travel, you already lost your chance to see the world. Its not the same world we grew up with. Some people get drive from money. My experience is these people are either never satisfied, or find out too late that actually no, the money was only there to distract them from their real desires which required guts determination to persue - counter to popular rhetoric of the motivation pr0n blick bait generation. If you equate money to success, one only needs to look at the raft of multi-million-billionaires who still wake up at 60, put on a suite, and got into a board room, looking for the next big thing. That person, they never woke up. They think they have the respect, but they actually represent a different kind of person in my books. A complete failure in every way to be true to themselves. Thats what makes us all different right? Choices. The person who quits their cushy life - to listen to their heart -- is in my opinion --- so much smarter and more motivated then any unicorn founder.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 5y ago
  Yeah I mean I get you, but it doesnt have to be this drastic. I was exactly in OPs position, at a FAANG, making a few hundred grand a year, HATED it. I switched teams once, made it nine months, switched teams again. Now I am leading a team, working 30 hours a week, while travelling around the USA remote, making top 1% income for my age group. this all or nothing quit is a fallacy, it takes time to find the right position in a company, and if they are paying you well, its worth finding.
- ehnto 5y ago
  > if u were waiting for retirement to travel, you already lost your chance to see the world The world is always changing, I wouldn't be so pessimistic about travelling post-covid. It may even be better in some regards. It might be different, but so were the twenty years prior that, and so will be the 20 years after now. I only nitpick this as I wouldn't want anyone to be discouraged from travelling, you'll still be doing the exact same thing everyone else did when they travelled: Experiencing the world in the moment, immersed as it exists. That's not to say that I don't hear what you're saying. I travelled to Japan in Nov 2019, just before Covid, and have wanted to go back ever since. It's been sad to see some of the things change while I watch from afar, but that's just life. Also regarding happiness > money, totally agree. I realized pretty quickly that a 9-5 wasn't a good fit for me, I've been part time contracting instead for maybe 7 years now, mostly remote, less money total but more per hour. I get paid more for my time, and get more time for myself.

mchaynes 5y ago

Jump ship. Happiness > Money any day. You always have the opportunity to make more later on in life. When you see your money start to drain it’ll be a lot easier to start cutting the fat out of your lifestyle.

specproc 5y ago

I'm a non profit guy and love it. I don't get so worked up about the mission, I've been doing this sort of thing in various roles for years and am pretty jaded, but the work is magnificent. I'm a pretty junior, inexperienced dev, having retrained a few years back, but I get to play with all the things. Stuff I wouldn't be let near at a large Corp. I find my work very diverse, engaging, and as the go to guy for most things technology, I get a tonne of respect. I guess it depends where you live and what your commitments are, but a six figure salary is still huge for most people. If you can cope with the pay cut, why not take the plunge? Worst case scenario, it doesn't pan out: you've still got a FAANG on your CV, and it's a completely acceptable narrative when looking somewhere big again to say you wanted to do something meaningful for a while.

blaser-waffle 5y ago
How'd you do the retraining?
- specproc 5y ago
  Not a normal route. I took a masters degree in public policy at a quant heavy school. I'd coded a lot as a kid, but hadn't done anything beyond VBA since then. Picked up python, and an understanding of stats, network analysis and NLP, loved it. Next job was a small think tank, I did a study or two with the skills I picked up. Applied for a data engineer job on the back of that a few years later and here I am. My in was ticking enough of the tech skills whilst having a load of domain knowledge.

GianFabien 5y ago

Taking a large pay reduction also means that you will drop tax bracket(s), which slightly improves your take home pay. You really need to take stock of your spending. If you don't have much by way of savings, then it would indicate that you are spending most of what you earn. So how are you going to live on less than half the income? You should draw up a realistic budget ahead of time. Once you make the jump, it might be difficult to get back to your earlier higher income.

bulatb 5y ago
In the US, going up a tax bracket can't under normal circumstances lower your effective pay. The higher rate is only for the income over the floor: if a $1 raise puts you over, only that dollar gets taxed at the new rate. It's possible you'll trigger an alternative tax regime like AMT or meet a benefit cliff, but you'll never make less money after tax just because your income went up.
- willcipriano 5y ago
  Phrased incorrectly, but I suspect OP means it's deminishing returns on dollars earned after a certain point. You keep a higher percentage of 100k vs 300k.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Scarblac 5y ago
Nah, his new 100k will be taxed like the lower 100k of his current income. That's true regardless of how the 200k above that is taxed.

pknomad 5y ago

I did a similar thing. I burned out hard at Peloton and left back in November to join a hybrid private/state/federal entity. I get paid 30K less but I do make up for it with MUCH better work life balance. I'd say look inside and see how this new job might be better aligned with your core values? I got tired of the rat race (always chasing higher comp, bonus, etc) and sick of the scrappy work attitude of startups and wanted to find a place that will let me focus on ME and not on the company. That usually makes me feel better. You can always join another higher paying job (including FAANG down the road). Let me know if you'd like to chat. At the very least I can just be an ear for you to voice out your thoughts out loud. Cheers.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jstx1 5y ago

You can either (1) stay at a job you don't like (2) take a 67% pay cut (3) find a different job that pays as well or better than the current one Pick option 3.

WestCoastJustin 5y ago
+1 pick 3. You need to extrapolate this out 5 years and realise you're throwing away a 1 mil+ because things suck right now (future comp, promotion, bonus, etc). Tough spot right now for non-profits too since people are tightening things up re: inflation/war.
jameshush 5y ago
I burst out laughing reading this. I agree 100%. You have three options, but only one right option ;-)
nonprofit_ta 5y ago
The trouble with option three is that the only was to stay at this salary level is to stay in the world of big tech companies, and 90% of my unhappiness is because I'm at a huge company. I'd love it if I could find a 20-person startup that could match my current salary, but that's just not very likely.
- BadCookie 5y ago
  I agree that making $300k+ at a small company is a big ask (though it might be possible in the Bay Area). But $200k is achievable at a small company (<100 employees) even for remote workers. So I am sure that there are options in between the two extremes you’ve mentioned if the nonprofit’s mission isn’t very important to you.

ge96 5y ago

A side anecdote I never broke $100K but I was close last corp I worked at. I was working a side job that became my main thing. They agreed to pay my base bills per month eg. $3K/mo and we would try to get this company off the ground. I'm a 10% partner at least but it's 10% of $0. Anyway so far we have not gotten traction so it's interesting I'm developing another version of our app. But I came out of my job at 59% loss in pay and in debt from crypto tanking... So I'm concerned there but I'm single. Could just get a job (I'm sad I turned down Amazon Prime Air recruiter even though I probably would not have been qualified). But I wanted to say the break from a 9-5 that I had been doing for years has been great. I've been working projects more/getting blogs/videos out. I've been enjoying it other than the debt that's building up since I don't make more to pay it down. Eventually something will have to happen. I'm a co-inventor though that's cool I guess. My end goal is to FIRE but I'm far from it right eg. ~-$50K net worth (mostly student loans). I will say my negative worth is not entirely me I have donated $40K+ to my own blood families (in a third world country) so far and donate to food shelters and what not not a virtue signal I'm just stupid.

jakupovic 5y ago
Keep up your donations, that's a sign of strength not a weakness! Helping others in need, especially family, is awesome. Great work.

nivenkos 5y ago

100k being "low paying" - certified HN moment. That's almost peak career level anywhere outside the US.

iExploder 5y ago
its a peak career moment in europe where tax rate is as high as 50% and commodities are more expensive than in the US due to VAT among other things... its an unheard of salary in rest of the world yeah, first world issues confirmed! :)
- orf 5y ago
  100k USD is “only” 76k GBP, which is high but not peak especially somewhere like London. You’d take home ~70k$ of that 100k.
  - jstx1 5y ago
    London salaries are such a mystery. I still have no idea what the high range of salaries is, or how difficult it is to get there.
    - durnygbur 5y ago
      Haven't seen the "London salary" in real life. All I get is recruitment spam from co.uk addresses: "contract position 300 GBP per day, 3 months contract onsite, we don't care how you relocate". Daily commute and hotel alone are 150-200 GBP per day in Londongrad. Bugger off mate.
      - durnygbur 5y ago
        ...and I've received another one just after this post. HN you evil feckers.
    - rosndo 5y ago
      300k GBP/yr TC is pretty normal with some years of experience. How to get there? As always it’s more about your networking ability than specific technical skills.

rasz 5y ago

Keep current job. Get a hobby and friends outside of work.

AlchemistCamp 5y ago

Has your lifestyle actually expanded to consume 300k/year? If so, what is your lifestyle like? Maybe you could work 1 more year, living off of 50k post taxes (which is already considerably more than most in the US make post-tax) and save the difference. Then, you can quit being confident that you can control your spending enough to take a job with merely good as opposed to extravagant compensation!

Ajef 5y ago
I think trying out the lifestyle/budget that you would expect is good advice. At the same time you would be building up a financial buffer. If you're already spending below your means then you may want to contemplate what value money has to you and/or what you want out of it in the long run. Maybe it's a social status thing, maybe you have practical goals like buying/paying off a house. A financial plan can help to see what you need/want and how much money/stocks etc. your saving without the intent to spend it. To me personally if I have money that I don't see myself spending it's value (my personal evaluation) goes down significantly. For example: I earn significantly less than $100k a year. Doesnt stop me from spending $200 on a dinner for two at a french restaurant. I can't do this every week - but I wouldnt want to. That wouldnt feel special. These $200 are above my usual expenditures and would potentially be over $1000 when I retire if invested properly... and yet I believe it's worth it.

devoutsalsa 5y ago

You'll benefit from dropping any notion of having expectations at all. Expectations usually lead to being disappointed.

culopatin 5y ago

I’d be wary of non profits if you’re the kind of person that wants to get too involved and will pull their hair if they don’t like how much of donations gets spent in fundraising. There are good nonprofits out there, but in my experience and my close friends’, it can be a shit show of spinning wheels and never getting anywhere.

gnz11 5y ago

First off, what city? 100K in the middle of Iowa goes much farther than a HCOL area like SF or NYC. But, even then, don't do it. 300K to 100K is too big of a swing. Depending on your lifestyle, it will also be the difference between retiring early or later in life. The non-profit world isn't a utopia and will come with all the same baggage as regular, for-profit companies. If you still decide to go through with it, I would try to negotiate that 100K up as much as possible. Get the whole notion of non-profit out of your head, they are still competing for your time/expertise and should pay according to the market. Have a look at their public tax disclosures and see what the top brass is claiming as income. If you do a little digging, you will find many non-profits that have board members/c-suites/VPs/etc making quite large salaries while they pay peanuts to the grunt workers.

smileysteve 5y ago

The biggest concern that I would have about the pay cut is the possibility in decreasing the caliber of team you'll be working with. If you're experienced and taking this cut, what are the expectations of peers, juniors, even managers who aren't taking this paycut consciously.