9 ms·

Lifer until the benefits that matter to me disappear. I can't stress how much #6 impacts what makes someone a 'lifer'. By the time you are in 35+ and you've be

Lifer until the benefits that matter to me disappear. I can't stress how much #6 impacts what makes someone a 'lifer'. By the time you are in 35+ and you've been in tech your entire career, you lean a few important life lessons that you witness the less experienced (both career and life) do all the time. The bar of compensation is almost always goes up as you progress early in your career. You get used to your standard of living. Next thing you know, you want more money. Getting a promotion or new job that bumps your income, that standard of living naturally goes up. It's hard NOT to go on fancier vacations, upgrade your Honda to a Porsche, hire landscaper/housekeeper/dog walker, buy a bigger house, etc. Eventually, you run into a situation that throws a wrench in disposable income and you have to lower that bar. Then you realize money isn't the most important thing in your career. You learn that the difference between a total comp of $150k to $250k isn't as life changing compared to going from $75k to $150k, so what is the purpose of fighting for more? When you are 35+, job stability is super important. You might have a family, a hefty savings/retirement account, etc. Whats most important is that work/life balance and not that RSU grant next quarter. Once you find a company that makes you comfortable, and you reach a level of seniority that isn't overwhelming/stressful, stay.

civilized 4y ago
Being slightly past the 35+ threshold I'm feeling the pull of this perspective, but also very irked at the thought that my company might know this and decide to let my comp fall behind the market. From what I hear of the corporate world, companies are always waiting to do this to everyone. The moment they're confident you're a lifer, you'll never see another market-matching raise or bonus. Maybe never see a raise again. Any older workers have thoughts on how to manage this? I suspect there may be nothing for it but being prepared to leave if I feel my comp is falling too far behind. (Or maybe I should just give in, call the $$$ good enough, semi-retire and chill... there's more to life, I hear...)
- rizzaxc 4y ago
  i think grandparent meant that even if your company decides to 'capitalize' (pun intended) on your lifer attitude, you're ok with it, because you've chosen to ignore money in favor of stability. only works if you already have a couple of millions from your younger years imo
  - highwaylights 4y ago
    If you’ve already got a couple of million then you’d be on about $80k - $180k a year before you get out of bed anyway, so I doubt job stability matters much to you at that point anyway.
- screwturner68 4y ago
  I guess I can answer this, I've got 21 years in at one of the OGs of SV. When I came on board all the old timers told me to get everything I wanted up front so I beat them up pretty hard (they really wanted to hire me). I did fine but that was pretty much it aside from 1-3% raises every year and often no raises at all. Since we are a very flat company there's not a lot of room for a promotion -lots of chances to do other things but not a change in pay bands unless you go from tech to sales. It took six years from the time I started actively pursuing a promotion until I finally got one -this included two job changes and 8 managers. The promotion was a bigger deal than I thought because not only did I finally get a decent raise but it moved me into a managers level for bonuses and stock options and that equates to a 20-30% increase. Even if I didn't get promoted the money was fine, I have 6 weeks defined of vacation, good benefits and I've worked from home since 2003 -a lot of which I'd lose if I went to another company. Several years back I tried to assign a monetary number to what it would take to leave and it was between 25-30K which I might be able to get but you just don't know what kind of rats nest I'd be walking into, at least here I know what I'm dealing with. I was like most people in IT when I started here, I had done a lot of job hopping, made good money and was a temporary millionaire at some bullshit startup. What I didn't expect was to stick around. When I started half the team had been at the company for over 20 years and I thought that they had to be nuts -a few people never worked for any other company 45+ years of service. Then one day I realized I had been here for a decade and then 20 years and now I have 9 years left before I'm sitting on a beach drinking Imperial and being bitten by mosquitos so I figure if I can do it here I might as well.
  - therealdrag0 4y ago
    It seems like if it’d only take 30k for you to leave then you’re underpaid for your experience or you don’t actually have it that good. I say this because when I have it good it’d take a ~30% raise to get me to leave.
  - gureddio 4y ago
    > but you just don't know what kind of rats nest I'd be walking into, at least here I know what I'm dealing with Very well put. With work, it's often better the devil you know
- balaji1 4y ago
  35+ ain't that far. For all. Damn. Is that fewer than 2-3 chances for huge economic outcomes?
4qz 4y ago
> go on fancier vacations, upgrade your Honda to a Porsche, hire landscaper/housekeeper/dog walker, buy a bigger house, etc. I work at a FAANG and I will never afford a home. Who is this list for? My senior engineer coworkers live in condos unless they move 2 hours away or have a very high earning spouse
- eddsh1994 4y ago
  People who work for good companies in lower cost of living environments? I live in Palo Alto and appreciate I’ll never buy here but my colleagues on similar salaries have huge houses with boats and nice cars in other parts of the US. This is the $150/200 mark btw, not FAANG.
  - tnel77 4y ago
    “But I can’t live in the midwest” -Them, probably
    - eddsh1994 4y ago
      People can't complain about high salaries not working for you in high COL places. In Atherton a 0.8 acre lot (no house) is on the market for $5.2m lol. If you stop looking for the prestige and high numbers of FAANG you can have a far better salary:COL and get that nice house/cool car.
  - highwaylights 4y ago
    > This is the $150/200 mark btw, not FAANG. This is still wild to me. I’m well into my career (coming close to 25 years): — I do well when looking for work in that I interview well and get most gigs I go for. - I trade stability for higher rates working shorter gigs without any of the usual safety net / benefits. - Comp is top end of the range offered in a relatively well off part of the world. And yet with all that said, $200k is still an utter pipe dream. I’m not saying I’m necessarily jealous (I’m sure there’s the downsides I don’t see) but man-oh-man that’s a lot of money. I’m almost reluctant to ask but what is FAANG comp typically?
mooreds 4y ago
> I can't stress how much #6 impacts what makes someone a 'lifer'. I agree. I also think there's less naivete when you have heard for the fifth time how revolutionary this new tech or business will be. I don't know about you, but the first few times I heard that, I believed the speaker. But eventually I figured out that while there are exciting new revolutions (the first time I saw a lyft it was magical), there are far more interesting or boring ideas that don't require extraordinary effort, just regular, sustained focus.
flippinburgers 4y ago
Must be nice. Low lifelong salary makes me unable to relate at all.
- amelius 4y ago
  If you are a rockstar developer with a shitty salary, find an impresario.
scarface74 4y ago
> When you are 35+, job stability is super important. You might have a family, a hefty savings/retirement account, etc. Whats most important is that work/life balance and not that RSU grant next quarter My work life balance is much better now working at $BigTech than it was being the de facto dev lead at a company that was on an acquisition spree where I was responsible for leading integration efforts or at a 60 person startup where I was responsible for making them “cloud native” and introducing AWS to the company as they were pivoting to selling access to micro services to large health care companies especially right after Covid hit. WLB being worse as pay increases is more of a myth than anything else. I haven’t gotten paid more Obed the years because I was expected to work harder. I got paid more because of the value I bought to the company. I felt a lot more “stable” after 35 no matter where I worked because I knew I had the skillset and the network to throw my resume up in the air and get another job quickly when things went sideways and I did change jobs six times over those years. Before 35, I had been at a job for nine years and let my skills atrophy. I also had a decent “oh shit”/“go to hell fund” > Then you realize money isn't the most important thing in your career. You learn that the difference between a total comp of $150k to $250k This is definitely not true. I bumped around as your standard corporate dev until I was 46. I stayed at my second job for a decade until 2008 and became your stereotypical expert beginner. I job hopped 5 times by 2020 and I was making $150K and seeing offers locally for about $165k - $170K based on my experience with leading projects, “cloud”, and just regular old C# development. But I liked my job and my wife and I had “enough” with her working part time making $25K in the school system. Then I fell into a remote job at $BigTech in the cloud consulting department making in the $200s in mid 2020. The difference is night and day. There are a lot more ands than an ors. I can now “retire my wife” at 46, rent my house to my son and a couple of his friends who we have known for years at below market cost to help them get started while we travel the country staying in mid range extended stay hotels, flying everywhere, afford a winter home/investment property (more of a lifestyle choice than an investment), max out my 401K (including catch up contributions in a year and a half when I turn 50), max out my “after tax 401k at 10% of my base salary, and still have a decent amount of fun money. Even if I were living a normal life, it would have meant the difference between having to choose whether we wanted to refinance to a 15 year mortgage (we did in 2021), go on multiple vacations, cash flow our son’s (my step son since he was 10) college education, or maximize retirement savings. We could have done all of those things and not choose.
fullstackchris 4y ago
> job stability is super important. You might have a family, a hefty savings/retirement account, etc. These two sentances seem contradictory. If you have a large savings / retirement, don't you have a LARGER parachute / less stress looking for a job? I mean unless yeah you've gone so far on the hedonistic treadmill that you can barely afford your month to month bills. I don't know, I've never been out of a job for more than like 2 months of actively looking, I think software developers are way to paranoid about job hunting.
- electriclove 4y ago
  “I've never been out of a job for more than like 2 months of actively looking” Are you in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, or 60s?
darkwater 4y ago
This is basically my exact philosophy. You stated it better I could ever do, thanks!
aprdm 4y ago
sorry but 150k to 250k is definitely a big change. Allows to retire much earlier, buy a bigger house, etc. Went from 200 to 350 and it was incredible the difference it makes. My wife doesn't have a good job, and I don't have rich parents, have to travel a couple of times per year to see them, pay for them to see me, etc.

civilized 4y ago

Being slightly past the 35+ threshold I'm feeling the pull of this perspective, but also very irked at the thought that my company might know this and decide to let my comp fall behind the market. From what I hear of the corporate world, companies are always waiting to do this to everyone. The moment they're confident you're a lifer, you'll never see another market-matching raise or bonus. Maybe never see a raise again. Any older workers have thoughts on how to manage this? I suspect there may be nothing for it but being prepared to leave if I feel my comp is falling too far behind. (Or maybe I should just give in, call the $$$ good enough, semi-retire and chill... there's more to life, I hear...)

rizzaxc 4y ago
i think grandparent meant that even if your company decides to 'capitalize' (pun intended) on your lifer attitude, you're ok with it, because you've chosen to ignore money in favor of stability. only works if you already have a couple of millions from your younger years imo
- highwaylights 4y ago
  If you’ve already got a couple of million then you’d be on about $80k - $180k a year before you get out of bed anyway, so I doubt job stability matters much to you at that point anyway.
screwturner68 4y ago
I guess I can answer this, I've got 21 years in at one of the OGs of SV. When I came on board all the old timers told me to get everything I wanted up front so I beat them up pretty hard (they really wanted to hire me). I did fine but that was pretty much it aside from 1-3% raises every year and often no raises at all. Since we are a very flat company there's not a lot of room for a promotion -lots of chances to do other things but not a change in pay bands unless you go from tech to sales. It took six years from the time I started actively pursuing a promotion until I finally got one -this included two job changes and 8 managers. The promotion was a bigger deal than I thought because not only did I finally get a decent raise but it moved me into a managers level for bonuses and stock options and that equates to a 20-30% increase. Even if I didn't get promoted the money was fine, I have 6 weeks defined of vacation, good benefits and I've worked from home since 2003 -a lot of which I'd lose if I went to another company. Several years back I tried to assign a monetary number to what it would take to leave and it was between 25-30K which I might be able to get but you just don't know what kind of rats nest I'd be walking into, at least here I know what I'm dealing with. I was like most people in IT when I started here, I had done a lot of job hopping, made good money and was a temporary millionaire at some bullshit startup. What I didn't expect was to stick around. When I started half the team had been at the company for over 20 years and I thought that they had to be nuts -a few people never worked for any other company 45+ years of service. Then one day I realized I had been here for a decade and then 20 years and now I have 9 years left before I'm sitting on a beach drinking Imperial and being bitten by mosquitos so I figure if I can do it here I might as well.
- therealdrag0 4y ago
  It seems like if it’d only take 30k for you to leave then you’re underpaid for your experience or you don’t actually have it that good. I say this because when I have it good it’d take a ~30% raise to get me to leave.
- gureddio 4y ago
  > but you just don't know what kind of rats nest I'd be walking into, at least here I know what I'm dealing with Very well put. With work, it's often better the devil you know
balaji1 4y ago
35+ ain't that far. For all. Damn. Is that fewer than 2-3 chances for huge economic outcomes?

4qz 4y ago

> go on fancier vacations, upgrade your Honda to a Porsche, hire landscaper/housekeeper/dog walker, buy a bigger house, etc. I work at a FAANG and I will never afford a home. Who is this list for? My senior engineer coworkers live in condos unless they move 2 hours away or have a very high earning spouse

eddsh1994 4y ago
People who work for good companies in lower cost of living environments? I live in Palo Alto and appreciate I’ll never buy here but my colleagues on similar salaries have huge houses with boats and nice cars in other parts of the US. This is the $150/200 mark btw, not FAANG.
- tnel77 4y ago
  “But I can’t live in the midwest” -Them, probably
  - eddsh1994 4y ago
    People can't complain about high salaries not working for you in high COL places. In Atherton a 0.8 acre lot (no house) is on the market for $5.2m lol. If you stop looking for the prestige and high numbers of FAANG you can have a far better salary:COL and get that nice house/cool car.
- highwaylights 4y ago
  > This is the $150/200 mark btw, not FAANG. This is still wild to me. I’m well into my career (coming close to 25 years): — I do well when looking for work in that I interview well and get most gigs I go for. - I trade stability for higher rates working shorter gigs without any of the usual safety net / benefits. - Comp is top end of the range offered in a relatively well off part of the world. And yet with all that said, $200k is still an utter pipe dream. I’m not saying I’m necessarily jealous (I’m sure there’s the downsides I don’t see) but man-oh-man that’s a lot of money. I’m almost reluctant to ask but what is FAANG comp typically?

mooreds 4y ago

> I can't stress how much #6 impacts what makes someone a 'lifer'. I agree. I also think there's less naivete when you have heard for the fifth time how revolutionary this new tech or business will be. I don't know about you, but the first few times I heard that, I believed the speaker. But eventually I figured out that while there are exciting new revolutions (the first time I saw a lyft it was magical), there are far more interesting or boring ideas that don't require extraordinary effort, just regular, sustained focus.

flippinburgers 4y ago

Must be nice. Low lifelong salary makes me unable to relate at all.

amelius 4y ago
If you are a rockstar developer with a shitty salary, find an impresario.

scarface74 4y ago

> When you are 35+, job stability is super important. You might have a family, a hefty savings/retirement account, etc. Whats most important is that work/life balance and not that RSU grant next quarter My work life balance is much better now working at $BigTech than it was being the de facto dev lead at a company that was on an acquisition spree where I was responsible for leading integration efforts or at a 60 person startup where I was responsible for making them “cloud native” and introducing AWS to the company as they were pivoting to selling access to micro services to large health care companies especially right after Covid hit. WLB being worse as pay increases is more of a myth than anything else. I haven’t gotten paid more Obed the years because I was expected to work harder. I got paid more because of the value I bought to the company. I felt a lot more “stable” after 35 no matter where I worked because I knew I had the skillset and the network to throw my resume up in the air and get another job quickly when things went sideways and I did change jobs six times over those years. Before 35, I had been at a job for nine years and let my skills atrophy. I also had a decent “oh shit”/“go to hell fund” > Then you realize money isn't the most important thing in your career. You learn that the difference between a total comp of $150k to $250k This is definitely not true. I bumped around as your standard corporate dev until I was 46. I stayed at my second job for a decade until 2008 and became your stereotypical expert beginner. I job hopped 5 times by 2020 and I was making $150K and seeing offers locally for about $165k - $170K based on my experience with leading projects, “cloud”, and just regular old C# development. But I liked my job and my wife and I had “enough” with her working part time making $25K in the school system. Then I fell into a remote job at $BigTech in the cloud consulting department making in the $200s in mid 2020. The difference is night and day. There are a lot more ands than an ors. I can now “retire my wife” at 46, rent my house to my son and a couple of his friends who we have known for years at below market cost to help them get started while we travel the country staying in mid range extended stay hotels, flying everywhere, afford a winter home/investment property (more of a lifestyle choice than an investment), max out my 401K (including catch up contributions in a year and a half when I turn 50), max out my “after tax 401k at 10% of my base salary, and still have a decent amount of fun money. Even if I were living a normal life, it would have meant the difference between having to choose whether we wanted to refinance to a 15 year mortgage (we did in 2021), go on multiple vacations, cash flow our son’s (my step son since he was 10) college education, or maximize retirement savings. We could have done all of those things and not choose.

fullstackchris 4y ago

> job stability is super important. You might have a family, a hefty savings/retirement account, etc. These two sentances seem contradictory. If you have a large savings / retirement, don't you have a LARGER parachute / less stress looking for a job? I mean unless yeah you've gone so far on the hedonistic treadmill that you can barely afford your month to month bills. I don't know, I've never been out of a job for more than like 2 months of actively looking, I think software developers are way to paranoid about job hunting.

electriclove 4y ago
“I've never been out of a job for more than like 2 months of actively looking” Are you in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, or 60s?

darkwater 4y ago

This is basically my exact philosophy. You stated it better I could ever do, thanks!

aprdm 4y ago

sorry but 150k to 250k is definitely a big change. Allows to retire much earlier, buy a bigger house, etc. Went from 200 to 350 and it was incredible the difference it makes. My wife doesn't have a good job, and I don't have rich parents, have to travel a couple of times per year to see them, pay for them to see me, etc.