6 ms·

Would you mind sharing your math? I had concluded the opposite if you compound over 5-ish years. With two tech incomes, you'll make approximately 4-5 million

by fooker 3y ago

Would you mind sharing your math? I had concluded the opposite if you compound over 5-ish years. With two tech incomes, you'll make approximately 4-5 million in the US counting equity, versus about 1 mil everywhere else except maybe Zurich. US expenses over 5 years would be about 800k-1mil excluding a home which you are likely going to sell for far more than you pay for.

readyman 3y ago
Your math is based on you and your partner making 400k-500k/yr lol.
- fooker 3y ago
  Yes, that's what we make right now on average. If you work in tech for a few years that's kind of average. We are having a new PhD grad join next month with a 400k TC offer. If you have trouble believing me, check out levels.fyi for (Facebook:E5, Google:L5-6, Nvidia:IC5, Apple ICT5).
  - readyman 3y ago
    >Yes, that's what we make right now on average. >If you work in tech for a few years that's kind of average. You should probably learn what "average" means if you're getting paid that much to develop software.
    - fooker 3y ago
      The first average is between two people over a few years. The second average is for similar tech jobs. But good job resorting to ad hominem.
      - ok_dad 3y ago
        I’ll buy that 400-500k a year is average for Facebook, Apple, Google, etc. It’s absolutely NOT average for companies who aren’t the massive giants that those are. I’ve been in actual tech startups, not Uber for Clowns, and the best salary I’ve seen was an (admittedly very good) $170k for a senior dev position. That’s close to average when I talk to my friends and associates in tech in the valley and beyond.
        fooker 3y ago
        The etc in your first sentence is doing a bit of heavy lifting here. There are so many companies in that category now that if you have any specialized software skill (compilers, ML, database engines, OS, systems in general) you can absolutely make that much if you wanted to. If you don't believe me, and have such skills, spend 20-30 days interviewing! Sure if you are a typical full stack developer you are not going to make that much money unless you get into Google or something. Also, base salaries are typically not that high, but the total compensation with equity can reach that pretty easily.
        ok_dad 3y ago
        I guess in the energy tech industry no one pays that because I’ve been looking, and I have pretty specialized skills.
        fooker 3y ago
        Makes sense, it's interesting to see this discrepancy between fields. Could you elaborate what specialized skills though?
        ok_dad 3y ago
        I write software systems to control devices in buildings in the context of energy savings, like hvac and charging cars, and also control attached distributed energy resources, like batteries or solar.
        fooker 3y ago
        A friend started working in this space last year. It seems like the usual story here is smaller companies giving you lottery tickets in the form of pre-IPO options. And large established companies paying a bit below market rates.
        varjag 3y ago
        See when people say "tech" colloquially it means website and app developers, not us embedded dev hobos.
      - justin66 3y ago
        I would have put it differently, but your use of “average” made me wonder what you were thinking as well. I’m still not quite sure. You’re not a hypothetical person whose salary and job prospects are unknown to… you. If you’ve received job offers locally and overseas that would be interesting, but what you’re talking about sounds like speculation.
        fooker 3y ago
        >If you’ve received job offers locally and overseas that would be interesting, but what you’re talking about sounds like speculation. Yes, I had considered moving to Europe after completing my Phd. The offers were about 1/3rd of US, with a significantly lower potential for growing beyond a few tens of percentages over 5-10 years.
        nullwarp 3y ago
        [flagged]
        justin66 3y ago
        Yeah, that's a pretty massive difference.
      - machomaster 3y ago
        If you say something ridiculous and get gently called on it, it does not mean ad hominem.
  - georgeburdell 3y ago
    Ok so you’re in a hot sub-field. Your experience is not typical even at the companies you’ve named. And it’s definitely not typical “after a few years”, unless it’s a new PhD in hot field * top tier company * multiple good reviews. And you’re probably extrapolating the anomalously good stock performance that frankly you have no control over. Your average Leetcode drone that makes it into those companies is making $300k after 5 years.
    - fooker 3y ago
      >Ok so you’re in a hot sub-field. Compilers. Not hot, but a bit niche so it sometimes pays well. Not any more than ML or distributed systems specialists. >Your experience is not typical even at the companies you’ve named You can check levels.fyi for averages, don't have to rely on my word. >Your average Leetcode drone that makes it into those companies is making $300k after 5 years. You are right. So, now the question is: given you are not an 'average leetcode drone' do you work in the US or Europe. I hope this clarifies why competent European computer scientists and engineers move to the US in large numbers.
yoyohello13 3y ago
Wtf? So if you and your partner get a top 1% tech job in the US you can out earn an average job in Europe. No shit!
- fooker 3y ago
  The math is more like: top 10% of tech jobs in the US would make ~3-4x of top 10% of Europe. And there are so many tech jobs in the US that this top 10% is much larger in number than anywhere else. There's a reason people emigrate to the US from everywhere despite pretty harsh work environment and social security nets. For example, a Google IC5/6 in Paris would make between 150k-200k vs ~500-700k in the bay area.
  - skullone 3y ago
    And the bay area apartment would cost $8k/MO for a 3br/2 bath to raise a single kid in.
    - fooker 3y ago
      Yes, it does. You are likely not going to be renting an apartment with that kind of money, you are just making your landlord rich. Instead, you put a 200k deposit, pay the same 8k per month as mortgage (approx 1/3rd of your salary is the rule of thumb), and sell the house or apartment after a while. That way, you are not losing any money. Check https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/mortgage-calculator https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/mortgage-calculator for confirming these numbers.
      - cudgy 3y ago
        … unless the price of properties goes … down
        fooker 3y ago
        If it goes to zero, it is almost equivalent to have payed rent for 30 years! ;) If it becomes half, you still have a home to live in rent free. More likely it doubles every 10-15 years.
saithound 3y ago
Let me share my math. Let's just take one perk I get to enjoy right now: I can afford to live in a high density city block with a long-term average yearly homicide rate below 4 per 100000 inhabitants. In the U.S. I could replicate this only by purchasing a city block sized campus for myself and then investing in very very good screening of tenants and a private security force. Based on average salaries of police and municipal infrastructure workers, combined with real estate prices in major U.S. metros, even with a bit of optimization, I couldn't get the cost to go below $2,150,023,240 for the first year (including real estate purchases) and about $1b yearly afterwards. I could maybe go lower by building my own city block somewhere outside a major metro, but I think infrastructure costs would eat that up. And that's just one perk I got to enjoy: others, such as living within walking distance to my workplace, would be even harder to replicate. Yet others, like the ability to visit a borthel without having to worry about losing my job or going to jail, are nigh impossible. Sure, there's additional efficiency where one action can help achieve multiple such perks, so let's assume I could replicate the lifestyle I enjoyed for a measlt $1b pa. That's about 8000x the annual income I had when I retired. And US salaries are not even 10x higher than Australian ones, so as far as I can tell, the math is not even close to working out. (Of course, not everybody cares about these specific perks, and for some the U.S. may be a better fit. They're welcome to emigrate: the ones who don't appear to care enough to vote and keep these policies in place every 3 years, so I doubt anybody's getting the short end of the stick. The point is that it's stupid to compare salary numbers, because a lot of the things people want are trivial conveniences here and still unaffordable for even the richest people in other places, and vice versa.)
- fooker 3y ago
  >I can afford to live in a high density city block with a long-term average yearly homicide rate below 4 per 100000 inhabitants. It's great you gave a clear threshold instead of making it vague. Here are some US cities that would satisfy this criteria according to wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...) : San Diego, San Jose (yeah I'm surprised too..), NYC (also unexpected!), Portland, Seattle.
  - 3y ago
zelphirkalt 3y ago
But who is talking about 2 incomes and possibly living even with a partner in one household?
- ta1243 3y ago
  Based on the OPs figures 1 income with the same expenses would be 1m profit, more than income alone in europe. I don't believe those figures (and they're meaningless for europeans as you can't simply get a job in the US), but if you take them at face value finanically living in the US for a decade is the sensible approach. Obviously you'd want to leave before your kids went to school
  - fooker 3y ago
    You don't have to believe me, look at the data points. The recipe you are looking for is: senior position at big tech, preferably doing something specialized. For example: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/facebook/salaries/software-engineer/levels/e5 https://www.levels.fyi/companies/facebook/salaries/software-... https://www.levels.fyi/companies/nvidia/salaries/software-engineer/levels/ic5 https://www.levels.fyi/companies/nvidia/salaries/software-en... >and they're meaningless for europeans as you can't simply get a job in the US We have plenty of Europeans in big tech, though the usual path is either through attending university in the US or intra-company transfers. You can get a job directly if yoy are extraordinary, but I have not seen that happen very often. > Obviously you'd want to leave before your kids went to school We tried this, and the kid refused.
    - Symbiote 3y ago
      >> Obviously you'd want to leave before your kids went to school > We tried this, and the kid refused. That also works the other way. An American colleague left Denmark so his children could grow up in the USA, but after about 3 months came back because the children missed their personal freedom. (Freedom to walk/cycle home from school, see friends without needing parents to drive them, etc.)
      - 3y ago

by fooker 3y ago

readyman 3y ago

Your math is based on you and your partner making 400k-500k/yr lol.

fooker 3y ago
Yes, that's what we make right now on average. If you work in tech for a few years that's kind of average. We are having a new PhD grad join next month with a 400k TC offer. If you have trouble believing me, check out levels.fyi for (Facebook:E5, Google:L5-6, Nvidia:IC5, Apple ICT5).
- readyman 3y ago
  >Yes, that's what we make right now on average. >If you work in tech for a few years that's kind of average. You should probably learn what "average" means if you're getting paid that much to develop software.
  - fooker 3y ago
    The first average is between two people over a few years. The second average is for similar tech jobs. But good job resorting to ad hominem.
    - ok_dad 3y ago
      I’ll buy that 400-500k a year is average for Facebook, Apple, Google, etc. It’s absolutely NOT average for companies who aren’t the massive giants that those are. I’ve been in actual tech startups, not Uber for Clowns, and the best salary I’ve seen was an (admittedly very good) $170k for a senior dev position. That’s close to average when I talk to my friends and associates in tech in the valley and beyond.
      - fooker 3y ago
        The etc in your first sentence is doing a bit of heavy lifting here. There are so many companies in that category now that if you have any specialized software skill (compilers, ML, database engines, OS, systems in general) you can absolutely make that much if you wanted to. If you don't believe me, and have such skills, spend 20-30 days interviewing! Sure if you are a typical full stack developer you are not going to make that much money unless you get into Google or something. Also, base salaries are typically not that high, but the total compensation with equity can reach that pretty easily.
        ok_dad 3y ago
        I guess in the energy tech industry no one pays that because I’ve been looking, and I have pretty specialized skills.
        fooker 3y ago
        Makes sense, it's interesting to see this discrepancy between fields. Could you elaborate what specialized skills though?
        ok_dad 3y ago
        I write software systems to control devices in buildings in the context of energy savings, like hvac and charging cars, and also control attached distributed energy resources, like batteries or solar.
        fooker 3y ago
        A friend started working in this space last year. It seems like the usual story here is smaller companies giving you lottery tickets in the form of pre-IPO options. And large established companies paying a bit below market rates.
        varjag 3y ago
        See when people say "tech" colloquially it means website and app developers, not us embedded dev hobos.
    - justin66 3y ago
      I would have put it differently, but your use of “average” made me wonder what you were thinking as well. I’m still not quite sure. You’re not a hypothetical person whose salary and job prospects are unknown to… you. If you’ve received job offers locally and overseas that would be interesting, but what you’re talking about sounds like speculation.
      - fooker 3y ago
        >If you’ve received job offers locally and overseas that would be interesting, but what you’re talking about sounds like speculation. Yes, I had considered moving to Europe after completing my Phd. The offers were about 1/3rd of US, with a significantly lower potential for growing beyond a few tens of percentages over 5-10 years.
        nullwarp 3y ago
        [flagged]
        justin66 3y ago
        Yeah, that's a pretty massive difference.
    - machomaster 3y ago
      If you say something ridiculous and get gently called on it, it does not mean ad hominem.
- georgeburdell 3y ago
  Ok so you’re in a hot sub-field. Your experience is not typical even at the companies you’ve named. And it’s definitely not typical “after a few years”, unless it’s a new PhD in hot field * top tier company * multiple good reviews. And you’re probably extrapolating the anomalously good stock performance that frankly you have no control over. Your average Leetcode drone that makes it into those companies is making $300k after 5 years.
  - fooker 3y ago
    >Ok so you’re in a hot sub-field. Compilers. Not hot, but a bit niche so it sometimes pays well. Not any more than ML or distributed systems specialists. >Your experience is not typical even at the companies you’ve named You can check levels.fyi for averages, don't have to rely on my word. >Your average Leetcode drone that makes it into those companies is making $300k after 5 years. You are right. So, now the question is: given you are not an 'average leetcode drone' do you work in the US or Europe. I hope this clarifies why competent European computer scientists and engineers move to the US in large numbers.

yoyohello13 3y ago

Wtf? So if you and your partner get a top 1% tech job in the US you can out earn an average job in Europe. No shit!

fooker 3y ago
The math is more like: top 10% of tech jobs in the US would make ~3-4x of top 10% of Europe. And there are so many tech jobs in the US that this top 10% is much larger in number than anywhere else. There's a reason people emigrate to the US from everywhere despite pretty harsh work environment and social security nets. For example, a Google IC5/6 in Paris would make between 150k-200k vs ~500-700k in the bay area.
- skullone 3y ago
  And the bay area apartment would cost $8k/MO for a 3br/2 bath to raise a single kid in.
  - fooker 3y ago
    Yes, it does. You are likely not going to be renting an apartment with that kind of money, you are just making your landlord rich. Instead, you put a 200k deposit, pay the same 8k per month as mortgage (approx 1/3rd of your salary is the rule of thumb), and sell the house or apartment after a while. That way, you are not losing any money. Check https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/mortgage-calculator https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/mortgage-calculator for confirming these numbers.
    - cudgy 3y ago
      … unless the price of properties goes … down
      - fooker 3y ago
        If it goes to zero, it is almost equivalent to have payed rent for 30 years! ;) If it becomes half, you still have a home to live in rent free. More likely it doubles every 10-15 years.

saithound 3y ago

Let me share my math. Let's just take one perk I get to enjoy right now: I can afford to live in a high density city block with a long-term average yearly homicide rate below 4 per 100000 inhabitants. In the U.S. I could replicate this only by purchasing a city block sized campus for myself and then investing in very very good screening of tenants and a private security force. Based on average salaries of police and municipal infrastructure workers, combined with real estate prices in major U.S. metros, even with a bit of optimization, I couldn't get the cost to go below $2,150,023,240 for the first year (including real estate purchases) and about $1b yearly afterwards. I could maybe go lower by building my own city block somewhere outside a major metro, but I think infrastructure costs would eat that up. And that's just one perk I got to enjoy: others, such as living within walking distance to my workplace, would be even harder to replicate. Yet others, like the ability to visit a borthel without having to worry about losing my job or going to jail, are nigh impossible. Sure, there's additional efficiency where one action can help achieve multiple such perks, so let's assume I could replicate the lifestyle I enjoyed for a measlt $1b pa. That's about 8000x the annual income I had when I retired. And US salaries are not even 10x higher than Australian ones, so as far as I can tell, the math is not even close to working out. (Of course, not everybody cares about these specific perks, and for some the U.S. may be a better fit. They're welcome to emigrate: the ones who don't appear to care enough to vote and keep these policies in place every 3 years, so I doubt anybody's getting the short end of the stick. The point is that it's stupid to compare salary numbers, because a lot of the things people want are trivial conveniences here and still unaffordable for even the richest people in other places, and vice versa.)

fooker 3y ago
>I can afford to live in a high density city block with a long-term average yearly homicide rate below 4 per 100000 inhabitants. It's great you gave a clear threshold instead of making it vague. Here are some US cities that would satisfy this criteria according to wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...) : San Diego, San Jose (yeah I'm surprised too..), NYC (also unexpected!), Portland, Seattle.
- 3y ago

zelphirkalt 3y ago

But who is talking about 2 incomes and possibly living even with a partner in one household?

ta1243 3y ago
Based on the OPs figures 1 income with the same expenses would be 1m profit, more than income alone in europe. I don't believe those figures (and they're meaningless for europeans as you can't simply get a job in the US), but if you take them at face value finanically living in the US for a decade is the sensible approach. Obviously you'd want to leave before your kids went to school
- fooker 3y ago
  You don't have to believe me, look at the data points. The recipe you are looking for is: senior position at big tech, preferably doing something specialized. For example: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/facebook/salaries/software-engineer/levels/e5 https://www.levels.fyi/companies/facebook/salaries/software-... https://www.levels.fyi/companies/nvidia/salaries/software-engineer/levels/ic5 https://www.levels.fyi/companies/nvidia/salaries/software-en... >and they're meaningless for europeans as you can't simply get a job in the US We have plenty of Europeans in big tech, though the usual path is either through attending university in the US or intra-company transfers. You can get a job directly if yoy are extraordinary, but I have not seen that happen very often. > Obviously you'd want to leave before your kids went to school We tried this, and the kid refused.
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    >> Obviously you'd want to leave before your kids went to school > We tried this, and the kid refused. That also works the other way. An American colleague left Denmark so his children could grow up in the USA, but after about 3 months came back because the children missed their personal freedom. (Freedom to walk/cycle home from school, see friends without needing parents to drive them, etc.)
    - 3y ago