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Depending on where you live most cars you see on the road are in the ballpark. It costs about 40k to change the roof on a house around here. So 75k is both obj

Depending on where you live most cars you see on the road are in the ballpark. It costs about 40k to change the roof on a house around here. So 75k is both objectively massive, and not. I won't argue "privilege" but it seems like both people in the couple have been working for a long time and took equity bets that paid off. Another way to look at it, in many tech jobs 75k could be a bonus (additional to salary an equity)

klardotsh 24d ago
75k bonus? I’ve worked one job ever with a formal bonus structure at all. The annual target for that bonus was less than a third of that amount. Sometimes I wonder if I work in the same tech industry as some of the other folks around here, but then, I guess I haven’t worked FAANG.
- itake 24d ago
  He is relatively early at Cloudflare, joining via CF’s acquisition of his startup. My understanding most Tier 1 employers are paying $700k-$1.5m usd per year in TC. $75k is less than his tax bill. Also the home is in Texas (I think). So lower cost square footage.
  - m4tthumphrey 24d ago
    [flagged]
    - afavour 24d ago
      Is it hate? Or is it just shock? Tech does have a crazy variance in salary for people who are doing, broadly at least, the same jobs. I don’t see any hate here. Just surprise.
      - throwayay4929 24d ago
        The jobs are massively not the same. It's like saying the IT guy that's in charge of reimaging PCs at your municipal office is broadly doing the same job as the couple that built this lan house. There are relatively large pockets of engineers making great money while coasting at a big company, but more often the engineers are actually doing a more complex job.
        itake 24d ago
        Probably some confusion here. IT (outside of the USA) typically means Software Engineer, but in the USA the context is as you described. I don’t know where they are located, but they might be talking about what you would call software engineering.
        afavour 24d ago
        There is plenty of crossover. e.g. look at the salaries of an engineer at Netflix vs one at ABC/Disney that works on their streaming platform. Netflix is operating at a higher technical level, no doubt. But the salaries can be something like 5x higher. Maybe all industries are like that but I’m not sure they are.
        ryandrake 24d ago
        It's the same shock/objection that's expressed at CEO salaries: Do we really think the engineer at Netflix who makes $1M/yr is really 10X more productive or adding 10X more value than the engineer at NoNameCo who makes $100k/yr? Or are people simply paid what each company is willing to pay them, without some kind of full-industry merit-based leveling system? In my view, pay has long since totally divorced from productivity and more closely tracks random chance of what company you ended up in, and who acquired who.
        goosejuice 24d ago
        > There are relatively large pockets of engineers making great money while coasting at a big company, but more often the engineers are actually doing a more complex job. I'd love to see some data on this though I don't know how you'd measure it. I suspect a high percentage of west coast FAANG level jobs are low impact but also low complexity. I do figure people work more hours though. With scale comes new problems but also a lot of infrastructure and support around it. It's pretty silly to use IT guy when there's loads of software devs working on complex stuff for critical infrastructure making less than 200k.
    - massiveturd 24d ago
      [flagged]
      - itake 24d ago
        I don’t get the hate tho? Is this a covet thy neighbor situation?
        unrented7977 24d ago
        There's growing popular sentiment that being a millionaire/billionaire at all is morally repugnant and antisocial behavior that deserves to be shunned, if not punished.
        xyzelement 24d ago
        Yes but is it healthy. If a kid graduated with comp sci degree in 2000, joined decent companies as a w2 employee, does he become "repugnant" and "deserves to be shunned if not punished" the moment his net worth crosses 1m, which may happen within a few years of graduation? Or does he need to "marinade" a few years as a millionaire before we roll out the guillotine? If he joined a worse company (or slacked and didn't get promoted) and hadn't become a millionaire, does he avoid the repugnancy and punishment? What if he did make the money but blew on stupidity, does that also avoid that classification?
- silversmith 24d ago
  You don't. I'd guess most of the developers don't. For example, my near 20 years of experience nets me a salary FAANG interns would find offensive. But in this part of the world it's "raise a family comfortably" money. In the end, it all depends on cost of living. And accepting you are not building 20 seat Lan party setup in your spare wing of the house.
  - PxldLtd 24d ago
    My salary literally doubled just working remote/hybrid for London companies around COVID. I much prefer the lifestyle now I work for a smaller company in Canterbury and get paid less for the role. Turns out all that extra travel and overtime ended up being materially worse for my quality of life. And my job is way more fun nowadays.
- Symbiote 24d ago
  One year after we graduated, the guy I'd shared a flat with in London got a £30,000 bonus from the small fin-tech company he worked at. But the more stressful work, and the idea that I'd be working to trade stock a few nanoseconds faster than the competition, didn't not appeal.
- baobabKoodaa 24d ago
  The last tech job I worked at which had a bonus structure had the bonus amount set at 100 euros (not a typo).
weakfish 24d ago
> most cars are in the ballpark If you’re in the Bay, maybe, otherwise it’s $35-50k depending on how new
- xyzelement 24d ago
  That's why I wrote "depending on where you are"
  - pooloo 24d ago
    Brand new cars, yes, most people are NOT buying brand new that is another privilege.
idiotsecant 24d ago
There is no argument from which this can be minimized. Even in an incredibly rich country like the US this is an enormous expense. You're looking at this from the top of a field that is already at the top of the economic pyramid which is in turn at the top of a global economic pyramid. This is excess on a scale that is essentially laughable for the entire human race, minus some statistically insignificant population.
bigstrat2003 23d ago
I don't think the 75k number is what's shocking. It's a house that costs 7 figures. That is not remotely attainable for most people in this country.
- hn993302 23d ago
  It's not surprising given the author's background. What I don't get is the part right before about not being able to afford a family-sized house in Palo Alto. Guessing the answer is yeah, they could afford it, but they don't want to pay that much for something still not very large.

klardotsh 24d ago

75k bonus? I’ve worked one job ever with a formal bonus structure at all. The annual target for that bonus was less than a third of that amount. Sometimes I wonder if I work in the same tech industry as some of the other folks around here, but then, I guess I haven’t worked FAANG.

itake 24d ago
He is relatively early at Cloudflare, joining via CF’s acquisition of his startup. My understanding most Tier 1 employers are paying $700k-$1.5m usd per year in TC. $75k is less than his tax bill. Also the home is in Texas (I think). So lower cost square footage.
- m4tthumphrey 24d ago
  [flagged]
  - afavour 24d ago
    Is it hate? Or is it just shock? Tech does have a crazy variance in salary for people who are doing, broadly at least, the same jobs. I don’t see any hate here. Just surprise.
    - throwayay4929 24d ago
      The jobs are massively not the same. It's like saying the IT guy that's in charge of reimaging PCs at your municipal office is broadly doing the same job as the couple that built this lan house. There are relatively large pockets of engineers making great money while coasting at a big company, but more often the engineers are actually doing a more complex job.
      - itake 24d ago
        Probably some confusion here. IT (outside of the USA) typically means Software Engineer, but in the USA the context is as you described. I don’t know where they are located, but they might be talking about what you would call software engineering.
      - afavour 24d ago
        There is plenty of crossover. e.g. look at the salaries of an engineer at Netflix vs one at ABC/Disney that works on their streaming platform. Netflix is operating at a higher technical level, no doubt. But the salaries can be something like 5x higher. Maybe all industries are like that but I’m not sure they are.
        ryandrake 24d ago
        It's the same shock/objection that's expressed at CEO salaries: Do we really think the engineer at Netflix who makes $1M/yr is really 10X more productive or adding 10X more value than the engineer at NoNameCo who makes $100k/yr? Or are people simply paid what each company is willing to pay them, without some kind of full-industry merit-based leveling system? In my view, pay has long since totally divorced from productivity and more closely tracks random chance of what company you ended up in, and who acquired who.
      - goosejuice 24d ago
        > There are relatively large pockets of engineers making great money while coasting at a big company, but more often the engineers are actually doing a more complex job. I'd love to see some data on this though I don't know how you'd measure it. I suspect a high percentage of west coast FAANG level jobs are low impact but also low complexity. I do figure people work more hours though. With scale comes new problems but also a lot of infrastructure and support around it. It's pretty silly to use IT guy when there's loads of software devs working on complex stuff for critical infrastructure making less than 200k.
  - massiveturd 24d ago
    [flagged]
    - itake 24d ago
      I don’t get the hate tho? Is this a covet thy neighbor situation?
      - unrented7977 24d ago
        There's growing popular sentiment that being a millionaire/billionaire at all is morally repugnant and antisocial behavior that deserves to be shunned, if not punished.
        xyzelement 24d ago
        Yes but is it healthy. If a kid graduated with comp sci degree in 2000, joined decent companies as a w2 employee, does he become "repugnant" and "deserves to be shunned if not punished" the moment his net worth crosses 1m, which may happen within a few years of graduation? Or does he need to "marinade" a few years as a millionaire before we roll out the guillotine? If he joined a worse company (or slacked and didn't get promoted) and hadn't become a millionaire, does he avoid the repugnancy and punishment? What if he did make the money but blew on stupidity, does that also avoid that classification?
silversmith 24d ago
You don't. I'd guess most of the developers don't. For example, my near 20 years of experience nets me a salary FAANG interns would find offensive. But in this part of the world it's "raise a family comfortably" money. In the end, it all depends on cost of living. And accepting you are not building 20 seat Lan party setup in your spare wing of the house.
- PxldLtd 24d ago
  My salary literally doubled just working remote/hybrid for London companies around COVID. I much prefer the lifestyle now I work for a smaller company in Canterbury and get paid less for the role. Turns out all that extra travel and overtime ended up being materially worse for my quality of life. And my job is way more fun nowadays.
Symbiote 24d ago
One year after we graduated, the guy I'd shared a flat with in London got a £30,000 bonus from the small fin-tech company he worked at. But the more stressful work, and the idea that I'd be working to trade stock a few nanoseconds faster than the competition, didn't not appeal.
baobabKoodaa 24d ago
The last tech job I worked at which had a bonus structure had the bonus amount set at 100 euros (not a typo).

weakfish 24d ago

> most cars are in the ballpark If you’re in the Bay, maybe, otherwise it’s $35-50k depending on how new

xyzelement 24d ago
That's why I wrote "depending on where you are"
- pooloo 24d ago
  Brand new cars, yes, most people are NOT buying brand new that is another privilege.

idiotsecant 24d ago

There is no argument from which this can be minimized. Even in an incredibly rich country like the US this is an enormous expense. You're looking at this from the top of a field that is already at the top of the economic pyramid which is in turn at the top of a global economic pyramid. This is excess on a scale that is essentially laughable for the entire human race, minus some statistically insignificant population.

bigstrat2003 23d ago

I don't think the 75k number is what's shocking. It's a house that costs 7 figures. That is not remotely attainable for most people in this country.

hn993302 23d ago
It's not surprising given the author's background. What I don't get is the part right before about not being able to afford a family-sized house in Palo Alto. Guessing the answer is yeah, they could afford it, but they don't want to pay that much for something still not very large.