8 ms·

Study: Majority of engineers believe they will become millionaires

45 points by 2t 13y ago

sunir 13y ago
Given the massive growth of this industry, most engineers are still relatively young. Therefore, I'd certainly would expect any engineer making an upper middle class income would think by the age of 65 that they would would end up with millions in wealth. http://money.cnn.com/calculator/retirement/retirement-need/ http://money.cnn.com/calculator/retirement/retirement-need/
- nawitus 13y ago
  The term "millionare" needs updating. I think what people actually mean by "millionare" is something like "net worth of at least over 10 million dollars".
  - chaired 13y ago
    According to Google ngram, the word millionaire peaked around 1910, when a million dollars was about 25 million 2014 dollars.
    - velodrome 13y ago
      Likewise, the buying power of $1M in 2014 would be like having $40k in 1910. Forbes defines weathly as $1M/yr in income and $10M in assets. If you were to retire today with $25M and put this money in bonds, you could collect about $1-2M/yr. Sources: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=millionaire&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cmillionaire%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=millionaire&ye... http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=+1910+1+million+dollars http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=+1910+1+million+dollars http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+million+dollars+in+1910 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+million+dollars+in+19...
      - marvin 13y ago
        This definition of "wealthy" seems really, really arbitrary. My ancestors made a living by exporting lumber which was chopped by hand, and came close to dying of cold and hunger four or five times during the early 1900s. By that measure, we are all living like kings. You could live comfortably for the rest of your life on much less than $10MM in assets, even in the absence of an income. So I'd say if there's an absolute limit to "wealthy" in our geographic region, it would have to be "don't have to work for a living", which would be around $1-2MM for a middle-class lifestyle and a 4% annual return on capital.
        velodrome 13y ago
        I totally agree. The definition of "wealthy" really depends who you are talking to (subjective). This is why I used the Forbes definition because I am not sure if your definition matches mine. The term also varies internationally as well (emerging vs developed countries). Like having a car, hot water, etc.
  - AdamTReineke 13y ago
    The term isn't wrong, a person with a $1M net worth is still a millionaire. People just need to be aware that $1M has a very different buying power today than it did for our parents' generation. Retirement is expensive and $1M doesn't go as far as people expect.
  - epistasis 13y ago
    I think you're right, and mystified by the downvoting. In common conversation people often want to use a term that means that one can live a semi-extravagant lifestyle off of the nestegg without working. A very small minority of people use "wealthy" for that, but not enough that I could use that term and be understood to mean what I want to mean. Commonly people use "millionaire," but that's wrong as you point out.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
bluedevil2k 13y ago
A 30-year old engineer making $120,000 a year should become a millionaire easily by the time they are 40. A more interesting question would have been "Do you think you'll ever sell an app/business for $1M?" - the crux of the question is "Do you think you'll hit the jackpot?", which in today's world, is selling something that took relatively small amount of effort to build.
- mattgreenrocks 13y ago
  > A 30-year old engineer making $120,000 a year should become a millionaire easily by the time they are 40 How so?
  - bluedevil2k 13y ago
    Get married, save $60,000 a year (including 401k matching, etc), get 8% growth per year, 3% raise per year...that's $1,053,000 by my calculations.
    - btian 13y ago
      $60000 is basically after tax income if your pre-tax income is $120k. Also 8% growth a year is quite a stretch given that risk free rate is 2.64% (10-year treasury yield), and inflation eats 2% a year...
      - bluedevil2k 13y ago
        Pre-tax income of $120k would net about $95k in the US for a married man with 2 kids and a house in a tax-free state (Texas, Florida, etc.) 8% growth isn't a stretch, it's the average return for S&P 500 over the past 100 years.
      - nilkn 13y ago
        For a single person without a house and without dependents, the after-tax income is actually about $76k in CA and $87k in TX, according to ADP's online calculator.
      - 13y ago
mynewwork 13y ago
"Become millionaires" sounds a lot sexier than "Will be adequately prepared for retirement when they're 65". If you have a full career in any white-collar profession and don't have a million dollars between your 401k, home equity, IRA and other savings when you retire, you spent too many years living too wastefully.
- mildtrepidation 13y ago
  Or you were chronically underpaid and didn't realize it. Or you were the victim of circumstances beyond your control that resulted in abnormal financial burdens. Or any of innumerable reasons someone's life can simply not go perfectly. The idea that getting a job, keeping it, and living responsibly necessarily result in sufficient savings and assets for retirement is pretty widespread and deeply flawed. Life just is not that simple, and there are plenty of ways to end up screwed (in varying degrees) without having done anything particularly irresponsible or stupid that would warrant it.
  - greenyoda 13y ago
    You don't even need to be the victim of unforeseen circumstances. Just having kids makes it much harder to save money. Your expenses for food, clothing, housing, energy, healthcare, etc. go way up, and if both parents work, they're paying for daycare when the children are young. Which means it's much harder to invest a significant fraction of your income.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  > If you have a full career in any white-collar profession and don't have a million dollars between your 401k, home equity, IRA and other savings when you retire, you spent too many years living too wastefully. If only I had known this buying my home at the peak of the real estate bubble (-$150K to net worth), having to take a pay cut when switching employers (effectively -$15K/year) last year, or having to provide financially for my disabled mother (-$20-35K/year). It sure isn't like I've been living as a rockstar. Life happens. At least I'm only 31 and can still recuperate from above financial setbacks.
jff 13y ago
"91 percent say they feel they are the “most valued” employees at their company." Nice Edit: does this mean they think engineers are the most valued, or that they personally are the most valued?
- icedchai 13y ago
  Either way, all it shows is that we're delusional.
  - WWLink 13y ago
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA. My friends, this is where the "I think my coworkers would be uncomfortable if they found out how much more than them I make" rhetoric comes from. Kinda reminds me of Hank Hill's "special deal". Sticker price and not a dollar more! :) Make someone feel special and they'll think your lame deal is a good one? But on the other hand, why not? Becoming a millionaire with a business degree isn't necessarily better odds. If you're working harder to help the company's bottom line shouldn't you have better odds of making big money off those efforts? I wonder who they interviewed though, because 91% most valued seems very, very high. Way too high. Most engineers I can think of think their skills are undervalued and management is rewarded for their efforts.
cjdentra 13y ago
Don't forget to account for the cost of raising a family in the areas all of us engineers want to live in. Being a "millionaire" perhaps means having access to $1M, not earning it over 10 years... and that is tough (no bad luck at all or market downturns or health issues...)
EliRivers 13y ago
Oh, software engineers! Well, yes, as a breed, software engineers do seem to be particularly prone to hubris. The ego and phenomenal sense of self-worth of a mid-twenties PHP kludger compared to a mid-twenties chemical engineer or civil engineer is just amazing.
- southphillyman 13y ago
  The last sentence is a bit much, but I also clicked this thinking it was referring to accredited engineers.
  - EliRivers 13y ago
    Yeah, you're right; chemical engineers think they're God's gift to humanity :p
- josephschmoe 13y ago
  This question has nothing to do with hubris. In fact, there are likely a lot more false negatives than false positives. Most of those 56% will become millionaires and most of the other 44% will as well. Because they plan on retiring and make a decent wage. I'm sure some percent plan on making it big.
  - pasquinelli 13y ago
    i think you're hung up on the millionaire bit. 69 percent of engineers say their role is “recession-proof.” 91 percent say they feel they are the “most valued” employees at their company. those points are laughable.
- fennecfoxen 13y ago
  > as a breed, software engineers do seem to be particularly prone to hubris. Maybe. But I'm 29 and I have ~$450,000 in savings (mostly index funds), so I'm pretty sure that having a cool million by the time I retire is eminently within reach. An inflation-adjusted cool million, at that. Theoretical future homebuying, childrens' college educations, and recessions notwithstanding.
sentientmachine 13y ago
The vast majority of drivers also think they are in the top 10% of good drivers. The mistake stems from the fact that brains have a really hard time viewing themselves from the perspective of others.
michaelochurch 13y ago
Obligatory: http://www.bravenewlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/hugh.png http://www.bravenewlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/hugh.... Software culture is now all about the MacLeod Clueless. That's also why the median (and shitty) software company will now discard people once they are old enough that either (a) they have a clue, and get that the private-sector programmer game is rigged, or (b) they should have a clue.
contingencies 13y ago
I would encourage others to hack conventional wealth metrics and move to the developing world. Lower overheads, a stimulating environment (pick up a new language just by living day to day, constantly discover new stuff), friendly test environment for new startups (lower startup costs, less regulatory problems, etc.), potentially lower taxes, and quite possibly a healthier lifestyle with less stress, a better climate and a better diet. I for one would be terrified about living in, for instance, the US as an aging person with medical needs. To my mind, healthy living is like extremely cheap insurance that always pays out.
- mahyarm 13y ago
  There is medicare for old people in the USA, as imperfect as it is. Also developing countries might not be nice places to raise your kids unless you do the private school / live in a bubble thing. Try replacing the developing world with 'the US ghetto' or 'rural usa'. You can approximate the costs fairly closely in some of those cases. $40k/$30k houses in small town upstate new york or texas for example and %10-%15 federal tax rates, still be within domestic flying distance of family.
  - contingencies 13y ago
    All valid points, but I still doubt you can get the same range of lifestyles (eg. car free, beach proximity, unmatched availability of foodstuffs) that cheaply, internal to the US, within a decent climatic zone, somewhere you'd actually want to live. Besides, you're neglecting the linguistic/cultural stimulation that comes from being somewhere truly new.
SomeGuyFromZA 13y ago
Define "millionaire". Gross assets? Net assets? Cash? Annual net income? I started investing at 25. I am 31 now and I am a "gross asset" millionaire. If I stop investing any further and my portfolio maintains its current growth I'll be a net asset millionaire by 37. I won't become any kind of millionaire from my $100k a year salary alone...
- ForHackernews 13y ago
  What the heck did you invest in?

45 points by 2t 13y ago

sunir 13y ago

Given the massive growth of this industry, most engineers are still relatively young. Therefore, I'd certainly would expect any engineer making an upper middle class income would think by the age of 65 that they would would end up with millions in wealth. http://money.cnn.com/calculator/retirement/retirement-need/ http://money.cnn.com/calculator/retirement/retirement-need/

nawitus 13y ago
The term "millionare" needs updating. I think what people actually mean by "millionare" is something like "net worth of at least over 10 million dollars".
- chaired 13y ago
  According to Google ngram, the word millionaire peaked around 1910, when a million dollars was about 25 million 2014 dollars.
  - velodrome 13y ago
    Likewise, the buying power of $1M in 2014 would be like having $40k in 1910. Forbes defines weathly as $1M/yr in income and $10M in assets. If you were to retire today with $25M and put this money in bonds, you could collect about $1-2M/yr. Sources: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=millionaire&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cmillionaire%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=millionaire&ye... http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=+1910+1+million+dollars http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=+1910+1+million+dollars http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+million+dollars+in+1910 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+million+dollars+in+19...
    - marvin 13y ago
      This definition of "wealthy" seems really, really arbitrary. My ancestors made a living by exporting lumber which was chopped by hand, and came close to dying of cold and hunger four or five times during the early 1900s. By that measure, we are all living like kings. You could live comfortably for the rest of your life on much less than $10MM in assets, even in the absence of an income. So I'd say if there's an absolute limit to "wealthy" in our geographic region, it would have to be "don't have to work for a living", which would be around $1-2MM for a middle-class lifestyle and a 4% annual return on capital.
      - velodrome 13y ago
        I totally agree. The definition of "wealthy" really depends who you are talking to (subjective). This is why I used the Forbes definition because I am not sure if your definition matches mine. The term also varies internationally as well (emerging vs developed countries). Like having a car, hot water, etc.
- AdamTReineke 13y ago
  The term isn't wrong, a person with a $1M net worth is still a millionaire. People just need to be aware that $1M has a very different buying power today than it did for our parents' generation. Retirement is expensive and $1M doesn't go as far as people expect.
- epistasis 13y ago
  I think you're right, and mystified by the downvoting. In common conversation people often want to use a term that means that one can live a semi-extravagant lifestyle off of the nestegg without working. A very small minority of people use "wealthy" for that, but not enough that I could use that term and be understood to mean what I want to mean. Commonly people use "millionaire," but that's wrong as you point out.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

bluedevil2k 13y ago

A 30-year old engineer making $120,000 a year should become a millionaire easily by the time they are 40. A more interesting question would have been "Do you think you'll ever sell an app/business for $1M?" - the crux of the question is "Do you think you'll hit the jackpot?", which in today's world, is selling something that took relatively small amount of effort to build.

mattgreenrocks 13y ago
> A 30-year old engineer making $120,000 a year should become a millionaire easily by the time they are 40 How so?
- bluedevil2k 13y ago
  Get married, save $60,000 a year (including 401k matching, etc), get 8% growth per year, 3% raise per year...that's $1,053,000 by my calculations.
  - btian 13y ago
    $60000 is basically after tax income if your pre-tax income is $120k. Also 8% growth a year is quite a stretch given that risk free rate is 2.64% (10-year treasury yield), and inflation eats 2% a year...
    - bluedevil2k 13y ago
      Pre-tax income of $120k would net about $95k in the US for a married man with 2 kids and a house in a tax-free state (Texas, Florida, etc.) 8% growth isn't a stretch, it's the average return for S&P 500 over the past 100 years.
    - nilkn 13y ago
      For a single person without a house and without dependents, the after-tax income is actually about $76k in CA and $87k in TX, according to ADP's online calculator.
    - 13y ago

mynewwork 13y ago

"Become millionaires" sounds a lot sexier than "Will be adequately prepared for retirement when they're 65". If you have a full career in any white-collar profession and don't have a million dollars between your 401k, home equity, IRA and other savings when you retire, you spent too many years living too wastefully.

mildtrepidation 13y ago
Or you were chronically underpaid and didn't realize it. Or you were the victim of circumstances beyond your control that resulted in abnormal financial burdens. Or any of innumerable reasons someone's life can simply not go perfectly. The idea that getting a job, keeping it, and living responsibly necessarily result in sufficient savings and assets for retirement is pretty widespread and deeply flawed. Life just is not that simple, and there are plenty of ways to end up screwed (in varying degrees) without having done anything particularly irresponsible or stupid that would warrant it.
- greenyoda 13y ago
  You don't even need to be the victim of unforeseen circumstances. Just having kids makes it much harder to save money. Your expenses for food, clothing, housing, energy, healthcare, etc. go way up, and if both parents work, they're paying for daycare when the children are young. Which means it's much harder to invest a significant fraction of your income.
toomuchtodo 13y ago
> If you have a full career in any white-collar profession and don't have a million dollars between your 401k, home equity, IRA and other savings when you retire, you spent too many years living too wastefully. If only I had known this buying my home at the peak of the real estate bubble (-$150K to net worth), having to take a pay cut when switching employers (effectively -$15K/year) last year, or having to provide financially for my disabled mother (-$20-35K/year). It sure isn't like I've been living as a rockstar. Life happens. At least I'm only 31 and can still recuperate from above financial setbacks.

jff 13y ago

"91 percent say they feel they are the “most valued” employees at their company." Nice Edit: does this mean they think engineers are the most valued, or that they personally are the most valued?

icedchai 13y ago
Either way, all it shows is that we're delusional.
- WWLink 13y ago
  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA. My friends, this is where the "I think my coworkers would be uncomfortable if they found out how much more than them I make" rhetoric comes from. Kinda reminds me of Hank Hill's "special deal". Sticker price and not a dollar more! :) Make someone feel special and they'll think your lame deal is a good one? But on the other hand, why not? Becoming a millionaire with a business degree isn't necessarily better odds. If you're working harder to help the company's bottom line shouldn't you have better odds of making big money off those efforts? I wonder who they interviewed though, because 91% most valued seems very, very high. Way too high. Most engineers I can think of think their skills are undervalued and management is rewarded for their efforts.

cjdentra 13y ago

Don't forget to account for the cost of raising a family in the areas all of us engineers want to live in. Being a "millionaire" perhaps means having access to $1M, not earning it over 10 years... and that is tough (no bad luck at all or market downturns or health issues...)

EliRivers 13y ago

Oh, software engineers! Well, yes, as a breed, software engineers do seem to be particularly prone to hubris. The ego and phenomenal sense of self-worth of a mid-twenties PHP kludger compared to a mid-twenties chemical engineer or civil engineer is just amazing.

southphillyman 13y ago
The last sentence is a bit much, but I also clicked this thinking it was referring to accredited engineers.
- EliRivers 13y ago
  Yeah, you're right; chemical engineers think they're God's gift to humanity :p
josephschmoe 13y ago
This question has nothing to do with hubris. In fact, there are likely a lot more false negatives than false positives. Most of those 56% will become millionaires and most of the other 44% will as well. Because they plan on retiring and make a decent wage. I'm sure some percent plan on making it big.
- pasquinelli 13y ago
  i think you're hung up on the millionaire bit. 69 percent of engineers say their role is “recession-proof.” 91 percent say they feel they are the “most valued” employees at their company. those points are laughable.
fennecfoxen 13y ago
> as a breed, software engineers do seem to be particularly prone to hubris. Maybe. But I'm 29 and I have ~$450,000 in savings (mostly index funds), so I'm pretty sure that having a cool million by the time I retire is eminently within reach. An inflation-adjusted cool million, at that. Theoretical future homebuying, childrens' college educations, and recessions notwithstanding.

sentientmachine 13y ago

The vast majority of drivers also think they are in the top 10% of good drivers. The mistake stems from the fact that brains have a really hard time viewing themselves from the perspective of others.

michaelochurch 13y ago

Obligatory: http://www.bravenewlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/hugh.png http://www.bravenewlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/hugh.... Software culture is now all about the MacLeod Clueless. That's also why the median (and shitty) software company will now discard people once they are old enough that either (a) they have a clue, and get that the private-sector programmer game is rigged, or (b) they should have a clue.

contingencies 13y ago

I would encourage others to hack conventional wealth metrics and move to the developing world. Lower overheads, a stimulating environment (pick up a new language just by living day to day, constantly discover new stuff), friendly test environment for new startups (lower startup costs, less regulatory problems, etc.), potentially lower taxes, and quite possibly a healthier lifestyle with less stress, a better climate and a better diet. I for one would be terrified about living in, for instance, the US as an aging person with medical needs. To my mind, healthy living is like extremely cheap insurance that always pays out.

mahyarm 13y ago
There is medicare for old people in the USA, as imperfect as it is. Also developing countries might not be nice places to raise your kids unless you do the private school / live in a bubble thing. Try replacing the developing world with 'the US ghetto' or 'rural usa'. You can approximate the costs fairly closely in some of those cases. $40k/$30k houses in small town upstate new york or texas for example and %10-%15 federal tax rates, still be within domestic flying distance of family.
- contingencies 13y ago
  All valid points, but I still doubt you can get the same range of lifestyles (eg. car free, beach proximity, unmatched availability of foodstuffs) that cheaply, internal to the US, within a decent climatic zone, somewhere you'd actually want to live. Besides, you're neglecting the linguistic/cultural stimulation that comes from being somewhere truly new.

SomeGuyFromZA 13y ago

Define "millionaire". Gross assets? Net assets? Cash? Annual net income? I started investing at 25. I am 31 now and I am a "gross asset" millionaire. If I stop investing any further and my portfolio maintains its current growth I'll be a net asset millionaire by 37. I won't become any kind of millionaire from my $100k a year salary alone...

ForHackernews 13y ago
What the heck did you invest in?