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Ask HN: How to make 300k or more in total comp?

6 points by heroknights ↗ HN
I just saw few threads popping up where folks where claiming to make 200k or more in total comp. Also, given how expensive housing market, education, and day-to-day life has become; $300k is not that big amount.

I noticed that while answering such question is people often answer to get a job at big four, become expert in XYZ and then do consulting or join a start-up. I understand big four pay really well ( may be except Amazon, lol). However, even at big four companies there are tons of employees beside core SDE titles who are making $300k or more.

I have 10+ years of experience in software, but I no longer enjoy writing code, debugging logs, and spending hours and hours to do small things.

I want to make $300k or more and at the same time set up myself for growth in the org. Would doing a MBA and joining another company at director or above level help?

What are hacks and sure fire ways to make such large compensation?

8 comments

[ 5.7 ms ] story [ 33.7 ms ] thread
calcsam
Don't get an MBA. It will not in any way help you in an engineering organization. If you want to become more fluent in the business side of things, attend conferences like Business of Software, sit in the business meetings in your org, read VC blogs, etc etc

If you don't enjoy development any more, explore sales engineering, or engineering management.

And if you want to make 300k+, interview at Google / FB / Amazon / Apple.

GFischer
I wish I knew :) . I only can tell you from my experience that the MBA program is not a surefire way to improve your salary - maybe the top MBA programs ARE surefire, but they're also really expensive and hard to get into.

If you can get a company to fund your MBA, that would be great.

Also, I don't know where you live, but I think that anywhere in the world (including NYC and SF), 300k is an unbelievably large amount of money. You might be losing perspective if you think it's not.

heroknights
Hi GFischer,

Thanks for the comment. I work for a ad-tech startup. You won't believe amount of money flowing through the systems. I know a lot of people, including women, who make more than 300k with 12 to 15 yrs of experience. The reason I am skeptical of AmaGooG is career growth prospects. Amazon recruiters have reached out to me at least 5 times now but I am keeping them on edge of seat. Getting at companies is not that hard. It's the career growth that I am worried about. 300k with no career growth and 300k with more career growth makes a ton of difference.

FB is good but beside ads they don't have any stream of revenue, for now. Its a risky job in my opinion.

bwackwat
Create a successful business; "$300k is not that big amount."
heroknights
Thanks for the comment. I have a few business ideas that I am going to prototype. Managing my time is one of the biggest challenge I am facing for now. Although, I am torn whether spending time for creating business or going traditional path of Director/VP/SVP would bring in more money in long term.
mtmail
If you consider doing an MBA then taking 6 months off to work on your business ideas might be cheaper than the university costs.
GFischer
We're on Hacker News - maybe he should do the best of two worlds - apply to Y Combinator! It's the top "MBA for startups" :)
prostoalex
Work at a software company with high-flying stock price before it becomes high-flying. So a grant that's worth low-to-medium six digits has hit a multiplication bonus on the stock market roulette wheel.

E.g. NFLX grants as recent as 2012 were made at sub-$10 prices, so a grant of 10,000-50,000 vesting over 4-5 would be possible. At current $98 price marker it's quite a pretty penny.

Similar examples: CRM@2009, GOOG@2009, FB@2013, AMZN@2011, NVDA@2014 and even some boring non-obvious places like PCLN@2008.