Ask HN: Do you make more than $200K? What did you have to do?
Having been writing software for over 10 years, I recently learnt that a friend has been making more than $220K for the past several years (similar background). I'm at $170K and always thought I'm getting paid really well (I'm an engg manager + programmer in bay area, Java expertise).
Curious if people here make more than $200K - what your role/salary/experience is.
How did you get your high salary? How have you been raising it? Do you plan for it, or does the company reward you automatically? Do you switch jobs a lot?
Side curiosity: how much do execs (such has CTO or VPE make?)
100 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 204 ms ] threadIf your talking about base salary + bonus + annual sotcks/RSU's then you're way below market.
200 k$/yr+ in total compensation (ie, salary + bonus + RSUs, at a public company where RSUs are liquid) is much more common. I personally received that as a SDE II at Google, with 4 years of experience, and from my understanding, I was not in any way an exceptional case.
I worked at a Series C startup in the Bay Area as an architect. I made about 450K in total cash comp + lots of options.
Some of the executives were clearing over 500K a year in cash.
Less then £38k, Oxfordshire
;/
This is pretty much the ceiling for dev in Aberdeen, and the way things are just now in the oil industry I count myself lucky to have a job!
31 years old. 5 years of experience as a hardware engineer, and 2 years as a software engineer (back-end).
Master's degree from Stanford.
Practice hackerrank, cracking-the-coding-interview, read a programming/architecture book every few months, till you can ace programming interviews and understand your field really well.
Living in NYC, where the financial companies have driven comp levels really high for software-engineers.
Working at a big-4 software company.
Currently at my 4th company. Interview and negotiate aggressively at many different places every time you switch, so you can get 20-40% increases.
Don't know how much this helped me, but do a side-project and blog about your experiences.
I'm trying to make a unique programming side-project that would get me in the door with financial companies.
I disagree, majority of financial firms see tech employees aka 'IT' workers as a cost center. After '08 there is a major focus on cost cutting as overall industry is not doing well. With the exception of a few high risk and small (few 100 people) hedge funds you barely would see someone with 5-7 years of experience touching 200k salary.
$190k base + $10k signing bonus + RSUs = ~$300k total comp
> what your role/salary/experience is.
Senior full-stack engineer. Located in SF.
> How did you get your high salary?
Interviewed at many companies and received multiple offers. Kept every door open, made sure the company/team knew I was excited to join, and moved the negotiations and base salary forward. It helped a lot to have an existing open offer when companies asked what I was making previously. This anchored their starting offer.
> How have you been raising it?
Switched jobs my salary increased by $10k, $40k, $10k, and $60k. Contracting for 4 years increased my yearly income to $330k. The biggest raise was interviewing at 10+ companies and choosing the best offer. Got a lot of rejection emails too.
> Do you plan for it, or does the company reward you automatically?
I never received a substantial raise without switching companies. Larger companies with lucrative bonus programs might be different.
> Do you switch jobs a lot?
First company I stayed 5 years, second 3 years, third 1.5 years, fourth 6 months, fifth just started a few months ago.
Out of my friend circle I'm not the highest paid engineer. A friend just accepted a senior engineer position a recent IPO company making $210k base. Another friend is an eng. manager at a finance company making $1m but not sure if that's base or total comp.
Even though I DO code and I DO write programs, I never define myself as such and promptly call people out when they call me that.
I focus on the value I bring. It can be Java with Hadoop and it can be deploying a Kubernetes cluster or writing a React application. I solve problems in a creative way.
I am making more than 200K. I don't work for the big 4 (or 5 or 50 or 100 or even 1000)
Recently switched jobs. Making 200K base and around 280K total comp.
Recently, to be honest, I am really less focused on the numbers. I live in SV and those numbers make no sense. I would be more than happy making 150K and saving and investing more money than I am able to right now.
I am an individual contributor and just about to begin managing. However I unofficially lead a team of 20. There are still 4 levels above me that can be paid upwards of low millions dollars before entering executive titles like VP.
I'm 30 and it took running a startup, then pushing high profile products in a big 3 company then launching net new products and running as a solo entrepreneur within the company.
At the upper end, it's not about just being a manager or even being good. It's about how well you can create new opportunities that are strategically valuable for the company.
Honestly, I think of myself as just getting started, as I aim to reach 1m+ total comp per year.
How common is this? I'm in a similar position, albeit a smaller group. I've gotten pushback on a management title, but I think I've largely negotiated the unofficial duties into my salary, so I don't mind much. I make $250K (base and total) at a non-profit.
This is pretty intriguing. May I ask how common this is? I have imagined non-profit careers to be in the <$150k range and not comparable (compensation-wise) to tech companies/startups.
[0] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/
If you want a further breakdown on numbers, linkregister and I came up with a fairly solid breakdown a while back for a new grad in SF: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13009702
Note that $1200 gets you a room in a shared flat. If you want your own one-bedroom apartment, it's probably averaging $2500/mo right now.
The US is still the one of the best places to make a filthy amount of money. For that, we trade job security, healthcare, and decently-priced universities.
Another option is to just go to Switzerland (e.g. Zurich). You still have German/similar culture but will earn salaries like here in SV with much less taxes. Similar cost of living but after you payed your basic needs everything else above is just a lot more to safe for your future or enjoy life with (and if you invest in stock you don't even pay a cent for long term gains in Switzerland which makes it even more attractive the more you accumulated over time).
I got a masters degree, started as a junior at a small company and stuck with it for 15 years.
~$300k base, ~100k bonus, ~$500k stock, per year.
Individual contributor engineers at the same job level / experience at our company generally make a little more, compared with people on the manager track.
If those numbers seem shocking, keep in mind that the most reliable way to get wealthy is not to gamble on a startup, but to get your way into a Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, etc., and stay there for a decade or two.
Which makes sense, since those are the companies making all the profits, and give generously back to retain top employees.
A very expensive house costs a few million dollars, which you should afford quite easily, especially if you have a partner making a decent amount of money. Children and their education cost quite a bit in the US, but even that shouldn't cost a lot. A few expensive holidays per year plus retirement money should be easily doable.
So, basically, why do you want/need more money?
I would love to earn more money. Then again, I look at the post, shake my head and have a salary at about 30% of the GP's target (numbers, not currency. Not in the US).
With 100k+? I'd be comfortable forever. Maybe the US is that much more expensive.
2. To travel comfortably. More generally, to be able to seek out distant experiences without fear.
So a down payment would likely be $300K-$600K.
Let's say $400K income.
NerdWallet says that even at $600K down with under $2K of monthly obligations, you're still "stretching" to get to $2.25M, so "afford quite easily" seems a bit questionable.
Say your job requires a certain level of effort and pays 100k. An offer comes your way from a similar employer, requiring the same level of effort, but pays 120k. All else being equal, why would you stay and miss the 20% bump?
Even if you have no debt, significant retirement/future-life savings, are living comfortably/within your means, what rationale would drive you to avoid earning more?
Ultimately, you're still investing a minimum of 8 hours a day working on something. You may as well drive up the ROI on those 8 hours as quickly as you can while you still can.
Some people are born under lucky stars, or believe that life will provide, I'm unfortunately am not of that camp, so I want more money for the unpredictable future.
You need 500k post tax which is almost 1 million in pre tax saved income to get a nice home in a decent neighborhood in the Bay Area. That is a huge chunk of change.
I always wanted two simple things in life: 1.) To be great at doing something that creates value for others. (sense of duty) and 2.) To be compensated equitably for my work. (sense of fairness)
If you do both of those and succeed, you will make a lot of money during your career. Some people just want to do #1--Linus Torvalds would be a great example--which I'd agree is a more noble, though he's certainly not starving.
As far as what money's good for, it gives you options. It means you can take risks in your career and play the long game. It means you don't have to work a bad job or keep your head down if people are being mistreated. It means your partner doesn't also have to work long hours to raise a family. It means you can start your own business or invest to make a little dent in the world. It means you can retire early if you get burnt out.
Material things are nice but you can have a very, very nice material life with an upper-middle class job. Beyond that, most things are really overrated. I used to like material things a lot more when I didn't have much money. Now that I have plenty, I don't bother much with them. A lot of those purchases came from status insecurity or trying to buy fulfillment. In my first job out of college, I leased a fancy BMW. Now I drive a decade-old Toyota.
IMO feeling "rich" is feeling like you don't have to do anything--your life is entirely on your own terms. It has little to do with buying stuff.
I used to have only one mouth to feed, my own, and I was making 25% of what I make now. I was living quite comfortably.
There are five of us these days. I make 4x what I used to, and it's still not enough. The various costs you can't avoid (healthcare, housing, food) have gone up faster than my income. Every year, the kids spend more money than the year before. Even without the actual goods getting more expensive (and they do), the kids eat more as they grow, their clothes get more expensive, their extra-curriculum activities get more expensive. I can't wait until they start begging me for a car or other really expensive stuff.
The typical COLA raises, if you're even lucky enough to get those these days, do not cover those type of cost increases. Not even close.
I'd be happy to do some custom data pulls for anyone if anyone has any specific questions. If you want to explore more of the data yourself, check out https://www.transparentcareer.com