Ask HN: How to reset expectations with a lower paying job
I’m currently working as a dev at a non-FAANG (but still big and well known) tech company. The job pays really well, work life balance is great, and it’s overall a very cushy gig. But… I hate it. I don’t like the day to day work and am completely uninterested in the larger company mission.
So I started job hunting and got an offer doing dev work at a small nonprofit. It feels like a perfect match, but the pay is going to be much lower (My total comp will drop from 300k to 100k USD), and I’m surprised to find myself getting nervous about the financial consequences.
It’s still a six figure job, so I won’t be living in poverty but I’ll clearly need to make some lifestyle adjustments.
I’m hoping some other HN users have made a similar transitions and have tips/tricks/stories about undoing years of lifestyle creep and resetting some of the hedonic adaptation I’ve built up? Is making such a career switch a stupid idea?
51 comments
[ 162 ms ] story [ 3322 ms ] threadAlso, I would say dont let your momentary distress trick you into a long term financial decision...
At age 28 i quit the rat race, took a pay cut, and never looked back after starting my career on 100k straight out of uni. 10yrs later i see my ex-collegues earning double me, but i couldnt imagine how much of my life i would have wasted if i had "stuck it out". Case and point, natural disaters, covid, has changed the world forever - if u were waiting for retirement to travel, you already lost your chance to see the world. Its not the same world we grew up with.
Some people get drive from money. My experience is these people are either never satisfied, or find out too late that actually no, the money was only there to distract them from their real desires which required guts determination to persue - counter to popular rhetoric of the motivation pr0n blick bait generation.
If you equate money to success, one only needs to look at the raft of multi-million-billionaires who still wake up at 60, put on a suite, and got into a board room, looking for the next big thing. That person, they never woke up. They think they have the respect, but they actually represent a different kind of person in my books. A complete failure in every way to be true to themselves.
Thats what makes us all different right? Choices.
The person who quits their cushy life - to listen to their heart -- is in my opinion --- so much smarter and more motivated then any unicorn founder.
this all or nothing quit is a fallacy, it takes time to find the right position in a company, and if they are paying you well, its worth finding.
The world is always changing, I wouldn't be so pessimistic about travelling post-covid. It may even be better in some regards. It might be different, but so were the twenty years prior that, and so will be the 20 years after now. I only nitpick this as I wouldn't want anyone to be discouraged from travelling, you'll still be doing the exact same thing everyone else did when they travelled: Experiencing the world in the moment, immersed as it exists.
That's not to say that I don't hear what you're saying. I travelled to Japan in Nov 2019, just before Covid, and have wanted to go back ever since. It's been sad to see some of the things change while I watch from afar, but that's just life.
Also regarding happiness > money, totally agree. I realized pretty quickly that a 9-5 wasn't a good fit for me, I've been part time contracting instead for maybe 7 years now, mostly remote, less money total but more per hour. I get paid more for my time, and get more time for myself.
When you see your money start to drain it’ll be a lot easier to start cutting the fat out of your lifestyle.
I'm a pretty junior, inexperienced dev, having retrained a few years back, but I get to play with all the things. Stuff I wouldn't be let near at a large Corp. I find my work very diverse, engaging, and as the go to guy for most things technology, I get a tonne of respect.
I guess it depends where you live and what your commitments are, but a six figure salary is still huge for most people.
If you can cope with the pay cut, why not take the plunge? Worst case scenario, it doesn't pan out: you've still got a FAANG on your CV, and it's a completely acceptable narrative when looking somewhere big again to say you wanted to do something meaningful for a while.
My in was ticking enough of the tech skills whilst having a load of domain knowledge.
I'd say look inside and see how this new job might be better aligned with your core values? I got tired of the rat race (always chasing higher comp, bonus, etc) and sick of the scrappy work attitude of startups and wanted to find a place that will let me focus on ME and not on the company. That usually makes me feel better. You can always join another higher paying job (including FAANG down the road).
Let me know if you'd like to chat. At the very least I can just be an ear for you to voice out your thoughts out loud.
Cheers.
(1) stay at a job you don't like
(2) take a 67% pay cut
(3) find a different job that pays as well or better than the current one
Pick option 3.
I'd love it if I could find a 20-person startup that could match my current salary, but that's just not very likely.
I never broke $100K but I was close last corp I worked at.
I was working a side job that became my main thing. They agreed to pay my base bills per month eg. $3K/mo and we would try to get this company off the ground. I'm a 10% partner at least but it's 10% of $0. Anyway so far we have not gotten traction so it's interesting I'm developing another version of our app.
But I came out of my job at 59% loss in pay and in debt from crypto tanking... So I'm concerned there but I'm single. Could just get a job (I'm sad I turned down Amazon Prime Air recruiter even though I probably would not have been qualified).
But I wanted to say the break from a 9-5 that I had been doing for years has been great. I've been working projects more/getting blogs/videos out. I've been enjoying it other than the debt that's building up since I don't make more to pay it down. Eventually something will have to happen. I'm a co-inventor though that's cool I guess.
My end goal is to FIRE but I'm far from it right eg. ~-$50K net worth (mostly student loans). I will say my negative worth is not entirely me I have donated $40K+ to my own blood families (in a third world country) so far and donate to food shelters and what not not a virtue signal I'm just stupid.
That's almost peak career level anywhere outside the US.
its an unheard of salary in rest of the world
yeah, first world issues confirmed! :)
You’d take home ~70k$ of that 100k.
How to get there? As always it’s more about your networking ability than specific technical skills.
That said theres a weird schism between finance and everything else in London. Whats normal for finance isnt normal elsewhere and finance is often a bit insular.
The best paid people I know have those jobs because they chatted up some random person outside a restaurant, at the airport, on the plane or at some event like Serpentine gallery’s “future contemporaries”.
London of all places is full of ludicrously good networking opportunities. Anyone with basic social skills who can create websites can hustle their way into an Annabel’s membership.
The people who actually put in some real effort will land those jobs, often regardless of their actual skills.
I’m an eastern European tech worker from a poor family that deliberately forced my way into situations where I’d be surrounded by the rich and powerful. After a few years most of my friends were such people, after a few more I found myself married to the daughter of a billionaire.
A lot of tech people just don’t understand is that this kind of bullshit is exactly how you win. People working in finance or law mostly seem to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> I’m an eastern European tech worker
> I found myself married to the daughter of a billionaire.
dude, you don't exist
No, but there sure are a plenty having lunch at LPM, dinner at Coya or Zuma.
> dude, you don't exist
I think this is something you’ll only hear from people who have never put in the slightest effort to infiltrate such circles.
Turns out that being the guy that bullshitted your way in automatically makes you the most interesting person in the room.
I’m just a regular gold digger, just like ~30% of the people in my post code.
And ... I would argue that living, working and thriving in London as software engineer with a salary north of 75k GBP is, in fact, a peak of one's career, hence my argument still stands..
Eating food that doesn't make you very sick in the US is very expensive. It is very much not as simple as you state here.
I'm well aware of the facts that it's roughly 2x the median household income and is clearly a good paying job. The question isn't "how does somebody survive on 100k", it's "how do you have to adapt your lifestyle when you start making 200k less".
Maybe you could work 1 more year, living off of 50k post taxes (which is already considerably more than most in the US make post-tax) and save the difference. Then, you can quit being confident that you can control your spending enough to take a job with merely good as opposed to extravagant compensation!
If you're already spending below your means then you may want to contemplate what value money has to you and/or what you want out of it in the long run. Maybe it's a social status thing, maybe you have practical goals like buying/paying off a house. A financial plan can help to see what you need/want and how much money/stocks etc. your saving without the intent to spend it. To me personally if I have money that I don't see myself spending it's value (my personal evaluation) goes down significantly.
For example: I earn significantly less than $100k a year. Doesnt stop me from spending $200 on a dinner for two at a french restaurant. I can't do this every week - but I wouldnt want to. That wouldnt feel special. These $200 are above my usual expenditures and would potentially be over $1000 when I retire if invested properly... and yet I believe it's worth it.
There are good nonprofits out there, but in my experience and my close friends’, it can be a shit show of spinning wheels and never getting anywhere.
If you still decide to go through with it, I would try to negotiate that 100K up as much as possible. Get the whole notion of non-profit out of your head, they are still competing for your time/expertise and should pay according to the market. Have a look at their public tax disclosures and see what the top brass is claiming as income. If you do a little digging, you will find many non-profits that have board members/c-suites/VPs/etc making quite large salaries while they pay peanuts to the grunt workers.
If you're experienced and taking this cut, what are the expectations of peers, juniors, even managers who aren't taking this paycut consciously.