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Ask HN: Those making over $300k/year, how did you achieve it?

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Re: Ask HN: Those making over $300k/year, how did you achieve it?

#171

Post by Blackstone4 »

LandR wrote: post #130

The US compared to the UK is insane salary wise. A good developer in the UK might make £40-£45k a year ($56k) According to glass door at Amazon in the UK you can make anywhere from £30k to £50k. Microsoft goes a bit higher (in London, but everything is higher in London) to around £65k for SE2. I only know one friend who is a developer on £100k+, most of us are on around £30k to £40k. I know one Senior Developer doing…

Are you including contractors? My understanding is that tech contracting in London is where the money is at. You can make £400 a day or ~£84,000 a year. This is with a lower all-in tax rate so your take-home pay is higher if you take it as a dividend.

I used to be a software engineer but changed to finance (asset management) to get paid more. I went from £23k a year to £50k.

Re: Ask HN: Those making over $300k/year, how did you achieve it?

#172

Post by majewsky »

vostok wrote: post #159
bsvalley wrote: post #149

For the most part you'd live in a place like NYC or the Bay Area to come up with these kind of salaries. So let's assume you live in the Bay Area (California). New Federal income tax is 35% for that salary range then add 13% coming from beautiful and sunny California. We're at a 48 % tax rate. Let's round that up to 50% to simplify our maths. Congratulations - you are now making $150k/year! From 300 down to 150 just…

I think the math of going from $300k to $150k went by too quickly for me. Can you go over it in a little more detail?

> So let's assume you live in the Bay Area (California). New Federal income tax is 35% for that salary range then add 13% coming from beautiful and sunny California. We're at a 48 % tax rate. Let's round that up to 50% to simplify our maths.

What's unclear about that? 35% + 13% = 48% = about 50%. After that, it's just a matter of removing 50% from 300k to arrive at 150k.

Re: Ask HN: Those making over $300k/year, how did you achieve it?

#173

Post by wyldfire »

conanbatt wrote: post #126

Its noticeable to me that FAANG companies get to this heights because of their stock compensation. An economic downturn or hit to the tech sector will immediately drop the compensation for its worker significantly. (Not to say that they are still noticeable salaries). I wonder outside of FAANG how easy it is to get 300k salaries.

Does it normalize -- will you get granted more shares at the lower share price? In which case the only risk is when the share price drops during the time it takes to vest. Certainly a bummer for that year (or years) they're in a down trend, but seems less likely that a "plummet" kind of slope would happen year over year.

Re: Ask HN: Those making over $300k/year, how did you achieve it?

#174

Post by devilmoon »

bjourne wrote: post #136
devilmoon wrote: post #27

Question from someone not living in the US: How come you guys have such high salaries compared to ROW? Is the cost of life that much higher than other countries, or is your income simply taxed less / companies have generally more money to spend on employees? I am currently working in one of the highest paying (if not the highest) consultancy firms in my country, and my salary is probably lower than your minimum wage.…

They are measuring total compensation. In European countries, you have five weeks of paid vacation and money that is put into your retirement fund in addition to your salary. Plus sick days. That is worth 10-24 % more than your base monthly salary. The spread of US developer salaries appear to be insanely high though. Median is "only" 70k according to this site: https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Devel…

Where are you pulling the five weeks figure from? It's more like 20ish days, after that if your employer is ok with it you can "borrow" vacation and pay it back by not generating more vacation days while you work or pay when you quit your job.

Retirement funds, I don't know about the rest of EU, but in my country are basically a scam - here you are forced to pay 10% of your gross salary per month into the fund and you can start getting pension after 35yrs of work (provided you are older than 70yo), that means I'm paying money I will NEVER get back, since median age is going up and employement down, no one will be around to pay my pension like I'm paying my parents' with my salary.

Sick days are on the company only for the first 3 days, after that the healthcare system pays you (80% of your rate, iirc)

Re: Ask HN: Those making over $300k/year, how did you achieve it?

#175

Post by zimpenfish »

Blackstone4 wrote: post #171
LandR wrote: post #130

The US compared to the UK is insane salary wise. A good developer in the UK might make £40-£45k a year ($56k) According to glass door at Amazon in the UK you can make anywhere from £30k to £50k. Microsoft goes a bit higher (in London, but everything is higher in London) to around £65k for SE2. I only know one friend who is a developer on £100k+, most of us are on around £30k to £40k. I know one Senior Developer doing…

Are you including contractors? My understanding is that tech contracting in London is where the money is at. You can make £400 a day or ~£84,000 a year. This is with a lower all-in tax rate so your take-home pay is higher if you take it as a dividend. I used to be a software engineer but changed to finance (asset management) to get paid more. I went from £23k a year to £50k.

You can easily make £400+ a day with tech contracting in London, yep. I've been doing it for years and I'm defiantly middle of the road.

If you're a niche expert (MUMPS, KDB, etc.), you can probably make double that.

Re: Ask HN: Those making over $300k/year, how did you achieve it?

#176

Post by devilmoon »

LandR wrote: post #150
friedman23 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rent + bills cost around $3700 for me for a 1 bedroom apartment a 15 minute walk from work but I also get paid $147k salary. I make the maximum contribution to my 401k every month, so after rent, payroll, retirement, health insurance, and taxes I take home around $3500 a month. This doesn't include my stock bonus, free breakfast lunch an dinner which I do take advantage of, and other small perks that add up to thousa…

That's crazy, my MORTGAGE is £455 a month, my factors are ~£160, then the rest of the bills is about ~£200-£300ish So my living costs each month is around £900 ($1200) I have a large apartment, living room is about 600sq feet and I have 2 big bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, gated entrace to the complex, a handy man, a concierge, my own private parking space as I'm in a big city... $3700 a month is ludicrous. I'd want to live…

man where the fuck do you live to get all of that for only 900£? I pay 750€ish per month rent+bills for a bedroom in a shared apartment

Re: Ask HN: Those making over $300k/year, how did you achieve it?

#177

Post by throwaway713 »

yespleasethrow wrote: post #140
thrwunderpaid wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read previously of machine learning specialists in Atlanta reaching this level of compensation

I am one of these Atlanta-based machine learning specialists, here to confirm that we do exist. But I think it is very rare, and I am not sure many at all are doing $300k+. Since the cost of living is comparatively low, though, I am doing way better than I ever could dream of doing in the bay.

What on earth sort of companies? I grew up near Atlanta and can’t think of any that would pay $300k for machine learning expertise. (I’m just curious because I will probably be living there again at some point in the future and I have a background in ML).

Re: Ask HN: Those making over $300k/year, how did you achieve it?

#178

Post by overeater »

majewsky wrote: post #172
vostok wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the math of going from $300k to $150k went by too quickly for me. Can you go over it in a little more detail?

> So let's assume you live in the Bay Area (California). New Federal income tax is 35% for that salary range then add 13% coming from beautiful and sunny California. We're at a 48 % tax rate. Let's round that up to 50% to simplify our maths. What's unclear about that? 35% + 13% = 48% = about 50%. After that, it's just a matter of removing 50% from 300k to arrive at 150k.

35% is the marginal tax rate. The actual tax on 300k is 27%.

Re: Ask HN: Those making over $300k/year, how did you achieve it?

#179

Post by devy »

throwaway713 wrote: post #92
devy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on position. Total compensations for AI positions in top tier technology firms are well beyond $1M mark, some go as high as $3M annually.

What is the job title for one of these positions? Background required? What is the daily work like?

I donno. Research Scientist/Machine Learning Researcher?

They're probably tasked with analyzing data and create AI models to assist AI-assisted product features / apis, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Those making over $300k/year, how did you achieve it?

#180

Post by balls187 »

devilmoon wrote: post #27

Question from someone not living in the US: How come you guys have such high salaries compared to ROW? Is the cost of life that much higher than other countries, or is your income simply taxed less / companies have generally more money to spend on employees? I am currently working in one of the highest paying (if not the highest) consultancy firms in my country, and my salary is probably lower than your minimum wage.…

> It's actually something that pisses me off more than it should when I think about it.

1. all that glitters is not gold.

2. what life style does your salary afford you?

I live in the greater Seattle Area. Engineering base salaries are ~130-160k range. Total comp, add $60-100k on top of that (bonus, +equity). SOme make more, some make less. All of us at that level live a pretty good lifestyle, but no one is really balling out.

Cost of living has skyrocketed to match the inflated salaries. Businesses and government are working overtime to extract that money out of workers pockets.

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