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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?

#191

Post by machinemob »

tcrow wrote: post #182

From my experience, one of the best (and relatively easiest) ways to reach higher salary levels over a relatively small time frame is to, at some point, go to work as a short term consultant through a consulting agency for a little while. If you have any decent skills, getting in will be no problem. The benefits of this approach is 2 fold; 1) you will obtain a broad and diverse set of skills due to traversing many di…

tcrow what are some real-world examples of "consulting agencies?" I'm a technologist but examples in any industry would give me a feeling for what kind of company you're referring to. Thanks in advance.

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

#192

Post by ryandrake »

Redoubts wrote: post #183
dx034 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the $300k numbers here are 50%+ equity. That's a considerable risk. It worked over the past 10 years because tech stocks have outperformed everything else. If we see a true tech stock crash (50%+ correction), many of those $300k salaries are in reality closer to $200k (or less if you'll never be able to sell the stocks). I don't wish that to anyone but it's important to keep in mind that stock bonus is something…

Maybe it's because I'm making multiples of what my father ever did, but this is why I'm diversifying my stock immediately on receipt and saving +50% of my income. Anything else seems like insanity, or at least profligacy.

The way I’ve always explained it: if you suddenly got $50k, would you put it all into one stock? No. So if you suddenly got $50k of one stock, why would you not turn it into cash right away? The scenarios are identical.

EDIT: as 0xB31B1B points out it’s worth clarifying that the scenarios are the same only when we are talking about post-tax numbers. Generally when you receive RSUs, the taxes have already been withheld.

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

#193

Post by Blackstone4 »

zimpenfish wrote: post #175
Blackstone4 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

@zimpenfish do you have any advice on contracting?

I was thinking about going into one day.

I have a diverse background and have been a quantitative analyst, software engineer, and investment analyst. I have a MEng in Mathematical modelling (from a good UK uni) and a CFA Charterholder. My current tech stack (about 1 year experience) is React, JS/Typescript, GraphQL, Apollo Server all on AWS (AWS Lambda, AWS RDS and Docker on an EC2 instance). I used to work with Java, Linux servers and SQL (2 years experience). Would it be possible for me to contract? I could leverage my non-technical skills as well like my CFA and investment experience. :)

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

#194

Post by softawre »

zild3d wrote: post #152
bauer wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind clarifying what CPO means in your case? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPO Could take a guess from several of those.

usually Chief Product Officer

At our 5k person company, the CPO has the heads of engineering and product management report to him, and is responsible for them working together well and delivering product.

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

#195

Post by deivid »

reacharavindh wrote: post #109

Reading such a post on HN is only fanning my financial insecurity. I'm a Comp. Engineer in early 30, who used to draw approx. 130K (105 + 25K RSUs) from a major company in the south east USA. Moved to Europe(Denmark) for personal reasons, and have been essentially working for less than half that money I used to make. ($96K after taxes in US vs $48K after taxes in Denmark) - 10 years of experience. Before you ask, tha…

If you can move, consider amsterdam. Great city, great salaries for devs(75k€+).

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

#196

Post by jonathanlb »

Apreche wrote: post #33

Here's the real question. If you are pulling that much, why are you still working? Why not head straight to the beach and live a wonderful life of idle luxury?

Some comments here mentioned that it's more like $180k base salary plus around $130k in options. Depending on where you're living, you'd still need to pay for living expenses (rent, insurance, food, etc.) before amassing a good chunk of change for retirement. So, it's possible that those making that amount of money are putting a good amount away while they work to live that life of luxury where the dollar goes further.

It's also very likely that people pulling $300k/year really like the work.

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

#197

Post by [deleted] »

nulagrithom wrote: post #184
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…

> Let's round that up to 50% to simplify our maths. Congratulations - you are now making $150k/year! From 300 down to 150 just like that. That's not how it works. Anything above $200,000 will be taxed at 35%. You're taxed in brackets. For the first $9525 you're taxed at 10%, from $9525 to $38,700 you're taxed at 12%, and on we go. Your actual federal income tax at $300,000 is going to be more like $80,000. California…

[deleted]

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

#198

Post by iamben »

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…

Unless you bought a long time ago, I'm going to take a guess you're not in London. You could expect to pay £900 for a room (maybe including, maybe excluding bills) in a flatshare in a decent(ish)/popular location.

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

#199

Post by pjc50 »

reacharavindh wrote: post #109

Reading such a post on HN is only fanning my financial insecurity. I'm a Comp. Engineer in early 30, who used to draw approx. 130K (105 + 25K RSUs) from a major company in the south east USA. Moved to Europe(Denmark) for personal reasons, and have been essentially working for less than half that money I used to make. ($96K after taxes in US vs $48K after taxes in Denmark) - 10 years of experience. Before you ask, tha…

This kind of thing really needs to be normalised by house prices. Even a dumb metric like "salary * (number of bedrooms+1) / (house value)" would give decent results; I'm paid about one bedroom per year.

When I moved away from London I was moving away from all the really highly paid opportunities but my salary in bedrooms/year went up considerably.

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

#200

Post by andrewchoi »

ptero wrote: post #161
mabbo wrote: post #35

I've been reached out to before by recruiters for High Freq trading companies and other financial groups, offering 300-500k starting. A friend of mine worked at one of them and basically said that yeah you do make that kind of money but you work 70-80hrs/week and if anything is ever determined to be a crime, you'll be the one who gets thrown under the bus.

I am curious what "thrown under the bus" is: getting fired (which some/many may consider an acceptable risk for a high salary position) or being blamed / framed by a company for a jail time; or something else?

An example: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-goldman-sachs-aleynikov/e...
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