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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?

#231

Post by LandR »

devilmoon wrote: post #176
LandR wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I live in Scotland (Glasgow). THe place was £170k to buy and needed about £40k ish work done to it.

The £40k came out of savings, £70k deposit and you end with a really cheap fixed mortgage on £100k that comes to £445 a month, in fact it's low enough that I overpay it some months by double to get the mortgage paid off quicker.

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

#232

Post by flashgordon »

flashgordon wrote: post #230

Lot of Leetcode!

Now as glib as that sounds, let me clarify. In the valley hiring has become extremely focussed towards attracting "talent" but in the FAANGs there is really no way to qualify experience unless you are a brand (inventor of X, co-founder of Y, author of framework Z). Unfortunately also in the FANGs the stacks are extremely customized (after years of picking and choosing what works for said companies), so even if you had a lot of experience you may not be aligned (perception here) with the companies' venerated stacks. This leads to the situation where there is not much room for specialized folks (unless you are again the branded ones). In this situation there are very limited ways of judging candidates in a standardized way. Lo behold puzzles and leetcode! Many companies (in the FANGs) routinely reject experienced candidates who cannot solve leetcode problem # (put in your favorite problem here).

This is for the FANGs and FANG wannabees. At startups the scene is different as you dont have a scaling problem with recruitment so leetcode is not the focal point of your judgement. But you asked how to make "big" bucks and not quantum money!

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

#234

Post by chrisper »

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 want to earn a bit more, maybe try Switzerland. But are you really not happy? Don't get fooled by money. Rather look around you and ask yourself if you are happy with your situation.

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

#235

Post by Blackstone4 »

zimpenfish wrote: post #225
Blackstone4 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@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 D…

> do you have any advice on contracting? If you're ok with employment gaps and the consequent lack of income, go for it. But if you have dependents and/or mortage and/or other constraints, I'd definitely put a whole lot of thought and financial planning into it first. With that list of skills, I reckon you should be able to find some interest in London, yeah. Might have to lowball the daily rate to start with just to…

Thanks for the advice. I would be fine with the lumpy income as I have no dependents or financial commitments (mortgage etc.).

I not far off affording a small 1 bedroom flat with cash so fairly relaxed.

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

#236

Post by chrisper »

Blackstone4 wrote: post #157
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 is all true. You can earn more in the US for doing the same job with the same hours and good benefits. Life in the US is better. I am speaking from experience. I have worked in London, Philadelphia and Boston. The biggest difference for me is family and friends being in the UK which affects my happiness. For me it's best to be close to loved ones.

Life in the US isn't automatically better. It depends on so many things.

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

#237

Post by bjourne »

devilmoon wrote: post #174
bjourne wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 yo…

I guess it varies by country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...

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

#238

Post by chrisper »

devilmoon wrote: post #174
bjourne wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 yo…

Where are you from? In my country a company would pay 100% of the salary for 12 months and then 80% for another 12 months in case of sickness.

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

#239

Post by RestlessMind »

mtw wrote: post #69
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.…

Other western governments take care of healthcare costs, unemployment benefits, maternity/paternity leave, holidays, education costs and retirement. For example, in France or Germany, tuition fees for your kids are minimal while it's a fortune in the US. Or the governments in Europe mandate companies to pay 4 or 5 weeks of holidays. If an employee in the US wants to take 5 weeks, he/she has to pay 3 weeks out of thei…

If you are working in SV for one of the MAFANGs or tech unicorns, you will have: healthcare covered by employer, generous severance package, 99 weeks unemployment benefits from California govt, parental leaves, 401k benefits. You will not have great public education in most of SV, but the salary differential will more than make up for the cost of private schools.

If you are upper middle class or higher in the US (which a SV software engineer most certainly is), life here is better than most other places in the world.

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

#240

Post by antisthenes »

softawre wrote: post #204
actsasbuffoon wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how tax brackets work. You only pay the higher rate on the income over the bracket. For instance, (assuming you're filing single) you pay 10% tax on the first $9,525 of income. You pay 12% on the next $21,175, and so on. Here are the tax brackets for this year: $0.00+ 10% $9,525.00+ 12% $38,700.00+ 22% $82,500.00+ 24% $157,500.00+ 32% $200,000.00+ 35% $500,000.00+ 37% Only 1/3 of your income would be subje…

People not understanding progressive taxation on a thread about making 300k+ is a bit funny.

I wonder how many libertarian ideologies get forged simply because they don't understand progressive tax rates.
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