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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?

#261

Post by gremlinsinc »

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.…

On paper I make 90k at a startup.. I'm a partner and we're having cashflow issues so -- I haven't been paid in a month and a half... and I don't think we'll be rolling out the benefits we were planning to, and I think we'll be moving away from 'employees to contractors'..so we don't have to worry about benefits till cashflow is fixed, as for costs:

Healthcare for myself alone is going to be about $350 a month, rent for an average condo for a family of 3 is : 1440 here in utah. Healthcare for the rest of the family will be an extra $600...

That's $2500 in costs just for healthcare and rent. Food is expensive and probably costs us about $1k a month as well, Internet is $75 but it's google fiber :) ...

That said IF you work in software -- and you speak damn good english and really sell yourself, there's no reason you can't earn at least 30-40/hour as a dev, I worked on an all remote team and we had a couple employees from mexico/south america and they were paid the same as everyone else.

I'd highly recommend looking for employment outside your country on a remote team. Working from home is also pretty nice, I save a ton on commute time.

I also need to invest for my own retirement, my wife is a homemaker and takes care of the kids, and I need to make sure somehow we can afford to pay up to 200k per kid for college maybe more by the time 2036 comes along... We'd also like to buy a house someday, and I like tech toys...

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

#262

Post by gremlinsinc »

ryandrake wrote: post #112
adamnemecek wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s definitely not standard. Esp at say amazon.

You forget: Everyone on HN makes $300k, drives a Porsche and has a supermodel as a significant other. I’d regard the self-reported anecdotes as outliers. $300k (total including equity) is at least one, possibly two standard deviations above the mean for software professionals. I’ve been in the industry for 20 years and work at one of these ‘top’ places and don’t make anything even close to that. These threads are alw…

this makes me sad... On paper i make 90k, but haven't been paid in > a month because of cashflow (dev firm with one major client (MLM Company) who's not paying recently and not happy).

Before that most I've made is 65k.. as a jr/intermediate web dev.

The rest of my company quit, because of the pay issues, so I'm now the sole dev trying to pull us back up from the void, as a bonus now I'm a partner and President of Software Development... with 10% equity should we succeed.

I'm always 'planning' on groking ai/ml but I never did algebra 2 or calculus, so I've got some math I need to brush up on before I get there.

Before I get there i'll probably have my own tech agency/consulting firm and just go the entrepreneur route, rather than become a level 10 developer working on ai, but I can always dream right?

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

#263

Post by markoman »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #262
ryandrake wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forget: Everyone on HN makes $300k, drives a Porsche and has a supermodel as a significant other. I’d regard the self-reported anecdotes as outliers. $300k (total including equity) is at least one, possibly two standard deviations above the mean for software professionals. I’ve been in the industry for 20 years and work at one of these ‘top’ places and don’t make anything even close to that. These threads are alw…

this makes me sad... On paper i make 90k, but haven't been paid in > a month because of cashflow (dev firm with one major client (MLM Company) who's not paying recently and not happy). Before that most I've made is 65k.. as a jr/intermediate web dev. The rest of my company quit, because of the pay issues, so I'm now the sole dev trying to pull us back up from the void, as a bonus now I'm a partner and President of So…

Cost of living mustn't be too high where you're at or I wouldn't imagine you'd be able to make ends meet with the savings that $65K would afford. I hope the absent payroll doesn't last long for you. One has to wonder what your hours are if 'the rest' of your company quit. Good luck.

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

#264

Post by JepZ »

eXpl0it3r wrote: post #106
trendia wrote: post #19

FAANG is Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Alphabet’s Google.

Thanks! Not even a quick Google search could tell me the meaning.

You might wanna try DuckDuckGo ;-)

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=FAANG

Their search results aren't always better, but sometimes you might find some surprising features (e.g. direct StackOverflow results).

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

#265

Post by kss238 »

LandR wrote: post #231
devilmoon wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Glasgow is tiny compared to NYC, SF, LON, etc. In an equivalent sized city in the U.S. you could easily find a house for $200k.

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

#266

Post by aylons »

someguy12 wrote: post #247
aylons wrote: post #158

May not be the best place to ask, but I'll give a try: is this salary range in SV only for software (web and mobile)? Is there any chance an electronics, RF or DSP/FPGA engineer to reach these values? Asking for a friend...

I'm an FPGA dev making more than 300k in NYC working for a trading firm.

Thank you.

Any tips on how to get in these markets? Also, do these trading firms also design their own custom equipment?

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

#267

Post by mercutio2 »

paul7986 wrote: post #189
peschkaj wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wat? My highest overall tax percentage was 32% when I made 300k as a single person.

That 40% includes federal, state, social security and other taxes taken out.

You seem to be confusing marginal tax rate with effective tax rate.

People making 300k in California will pay between 33% and 39% effective tax rate (depending on marital status), including State, Federal, and FICA.

And that’s without simple tax sheltering techniques like pre-tax deduction for health care, contributing to a 401k, and deducting mortgage interest.

https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator

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

#268

Post by mercutio2 »

jeffrey_t_b wrote: post #211
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…

While I agree on your main point, I think that you are confusing marginal tax rate with average tax rate. E.g. the 2017 federal income tax for a single making $300k is in the "$46.6k + 33% in excess of $191k" bracket. This means an average tax of 27.5%. Same for state income tax. So you aren't quite down to $150k/year. That said, one _does_ face a marginal tax rate of over 50%. So any _additional_ income opportunity…

Certainly you should plan on getting Social Security. There is zero chance Social Security will go away, except in the fever dreams of Paul Ryan, who just retired.

The precise inflation adjusted return you’ll get on this social insurance scheme will be very low, and the retirement age may go up a bit, but unless we get effective immortality in your life time, the US can just pay for Social Security out of general funds.

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

#269

Post by throw20180411 »

> What do you do?

Quantitative strategy research and trading. I own all aspects of my strategies' research and development, and also fill in as architect for some components that are owned by other teams.

> What is your job title?

Analyst.

> What is your total comp?

$1.5mm ($200k base) cash. Last three years have ranged from $1.25-2.5mm.

> Who do you work for?

A hedge fund.

> Where do you live?

NYC tri-state area. I go to the office two days a week.

> How long did it take you to get here?

Similar roles with less upside after college (4-5 years). Current role since 2015

> How did you get here

Superior technical skills, having developed 10 or so "unique" ideas that have been profitable over several years and zealously guarding the IP. Being intimately familiar with another 100+ (from academic/practitioner literature, information leakage) that I can layer on and tweak. And in this industry, luck always helps.

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

#270

Post by fjsolwmv »

ryandrake wrote: post #139
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…

These threads are mostly comedy and hot air. Don’t let them fan anything. Everyone here says they’re making $300k. It’s a trope that won’t die. They are either statistical outliers or exaggerating. Median for the Bay Area (which tends to be the highest in the country if not the world) is around $115k plus equity. I’m not going to trot out the links again, but these numbers are Googlable unlike all the anecdotes.

I don't know why you feel you must lie to yourself to feel better. The numbers you find on Google are also anecdotes, and they match here. HN was literally founded to be a home for statistical outliers. Silicon Valley and its extensions are statistical outliers. Why do you think people complain about gentrification and $2M houses , and throw rocks at buses? Because there is a lot of money sloshing around.
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