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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?

#281

Post by crispyporkbites »

throw20180411 wrote: post #269

> 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…

Where does the 1mn USD come from, and how do you keep ownership of it? e.g. why doesn't your company hold say, 700k back? as 300k is still a massive 150% bonus.

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

#282

Post by throw20180411 »

crispyporkbites wrote: post #281
throw20180411 wrote: post #269

> 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…

Where does the 1mn USD come from, and how do you keep ownership of it? e.g. why doesn't your company hold say, 700k back? as 300k is still a massive 150% bonus.

It comes from a profit-sharing agreement. Mine is roughly formulaic but not contractual (keep X% of profits). Contractual agreements can have X ranging from 10 to 50.

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

#283

Post by brownbat »

dx034 wrote: post #127
paul7986 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t forget the govt takes over 40 percent when your making upper class to higher level salaries especially if your single. That 300k is really only 180k annually. So the govt takes the salary of a lower level upper class person for taxes. When u make the jump from 50k to a higher tax bracket, taxes will shock u!

In Europe you often only get ~50-55% net and that's often from <$100k salary even at hot tech companies. But in many jurisdictions you then won't have any healthcare or education cost plus lower living cost overall. Pension is also taken care of in many countries. That probably still leaves you worse off than in the US but leads to a bit more even distribution of salaries across the population.

> you then won't have any healthcare or education costs

70 to 80% of healthcare plans are covered by US employers though. So maybe we should compare total comp plus benefits? Health plans aren't total costs, though, because cost sharing and care is expensive... But that means adding cost of living adjustments. But if you are using a chunk of your salary to plan for retirement in a lower COL area, maybe those aren't even fair.

An apples to apples comparison is incredibly difficult.

https://www.peoplekeep.com/blog/what-percent-of-health-insur...

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

#285

Post by friedman23 »

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…

>$3700 a month is ludicrous. I'd want to live in a castle for that.

I'm the person you are responding to and I agree, but this is what I get if I don't want to commute.

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

#286

Post by balls187 »

devilmoon wrote: post #276
balls187 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You work at one of the highest paying firms in your locale and you are slightly above making ends meet? Do you at least love what you do (for a living?)

Not really - consulting isn't my line of work it seems. I am lucky in a way because I got into an handpicked team that actually writes code and explores new tech, so I'm not wasting my time entirely here, but still, I am considering going back to uni to specialise and hopefully move out of the country for an higher salary as a more specialised worker rather than jack of all trades SE

I sincerely wish you luck in that.

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

#287

Post by someguy12 »

aylons wrote: post #266
someguy12 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yeah. The trick is getting your foot in the door. Equal amounts of expertise and luck are helpful. Most jobs you'll find online or through a recruiter aren't going to be the $300k+ jobs. I found a job opening at an investment bank on monster.com (of all places) after having worked for tech companies for 15 years. I started at $150k. However once I was in finance, I was able to make connections and acquire skills that made me more valuable. After almost 5 years I was able to land a job that pays (much) more than $300k.

In my experience these firms do not do true hardware design. We purchase FPGA boards from 3rd party vendors and then do the FPGA development in house.

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

#288

Post by toomuchtodo »

Lordarminius wrote: post #227
toomuchtodo wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To your question: "How do you even get to do that?" You ask. My current enterprise job was not offered as remote. It was advertised as an in-office job. When the job was offered to me, I asked if I could work remote. Due to how hard hiring is for my role, I was told it'd be no problem (and I had other offers; lesson for another thread, "always negotiate from a position of power"). The below resources come to mind as…

great resources. I'll check them out.

Please let me know if you have a positive outcome. Happy to have helped.

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

#290

Post by gremlinsinc »

markoman wrote: post #263
gremlinsinc wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Lately it's about 12 hours a day... till I get us to launch day on the clients app. Then we should get all back-pay they're withholding...I can burn both company/client to the ground, if I'm not paid eventually, and I'll pull the nuclear option if I have to.

Hopefully after launch we can afford at least 2-3 more devs, as pres. of software, I'm planning on making us be more 'lean' and spend less money. We got rid of the office/went remote for one thing. We'll focus more on full-stack devs instead of having frontend/backend people who would sometimes sit around and wait for the other team to finish something that was blocking them... working the back/frontend of the stack can alleviate those bottlenecks some.

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