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Ask HN: Do you make more than $200K? What did you have to do?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you make more than $200K? What did you have to do?

#91

Post by emcq »

throw20170226 wrote: post #53

Around 400, depending on the yearly bonus. Programmer at one of the big tech companies, 10 years. As best I can tell I got here mostly by doing my best to solve whichever problems were most important for my team. I feel pretty lucky. I never worried much about compensation and have never negotiated or asked for raises nor have I been forced into management. I think there are others who have done exactly what I have d…

I don't think it's luck that this happened to you. All companies with HR departments that care about attrition should compensate their employees fairly. If you weren't, I suspect you would have left.

Contrast this to a small engineering firm my friend worked for with high turnover. Skills and contributions had little influence in compensation and instead the strongest influence was how much an engineer initially asked for.

Re: Ask HN: Do you make more than $200K? What did you have to do?

#93

Post by gorbachev »

oblio wrote: post #33

I have the opposite question for people here: what drives you to more money? A very expensive house costs a few million dollars, which you should afford quite easily, especially if you have a partner making a decent amount of money. Children and their education cost quite a bit in the US, but even that shouldn't cost a lot. A few expensive holidays per year plus retirement money should be easily doable. So, basically…

You'll start understanding it when your family grows.

I used to have only one mouth to feed, my own, and I was making 25% of what I make now. I was living quite comfortably.

There are five of us these days. I make 4x what I used to, and it's still not enough. The various costs you can't avoid (healthcare, housing, food) have gone up faster than my income. Every year, the kids spend more money than the year before. Even without the actual goods getting more expensive (and they do), the kids eat more as they grow, their clothes get more expensive, their extra-curriculum activities get more expensive. I can't wait until they start begging me for a car or other really expensive stuff.

The typical COLA raises, if you're even lucky enough to get those these days, do not cover those type of cost increases. Not even close.

Re: Ask HN: Do you make more than $200K? What did you have to do?

#94

Post by i_r7al »

throwaway198511 wrote: post #14

Currently making ~$300k/year in total comp. 31 years old. 5 years of experience as a hardware engineer, and 2 years as a software engineer (back-end). Master's degree from Stanford. Practice hackerrank, cracking-the-coding-interview, read a programming/architecture book every few months, till you can ace programming interviews and understand your field really well. Living in NYC, where the financial companies have dr…

Do you mind if we contact? I just graduated from school with hardware engineering degree and experience on software engineering. I would love to have a conversation with someone who is ahead on my field and can tell me more on how to improve. You can reach me on twitter same username if you will. Thank you.

Re: Ask HN: Do you make more than $200K? What did you have to do?

#95

Post by rpcorb »

anontalk wrote: post #18

I make $190k base: $190k base + $10k signing bonus + RSUs = ~$300k total comp > what your role/salary/experience is. Senior full-stack engineer. Located in SF. > How did you get your high salary? Interviewed at many companies and received multiple offers. Kept every door open, made sure the company/team knew I was excited to join, and moved the negotiations and base salary forward. It helped a lot to have an existing…

Wow, that shrinking time spent at each company is the interesting part. It almost seems like a dawning realization that it pays big to keep moving. I wonder if it reflects a larger trend, and if so, what does this flux mean for the future of the job market?

Re: Ask HN: Do you make more than $200K? What did you have to do?

#96

Post by GordonS »

hackerboos wrote: post #13

I'm at $95k Canadian. These threads make me feel bad.

$70k, Aberdeen, Scotland, with 15y experience. Primarily a .NET dev and team lead, but I'm a good generalist. Haven't had a meaningful raise in around 4 years due to market conditions.

This is pretty much the ceiling for dev in Aberdeen, and the way things are just now in the oil industry I count myself lucky to have a job!

Re: Ask HN: Do you make more than $200K? What did you have to do?

#97

Post by VSPrw3C1yK »

aaronyy wrote: post #72
VSPrw3C1yK wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am an individual contributor and just about to begin managing. However I unofficially lead a team of 20. How common is this? I'm in a similar position, albeit a smaller group. I've gotten pushback on a management title, but I think I've largely negotiated the unofficial duties into my salary, so I don't mind much. I make $250K (base and total) at a non-profit.

> I make $250K (base and total) at a non-profit. This is pretty intriguing. May I ask how common this is? I have imagined non-profit careers to be in the <$150k range and not comparable (compensation-wise) to tech companies/startups.

In general I think there is a discount to working at a non-profit. I'd expect a salary bump if I went back to industry. That said, I think it is not uncommon. Non-profits span a wide range of organizations. There are well-funded non-profits like the Gates Foundation, Simons Foundation or the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, medical research institutes and research hospitals, health insurers, and leading museums. Non-profits report salaries of officers, highly paid and key employees. Have a look at ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer [0]. Look for IRS Form 990. It's pretty interesting. As tsunamifury says, if you can demonstrate strategic value to the organization you will be in a strong negotiating position.

[0] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/

Re: Ask HN: Do you make more than $200K? What did you have to do?

#98

Post by tylerlarson »

There is a difference between the mindset of an employee working for a paycheck and an employee considering the success of themselves being tied to the success of the company.

How much money did the company make because of your contributions? What can you do to make the company worth more?

Are you forming relationships with people outside of the company that will enable the company to hire more qualified people or become better by any metric?

Are you applying your skills in a way that shows others in the company how to do their jobs better?

And so on.

You are not being paid because of your computer programming ability, you are being paid because you can provide worth to the company with this knowledge. If you are unable to find a way to apply these skills the company will keep you on, giving you a chance to find yourself and keep things going but the people that make more money than you are likely the ones that enable the company to make more money.

Re: Ask HN: Do you make more than $200K? What did you have to do?

#99

Post by rainhacker »

throwaway198511 wrote: post #14

Currently making ~$300k/year in total comp. 31 years old. 5 years of experience as a hardware engineer, and 2 years as a software engineer (back-end). Master's degree from Stanford. Practice hackerrank, cracking-the-coding-interview, read a programming/architecture book every few months, till you can ace programming interviews and understand your field really well. Living in NYC, where the financial companies have dr…

> NYC, where the financial companies have driven comp levels really high for software-engineers

I disagree, majority of financial firms see tech employees aka 'IT' workers as a cost center. After '08 there is a major focus on cost cutting as overall industry is not doing well. With the exception of a few high risk and small (few 100 people) hedge funds you barely would see someone with 5-7 years of experience touching 200k salary.

Re: Ask HN: Do you make more than $200K? What did you have to do?

#100

Post by rainhacker »

yeshodham99 wrote: post #83
ta_googler wrote: post #74

Been a Googler for >8 years, currently among top 10% of engineers at Google. Base: >200K, Total comp (w/ bonus + RSU): >500K Total comp number counts RSUs which are going to vest in 2017, at the current GOOG price of 825+. If GOOG tanks, total comp would go down accordingly. Didn't have to do anything special, neither I am a rockstar/ninja like Jeff Dean or Amit Singhal - just worked hard, made sure to be on a team w…

Mate, Care to elaborate? I got offer from goog but something seemed off about the manager. He is of Indian origin. I have offer with total comp of 1/3 of what you make. But, I want to make sure that I am on right team and right manager. What are things to watch out for good/bad managers?

>the manager. He is of Indian origin

I am surprised why this comment is not flagged yet.

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