Ask HN: Those making over $300k/year, how did you achieve it? • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by FilterSweep » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 3:13 PM UTC

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.…

There is a bit of a bias on HN toward FAANG salaries and experiences. Outside of coastal cities, the salaries appear like Monopoly money.

This thread is depressing me as well, and I'm doing "okay" compared to my other friends in other professional fields.

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

#92

Post by throwaway713 » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 3:13 PM UTC

devy wrote: post #12

adamnemecek wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It depends on position. Total compensations for AI positions in top tier technology firms are well beyond $1M mark, some go as high as $3M annually.

What is the job title for one of these positions? Background required? What is the daily work like?

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

#93

Post by torbjorn » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 3:13 PM UTC

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?

Because there is more to life than "happiness"

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

#94

Post by exogeny » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 3:14 PM UTC

CPO for 400+ person, post Series-D private company.

Salary and bonus, about $350k. Maybe $400k or slightly higher if I'm counting options.

Report to the CEO.

I live in Brooklyn, office is in Manhattan.

Got here by my current company acquiring mine; I've been here a little under three years and have resisted starting another company because I like my current one so much and frankly, I've got a lot of impact. I have a CS background from a top-end school which made my first few career moves relatively easy. One difference is that I was always more interested in the product side of things so I started after school as a product/front-end engineering/design generalist (ie: get shit done guy) for Google and then a series of startups, which allowed me to collect a lot of things to point to so far as my contributions. Google was too slow and bureaucratic, the other startups were interesting but not mine.

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

#95

Post by kbutler » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 3:14 PM UTC

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.…

If you decline the job with your current company in your region, what is your best alternative? What is the employer's best alternative? That determines the limits to what you will accept and that they will offer. (Economists call this BATNA - best alternative to a negotiated agreement)

Cost of living sets a basic expectation, but janitors in silicon valley don't earn the high wages software engineers do there.

The expected value a company can derive from the contributions of an average employee also differ - Google has the market and infrastructure to profiy more per engineer hour than a typical small business.

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

#96

Post by toomuchtodo » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 3:14 PM UTC

Lordarminius wrote: post #83

toomuchtodo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a geographic disparity in how tech workers are valued. Might consider working remote for a US company that'll bring your wage up above what your local tech economy will provide for. As a sibling comment points out, health insurance and child care consume quite a bit of a wage in the US (our employer portion is $20k/year alone for a family of four; childcare is easily $1k/per child/per month for 2 days a week…

> [You]Might consider working remote for a US company that'll bring your wage up... How do you even get to do that ? Most of the time companies that advertise 'remote' mean 'we need a remote worker who resides in the US'

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 places to start (no affiliation).

https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job

https://weworkremotely.com/

https://whereverjobs.com

Also, an ongoing salary survey document for your use in ensuring you're not getting undervalued: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a1Df6dg2Pby1UoNlZU2l...

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

#97

Post by thrwunderpaid » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 3:14 PM UTC

ng12 wrote: post #82

thrwunderpaid wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost of living in the US gets ridiculous. Healthcare is expensive and gets more expensive the more you make. As much as I make I'm probably one bad accident away from being wiped out financially When you add a family, child care is super expensive; think $350/week for two kids Not to say we aren't hyper-consuming gluttons, but I think that's only about one third of the picture

> Healthcare is expensive and gets more expensive the more you make Huh? Are you self employed? I don't understand this.

The company I work for has what seems to be progressive deductibles. The less you make the lower your deductible will be. For some people here the only choice is a high deductible plan

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

#98

Post by dx034 » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 3:14 PM UTC

enothereska wrote: post #14

https://www.financialsamurai.com/living-a-middle-class-lifes...

> * A 26 year old middle school teacher making $55,000 a year plus her $250,000 a year VP of Marketing wife

Strange article. It's a creative way to connect a teacher's salary with a $300,000 income but in the end, this kind of salary remains the exception and is only normal in small pockets of the US.

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

#99

Post by fjsolwmv » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 3:14 PM UTC

aantix wrote: post #6

0xB31B1B wrote: post #2

300 tc is pretty standard for FAANG and the big unicorns. I pull down 330k w 5 years experience at a Uber. 180 cash, 150k equity. I’m incredibly average, 5 years exp.

Shouldn’t there be a distinction made between public and private company equity? 150k of Facebook stock seems much more desirable vs 150k of Uber stock because at least with Facebook stock you could liquidate it on the public market? Or am I missing something? Paysa puts Uber at #1 for compensation, but their stock isn't liquidatable like a public company. Doesn't make sense. https://www.paysa.com/company-rank

Ask anyone you know who works at those companies. They will confirm that paysa's data is absurdly wrong. Their "median" is the minimum at my company.

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

#100

Post by prostoalex » Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 3:15 PM UTC

dx034 wrote: post #66

0xB31B1B wrote: post #2

300 tc is pretty standard for FAANG and the big unicorns. I pull down 330k w 5 years experience at a Uber. 180 cash, 150k equity. I’m incredibly average, 5 years exp.

Is that equity you can sell? Or does it have several years lock-up? In that case I can imagine that the value is hard to estimate, e.g. SNAP employees will have had a significantly lower comp than thought.

Companies generally under-value private equity precisely for the purpose of compensation, as potential hires are attracted to upside.

SNAP employees who started around IPO time or a few months thereafter are likely having a bad time, longer time employees have received equity at much lower prices than today's $15.