Total package includes base, stock, bonus. Lower end of that range is attainable for most. Upper-end is also attainable, either joining prior to the IPO and holding on to the stock afterwards, or by delivering outsize impact.
Ask HN: Who's making $300k to $1m as a cloud engineer?
31–40 of 98 posts
Re: Ask HN: Who's making $300k to $1m as a cloud engineer?
#32This is a fucking joke guys. Programming is not the career job that will get you those kind of figures, if it does it sure as fuck will be more of a management position. Look guys, salaried work will never make you 'rich.' Believing it will is the same belief that a startup will succeed. You need to get out of the salary game and work for yourself or do consultantcy if you want big bucks
People might not like your comment and have different opinions, but as person who did exactly what you said and now making around 420k/yr for cyber security consulting, I have to say, you are 100% right.
Hours/week for you on average and billing please?
Re: Ask HN: Who's making $300k to $1m as a cloud engineer?
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
People might not like your comment and have different opinions, but as person who did exactly what you said and now making around 420k/yr for cyber security consulting, I have to say, you are 100% right.
are you working for yourself or another company is compensating that?
I have long term contract with two companies, for one of them I do application security review, I analyze source codes and point out vulnerabilities. For the second one, I do penetration testing, forensics, malware analysis, and... One is paying 230k the other one is paying 190k.
I have other contacts and other offers too, but these two jobs are taking all my time. I can switch and work with a new client anytime.
Re: Ask HN: Who's making $300k to $1m as a cloud engineer?
#34This is a fucking joke guys. Programming is not the career job that will get you those kind of figures, if it does it sure as fuck will be more of a management position. Look guys, salaried work will never make you 'rich.' Believing it will is the same belief that a startup will succeed. You need to get out of the salary game and work for yourself or do consultantcy if you want big bucks
I think we should clarify on the definition of 'rich' before making that statement. For example, making $200k/year programming (easy for an unusually good engineer with 5 of experience in Seattle) should be able to save >50% of their income. I know more than one person doing exactly that. Do it for 10 years and you're generating 70k in interest every year along with your salary, which is enough for a person to retire on. That is rich, IMHO.
Re: Ask HN: Who's making $300k to $1m as a cloud engineer?
#35can someone find a job posting with this type of pay scale? I am curious what skills I should develop. at this point I do not believe this unless you are the lead architect. for exaple this job posting I cannot see payin more than $165,000 in dc/ny/bay areas... but maybe my previous exposure to the big four has been limited... was anyone able to find a job posting that pays this much?
That payscale isn't for "posted" jobs. That payscale is for "poached" jobs (no negativity implied by "poached", I just don't have a better phrase). When companies need someone who is going to cost them $500k a year, they already know who that person is.
Re: Ask HN: Who's making $300k to $1m as a cloud engineer?
#36See Dan Luu's post about working for big corps:
http://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/
He describes a boundary around $250k at "senior", and to get above it you'd need to become some kind of principal/lead.
Re: Ask HN: Who's making $300k to $1m as a cloud engineer?
#37What the heck is a "cloud computing engineer"? Is that some made-up BS like "customer service engineer"?
Re: Ask HN: Who's making $300k to $1m as a cloud engineer?
#38The article seems to be using "cloud engineering" to mean what I would call "data engineering" or "distributed systems engineering". If so then the numbers they're throwing around seem high but attainable. I would call myself a "data engineer" (I build ad servers, recommendation engines, etc for clients) and have been getting offers in the low 300s for full time work with about five years of experience.
What is your background prior to working in this field?
Re: Ask HN: Who's making $300k to $1m as a cloud engineer?
#39I have a friend who is a cloud architect at a big-4, he is making a little more than $300k in total comp in NY (base is lower, a lot of RSUs etc), but he is more than just an engineer. He has a friend at another big-4 in NY, also a cloud architect, he is making $400k I think that the $1 million package is incorrectly calculated. This is perhaps the total package for 2-3 years, including signing bonus (vested over a c…
Quick question, who are the "Big-4"? I count Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft at a minimum.
Usually when I hear it people are talking about Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon [1], but in the last couple years it seems like Microsoft is getting back in gear.
[1] http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/tech-sanity-check/schmidt-c...
Re: Ask HN: Who's making $300k to $1m as a cloud engineer?
#40This is a fucking joke guys. Programming is not the career job that will get you those kind of figures, if it does it sure as fuck will be more of a management position. Look guys, salaried work will never make you 'rich.' Believing it will is the same belief that a startup will succeed. You need to get out of the salary game and work for yourself or do consultantcy if you want big bucks
> Programming is not the career job that will get you those kind of figures
This is not universally true, but you're correct that merely accepting an advertised programming job expecting to move up to those levels naturally would be naive. One problem to overcome is the proliferation of irrelevant job titles... IIRC John Carmack kept the title of 'programmer' for quite a while.