Ask HN: Is it possible to make $200K/year base salary? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make $200K/year base salary?

#61

Post by sean_patel » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 3:33 AM UTC

iplaw wrote: post #47

truftruf wrote: post #35

Make $140k/yr, be happy, and make a side project that brings in passive income. Build it up over 5 years until it makes $200k/yr reliably..now you're doing better than anyone who has to have a real job.

You make this sound easy and guaranteed. Perhaps give a few examples of side projects that will generate $200k in ARR within 5 years?

> Perhaps give a few examples of side projects that will generate $200k in ARR within 5 years?

Here => https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses?revenue=Over%20%2425...

If you read their individual stories, you will find that 8 or 9 out of 10 started as a side-project.

Here => https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses?revenue=Over%20%2425...

If you read their individual stories, you will find that 8 or 9 out of 10 started as a side-project.

Also not all are 200K. But like OP says, if you have a $140K job and not having to work your ass off like the $200K jobs expect you to, then you can make the extra $60K in a well thought out and executed side-project.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make $200K/year base salary?

#62

Post by dlp211 » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 3:46 AM UTC

iplaw wrote: post #57

dlp211 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$200k/year is well above solidly middle class anywhere in the world including Vancouver, London, NYC, San Francisco, or any other place you could dream up. $200k/year being middle class is so incredibly out of touch of what it means to be solidly middle class. This does not mean that you are jet setting around the world either or that you can quit your job tomorrow, but you are well on your way to Financial Independe…

I think that you grossly overestimate what a $200k income actually gets you in terms of ability to aggregate wealth. If you're hoping to work until you're 65 and live off of a meager 401(k), then sure. Have at it. If you want an early and fat retirement, you'll need at least $300k salary. Large annual bonuses ($100k-$250k range) with a $200k salary would also be sufficient. $200k salary alone is solidly middle class.

This is absolutely nuts to me. At 200k you should be able to put away 80k+/yr if you are even semi-serious about FIRE. At that rate with a 7 percent return, adjusted for inflation, after 20 years you'd have 3.5MM in assets which would provide a safe withdraw rate of 140k/yr. This assumes that you make not a single dollar more adjusted for inflation than that 200k. 140k/yr is nearly 3x median income in America. This is solidly upper middle class and I would say quite affluent.

For posterity, if you did this for 30 years you'd have over $8MM and a SWR of over $320k/yr.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make $200K/year base salary?

#63

Post by mailshanx » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 3:49 AM UTC

memmove33 wrote: post #55

bsvalley wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what do you mean by 1.8M and 3M? if you get 150k RSU and $200/base salary per year, how do you end up with 1.8 million?

Poor formatting (editing from mobile). $150k is base salary. $1.8M is the additional RSU grant with 4 year vesting schedule heavily negotiated prior to joining (in these examples, with a bidding war between google, fb and another very big company). Also, I can personally testify how important negotiating the offer is. I routinely (every ~2y) interview to discover my market value and, from a position of power (e.g. "W…

Would be great if you could impart some offer negotiation advise! I was once interviewing with the fruit company. The HR guy was very aggressive, and insisted that I reveal all details of my current comp before we proceed further. This was after I was referred by an employee and already had an conversation with the team lead. After I revealed my comp, he acted very surprised about how high it was, and about how difficult it would be for them to exceed it.

How do you respond when they insist on knowing your comp details?

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make $200K/year base salary?

#64

Post by sean_patel » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 3:52 AM UTC

lastofus wrote: post #26

dustingetz wrote: post #14

freelancing 125/hr * 36 hr/wk * 44wk = 198k

Finding 36 * 44 hours of work a year at that rate is non-trivial, not to mention the difference between 1099 taxes vs w2 taxes you pay as a salaried employee.

Right. And the equal (if not more) amount of hours spent chasing leads, marketing (blogs, advertizing etc) accounting, to get the steady stream of work.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make $200K/year base salary?

#65

Post by bsvalley » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 4:04 AM UTC

memmove33 wrote: post #55

bsvalley wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what do you mean by 1.8M and 3M? if you get 150k RSU and $200/base salary per year, how do you end up with 1.8 million?

Poor formatting (editing from mobile). $150k is base salary. $1.8M is the additional RSU grant with 4 year vesting schedule heavily negotiated prior to joining (in these examples, with a bidding war between google, fb and another very big company). Also, I can personally testify how important negotiating the offer is. I routinely (every ~2y) interview to discover my market value and, from a position of power (e.g. "W…

I don't believe it. 1.8M - 3M in RSU grant at google/FB? I have never heard of such a thing for an engineer. It's director level MINIMUM.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make $200K/year base salary?

#66

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 4:15 AM UTC

sean_patel wrote: post #60

truftruf wrote: post #35

Make $140k/yr, be happy, and make a side project that brings in passive income. Build it up over 5 years until it makes $200k/yr reliably..now you're doing better than anyone who has to have a real job.

Why are people downvoting this? It may not be as easy as it sounds, at the same time, it's not as hard as everyone in comments below are making it out to be. Full of profitable side-projects => https://www.indiehackers.com/ You need 1) Discipline 2) A side-project that solves a "pain point" or atleast alleviates some of the pain in "pain point", so you can monetize from day 1 3) Ship, and refine.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make $200K/year base salary?

#67

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 4:32 AM UTC

bsvalley wrote: post #65

memmove33 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor formatting (editing from mobile). $150k is base salary. $1.8M is the additional RSU grant with 4 year vesting schedule heavily negotiated prior to joining (in these examples, with a bidding war between google, fb and another very big company). Also, I can personally testify how important negotiating the offer is. I routinely (every ~2y) interview to discover my market value and, from a position of power (e.g. "W…

I don't believe it. 1.8M - 3M in RSU grant at google/FB? I have never heard of such a thing for an engineer. It's director level MINIMUM.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make $200K/year base salary?

#68

Post by memmove33 » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 4:33 AM UTC

bsvalley wrote: post #65

memmove33 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor formatting (editing from mobile). $150k is base salary. $1.8M is the additional RSU grant with 4 year vesting schedule heavily negotiated prior to joining (in these examples, with a bidding war between google, fb and another very big company). Also, I can personally testify how important negotiating the offer is. I routinely (every ~2y) interview to discover my market value and, from a position of power (e.g. "W…

I don't believe it. 1.8M - 3M in RSU grant at google/FB? I have never heard of such a thing for an engineer. It's director level MINIMUM.

One last data point for you and then I'll stop, since you don't seem willing to believe me anyway.

Did you ever read Chaos Monkey? (https://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Monkeys-Obscene-Fortune-Failure...)

The author was a founder of a very little startup (3-men shop) and after 6 months tried to approach Facebook to be acquired, and Facebook told him: we don't want your technology, but since you have proven to be capable of building something exceptional, we want you to join (and you can throw away your product), and we'll offer you $2-3M (don't recall the exact number) in RSUs with a 4y vesting schedule, which he clearly accepted.

Now, those "acqui-hires" happen all the time among those big companies. Since the acquiring company is clearly not interested in the product but just in the talent, how is that different than getting in the door as a really solid individual contributor with terrific experience in getting stuff done (of course, your resume and interview skills need to reflect that, and also, probably even more importantly, your negotiation skills). You can choose to not believe me, but the answer is that there is no difference at all.

If you live in the valley, I can't believe you don't have an acquaintance who followed exactly the path of being individually "acqui-hired" as a talented individual contributor (but not being part of a real acquisition, mind you), which is exactly what happened to my two friends described above (no direct reports, purely technical gig). They are very very good in their fields and managed to sell themselves very well to the right teams inside those big companies.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make $200K/year base salary?

#69

Post by fuzzy-logic » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 4:34 AM UTC

mailshanx wrote: post #63

memmove33 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor formatting (editing from mobile). $150k is base salary. $1.8M is the additional RSU grant with 4 year vesting schedule heavily negotiated prior to joining (in these examples, with a bidding war between google, fb and another very big company). Also, I can personally testify how important negotiating the offer is. I routinely (every ~2y) interview to discover my market value and, from a position of power (e.g. "W…

Would be great if you could impart some offer negotiation advise! I was once interviewing with the fruit company. The HR guy was very aggressive, and insisted that I reveal all details of my current comp before we proceed further. This was after I was referred by an employee and already had an conversation with the team lead. After I revealed my comp, he acted very surprised about how high it was, and about how diffi…

Step 1: you never reveal your comp data. At all. I will, and have, walked away from interviews when they ask this stuff and don't let up.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make $200K/year base salary?

#70

Post by mwpmaybe » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 4:38 AM UTC

bsvalley wrote: post #42

madeofpalk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Individual Contributor? Would you mind explaining what this is? You've mentioned that twice in this thread and it's something I've never heard before.

an individual Contributor is an employee who doesn't have any direct reports.

A manager-level employee.