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Ask HN: How to make more than $1mn+/yr as a software engineer?

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Re: Ask HN: How to make more than $1mn+/yr as a software engineer?

#51

Post by sz4kerto »

zump wrote: post #27
Tharkun wrote: post #23

Start by learning SI units. Then social skills. Then realism. There is no realistic way for a "25%" software engineer to net 1M. Many don't even net a tenth of that.

Let's say if I was top 1%, what companies would pay me 1M?

Top 1%? Not many. There might be few tens of millions of software devs in the world; let's say 30M (in reality this number is probably higher). 1% would be 300k people -- of course they don't earn above 1M. So maybe you should be in the top 0.01% or so, and be a top dev/lead at a large company (Google, MS, IBM, etc.).

Re: Ask HN: How to make more than $1mn+/yr as a software engineer?

#52

Post by vostok »

nvarsj wrote: post #42

Don't be an engineer? If you're purely in it for the money, I would suggest the way to get 1mn/year is to join a hedge fund or prop trading firm as a trader. Steps: 1. Graduate from an ivy league school with a good GPA so it's easy to get in the door 2. Pass rigorous math based interviews - lots of guides on studying for these 3. Make money on your desk, which requires the ability to learn financial concepts, and qui…

Note that this is not guaranteed or even expected at a prop shop or hedge fund either. I know of a very large hedge fund where pay is not as good as you think. I will just say that I have never seen a trader who makes $1 million per year claim that this is a good way of doing it.

You're probably better off as a SWE at Google than as a trader at this hedge fund.

Re: Ask HN: How to make more than $1mn+/yr as a software engineer?

#53

Post by vostok »

This kind of pay is very highly correlated to excellent social skills. There is also luck involved and you need to be at the right place at the right time.

I agree with Patrick that you are far more likely to achieve this through entrepreneurship than through working in technology (or finance for that matter).

Re: Ask HN: How to make more than $1mn+/yr as a software engineer?

#54

Post by risingintonatio »

I've become more and more convinced that $1M+ per year is not realistic as an engineer.

There are compensation spreadsheets floating around and I've been privy to Facebook's and Google's. Assuming the numbers there are accurate (and anecdotally they are), even the "top 5%" engineers getting discretionary equity and bonus don't make more than $600k.

Meanwhile, executives easily make twice that in yearly cash bonuses.

I've grown a disdain towards said execs for being paid incommensurate with their actual value generated. Perhaps that's just my naïveté, and indeed they are that valuable. But I don't think so.

In short, to command astronomical salaries you need a pyramid of people working beneath you, so that you can garner part of their productivity for yourself.

Charisma will help you get there.

Re: Ask HN: How to make more than $1mn+/yr as a software engineer?

#55

Post by zump »

bshimmin wrote: post #31
zump wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's real talk partly fueled by the anonymity HN offers. Some people, like me, may find themselves wanting to maximize their pay. Period. I don't believe people making this money are one-in-a-kind super geniuses, our system doesn't optimize for that. They are people who made a series of decisions, I want to know what they could be.

Why? Do you think it will make you happy? I used to think money would at least make life easier, but past a certain point (and that point is vastly less than $1m/year), it really doesn't - you just end up spending it on stupid and pointlessly expensive things that mean you have to make more of it in order to be where you were before. And when you look at the really rich people, like Zuckerberg, Buffett, or Gates, wha…

This perspective is common amongst people who are making "enough".

But most people in the world don't. Enough with the moralizing.

Re: Ask HN: How to make more than $1mn+/yr as a software engineer?

#56

Post by nvarsj »

vostok wrote: post #52
nvarsj wrote: post #42

Don't be an engineer? If you're purely in it for the money, I would suggest the way to get 1mn/year is to join a hedge fund or prop trading firm as a trader. Steps: 1. Graduate from an ivy league school with a good GPA so it's easy to get in the door 2. Pass rigorous math based interviews - lots of guides on studying for these 3. Make money on your desk, which requires the ability to learn financial concepts, and qui…

Note that this is not guaranteed or even expected at a prop shop or hedge fund either. I know of a very large hedge fund where pay is not as good as you think. I will just say that I have never seen a trader who makes $1 million per year claim that this is a good way of doing it. You're probably better off as a SWE at Google than as a trader at this hedge fund.

Yeah it's not guaranteed at all. You have to be at a profitable desk to make it happen. I don't want to give any numbers since it's too variable, but I would guess it would still be a minority of the traders who pull 1 million+ even at the most successful firms. But I think if you are aiming for that number it's the most straightforward way - it has the least amount of variability and just relies on your own personal skill generally.

Re: Ask HN: How to make more than $1mn+/yr as a software engineer?

#57

Post by karyon »

zump wrote: post #46
karyon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, "real talk" doesn't contradict "full of arrogance". In my opinion, maximizing pay just for the sake of accumulating/spending a lot of money is quite unsympathetic, and indeed to some extend arrogant. Unless of course you plan to make a positive impact on others or our planet with that money, but to me your posts don't make that impression.

> Unless of course you plan to make a positive impact on others or our planet with that money, but to me your posts don't make that impression. I consider this a non-sequitur. Making a lot of money is considered the primary goal in our capitalist society and the sheer mechanics of our economy would guarantee it to be a net positive in all but 99% of cases (i.e burning the pile of money).

> Making a lot of money is considered the primary goal in our capitalist society

It might be the goal of people lacking empathy and people who think happiness comes with money, which is true only up to an amount far below 1M. Unless, again, the money is meant to be given to others. I am not sure what you mean by considering my argument a non-sequitur, could you elaborate?

> the sheer mechanics of our economy would guarantee it to be a net positive

By "Making a positive impact on others" I didn't mean making a positive impact on the economy. I meant helping actual problems like hunger, diseases and pollution.

Re: Ask HN: How to make more than $1mn+/yr as a software engineer?

#58

Post by vostok »

quasiuna wrote: post #16

The only industry paying developers this much is the game industry. It's not uncommon for AAA game developers (e.g. Developers for call of duty, GTA etc.) to have a profit share in their employment contract. When a new game goes live and sells hundreds of millions of copies in a single weekend, the rewards for some developers can be huge. In a nutshell, learn C++.

I've heard this as well. Didn't Chris Sawyer make $30 million from the RollerCoaster Tycoon?

Re: Ask HN: How to make more than $1mn+/yr as a software engineer?

#59

Post by risingintonatio »

lutusp wrote: post #39

> How can I make pull in $1mn+ as an engineer? > I don't want to have to be in the top 1% like Jeff Dean, but top 25% and still get these results. That's a contradiction in terms. If you made a million dollars, that outcome would place you in the top 1% among software engineers. If the Efficient Market Hypothesis is valid and in operation in the software marketplace, then to make a million dollars, you will have to e…

  If the Efficient Market Hypothesis is valid
... More like Efficient Market Fallacy. Information asymmetry, propagation delay, and feed back loops in the dynamical system that is the economy almost surely forbids for such a grand Hypothesis.

  But people without social skills end up working for people who do have social skills. The latter collect the money, the former do the work.
Amen.

Re: Ask HN: How to make more than $1mn+/yr as a software engineer?

#60

Post by zump »

risingintonatio wrote: post #54

I've become more and more convinced that $1M+ per year is not realistic as an engineer. There are compensation spreadsheets floating around and I've been privy to Facebook's and Google's. Assuming the numbers there are accurate (and anecdotally they are), even the "top 5%" engineers getting discretionary equity and bonus don't make more than $600k. Meanwhile, executives easily make twice that in yearly cash bonuses.…

Great answer. I have noticed that because of the extreme focus on technology, our community is tuned to finding ways of becoming a better engineer, but not how to climb the corporate ladder the old-fashioned way.
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