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My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

software.rajivprab.com

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Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#331

Post by foldr »

fundad wrote: post #320
foldr wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit of a myth that it's easy for people from European countries to emigrate to the US. Generally speaking there are no special visas available. You would either have to look into getting an H1B or one of the O1 visas. The O1 route is difficult, and the H1B route, while attainable, is a big PITA, and leaves you in a rather insecure position (especially if you have a spouse).

I think it’s a reference to US leaders with European heritage use Swedish immigrants as exemplary prospects versus people from non-white nations.

The US doesn't have explicitly racist immigration laws. Being white might give you some kind of an advantage (even though it obviously shouldn't), but you'll still have to go through the same process as anyone else.

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#332

Post by dan-robertson »

thesimon wrote: post #137
dsomers wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an absolute joke. The United States has terrible class mobility compared to the Netherlands or Germany for example. You don’t have anything to support what you said other than a skewed perspective created by American centric media. Edit: I guess the down voters here hate facts. The US scores lower on social mobility than the majority of European countries https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_In…

Using a different metric the Netherlands are slightly better than the US, but Germany is slightly worse. https://www.oecd.org/els/soc/1-5%20generations.png

I’m kinda surprised by these numbers. My impression of the us is that many immigrants will be unskilled and have low incomes, but that their children will be much better off in comparison. So a few reasons these numbers could be this way:

1. My intuition is wrong

2. There are lots of people in low income groups where there is little i regeneration along mobility for structural reasons, or maybe immigrants children who often see the biggest improvements are excluded for some reason.

3. The chart talks about reaching mean income. Particularly in the US, mean income is higher than median income so even if achieving the latter is easier, achieving the former could be harder. To some extent the metric may disadvantage countries where the highest-earning few percent of the population earn a lot more than the median person.

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#333

Post by whimsicalism »

marcellus23 wrote: post #323
hhmc wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but thinking privilege is equatable to guilt is missing the point.

I don’t think anyone said that. Lots of people _do_ think you should feel guilt for privilege. Pretending those people don’t exist isn’t helping the progressive movement. It’s important for progressives to acknowledge and counter the people who wave the progressive flag but espouse the opposite of progressive ideals.

I disagree. I see vastly more people claiming that privilege acknowledgement is tied in with guilt who oppose the notion of "privilege" than I see "lots of people" espousing the notion of privilege guilt who actually think we should talk about privilege.

I don't personally believe in reparations as commonly framed, but saying that reparations ought to be paid is also not the same thing as saying people should feel guilty for actions they didn't take.

> It’s important for progressives to acknowledge and counter the people who wave the progressive flag but espouse the opposite of progressive ideals.

I think this can be taken too far. Disavowal can be important at times, but I find there is often a trend among the Right to highlight random views held by an extremely small minority of people (ie. a single tweeting American among 315 million Americans) and demand a disavowal of that rhetoric. I think this is in bad faith.

This comment thread, in my view, is emblematic of this in that simply by using the word "privilege" we are now being asked to disavow something that some nebulous "lots of people" attach to that word, even though the word was clearly not being used in that context here.

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#334

Post by hhmc »

marcellus23 wrote: post #323
hhmc wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but thinking privilege is equatable to guilt is missing the point.

I don’t think anyone said that. Lots of people _do_ think you should feel guilt for privilege. Pretending those people don’t exist isn’t helping the progressive movement. It’s important for progressives to acknowledge and counter the people who wave the progressive flag but espouse the opposite of progressive ideals.

> Lots of people _do_ think you should feel guilt for privilege.

Except I don't see anyone in this comment thread actully expousing that belief. I _do_ however see a lot of people strawmanning it.

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#335

Post by AYBABTME »

giantg2 wrote: post #327
deanmoriarty wrote: post #193

I do not understand why articles like these consistently score poorly on HN? Of course it’s all based on luck, but that doesn’t make it an uninteresting read. I admire the diligence of the author, and how well they played the lucky cards they were given. I am frequently in awe when reading technical articles on HN, with people advancing the state of the art in some technology. Those people also are incredibly lucky,…

"I do not understand why articles like these consistently score poorly on HN?" Because the article pisses me off. This is not something helpful to us average peasants. No shit you can become a multimillionaire if you're pulling in over half a million per year. Maybe some of the advice I'd good, but it would be worth more coming from someone who actually is average so we can see it as evidence. Otherwise it's some ric…

The average joe who'd write this blogpost wouldn't be an average joe anymore. The reality is that most of us in tech can aspire to the author's outcome, with high probability of success. The odds are stacked in our favor. If we're willing to do the moves and do the "sacrifices", most of us can pull it off. But in the end you need the right attitude, and some advice about good strategies, like the author is giving out.

I think the cynical perspective is entirely exaggerated in the software industry. It's also an awful way to look at things, almost guaranteeing a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#336

Post by yunohn »

yholio wrote: post #16

TLDR he rode the tech bubble, lived frugally and poured his savings into what happened to be a very favorable stock decade, which together with his tech stock options from employers made him a multimillionaire. Not to disrespect the effort that went into this, but let's make this very clear: this type of trajectory is only possible for a very limited few, in a particular moment in history. Everything seems to indicat…

> the tech overlords are a powerful force driving inequality today.

I would truly disagree; tech is transforming lives across the class spectrum, globally.

In fact, what you should be concerned about is how other industries think it’s acceptable to significantly underpay their average employee. And the ironic part is that tech companies still pay managers and executives way more than the average SWE - at FAANG, often directors make more than their entire reporting chain.

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#337

Post by wiseowise »

darkwater wrote: post #122
CodeGlitch wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The modern "progressive" thought-process is to feel guilty about having a good education. I went to private school in the UK and the only thing I feel is infinite gratitude to my parents for forking-out the money to send me there (they were not rich, they were both teachers).

Quoted post unavailable.

Who cares? You can only be proud of your achievements if you were born the bottom of the bottoms?

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#338

Post by lotsofpulp »

mupuff1234 wrote: post #294
lotsofpulp wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bogleheads forums or whitecoatinvestor. Even just 401k, HSA, 529, and megabackdoor roth should help bring down effective tax rate (for the $500k income being discussed). You will not get as low as someone with their own business or S corp, but the tax advantaged savings account should help.

529 and megabackdoor are post tax so they won't affect the tax on the 500k (but are nonetheless useful tax planning tools)

True, I guess my mental model is to amortizing the total taxes over the total income/investment period.

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#339

Post by leetcrew »

rexreed wrote: post #274
deanmoriarty wrote: post #193

I do not understand why articles like these consistently score poorly on HN? Of course it’s all based on luck, but that doesn’t make it an uninteresting read. I admire the diligence of the author, and how well they played the lucky cards they were given. I am frequently in awe when reading technical articles on HN, with people advancing the state of the art in some technology. Those people also are incredibly lucky,…

The reason why I think these articles score poorly is because I think my reaction is like most reactions (not all, but most). I read the article, saw the salary table, did an eyeroll, and then skimmed the rest. The article can be summed up as "get a high paying job in a career that requires technical skills, save more than you spend, and invest what you save". Did I miss anything in that summarization?

I mean yeah, step one is almost always "make more money than most people on earth", which is obviously not an attainable goal for most people. if you're already on the right track, it's not terribly interesting to read. but being a disciplined saver and making reasonable investment choices is surprisingly uncommon even among people who do actually have the prerequisite income.

something about it just doesn't click in the minds of some people. I have a buddy that's been poor (like, rice and beans and still missing rent) his whole life. yet somehow whenever he receives some sort of windfall, he spends thousands of dollars faster than I do on a >$150k salary. he finally got a good job making ~$80k and his first thought was "I'm gonna get a nice 3BR apartment". he lives by himself with no children or pets! maybe if enough articles like this popped up in his feed, he would understand the issue with his approach.

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#340

Post by yunohn »

fundad wrote: post #324
Aeolun wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loved living in NL (am Dutch), and would love to move back there, but financially it just doesn’t make sense. Found it really hard to explain to my wife that: Salary will decrease, cost of living will go up, income taxes will go up, VAT will also go up, QOL will stay roughly the same. The only thing that I think is significantly better (and cheaper!) is the education. Edit: And the beer.

QOL staying the same is quite attractive. Out of curiosity, how many millions of dollars-equivalent does it cost to buy heath insurance in retirement? Isn’t that more attractive than what you need in the states?

> QOL staying the same is quite attractive.

I can’t speak for the OP, but usually QoL refers to essential things like housing, food, education, etc. Outside of that, the average Dutchie has very little disposable income.

This means that the extra money they make in the USA, is still quite useful since you can spend it on all the other stuff that gives you joy in life.

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