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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

#381

Post by [deleted] »

marcellus23 wrote: post #352
whimsicalism wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gu…

Frankly, it’s not a strawman. Look on twitter and you’ll find plenty of evidence of that kind of thinking. > 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. Agreed. Where I disagree is that the left doesn’t do this…

[deleted]

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#382

Post by xvilka »

bjornsing wrote: post #209
charlesdm wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't just work your way to wealth. You need to reinvest what you make into other assets and let them compound... That said, I know self employed developers making 150-200k (EUR) gross per year as contractors. But I also know employees that get allocated a few 100k/year in stock options as part of their compensation. Yes, you do need to be exceptional. And you need to be smart in the choices you make. I thought t…

> That said, I know self employed developers making 150-200k (EUR) gross per year as contractors. There’s nothing unusual about that. I was making that kind of money 15 years ago. But one problem is, that’s about what I can make today as well. There is no upward mobility in pay. And it has nothing to do with ability. It’s a cultural thing. (Also, the deal is typically that you sell your social career progression. So…

Move to Russia with its low tax of 13% (could go as low as 7.5% if you establish a company and enjoy some additional benefits) and work remotely. Or any other country with low taxes and low cost of living.

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#383

Post by ac29 »

stagger87 wrote: post #290
martincmartin wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest expense is college, at least in the U.S. If you retire before they apply, you may want to be conservative and set aside the cost of the most expensive college. MIT is $77k/year [1]. For two kids, that's $616k. And it increases faster than inflation, estimate 6%/yr. If you have enough money in the bank that you're financially independent, they won't qualify for need based aid, you'll have to pay the sticke…

Using numbers from only top private schools makes your point fall a bit flat.

Seriously. I went to public school, and the 2022 estimated cost of attendance, including tuition, room, food, books, transportation and personal expenses is around $30k/year. Certainly not cheap, but over $20k of that is just the living expenses. Tuition is relatively affordable.

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#384

Post by crakhamster01 »

ac29 wrote: post #369
dan-robertson wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implication of the article, that such compensation is reasonably possible to a moderately competent software developer working for big companies in the United States, seems pretty reasonable to me. Another thing one could note is the bump in compensation in recent years, which could be a combination of stock going up, more experience making the author a more valuable employee, or market rates for software enginee…

> such compensation is reasonably possible to a moderately competent software developer working for big companies in the United States The author made $625k in compensation this year. Even for large US tech companies, that's far above the "moderately competent" level. According to levels.fyi, this is approximately what a Principal SWE makes at Amazon, the third highest compensation level listed.

My guess would be a higher end SDE3/L6 - I believe Amazon backloads their vesting schedule so the jump seems reasonable?

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#385

Post by VWWHFSfQ »

incognition wrote: post #380
mwattsun wrote: post #376

Let me add 1) get a prenup before marriage because there's a 50/50 chance you'll lose half in divorce (at least in California.) This is not very romantic so it's not something I ever considered, but it's recommended to wealthy persons by lawyers. 2) don't become an alcoholic or drug addict. If you think you might be developing a problem, own up to it, seek help and go to rehab if necessary. This includes gambling add…

Real tip is don’t have kids. Corollary to your number 1

I think it basically just boils down to live for yourself, and don't share anything with anyone.

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#388

Post by ac29 »

sneak wrote: post #102
tdrdt wrote: post #41

The author was lucky to earn a huge amount of money. 99% of the people can't do anything with this advice because they don't have any savings to begin with. I wonder if the author even understands how lucky he is.

> The author was lucky to earn a huge amount of money. He's not earning "huge" amounts of money for jobs in that field. (Additionally, it's a field that most intelligent people can enter with 1-3 years of study.) https://twitter.com/danluu/status/1447997574556880902

The author is solidly in the top 1% of income for the US. The implication that 99% of working Americans are stupid or lazy is frankly insulting.

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#389

Post by Rebelgecko »

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?

What do Medicare supplements cost, like $100-$500/month? If health insurance is your primary reason to leave the US, it might make sense to spend years working in a job that offers health insurance after you retire, or moving to a lower COL area within the US (medical costs in rural Texas are drastically cheaper than San Francisco, for example)

Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer

#390

Post by cpursley »

keewee7 wrote: post #42

What can we European devs do to boost tech salaries in Europe? I love my five weeks of paid holiday, 14 weeks of paid paternity leave, and free healthcare. but I would still prefer early retirement instead of working till 65.

What's stopping you from working for an American company now? I've meet many Europeans doing so and making multiple of the local salaries.
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