331–340 of 351 posts
Now the problem is how to get into this kind of companies. Is LC hard mandatory for junior-senior (below lead) IC job?
Hard part is getting an interview. It helps a lot to know someone already inside, and this is pretty much standard for all companies regardless of prestige. If you're really well-known, they'll come to you. Otherwise, get an insider referral.
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For a entry-level developer in a large French company you would aim a 50k€. But this is just the bare salary - you will have to take off about 20-30% for various taxes. But then you get free healthcare and education, and retirement. Some companies will have a bonus ("intéressement / participation") which can be an extra 10 to 20% once a year. You would typically have a straight salary, no equity or something like tha…
> For a entry-level developer in a large French company you would aim a 50k€. > When you look at the most senior positions, this is about 130k€. You're being generous here. A new grad in France in engineering or development gets more often in the 40k€. The most senior positions in most companies plateau around 90k€. In some companies in Paris it's higher, but that's the exception.
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This is a good point. I look at 900k$ and think wow from the perspective of my very well paid job in France. Getting 900k$ a year would bring great things to me and probably make me retire earlier. This will not be life-changing though. And then I think about people who earn 5% of what I do and for them multiplying their income by two would probably be truly life changing for them. And then these 900k$ do not look th…
I'd call "may retire, or work on whatever you want for the rest of your life, after a few years of saving" life-changing.
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You spend on a lot of things beyond housing, and most things outside of housing are about the same price between regions, so even if your housing costs is half as cheap, you are still falling behind on half as much salary. This is especially true for retirement savings, since you don’t have retire in a HCOL where you earned that money, and that expensive house can be sold, perhaps with some kind of profit to offset t…
Gas, property insurance, car insurance for your home (especially since insurance companies are starting to refuse to sell in the state) and even food is more expensive. To put some real numbers on it. My 30 year fixed 3.5% mortgage all in from 2016 - 2021 was $2185 and that included the FHA PMI since I only put 3.5% down. I refinanced in 2021 to a 15 year mortgage and bought points and got rid of the PMI. My house is…
> And if you haven’t noticed, people are moving away from the west coast and office occupancy is down - that doesn’t bode well for home prices long term.
I wish, but it’s just a dream. The traffic is bad, rents are up, the housing market is insane. You are betting that the “it’s too crowded so no one comes here anymore” will regress so much that housing prices will drop, but that’s not how equilibriums work.
Everyone in our industry should be maxing out their 401k’s, no matter where they are living. However, those who survive in a HCOL will have a lot more assets and money at the end of it than a LCOL, simply because their house is worth more and they made more money (same percentage of savings even with higher expenses).
There are good reasons to live in an LCOL, especially if you like the place and you have friends and family there. But making more money overall than a HCOL isn’t one of them unless the jobs you can get in the HCOL don’t really pay much more than the LCOL (then get out of dodge as fast as you can).
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I made that much for 4 years and have a total of 10 years work experience. I’m nowhere near retired. And I’ve been single the entire time. $500k is more like $275k after taxes. Assuming $60k/yr in living expenses, which is pretty frugal in the Bay Area, that’s barely over $1M in savings in 5 years. Let’s say $1.3M after return on investments over 5 years. Nowhere close to retirement money anywhere in the US.
3% is a pretty reasonable amount to take each year out of a lump sum you're trying to use to live the rest of your life off, which for $1.3M would be $39k/yr. $39k/yr may not give you a life of luxury anywhere in the US, but there's certainly people surviving on less - and surely if you were OK on $60k/yr cost of living in the Bay Area it wouldn't be hard to find parts of the US where $39k/yr stretches further than $…
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A) Donating illiquid assets to your own non-profit helps a lot. I typically have acquired or bought or created something in prior years that can offset this year's income. That one is up to a 20% tax deduction on this year's income without spending any of this year's money. and it rolls forward 5 years if its value is greater than those percentages of your income. so it adds up if you keep incorporating that into you…
> Donating illiquid assets to your own non-profit helps a lot. What sort of non-profit is this? Can you just register a 501(c)(3) with the sole purpose of giving yourself charity and then use it to pay for food and housing for yourself? Trying to honestly learn here as I have a massive W-2 tax bill. > requires you to pay it back across an interval over 5 years. So in future years you're doing that This sounds like yo…
Yes, everything here is just deferring. What you’re really doing is staggering the tax events across different years.
Like, it’s not important that something increases a tax footprint in year 5 if you have already planned on reducing tax footprints another way that year. More Net Operating Losses, more thing to carry forwards, more and bigger real estate depreciation, offsetting the increase in income.
Or eventually just paying taxes. Its not controversial to do.
Another aspect is the time value of money. With strategies like this you can go to your employer and file an exemption from employer withholding. So you get your full salary now instead of hoping for a tax refund next year , and that lets you employ these strategies at all and invest and live your life. Take a chance on having more capital gains, so you start getting taxed at the lower Long term capitals rate and phase out your W-2 work when this exceeds your income.
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I believe you are just not aware. C-Level folks make many millions a year, either liquid or paper. I am at FAANG and virtually everyone at L6 (staff Eng level, many thousands of people) is paid at least $500k, with monthly liquidity (no cliff). With a bit of luck stock wise, it’s also not uncommon at all to get to $500k+ at L5 (senior eng level, many dozens of thousands of people). Everyone in my SF network (hundreds…
Reading anecdotes like this blows my mind. The most I've ever made is $129k. Granted, I don't live in the valley and I don't work at a FAANG, but still...
Even at large "boring" corporate developer jobs that don't pay a fraction of the FAANG salaries, it seems the decent engineers either escaped this trap (promoted to $150k+) or have settled into the $130-140k quicksand with little to no annual raise.
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My L5 Googler friend makes between 350K-450K (Seattle area) depending on the stock price. Work on your negotiation skills!
Are you sure they aren’t pulling your leg? I’m an L5 in Seattle and I don’t see that much (still well paid, just not that well paid).
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Gas, property insurance, car insurance for your home (especially since insurance companies are starting to refuse to sell in the state) and even food is more expensive. To put some real numbers on it. My 30 year fixed 3.5% mortgage all in from 2016 - 2021 was $2185 and that included the FHA PMI since I only put 3.5% down. I refinanced in 2021 to a 15 year mortgage and bought points and got rid of the PMI. My house is…
Are we comparing with Atlanta? Food is more expensive maybe, but not 2X! Insurance is usually not more expensive, especially in mild weather west coast cities. Electricity can be cheaper (Seattle where I’m at). I’m not in California, but still an HCOL. But if I were in LA, food would be cheaper than even Atlanta. Gas is expensive, not that I notice much (I have an EV, and our electricity is cheap). > And if you haven…
https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/california-popu...
And house prices are declining in Seattle.
https://www.king5.com/article/money/economy/seattle-housing-...
Why live in a high cost city when more jobs are remote?
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Are we comparing with Atlanta? Food is more expensive maybe, but not 2X! Insurance is usually not more expensive, especially in mild weather west coast cities. Electricity can be cheaper (Seattle where I’m at). I’m not in California, but still an HCOL. But if I were in LA, food would be cheaper than even Atlanta. Gas is expensive, not that I notice much (I have an EV, and our electricity is cheap). > And if you haven…
Population is decreasing in all four of California’s largest cities. https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/california-popu... And house prices are declining in Seattle. https://www.king5.com/article/money/economy/seattle-housing-... Why live in a high cost city when more jobs are remote?
Again, this is a "It's too crowded so no one comes here anymore" problem, not a "California sucks, let's leave" problem. If you can't make it economically in SF or LA, move to somewhere like Atlanta where making it economically is easier. Housing prices fall a bit, from $2 million for a starter house to $1.9 million, but they just as quickly go back up as well. If you look at a population chart for California, you'll see this huge increase in the last 80 years that is finally tapering off. Did everyone honestly believe that California would or could grow forever? Equilibrium means that SF will shrink and grow around some stable population point.
> And house prices are declining in Seattle.
Read the article. They went up 20% last year and are now down 2-5% this year. And again, you are doing a lot of wishful thinking, since inventory is super low right now and people are struggling to buy houses even if they have the money. I actually wish your story was true, but it simply isn't.
> Why live in a high cost city when more jobs are remote?
I work remote in Seattle and love it (but my wife has to RTO, so we still need to be here). But I guess if someone isn't great at math, an LCOL city is probably a better choice anyways, since they don't have to think so hard about the math and can justify their choices with simple click-bait-style narratives.