Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 191 posts

Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?

#21

Post by tajen »

jcoffland wrote: post #14

Contracting! Many people, most of them non-contractors or people who have limited contracting experience will tell you contracting is risky. If you are good it's actually much more secure than getting a "real" job, once you get going. You can't really get fired and as long as you are able to juggle a few clients at a time you will always have plenty of work. If you can consistently deliver results faster than the ave…

I second contracting. You are responsible for your own skills, but you can start very young, and you usually get better skills than permanently employed people. Then only drawback is the lack of social ties with your employer, but nowadays employers don't really care for employees, and having more money than a permanent employee will give you more latitude.

Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?

#22

Post by ChuckMcM »

patio11 wrote: post #2

I'll answer the questions you asked, then give you a better question: AppAmaGooBookSoft are probably not what you're thinking of when you say "startups" and 5-10 years in any of them will make you quite wealthy indeed, by the standards of e.g. the American middle class. Do some devs make north of $1 million a year? Yes, for a value of "some." (If you put a gun to my head, I'd say "Maybe 5% of the engineering workforc…

As pointed out, get straight in your head the difference between "wealth" and "rich". "Wealthy" means you can do all the things you like to do all the time, "rich" means you have a big number in an account with one or more financial institutions.

Most folks I know in the bay area don't want to "retire" what they want is to work on what ever their passion leads them too without worrying that if it isn't paying them anything that they will have to stop or starve.

If you can save half your salary every year then you will get to a point where you have enough money in an account that it can pay you an equivalent to half your salary without working.

If you work at a large tech firm and participate in their employee stock purchase program and/or get stock options, then you are doubly leveraged as that can add a nice kicker to your salary.

Solving people's problems will keep you employed, and finding a solution space that you like to work in will keep you happy. Always remember that the end game is you just die, and that can come any time.

If you find happiness in owning a new car each year, I suggest you consider working for an automobile manufacturer.

Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?

#23

Post by bentcorner »

tajen wrote: post #21
jcoffland wrote: post #14

Contracting! Many people, most of them non-contractors or people who have limited contracting experience will tell you contracting is risky. If you are good it's actually much more secure than getting a "real" job, once you get going. You can't really get fired and as long as you are able to juggle a few clients at a time you will always have plenty of work. If you can consistently deliver results faster than the ave…

I second contracting. You are responsible for your own skills, but you can start very young, and you usually get better skills than permanently employed people. Then only drawback is the lack of social ties with your employer, but nowadays employers don't really care for employees, and having more money than a permanent employee will give you more latitude.

I'm completely unfamiliar with this - does this mean working with a staffing agency, or working on your own (freelancing?)?

Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?

#24

Post by starmole »

It really depends on skill and motivation. If your motivation is only money you are unlikely to succeed.

Personally I am a big corp dev and making >600k/year on track to retire at 40.

But you do not get there by trying for the salary. Try to be good, no exceptional, at what you do. Become valuable and you will be paid. But your motivation should be your craft and not money.

I believe the same applies for startup founders too. As a dev in startup land you are at a disadvantage though - the fail or rise of the company is much more about sales and biz than tech.

I think as a dev big corps are the way better bet. Not much to loose, but possibly high payout. Startups very rarely pay out for devs.

Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?

#25

Post by wsc981 »

Like others have suggested in this thread: contracting.

Ideally find clients who are willing to work with remote contractors. Emigrate to a "poorer" country and save money. For example, people in Thailand earn on average around 500 EUR a month (from what I've read). If you can manage to work for western clients who perhaps pay you 10.000 EUR a month (40 hour work weeks), you will be able to retire extremely quickly.

Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?

#27

Post by sosuke »

starmole wrote: post #24

It really depends on skill and motivation. If your motivation is only money you are unlikely to succeed. Personally I am a big corp dev and making >600k/year on track to retire at 40. But you do not get there by trying for the salary. Try to be good, no exceptional, at what you do. Become valuable and you will be paid. But your motivation should be your craft and not money. I believe the same applies for startup foun…

Why does money motivation reduce your chances? I don't think being exceptional is enough, there are several open source projects created and maintained by exceptional devs, but they don't make >600k/year. Being exceptional working at anything but the right company won't make you money.

Why do you thing "dev big corps" are better? What does that mean to you? I think of Microsoft, Google, IBM, Apple, but even after you get in there moving up to exceptional in a room of exceptional people is even a more meteoric task.

Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?

#28

Post by jerguismi »

starmole wrote: post #24

It really depends on skill and motivation. If your motivation is only money you are unlikely to succeed. Personally I am a big corp dev and making >600k/year on track to retire at 40. But you do not get there by trying for the salary. Try to be good, no exceptional, at what you do. Become valuable and you will be paid. But your motivation should be your craft and not money. I believe the same applies for startup foun…

> I think as a dev big corps are the way better bet. Not much to loose, but possibly high payout. Startups very rarely pay out for devs.

I disagree. These days the founders are devs more and more often. However, usually you have to get out of your comfort zone and do also other than dev work in a startup. Meaning also learning the business stuff. It isn't rocket science, but for many devs it can be quite uncomfortable.

Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?

#30

Post by w1ntermute »

JonRB wrote: post #10
saiprashanth93 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is AppAmaGooBookSoft?

I believe it means Apple/Amazon/Google/Facebook/Microsoft I was also unsure and searching for it basically only gave HN things.

It's a patio11-ism.
Post reply on HN