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

101–110 of 191 posts

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

#101

Post by pikachu_is_cool »

jerguismi wrote: post #37
bentcorner wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Contracting is essentially freelancing. Only minor differences, contractors maybe make bigger contracts and work maybe longer periods of time per one client. It is up to you if you want to call yourself contractor or freelancer :)

How exactly do you start contracting?

For instance I've made a couple of decently popular jailbreak iOS apps, which is nice passive income, and a good niche, but I don't really know where to find clients... through friends, on a website, or what?

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

#102

Post by UK-AL »

chubot wrote: post #75
ryandrake wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the simplistic "do what you love, love what you do" advice is that it is not reliable or repeatable. I can point to tons of people who love what they do and are still somewhere between solidly middle class and struggling to get by.

Of course it's not repeatable. There's no repeatable way to get rich quick. I think of it this way: Suppose you don't have exceptional abilities. If you do what is prestigious, what "seems" like it will get you rich, what other people tell you to do -- then you have roughly a 0% chance of getting rich. If you take a slightly unusual path, enjoy it, and get the flywheel/positive feedback loop going, you have maybe a 1…

Depends what you want. There are repeatable ways to get richer.

Probably not repeatable ways to get extremely rich.

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

#103

Post by levosmetalo »

nudpiedo wrote: post #95
sosuke wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree with you. I work in one of those which you mentioned in Germany, and I've less than 3 years experience. By accident I saw the payroll of a top-dev (top engineer actually), and it is "just the double" of mine. That makes makes for a good living with many luxuries Germany standard's but those guys are the ones who have to dance in front of the local CEO every week and can't enjoy weekends and work in the aftern…

Was in the same place as your top-dev. Was exhausted after a day of coding, without getting real appreciation, neither monetary, nor in terms on mindshare. I was always looked upon as an "IT guy" or "technical staff" that gets in the way of implementing great business and marketing ideas created in the heads of great minds, that were so great that it wasn't even possible to write them down accurately.

Then I switched to management path, I found out that although I do only a very limited amount of coding at work right now, I'm enjoying it much more. As an added benefit, I am not mentally tired anymore when I come back home, since at work I only do blah-blah social, blah-blah report, blah-blah management. This leaves me with enough time and energy in the evening to work on really interesting projects for an excellent hourly rate, or on my own hobby stuff. The drawback? I don't watch TV anymore.

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

#104

Post by m-i-l »

1. No, startups aren't the only way to "significant wealth". In fact, in my experience, startups are something of a lottery, i.e. you only a very small chance of making a lot of money. For every success story you read there will be many more failures. But having said that, it can still be worth founding or working for a startup because you can often learn a much broader set of skills than you can at a big company.

2. Yes, I have heard about a small number of exceptionally highly paid developers too. However, I suspect this is incredibly rare, perhaps with a similar or even lower probability than making your fortune at a startup. Unless you have some extraordinarily talent and are aware of this and in a position to able to exploit this (but I doubt you would be asking the question if this was the case).

3. I would have thought your best chance of making enough money to reach financial independence is the usual unexciting advice: (i) work hard to get an above average salary, (ii) live frugally and save as much as you can, (iii) invest what you save carefully, (iv) continue this process for many years. If there was a sure-fire quick and easy way of getting rich, I'm sure more people would be doing it, or you wouldn't be reading about it here.

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

#105

Post by madaxe_again »

As someone who has spent their 20's accruing "significant wealth" through a startup (I am by no means loaded, but have not worried about money at all in ~3 years), I'll tell you now - it's overrated.

Money can buy you happiness, but it's an inefficient exchange mechanism - unless you roll two sixes, the amount of work and bullshit that goes hand in hand with growing your "worth" usually exceeds the reward - and that reward for most is tantalisingly close but always "a year or two" away.

Monetary wealth is a means - it is "gas in the tank" - but it isn't the end. The end is your own happiness and wellbeing, and there are much easier ways to secure this than through wealth.

If I'd known what I know now, I would have moved to a hut up a mountain a decade ago rather than going into business. Now I am responsible for the livelihood of dozens directly, thousands indirectly, and while I may have made myself a very comfortable gilded cage, it is a cage, and the cost of my wealth has been my freedom.

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

#106

Post by crimsonalucard »

beagle3 wrote: post #97
crimsonalucard wrote: post #74

There's something we all can do if we work together to get each of us paid north of 200k a year. Form a software developer union.

The only unions that I am aware of that have achievements close to this are lawyer's guilds (through state bars) and doctor's guilds (the AMA, by limiting medical school admissions). Lawyers, as of the last 15 years or so, are not doing so well - the median figure I found for 2013 is $114K. Doctors are doing better, at median $190K. That's a far cry from "each of us" - even with these two professions, 50-80% of the p…

You're not talking about unions. Those are cartels that restrict supply. Lawyers and Doctors are business owners operating as an oligopoly. I'm not talking about business owners. I'm talking about employees. I'm talking about people joining together to put themselves on equal negotiation grounds with their employers.

Just because no union has successfully produced wages of 200k plus doesn't mean it can't happen. Software Engineering is a highly skilled occupation that generates a great deal of wealth. If all software developers demanded 200k then companies would pay that price because our work generates well north of that. The reason we don't get a fair share of the pie, like all other laborers, is a lack of organized negotiation. In short, 200k+ union salary has never happened, but is well within the means of the industry to support such an endeavor. It CAN happen and it will make wages MORE fair.

Don't argue against unions. It's the stupidest thing to do, because even if you can't negotiate your salary up to 200k you got nothing to lose by making/joining one or even raising your salary by 10k. That is unless, you're an executive/major shareholder... then we'd be opponents from a negotiation standpoint.

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

#107

Post by JoeAltmaier »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #106
beagle3 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only unions that I am aware of that have achievements close to this are lawyer's guilds (through state bars) and doctor's guilds (the AMA, by limiting medical school admissions). Lawyers, as of the last 15 years or so, are not doing so well - the median figure I found for 2013 is $114K. Doctors are doing better, at median $190K. That's a far cry from "each of us" - even with these two professions, 50-80% of the p…

You're not talking about unions. Those are cartels that restrict supply. Lawyers and Doctors are business owners operating as an oligopoly. I'm not talking about business owners. I'm talking about employees. I'm talking about people joining together to put themselves on equal negotiation grounds with their employers. Just because no union has successfully produced wages of 200k plus doesn't mean it can't happen. Soft…

I'm not sure I want anyone else negotiating my salary, or deciding what work I'm allowed to do, or creating some hoops of qualification or exams for me to jump through so I can get a "Programmer III" classification and get another 10K. No thanks. Too blue-collar for me.

Its not all about the money after all. We're not talking about poor sweatshop guys trying to feed a family or go on public assistance. We're talking about folks paid quite a bit for sitting on their butts and typing.

Sure we have value. Learn to negotiate, become a contractor or consultant if you like, switch jobs as needed to get what you think you're worth. But don't imagine you'll sign me up for a club where you decide what I'm worth, and make me pay for the privilege.

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

#109

Post by zamalek »

1. Startups have happiness potential for developer not only because of the monetary wealth but also because of the wealth of the challenges faced. Developers live for tricky puzzles to solve and startups are one place that you can get them. Startups aren't the only place where you can find challenges (as you've noted).

The monetary wealth typically comes from stock options. Stock options are a promise that you can buy stocks at a certain price at some point in the future (when they become available, e.g. during an investment or IPO). Options are how you become an overnight millionaire. Startups aren't the only place where you can earn options.

You'll typically find that companies that aren't publicly traded have stock options (ask about them in your interview). It's not something that's exclusive to startups - I have options in a 10 year old company and have cashed in some of those options.

2. Yes.

3. Accrue wealth like anyone would. Developers earn relatively high salaries (whether they work for a startup or not) and hence have an easier time getting into the situation where money works for them.

However, even one of those developers who earns $1 000 000 can have no wealth if they waste it all. Someone who earns $75 000 can amass a fortune. It all comes down to how well you manage your money. If you do something to get rich quick chances are you are going to end up penniless. It takes time, discipline and a brain.

There is no quick road to material wealth.

Money does not make you happy, it merely multiplies what is already there. It's a catalyst. If you're already happy, money makes you happier. If you're already sad, money will make you miserable.

Post reply on HN