Spend less. Save more. Change companies every 3 years. You'll do fine.
Alternatively make friends with rich people and make them richer. You get a cut.
Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?
151–160 of 191 posts
Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
If what you say is true about your own situation, you must realize that you are an extreme outlier, and no general advice you give is going to allow someone to repeat your immense luck. "Be valuable and you will be paid" sounds like vague happy-talk, not concrete, repeatable steps that one can put into practice and replicate your success. Most people who are "exceptional at what they do" are putzing around at a corpo…
He's not that much of an outlier as you may think, he's exceptional though to be making that kind of money and openly talking about it.
I've heard this said. However, I'm pretty sure most of the companies I've worked for have nobody in this category, at least among developers.
I work for small tech companies (generally under 50 devs) though. I can believe it's more common in big tech companies, where I just don't know.
Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm intrigued to hear what examples you draw your inference from. These days I reside in a country which has unions everywhere - including in engineering disciplines. And everyone who wants to increase their salary runs away from union and unionized workplaces as far away and as quickly away as possible. It CAN happen? Why hasn't it, except for guilds (which you rightfully group with business owners)? I can tell you…
>These days I reside in a country which has unions everywhere - including in engineering disciplines. And everyone who wants to increase their salary runs away from union and unionized workplaces as far away and as quickly away as possible. Makes perfect sense. Unions negotiate lower salaries for everyone. sarcasm >It CAN happen? Why hasn't it, except for guilds (which you rightfully group with business owners)? I ca…
I see. You're arguing that some theoretical, immaculate, incorruptible organization that represents employees selflessly (with no regards to the negotiator's own status, for example) would be better than what we have now. Well, yes. But there's no such thing, and the likelihood of one forming is probably comparable to the same person being struck by lightning 20 times over 20 countries over 20 years.
> Makes perfect sense. Unions negotiate lower salaries for everyone. sarcasm
No, but they do negotiate higher salaries for people who can't find a better job, at the expense of lower salaries for the top earners.
> There's no need to negotiate upper limits on pay. There also should be no need to end individual negotiations. If unions aren't currently structured in a way that benefits the employee then the structure of what we consider to be a union should be changed.
Oh, but there is a need - the corporate's need, of course - which the corporate demands and enforces, and the union representatives usually agree one way or the other - often legally bribed. You imply that all the bargaining power is with the employees, and that is simply not the case.
> IF unions aren't structured that way then they should be. The government shouldn't decide on some arbitrary hierarchy for a union that ends up not benefiting people. People acting together in organized groups generally don't want to fuck themselves over with stupid things like upper limits to salary and ending all individual negotiations with the employer.
Try to reconcile this statement with all the things your government does that fuck you over, which surely yourself (and a large group, some of it well organized) does not want. When you've reconciled it, you might have some insight about why you are wrong, or about how to set the right kind of union/government -- if it's the latter, I'll vote for you. But the former is overwhelmingly more likely.
Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?
#154Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?
#155I think the best approach is to stop believing the hype that you went into a vocation that'll net you obscene wealth and instead thank your lucky stars at having entered a field that you (hopefully) enjoy and which also happens to pay a damn good salary. From that point: hard work and perseverance will let you save a pretty respectable retirement fund. And the work isn't even that hard. I'm sorry to be the grumpy old…
What's wrong with an high schooler wanted to play pro basketball ?
You mean besides it being the canonical example of an unrealistic plan for becoming rich? Nothing.
Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because I have a responsibility to my employees and our customers.
I mean over a longer period, transfer this responsibility to someone else.
And then do what? Isn't this the problem of non-decreasing expectations? Once you learn how to fly, you see yourself as a sucker every time you try to ordinarily walk.
Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?
#157As 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…
"Wealth is a means - it is "gas in the tank" - excellent thought!
Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
I'm located in France where the market is a bit special because permanent jobs are overprotected and companies are begging to contact instead of hiring.
Basically as soon as you go over the edge of creating your company, you can start searching. The same "meat traders" who want to recruit you for a permanent job on a service company, they will be willing to hire you as a contractor. Rates go in Lyon from 270€ per day to 550€ for the same mission as a perm job, and upnorth of 600€ in Paris, for very basic Java skills, like the guy who doesn't know Maven.
The same recruiters. They just try not to tell you about contacting when they think they can hire you as a perm for half the price. It's ok to take a commitment on a few months for the first mission, so you get some credentials. Then you can follow patio11's advice ;)
Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?
#159It 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…
Well done sir. I think you are a little dismissive of the value of tech in start-ups though. Start-ups will typically need both better tech and better distribution to displace an incumbent. In my experience, the technology side of this is especially critical. Consumer start-ups, for example, often don't have sales teams at all. That said, budgetary constraints and optimism towards equity grants keep salaries well bel…
I agree that in many startups their technological prowess plays a very large part in their success. However, most startups (as far as I am aware) do not actually "replace an incumbent". Usually it's more a case of "hey, I got this great new idea that no one has seriously approached before". They develop that idea, create a new niche-market and then get bought up by an incumbent of the main market.
Re: Beside a startup, what are the other ways to significant wealth for a dev?
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Repeatable way to get richer => "normal job" :)