This makes my blood boil as a European.Our lives are basically capped at lower middle class for FTE positions.
My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer
161–170 of 583 posts
Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer
#162Turns out, earning half a million dollars every year makes it easy to be a millionaire after a few years.
Best comment! Nailed it down! :D
Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
You then end up paying London rent… You won’t be able to afford to rent a luxury London flat on 100K or even 150K but a 2 bed in any decent area is £2-2.5K council tax and utilities would be another £200 p/m easily. You are probably better off making £80K in Manchester as a senior dev than £100-110K in London. Newcastle has also a decent tech ecosystem tho it is very much focused around Sage.
It's the other way round. The London wage differential is much higher than the rent differential outside London.
Not any more I’m on £150K base and total cash comp of around £200K with bonus, car allowance and some other perks.
Whilst it’s true that I probably won’t find a pay like this outside of London it’s also quite hard to get it within London if I lose my job it’s more likely that I’ll have to take a pay cut than not.
In fact once you get to 6 figures in the UK outside of contracting it’s not uncommon to essentially bounce up and down by as much as 30% between jobs.
Looking at the more median salaries especially post COVID the pay gap has shrunk considerably.
Finance/Fintech is still very much London centric and those places pay the most in uk tech outside some senior FAANG roles but not everyone is lucky enough to land those.
It’s even not about being good or asking for more it’s really about just landing a job with an employer that is able and willing to pay that much and being able to justify that to them and it’s not as easy as it seems to be in SV.
In fact just before the pandemic I was looking to make a move and I went to a few recruiters and their honest advice was pretty much stay where I was (less than what I get now but 20% (5/15 split) pension and very very good benefits).
I did managed to move in early 2020 to my current role but that was through my network.
Overall considering it the loss of pension I probably came out even it was more of wanting to do something new in a different setting than the pay.
Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer
#164> but as someone without children this is a huge factor that influences almost every other decision he listed there: - living with roommates or renting a cheap apartment - not wanting to buy an apartment - having the time to do side hustles - even changing career paths is challenging when you have a family to take care of - saving the majority of his annual compensation I don’t want to say his advices are bad, just k…
Also, advice depends on the generation the author is part of. Millennials have more difficulty getting to financial independence than, say, baby boomers or Gen-Xers had.
Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer
#165> Disclaimer: I acknowledge that I’ve been very privileged, especially in the educational opportunities I’ve had. This might sound reasonable from a US-centric perspective, but to me it reads like utter nonsense. The main privilege here is access to the US labor market and tax policy. There are no stories like this one where I live (in Sweden). Absolutely none.
With the effective marginal tax rate at 67% for regular income in Sweden, excluding VAT and other point taxes, the only real possible method is to start a company.
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Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
What an absolute joke. The United States has terrible class mobility compared to the Netherlands or Germany for example. You don’t have anything to support what you said other than a skewed perspective created by American centric media. Edit: I guess the down voters here hate facts. The US scores lower on social mobility than the majority of European countries https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_In…
I don’t think that measurement of social mobility makes much sense in this context. Sure, moving from lower working class to upper middle class is probably easier in Sweden than in many other countries. But the thing is: it doesn’t make much of a difference. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Nordic welfare state kind of games the social mobility score in this way, by having such a compressed income distribution. I…
The thing is, there's only 1 situation where being a part of a certain socioeconomic group sucks. Being poor.
So any country that optimizes for improving that, kind of by definition, improves the average happiness of its citizens.
Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer
#167I see a lot of people complaining that the author of this article is unrealistic or delusional. I disagree. I think he recognizes that the advice does not apply to everyone.
But it does apply to many people reading HN, and it's important - especially for young people - to realize that this kind of life path is possible. I expect and hope that in the future, a lot of cultural and intellectual progress will be made by people who spent a few years in FAANG and then retired with a comfortable nest egg, to pursue less-well-compensated goals.
Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer
#168> Disclaimer: I acknowledge that I’ve been very privileged, especially in the educational opportunities I’ve had. This might sound reasonable from a US-centric perspective, but to me it reads like utter nonsense. The main privilege here is access to the US labor market and tax policy. There are no stories like this one where I live (in Sweden). Absolutely none.
The modern "progressive" thought-process is to feel guilty about having a good education. I went to private school in the UK and the only thing I feel is infinite gratitude to my parents for forking-out the money to send me there (they were not rich, they were both teachers).
Where are people asked to feel guilty specifically about the fact they received a good education?
Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer
#169> Disclaimer: I acknowledge that I’ve been very privileged, especially in the educational opportunities I’ve had. This might sound reasonable from a US-centric perspective, but to me it reads like utter nonsense. The main privilege here is access to the US labor market and tax policy. There are no stories like this one where I live (in Sweden). Absolutely none.
The modern "progressive" thought-process is to feel guilty about having a good education. I went to private school in the UK and the only thing I feel is infinite gratitude to my parents for forking-out the money to send me there (they were not rich, they were both teachers).
There is a lot of encouragement of guilt in the USA today. In general, shouldn’t we embrace a value system that encourages good behavior? Eg honor those who do relatively well in life, given the circumstances they are born into?
The immediate leap to discredit the success of others through assertion of privilege seems like it would discourage doing well.
A better solution imho would be to celebrate success but to also encourage the successful to share their insights with others so as to spread the fortune - much as the author of this post has done.
Re: My Path to Financial Independence as a Software Engineer
#170As a fellow FIRE person, my key response is ATTA-boy. Huzzah! Congratulations!
What many critics will not fully get is how hard it is to not spend the wealth. I know too many people making mid six figures and they spend everything. The paradox is that this adds enough stress to their lives that they can't focus on the next level of income.
Find the gratitude for the opportunity, but please take pride in the discipline of keeping it.