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Organization probably doesn't want to improve things

ludic.mataroa.blog

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Re: Organization probably doesn't want to improve things

#401

Post by johnnyanmac »

Loughla wrote: post #380
lolinder wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't earn the same as you all can because I don't live in the US, but if I did I would grind all the leetcode (as insulting as I find them) for one single reason: I don't want to work forever. I work from home for a mid-sized company for I could probably retire even earlier if I were willing to enter the rat race, but I'd rather be there for my kids' childhoods than resurface from the grind just in time to send…

For context outside of tech. I have a super flexible job with amazing benefits. I haven't missed a single thing my kids have done, unless I chose to. And I'll work until I'm 75. I say this not out of being bitter, but for the context that many (probably most) people who do what they love to do don't get the massive paychecks even mid-tier tech jobs get. Context is everything.

To be honest it vastly depends on what you expect to need in retirement. Based on my current salary and estimated retirement payment (which some online calculator calculated at ~2/3rds my income) I'm still slightly below what I should be saving for that. But by then I will both need more money to take care of family (hopefully) and less money since I should have long paid off my house and car by then.

My salary is much higher than household average but far from unheard of in tech. There are definitely some scrappy college grads getting offers higher than it. and I have 3+ decades to increase it.

Re: Organization probably doesn't want to improve things

#402

Post by johnnyanmac »

neogodless wrote: post #259
anvil-on-my-toe wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$60-100k salary is not enough to support a family and retire; it's probably not enough for a single person to make meaningful progress towards retirement because at that level of pay home ownership is constantly out of reach and inflation outpaces wage growth. It's sacrificing your life so someone else can get rich.

In today's environment, home prices really seem to be getting nuts. As I said, anyone in software is likely making over $100K. A $500K house with 20% down would have a P&I payment of $2,715 / month (at 7.2%, plus taxes/insurance.) That's less than $33K / year. (I bought my first house for $155K making $55K / year, and my second house for $390K making $100K.) If you're making over $100K, and spending under a third of…

>I eat well (at home and at restaurants), I travel, I have great technology / toys. And at 44 I have a 7 figure net worth.

You clearly don't have kids. and/or a spouse that depends on your income. The former drains your money very quickly, especially if you need services like daycare (if your spouse isn't a full time parent... so we're back to one income to support a family of 3+) or perhaps invest in private school. I wouldn't call either of those "overspending" depending on the area. And nowadays you may need to invest in a 529 for that kid's college...

It's already hard raising a kid badly. Raising one well is expensive.

>A $500K house with 20% down

how are you saving 100k on a 100k salary, on top of other savings for rainy days? do you just save for 5-10 years by throwing 20% into a savings account, on top of rent/utilities and other stuff?

Even then, the hard part is getting approved for the sale. The market right now is just absurd. Even if you can comfortably pay mortgage you may be outbid by some family or other person who simply buys the house in cash. You really can't keep up.

Re: Organization probably doesn't want to improve things

#403

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

Loughla wrote: post #380
lolinder wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't earn the same as you all can because I don't live in the US, but if I did I would grind all the leetcode (as insulting as I find them) for one single reason: I don't want to work forever. I work from home for a mid-sized company for I could probably retire even earlier if I were willing to enter the rat race, but I'd rather be there for my kids' childhoods than resurface from the grind just in time to send…

For context outside of tech. I have a super flexible job with amazing benefits. I haven't missed a single thing my kids have done, unless I chose to. And I'll work until I'm 75. I say this not out of being bitter, but for the context that many (probably most) people who do what they love to do don't get the massive paychecks even mid-tier tech jobs get. Context is everything.

>And I'll work until I'm 75

If you’re lucky. Modern medicine still has yet to solve most major disabilities for people in their sixties. It will be hard to work if you’re suffering any of the innumerable disabling diseases. What will you do then?

Re: Organization probably doesn't want to improve things

#404

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #401
Loughla wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For context outside of tech. I have a super flexible job with amazing benefits. I haven't missed a single thing my kids have done, unless I chose to. And I'll work until I'm 75. I say this not out of being bitter, but for the context that many (probably most) people who do what they love to do don't get the massive paychecks even mid-tier tech jobs get. Context is everything.

To be honest it vastly depends on what you expect to need in retirement. Based on my current salary and estimated retirement payment (which some online calculator calculated at ~2/3rds my income) I'm still slightly below what I should be saving for that. But by then I will both need more money to take care of family (hopefully) and less money since I should have long paid off my house and car by then. My salary is mu…

You only expect to need one car from now through the end of your retirement?

Re: Organization probably doesn't want to improve things

#405

Post by johnnyanmac »

Retric wrote: post #348
Brystephor wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Home rates are closer to 8%. The redfin calculator puts a $490k home near me at just under $3200/mo with 20% down. So over $36k a year. I'm in Washington, so no income tax. Let's say $100k income, single person. No pre tax deductions and you'll be bringing home $6200/mo. So over 50% of your take home goes to mortgage alone. In your example, your home prices were roughly 3x-4x your annual income. Compared to your exam…

Why on earth would a single person buy a 490k house? Everyone I know either had roommates, an inheritance, or make enough it’s a trivial expense. Also don’t forget about the home mortgage tax deduction, that plus inflation really impacts the cost of home ownership.

>Why on earth would a single person buy a 490k house?

I'm in California, so that's pretty much the bare minimum. Maybe if I go way out to the high desert area (we're talking 70+ miles from downtown LA), I see more 300-400k houses for 2 bed/bath. In my area (which is still pretty far from Downtown) it's 600k minimum.

Re: Organization probably doesn't want to improve things

#406

Post by johnnyanmac »

Fargren wrote: post #377
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

« Retire early » is the main part you’re missing from their argument, that implies saving large portions of disposable income. I always feel sad when people have high paying jobs they hate just so that « retire early » though, in a field like software engineering you can find a happy medium I feel like.

The happy medium for me would be working less than 20 hours per week. It's not about the work but about how much time it consumes. And part time software engineering jobs don't seem to exist... I would happily live on half my income for half my hours. But if retiring early is more realistic than that (and it seems to be), I'll take it.

It's possible much later in career when you establish yourself in a certain domain. You become valuable enough that you working half the time (or even just consulting) is more valuable than 2 other employees.

But people who can do that are also probably in positions to retire early already. Either with PhD's and 10+ years working on some now-extremely-valuable tech (think AI if you worked on it in the 2010's, or data science in the 00's) or some otherwise reputable name in their industry.

Re: Organization probably doesn't want to improve things

#407

Post by johnnyanmac »

lapcat wrote: post #302
Draiken wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10x? Financial independence is normally at least 20x, more like 30x. > How is your nationality relevant to reading stats? If you don't want to, then just say that. Sorry maybe I wasn't clear, but that's exactly what I meant. I won't dig into stats for the US because it's of no interest to me. That's why I mentioned I'm not from the US. I know that for my country that's absolutely not the case and I'm pretty sure it's…

> 10x? Financial independence is normally at least 20x, more like 30x. You appear to be overlooking Social Security, which is a crucial source of income that all US workers pay into their entire careers. It's not just savings. > I won't dig into stats for the US because it's of no interest to me. Yet it's interesting enough to you to make baseless empirical claims about the US. > I know that for my country that's abs…

>You appear to be overlooking Social Security, which is a crucial source of income that all US workers pay into their entire careers. It's not just savings.

I certainly am. I was taught as early as grade school (mid 00's) that Social Security would run out before I retire. I take that strongly to heart.

Re: Organization probably doesn't want to improve things

#408

Post by indymike »

Aurornis wrote: post #390
indymike wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It seems to me that there’s a class of programmer that will take an overpaid job at a terrible BigCo, People are bad at understanding risk. When a company pays significantly more for the same job than another, there is always an economic reason: * The job is undesirable because of how people are treated, and as a result the only way to attract and retain people is to overpay. The extra pay mitigates flight risk when…

This is true, but it got very temporarily skewed in recent years at some companies that had a lot of cash flow. There really were companies hiring a lot of highly qualified people mostly to have large teams of highly qualified people. The rubber band is snapping back, though. Layoffs are hitting all of these companies and expectations are rising quickly. Inevitably, companies paying a lot of money for people will exp…

> The rubber band is snapping back, though.

One can argue that the snap-back is exactly they had to offer more money to have large teams of highly qualified people.

> expectations are rising quickly

I think more reality hitting than expectations hitting.

Re: Organization probably doesn't want to improve things

#409

Post by johnnyanmac »

throaway234 wrote: post #336
Draiken wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we lived in a world where money wasn't so important I would fully agree with you. But it is. I can't earn the same as you all can because I don't live in the US, but if I did I would grind all the leetcode (as insulting as I find them) for one single reason: I don't want to work forever. So I agree with some other comments here. No it's not really a choice. Choosing to earn less and hope for a lottery ticket win l…

> If we lived in a world where money wasn't so important... Money being important is not part of the world, it's part of you. You even say so a few lines later: > ... I don't want to work forever. So yes, you indeed have no choice but to treat money as important because... you've chosen to treat money as important. I'm offering this in the hopes that you can stand back and look at your need from a distance. What are…

>So yes, you indeed have no choice but to treat money as important because... you've chosen to treat money as important.

yes, I have chosen to treat the ability to have a roof over my head as important. Rent in my area is 2000+ minimum so I at the very least am recommended to make 60k+ in salary to support that.

add on basic utilities (water, electricity, inernet), food above rice and beans, and maybe a little bit of premium entertainment and we're talking more around 70k+ a year. And this is all for supporting myself. If I ever want kids I either require a working spouse or to make even more money to support a full time parent. So yes, I'm talking more around 130k+ minimum. Not unreasonable in tech, but it sure does start to exceed the salary of many other industries

>What are other ways to satisfy this need without you writing useless software _and_ without money being the main constraint? Get creative!

With my current skillset? I suppose I embrace hustle culture and try to make a side income with my talents. try to make some small apps or games that give some continual income. Could also find an angle as a content creator. Both basically eat into my time since this is in tandem with full time work, so it doesn't really fix the problem.

Despite all the obsession with FAANG, I find it harder getting responses from small studios writing not-useless software. They want very experienced personell both for branding (how many new startups have you seen with pitches of "with talent from Apple, Blizzard, Deloitte, etc.") and the fact that they need someone who can architect a project from the ground up.

Re: Organization probably doesn't want to improve things

#410

Post by johnnyanmac »

neogodless wrote: post #239
TeMPOraL wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But there’s this super prevalent idea that keeps getting pumped around the blogosphere that it’s absolutely impossible to not work at a terrible huge company and therefore you cannot possibly escape, and I quote, “going home and despairing”. Behind all such writing is an unspoken piece of context: those terrible huge companies pay software devs better than small ones. It's not that they can't work at a smaller comp…

You're saying if you can't maximize your pay, it's not an option ? I cannot wrap my head around it. Being happy with your life is not a one-to-one correlation with income. You can make less money than "maximum" and still have a great life.

>You can make less money than "maximum" and still have a great life.

I think the bigger assumption here is "all companies are bad, so even if I change I'm simply choosing another poison".

What alternatives do you have in mind? trying to join a startup? That means having the money/idea for yourself and pitching to investors or being experienced enough that other founders want you on the ground floor with them (i.e. going back to spending 10+ years at "not an option" BigCo).

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