Earlier quoted context omitted.
I work in the bay area at a large company. Generally, people at big companies work less than at small companies. Most software engineers I know making more than 400k work ~30 hours a week. Things get different at the super senior levels making several million, usually a lot more meetings, hard to speak to their specific hours. But on the other hand, they get to retire after two years if they want so...
> Things get different at the super senior levels making several million Right, everything changes at that point of income. Putting in ~70 hours a week for a few years to make 3-5 million seems like a no brainer. But grinding 60-70 hours a week for 300k-400k, I don't know. That's a much harder sell. You'll probably burn out before you could retire. I don't know what taxes would look like in CA but it would probably b…
Not to be rude but did you read the entirety of my post? This doesn't happen that much, the people putting in those hours are generally making 250k or less at mid level or above. Those making 300-400k generally either don't have to work many hours or are capable of passing interviews that will allow them to work significantly less.
> 180k take home on 300k income
Without going into too much detail, often by the time your stock is paid out to you it's worth much more than what you signed at so that you had an effective pay raise of sometimes 50% or more. You're also leaving out bonuses, which at some companies can be substantial.
Suffice to say, plenty of people retire in a decade.