Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My salary as a full-stack developer

remotehunt.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 126 posts

Re: My salary as a full-stack developer

#51

Post by pc86 »

seattle_spring wrote: post #39
eruci wrote: post #28

50% tax? Where do you file taxes?

They're self employed, so 12% FICA, 25% fed 10% state would be my very rough guess.

Federal + FICA for self-employed is barely 30% for that income and state is going to be well under 10%. Flat tax states will be 3-5% (or 0%) and even California is barely 5% effective rate.

Re: My salary as a full-stack developer

#52

Post by sidlls »

the_only_law wrote: post #26

FWIW I make similar, less pre-tax but more post-tax, though with maybe a third of the experience. I’ve seen the comments about “just go to FAANG” and it’s one of those odd dualities I see on HN. On some threads, I see comments full of how their interviews are IQ proxies and how FAANG only hires the best or top X% so it’s not viable for most devs. On the other hand there are plenty of comments that just suggest casual…

It's neither. Their interviews are proxies for time spent studying CS textbook trivia: a poor indicator of IQ or any other skill for that matter. It's not easy to just casually walk into, either (except for recent CS grads or experienced professionals who happen to be among the 0.1% working day-to-day on tasks requiring understanding of said trivia in depth), as it requires a lot of time devoted to study the nonsense.

Re: My salary as a full-stack developer

#53

Post by delphinius81 »

the_only_law wrote: post #34
borski wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The top US bracket of 37% + 13.3% in CA (for example) will get you roughly there. NYC has an even higher tax rate. Of course, this doesn't take into account that it's a progressive tax, etc., but I regularly take home only about 50-60% of what I make, after benefits.

Yeah but is someone making $6k a month in the top bracket in these places?

No, but as a contractor you have to pay the full payroll tax (15%) + all the other SS / medicare costs (usually comes to about 2-3%), plus income tax (progressive and varies, but for this bracket is probably federal 15-20%, and up to 10% state). So, add it all up, and it's ~40-45%. Then they have to cover their own health insurance, which again, depends on state, but could be 400-700/mo. So yeah, it's easy to end up with half your money gone with each pay check.

Re: My salary as a full-stack developer

#55

Post by JshWright »

borski wrote: post #32
eruci wrote: post #28

50% tax? Where do you file taxes?

The top US bracket of 37% + 13.3% in CA (for example) will get you roughly there. NYC has an even higher tax rate. Of course, this doesn't take into account that it's a progressive tax, etc., but I regularly take home only about 50-60% of what I make, after benefits.

$6k/mo ($72k/yr) is a marginal tax rate of ~13% in the US. Combined w/ FICA (self-employed), you'd be looking at ~25%.

Also, no benefits being deducted in this case.

Re: My salary as a full-stack developer

#57

Post by happytoexplain »

pc86 wrote: post #37
falcor84 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do that with story points rather than hours

Not if you want it to be accurate.

In my experience, points are more accurate than hours, since most people work with high variability in productivity over time that can't be captured by a mechanism as crude as a stopwatch, so a corollary metric creates a more accurate number than an absolute metric.

Re: My salary as a full-stack developer

#59

Post by decafninja »

the_only_law wrote: post #26

FWIW I make similar, less pre-tax but more post-tax, though with maybe a third of the experience. I’ve seen the comments about “just go to FAANG” and it’s one of those odd dualities I see on HN. On some threads, I see comments full of how their interviews are IQ proxies and how FAANG only hires the best or top X% so it’s not viable for most devs. On the other hand there are plenty of comments that just suggest casual…

Luck is a big factor. I've gotten offers where I feel I shouldn't have, and I've gotten rejections that I feel I shouldn't have.

The thing is, you can adjust luck to be in your favor. While certainly nowhere near 100%, if you feel you're being paid below market, becoming a master at leetcode will probably help you tremendously in increasing your compensation whether it be at a FAANG company or some other company that will still give you a raise.

Re: My salary as a full-stack developer

#60

Post by CuriouslyC »

the_only_law wrote: post #26

FWIW I make similar, less pre-tax but more post-tax, though with maybe a third of the experience. I’ve seen the comments about “just go to FAANG” and it’s one of those odd dualities I see on HN. On some threads, I see comments full of how their interviews are IQ proxies and how FAANG only hires the best or top X% so it’s not viable for most devs. On the other hand there are plenty of comments that just suggest casual…

Assuming you make a baseline cut in terms of experience for the position, getting a job at a FAANG basically just boil down to a LOT of prep. Anyone can do it, if they can afford to spend 6-12 months prepping via leetcode and system design exercises.
Post reply on HN