My Salary Progression in Tech • Hacker News Board

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#561

Post by jtfairbank » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 8:14 PM UTC

fifnir wrote: post #490

jtfairbank wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who cares more about adventure than $$$ and just founded my own NGO, mad respect. 2014: -$10k - Founded a startup. 2015: $35k - Moved to SV, raised a small seed. 2016: $54k - Running my startup in SV. 2017: $60k - Remote contracting from Scotland. 2018: $25k - Remote contracting. Founded an NGO in Europe, almost all of my contracting money goes to supporting my work with that. 2019: $20k - Remote contracti…

Any good link on how NGOs work/how to start on in Europe? Are there unified E.U. rules about it or does it change from country to country ?

Don't have links on hand, but it changes from country to country. We started ours in Sweden, where my cofounder is from. It was pretty easy compared to the 503(C) process in the US: create a governing document, put together a board, hold your first meeting, apply for organization status, apply for charity status.

Happy to talk more if you want- my email is in my profile.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#562

Post by elbear » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 8:49 PM UTC

Retra wrote: post #467

elbear wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look for the middle ground. I realized that I want to work on things I like, but I still need to eat, so I've decided to split my time. I want to work at least an hour to something I'm passionate about. That way, even if I spend more of my time working for someone else, I know I still spend some of my time doing something I love. So follow your passion, but also your survival instinct.

Then get cancer and die young.

There's always a possibility of that happening, but you shouldn't let it at the forefront of your mind. Unless if it makes you appreciate every day more.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#563

Post by edraferi » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 8:51 PM UTC

mettamage wrote: post #525

elbear wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look for the middle ground. I realized that I want to work on things I like, but I still need to eat, so I've decided to split my time. I want to work at least an hour to something I'm passionate about. That way, even if I spend more of my time working for someone else, I know I still spend some of my time doing something I love. So follow your passion, but also your survival instinct.

> So follow your passion, but also your survival instinct. As far as simple quotes go. This sounds optimistic, yet reasonable. Based on your advice, maybe I should just go to Thailand and freelance as an app/web dev for 3 days per week and play guitar / make electronic music for the rest. I'd wonder how I'd prepare for economic down turns though. I'd make about: 5000 euro's per month (@ 50 euro's per hour as a freela…

Worry about a wife and kids when you WANT to worry about it. Living the life you want is the best way to meet a partner who supports that lifestyle.

Maybe one day you’ll decide it’s time for kids, and both you and your partner decide to head back to the EU for that. Or maybe you’ll raise kids in Thailand. Or maybe your partner will get an amazing opportunity somewhere else entirely and you can be a stay at home parent, making beats while the kids are at school.

It’s your life. Live it the way you want. Don’t worry too much.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#564

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 9:16 PM UTC

quaffapint wrote: post #147

I see a lot of these crazy high salaries (there's nothing much higher than $150 for a sr dev around here on the east) are in SF area. Are these the exception FAANG salaries or are most companies paying such high salaries out there? It just blows my mind I can't imagine making such money as a dev and I've been doing this for a lot of years.

[deleted]

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#565

Post by Retra » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 9:20 PM UTC

mettamage wrote: post #524

Retra wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then get cancer and die young.

Hey Retra, I looked at your comment history, to see why you'd possibly be saying this. I've noticed two type of comments that you made: 1. Comments that have substantial reasoning, mostly technical but not always. These seemed to be appreciated. 2. Short comments that seemed to attack the person or a particular concept. These short comments did not have any reasoning from your side. Also, most of these comments are n…

I understand that what I said was possibly ambiguous, but I was not actually suggesting to someone that they should get cancer. I was 'bookending' a story that they were implicitly telling, in an attempt to point out that "going for your dreams" can easily run off the rails due to circumstances out of your control, and that a reasonable person might rather spend their efforts building a safety net for themselves, so that they will be able to go after there dreams without worrying so much about such matters.

Unfortunately, the more effort I seem to put into a post, the less effort others tend to put into reading it, so we all walk a fine line between precision and conciseness, and sometimes we end up on the wrong side. I don't take it personally.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#566

Post by tastyface » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 9:30 PM UTC

minhaz23 wrote: post #547

tastyface wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed that Blind is a crap community, but their numbers are more accurate than I've seen anywhere else (including levels.fyi).

https://www.teamblind.com/articles/Topics this is it? any reason for the toxicity? poor moderation?

Yep. Anonymity is the focus, so people are more than happy to air their racist and sexist laundry. Lots of 4chan-style garbage. In terms of career advice, it's also very mercenary and salary-driven.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#567

Post by throwaway91039 » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 9:40 PM UTC

Throwaway but thought I wanted to share:

BS in UX-related & MBA

2003 BS

2007 65k* (UX @ public)

2008 80k* (UX @ public)

2010 MBA

2012 110k* (Product @ seed startup)

2012 80k* (Product in competitive industry @ funded startup)

2013 0* (Startup @ self)

2015 105k* (Product @ funded startup)

2016 115k (Promotion @ funded startup)

2017 135k* (Solution Architect/remote @ public)

2018 138k

*New job

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#568

Post by chillacy » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 10:23 PM UTC

minhaz23 wrote: post #545

chillacy wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Managers will usually pull 400k+, I wouldn't say that's a top 5% salary. Above 300k isn't unusual at all. Check out levels.fyi for some examples of top-of-band salaries in each level.

Engineering managers? Are there any non tech management level positions at FAANG that net these types of salaries as well?

Yea EMs. I don't know about non-tech.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#569

Post by vecinu » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 10:30 PM UTC

tuesdayrain wrote: post #42

vecinu wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget that this is before taxes, retirement savings, healthcare and other deductions. You can't just hand-wave away "standard of living" and "social services and benefits". These may be things you take for granted but a large majority of the population has to have a large emergency refund in case they get severed from their company without any notice for any reason (Compare that with job security in France or…

> These may be things you take for granted but a large majority of the population has to have a large emergency refund in case they get severed from their company without any notice for any reason This seems like somewhat of an idealistic view point when over half of Americans have less than 1k in their bank account.

Does that distract from the main point of "You have to have an emergency fund"?.

Compared to the EU, one would have to fund a larger emergency fund to avoid surprises.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#570

Post by throwawayuk » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 10:47 PM UTC

I am a little hazy of the old figures, but they are roughly correct:

    1997 £12,500 - Visual Basic Developer - Small B2B company in South West England
    1998 £14,000 - as above
    1999 £15,000 - as above
    1999 £17,000 - as above
    2001 £14,000 (6 month contract) Visual Basic - Advertising Agency in London
    late 2001 unemployed for 6 months - dot com crash!
    2002 £21,000 Visual Basic/PHP - South England
    |
    2013 £32,000 same company, just steady salary progression
    During that period I also did some freelance Rails development. Maybe earning extra £3,000 to £8,000 each year.
    2014 £20,000 Quit full time work. Part-time Rails developer
    2015 £20,000 Part-time Rails developer
    2016 ¥6,500,000 Rails Developer - Japan
    2017 ¥6,565,000 Rails Developer - Japan
    2018 ¥6,565,000 Rails Developer - Japan