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Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

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Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

#61

Post by baddox »

oniTony wrote: post #30
baddox wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$100K baseline? That sounds like you're talking about entry-level, which can't be right regardless of where you live. I believe that the mean annual income for a software developer in the USA is about USD 75k. I found one estimate as high as 90k. In non-coastal areas (even big cities in the Midwest, Texas, etc.), entry level positions requiring a 4-year CS degree are commonly 45k-60k.

Entry level at top tier companies such as Google/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft will break $100K if you include signing bonuses and stocks. I suppose those are the exception though.

By "entry-level," I mean a first job for an individual. Do those companies often employee programmers with no previous job experience?

Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

#62

Post by jswinghammer »

I think being the sole provider for my family for the last ten years I've just assumed I needed to make more money year after year. I can't really ask my wife to go out and get a job to make up the slack so I get out there and try to be the best programmer I can be. If a company sounded cool but wasn't willing to pay me what I need to provide for my family I just move on. Given the lack of tech talent there isn't much excuse for not making that much if you're a programmer.

I always laugh when I read people say that great developers (not saying I'm a great developer) don't care about money. Often times that's written by people who don't have children to provide for. I have no choice but to care what I make and therefore it's an important factor for me when choosing a job.

Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

#63

Post by reason »

idlewords wrote: post #40
tastybites wrote: post #32

$100k isn't successful, it's the bare minimum as a professional. If you're an engineer, all that's required to earn that much is show up on time and be good at your job. The cold, hard truth is if you don't earn at least that much, you either suck at your job or suck at negotiating. Your bosses and many of your peers earn twice as much as that. Edit: IF you work in the corporate world. Clearly if you're a lifestyle-b…

Maybe true for the people you hang out with. In the rest of the world, there's plenty of people who prefer doing meaningful or engaging work over earning the highest possible salary.

And I take it physicians, lawyers, dentists, and other professionals, on top of all of the entrepreneurs who have sold their beloved companies for millions, aren't doing meaningful or engaging work. If you're good at any of the careers I just listed, you can easily make at least $300-400k+ per year. It's attainable, and there's a ton of meaningful work to be had at those levels.

Success and meaning can be found at levels other than the dude settling for $20/hr because he gets good free time to really 'discover' life and find 'meaning.'

Maybe you're hanging out with the wrong people.

Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

#64

Post by oniTony »

baddox wrote: post #61
oniTony wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entry level at top tier companies such as Google/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft will break $100K if you include signing bonuses and stocks. I suppose those are the exception though.

By "entry-level," I mean a first job for an individual. Do those companies often employee programmers with no previous job experience?

At any rate, those are "lowest-level" SDE jobs available at such companies. They hire _many_ recent grads with nothing but a few internships worth of experience too.

Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

#65

Post by sp_ »

Locke wrote: post #33

Earnings are important, I'm sure -- but don't mistake them for wealth. I've known people with ludicrous earnings who still lived pay check to pay check. In fact, I suspect it's all too common. Here's an eye opener: You're a mid-level employee at a medium-sized company and you realize you're as wealthy as your spend-thrift CEO who is making >10x as much as you are.

Yeah, this distinction is important. Recently in Germany this report made the news how nearly a quarter of professional football players are broke at the end of their careers. Considering that these are all people who make a lot of money I was pretty shocked about this.

Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

#66

Post by kooshball »

baddox wrote: post #61
oniTony wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entry level at top tier companies such as Google/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft will break $100K if you include signing bonuses and stocks. I suppose those are the exception though.

By "entry-level," I mean a first job for an individual. Do those companies often employee programmers with no previous job experience?

Of course. Microsoft and Google are likely the biggest recruiters for cs students.

Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

#67

Post by prostoalex »

baddox wrote: post #61
oniTony wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entry level at top tier companies such as Google/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft will break $100K if you include signing bonuses and stocks. I suppose those are the exception though.

By "entry-level," I mean a first job for an individual. Do those companies often employee programmers with no previous job experience?

College recruiting is pretty important for Facebook, Google and Microsoft at least. In programming world "previous job experience" is a bit vague, as contributing to an open source project or building some non-trivial Web/iOS/Android apps is not "job experience" in classical sense, but adds significant bonus points to one's resume.

Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

#68

Post by jonah »

tastybites wrote: post #32

$100k isn't successful, it's the bare minimum as a professional. If you're an engineer, all that's required to earn that much is show up on time and be good at your job. The cold, hard truth is if you don't earn at least that much, you either suck at your job or suck at negotiating. Your bosses and many of your peers earn twice as much as that. Edit: IF you work in the corporate world. Clearly if you're a lifestyle-b…

My lifestyle-biz friends working over wifi at the beach in Thailand are making 1/4 - 1/2 million/year. Just like any other job, you just have to know what you're doing and do it well.

Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

#69

Post by nandemo »

apsurd wrote: post #44
tastybites wrote: post #32

$100k isn't successful, it's the bare minimum as a professional. If you're an engineer, all that's required to earn that much is show up on time and be good at your job. The cold, hard truth is if you don't earn at least that much, you either suck at your job or suck at negotiating. Your bosses and many of your peers earn twice as much as that. Edit: IF you work in the corporate world. Clearly if you're a lifestyle-b…

Just want to chime in real quick re: all that's required to earn that much is show up on time and be good at your job. I liked the "all thats required" bit, because as it were, I am fully employed remotely, and while I don't make $100k, I seriously wake up at noon, code at 3am when I damned well feel like it, and overwhelmingly love managing myself. (oh yeah, zero commute). So I guess you'd be right, "all you have to…

You might be taking it too literally. In your case, "just show up on time" means you still have to work (almost) every weekday, even if it's remotely. The implication is that you don't have to be a super ninja rockstar, just do your job and eventually you'll earn 100k (assuming you're an IT professional in US).

Re: Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success?

#70

Post by JabavuAdams »

acangiano wrote: post #3
Tyrant505 wrote: post #2

From someone who's been failing startups since 2000, I can't imagine what I would do with that much money... It's really baffling..

Sadly, 100K isn't that much these days if you have a family and you live in an expensive city like Toronto or New York.

Toronto is nowhere near as expensive as New York.

In Toronto, you can get a decent detached house in a downtown blue-collar neighbourhood or (a nicer one in the 'burbs) for under 500k.

You can get a beautiful home in an elite neighbourhood for 750k.

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