$100k is still not even close to how much you can make in SV as an engineer. Specially an engineer at this caliber. But working on OSS full time is probably 100x more fulfilling than building CRUD for a boring ad company.
I make $400k a year on a side project. I can do no work on it at all and still make $400k this year because the money is residual. It took 5 years to get to this point. The first 18 months, I made $0.
I could sell this side project for $1M easily.
I could grow it if I want to and make $500k next year.
I could write a blog and grow my personal brand on how I made this side project.
There are lots of opportunities this side project has opened up that working at my SV eng job can't provide.
I'm not sure what is more impressive, the thought of 100k in 5 months from sponsorship or that the author ported a solution to another environment and got 100k sponsorship out of it?
Wow, Good job!
Not really understanding the comparison to SV salaries. This opens up many doors for the author, something that money wouldn't be able to do.
$100k is still not even close to how much you can make in SV as an engineer. Specially an engineer at this caliber. But working on OSS full time is probably 100x more fulfilling than building CRUD for a boring ad company.
You also don't need to live in the expensive SV area.
Median home cost in Nebraska $168,900.
Median home cost in California $552,800.
Yeah I think 100k a year would go a little farther in one of these places than the other...
$100k is still not even close to how much you can make in SV as an engineer. Specially an engineer at this caliber. But working on OSS full time is probably 100x more fulfilling than building CRUD for a boring ad company.
Had you read the article, you would've know he was making ~90k in 2018.
Except major cities like London, Paris, Dublin where it is somewhere around 'table stakes'.
You must be kidding. $100k a year is more than enough to not think about money (for one person) in all European cities, including London. Except if you suck at personal finance and spend all your money for unnecessary things.
So is it enough to not think about it or not enough so that you must think about it to not spend unnecessarily
First, I think you're overestimating how much you can make as an engineer in SV. It's more, but it's not fair to say $100k is "not even close". Second, there's more to life than working at, say, Facebook/Netflix/etc for money. The pure happiness of working on something you care about is worth a lot of money to some people. Third, if this person ever wants to get a real job, the $100k won't go away, and they'll easily…
I would estimate Sr. or better is possible for someone who is able to independently run a OSS project. Going off https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engi... that comes out to ~$350k/yr going up one more level gets you ~$500k/yr I will let you decide if 3.5x - 5x is "not even close".
Those numbers are real, no doubt about it but even if you potentially have the skills and knowledge to compete for those positions, your odds of getting such a job are still incredibly slim. If you are young, immensely talented(for the lack of a better word), and in a location near the job offering, then yes, there's a chance. But even giants such as FAANGs will have their doubts when you're 30+ and on the other side of the planet, even if your profile fits the needs of a senior engineer better than the youngsters next door, because they are well aware that at this point in your life, your priorities are increasingly becoming children and elder family members and it is incredibly likely for you to pack your bag and leave the moment something goes wrong with your family on the other side of the planet. And with such salaries, you'd be perfectly capable of doing that in 6 months, just when their investment is starting to pay off. Strictly speaking, you are looking at a very small subset of a subset that was tiny to begin with. For most people that doesn't happen even in dreams.
$100k is still not even close to how much you can make in SV as an engineer. Specially an engineer at this caliber. But working on OSS full time is probably 100x more fulfilling than building CRUD for a boring ad company.
Comparing $90k as a W2 employee doesn't really compare to making $112k as a LLC or contractor. Taxes, health insurance, retirement... On the other hand, his amounts are going up, so I'm interested to see how high they will go, and what it will consistently level out at.
Comparing working as a W2 employee doesn't really compare to working as a contractor. Getting to choose your own hours, the direction of your project, who you get to work with, etc. is far more valuable to me than a bit more money.
The article is the one that compared the two, saying that he now makes "more". It is completely correct that you cannot directly compare W2+Benefits to Contractor Revenue. The rule of thumb is to add 50% to a W2 salary to include health insurance and other benefits.