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Comment by msoad | Hacker News Reader

$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.

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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 add $50k to their starting offer for running a prolific open source project.

Lastly, look at that graph. It's going up. Zero to $100k is really good for 6 months, and in another 6 months it'll potentially double. Most startups don't get to $100k this quick. More people will use this as time goes on, they can start new projects, they can do high-end freelancing for companies using it, etc.

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".

Unless you're doing interesting things at google for that 300-500k, 100k to work on OSS problems seems immeasurably better to me especially because they don't have to live in the bay area.

100k in pretty much anywhere but the east or west coast may as well be 300k.

That's exactly what the commenter's point was.

If we're talking raw numbers, that doesn't compute well.

My last rent in Houston for an actual cool place to live (downtown Westheimer area) was a solid 1.3k, or 15k a year. So after taxes rough estimate 70k - 15k = 55k into your savings account, before expenses etc.

I have the best apartment I've ever had in my life practically on top of 16th mission station right now for 2.1k. I'm not making 300k but if I was, let's see: 210k - 25k = 185k into savings each year, not including expenses. That's 3x the amount of money for investment, savings, playtime in places where the money goes the same distance no matter where your permanent address is.

State and city income tax aren't going to eliminate that 3x difference. Brunch costing 50$ vs 20$ isn't going to make up that difference.

We can talk about quality of life as well but that'll be a much, much longer comment from me, and feels like a pointless conversation (city folk gonna city).

I see the time spent making that 300k at a fang as 40-60 hour a week opportunity cost on better work with the caveat that if you are doing work you consider personally interesting then good for you. I think ultimately we have very different priorities from each other though and view money differently as well.

Well that's fair, though a different discussion. I would argue you could probably find a project at Google that promotes your values, who knows though.

In any case, my numbers hold up for bay area startup salaries as well - if they didn't, I wouldn't live here lol.

I'm currently working on founding a search engine that is in direct opposition of Google's values, or potentially lack thereof, so I think that might be a hard sell for them ;)

And the numbers don't really work out for founders for the first couple years in terms of any salary so I think again we view money differently. I'm not really disputing that your numbers work for being an employee but they don't really hold out for people working to start their own thing, at least in the short term. As I'm sure the OP is aware there's intangible benefits that don't take the form of a retirement account associated with running your own thing.

Edit: I'll also say we may be at a point where we're starting to talk passed each other, your math checks out for sure I just don't value the benefits associated as much.

That's really cool, care to link? I'm slowly extricating myself from Google and Facebook.

I think we don't disagree for reasons other than raw money about why working somewhere other than FAANG would be good. Probably reasons similar to why I don't work at FAANG ;P

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.

To be fair, it will be just as hard to make a compelling, valuable OSS project if you don't possess the same skills and talents that FAANG hires for.

From experience I would say running the OSS project is definitely harder, but the type of person who is capable of making a successful OSS project is not the type of person who can chain themselves to a chair for 3 months and practice interview questions. Studying for FAANG interviews is arduous and extremely non-rewarding. It is like the extreme opposite of an OSS project, where you put in the same hours and have exactly nothing to show for it.

> I would estimate Sr. or better is possible for someone who is able to independently run a OSS project.

I don't believe that's a correct assumption. It's been a while but: https://techcrunch.com/2008/01/01/zed-shaw-puts-the-smack-do...

This was very sad to read...

> Third, if this person ever wants to get a real job, the $100k won't go away,

It's true the $100k doesn't immediately disappear, but it seems safe to assume that taking on a full time job would leave a lot less time to do OSS work and would probably result in a non-trivial loss of sponsorship.

If I'd take $100K and move back to my country, I'd have the lifestyle 99% of devs in SV could only dream of. It wouldn't even come to my mind that I would want to work for FAANG.

$100k gives you a really nice lifestyle anywhere in Europe.

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

It's enough that you don't have to worry about your ability to save money. It doesn't mean you never have to think about money at all.

When I moved to London I was surprised how low salaries were, even after factoring in social services like the NHS. 100K USD (80,000GBP) is a very good salary there.

If you have more than a single child of school age, £90k in London is not that much. Two kids at a private school in Northern England will run you £30k, I imagine in London it will be a tad more.

Never mind private schools, housing costs go through the roof if you want them to have their own room or, god forbid, a garden. Not to mention nursery fees if you both need to work to cover the mortgage and bills.

Sure, you wouldn't send them to private school on that income. But it's far from a necessity; <10% of kids are privately educated.

I explitliy mentioned: for one person. Of course, if you want to raise a family with private schols and a big house in the middle of London, that won't work. But let's not twist my words here.

> I explitliy mentioned: for one person.

1950 called, they want their mononuclear family stereotypes back.

I've lived and worked in two of those cities (and one other almost as expensive european city) for much less than $100k/year. It's a pretty comfortable lifestyle from about $50k upwards.

Sure, if you are happy living like a student. If you want to own a place in a reasonable part of town? If you want to be able to have a child? If you don't want to have to rely on two incomes to pay the mortgage? I didn't say it wasn't possible to live on that, only that that kind of salary was table stakes in those cities i.e. it's adequate but hardly living like a king.

Personally I can think of a plenty of other places I'd rather live in where you could truly live well on that kind of money.

Source: I live in the first of those on a similar salary.

There's a world of a difference between living like a student and owning property in a reasonable part of Dublin/London. a €45,000 salary (which is roughly $50k) is definitely a comfortable, non student lifestyle. It's not going to buy you a decent house in Dublin, but it's a comfortable lifestyle, and more than adequate.

€45,000 does sound a bit low. I lived on €40,000 (after taxes, rent was only 8-10% of the yearly income) in Croatia and lived like a king (travelling, restaurants, buying stuff without worrying about the price, massive amounts of good quality food).

Moving to any other major European city would require me to at least double the income to maintain my standards.

can you share what are the taxes for 100K/year? And then the basic costs like housing and groceries? what about vacations?

https://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php - take home on $100k in England is about £55,000 ($68k) and london living costs are https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/London.

https://ie.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php Says take home on $100k in ireland is ballpark €55,000 ($62k), and living costs are here - https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Dublin -

$100K before taxes is decent salary in London. It's not a lot a lot but that's what a senior developer would make in most companies (excluding financial sector+ some extremely funded shops). Would you stop worrying about money? No,of course not.But you could afford to live in decent area,drive normal car,have some nice holidays in pretty places + put some aside for rainy day.Of course,this is London,so no matter what kind of money you make, there's always someone making x10 times that. But isn't that's the case anywhere?

Does this include having a family?

Doable but it won't be something amazing. $100K would translate to about £4600/monthly (after tax). Housing: £2000-2500(2-3 bed, decent area) Food: £600-800(normal food) Transport: £500-£700(public transport for both +1 car/)

£80k income puts you in the top 2% of the UK. Something that 98% of people (lower in London but not vastly lower) manage without can hardly be called "table stakes".

Yes HN is weird like that. Every time salaries are discussed people jump out with comments like : " 100k yearly after tax? That would merely serve you to live in a rented room and eating just ramen every-day".Then you go check and that kind of income is like top 3% , so either they are bullshitting or capitalist societies are in a dramatic state.

> Yes HN is weird like that. Every time salaries are discussed people jump out with comments like : " 100k yearly after tax? That would merely serve you to live in a rented room and eating just ramen every-day"

This one isnt really HN alone. Mostly just extremely privileged developers without much perspective.

At current exchange rates, $100k is about £80k or €88k.

In the UK that pre-tax income would put you well in the 95th percentile.

Post-tax the 97th percentile.

Before or after taxes?

After taxes even (source: I work from a rural part of France. Some years I've earned less, most years a lot more).

So then how much is $100k before taxes?

after taxes

In Denmark after taxes you would probably have about 329,000+ dkk, which yes, that is a pretty good half a middle class couple. So you can take care of half a family on that reasonably, not astoundingly great, but quite reasonable.

on edit: actually looking at wages in Denmark I see I am somehow doing a lot better than I thought, which is pretty much amazing to me considering how badly I thought I was doing. Since I am making about that amount after taxes. hmm.

Eh, I live in Sweden and I make around that much before taxes and me and my wife could manage with just my paycheck if we really had to. That's with a mortgage on a house, two cars, and a four year old kid.

I doubt the cost of living in Denmark is that much higher than Sweden, so I'd say you're living beyond your means if you can't make it work on 329K DKK after tax...

Denmark is more expensive but ultimately it'd depend on the area and so on.

Have you been to copenhagen? If u’d head out to eat you won’t find anything for less than 500 SEK/pp unless u want fast food. Drinks are cheap though :)

No, I've never been to Denmark at all. That sounds really expensive. Not even Stockholm is that expensive (I live 60 KM south of Stockholm).

If you go out to eat there at a normal place, it'll be more like 300-400 SEK (~280 DKK) per person including 1-2 alcoholic beverages.

$100K before taxes would leave about half of it in most countries in Europe.

Just for the context,that's what I could afford back home in the capital: https://m.aruodas.lt/namu-nuoma-vilniuje-antakalnyje-bistryc...

You can't compare US taxes to EU taxes. Paying these (taxes and social contibutions) you also get something in exchange: free public medical care, free education, state pension, various safety nets. Although quality and amount depends on country.

You think that initially. But vacation costs the same or everyone and you also wanna splurge too. Appliances cost same, building costs slowly approach rest of Europe.

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.

Would you mind sharing your side project? That's awesome.

If you don't mind can I ask whats your side project

I'm assuming its this: http://www.castingcall.club

Looks very cool and its catered towards a very specific niche. How do you do your market research

Yep; this was it.

Happy for you & thanks for sharing, not sure what the purpose or point is though... Side projects are great in terms of opportunities but although all you mention is the money that's generally the least common benefit they have.

Any pro tips on growing your customer base? Did you do all the 'selling' yourself? Did you hire someone to help you with that?

I am in the same situation as you in your first 18 months. Got a product, need to get eyeballs and customers!

Why do you feel the necessity to compare with Silicon Valley Salary? $100k is an amazing amount of money in pretty much everywhere else on Earth.

I made significantly more than this working in SV. IMO it's totally fair to say $100k is "not even close" for certain roles in certain companies.

But then I moved. I'm here to tell you, the Bay Area has a quality of life problem that far exceeds the cost of living difference.

After moving, my monthly _mortgage_ payment is almost $1k less than the rent I was paying for a not-so-nice house in San Jose. When I run the numbers on my current house (considering only the property and not the HOA), trying to find something comparable around San Jose, I come up with around $10 million at a minimum. When you consider the HOA I live in - we have 20 miles of maintained trails and an HOA park almost every mile - the quality of the schools, the quality and cost of restaurants... the list goes on... this quality of life literally can't be purchased in the Bay Area for a software engineers salary, no matter what they do. And here is the thing: after moving I could take an 80% pay cut over my Bay Area salary and maintain this quality of living changing _nothing_ about my spending habits.

But money aside, I'm actually happy after moving. In the Bay Area I binged, ate, drank, and smoked every night. I put on weight, my mental and physical health was deteriorating. I was depressed. I felt like every time I left the house someone was trying to trick me out of my money. I saw societal decay at every corner, homelessness, unmaintained property, crumbling infrastructure. I felt it was the least progressive place I've ever lived and it made me feel guilty that I could afford to stay slightly above the decay. The Bay Area is a place that required significant effort for me to be happy and that wasn't possible when investing significant effort into maintaining my high salary job.

My advice to folks living in the Bay Area: take stock of why you are there. If the answer is a paycheck, I find it very hard to believe it's worth it after my experience.

Where are you living? very interesting!

Arizona in the PHX suburbs

>$100k is still not even close to how much you can make in SV as an engineer

Oh, well then fuck this idiot, right? What a dumbass loser - doesn't even realize they can be a s i l i c o n v a l l e y e n g i n e e r and make a lot of money.

Jesus it's so exhausting reading the knee-jerk "SV engineers make more money" reaction to everything. You know what this person has that 99.999% of all SV engineers will never have? Complete freedom. You know what else this person has that 99% of all SV engineers will never have? The option not to have live in San Francisco, a dismal place that very few people want to actually be in anymore.

I'm not sure it's accurate to say that doing open source gives you "complete freedom". In some way, you are responsible to your contributors / users and they are kind of paying your bills.

wow! did you read the rest of my comment?

I could also make much more money in SV. I like working from home in a smallish (150k) town in the northwest. I hate traffic. I hate commutes. I hate $5000/month apartments :)

I actually really want to live in San Francisco, but I don't want to and am not smart enough to work for a FAANG-type company. It's one of the few American cities where you can be a first-class citizen without owning a car and comfortably bike/walk everywhere year-round. SF has a really fascinating history and cool culture. I wish it was possible to work in academia there without already being wealthy.

I've lived in many US cities, including SF, and your characterization rings hollow for me. Unless you're focusing exclusively on climate, SF without a car isn't all that much better than dozens of other cities. Notably, unless you live near a BART stop, most transit commutes are going to involve some bus, switching to a separate system, 30+ minutes daily commute, $12+ round trip, etc. Or paying for rideshares. Dozens of cities in the US have the equivalent or better, without all the other associated baggage of SF. Here are a few examples I've lived or spent significant time in:

- Chicago, IL: The L reaches a lot more neighborhoods, is a single integrated transit system. - Columbus, OH: Great bike lanes and dedicated paths, bus system that covers the entire city. - New York, NY: By far the most walkable city in the US. - Philadelphia, PA: Decent subway system, good connection to NJ and NY via NJ Transit. Very walkable core and neighborhoods. - Washington, DC: Far superior version of BART with a lot more coverage.

Unless I've just happened across a half dozen of the best cities in the US, SF isn't all that remarkable.

I do love NYC, Chicago, and Philly, but I've always wanted to avoid winter entirely as I get pretty severe SAD. San Francisco seems like the only walkable city where that's possible.

That's fair. I imagine that there are parts of LA that are similarly walkable, but it's not like LA is immune to the problems SF has, and it has unique problems of its own.

There are bound to be some pretty cool places in AZ, NM, TX, and the southeast. I've been casually researching this topic for a while, and I've found it to be incredibly difficult to find a useful, non-biased index of walkable and interesting neighborhoods from all corners of the US.

Good luck!

"am not smart enough to work for a FAANG-type company"

Have you tried to apply for a job? Don't underestimate yourself. I had the same thoughts about myself, then I tried an interview just for fun. Now I'm working for a FAANG company, moved to Canada, and having the best year of my life.

> The option not to have live in San Francisco, a dismal place that very few people want to actually be in anymore.

Dismal? Lol I love it here. People are moving out of cities all over the country because of coronavirus, sure, but only because most of the perks of city living are non-existent right now. I know a couple people moving and they're not going far, because of the nearby available amenities, that being excellent cycling and motorcycling roads, great mountain biking trails, climbing rocks, whatever water sports you could want...

Never quite got the hate. It's good weather and a great region.

It's a great city in a beautiful location... but if you come from another developed country or a part of the US where homelessness is very uncommon, it's extremely shocking to see people camping on the streets pretty much all over the city, it feels like you're in a shanty town and it feels unsafe.

I could see that if you came from somewhere where homelessness is uncommon, but something that shocked me on a recent roadtrip was how common homelessness is now. It seemed EVERY town we stopped in, except for the extremely remote or tiny, had camps or at the very least people looking worse-for-the-wear at street corners with a sign. I expect the painkiller epidemic combined with covid is not doing great things to this country.

Smell the streets at 3am

Er, yea, it's a city lol. If you want to live in the woods, you can do that and still be a 30 minute drive from the city here.

His first sentence was just setting the context and not meant to be pejorative.

Please don't post like this to HN. You broke this site guideline so flagrantly that I can't quite believe my eyes:

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

... since the parent comment already made the same point, in the part you didn't bother to quote.

Also, please don't post in the flamewar style to HN generally. It's not what this site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You also don't need to live in the expensive SV area.

This.

In most parts of the world, $100k/year allows you to live very comfortably indeed.

Yes but the author is American So he'll always have to pay US taxes even if he moves out of the US.(I'm aware about tax treaties but in most cases they still have to pay the difference)

Most places inside the US allow you to live a comfy life with 100k/year too. No need to be in Silicon Valley.

Yes but being American he will be double taxed living outside of the US.

this is not true.

It is true depending on the country he lives in. As he's a US citizen, even if he lives overseas he needs to fill in a W-9 form to get the money from GitHub.

You can exclude the first $107.6k/year from US taxes.

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/fore...

He can spend $300/month in many parts of Europe, get good healthcare. Even with paying some taxes to support the US billionaires, he'll live a very good life. In SV for that money he'd have to climb over zombies to go get the groceries

But you can get groceries delivered here. Problem solved. :/

> Even with paying some taxes to support the US billionaires

Medicare and social security alone account for nearly half of the US fed govt spend.

Taxes do not support billionaires. The lack of them does.

Is GitHub sponsors considered as Salary though? Might have some tax breaks if that is not the case.

It may depend on what country you're in, but in the US if you're just some rando, "donations" are still taxable income. The form GitHub sends you for filling purposes is the same one used for contractors.

You only need to pay tax back to the US on your earnings > $100k/year

If the earnings are made outside of the US then he doesn't pay tax on less than 100k. The earnings are in the US so he would need to pay, he still has to fill in a W9 form as he's a US citizen.

Am I reading right that average rent is somewhere around $2500 (roughly £2000)?

That would be on the expensive side of renting a room, and on the very cheap side for a place to yourself.

That sounds low, but I guess it includes areas well outside of San Francisco? All the apartments in SF and nearby seem to start around the high $3000s

You'll see wild swings in these numbers depending on how specific you're being about the type of place being rented and even between services doing the reporting.

Here's a March 2019 article from CBS bay area (based on data from the rental site Zumper):

"Median 1-Bedroom Rent In San Francisco Soars To Nearly $3,700 A Month"

"Elsewhere in the Bay Area, San Jose’s median rent for a one-bedroom was $2,540 (5th highest in the country), while in Oakland it was $2,320 (9th highest)."

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/03/05/median-1-bedroo...

Yeah, not having to live in SV is going to save you a lot of money. Github sponsors don't care where you live; they just care about what you made.

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...

The difference is even more pronounced. A very nice house in Nebraska is well under 300K but out of reach of almost all in most of California. Why you would live in either Nebraska or California though is up for debate...

Don't forget that California is a big state and a lot of it is not very populated or popular. A house in the bay or LA will probably run you a lot more than that.

Also, I don't think he would like to spend a year solving LeetCode problems in order to pass those SV interviews.

... this way he doesn't need to live in SV. Or California. Or the USA.

Given that he lives somewhere around Buffalo, NY, the cost of living is about twice as much[1] to maintain his standard of living in SV, so I would say he's doing pretty well, and he gets to do what he loves!

1: https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator/compare...

yeah, but this engineer doesn't have to live in SV.

I am sure the HN crowd is probably aware of compensation at tech companies in general, especially in SV>

At his current revenue growth rate, he will likely surpass $200k in the next 12 months with very little additional effort.

Couldn't agree more. Plus open source work is so fulfilling and love the feeling when people praise your work

Not everyone lives in California! :)

Even at FAANGS, the salary for the same role at the same level can be significantly lower outside of California ... not just a couple of percent, but I've heard reports of 60% difference between e.g. San Francisco and London for just someone moving offices.

I've worked on my own from home for the last 20 years. Would not trade it for any full time employee position. And thought of being in FAANG makes me shudder

Write a blog post ... lots of us envy you.

Sorry but I do not blog. No social media either. HN does not really count as I use it as a distraction when I need to take short break from work.

Had you read the article, you would've know he was making ~90k in 2018.

What is average pay for a software developer in SV with 10 years experience?

You can easily get a comfy job with $350k

"easily"?

Yes it's a numbers game. Apply for as much job as possible and ask for a minimum of $200k base. With a little bit of back and forth you can settle for $180k and then get a lot of equity.

indeed.com puts the average software engineer with 10 years experience in silicon valley at $141k [0] I think you have a very skewed view of "easily"

[0] https://www.indeed.com/career/software-engineer/salaries/Sil...

That sounds like base salary. Most compensation in SV comes in the form of stock.

A senior at google makes 170kish in salary and another 130-150k in stock.

This is true, but a senior at google is nothing like the median senior in the valley.

This is the problem with level.fyi; it's good information but too many people point at it and say "look how much software engineers make in the valley". This isn't even close to representative.

It's a bit like looking at biglaw salaries in NYC and saying "look how much lawyers make".

> indeed.com puts the average software engineer in silicon valley at $112k with a $5k bonus per year

That figure or the number you edited it to at $141k, is on the low side. The median software developer in the US is at ~$110,000. The top 10% bracket starts at around $165,000.

Emphasis that $110k figure is median, average is higher. The average software developer in SV with 10 years of experience is going to be a lot closer to $200k or over.

I haven't checked the data and I'm not sure why you're being downvoted since you don't seem to be breaking any of HN code of conduct.

That said, isn't median a better measure in this context, though? There can be a set of salaries that skews the average by a significant amounts, but most receive ~110k$

Mean salary isn't a very useful number if the distribution isn't close to normal; Without all the data it's hard to be sure - but that plausibly seems to be the case for SV salaries. Certainly matches my personal networks experience (sample biased as that may be).

Where did you get that 110k figure, by the way? That sounds very high for me for a median across all US software. Maybe California specific?

https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/San-Franci... (the top graph does not appear to let you filter by YoE, but you can look at what everyone has put.

Also maybe more leisurely in terms of pace.

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