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Comment by throwdecro | Hacker News Reader

The idea that the FAANG gravy train can last 30 years is not realistic.

If at least half the letters in FAANG aren't blown away in that time period, it would suggest a tech environment so stagnant that it would be impossible to justify the compensation.

And lasting 30 years at a surviving FAANG company is such a low-probability prospect that it's not something reasonable to include in any future planning.

Very few FAANG engineers can actually expect this outcome.

EDIT: Removed shock word "preposterous", sorry about that.

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I almost fully agree with you, but a small part of me wonders if this is different, and we've created a sort of aristocracy that exists outside of normal competition and the rise and fall of companies. In some measure, it's going to depend on modernization of monopoly regulations. But I think there is an outside chance that were due for 50+ years of stagnation and increasing inequality, after the sort of cambrian explosion of tech we've seen since the 70s

Oooh, I like the analogy. Does it mean we're due for a mass extinction event in the tech industry in the future?

every FAANG is almost 20 or over 20 years old. Certainly engineers that have spent those last 20 years (if they haven't already) will retire probably over the figure in the spreadsheet. Will the particular FAANG companies last another 20 (or 30) years? Who's to say but I don't see whatever replaces them not being glad to hire former FAANG engineers. So yeah it's kind of a gravy train that you needn't disembark if you don't want to.

The idea that professional software developers will have their negotiating power depleted is preposterous.

Barring an AGI that can take care of knowledge work, companies will continue to pay a premium to developers because they are often times the core value creators of the business. Even in traditional areas like finance, quants with CS PhDs are displacing Harvard MBA’s trading on fundamentals b/c their returns blow the latter out the water.

There's a difference between "software developers" and "FAANG software developer" though, which is a source of great cognitive dissonance when people see that industry averages are only slightly above $100k/year but FAANG compensation is like 3-4 times that for basic engineering work.

Both are paid a premium, but FAANG is paid a massive premium, and there isn't much precedent for collecting that massive premium continuously for 30 years.

EDIT: Actually in that spreadsheet I would argue that the $250K compensation is too low, the 10% return on investment is too high, and the 30 year timeframe is not sustainable.

Lotta software developers out there at non-FAANG companies getting paid FAANG or near-FAANG wages. Probably more software engineers making 250k+ outside of those five companies than inside them.

Also I kinda question the assertion that these companies being active and important in thirty years would suggest something untoward. In most other industries, the "Blue Chip" companies are pretty durable. JPM's lineage goes back to 1871, and that fact does not prevent its current employees from being well-compensated.

> The idea that professional software developers will have their negotiating power depleted is preposterous.

Lol, I heard the same arguments in the 1990s about webmasters, which at that time were also commanding large premiums over the market median. I also remember when any engineer who touched a linux kernel could make 3x "normal developer" wages. Most FAANG engineers aren't working on anything too special; the biggest competition will be off the shelf frameworks/libraries/application which can do what previously required custom work.

We are also in a period of easy investment money - the biggest threat to FAANG companies is the market demanding a return on their investment - P/E ratios are at historically unsustainable levels. Either "this time is different", or this will all end very badly for a lot of people, just like the first dot-com boom.

Yep. We haven't hit a real bear market in quite a while -- even 2008 was mostly a road bump if you were in tech. We'll see what shakes out when everyone isn't getting trivial 20-30% gains in the market every year.

There are good years, and then there are bad years...

OK, so what is your estimate of net worth for a software engineer retiring today after 30 years in the industry?

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