I would not imagine still working in the company where I started as a Junior (and only receiving a 5% raise per year). In the same time, after jumping a few times, my salary increased 7x and I found a place where I felt really happy working, too. (before starting my own business)
Exactly. This doesn't have to be one extreme or the other. I believe you can have a good job and a good wage.
That's simply not an option in most areas of the world.
I agree that a balance between the extremes is healthy, but I don't think that you're a case in point.
That is an option in 2nd-3rd world countries, even to a greater extent than in the US (because the market is global and local jobs usually don't pay well).
E.g. my compensation (I'm from an ex-USSR country) increased by a factor of 13 after two job changes (for the same amount of work).
My assumption was 40k start/80k senior/120k exceptional/160k moonshot.
As always, as a disclaimer Europe is a big place. I had Central-Northern parts in mind.
If I’d have been paid in INR over my career, a 7x multiple over that time would leave me less than 2% better off than when I started.
I’ve done 7x in Japan, and I think 4x is possible in the Netherlands (minimum wage is higher, and maximum lower).
4x is possible, but in that short of a timeframe, you're more likely moving from a Dutch company to an international one and becoming employable across the entire globe. Which given US salaries would give the ability to 5-10x anyway.
I know some countries use decimals like commas are used in the US, so maybe that's actually 25000 and 60000, which would make more sense.
In fact, it seems most of these comp growth discussions tend to fall into black-and-white thinking, when in reality there are several factors that can hugely impact comp, e.g. from retention promos and diagonal internal transfers, to company tiers (see Gergely Orosz on trimodal distribution), to international remote or full blown migration.
The thing about happiness vs job hopping risks is also a false dichotomy. You can be one of those 500k+/yr staff eng at FAANGs and do 9-5 days working on interesting problems. You could be miserable in that exact same position. The spectrum is wide and how different people feel about things varies a lot too.
After factoring in ~10x 15-20% jumps over 25 years, compounding interest and more maybe that translates to being 100% financially secure 10 years sooner. I didn't do the math but you get the idea. Basically is a temporary bad place or 2 for a year worth gaining 10 years of not having to work unless you wanted to?
There is no substitute for "I can retire at 60 instead of 70".
Of course, OP said he was making 6 figures (an insane amount of money away from my position) so perhaps they are already planning to retire at 55...
It depends, what was my life like for those 60 years vs the 70?
I'd love to be financially independent, but I don't want to spend 60yrs working on projects I hate always chasing the next promotion with only the promise of retiring early. It really depends on whether that increase comes at the expense of my work life balance or not
Of course, if you don’t find dysfunction stressful, or you don’t really enjoy working in your industry regardless, it’s worth it to max the comp. But I’m happiest with a balance of flexible work, passionate coworkers, little bureaucracy, and slightly less money than I could otherwise make.
Right, but the point is that apples to apples comparison you'll make a lot more money switching. There's no cost to work life balance or interesting projects or anything. It's 20%+ of your salary every year in exchange for dealing with interviewing and switching companies. It's a pretty fantastic deal.
Would you choose 30 bad work years over 40 good work years?
They are all valid points, unfortunately.
Let's just remember some people have really bad really underpaid 40 years of work.
Good point.
> I think the idea is to squeeze as much as you can now,...
I really, really don't think that's healthy. Be unhappy now so you can be happy later is misguided, because you need to work on being happy now to be happy later: putting it off is self-destructive. I recommend "The Power of Having Fun" by Dave Crenshaw.
I'm making a decent amount over $100k, my wife also makes good money, and yet we're way, way behind on where we're supposed to be in savings for a comfortable retirement at 67 (which is apparently 3x your annual salary at the age of 40), despite me boiling the frog in increasing how much we save for it the past few years (around 20% of my paycheck now, up from 8% a few years ago).
I, for one, plan to stay away from it as long as I possibly can. My body will retire its own self when it's done.
If you hate work for whatever reason and you want out of the system faster? Yes, stack dollars and exit. That may require sacrifice and "bad gigs" but that could enable the exit.
If you find your work engaging and rewarding? Why would you optimize to exit? (Queue the lawyers/doctors/etc that work into their 80s for the love of it.) Tech has brutal ageism but the point still stands -- figure out what you are optimizing for, and your answer will be clear.
(OP sounds like they have found the secret that money isn't everything, and happiness is rewarding and they are optimizing for that.)
To mitigate the risk of losing the ability to earn income. You can always choose not to work or work a lower paying job after you attain financial security.
I feel like the risks are especially high of losing ability to earn sufficient income between ages 50 to 65 such that you are able to afford healthcare expenses to carry you until you qualify for Medicare (at age 65). So my goal is to earn everything I need to before then.
I think part of the issue is that society in general (and tech in particular) are extremely productivity-focused which trains you to be future-biased in your thinking. Everything becomes about preparing for the next milestone rather than, as the OP advocated, optimizing for the present period of time.
No, it is predicated on the increasing probabilities of illness and injuries as one ages, as well as age discrimination resulting in more difficulty obtaining a job with sufficient pay and health insurance benefits.
I've shared this elsewhere, but it's like the story from Oliver Burkeman's book about the NYC businessman chastising a Mexican fisherman for spending too much time on the beach drinking wine with friends instead of growing his fishing business. When the fisherman asked, "And once I have all that money from growing my business, then what should I do?" and the businessman said, "Well, then you can spend your time drinking wine on the beach with your friends."
No. The goal is to be able to secure desired resources without needing a job, i.e. having enough wealth to not have to work in the event that I am unable or unwilling to work.
What am I supposed to do if my wife or I get hit with a cancer diagnosis in mid 50s?
The fisherman and NYC businessman story is missing the volatility component of life. Hence the utility of markets for futures trading, etc.
There's probably something to be said about the systemic causes that create an environment where even tech workers are so financial insecure as to foster that mindset, but that’s a digression.
If you look across different professions in different countries across different times, you see that a profession that is very lucrative in one time period often isn't anymore in a subsequent one, or in another nearby society. These things come and go. There was a time when becoming an airline pilot or factory worker were lucrative options in the USA.
There are a lot of good reasons to guess that the good times will continue for the time being, but you're kidding yourself if you think it's a certainty.
1.2^10 is also a 620% pay increase. From my starting comp this would put me at like 1.5M, which is an extremely unusual pay level.
[0] https://www.investopedia.com/personal-finance/how-much-incom...
My experience is it was way worth it at the start of my career, so by now I've brought my compensation "anchor" up with those bumps. Now I prioritize other things.
Stressing about would-have-beens is unfortunately easy to do, the ability to appreciate the present is much more difficult.
Maximizing happiness for me means finding the right balance between having a positive impact and making enough money. (I'm not sure I've struck the right balance, but that is my mental model.)
Let’s look at data: If the geezer is 60 and paid off their loan today, they got it 30 years ago (in 1992). The median price of single family freestanding homes in LA county in 1992 was 221k. Today it’s 860k. In 1992 the median household income was 32k and in 2020 (last available data point) it’s 76k.
I understand that “the geezers” have something to teach us with a perspective of a lifetime and the needs all humans share.
At the same time, we have to acknowledge and account for the economics having totally changed.