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Comment by throwaway60707 | Hacker News Reader

> financial struggles

Talking about the general population, sure. But we're talking about software engineers, the most highly paid while at the same time the most accessible profession of all time.

There are high school dropouts making 5 times the national average wage in SWE, and that's not unusual at all - you have the ones making 10 times for the "unusual" category. A person that knows nothing can get a job that pays the national average wage in this industry.

I personally helped 7 people get from 0 to a job within a year. All of them are now (after 1-3 years of experience) making at least 5 times more than they did before they switched careers.

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You never know what someone is dealing with unless they tell you. A bad business decision as a sole trader, an ex-marriage with kids and a SAH parent that they're supporting, difficult/societal pressures around family (care is _very_ expensive), a gambling problem.

> 5 times the national average wage in SWEE, and that's not unusual at all

In the US. Everywhere else, that's incredibly unusual. 5x the average wage in the UK is 150k plus - that's _very_ unusual.

Also, the average wage in the US is $75k. The "average case" engineer isn't making $375k with 10 years experience, nevermind with 1-3 years experience.

> A person that knows nothing can get a job that pays the national average wage in this industry.

This is nonsense.

> In the US. Everywhere else, that's incredibly unusual. 5x the average wage in the UK is 150k plus - that's _very_ unusual.

I am in Europe and it's normal here. Maybe not the UK, I'm in continental. Looking at it in detail, high taxes seem to mess with this a lot. I'm in a very low taxed region (my full income tax + health and social insurance combined was 9% of my income last year).

> This is nonsense.

No, it's not. I've just helped a junior friend get a job that pays 1.5x the average wage, the only thing they know is the very basics of HTML.

I helped other friends too, those knew a little more (basic programming skills - variables, conditions, cycles) and immediately got 2x the average wage.

Average wage isn't $75k. That's average household, which frequently has two wage earners.

For individual full-time workers, it's $57,200[1].

[1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf

Ok replace 75k with 57k, the average swe is not making $275k

I didn't say average, I said it's not unusual. Obviously you need to be good to get to that level. But you can do it without any schools, just by sitting down at home and learning, and then replying to few LinkedIn messages.

In my experience, this would be the case for cca 20-25% of the people I work with. So yeah, definitely not average - but definitely not something you never see. Every team has few devs like that.

In the US that's true, but not necessarily everywhere. My wife was out of work for 15 years after a burnout and while raising kids with their own difficulties, and it was definitely financially stressful where I am (Netherlands). Besides being very stressful in general, of course.

Software engineers, too, will have financial struggles.

Expensive illness in the family, divorce, triplets, cost of living crisis, natural disasters, accidents, unexpected salary cuts.

People's expenses typically track income, if your income for whatever reason suddenly decreases, a lot of folks, even "rich" software engineers can easily be in financial trouble.

I live in Canada and make a few thousand more than the median income in my current city. It's certainly not 2x as much less 5x what others are making here.

I'f I wanted to buy a house here I'd have to make a minimum of 3x my current salary despite being "well paid".

We're not all rich.

Where I live it's normal to live in apartments. Entire houses are pretty much inaccessible to anyone except the richest - and they are all split into apartments anyways. This is normal, I don't know why this would be an indicator of anything.

Because not all countries are the same. In Canada owning a home is the historical norm and until a few years ago someone making the median income could have afforded one in most places.

Very few Canadians actually want to live in an apartment, home ownership is the goal.

Canada's home ownership rate is currently 66.5%[1] which is higher than many countries, but it used to be higher.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220921/mc-b0...

Few decades ago it didn't matter much whether you live in the capital, in a small town or in a village, today the capital is much more desirable than either of the other places. Now there are also many foreign people moving in who can't even go to the other places because people don't speak English there. And frankly, we have big issues with new construction - it takes 8 years to obtain the necessary government approvals!

Houses used to be cheap here (in the capital) as well and even I still remember that time, but we had to adapt to the new situation. My grandmother had a 200m^2 flat and that was normal; I have 100m^2 and am considered very rich, people in my age and family situation (2 people) usually live in 35-45m^2.

Of course everybody would love to own a whole house in the capital! It's like asking "who wants to be rich?" and being surprised that everybody does.

> home ownership is the goal.

We own the apartments, though (home ownership rate over 75%). You can't buy an apartment in Canada? Perhaps that'd be the first thing to fix...

There's lots of people out there who are at higher than national average in places that have a cost of living 3x+ the national average, who have exceptional expenses like caring for a special needs child or a sick relative, and/or have childcare costs that folks in lower COLA places often have covered by parents or by a stay-at-home parent.

Collectively we can stop acting like every SSE in America is sipping champagne and eating caviar every day, because they really aren't.

I'm European, from the former Eastern Bloc.

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