Do you make over 20k a month?
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For everybody in that thread, 100 times the number of people exist that haven't done so well or good at all. Don't feel bad if you're not as successful. There's more to life than making 20k+ a month.
No idea why so many people always aim for more money instead of more freedom
But hey, people finding happiness in owning more than they can spend or use are free to work as much as they possibly can.
I much prefer what I do now. A job that is sometimes stressful, that I even outright hate on rare occasions, but that is on average fulfilling and fun and lets me go to bed with a clear conscience. All while I still have enough free time and left over money to actually spend the money I earn on things I enjoy.
Now if someone gave me a choice between earning 20k a month or earning nothing a month, I'd still chose the former. I'd rather struggle with the mental issues and stress that come along with it than living in constant fear how I'd pay for my next meal...
But Ideally I'll have built up enough savings to retire early at some point and live off of the interest generated. Best of both worlds.
For people living in those countries, health costs are no longer an incentive to earn a lot. In the UK in fact, the pharmacy is free for people on low incomes but roughly £120/year for everyone else. The same applies to the dentist.
> This is a forum about hackers and hacking a way out
yes, and as such you'll run into the folks with opinions on either side of the discussion, how is that not more intellectually stimulating than the alternative?
To educate and remind people of survivorship bias, so as to prevent this:
20k a month is… what make an average senior SWE in the USA?
It’s ridiculous to think you’d have only 1% chance of making it to that level of revenue.
You can be rank-and-file in software, law, and medicine and exceed $20k/mo after taxes.
Makes the risk in entrepreneurship not worth it for me.
I mean, you "can" do a lot of things. That doesn't mean it's common. You "can" hit a hole in one, be struck by lightning or win the lottery, after all.
Someone on HN knows someone who's brother's uncle's girlfriend's roommate's cousin makes $750K/yr as a L7 superstar at Google in Silicon Valley, therefore "You can make $750K as a SWE" is technically a true statement. This true statement somehow evolves into "SWEs commonly make $750K, look at levels.fyi" which further evolves into "SWEs on average make $750K." Neither of which are true.
plus if I believe levels.fyi, 200k+ is F500 programmers, and mostly those at FAANGs or other high-end orgs. Plenty of folks ain't.
But yeah, 20k/mo. is mid-level legit-org SWE pay.
Are software/tech consultants paid solely for their opinion or do they actually implement things, write code, etc?
I can't imagine getting paid as much as the commentors reported for simply giving advice...
if someone is paying 100k p/m for consulting, they're not just paying for consulting they're paying specifically for you. that's the hard bit.
Pure consultants, if they are specialized, can make more than that - and that's because of the value they bring.
often times they exist to "read your watch to tell you what time it is" and bill you 800/hr for the privilege. but they often act as a lever to move implacable executives, or to serve as a sanity check for C-levels / the board before launching big initiatives.
other consultants write code, and are essentially high-end contractors. part of the value proposition is that they're very qualified -- hence why they cost so much -- and that they have a large org to lean on. the large org means that if the individual contractor dies or quits there is another who can jump in, and they can rope in other resources as needed.
You could be running a business that is $20k in revenue and $18k in costs, profit is $2k
He had figured out how to get some FX trading advantages for the bank. IT staff were furious. I was impressed. If a trader or lawyer can make this why not a programmer?
Another friend had hard time getting mortgage credit even though has enough money already in the bank to buy apartment in cash - reason? He earns in dollars but in his country bank requires earning in local currency to get credit.
Depending on how the economy is doing and how crazy your bank is that could be a truly awful measure.
I love my job as it allows me to solve puzzles and get paid for them. It’s worth letting someone else take a cut to bring me the puzzles so I can focus on puzzle solving.
It is mostly about interesting things with emphasis on tech and business
It serves as ad place for jobs in yc startups
Nothing else.
Not the other parts of a functioning business - marketing, client relations, public relation, finance, business strategy, etc.
That’s a pretty absurd assumption.
And think of it this way. Google revenue is $1.5M per employee. Profit is 24%.
That’s $360k of profit per employee (yeah I know costs include employee wages, but bear with me).
Seems like ultra-elite-10x coders who make $400k+ are skimming a pretty respectable chunk of the returns, no?
I could say good buy to my (comparatively) low guaranteed salary to "setup my own shop", but my current employer wouldn't take me as consultant since we have a rule about size of companies we deal with. So I would have to start looking for new client(s) from scratch without any guarantee I will find even one.
And also there's a big difference between doing and making money. Not everyone knows how to sell themselves. I certainly don't.
I don’t envy anyone running a small HVAC installation company or whatever. The work is boring, the paperwork mindnumbing, the hours often grueling. When one of your three employees gets sick or goes on a drinking binge, you’re the one who has to figure it out.
If I had to choose, I’d rather work as a librarian even for 0.1x the salary. But of course we’re very lucky that there are so many interesting and well-paid knowledge jobs today.
It's not even that most won't start their own shop (which is perfectly do-able), it's also that they will actively attack even the mere notion of it.
And its usually using "isms" like "its hard to get clients", "its risky", "multiple clients mean multiple bosses" and "90% of businesses fail in the first 5 years" and other nonsense.
Edit: then the economy takes a turn, mass tech layoffs happen and it makes some people think.