
Maximizing Income as a Software Engineer - mtechie
https://ourmoneymentality.com/how-to-maximize-your-income-as-a-software-engineer/
======
exdsq
I find there is more and more of a focus on making $$$ by working in tech and
honestly I find it kind of sad. There are so many YouTube videos that treat
dev roles as a gold rush - spend x hours learning DS/A and you’ll earn >
$100k. Learn Swift to make side projects to retire by 30 etc.

I imagine if you read this comment it doesn’t apply to you (you care enough to
be on a forum about tech) and I realise you can do both - enjoy tech and want
to earn more (which is fair, I do too). But seeing Tai Lopez style adverts on
YouTube about learning JavaScript and React is just sad and negatively impacts
our field.

As Alan Kay said on another thread, he and his contemporaries worked at Parc
because it was “their calling” and only one wanted to make money. Nowadays the
focus sadly seems to be comp first and passion second.

Edit: Just went to watch a video and had a recommendation titled "Java,
Python, PHP, JavaScript, C++, C#... WHO MAKES MORE MONEY?". Point, I think,
made.

~~~
wrnr
I feel you bro, the struggle is real, it's a shame not all dev jobs are as
inherently interesting as those at Xerox Parc in the good old days. If you
enjoy tech, sometimes the best option is to code for the $$$ during the day
and enjoy yourself coding at night. Same thing goes if you want to be a marine
biologist, you'll first have to be a millionaire and then you can study the
asexual reproductive cycle of micro organisms at the bottom of the ocean.

~~~
emmanueloga_
Another way to be a marine biologist is to draw cartoons :-p

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hillenburg#Early_caree...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hillenburg#Early_career)

------
thundergolfer
So there's a "Make Work/Life Balance Key" section with no argument as to how
that maximises income and the very next section is "Always Be Working on a
Side Hustle". What?

> A side hustle can provide supplemental income while providing you security
> if something goes south

What kind of money-making side-hustle can layer on top of a 40-50 hr/week job
and _not_ negatively impact work/life balance? Pretty unconvincing.

~~~
fierarul
I agree. Depends on the situation: if you are single and by life you mean
going out, dating and having some trips then it's one thing. If you are
married with children, especially young, I think the side hustle is a no-go.

------
TP4Cornholio
In my experience, the best ways to maximize your income as a software engineer
are to job hop, study data structures/algorithms, and learn how to market
yourself. Companies rarely reward engineers who stay put.

~~~
gwbas1c
> In my experience, the best ways to maximize your income as a software
> engineer are to job hop

Until you find a good situation and stick with it. A good situation shouldn't
be discarded on a whim.

~~~
pvorb
Sure, but continuing to job hop will still get you more compensation more
quickly.

~~~
gwbas1c
When you're in a good situation you're usually around the top of your pay
grade.

~~~
devonkim
And when you're among the top most respected and authoritative persons in the
room, it is usually a sign that you should be moving on to a different room or
company to get better experience / skills.

~~~
gwbas1c
And in such a situation, if you're highly compensated because you've job
hopped, moving on to get a better experience or skills might mean that you
have to take a pay cut. No one's stupid enough to pay a job hopper well above
market value.

Edit: Furthermore, there's a well-defined career track for job hoppers, it's
called being an independent contractor. You know what you're worth and you set
your rate, and it's generally assumed that you know how long you're going to
stay in a position when you start, and you only accept positions that are the
length you want.

------
fxtentacle
Practice negotiating.

The article says it and I fully agree, you need to be able to verbally stand
your ground when time comes to discuss your compensation.

As a CTO, I have seen first hand that overconfident amateurs can pass the
external HR tests and an interview with my CEO just fine. And then I'm left
dumbfounded during the technical interview because our $200k annual
engineering candidate cannot explain what threads are, despite claiming 5
years of experience building multithreaded systems.

Also, I did get bitten by the American way of doing business where everything
that isn't written in a contract or the companies financial books isn't worth
anything. Never do gentlemen's agreements with US companies.

Oh and there's one very easy lever if companies are unwilling to pay your full
price: you just work less. Offer them 20 hours a week for their suggested
monthly rate and then a month in you can ask if they would like to increase
your working hours. At that time, you can then say "I'm sorry I cannot work
for less per hour than before"

So basically it's all negotiation. If you are truly skilled, almost nobody
will offer you a fair price right away, because all of them have been burned
by overconfident amateurs. But imagine how you'd feel if you notice a year in
that your incompetent coworker is making twice your salary. Being paid highly
will also automatically grant you decision power and respect.

So no matter what else you do, practice negotiating. It's the single most
important skill, assuming that you're generally capable at your job.

And good people skills will also spill over to all other aspects of your life,
like getting laid.

------
devonkim
Upon reading this article, I came to the conclusion that there is nothing
particularly special about these points except arguably the second to last
point - don't these points apply for anyone in any corporate job? For the
exception point, many professions simply cannot pursue a side hustle that can
really pay off because their day jobs consume them by nature of their
profession being such like doctors, so software engineers have some leeway in
theory. Sure, many doctors do have side hustles and passions, but they almost
always intersect with their profession in some way. Most of my side passions
take almost zero knowledge or experience with software, yet people will
probably not care unless I explain what I do for a day job with the social
proof of competence that brings with it.

~~~
bsder
I don't really agree with the promotion advice. You simply have to assume that
the only way to get a promotion in a reasonable timeframe is to leave the
company and get the title increase in a new job.

> Negotiate In The Beginning and Never Take A Companies’ Word As Payment

More people than you would expect need this advice.

In addition, I have to lecture people that you want to have a higher _starting
title_ because that gives you a higher top end to your salary band for raises
without needing a promotion.

The _ONLY_ point at which you have leverage over a company is before you take
the job. You don't have to rake them over the coals for every single penny,
but you should know what you are worth and negotiate for it.

I will also say that if you are working with a smaller company, you might want
to apply some creativity to your negotiation. Maybe they can't match your
salary numbers, but they could give you twice or thrice the paid vacation
(that has value). Or, they may not be able to pay you a cash bonus, but maybe
they can provide you with something (services, products, reimbursement for
domestic help, foreign travel to conferences, etc.) because it comes from a
different budgetary bucket.

But, as always, get it in writing.

------
ltbarcly3
There is an age old tradition among programmers: once they have a couple of
years of experience they decide to start a blog to explain to everyone all
this exciting stuff they know. They believe that all you have to is be smart
and think about things and it's reasonable to start telling other people how
to do it, even while having little to no track record and only having done it
themselves for a short time in a single narrowly specific context (or in this
case probably never).

This person is an entry level software engineer. There is basically no reason
to think they can give any kind of insight into how promotions and raises
work, since they've never been in the room making decisions about promotions
and raises. The advice in this blog post boils down to "if you want a raise,
1. try to get promoted, 2. negotiate for more money, 3. try to get promoted,
4. work life balance, but then unironically 5. when you aren't at work, always
be doing different work and finally 6. if this advice doesn't work for you
it's your fault"

It's cute.

~~~
rak00n
I’m still happy people are writing about these things and that’s making
conversations happening. What he described could happen to anyone at any
level.

------
mtechie
Hi all - author of the post here! I'm not 100% sure why the post was flagged,
but I did want to drop by and thank everyone who commented - both positively
and negatively. I thought it'd be interesting for people to hear my story and
get another perspective on a dev career. I do apologize to anyone who felt it
didn't live up to their expectations. I think some of the ideas are obvious to
some people, but definitely not all (like myself). Like all things, I'll use
your feedback to improve my writing and keep on iterating. Have a great day
today, everyone :)

~~~
thosakwe
It shouldn't have been flagged - it's on topic for this forum.

What HN needs is a downvote button for stories, because flagging is extremely
misused.

~~~
mtechie
Thanks for the feedback. This was my first HN post and I wasn't sure if I had
broken some forum rule. That's good to know.

------
tempsy
I got lucky at a startup and ended up with stock currently worth around $1.3M
though could see it doubling the next round. I’m not that motivated career
wise though and in some ways having a nest egg that could likely stretch into
retirement at a relatively young age is a bit demotivating oddly.

~~~
ltbarcly3
The value of a thing is defined as the amount you can sell it for. Valuation
based on fundraising rounds is not how much you can sell your stock for.

Your stock may be worth a lot more if/when it is finally liquid, but it is
_much_ _much_ more likely that it will be worthless. There are many ways that
your shares can end up worthless while the founders (or more likely investors)
of the company cash out millions of dollars. Be careful to avoid being
dependent on that stock in how you plan your finances.

~~~
tempsy
I’ve already cashed out some in a company sponsored secondary round, so
there’s definitely a market for it. Again, I got lucky, and the company is
actually doing well from what I can tell (haven’t worked there for a number of
years now)

------
m463
My opinion is that switching jobs is always the strongest way to increase
salary.

I don't know why, maybe human nature, but it seems that compensation for new
hires is more competitive than internal salary increases.

That said, other compensation like stock and espp can dwarf your salary if
you're at a growing company.

~~~
JamesBarney
The reason is fairly straightforward. Companies get more bang for their buck
with new hires. They can pay 20k to get a new hire. Or they can pay their
entire staff 20k more each to reduce their turnover by one employee.

~~~
SomewhatLikely
It still doesn't make a lot of sense. There's a lot of risk in a new hire
because you can only vet them so well. On the other hand you know how good
your current employees are and they have very valuable internal knowledge you
couldn't pay for if you wanted to.

~~~
JamesBarney
Sure, improving employee retention is better than improving employee
acquisition, but it's not 10x better. Each dollar just goes so much farther
towards acquisition than retention. Basically money is a more important to
people when they decide which job to take than when they decide whether or not
to quit.

------
gentleman11
Is the goal to maximize your income? It seems like if that’s the goal and you
are playing to win, you might make a lot of questionable choices to get that
win

Not speaking about the article, just in general. Eg, there is an article about
jp Morgan and climate change on the front page too

~~~
smegma2
I find this a little pedantic. If someone talks about maximizing their salary,
it doesn't mean literally maximizing it at all cost. If someone tells you that
they're interested in maximizing their income, it means that they'd like to
take steps to increase their income, not that they've lost all of their morals
or any other goal in life to do so.

------
TikkiTaki
Imho, the best way to be high paid is a social activity. Nowadays most parts
of companies try to find someone who has good references somewhere. Taking
part in conferences or having a good place in competitions(I am from data
science domain), or writing interesting open-source project can give you more
money than working hard hours

~~~
tastroder
> good place in competitions(I am from data science domain)

Do people actually commonly care about that these days? Good papers /
leaderboard positions on shared tasks I get in data science but competitions
as in Kaggle et al? My brain defaults to interpreting that as "had time to
waste working for free, for whoever put up that competition". Seeing that in
an application package has about as much influence for me personally as some
random certification.

------
jb3689
Simply "being promoted" won't work past a certain point. You will get called
out in competitive workplaces if you don't have actual skills. Yes, having an
aggressive personality can get you promoted. In my opinion the best was to
maximize your income is to work hard building real skills and then join a top,
high potential company as a highly experienced/expert hire

Also the grind is painful. You're better off minimizing your expenses (low
CoL) and living on a modest wage in my opinion

~~~
candiodari
The problem is ... where to go once you do this? Let's say you get (very) high
wage sorted. Not C-level, so close to $200k, and over a long time it'll go to
$350k. You get some side income through the stock market and property (which
as it turns out was the right choice: property works better with $ (because
mortgages have ridiculous leverage and are very low risk), stock market works
a lot better with $$$, and there's a large space in between where property
matters only in that owning the place you live in helps a lot). You do the tax
optimization (which matters more and more the further you get, and starts
being the main factor at a surprisingly "low" wage. I guarantee that anyone
making $100k can make more with tax optimization than with a promotion).

But promotion, even in the very best of places, with quite good taxes, has
very diminishing returns. A promotion takes new skills, more work, and let's
say a 10% bump in salary (higher percentage increases seem to only happen at
the low end. I got a 180% wage increase at one point but now that would be
ridiculous). I mean I guess there's the executive promotion but I have no idea
how people get that. These executives certainly aren't smarter or more
effective than I am, so ... There comes a point, surprisingly low (let's say
$200k a year), where chasing promotion is just not worth it, as a 10% before
tax raise will only get you 2-3% actual more money. And generally speaking
even the $350k or so I'll eventually probably get to will only get me $60k or
so more income.

I get the impression the only real way up at this point is starting a company,
or at least starting to work for a company I have significant ownership in.
Plus I fantasize it comes with more independence (although I lead teams now
for more than a decade. Any illusions of control you have as a TL or manager
didn't really survive). Truth is that I'd be surprisingly strongly affected if
I were to get fired, and while I've always been able to find a new higher
paying job rapidly (I left a lot of jobs early in my career because I found
something better. "A lot" is about 6 btw, over now 17 years, not counting
effective job changes while consulting), and I hate the risk this represents.
I also don't think that'll happen, but there are certainly circumstances that
would cause just this.

So starting a company. Something. But how to do that?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Sounds reasonable. Except for the 'more work' part? I don't have any evidence
that management works any harder than Engineering.

------
xwdv
What about becoming an expert at some niche technologies, writing prolific
open source software contributions, and getting contracted as a highly paid
consultant to guide the implementations in other company’s products?

------
newscracker
Instead of this, how about writing something titled “How to maximize life
satisfaction and happiness as a software engineer”?

~~~
AlexCoventry
That's much more difficult, because you can't stick a number on those things.
I agree they're important, though.

------
MilnerRoute
The other option is lowering your expenses -- for example, working remotely in
a city where your rent is much cheaper.

~~~
esoterica
The income penalty you incur when you restrict yourself to remote only jobs
generally vastly exceeds the 30k/year or whatever you save on rent by moving
somewhere cheap.

Unless your current spending is extremely reckless, cutting expenses typically
makes less of an impact than increasing income. If you currently spend 60k,
you cannot cut your expenses by more than 60k, but you can definitely increase
your income by more than that if you manage your career properly.

~~~
rak00n
Generally that high rent is an opportunity cost. Saving 3k/month by living in
rural Wyoming instead of NYC when you’re in your 20s is not desirable unless
you want to be a really sad person with no friends.

------
rapphil
The takeaway is that you are responsible for your career. Not the company.

