
Ask HN: What's the most likely way to earn a ton of money as a programmer - korisnicko_ime
I don&#x27;t mean it in a get-rich-quick scheme sort of way. I&#x27;m interested in steering my programming career in the right direction, long term.<p>A bit of background: I&#x27;m a 27 year old programmer from Sarajevo, Bosnia. Wrote my first line of code when I was 11, and I loved programming ever since. 
I&#x27;ve been doing it professionally for the last 7 years; mostly outsourced web stuff.<p>So, good people of HN, what say you?
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apolymath
Get a full-time position as a software engineer at a mid-sized enterprise
company that is hiring in-house developers to build internal software used for
their various business processes. They'll give you a great salary & full
benefits, not to mention a very professional environment to work in. I work at
an insurance company and I love my team, my work, my development stack, and
the work is fairly easy and not very stressful at all.

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jakobegger
Learn to build what people want, not what they say.

I've met so many programmers who focussed just on implementing whatever was
specified. But a great programmer understands the needs of the customer, and
comes up with solutions that are even better than whatever the customer
actually said they wanted.

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ppezaris
Find a partner and start a business where the value you create from writing
software accrues to you, rather than to the firm who hired you to write code.

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korisnicko_ime
I really, really like this comment - especially coming from the outsourcing
body-shop type of world, where very little revenue derived from the software
trickles down to developers.

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sinker
Probably the conventional way. Work for a good paying company and keep doing
it for a few years. Spend very little. Move up or to a different company when
you can. This is the safest way probably. I don't work in tech anymore though
and make a meager living as a woodworker, so what do I know.

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korisnicko_ime
Got fed up and quit, or just retired?

Woodworking sounds like a perfect thing to do after retiring.

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sinker
Quit, I'm still under 30 years old. I was a decent programmer but never a good
employee. After running the cycle of finding a job, saving up for a year,
quitting, running out of money, I ended up quitting for good.

Woodworking is something I don't recommend anyone try to make a living off
cold. It gets expensive quick. Woodwork isn't particularly valuable as a skill
and almost anything you make can be mass produced.

You'll end up needing more space than you have. You also can't get completely
away from the computer either as you'll need to market the things you create.

For anyone even thinking about quitting their job and trying it full time I
would recommend having 100k in savings first.

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stefanoco
Software development by itself is not a technical profession that gives the
best results from this point of view. Having said this, I’m pretty sure that
strong and passion-driven skills in a few fields can make a difference:
embedded electronics software better than web, high quality and functional
safety oriented better than plain software, ML specialist (but with real
experience in challenging embedded applications) better than generic
algorithms, and so on. Again: the one professional that specialises in
designing the architecture and requisites of a functional safety concerned
piece of software (think of an automotive code under ISO26262 norm) will
easily monetise his skill much more than the ten software developers that
realise the same code.

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korisnicko_ime
So what you're suggesting is picking a field and specializing, no?

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stefanoco
Yes, with an eye to the quality and consciousness of what you’re doing

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bb88
Basically there are three career paths in engineering.

A: Start your own company or series of companies. This is fraught with risks
especially if you're not living in SF. It's harder to get known, get talent,
network, etc.

B: Become a Manager/Executive. Technically it's not programming anymore, but
the lifespan of a coder is maybe 25 years perhaps at best.

C: Consulting/Contracting. Large companies are often more willing/able to pay
for top talent, more so than startups. The more companies you have experience
with, the more you'll learn about what works and what doesn't. This is true
for Devops/Architecture/Processes. Once you develop regular clients, it's
possible to develop products for common problems and sell them to your
clients.

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auslegung
I think the most lucrative software career path involves the overlap of
'really new' and 'high in demand', so things like cryptography/encryption, AI
(artificial intelligence), ML (machine learning).

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korisnicko_ime
That sounds like a good point. Are you going in that direction yourself?

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auslegung
Not yet, I’m doing web which I really enjoy, but someday I may switch over to
encryption or something else to do with user privacy/safety.

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RickJWagner
A lot of it has to do with the company you work for-- different corporate
compensation strategies will leave you with differing amounts of savable
income. So change jobs if you aren't making progress.

Above all: Save regularly and invest in some way that will bring the power of
compound interest. Live below your means, never withdraw the money, always add
to it. After a reasonable amount of time, you will find yourself relatively
'wealthy', no matter how much or how little you are accustomed to earning.

Good luck!

P.S. Read 'Bogleheads.org'. If you aspire to gain wealth, it will reveal the
surest paths.

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bobbydreamer
Learn COBOL. Cloud everybody uses and everybody is driving the idea of
migrating to cloud. But all the top business applications in the world are
still in Mainframe it's very secure and less down time 99.98%, 30year old
programs still runs perfectly fine. Only the top companies have the Mainframe
and it's not open-source so only people have access to it can become experts
eventually.

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xiphias2
Machine learning / AI is generally better payed than web development, as it
needs some statistics and math understanding. Also it's good to learn
algorithms and data structures, as it's a very valuable skill for job
interviews (and also it doesn't hurt to understand them).

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smt88
I remember reading recently that the best-paid positions in SV were for
product, not engineering. Take from that what you will.

Generally, programming ability is considered less rare and impactful than
leadership/people skills.

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korisnicko_ime
Yeah, that's sounds about right. Wish I was as good at that stuff as I'm at
programming.

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smt88
Like programming skills, people skills take research, practice, solicitation
of feedback, and time. If you want those skills, you can develop them.

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stunt
Alongside other good recommendations here, Learn to be proud of your
accomplishments; then you will accomplish more and more.

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tinktank
What is your definition of "a ton of money"?

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korisnicko_ime
Eh, not sure - I just don't want to depend on a job/salary for the rest of my
life.

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themoat
I'd say that the majority of these comments are fantastic advice for that
path, then. The hardest part is actually going to be curbing your expenses,
living well below your means, and investing soundly.

