
Ask HN: How to make more than $1mn+/yr as a software engineer? - zump
Don&#x27;t have social skills and want to make more money. How can I make pull in $1mn+ as an engineer? What industries and what companies make this happen? I don&#x27;t want to have to be in the top 1% like Jeff Dean, but top 25% and still get these results.
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patio11
Most of the more straightforward answers to this question end up with you
making the majority of that million from your entrepreneurial skills rather
than software development skills. (For example, "Found a software development
consultancy and grow it to 8~12 employees.")

In terms of straight up W-2ing without taking entrepreneurial levels of risk,
I think you're looking at either finance or (restricting 25% to ~10%)
AppAmaGooBookSoft. Note that you're not aiming to have the engineering skills
of Jeff Dean but rather looking to have the business impact of the guy who
coded the credit card processing for AdWords. (An identifiable person who
actually exists, or I would be more explicit about the returns to that
example.)

There's also "Join a startup as a very early engineer" but you're primarily
compensated for picking the winner there -- there's many great businesses in
the ranks of e.g. YC companies but if you had joined as the first non-founding
engineer the majority do not result in the outcome you're looking for.

I'll leave the obligatory disclaimer "What motivates this goal? There are
probably more interesting goals if you consider your values carefully."

~~~
chipperyman573
What is the "book" in AppAmaGooBookSoft?

~~~
tazjin
Facebook?

~~~
chipperyman573
Aah, it confused me because the first three names were all the first three
letters. Now that it's pointed out to me it's pretty clear.

------
gigatexal
Doesn't anyone else think this post is full of arrogance? Sure you don't have
to be the best programmer in the world to earn millions but this just screams
"I want to be mediocre and make much, much more than others." But yes, the
quickest way to millions is starting a company as others have said.

~~~
zump
It's real talk partly fueled by the anonymity HN offers. Some people, like me,
may find themselves wanting to maximize their pay. Period. I don't believe
people making this money are one-in-a-kind super geniuses, our system doesn't
optimize for that. They are people who made a series of decisions, I want to
know what they could be.

~~~
bshimmin
Why? Do you think it will make you happy? I used to think money would at least
make life easier, but past a certain point (and that point is vastly less than
$1m/year), it really doesn't - you just end up spending it on stupid and
pointlessly expensive things that mean you have to make more of it in order to
be where you were before.

And when you look at the really rich people, like Zuckerberg, Buffett, or
Gates, what do they do with their money? Why, they give it away.

~~~
zump
This perspective is common amongst people who are making "enough".

But most people in the world don't. Enough with the moralizing.

~~~
austinjp
Your perspective is odd and not based on evidence. Happiness does not scale
linearly in relation to earnings. It tops out around £40k in the UK, if I
remember the stat correctly.

Of course, there are outliers, people whose happiness does scale linearly with
their earnings. More importantly, I feel, is the vertigo associated with
income, the fear and worry of taking a cut in earnings. Lifestyle expands to
fit income.

It does not seem that you have considered the why, only the what. Why do you
want $1m? Several others have raised this question here. You will be far, far
more satisfied if you spend a time considering this in detail.

------
nvarsj
Don't be an engineer? If you're purely in it for the money, I would suggest
the way to get 1mn/year is to join a hedge fund or prop trading firm as a
trader. Steps: 1. Graduate from an ivy league school with a good GPA so it's
easy to get in the door 2. Pass rigorous math based interviews - lots of
guides on studying for these 3. Make money on your desk, which requires the
ability to learn financial concepts, and quick thinking on the job - if you
can play Starcraft well, or multi task online poker, you can do this. You
don't need social skills or anything for this, apart from the interview
process, it's almost purely analytical.

Making that kind of money as an engineer is much more of a crap shoot. Just be
the best engineer you can and have big influence wherever you work. Then get
very lucky and work on the right project at the right time at the right
company.

On a more philosophical note - if you spend your life chasing money, odds are
you're going to end up pretty unhappy. Try not to succumb to the capitalist
rat race - I know it's hard, but it will make you happier :).

edit: Updated to be less hyperbolic. It's still tough to make a lot of money
even going the trader route.

~~~
vostok
Note that this is not guaranteed or even expected at a prop shop or hedge fund
either. I know of a very large hedge fund where pay is not as good as you
think. I will just say that I have never seen a trader who makes $1 million
per year claim that this is a good way of doing it.

You're probably better off as a SWE at Google than as a trader at this hedge
fund.

~~~
nvarsj
Yeah it's not guaranteed at all. You have to be at a profitable desk to make
it happen. I don't want to give any numbers since it's too variable, but I
would guess it would still be a minority of the traders who pull 1 million+
even at the most successful firms. But I think if you are aiming for that
number it's the most straightforward way - it has the least amount of
variability and just relies on your own personal skill generally.

~~~
vostok
Having worked as a trader, a lot of it comes not from personal skill, but just
from being in the right product, at the right firm, at the right time.

Even at firms/desks that are in the right products at the right time, few
people actually make 7 figures. If I'm not mistaken, you should be aware of
this for a variety of reasons. I'm not convinced that making this kind of
money is easier or more likely in finance than in tech.

~~~
nvarsj
Thanks for the insight! My experience is, admittedly, based on a limited
sample size. I think you're right though, there is still huge variability for
traders, and a lot of it is luck.

~~~
vostok
I think that a sufficiently motivated person could find a leaked list of
bonuses from that firm and check for themselves if there were any new grads
that made $1 million+ and also check how many such persons there were.

------
risingintonatio
I've become more and more convinced that $1M+ per year is not realistic as an
engineer.

There are compensation spreadsheets floating around and I've been privy to
Facebook's and Google's. Assuming the numbers there are accurate (and
anecdotally they are), even the "top 5%" engineers getting discretionary
equity and bonus don't make more than $600k.

Meanwhile, executives easily make twice that in yearly cash bonuses.

I've grown a disdain towards said execs for being paid incommensurate with
their actual value generated. Perhaps that's just my naïveté, and indeed they
_are_ that valuable. But I don't think so.

In short, to command astronomical salaries you need a pyramid of people
working beneath you, so that you can garner part of their productivity for
yourself.

Charisma will help you get there.

~~~
zump
Great answer. I have noticed that because of the extreme focus on technology,
our community is tuned to finding ways of becoming a better engineer, but not
how to climb the corporate ladder the old-fashioned way.

~~~
lj3
For all the other flaws the SV startup game has, it's probably the only place
you can realistically become a CTO or CEO in your mid-20's.

------
lsiebert
Social skills are skills, not talents, and develop with practice. That said,
be a boss, a CTO, or technical founder. Engineers are well paid professionals,
but as with any high paid profession, you make a lot more owning your own
company then working for someone else who is extracting value from your
efforts.

------
dandelany
Step 1: grow some social skills. Coding skills alone won't make you a
millionaire unless you get lucky and invent a unicorn.

Sidenote: the 75th percentile isn't making anywhere near $1M.

~~~
rockdino
Unless you make the new Minecraft game...

------
adamnemecek
You need to build a service/app. It's generally about the business aspect of
things rather than the programming side. Indie Hackers has a bunch of
interviews with people who managed to make something like this happen
[http://indiehackers.com/](http://indiehackers.com/)

------
amorphic
It sounds like you want to get rich by earning wages. A wise man once said to
me:

"Nobody ever got rich by earning wages."

------
quasiuna
The only industry paying developers this much is the game industry. It's not
uncommon for AAA game developers (e.g. Developers for call of duty, GTA etc.)
to have a profit share in their employment contract. When a new game goes live
and sells hundreds of millions of copies in a single weekend, the rewards for
some developers can be huge.

In a nutshell, learn C++.

~~~
zump
Interesting, I've heard the opposite about the game industry. But I suppose
you need to join an AAA studio. But it makes sense that a game would live and
die by the performance of the rendering engine for example.

EDIT: I heard Valve engineers make serious coin.

------
myrandomcomment
I know software engineers at one of the startups I was at that went public
pulled down $2-10m depending on when they joined (and sold). They all are top
1%. Also they spent 4-6 years pre-IPO.

Top 25%? Yah no.

You best bet is a steady job at the big 4 with a good RSU plan.

------
jankotek
$1e6 / (10 hours/day * 6 days/week) = ~ $330/hour.

As a consultant you might be able to get to this salary. But you will be able
to bill only a fraction of your time.

------
_dax
The world isn't so simple that pay scales with skill. There's definitely a
base level of proficiency that you need but it's not so high. It's more about
making the decisions, choosing industries where this is possible, and managing
to stay interested.

I know a few people between ages 40-50 that make this much working at a hedge
fund as pure engineers. None of them are incredible, to be honest I could do
their job and I'm half their age. They've just put in their time there, didn't
get distracted by more interesting opportunities, and don't mind a typical
office job with no perks.

------
vostok
This kind of pay is very highly correlated to excellent social skills. There
is also luck involved and you need to be at the right place at the right time.

I agree with Patrick that you are far more likely to achieve this through
entrepreneurship than through working in technology (or finance for that
matter).

------
austinjp
Talent, grit, luck. All are important, only some can be optimised.

Why engineering? If money is so important to you there might be other
industries better suited.

You sound Machiavellian, or that you may edge towards it. Be careful with
that. Money is no good if it can't buy you what you want or need.

------
yami
It's not about money. It's about time AND money ! You should read "the 4 hours
work week" by Tim Ferriss (or at least listen it
[https://youtu.be/ojgsw8IGT2o](https://youtu.be/ojgsw8IGT2o))

------
gadders
I didn't know who Jeff Dean was, but I found this page enlightening:

[https://www.quora.com/What-are-all-the-Jeff-Dean-
facts](https://www.quora.com/What-are-all-the-Jeff-Dean-facts)

------
monodeldiablo
You want to get rich, but aren't willing to invest in your social and
technical skills? Good luck with that. If anybody's looking for a textbook
definition for "lazy and entitled", the attitude implied by this question is
as close as I've ever seen. Please keep in mind that I don't mean that as an
insult.

Now, with that out of the way, I will say this: There's a pernicious myth in
the industry that you need to be "brilliant" to create something valuable and
successful. Which is bullshit. You just need to be competent, persistent, and
extraordinarily lucky.

Here, in order, are the modern keys to wealth:

\- __Know rich people. __Be someone they enjoy hanging out with. People want
to work with people they like, so this greatly increases the odds they 'll
throw you a project or put you on their team. See: Balmer, Steve. ( _NOTE:_
This requires social skills.)

\- __Create a business product. __Be a middle man. Build a product that
identifies and ameliorates a common business pain point. Find a major,
underlying cost that is industry-wide and create a service or app that reduces
this cost for the user. As quickly as possible, put competent people to work
under you. Scale quickly and gets lots of smart people in your corner quickly.
( _NOTE:_ This requires social skills, observational skills, persistence,
technical skills, and a generous helping of luck.)

\- __Create a consumer product. __Be a founder. Build a business that
satisfies a base human desire (entertainment, sex, greed, etc.) and charge
money for it. See above. ( _NOTE:_ This requires all the same skills as above,
plus more luck. The consumer space is packed with competition.)

\- __Be indispensable in a lucrative, but unpopular, niche. __Specialize in
MUMPS or COBOL or FORTRAN. Pick an industry that many avoid, like porn or
gambling or spam. There 's less competition, sure, but there's also higher
risk to your long-term employment. And you have to live with yourself, so be
sure you're OK with your choice. ( _NOTE:_ This seems to be the most
compatible with your skill set and attitude, but might not be an ethical/moral
match.)

\- __Grind away in a decent job, save aggressively, and invest. __Be boring.
Get a $120k /yr job and live like a student, putting at least half your income
into savings. After a few years, start investing that money in people more
motivated/skilled than yourself. This has the highest likelihood of working
out -- assuming economic stability -- but is the least sexy option available
to moderately talented engineers because it takes a _long_ time. ( _NOTE:_
You'll still probably need social skills to be successful at this.)

\- __Get profoundly lucky. __Be in the right place at the right time. Be the
founding engineer or a stupid startup at a time when VCs are throwing money at
everything and asking no questions. Be an early hire at a unicorn. Stumble on
the next Angry Birds or Pokemon Go or whatever. ( _NOTE:_ This is entirely
beyond your control. Almost everybody in The Valley of Dreams is pursuing this
goal. You're still better-served by having technical and social skills.)

------
lscore720
The idea of this question being taken seriously is worrisome. These were the
exact types of questions I saw made by entry level finance folks 10 years ago
before the bubble popped. The level of immaturity, entitlement, and arrogance
made me think it was a troll post, but the serious responses make me question
the HN mindset sometimes.

------
lutusp
> How can I make pull in $1mn+ as an engineer?

> I don't want to have to be in the top 1% like Jeff Dean, but top 25% and
> still get these results.

That's a contradiction in terms. If you made a million dollars, that outcome
would place you in the top 1% among software engineers.

If the Efficient Market Hypothesis is valid and in operation in the software
marketplace, then to make a million dollars, you will have to earn it. It's
really as simple as that. Speaking as someone who made plenty more than a
million dollars -- by earning it.

> Don't have social skills and want to make more money.

But people without social skills end up working for people who do have social
skills. The latter collect the money, the former do the work.

~~~
risingintonatio

      If the Efficient Market Hypothesis is valid

... More like Efficient Market Fallacy. Information asymmetry, propagation
delay, and feed back loops in the dynamical system that is the economy almost
surely forbids for such a grand Hypothesis.

    
    
      But people without social skills end up working for people who do have social skills. The latter collect the money, the former do the work.

Amen.

~~~
lutusp
>> If the Efficient Market Hypothesis is valid

> ... More like Efficient Market Fallacy.

Yes, maybe. We'll probably never know, since it can't be science. The EMH is
one of those things that stands as an icon, a principle, a discussion point,
that may or may not have any bearing on the world, but that we often use as a
ruler to compare against reality -- like truth and beauty.

------
RichardHeart
This question is quite similar to "How do I play basketball as well as Michael
Jordan?" You're more likely be able to make $1M a year with something that
works for you while you're sleeping, than by trading your hours for dollars. I
made a youtube video on this idea.

------
ashurov
built something to sell or try to find a job in the algo trading business.

------
ryankennedyio
Learn kdb+/q, move into trading, be lucky.

------
justincormack
You should be able to make that in computer crime, and it sounds like that
would fit with your world view. At some point your lack of social skills might
cause a problem but probably not for a while.

------
xiphias
Build a company that cures cancer, it can make you much richer, than just the
low ball $1M/year.

------
Tharkun
Start by learning SI units. Then social skills. Then realism. There is no
realistic way for a "25%" software engineer to net 1M. Many don't even net a
tenth of that.

~~~
zump
Let's say if I was top 1%, what companies would pay me 1M?

~~~
sz4kerto
Top 1%? Not many. There might be few tens of millions of software devs in the
world; let's say 30M (in reality this number is probably higher). 1% would be
300k people -- of course they don't earn above 1M. So maybe you should be in
the top 0.01% or so, and be a top dev/lead at a large company (Google, MS,
IBM, etc.).

