
Ask HN: How to move past 150k/200k in compensation? - yerunfa
It looks like i am stuck around 150k range compensation despite having 10+ yrs of experience. The only thing against me is that I am an immigrant.  Nowadays, new grads are pulling 120k to 130k right away.<p>I no longer enjoy coding but I am good at getting things done and building good rapo with people. What can I do to move into leadership roles?<p>How does someone like me get 200k or more in compensation?<p>PS- I am not a native English speaker but I have studied in English throughout my life.<p>Any suggestions?
======
whack
I know many people personally who make 200k+, with less than 10 years
experience. Many of them are also immigrants. Some of the ways they got there:

\- live in a tech hub with high demand for programmers. The best places are
NYC/SF and probably Seattle

\- switch companies every ~2 years, and negotiate for ~25% comp increases when
you do. There are some tips that can help you achieve this, but it's a blog
post in itself

\- work for a lucrative brand-name employer like Google/FB. First, you'll make
a ton of money there. Second, having them on your resume will boost your
future prospects and compensation offers

\- in order to accomplish the above, get really good at interviewing skills.
Practice topcoder, cracking the coding interview, fundamental algorithms and
data structures, communication and presentation skills, etc etc. Whatever it
takes to ace the interviews, no matter how dumb you may think it is

\- be good at your craft. Read expert books, work on your own small side
projects, push yourself to build high quality code, and not just barely
functional junk. Do everything you can to become an expert in your area

\- be a great coworker. Leave a positive impression with your manager and
colleagues. You don't have to be their friend, but you want to be someone they
respect and would recommend to their friends

~~~
ge96
barely functional junk haha

Even at $10/hr? Hahaha

------
nostrademons
Most people who make > $200K in total comp receives the excess in either
stock, bonuses, or percentages of a firm's profit. (There are some outliers,
but even many C-level executives have salaries in that range and then millions
in stock compensation.) Keep that in mind when you compare salaries with
others - those Google engineers making $400K/year are usually making about
$150-170K base, $50K bonus, and $200K+ in RSUs.

That also implies the way to break $200K: join a company whose stock is
rising, perform well for them, and negotiate a generous equity grant.

~~~
nojvek
Breaking the 200k ceiling in base is hard. I know I've plateaud.

------
clean_send
Two things.

1\. Learn soft skills. If we look at the modern business exec they do a few
things very well. They can speak to large groups of people with conviction.
They can make tough decisions. They can articulate their thoughts through a
variety of mediums. These skills are learned. They come from practice and
experience. One of the first things I would recommend you do is join an
organization like toastmasters and learn the basics of public speaking.

2\. Depending on your situation in life, take risk. Risk is what allows people
to propel themselves into those 400k+ annual comp. A lot of these suggestions
cite going into consulting, which is high billable if you're good. What they
lack though is the necessity to win clients, build good relationships and grow
your business. This is mitigation of risk + soft skills.

Relevant reading.
[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/11/crackin...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/11/cracking-
the-bamboo-ceiling/380800/)

~~~
tmaly
Curious if you have read the book mentioned in the Atlantic link?

------
richardknop
Go from employee to being a consultant. You can probably double that if you
are good (possible to make 400-500k in a good year when you get a few good
deals in a row). But there are limits to a one man company obviously so going
beyond that is probably only possible by becoming a C level manager at a big
company or CEO (so start your own company?) where millions in bonuses and
stock compensations are normally part of compensation.

~~~
drewrv
Do you have any resources on the transition from engineer to a consultant?

~~~
barry-cotter
Make Money Online podcast. Kai Davis and Nick Disabato's sites and mailing
lists. Alan Weiss has written s lot of books on being a consultant.

------
jwilliams
It's possible, but unusual, to earn over 200k as a base salary. Although it is
more common at certain organizations (e.g. Google, Apple) and in roles like
sales. As others have mentioned, often beyond that point you're in stock,
bonuses and other incentives.

One reason is tax. After 200k almost half of what you earn is going in tax
(Assuming US/California here). So going to 250k seems like a jump, but it's
going to have a much less increment on your lifestyle.

So you may be better moving laterally/zig-zagging than continuing to optimize
on the path you're on. Perhaps a smaller org that can still pay well, but
gives you equity or leadership opportunities.

~~~
ringaroundthetx
So first, tax is marginal. Only the amount above a tax bracket is taxed at the
higher rate.

> So going to 250k seems like a jump, but it's going to have a much less
> increment on your lifestyle.

Second, the difference between 200k and 250k is that your adjusted gross
income legally allows you to participate in private equity investments without
you having to get an accountant to lie for you.

So therefore, instead of having to spend 8 years of your life just to get the
OPTION of buying $4,000 worth of the two startups you were stuck working at,
you can get into the deal flow for any of the trendiest and flashiest
companies with the biggest upwards trajectory. Or even better, invest in a VC
fund that does this better than you. You can finally stop lying to your
company's cofounders about all the passion you have for their non-sensical
company just so you can eek out another 1/48th of your option while getting
another month of React under your belt for the next move.

There's really no reason to rationalize if you are already that close. You are
playing the money game or else you would have used the exact same rationale to
not pursue the salary increase from $50k to anything above $75k in whatever
suburb or regional support city that you came from. Its only financial
engineering from here on and you are in a position to create generational
wealth.

You are close to an exemption from the income taxes that make 20% increases in
your comp demotivational, when your long term capital gains start rolling in.

You are close to an exemption from the socioeconomic problems of your costly
urban environment.

You are close to an exemption from the class system preventing you from
obtaining the cheapest and most lucrative investments.

This is about honesty.

~~~
jwilliams
> So first, tax is marginal. Only the amount above a tax bracket is taxed at
> the higher rate.

Yup. That's the core point I was making.

> you can get into the deal flow for any of the trendiest and flashiest
> companies with the biggest upwards trajectory

Much harder that you're making it out to be. Being a angel investor is tough.
Being a successful one is even tougher. Experienced investors can improve
their network, access and odds - but it's a lot of work and they're often
outliers.

> This is about honesty.

Really not sure what point you're making.

~~~
ringaroundthetx
Why did you chose to skip this part?

> > Or even better, invest in a VC fund that does this better than you.

~~~
jwilliams
Because it's simply not an option. VCs raise the vast majority of money from
institutional investors, not individuals.

If there are individuals involved, they're high net worth already. You need to
be prepared to write a $500k-$2M check and not see a return for an extended
period of time. Even then, getting into a top-quartile fund with the best
return proposition is going to be highly competitive. Finally, funds are
relatively infrequent, so you still need to be at the right place at the right
time.

Either way, we're clearly describing a scenario which is well beyond the
situation in the ask.

------
31reasons
\- Quickest way to make more money is to reduce your expenses. See where you
are wasting money and optimize for that. Work remotely for the same amount of
compensation and move to a place that has very low cost of living/rent etc
(even within US).

\- Decide how much more you want to make? Is it purely a greed or do you
really need that much money. You alway have to pay some cost to increase your
income beyond certain point, it could be your time, safety, health. Calculate
those factors in. Earning $50k more then if you end up spending that much on
health would not be a good idea.

~~~
MuffinFlavored
I think $140k/yr per single male is about the perfect "mix" of "I have money"
and "I don't want to push it".

But that isn't San Francisco dollars. I guess it would be closer to $180k/yr
there.

~~~
lilsoso
At $140k you would struggle to afford real estate in the major US cities.
Sure, it's enough for a single male with few hobbies to live in a studio
apartment and eat fast food whenever he wants, ignoring the prospects of
retirement and starting a family -- but that's not really enough, now, is it?

~~~
trcollinson
Are you kidding? How narrow is your definition of major US city. That's a
reasonable salary in Salt Lake City for a senior developer. And with that you
can easily handle property, retirement, and eat quite well.

~~~
literallycancer
Why would you choose a city in the middle of nowhere with air pollution issues
as your example?

~~~
jotjotzzz
Wow, it's so surprising how people "can't" live well on $140k in major metro
cities (e.g. NYC). I feel like that is a good salary. I wonder what people are
spending their money on. Is it because most have student loans to pay? I want
to know the breakdown of expenses before one can declare this salary is good
or bad.

~~~
Denzel
Yeah, I'm not sure what these people are talking about.

I lived quite well as a single male working in Manhattan proper with a sub
six-figure salary; living in Hoboken, and commuting maybe 15-20 mins everyday
on the PATH. This was around 2013-14. And I lived like a king in my opinion...
was able to save money, build my credit, eat out wherever, never pay attention
to price tags when shopping, and take trips/vacations, etc.

Maybe things have changed.

------
cm2012
Switching from salary to consulting pretty much tripled my income to past that
range.

~~~
thoughtpalette
Also curious as I'm a consultant, are you a private consultant? Do you go
through a third-party to book? Are you a FTE at a consultant company?

I'm not happy currently with the amount of travel required nor the archaic
mindset of some of the managers/planners.

~~~
cm2012
I freelance and find my own clients.

~~~
ep103
How? The people I know who did this basically worked at consulting firms until
they'd built a network, then set out on their own.

~~~
cm2012
I did marketing for 7 years at brands, and had a network from that as well as
from events I've been at. I also did some cold emailing that paid off.

------
Aron
You don't need to be a more productive widget, you need to own the share of
output of an increasing number of productive widgets.

~~~
tiggybear
Shouldn't this be the case for most people? Increase leverage not output, or
more ideally increase them both at the same time.

Without more leverage you may not be able to extract the extra value you
create with more output, but without more output you can likely extract more
value with more leverage. Though if you're concerned with fairness, increasing
both is the way to go.

~~~
Aron
ummm... the point is take 10% of a billion dollars created by a thousand
people, rather than try to be worth 100M$ yourself.

------
akavi
Work for Google and be promoted once.

SDE III (a promotion up from new grad) has typical total comp in the 210 - 240
k$/yr range.

~~~
anonCoder112
This is bang on target. I just did this.

------
crmd
solution architect: an iteration of your current job, except in the front
office (working with customers), and paying 1.5-3x your current salary.

------
SirLJ
Start your own thing, first as a side business and grow it from there... the
sky is the limit aftear...

------
j45
Assuming you have 150k in compensation, your loaded value (the employer side
contributions, benefits and taxes) may be another 20-25% bringing you closer
to that number.

Consulting can bring you closer but you have to move up the food chain in the
type of strategic consulting you do.

------
trelliscoded
Get an MBA and find a niche. Sometimes that means moving to a different
company where supply and demand of a particular skill works in your favor,
sometimes it means starting your own company.

------
cdiamand
There are industries (finance?) that provide bonuses to employees based on
certain performance goals. Perhaps a situation like that could help you break
through?

------
35bge57dtjku
You're seriously saying you really can't find any companies that need lead
devs or managers?

------
gigatexal
Find some solid and trustworthy people you can work with and start a company
and then pay yourself

~~~
gigatexal
I like how this gets downvoted on YCombinator of all places.

------
fundabulousrIII
Be a guy who can do within 2 hours of a request in a way that leaves everyone
satisfied. That is hard: you have to be very good. To be very good you spend
4-10 years of your life doing nothing but writing code, administering systems
and understanding what makes things work. You learn to love it and live it.

But 'the system' is set against > 200K in compensation. You get taxed to the
point of regret and even in the zone of 'getting better' you eventually
realize you can't keep it up. If you are a social butterfly and watch for
opportunities maybe you can make it to 500K by killing your friends, but that
is what it takes.

------
manbearpigg
In what roles at which businesses are new grads earning 120k-130k?

~~~
pmulv
Software engineers in NYC can make that out of college if they are competent
interviews and negotiate their first salary

------
corporateslave2
Any big tech company

------
companyhen
Find some passive income like investing in CryptoCurrency.

~~~
bgitarts
Elaborate on how investing in CryptoCurrency generates passive income?

~~~
companyhen
The marketcap for CryptoCurrency was $11b at this time last year. It's
currently $153b as of today and growing fast. If you put $1000 into Ethereum
in January you'd have over $30k today for example.

Making $150k/200k a few $1k investments shouldn't break the bank too much. If
you are good at Internet research, finding new crypto's with groundbreaking
tech before the masses can get you some good return. It may not last forever,
but I think it's here to stay and the best ones will remain just like the dot-
com bubble era.

~~~
alextheparrot
Given your experience with this type of advice, would you suggest putting my
money on red or black?

~~~
vectorEQ
buy a big bucket of soap, a metal ring, make big bubbles, put your money in
there and let it drift away :P

~~~
fdafellow
I am sure there are few players who are making money in the cryptocurrency
market. It is hilarious to see how some people on HN downright reject the idea
of investing in Crypto as if it is like throwing money to fire. To people who
are making money and taking out profits from the market at same time will see
these people living in denial.

Just for example, I bought few Ethereum when it was around $70 and sold half
of it and took money out of market when it hit $300. Now I do not care if I
loose my rest of money. I just invest in other cryptos for long run and watch
where the market goes.

~~~
literallycancer
Probably just the good old "I missed out on it, therefore it's going to fail,
and I'll be able to feel better about it".

Most people here are used to thinking that if there's something that looks too
good, it's probably a scam and/or someone else is already doing it better. But
just by being a software engineer and reading HN you are probably in the top
percentile of people qualified to evaluate (and invest in) ICOs.

