[UncleOxidant]

I'm in my late 50s. When I hear about the salaries that much younger folks are pulling down in the FAANG companies I'm generally pretty shocked - I've never made anything close to that and don't have any expectations to. My expenses are way lower than most of the younger folks in tech because my house is paid off (will be in about a month), we drive 20 year old cars and we're quite frugal. For most of the past decade I've worked in startups where the pay hasn't been great but the work has been very interesting (in some cases, fun, even) so I'm willing to make that tradeoff. To summarize: I'd be willing to work for $90K/year if it was working on something I found interesting in an early stage startup (You get more control the earlier you get in). Are my compensation expectations high?

[noname123]

The one thing I never understood about in tech, people talk about so much about TC but never about take-home pay (after taxes, housing cost, lifestyle cost etc).

I have friends who work very boring jobs in the gov't or non-profits (who make 90K but have a 10% 403b matching or pension; a 750K house; and a 1 million liquid investment account of CAGR of 20%), drive beater cars but through shrewd investments and frugality are multi-millionaires. I also have friends who flex in fancy cars, fancy luxury downtown condos and fancy jobs (who make 200K+ but never contribute to 401K, no house b/c lives in HCoL and only a ~150K in savings b/c travels, eat out etc.) but spend it all and when I talk to them in confidence, am shocked they have a fraction of what I think they are worth net-worth in the bank.

I used to think these stories were some kind of Suzy Orman/Dave Ramsey made-up morality tales or exceptional one-off stories - but older I get, I realize they are not. It's just most people start off the same - and it's only after years, people's money habits dramatically compound over the years that these differences become exponentially large and comical.

[nostrademons]

You're talking about monthly savings, not take-home pay, which is usually defined as cash compensation after taxes, retirement, and deductions (i.e. how much you "take home" from each paycheck). Take home - expenses = savings.

And yes, savings and savings rate is the biggest determinant in eventual net worth. I know bond traders and FAANG engineers that make $200K+/year and live paycheck to paycheck because their expenses eat up all of that and then some. One guy literally blew it all on hookers & blow and then died of a fentanyl OD. I also know people that saved about 1/3 of their take-home on a grad student or Whole Foods salary and are now living a reasonable life as a homeowning family despite never breaking $100K/year in income.

[aerovistae]

I wouldn't say so....90k is low for someone with a lot of experience. New grads expect more than that.

[bunnyhop]

The skew for pay in the dev industry is weird. When I graduated with my BS (2008) I was happy enough to find a junior position in game dev on the west coast at 40k. Mind you that was during a lovely market crash, but after 4 years in game dev my pay didn't increase very much (but my profit sharing did /eyeroll). Fast forward to the present, I work non-FAANG at a 210k salary and am only required to do dev work with no management silliness and no required overtime. My company hires juniors straight out of college at around 100k... this blows my mind.

[UncleOxidant]

Yeah, that's exactly my point. The post above mine was implying that older workers demand higher pay. But I think it's the younger workers that demand higher pay.

[bckr]

> Are my compensation expectations high

No... You really don't wanna work for less than $150k at a startup, at least on the west coast.

[UncleOxidant]

I have in the past 10 years worked at about 3 startups where I was making way less than $150K, and the most recent one where I was making right about $150K. In a couple of those cases I was willing to accept low pay because the work/field was a lot of fun and/or it seemed like a socially important project if it succeeded (alternate energy in one case) and I knew that their funding was very tight.

[bckr]

Thank you for sharing, and that makes sense.

That said, you yourself described this as "low pay".

My comment was in response to the GGP's desire to calibrate their salary expectation level.

So, I think we agree.

[klipt]

Compensation in the SF Bay Area is another level but so is cost of housing in the SF Bay Area. So it's kind of a wash. Although if you're willing to rent and live frugally in the Bay Area you can save a lot.

[Bahamut]

One of the paths to financial success in the Bay Area is dual income households - the high pay for those families make it financially a no brainer to live in the area.

The compensation though makes take home pay far better than anywhere else even omitting that if you’re at a well compensating place (i.e. FAANG), even for just single individuals.

[gcanyon]

If you're interested in connecting with a fellow 50-something, check my profile. Not sure if you're an engineer or other -- I'm a PM if it matters.