6 ms·
The highest-paid programmers usually become rich via: 1) Founding a business or startup. 2) Becoming an early employee of an averagely successful startup, or a
by msort 15y ago
The highest-paid programmers usually become rich via:
1) Founding a business or startup.
2) Becoming an early employee of an averagely successful startup, or a per-IPO employee of hugely successful startups (Facebook, Google).
3) Becoming an IT manager or quants/traders at IB or Hedge funds
4) Becoming world-leader in open-source technologies (e.g. Scala, Hadoop, JQuery).
5) Writing books, giving lectures: teaching others how to become great programmers.
- brosephius 15y agoI would say only 1) and 2) would actually make you "rich". the others would just pay very well (though for many that's rich enough, I guess)
- nostrademons 15y agoQuants/traders make massive amounts. Own your own hedge fund and it can be like selling a startup every year.
- dstein 15y ago4) and 5) definitely don't make you rich.
- gaius 15y agoSome of the Agile mafia have done very nicely out of selling Scrum Master certificates.
- veyron 15y agoWhat does 'rich' mean? If you mean upper-middle class then 4 and 5 are out of the question If you mean upper class (top 1%) even 3 is out of the question. 500K a year is upper-middle-class in jersey and middle-class in manhattan. And after all of those expenses, you would be lucky to save 100K of that after taxes If you mean `rich` (i would define rich as having enough money not to need a paycheck from another company -- maybe 10M in the bank is a good threshold) then 1 and 2 are the only ways to go One thing to note: taxes are a pain. Most people in that 200-500K range are stiffed by the AMT (why I had to pay AMT at 22 is beyond me)
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- usaar333 15y agoWhat is someone (I assume we're talking an individual) is spending on to be left with only 100k? After taxes you should have earned something like $280k to $300k; $180k to $200k is a hell of a lot to spend a year. I also imagine you are using a high standard for upper middle class. If you use even top 10%, you are talking professionals earning > $75,000 which most programmers hit at any company (at least in the Bay Area).
- veyron 15y agoAh ok I was under the presumption we were talking about a family here (because the numbers mean something completely different if we are talking about one person -- who doesnt need a large house -- versus a family -- who needs more space and has other expenses) I assume you want to have a family one day :)
- maigret 15y ago250k/y is rich, even in NY http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/09/even_in_new_york_city_250000_i.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/09/even_in_...
- veyron 15y agorich is not measured as a percentile! If you take rich as a percentile, then yes 250k is rich. If you take an absolute measure of rich and compare cost of living, 250K is really not that much. Especially after taxes and the ilk.
- maigret 15y agoSomehow over the last 10/20 years, the notion of "rich" has had a much bigger inflation than the rest of the world, this is particularly true in the US. If your definition of "rich" is not needing a paycheck, then 2M with 2% interests over inflation should be enough to live OK in most countries except maybe Switzerland, Denmark or Norway.