I think that's perfectly reasonable. I find it hard to believe it would be "extremely irrational" to most people. Maybe I'm underestimating the extent to which money is fetishized in your culture (I presume the US).

Also, being able to save 2/3 of your net salary is... a ludicrously privileged position, underpaid or not.

I worked in the Bay Area and currently in Boston. I live in the startup culture.

> Also, being able to save 2/3 of your net salary is... a ludicrously privileged position, underpaid or not.

Yes! We software engineers are lucky. Even when we're underpaid (I'm paid $90k and my friends with similar experience, same education, same interest/skills are paid $150k--$250k) we can afford to have a comfortable life. It seems like I won't be able to afford to buy a house any time soon compared to say a Google engineer making $300k a year, but that's the only disadvantage I can think of now. (I hate mortgage and what not)

There is nothing wrong with being underpaid, but in the long run you want to make sure that it is for a good reason. It is hard to focus on more important things and ignore inequality, because inequality sucks. It doesn't matter how much attachment your have to an area, or what it means for your quality of life to live close to that workplace, when your rent skyrockets. You will most likely move while instead your landlords and their new tenants do whatever they think is important.

Maybe you are prepared for it or found some way to avoid that, but to me the US often just seem fundamentally incompatible with caring about important things without a lot of effort or money to back it up.

So if you started your career at 21 and if you are above average, your salary will grow from 25 to 25 / 37 or even 40. After that, ageism will play a role, so also newer tech that companies would prefer to hire the younger version of you rather than pay you your high salary.

Given that, if you already settle for a low salary and remain content at 21, you'll very quickly get priced out of your neighborhood in Boston (I own a rental unit there in Fenway and know the going rents for 1 BR, 2 BRs), and if you do end up getting married and having kids, your current lifestyle and saving will not be sustainable.

The greatest acceleration of your salary occurs early in your career, but that applies to most careers. The sustained level of your income is dependent on how you progress.

Personally, I think the movement to project management is a Bad Idea for programmers, because we make lousy project managers and they get paid like crap, because PM-ing is considered a "generic" skill that is not IT specific.

Product Management and Architecture roles are paid better because they need the hind/foresight to actually lead the development of a product/service. That skill is pretty much only developed by experience.

So like any industry, your career development will lead to potential income changes. How that reflects your needs as an individual (eg family etc) is up to you.

Though if I ever get close to this the plan isn't to retire just to have total choice of the work I do.

Best of luck to you.

1: Fair, but should you worry about getting fired? Even if you are in danger, if save 2/3 of your paycheck for every month of work you can afford a month of unemployment with no adjustment in lifestyle, that's already large, but you could increase this padding by having a market-conforming salary.

2: Is this worth $500+ a month to you? If so, I'd suggest you seek a therapist, because that is a much healthier long-term way to solve this problem.

3: Well yes... You can also try to not worry about it while earning more.

A nice company, normal hours and a good and interesting job is certainly worth an enormous intangible amount!

However, all things being equal I would not recommend you keep being intentionally underpaid.

My goal is to maximize the amount of money that can be made without the stress, pressure and demand of the job overtaking the enjoyment of the compensation.

Admittedly, I could be making more money and being more aggressive in my career but ultimately I am satisfied with the balance I have found.

I have a tendency to ignore things like stress (hard to measure) when selecting a job while overvaluing things that are easy to measure.

A thousand times this. Working for a small company it is expected that they won't be able to pay a highly competitive salary, but I have quite a few benefits.

However the most important part by far is being able to work solving software problems. Sometimes when doing explorative work I actually get to implement and (hopefully) reproduce recent scientific papers results. The highly technical work plus the low-pressure enviroment has been great for my mental health.

I even get to leave early the days I have classes, with no reduced pay.

For instance, Kubernetes is really hot right now, and there's a limited supply of people who know it, so people that know it can make upwards of $200K.

OTOH, you could be the world's greatest Windows admin and you'll be lucky to make half that, because there's a million people who know Windows.

TLDR: specialization is more lucrative than sheer hard work and expertise.

What do you think a billionaire does with his money? How much shit can you buy before you simply, run out of shit to buy?

What your talking about, is upper-middle, lower-high.

Eventually if you make enough cash, you will hit that limit. Sort of the whole "ball-washer" bit by Lewis Black.

its not a criticism; merely a remark - there is a point where that observation, hits a limit.

> they have become like animals with unlimited money, but money ended quickly though.

yup. pretty typical. takes a lot of mental discipline, to handle a serious wad of cash.

cheers.