This blows my mind. I make 120k as a young person in SWE, and I feel like a fraud often for making that money, and being able to work from basically anywhere I want in the world. How do you justify it to yourself? Do other things fulfill you? I’m already feeling pangs of doubt about my life, and I work more and earn less than you. I’m passing no judgement at all, I’m just curious about how that dynamic effects you and your life.

I don’t really care about stuff like that. I assume I’ll get laid off at some point, but I’ve made so much that I don’t really worry about it. It’s hard for big companies to find people who aren’t doing anything.

Yeah this is crazy to me too. I don't work in software, I teach engineering at a local tech institute and I make like 55k Canadian. I'm fairly autonomous in that as long as I fulfill my class hours and workload I'm free to work from home and all that. I have a great work life balance and I love it but the pay is abysmally if I want to start a family in the future and save for retirement.

I've started getting into software development in my free time and planning for a career change but I feel as if I'd be trading my free time for more money. And if there's a kid on the way, what's more valuable to get from your dad? A dad that makes lots of money but isn't around much or a fad that is around a bunch but can't support you as well? Maybe real life isn't so cut and dry and I can find a happy medium between the two in software. Any advice?

30 year old dad of a 2 year old. I did software dev fulltime for 3 years then a consultant for the last 5. Having the flexibility to be at my kid's doctor appointments and go to the park on a weekday is cool. But I pay for it with either not getting things done or staying up way too late and killing myself. I'm just now starting a more traditional 9-5 schedule (still as a consultant) and I'm hoping that will translate into less stress with being able to work and be a parent and take care of myself. There's hopefully always a happy medium for anybody but it depends on what your priorities are. I definitely noticed a change in my childs behavior when I stopped spending every night in the basement working and learning. Even if it was only for 30 minutes at a time. But obviously my ability to be "in the zone" for hours after billing time was over changed too. But it matters to me, so that's why I do it.

I don't mind having a 9-5 as long as it means I definitely finish at 5 and don't have to take my work home with me. I guess it depends on the company and what their work life balance is.

As someone pointed out in this thread, a lot of this is strength of resume and where you went to college. Without that you’ll be pushing upstream. I don’t find my advice is very useful to people because they can’t replicate my situation.

How did you get to $15m? 500k per year x 7 years into index ETFs is still like $8m ish

What is your actual base salary?

300 plus bonus plus stock plus sundries like 401k match

is it a FAANG/unicorn?

It’s not but it’s a well known Silicon Valley company.

Not a FAANG/Unicorn? Seems like you might be a fairly early employee at a fairly successful private SV company?

Nope, but there was a stock increase that made my initial grant worth way more. There was no magic here. I was hired at a fairly established company, got a decent package and then sat around.

I think you're downplaying something here.

You got hired as a manger, so at the very least, you must have had a pretty prosperous and impressive background as an engineer for some time.

You might be cruising now, but snapshots of one's life are hardly the full story.

Oh sure that’s definitely true. I have a strong resume. At some point I just stopped having to do any work, and instead of trying to “fix” it I just went along with it. Another key element is there’s no way I’ll ever get promoted. I decided I don’t care. The difference between making 500 and 800 or whatever is sort of meaningless after taxes.

I'd love to be in that position. I have a strong resume too, and I'm more than ready to be rewarded for it with a high paying job which I can more or less cruise in. So count your blessings!

You don't have a boss who wants you to do x y or z?

Wow what level or how did you manage this?

I don’t want to dox myself here. My level range should be obvious from my salary. I’m a manager not an IC. Yes everyone on my team knows what’s up.

Ah, so you're probably one of those overpaid non-managers that everyone hates... We have a bunch of those, they avoid work and responsibility like the plague, and in result the project is in severe leadership crisis.