> the loudest people tend to be the ones that desire/require the most validation from their peers

I have a theory that IT is split into "doers", i.e. the people who do things, and "talkers", i.e. the people who talk about doing things. By definition, you hear from the talkers more, perhaps because the doers are too busy actually doing things, and to your point there are times when the talkers can sound dismissive of the doers, for whatever reason. But in HN's defence, you do hear more from actual doers here than perhaps anywhere else.

I can see that. I would probably be on here a lot less if I had an interesting job.

What you described is certainly not unique just to the IT industry.

It's a way to stand out in a field crowded with junior and mid tier developers. Show up and talk a big game, and certain other people will listen and assume you're an amazing asset. Not required and perhaps jaded, but it also helps if you have even a tiny semblance of an influencer lifestyle or a type of WeWorkian God complex.

I had a guy tell me once that "if you're not making at least $250k a year, then you failed as a developer". That was his honest life and career advice. It's depressing.

> "if you're not making at least $250k a year, then you failed as a developer"

This is a trope that runs through HN that gets frustrating sometimes. There's often a follow-up comment along the lines of "Only 250k? A fresh grad in the bay area can expect that much in salary, but if you're even average, total comp should be at least double that to be competitive!"

The depressing advice I once recieved from a previous manager: "Not everyone has the potential to be more than a midlevel developer."

I installed an app called “Blind” which is an anonymous social network for SV software engineers. The amount of self doubt, envy, complaining about not being able to work FAANG / feeling underpaid despite working at FAANG is exhausting. So many people in this industry have a toxic mentality.

Blind self-selects for the worst of these attitudes (in addition to the general shittiness of almost any anonymous community). I would not take this as representative of SV. The private forum for my company is amazingly toxic.

Blind is terrible. I think only the toxic ones stick around though. I doubt most people are like this.

Blind is full jerks. Don’t take their advice as gospel.

Yep, and you’ll find that kind of posturing everywhere, just like the personality that tends to do it.

The scale of it carries some pretty great comedy, though.

I’m convinced that most of the users on this site are sitting in their house that they rent with eight other people in their underwear eating beans out of a can.

Well, $450,000 a year doesn't get you far in the bay area.

It only gets you a ~1.5m mortgage, extremely high savings rate, access to private schools, all while living in one of the most beautiful and desirable metropolitan areas in the world.

Basically poverty, in other words.

And what does a $1.5m mortgage get you in the peninsula? Maybe 1000-1200sqft? How lavish...

You don't get an extremely high savings rate either in terms of ratios (unless you live a very economical lifestyle (small apartments/rooms, old/no car, etc.)).

Monthly take-home pay for $450k is ~$21k in California

Monthly mortgage payment for $1.5m is ~$6.5k

Remaining money for literally everything else, almost none of which is more expensive in California: $17.5k, or $210k per year. You could eat out every single night and buy a new BMW twice a year, and still save more than 20% of your take-home pay.

Not only that, but we're talking about salaries for ONE SINGLE PERSON. Married in tech? We're talking a $900k annual salary. Calling this lifestyle "very economical" is so insanely out of touch with how most people live their lives, it's no wonder tech people are hated as completely out of touch.

Edit: Changed $24k to $21k, the calculator I used didn't include state taxes even though California was the chosen state.

It's ~$21k. https://smartasset.com/taxes/paycheck-calculator#5UaGLn7scu

You're not including taxes - no one cares about mortgage in itself. If you include taxes, it's closer to $8k and then you gotta get insurance (which is going to vary wildly by thousands based on where the home is located). If you're unfortunate with taxes + insurance, your monthly payments could end up being as high as $9-10k/month.

> Not only that, but we're talking about salaries for ONE SINGLE PERSON. Married in tech? We're talking a $900k annual salary. Calling this lifestyle "very economical" is so insanely out of touch with how most people live their lives, it's no wonder tech people are hated as completely out of touch.

Sure - if you can manage to get two 1%'er people together then you'll be living the high life but that's not something you should take as common place. Same with assuming that they'll both be working for their entire life before 65. That's like saying, "Imagine if you were Mark Zuckerberg and then married Mark Zuckerberg!!! You'd be doubly rich!"

Btw - if you're at that income - you have to save at least 25% of your net income for retirement and hopefully you do that at a very early age (like 30-35, if you're starting that savings rate at 45 then you're fucked). Social security won't even pay your property tax when you're retired. So, if you expect to live anywhere near your current lifestyle in retirement... you have to save a lot more (percentage wise) than most Americans.

I'm not saying you'll be poor but go look at what house you can get in a decent peninsula neighborhood for $1.5mil. You won't be impressed. You'll have a nice car and can afford some niceties but what you come home to will be a piece of shit compared to your income. e.g. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/856-15th-Ave-Menlo-Park-C...

If I made $450k per year, I'd be retired already, provided I stayed single (8 years into career currently).

Quiet you, back to eating your beans.

He gets to have artisinal fair trade beans.

> Well, $450,000 a year doesn't get you far in the bay area.

Even if that was true, which it's really not, it's especially not true if you consider the extended radius from which people commute into the Bay Area.

It is the optimal investment strategy, or for the effective altruism folks the biggest impact

Sort of tongue in cheek.

Yep it's locker room talk.