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Comment by AYBABTME | Hacker News Reader

It's not hard to move up the quantiles if you put the effort. It doesn't require ivy league education, a rich family, or a particularly genius mind. The mean salary is useless in quantifying wether you, as an individual, have any agency in influencing your outcome. Your attitude toward it, however, has a lot to do with it. And surely starting with the assumption that it's impossible doesn't put the odds in your favor.

In any case, 105k median income just goes to tell how big the opportunity is.

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"It's not hard to move up the quantiles if you put the effort."

The statistics paint a different picture - there are only so many jobs above the median.

"In any case, 105k median income just goes to tell how big the opportunity is."

You mean limited? Clearly this is multiples lower than the author.

"The mean salary is useless in quantifying wether you, as an individual, have any agency in influencing your outcome."

No, not really. It allows you to set realistic expectations and understand the job market.

I'm not going to change your mood but I hope someone else reading this interaction early in their career will come out of it with an optimistic mindset instead of a cynical one. It pays off better.

I hope they are realistic. I was optimistic but was repeated crushed. It would be better they prepare for the disappointment and negative outcomes, because life is an endless parade of them.

Keep in mind you can be disappointed in more than one way. Either you tried the impossible with an optimistic mindset and failed anyway, or you failed at something doable because you took pessimistic choices.

It's not actually obvious which category this is in.

Yes, but the optimistic mindset would probably have a better outcome than the latter regardless if they failed to meet their original expectations or not.

If you have an optimistic mindset and poor abilities, how does that translate to a better outcome than a pessimistic mindset?

You worked on improving your poor abilities rather than accepting it as just.

You can work on your abilities and be pessimistic though. They aren't mutually exclusive.

Yes but it's harder, so your expected outcome is lower.

I understand where you're getting at.

I think many pessimistic people don't start or give up earlier and this leads to the self fulfilling prophecy.

Could be wrong, objective data would be needed for sure.

That's what an optimistic person would say. A pessimistic person might believe they have a better outcome because of hedging against the pessimistic possibilities.

It seems we should need objective data to filter through the bias.

There's research supporting the optimist strategy but I'll be lame in that I can't link you to it without searching for it longer than I can dedicate time for. I think Codex Alpha talked about it fwiw. Personally, I'm in the "shoot for the stars, hope for the moon" camp. Pragmatic optimism or realistic optimism? Some such.

> I learnt that even an average engineer with a five-figure salary can become a millionaire by her late 30s, through financial discipline and investment planning.

I can collect enough pennies to have a million dollars too. What do you trade for that and how likely is it that you will have the resources to live it out? His living expenses are put at 0 with a network of whatever his salary was. No rent, no car, default employer health insurance, 600/mo to eat ramen and cover utils, no kids, etc.

> There's research supporting the optimist strategy

The statistical evidence supports the pessimist strategy. In theory, theory and practice they are the same...

These blogposts feel like clickbait to troll. It inevitably leads to people arguing past each other with the predictable outcome of neither being wholly right, but the optimists blowing sunshine like it's a useful fairy dust and the premise remains laughably unrealistic, regardless. I know plenty of dirt poor optimists.

I'm early in my career and I'm bullish on myself, but I would never go around preaching that there's a "high probability of success" of a SWE making >$500k because clearly there is not.

I'm bullish because I have evidence to support that possibility. Most people have zero evidence that they would ever make >$500k, let alone having a "high probability of success".

But you don't need to pull 500k/y to end up with >1M$ after 12y. Just compound interest will get you there rather quickly if you save half of your 105k median dev salary. Of course doing so isn't comfortable, but I'm sure you can agree it's doable.

Also while 500k/y is a stretch and usually occurs due to stock appreciation (not salary), you can reasonably assume that landing a job at big tech will lead you to a 300k total comp within 12y. If you care enough to play the career game.

I was under the impression we were discussing the authors position (Very high salary + multimillions in the bank), not just >$1M after 12 years.

But in any case...

> I'm sure you would agree it's doable

It's literally not doable.

https://www.investor.gov/financial-tools-calculators/calcula...

Plug in:

- Initial Investment: $0

- Monthly Contribution: $4200 ($50400 annualized)

- Length of Time in Years: 12 years

- Estimated Interest Rate: 8%

- Interest rate variance range: 0

- Compound Frequency: Monthly

The output is $1,010,135.22

This is with a generous rate of return compounding monthly, very high savings rate and not taking income tax into account.

> you can reasonably assume that landing a job at big tech will lead you to a 300k total comp

Joining Big Tech is already an unreasonable assumption for the vast majority of developers: https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1400506450124935171.

Someone's propensity to play the career game doesn't magically increase their capability to do so.

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