Doctors vs engineers
Does a doctor( general physician/dentist) make more money than a amazon/fb software engineer ? I am comparing people at a similar age level not engineers at 26 and doctors at 34. Maybe lifetime earnings ? I see avg doctor salary as 200k but aren’t devs at that age devs already at 300TC. I hear a lot about rich rich doctors. Is it easier to start own business as a doc than a dev ?
Yeah pretty high ceiling for doctors who specialize. I wanna say a heart surgeon can expect to make 500k - 1mm a year. A lot more school/debt required to get there plus residency, and it’s also in cash not stock which has pluses and minuses. Where you work also matters a lot for doctors, with doctors in less populated areas actually making significantly more due to supply and demand. That means that doctors can much more effectively leverage areas with low cost of living vs tech workers that are mostly obliged to live in expensive city centers. I’d guess that average lifetime earnings are probably a bit higher for doctors, but the amount of time it takes to get there and stress on the job probably outweighs it.
Rightly said!
And let's not forget the respect doctors get is way higher
24-40, say engineers have a better life. 40+, it leans more to doctors. But who knows in a couple decades who is automated out.
I don’t believe we are anywhere close to automating doctors. The state of ML/AI is pretty dismal compared to the hype
Look at the past 2 decades, we didn’t even have google 2 decades ago let alone smart phones and assistants and home automation. Look at automated surgical machines peeling and stitching grapes and machine vision advancements. 2 decades will change everything.
DaAX46 is right on the money. Docs are paid in cash tho, and the upside for engineers is that they can make a •lot• in equity.
If you assume tech will grow indefinitely like now (impossible), engineers at Facebook will have better life financially if they can work like now till in their 60s. If not, average general practitioners will surpass them as many Facebook engineers will have to find a job at less paying companies like Walmart or Starbucks eventually unless they can maintain their competitiveness in their 50s. If you compare to specialty doctors or dentists who are popular with their own practice, no comparison unless you can be E7 engineers forever. There was a Blind post who complained his wife (doctor)’s income makes his engineer salary look really bad and he got depressed and considered going into medical school. My friend runs a dental office in Seattle area and makes at least 500k. He basically said good dentists can retire after only 10 years. Specialists work less than engineers and make 300k minimum.
Don’t engineers become managers /directors as they grow old ? Why go to Walmart/Starbucks
I wish we can have 10,000 directors per company or as many as senior engineers :) do you really think most of senior engineers will make directors at companies like Facebook? What do you think about most of people in their 50s? More people than you think senior engineers despite them having more than 20 years of experience. I am quite old by tech standard and so are my friends. Many of them are in their late 40s, and they are SDE2 or senior engineers. This is the downside of being in software industry. Hard ware engineers are different. Experience is more important than raw smartness in hardware therefore you will find many old engineers in those companies. In software, people move to less competitive companies with better title but for lower salary and potential. That is the reality. Imagine tech growth goes plateau. You will be lucky to work as a software engineer at Walmart if you are in 40-50s even though you worked at Google or Facebook before. Add that jobs will eventually shift to India as their level of competitiveness increases along with economy there.
Look at the numbers at puic universities. I believe the highest paid non sports employee at UCLA is a surgeon. One thing is for sure is they definitely get laid more than engineers....
Damn we losing at both ends
And they have more tv coverage which increases their chances of getting laid :( you can thank hbo for your celibacy
One thing to note is that doctors usually start earning high income ~10 years after undergrad + have a big student loan. They do earn a lot to cover those but when you think about opportunity cost of 10 years of compensation + investment, not really sure if doctors are better off financially. It seems like those rich doctors usually come from rich families who can cover med school tuition or help start their own practice, but I am curious if there is any comparison of doctors vs engineers with no family support.
It is 4 years if you become a general practitioner which earns significantly less than specialists but the minimum is still over 200k for working for 4 days a week. You make that income till like 70 years old. Specialists spend 4+4 years usually. When they finish residency, they usually make 400k. But they make at least this much for life plus a lot more opportunities for publishing a book, going to TV, teaching at university etc. Also, many of them open a private practice and good ones make a million. Basically doctors are in a different league than engineers usually. Student loan is nothing.
If we include doctors starting practices, books shows, etc. Shouldnt we also include engineers who start companies etc. I think its obvious engineers who start companies have the higher money cap.
Always greener on the other side;)
Sometimes it really is. Maybe not in India, but in US, yes. Some high school drop outs can also say the same to Harvard graduate. It is better in the current place for some but better on the other side for most. Tech is special as different types of people are here (eg non social) so that may play a role but for average Joe, it is no brainer.
My relative is a surgeon in his early 30s and completing his fellowship. He's interviewing and has offers all in the range of $200k, except for one position in Bakersfield, CA (the city with the worst air quality in America) which is offering $400k. I have a bachelor's degree with $360k TC this year, $410k target TC next year.
Your relative is not going to top out at 40 like you will. Sad but true fact about software...also for sure he is gonna have 10x the women after him than you can ever hope for. We chose wrong even if we like to think we didn't
Agreed, his occupation has more prestige with steady job prospects, though the jobs are mainly in hick towns.
Their income varies like everyone else's. Individual dentist no, dentist with their own practice way more.