I am currently working as an engineer at Amazon in Minneapolis, TC 230k, 5 yoe. I have a cozy soon-to-be paid-off apartment, and am by most measures set. I could keep on this path for less than ten more years and probably have enough saved to FIRE, in this location at least. I have a nagging feeling despite this that I will have wasted my life if I stay here. I lived in the bay for a few years and mostly loved the energy, leaving only to try something new and to escape the high COL. I guess I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with this scenario. Did you follow the FIRE path and feel like it was ultimately an empty pursuit? Is it better to struggle and live financially precariously in a place like the bay but challenge yourself?
FIRE is a tricky concept because what you do after you retire has to be fulfilling enough to replace whatever you were doing before and whatever you sacrificed to get there. And there’s always a risk that something unexpected will happen and you won’t even get to that point. If you felt fulfilled by work/life in the Bay, maybe it’s worth going back.
Yeah that is basically my thinking right now. All things considered, money aside, I was happier in the bay. But acting on that impulse might be something I deeply regret in a decade when I'm still struggling to get by out there.
I know I am ignorant but whats FIRE?
I like where I am and would like to have enough money to stay here until the lights are out
Minneapolis is a cool city
Yeah it is! More cool in some ways than the bay tbh. I could see it really being a buzzing place in the future with all the work the city is doing. It's just a bit sleepy right now, especially on the tech front.
If you go down to Rochester, that’s a world class biotech city
250k seems like a lot for Minneapolis. How much are SFH near good schools worth?
You can get a starter home for <200k, or a very nice home in a good neighborhood for 200-500k depending on how many sq ft you need.
How much are you planning on saving ?
Paid off home plus a clean 1m should be more than enough around here.
Go travel. If you really hate MN after that, then leave, but 230k in that area is really good money, and you'll see even more if you get L6 probably. Basically you just proved that you can FIRE in short order, so what exactly is a dead end?
A dead end is a career that didn't see its full potential I suppose. Maybe that's naive thinking. Really looking for some experienced engineers to jump in here and reassure me that almost no one anywhere is doing meaningful work and I should stfu and be happy here with my $$ lol..
Ok- what is your full potential? A lot of people are on this site, working in SV, just polishing UsefulServiceClientFactory. Some people at Google have mentioned that all they do is change configs and play hot potato passing around the protobuf. You don't need to go to SV for meaningful work, if you really want to reach your "full potential", then perhaps try going into business for yourself?
Once you reach your fire target then you are basically free. Go live in the Bay Area or whatever you want to do and as long as you aren’t eating into savings you can always go back if you burn out.
^^^
Why do you want to join the rat race that is the bay area? Once you come here, you'll soon find out there are several engineers earning much more than with a higher title, and same YOE as you. It has more to do with luck and the situation(hyper growth of team can cause the junior members to become very senior very fast) then anything else. Enjoy your life in Minneapolis, save up and make some great investments.
Fortunately in our industry you can launch your own ideas from practically anywhere. The only reason for coming to Bay Area could be weather.
I'm in NYC would love to live in bum fuck no where with high TC
how is TC at ibm nyc?
it was shit I already left but still TC low