I’m a female in my late 20s. Single. I was doing okay in my previous job but I didn’t like it much and earning potential was limited. My income was similar to a new grad google SWE, 120k-150k depending on bonuses. I’ve heard a lot of glamorous stories of being SWE from college friends; I graduated from a big tech school in the west coast(undergrad). During covid, I quit my day job and joined a bootcamp. The bootcamp was a top bootcamp and placement rate was rather high. Some of my cohort mates from spring have offers already. However, I haven’t done any job search yet because I was busy handling my real estate. I have successful parents and also due to some windfall from grandparents, my personal net worth is about 5.5 million rn. I bought stocks and rental properties with the money I got in the past 3 years. I have a couple rentals in LA. Long term rentals yield about 4.5% annually and short term rentals(Airbnb) yield about 10%. With the current market price of properties, Airbnb probably only yields 6-7%.. so maybe I won’t buy more properties just to do short term. Also local regulations have become rather strict. I remodeled all rentals— they were ugly or fixer-ups. I have connections with developers, vendors and contractors thanks to my previous job so I always do those house projects with much lower cost. For buying, I have realtor license(I only buy/sell for family members). I bought those properties with all cash. Never had I used any loans. In the past few months, after the bootcamp, I’ve been actively talking to all kinds of lenders/banks to use more leverage. I could buy 6-10 unit apartment complex utilizing commercial loans. I could even develop senior housing or apartment complex utilizing purchase and construction loans. Even if I don’t do any leveraging, I could generate 200k in rental income easily. There will also be appreciation in stock and properties. At the same time, I am seeing my friends in tech making 300k or even 500k as an SWE, which makes me feel lots of peer pressure. Maybe I’m a little competitive in nature; sometimes I feel like I’m a loser. I only make low 100k with my capability while almost all my assets are originally from parents and grandparents. I’m torn between doing real estate investment as a full time thing, and becoming an entry level SWE, let my assets sit there, and work 9-5. I do like coding; I also like real estate! I don’t plan to leave LA as my family and properties are here. Any advice from ppl in tech? What’s your FIRE number? Edit: I saw comments about dating. I broke up with my bf a few weeks ago. Yea, dating is something i need to take into consideration. I had a couple relationships in the past. Apparently they didn’t work out… Part of the reason could be I was dating guys similar age or slightly younger than me. I was more mature than them. I know tech firms give really good maternity leave but I am very likely to stay at home(part time real estate) for 3-5 years taking care of kids before both of them start preschool. I personally think time spent with kids is more valuable and enjoyable than any money can ever evaluate. Will worry about that later since it’ll be at least 2-3 yrs before I have kids. #tech #life #fire
Your thinking is totally messed up. You have a net worth 5.5 million. You are an expert in the real estate market and can comfortably earn 200k. Then why the hell do you want to become a SWE to earn 400k? First of all, that 400k is exceedingly rare, takes a lot of hard work and luck. It causes a burnout too. Secondly, when you have such a comfortable life already, why do you care to earn a measly 200k more? (In the best case) You should focus on your strengths and your priorities. Not just chase the first opportunity which offers some money. If I were you, here are some things I would do- 1) enjoy my life. In my late 20’s, I would still have a body that can handle all sorts of stresses and I would go all out. 2) make a long term plan for my life based on what I enjoy working on. I would seriously consider making my money work, not my intellect or my hard skills. The power of compounding is real. 3) never even think about taking up an opportunity just because it pays a 100k more. That would be 2 percent of my net worth. It’s not worth wasting a year of my life.
Your 3-point advice is very on point. I probably won’t be an SWE making 400k any time soon or ever. I have been evaluating which ROI would be higher— SWE or make my money work and compounding. Apparently, I am missing the big picture here— I need to figure out what kind of person I really want to be, what my life goal is, and enjoy life while still young.
Keep in mind that you won’t be making anywhere near 300k in your first job out of bootcamp. If you’re truly passionate about working as a SWE, then go for it. But the high pay won’t come for a while. Since you mentioned you’re single, do you want to find a partner? If so, you could invest your time and energy towards that. Dating can be as time-consuming as a full-time job
Yeah, maybe after 4-5 yrs in the field. I regret not having done a double cs major in college… I do want to have a partner. Not only can dating be time consuming, it also is harder than a full-time. 😂
You will need some form of self actualization eventually, if you want to make babies and take care of them you can focus on mating instead of career. Now, you get to choose eventually whether you want to run a larger RE portfolio or do something else profesionally and both paths work. SWE can lead to engineering management too, so you’re just diversifying your future options. 5M is nowhere near a FIRE number, and 10x’ing that is a good goal.
5M is my FIRE number. Even at 450 TC I won't be there until my 40s. OP is waaaaay ahead of the game
I wish I could earn 450k! I would be happy if I can half of yours. You also have upward earning potential! Maybe you will get to 600k TC soon. I might be out of the game in 20 yrs unless I work hard and invest smart, or get more gifts from parents/grandparents….
Use your software skills to write applications that help in your investments. I had a colleague many years back, an avid investor in options market. He was writing some applications for predictive modeling of the market. Later left his full time job to do that. Not sure what he's doing now. I am planning to develop something like that for myself. Being independent gives you a lot of leverage on how you want to shape your life.
Go Flip flop pt.2. I'd go for real estate, with the amount of connections you have there you could easily mop the floor with any swe salary in 10 years. Having additional source of income is good if you want to diversify, so you can be 2008-proof, but i doubt you can do both simultaneously and not die from stress in a few years
What drives you in life? What’s your purpose? You already have the cash flow, I think you need to dream bigger! I am a swe at Apple, make about 200k BEFORE taxes and have real estate biz on the side (realtor/investor). I dream of your 200k cash flow w/o leverage lol. One of things I want is to reach fire and be able to ski/motorcycle around the world, in places with the Best Snow whenever I want!!! So what do YOU want your life to be? A 9-5 SWE? If you want to chase prestige and don’t care about $, maybe at an MBA instead! 😅❤️
You will get to 300k in probably 2-3 yrs! You don’t need to reach FIRE to ski around the world! You can do it now or soon! Ikon pass or Epic pass is quite affordable especially when you go with friends who can split food and accommodation with you. I do wanna reach 500k cash flow so I can buy a 300k yacht with 2 staterooms to sail to Hawaii etc. still gotta work toward that dream
Haha that sounds amazing. Maybe expand your RE to out of state to increase cash flow? Cash flow is horrible in the Bay and I can imagine a bit better on LA. Yes I actually always have Epic/Icon pass. I just always wish to go to say Haikkido Japan for extended time like 2 months instead of 2 weeks and have to come to program some for loops! 🥲 anyways, cheers to the yacht dream, you got this! 😄
What’s your ethnicity?
Asian
Start a company which does real estate management and do both for a living
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Coding is fun until you do it for someone else. Then it’s lame. If you’re already working for yourself and liking it, stick with that and just code for fun or some income on the side