Okay, so I come from a middle class family in NC who was better off than most of the people around me. Living the dream is having enough money to pay off your student loans and other debts while spending time with family and/or friends. I’ve always been content with what I have, but after being on Blind for awhile, I’m starting to realize I’m not really shooting for the stars or anything here. Are there really that many SWEs with < 5 YOE who are making $250K+? I mean, location is a big factor, but according to the national and local college graduate averages, it looks like $120K is really top end for 1st year grads in comp sci. In five years should your compensation double? At $250K I can have a pretty great quality of life and save for the future. What am I missing here? Why do people feel like $350K is crappy pay sometimes (for IMO minimal experience) when they can live debt free if desired, travel, buy a house, support family, save, etc.? Am I just financially...Blind?! (Hahahahaha...) #personalfinance #help
Yes there are people making 250k under 5 years of experience. But understand that most of these high packages are in high COL areas like the Bay Area. Where you will easily spend just 50k-60k for a year worth of expenses including rent. Remember that 250k is more like 150k base salary with 70k being RSU and the rest is bonus. After taxes and assuming your selling your RSU’s every year, you will bring back around 155k(you would bring back less if you are putting into Roth or 401k. 155k - 60k(living, rent, food, expenses, etc). You end up saving around 95k cash. Btw, 60k total expenses a year isn’t living lavishly by any means in Bay Area.
$1M TC
Location is the BIGGEST factor. Most companies that pay out at this level require you to be in HCOL cities. Sure, some people choose to live outside of those areas and commute 1-2 hours into office, but most people can’t stomach that kind of trade off. A house in a higher COL area in NC will average out to 400k. That same house in Cali could be 1.4mil+. You’ll find some new grads in SF making 200k+ but are living in a 1000sqf apartment with 3 other people. That being said, most of the people I see complaining about their TC are TC chasers, where there is no end in sight. They’ll always want more. Those people do exist. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. Those people tend to be younger and have much more drive and energy to do so. I think if you are able to afford the niceties you want, have time to spend with your family, friends, and hobbies, and stay out of debt, you are doing things right.
325k is good to me. 200 isn't bad, but to me 'good' is above average of your peers. I'd consider my TC on the low end, because I'm not very good. 165 TC
Range $175-200k, with decent 401k match, wfh, about 45ish hours per week, with maybe once a quarter travel, at low/medium CoL place. Could care less about promotions etc. I'll be happy for life. There will always be something that's better (TC wise) out there. If you are simply just chasing TC, you'll find that you never have chance to live. Find your own thing and you'll do just fine.
When you say middle class, what was your household income? I thought my family was also middle class until someone asked me certain things & I realized we were probably lower middle class or maybe upper lower class. Anyway, apart from the Blind bubble, what would you say is the range for middle class?
What you are missing is the location. $120k is the average nation wide and it is actually a great comp for most places for SWE. I moved from the Midwest to the bay area, my salary almost doubled but looking back my quality of living actually went down mostly because of the insane rents, 30% state tax and how expensive it is eat out here in the bay. So a 6 figure TC that would be considered extremely high outside the west coast is just barely sufficient here.
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Yes there are many new grads that can make 250k+. The national average is lower since it also include SWEs at non tech companies who are really the majority of SWEs. If you only account for high paid bay area internet companies the average is much higher.