Comment by tavavex
2 hours ago
> Keep in mind that HN is packed with people with salaries above $1M/yr and entrepreneurs with way higher income levels.
Is it really packed with those people? I know there's some, but I imagined that the average user here is probably some senior engineer in his 40s making six figures - not an executive or some industry-leading employee, and not the top <1% entrepreneur who manages to walk away with multimillion dollar profits. If that really is the common audience here, then I'm living in a whole different universe from what the average would work out to.
Not that those people aren't here, but I don't think they are the average. I think the average person here is an un/under-employed tech enthusiast who dreams of startups but spends his time here instead of actually working to make it happen. I'm not in that group by the way, I stopped dreaming about startups 10 years ago.
Bored developers are probably another large fraction.
You don’t have to be “industry leading” to reach that kind of comp working for big tech.
I could be totally wrong, but in a world where plumbers and the likes can walk away with multimillion dollar profits you probably don’t have to be top <1% to pull that off either. Not taking shots at plumbers, but the point is that even something boring can and will pay off if you work hard at it.
My own work couldn’t be more boring, I’m not particularly smart or talented. I just grind out many little varyingly useful websites with card payment forms.
> My own work couldn’t be more boring, I’m not particularly smart or talented. I just grind out many little varyingly useful websites with card payment forms.
Are you talking like one-off niche utilities/services that another busy person would happily pay a small amount to solve an immediate problem with and don't necessarily require a ton of backend scaling/maintenance, or subscription type stuff? When you say "many", is that >100?
$1M/year in big tech is like director level? That's not "industry leading" but there aren't that many of them.
Most people don't work for big tech. Most people who work for big tech don't make so much. And not most plumbers.
Many people under estimate their skills and luck.