Unless you're in the upper levels of management (VP equivalent or higher) at FAANG, it's difficult to get this salary at a market rate. For the vast majority of mere mortals, you need to get an above-market rate to achieve this. And this requires taking on more risk.
The least risky way is to join a pre-IPO, VC funded company after it's at least past Series D round, and get a significant equity package that is equivalent to at least 2-3x the same pay at a FAANG company.
Then be patient, wait for an IPO or acquisition. Note this could be years. And during that time you won't get any liquidity (like a FAANG employee would).
Depending on length of time, this could result in several years of above market pay (through stock which continues to vest post exit), or a one time big payout that averages to more than $1MM/year. Note that depending on tax treatment (ISO versus RSU), that could reduce your after tax payout.
Other options would include starting a company or joining even earlier stage (before the Series C). But then the time horizon for an exit can go up, and the risk also increases as many times the equity gets heavily diluted or the cap table is adjusted significantly to make room for later stage investors.
Yup, definitely industries (like web3/crypto/defi) where this can be done in the short term, but it still constitutes a lot of risk for the long term.
Even if you are getting $1M in cash today, who knows if you'll get it the following year when the underlying token they're liquidating to pay you in cash loses value and the founders are getting rekt. In some cases, you may only get the cash for a few months.
I agree that HN loves to hate it on crypto, but as this community ages you have to expect somewhat of a more risk-averse mindset to set in. Even YC funding is so high, I don't consider it as risky as it was 10 years ago.
It is not very unusual for experienced C++ coders to get this working for Wall Street traders. You have to be able to demonstrate you understand latency and memory hierarchy effects.
Many people don't want to work for them, or in adtech (e.g. F,G) or generally for evil companies. HFT has been called "automated stealing", and it's hard to argue it's not.
Yeah I’ve heard stories like this, but how do you actually go about learning how to develop low latency systems.
I mean I can read about stuff all damn day, but I’m not sure how the average person goes from “knows a bit about controlling latency” to “has demonstrable ability to create low latency systems”.
demonstrate your ability by contributing to relevant codebases on github, not a few commits here and there, build entire low-latency libraries, you're supoosed to be demonstrating excellence so show us the code (!!!!)
go to developer meetups, or better yet, speak at them
go to the pub after the meetup, thats where the real networking happens. talk to people dont just sit in the corner.
be smart about who you talk to and what you work on, time, resources and attention are limited, succinctly demonstrate apex excellence immediatly
I started out in games development, mostly on the engine side back in the PS1, PS2 and original Xbox era. I've has a bunch of interest over the years for finance types based on that low level experience. More generally any work on embedded or otherwise constrained systems
Wow, most of the software engineers here are not really that smart I see.
Don't listen to them. If you want to make such a big salary, you simply cannot be an employee. A human being doesn't have the skills required to produce that much money in a year, let alone convince a company so they pay you that salary.
Your best bet is making a company, creating something with a lot of value, and then either selling it or receive some income from it.
Keep in mind that the money wont be there at the start, but after a few years, 1 million or even several is a real possibility.
I agree with you, the math of the salaries isn't really flexible.
After jumping ship between many companies (whether FAANGs or not), there's a point where salaries cannot increase any longer and you'll need to own your means of income if you want to break beyond that glass ceiling.
1. Start a successful business.
2. Work at a FANG and spend 10+ years working up the ladder.
3. DOD contracts as an independent contractor doing insane things.
As a solo operation you can start a small contracting firm specifically aimed at the needs of the 3 letter groups. Build connections, and slowly increase your rate. If you are very very good.
There are online examples of people also doing this for terrible countries and using their skills for gray areas. Those can pay equally well if you don't have any ethics :).
Of course much easier if you build a small team with a unique skill set and then bill an insane amount. The "DC marketplace" is it's own beast.
In that movie they supplied ammunition by buying from sources that were off limits to the government. They also talk about forging documents and records for the biggest deal they made.
I'm not sure if the movie was fully representative of reality. I think there was more to it than that, like knowing how to win the contracts to begin with:
You brought up the movie as an example of "kids pulling it off" and when I say the movie also involves forgery you say "I'm not sure if the movie was fully representative of reality"
Sorry about that, you're right, I'm a bit all over the place. I brought up the movie as a real example of regular folks being able to win contracts like this, but not sure I trust the movie for the finer details how it was done, etc.
Get to ~L7 at FANG, which has TC in the ~700-800 range but mostly stock. Assuming the market continues to go up the way it has been for the past 12 years or so, you'd hit $1mm/yr after not too long.
Given the current high stock price of FANGs (or should I say MANGs?), is appreciation really that likely? I'm hearing of offers for mid-career engineers with just 500-700K in equity. And that is over 4 years.
The P/E ratio of most FAANG companies is not completely insane, we are not talking about TSLA. I think there are good chances those stocks will continue growing healthily in double-digit territory yoy. They are incredibly high-quality companies with tons of revenues and tons of cash reserves.
Recency bias means that everyone and their mother thinks that the market will go up forever. Meanwhile don't look at cloud stocks and Ark funds since 2021.
For a company to pay that much, an engineer has to bring in or save at least 2x that much money or create software that has the potential. Finance or marketing companies are probably a good place to target as a place where you can find a position. Also you have to prove yourself so it will be years before you come close to that salary.
Start-ups are places where options MIGHT get you that income IF the startup succeeds.
You can also try your own start-up. The least you need is a high drive to succeed. Everyone you bring in should be at the same level.
1)Find an area that still needs specialized software that can improve efficiency by at least 10x. 15 years ago I knew of someone that targeted mortgage software. He's now a millionaire.
2)Educate yourself in every aspect of the area that you want to target.
3)Find a nontechnical partner that fills the areas where you are weak.
4)Start a business in the area where the software is the differentiator
5)Create a MVP and show that it can be a driver to profits
6)Look for investors and ride the wave to riches
Lastly, in time inflation will drive salaries up so there will be a time where that salary will be common. It's way in the future.
Join a company that’s clearly on route to IPO but 2+ years out. (Stripe 2 years ago, AirBnB 4 years ago, Snowflake 1-2 years ago.)
Work at or start a pre series A company that gets acquired by a FANMG. Typically, they are building a product that’s best suited as part of the offering of the acquirer.
The least risky way is to join a pre-IPO, VC funded company after it's at least past Series D round, and get a significant equity package that is equivalent to at least 2-3x the same pay at a FAANG company.
Then be patient, wait for an IPO or acquisition. Note this could be years. And during that time you won't get any liquidity (like a FAANG employee would).
Depending on length of time, this could result in several years of above market pay (through stock which continues to vest post exit), or a one time big payout that averages to more than $1MM/year. Note that depending on tax treatment (ISO versus RSU), that could reduce your after tax payout.
Other options would include starting a company or joining even earlier stage (before the Series C). But then the time horizon for an exit can go up, and the risk also increases as many times the equity gets heavily diluted or the cap table is adjusted significantly to make room for later stage investors.