But you aren’t going to have a walk on non leetcode interview at one of the companies that pay a quarter million+ for a mid level developer based on a referral. I’m not saying you are a mid level developer just giving an example of comp.

The amount a returning intern I mentored when I was at BigTech had a return offer that was the same as I made two years prior at 60 person startup.

Now that I’m out of BigTech, I had to get a job as a “staff software architect” at a 3rd party consulting company to come close to what I was making in 2020 as mid level consultant at AWS and I’m making over $80K less than I would make as a senior doing the same thing at AWS or GCP.

I’m 50, an empty nester and I’m good with making that trade off. I would rather get an anal probe with a cactus than ever work at any large company again.

But if I were 30 in 2024 instead of in 2004, yeah I would grind leetCode to make a 300K+ a year.

And yeah I got into BigTech without a coding interview and could probably weasel my way into Google/GCP in the consulting department without one. But that needle would be hard to thread for the vast majority of prople

That’s why I always advise anyone in CS to practice for coding interviews

I think the BIGGEST misconception in our industry is that it is only FAANG that pays TOP dollar. No one teaches CS grads coming out of college the hardest truth of it all - you will get paid what you are worth to the company and your career should be geared towards figuring out how to make yourself more valuable to a company that company is to you - this is where REAL money is and this can be had in A LOT of places. there are maybe 10 people at FAANG that have this - 99.76% of people at FAANG are expendable. too many bodies - most of the people are no ones. on the flip side there are 1,000’s of companies that have been in business for decades - there, with proper planning (much better time spent than fucking leetcode), you can become more valuable to the company than company is to you and your salary will reflect that - even higher than highest of salaries at FAANG…

The 600 person company I work for now isn’t going to match what I could make at Google. On the other hand, Google would require me to be in an office and I would not have unlimited PTO.

Everyone is expendable. No matter where you work.

I don’t think you know the salary ranges at BigTech and how they compare to the rest of the market. Those thousands of companies aren’t going to pay FAANG salaries.

That grad I mentioned coming out of college is making $160K their first year and that was working in Professional Services not development. An SDE was starting out at $175K - $190K

I can tell you from personal and numerous other examples that this is false

I don’t think you know salary ranges at BigTech…

I may not (even though of course I do as this is public information at this point) but I was getting paid $900k at 15th year. And know people in similar-ish range - just coding…

true story, I was on a honeymoon when I got an emergency call at work - no one knew what was going on, jumped on and fixed it in 10 minutes - got a bonus enough to buy a new car…

every junior I encounter in my career nowadays I teach that they should NEVER consider themselves as an “employee” but as a “corporation” and working somewhere not as “employment” but as “partnership” - makes a huge difference through and through when you cement this in your brain

You think if you got hit by a bus tomorrow your employer would go out of business?

my current employer - no, I am winding down my career. my former employer obviously not since I am no longer there but they paid me 6 months extra to do nothing but train people when I was leaving and have also done “emergency” work for several years after.

companies should strive of course to not have 10(000)x irreplacable employees but in 1,000’s of places they are always there. and path to become one of such people is easier than slumming it at FAANG I guarantee you

I am giving actionable, repeatable advice, not once in a lifetime lottery tickets.

Do you have actionable repeatable advice that would allow that junior developer to make $175K straight out of school and over $300K 3-5 years in the workforce?

Those FAANG and adjacent companies are paying collectively 10s of thousands of developers that every year.

NOT at all what I am saying… what I am saying is that there is a path in this industry where you are not a slave to “FAANG” where no one knows your name. there are (tens of) thousands of companies where you can set your career such that you are more valuable to them than they are to you. and once you get that money is no object no more… and you get to stay decade (or two) in the same place vs doing the leetcode-change-jobs-like-socks dance.

actionable/repeatable advice: - find a company which is at least two decades in the business they are in - preferrably some niche thing but not required - make sure books look good (the barometer here is whether you would invest part of your 401k in the company) - less than 100 dev/qa combined preferrably

when you start look for patterns, specifically things that no one wants to do. there will always be that. if you hear “don’t touch this code” spend months studying it and understanding it (on your own time). make sure to understand FULLY every aspect of the business your company is doing, suck up all the domain knowledge… every production issue, no matter how big or small you will volunteer to help and go through all post-mortems… on this path things will become clearer and clearer what you need to get done as time passes.

soon enough it will be YOU that is a go-to person for everything, most important customers will know you by name and will call you on your cell instead of creating ServiceDesk ticket…

above all - never look at your career as an employee - you are a corporation and your relationship with your “employer” is partnership between two business entities. no one bats an eye if company X pays 7-figure yearly to company Y for its services… and yet compensation for an “employee” in those figures would be like “huh? no way.” and yet just how Jira might bring enough value to company X to justify 7-figure compensation, so can your services as well if you position yourself appropriately. no one will teach this in America as America needs obedient employees…

How many of those companies that know your name will pay you straight out of college $160K-$200K and up to $400K-$500k+ within 5-7 years?

If you want to be at a company where everyone knows your name, it’s going to be a small company.

the days of $160-200k out of college are slowly but surely coming to end (try to find some right now and see how many there are compared to say few years ago). Hard to compare but I started in 1999 at $117k which is “there” inflation-adjusted but overall I would say it is not easy starting in that range. $400k-$500k in 5-7 in definitely achievable, little bit of brain and little bit of luck.

Even if they do have to “settle” for enterprise dev, they still need to practice for DS&A to increase their “luck surface area” to get into those companies that pay top of range.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42652056

Glad to hear there are still some old dogs like us making good money. :)