I don't know if I should feel sad or laugh at the pain at the same time lol.

what a wonderful way to reflect reality for a good population of devs.

you can hack the game i.e real life

1. live in a cheaper location 2. do things that don't scale & do the ugly work

that naturally extends your runway, you don't need to apply to YC

remember the median Pay in the US - is 61800 based on ADP the largest payroll provider.

so before aiming for millions aim for 85K. yeah a far cry from the FAANG wage - but one - you will never get laid off.

85K - you can live everywhere besides the coastal US cities comfortably.

The last 2 statements are so far from reality it's insane. I live in the south/the midwest (depending on who you ask) in an okay-sized city, I was a SWE making $85k/year gross and struggling to cover housing and bills, and I got laid off when the company "eliminated my position".

I remember taking pay cuts of 35-65% for a few jobs I thought sounded more cool or less stressful when I was younger, only to find out some of my coworkers were making far more at the same place. They placed me still at or above the median wage, and I learned a lot (I never vested, and stocks weren't a factor in the jobs).

In my personal experience, the jobs I have taken which paid less treated me as cheaper and more disposable. This is not to say all companies are like this, and indeed many do value tech employees they could not afford otherwise more, but making a blanket statement about any pay figure is sort of a bad idea.

The FAANG workplace environment is something you will pay for. There are reasons it pays well, and I never really understood this until I left. I do not mean merely 'doing your job'.

As for the last part of your reply, I am guessing it was meant to get reactionary replies (touché).

I've found that when I was making $85k I was just as miserable as when I was making $200k+ at FAANG, just without the money. The corporate politics and shittiness of being an employee were the exact same. At least, I was living in a VHCOL city.

Unless you have a family, want to travel, want an ample retirement fund, have complex health issues, etc etc.

It actually really hurt when I pulled up the page. It's why I'm trying to bootstrap my own software company off of my savings.

I'm aiming for 85k (or there abouts) after a few years of earning nothing. But I can't help but feel like a failure because distribution and convincing people to use my software is extremely difficult. I don't want to go back to the tech industry but at the same time I don't know if I have it in me to go "yeah, I'm still working on my <insert dream here> but I have 0 - 10 users" for the next few years.

> 85K - you can live everywhere besides the coastal US cities comfortably.

This is far from true. There are plenty of expensive places to live away from the coasts

> 1. live in a cheaper location 2. do things that don't scale & do the ugly work

From the creators of how to draw the owl, lol!

Cost of living has risen dramatically everywhere. Unless you live in a small town in a poor state like I do then 85K sounds pretty bad. That's barely above the poverty line at this point.

I wish. I live in the midwest in a stable but unsexy city (probably around like 50th biggest in the nation? So recognizable but not particularly major). 85k is pretty painful here.

> so before aiming for millions aim for 85K. yeah a far cry from the FAANG wage - but one - you will never get laid off.

People making 85K absolutely get laid off.

1 is not an option for a lot of us in geographically tied roles that are infrequently fully remote

> you will never get laid off.

Please explain this assertion.

The funny thing is that this is not a linear relationship.

It is not like ah.. there is my 85K job or 150K job and now I will never get fired or laid off.,

Late stage capitalism will find its way to make it more efficient at 85K level or at 1.5M level. Pick your red/blue pill.