<story><title>Ask HN: Software Engineer hitting 40: what&apos;s next?</title><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been working in software engineering for 18 years. I worked mostly as individual contributor  (now as a Senior Staff Engineer), also I was an Engineering Manager for couple years. Now I am interviewing after a few years at the company, and I am hit by harsh reality. For the context, I am in Europe, not in the US.&lt;p&gt;I like technologies and programming, I want to further improve my skills in designing and developing reliable and maintainable distributed system, make better technical decisions. Also, I want to keep learning and playing with new techs. I am now interviewing for the roles like Staff &amp;#x2F; Principal Engineer, My expectations for the roles like  Staff &amp;#x2F; Principal Engineer are that while staying hands-on, say for 30%, I will primarily use more my skills in architecture, engineering, and communications to focus on large, important pieces of functionality, technical decisions with big impact, etc. I expect that I would report to a Director or VP level manager, so that I could be exposed to a big picture, collaborate with and learn from a professional who operated on strategic level.&lt;p&gt;In reality, I am now interviewing for Staff &amp;#x2F; Principal roles and see a few problems that make me rethink my carrier plans. First, the definion for the most of those positions looks Senior Engineers with a few more years of experience: so you are limited to the scope of a single team scope, report to an Engineering manager, just be a worker at a feature conveyor, just be faster, mentor young workers, maybe get some devops skill. I feel limited in impact in such roles, my borders and carrier are defined by Engineer Managers, who are usually less experienced in engineering and leadership topics than I am. The work is also very repetitive, there is not much meaningful progression, next level. I think those titles are created to cover problems caused by diluted Senior titles: an illusional career progression candy for ICs with some salary increase.&lt;p&gt;I saw a few Staff &amp;#x2F; Principal roles that put a very high bar on technical expertise, when only 3-4 percent of all the engineers have such levels, and again usually limited to a lot of coding and a single team scope. They usually have long exhaustive interview process.&lt;p&gt;An important problem with Staff+ IC roles is that there is a low salary limit as well, and you will face much more competition for top roles. Mostly salaries top at the level of a director of engineering. It is typical for a company to have 10 directors, but only 1-2 IC with a similar compensation.&lt;p&gt;I want to work hard, and see meaningful progression: in salary, in impact, in respect.&lt;p&gt;I would like to ask for advice. I believe there are qute a lot 35+ engineers here that faced similar problems and made some decisions for their careers. Now I think to plan switching to a EM track or to Technical Product management. Thank you!</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>asdfman123</author><text>I make like $320k, my wife makes $70k. Our rent in the bay is $2800&amp;#x2F;mo and we spend about $4000&amp;#x2F;mo on other expenses.&lt;p&gt;I just moved to the bay from the enterprise world, so my net worth is 400k. At this rate, assuming very conservative raises and 6% on all investments -- including already reserved stock units -- I&amp;#x27;ll be worth $2.2m in five years (age 40). $7.5m by 50.&lt;p&gt;And that&amp;#x27;s just assuming I hit $400k-ish in the next few years and stay there for the rest of my life, and my wife gets no significant raises. If I get higher, which is entirely possible, I&amp;#x27;ll make even more. Or maybe at some point I&amp;#x27;ll try for a startup and go for the really big money. Maybe not.&lt;p&gt;Of course, many of those assumptions could not work out. But the kind of exponential advantage of saving a large fraction of your paycheck eventually overcomes any disadvantages. Worst case scenario is tech goes bust and US stock market turns into Japan&amp;#x27;s in the 80s, but in that case I&amp;#x27;ll still be better off than most because I have a lot of savings and I&amp;#x27;m not addicted to the paycheck.&lt;p&gt;I think the plan will be to do this for a few more years and consult part time. Full retirement would be too boring.</text></item><item><author>jstx1</author><text>You don&amp;#x27;t just get a few million through work. Salaries aren&amp;#x27;t high enough to save that aggressively.</text></item><item><author>trulyme</author><text>When you say &amp;quot;you can&amp;#x27;t&amp;quot;, I assume you mean retire officially? I imagine that having a few million euros in the bank (or in different assets) would mean that work is optional.</text></item><item><author>bjornsing</author><text>Sounds great, if you can retire at 50. In the EU you can’t (or at least not in Sweden where I am), so you have to think about how sustainable this approach is past 50… and to me it doesn’t really feel sustainable.</text></item><item><author>leet_thow</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m 42 and have stopped paying attention to titles and all the traditional organizational paradigms that are losing relevance.&lt;p&gt;I feel like the ability to work from home in my sweats on simple problems as a senior engineer and receive a 75th percentile income relative to my neighbors in one of the best neighborhoods in my new home state is the most societal progress I will ever experience in my lifetime. I&amp;#x27;m a lifelong bachelor by choice. Why bother striving for anything career wise when I am on track to retire comfortably to focus on my mostly free hobbies no later than the age of 50? For a house with a 3rd bedroom I don&amp;#x27;t need?&lt;p&gt;No, best to appreciate what I have and leave the striving for the next generation of engineers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spiderice</author><text>This is the most out of touch thing I’ve read on HN in a while. When did we start talking about whether couples bringing in $400k&amp;#x2F;year could retire at age 50. You are clearly an outlier, even when compared to software engineers in the states, let alone Europe.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: Software Engineer hitting 40: what&apos;s next?</title><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been working in software engineering for 18 years. I worked mostly as individual contributor  (now as a Senior Staff Engineer), also I was an Engineering Manager for couple years. Now I am interviewing after a few years at the company, and I am hit by harsh reality. For the context, I am in Europe, not in the US.&lt;p&gt;I like technologies and programming, I want to further improve my skills in designing and developing reliable and maintainable distributed system, make better technical decisions. Also, I want to keep learning and playing with new techs. I am now interviewing for the roles like Staff &amp;#x2F; Principal Engineer, My expectations for the roles like  Staff &amp;#x2F; Principal Engineer are that while staying hands-on, say for 30%, I will primarily use more my skills in architecture, engineering, and communications to focus on large, important pieces of functionality, technical decisions with big impact, etc. I expect that I would report to a Director or VP level manager, so that I could be exposed to a big picture, collaborate with and learn from a professional who operated on strategic level.&lt;p&gt;In reality, I am now interviewing for Staff &amp;#x2F; Principal roles and see a few problems that make me rethink my carrier plans. First, the definion for the most of those positions looks Senior Engineers with a few more years of experience: so you are limited to the scope of a single team scope, report to an Engineering manager, just be a worker at a feature conveyor, just be faster, mentor young workers, maybe get some devops skill. I feel limited in impact in such roles, my borders and carrier are defined by Engineer Managers, who are usually less experienced in engineering and leadership topics than I am. The work is also very repetitive, there is not much meaningful progression, next level. I think those titles are created to cover problems caused by diluted Senior titles: an illusional career progression candy for ICs with some salary increase.&lt;p&gt;I saw a few Staff &amp;#x2F; Principal roles that put a very high bar on technical expertise, when only 3-4 percent of all the engineers have such levels, and again usually limited to a lot of coding and a single team scope. They usually have long exhaustive interview process.&lt;p&gt;An important problem with Staff+ IC roles is that there is a low salary limit as well, and you will face much more competition for top roles. Mostly salaries top at the level of a director of engineering. It is typical for a company to have 10 directors, but only 1-2 IC with a similar compensation.&lt;p&gt;I want to work hard, and see meaningful progression: in salary, in impact, in respect.&lt;p&gt;I would like to ask for advice. I believe there are qute a lot 35+ engineers here that faced similar problems and made some decisions for their careers. Now I think to plan switching to a EM track or to Technical Product management. Thank you!</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>asdfman123</author><text>I make like $320k, my wife makes $70k. Our rent in the bay is $2800&amp;#x2F;mo and we spend about $4000&amp;#x2F;mo on other expenses.&lt;p&gt;I just moved to the bay from the enterprise world, so my net worth is 400k. At this rate, assuming very conservative raises and 6% on all investments -- including already reserved stock units -- I&amp;#x27;ll be worth $2.2m in five years (age 40). $7.5m by 50.&lt;p&gt;And that&amp;#x27;s just assuming I hit $400k-ish in the next few years and stay there for the rest of my life, and my wife gets no significant raises. If I get higher, which is entirely possible, I&amp;#x27;ll make even more. Or maybe at some point I&amp;#x27;ll try for a startup and go for the really big money. Maybe not.&lt;p&gt;Of course, many of those assumptions could not work out. But the kind of exponential advantage of saving a large fraction of your paycheck eventually overcomes any disadvantages. Worst case scenario is tech goes bust and US stock market turns into Japan&amp;#x27;s in the 80s, but in that case I&amp;#x27;ll still be better off than most because I have a lot of savings and I&amp;#x27;m not addicted to the paycheck.&lt;p&gt;I think the plan will be to do this for a few more years and consult part time. Full retirement would be too boring.</text></item><item><author>jstx1</author><text>You don&amp;#x27;t just get a few million through work. Salaries aren&amp;#x27;t high enough to save that aggressively.</text></item><item><author>trulyme</author><text>When you say &amp;quot;you can&amp;#x27;t&amp;quot;, I assume you mean retire officially? I imagine that having a few million euros in the bank (or in different assets) would mean that work is optional.</text></item><item><author>bjornsing</author><text>Sounds great, if you can retire at 50. In the EU you can’t (or at least not in Sweden where I am), so you have to think about how sustainable this approach is past 50… and to me it doesn’t really feel sustainable.</text></item><item><author>leet_thow</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m 42 and have stopped paying attention to titles and all the traditional organizational paradigms that are losing relevance.&lt;p&gt;I feel like the ability to work from home in my sweats on simple problems as a senior engineer and receive a 75th percentile income relative to my neighbors in one of the best neighborhoods in my new home state is the most societal progress I will ever experience in my lifetime. I&amp;#x27;m a lifelong bachelor by choice. Why bother striving for anything career wise when I am on track to retire comfortably to focus on my mostly free hobbies no later than the age of 50? For a house with a 3rd bedroom I don&amp;#x27;t need?&lt;p&gt;No, best to appreciate what I have and leave the striving for the next generation of engineers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lumost</author><text>At present trajectory this is a reasonable outcome, in the case of a major correction saving your money will also mean you benefited from the bubble.&lt;p&gt;There used to be stories from the .com bubble of people who only knew a little html getting six figures.  On being told this around ‘08 everyone would nod and think that it was ridiculous - after all fresh college grad backend engineers could be hired for just 30k at the time on the low end in the US.&lt;p&gt;Flash forward to today and we’d think a front end engineer or designer with technical knowledge for those rates would be a steal even after adjusting for inflation.&lt;p&gt;I don’t doubt techs impact, or that the big tech should be the most valuable companies in the world. But I would be surprised if software engineer became the highest paid profession on a permanent basis, which with current salary progressions is a given without a correction.</text></comment>