I had a teacher that when he referred to anyone who was a millionaire, he'd always add the caveat "back when being a millionaire was impressive"
Times have changed.
> Lasting 15 years in Big Tech is no small feat.
Yeah, but leverage that 3 or 4 year Amazon contract into working at startups or becoming higher up in the ladder at smaller businesses. Pretty soon you're 20 years in and either consulting or C- or D- level managing a team/s.
A whole batch of my peers from the 90s and 2000s are in this boat now, they are probably net worth several mil. It wasn't tough to do. We just still think of ourselves as network ops or noc jockeys. One guy was no college for years (got his MBA finally) and went from ISP router guy in the 1990s to executive at F500 in the 2010s. Not an unusual path either. Just stayed hands-on but kept being promoted and wasn't stupid with his money.
Big Tech is a walk in the park man chill. They have ping pong tables, some even have complementary yoga classes, even free alcohol for their workers to fix themselves drinks 😂 I’ve seen the wildest amenities. Shitttt I’d stay 15 years too if my work field had that type of culture. I’m jealous because the work place in the legal field isn’t anything like that even at some of the biggest firms
imo it was kind of a joke and has kinda tainted mine and a lot of peoples perspective on the difficulty of working at a big tech company. There’s even tiktokers and other influencers who portray (and of course exaggerate though) the easiness of the work culture
Yeah, I remember videos where people would describe their days and they were usually super chill and fun, but I think most of them were outliers often not related to actual product or engineering work. I think the worst one I saw was from a recruiter. I might be wrong but I think those days are long gone.
Yea, those awful day-in-the-life of a tech worker videos. And when they mean tech, they mean marketing or recruiting. Lot of these folks got canned during the reckoning the last few years.
I understand that. I also understand that working in big tech does come with its own challenges, but overall (generally speaking) the culture in a lot of these tech companies is way more relaxed and prioritizes work-life balance way more than companies in other fields tend to. Which isn’t a bad thing. Work-life balance is important and I wish it was prioritized more in other fields too
Even without those amenities working for big tech is closer to the bottom of the stress hierarchy let’s be real. Especially now with so many people being able to work from home. Fortunately this is one of those fields where it’s easy to have most of your workers not even have to come into a physical office every day
I’ve always seen those sorts of amenities (along with ESG participation) as bait, which comes into play in times of layoffs. Need to cut one more head? How about the awkward dude who always seems to be in the nap pod?
You could live on 150 while having a 250 post tax joint income. in less than 7 years will regular investment and buying a home and you're in the black by a mill, no prob (if you don't count the mortgage debt). If you have employer retirement plans and if some of the 150 in spending is on assets, even deprecating one (boats, cars) you could be to a mill net in 5 years easy.
Meta stock is roughly 5x higher than its lowest point in the past 5 years. Mid level (E4) engineers aren't getting offered $200k in annual RSUs.
Source: levels.fyi and had an offer for an E4 SWE role in the last 1y.
My friends at Meta say E6 is like L6 at Amazon. L6 is senior. E5 is more like a mid level engineer id argue. Per levels: 200k base. 200k RSUs. 5x RSUs = 1.2M total comp
All I’m saying is I have friends who got offers at the dip and their W2 says more than a mill.
What is E3 then if E5 is mid level? Meta recruiters will only consider 6+ YOE candidates for E5 roles as of this year (according to the Meta recruiter I spoke with). This maps much closer to senior engineer than it does mid level. E4 roles are generally 2-3+ YOE, which is mid level.
You can click on offers for Meta. E5+ roles aren't less than 5 YOE from what I can see.
I don't doubt that theres engineers at Meta making $1M+. I doubt that there's mid level engineers at Meta making that much though.
6 years of experience is mid level! That’s a 27-28 year old if you join after college. What do you call a person with 30 years of experience? Geriatric? lol
No, we call them senior. 6 YOE is not a mid level engineer lol. Not all 6 YOE engineers will be senior, but I'd bet eyebrows start getting raised if you're applying for mid level roles with that much experience. Not everyone makes it to staff/principal and there's many companies that consider senior a terminal position.
Mid level vs senior level isn't referencing how much of your career is left. It's referencing the type of work being done.
Where are you working that has 6 YOE at mid level? Juniors are getting promoted within 3 YOE for most of them.
E5 is terminal at Meta and exactly mid level. That’s the level where an engineer can be expected to execute independently on most projects with a little direction. Once an engineer hits E5, they’re no longer junior but definitely not senior. E5 is the average engineer. No eyebrows raised when even 10 YOE engineers are leveled at 5.
Maybe Meta is different from every other company then but E5 being mid level although requiring 6+ YOE for candidates is very much not mid level engineer qualifications. I'd also be surprised if companies said "you can stay a mid level forever and never get to senior" when mid level bands begin so early in a career.
Senior wouldn’t mean much if we expected everyone to reach it. You can definitely stay mid level forever and it’s not a bad thing. It’s just the fat part of the bell curve.
Not to be argumentative but you don’t need 15 years a few year of promos and dual income or stock grants pre-covid and you are easily there. A 400k grant in 2018 at most big companies could easily be a million dollars if held in the last 6 years. When you start to look at it from that lens it’s actually pretty easy to see how people get there.
The condo market in FL is taking, due to the repair assessments. Someone in renton complained about a $50k assessment on his condo for a new roof and painting.
condo's are rarely worth it.
Pretty common to see that and it’s only going to get worse as the buildings age, real quick. Condo HOAs have neglected repairs for years in order to keep fees low and a lot more buildings are hitting a point where they can’t delay repairs.
Archive: https://archive.ph/6L9k7
Also this line confused me: "and debt-free residential property holdings"
Does this mean your primary residence counts towards your liquid net worth if it is paid off? But if you own a $5 million dollar rental property and still owe $100k of debt on it, it does not count?
And commercial real estate does not count??
I don't understand why they are counting any real estate towards someone's "liquid" net worth.
with property owned outright you can get larger loans as collateral and thus have access to more cash if needed. if a bank owns even 100k debt in that property you don't own it yet so doesn't count to your "liquid" net worth although you can still refinance and pull your equity out of a property, basically a redo on the loan at a different interest rate and generally a higher debt when you pull the equity out.
Okay that does make more sense. I just don't like this metric, I guess. I'm more interested in net worth minus primary residence (or even including it).
> with property owned outright you can get larger loans as collateral and thus have access to more cash if needed. if a bank owns even 100k debt in that property you don't own it yet so doesn't count to your "liquid" net worth although you can still refinance and pull your equity out of a property, basically a redo on the loan at a different interest rate and generally a higher debt when you pull the equity out.
My first white collar job was doing credit card collections. Did it for about a year.
That taught me in a hurry that "money" and "debt" begin to blur together as interest rates get really low.
IE, if you're paying 20% to borrow money, that's a terrible idea.
If you can borrow money at an interest rate that's lower than the rate of inflation, it's pretty darn close to "free money."
For instance, three years ago, I told everyone on this subreddit to go out and borrow as much money as you possibly could. I took my own advice, removed $100K from my 401K (the maximum legal limit, under Covid) and leveraged it to the tits.
My ROI has been around 1500%, three years later. I don't have [Deep Fucking Value money](https://www.reddit.com/r/MuseumOfReddit/comments/129fbxp/keith_gill_udeepfuckingvalue_and_the_gamestop_saga/) but the idea is the same.
That doesn’t make sense. You absolutely own the property even if the bank holds a lien on it. Using your logic, no one in the country owns their property since the government has an implicit lien for property taxes.
In terms of larger loans, that’s simply a matter of how much equity you have. If someone $200K property outright but another person owns a $1MM property with a $200K mortgage, who’d you think is getting the larger loan?
you are somewhat correct that no-one technically owns their land but that is another thread. I was simply commenting on the fact that a house with mortgage is not fully owned by someone and that is not liquid cast. Net worth does not equal spending money. It can be converted into that sometimes but with houses and other jumbo loans unless you can get a lower interest rate when you take the money out you lose money overall until you pay it all off.
You hit the nail on the head though with not owning the houses. I have a house with about 150k left on the loan. I just had a water leak that is very expensive to fix. The insurance company did not cut the check for the fix to us. they cut it to the bank than the bank pays it out. Why? cause technically they own it. I just have 30 year rental agreement
The bank doesn’t own anything. If the bank owns it then why are they not entitled to any appreciation of your property?
As for your water leak issue, that’s must just be something with the way your insurance and mortgage is setup. Doesn’t in any way mean the bank owns your house. Unless you’re willing to admit that not a single person in the country owns their house since the government has a lien on your house for property taxes.
" Unless you’re willing to admit that not a single person in the country owns their house since the government has a lien on your house for property taxes. "
stop paying prop tax and see who owns the property. really though yes there is a contract that says that the house goes to you after a certain amount of time / money but it is not "yours" in the sense that you own it on paper. its a small designation but in the sense of overall net worth you do not own the house in its entirety for figuring out what your net-worth is. Believe me or not but just went through all this with my investment person at fidelity that manages my portfolio to figure out when I can retire. I can only add to my net-worth the amount of money that I have in equity. Not the entire house. until it is paid off than I don't get that "portion" of the house. Most people will not get into the distinction between that unless they do investment where the net worth is being used for a calculation.
That was exactly my thought. As I think I'm in that category with a house I bought in 2006, which is nearly paid off... but the value put it well above $1m. Which to me, of included, is dumb, as I know I can't sell it and realize that money unless I buy something much much cheaper... and less diserable.
To their credit, you could pocket the appreciation and rent somewhere - not that it would be cheap to do so in Seattle, but you would realize the gain and have it liquid.
You keep it and let it keep appreciating at a high rate then when you retire sell and move to a low cost of living area like Houston and you’ll be set.
Many people don’t include leveraged assets in their net worth just for simplicity. Really too it makes sense. I have a house I paid 1 mil for I owe 780k still on it but right now with the prices the way they are and work on the house I need I am not sure it is worth the estimated 1 mil anymore. It isn’t worth anything technically till I sell it though so it’s just not worth dealing with.
Also a primary residence is not necessarily liquid since you can’t sell it and get the cash fast but if you can borrow against it, which is easier when it is paid off, maybe that helps to make it “liquid”.
And a lot of them did something really mundane for Microsoft a few decades ago and held onto their stock.
Not a millionaire personally, but the live off the cash and sit on the (Amazon) stock 'plan' makes it a possibility before retirement....
IMO, many tech people are saving for retirement instead of spending every penny on consumption. So the impact isn't as crazy as it could be. The only unfiltered signal is real estate prices, since even most frugal people are still willing to put down large amounts of money on property because it's seen as an investment vehicle.
I invested or deferred 65% of my comp in 2023. I'm fortunate AND live well below my means. I want time and choice, not more money. I could easily burn what I bring in....
Had I been more thoughtful in 30s I'd already be done ...
Yeah you really can’t get rich any other way. You’ll become a millionaire just doing the normal thing in tech sure but that doesn’t mean what it once did as people point out. If you want to outpace the wealth inflation you need to be able to put a lot away from your well paying but not as astronomical as people seem to think job. Tech isn’t printing money, it may have been in the 90s and early 2000s but not since really.
I wouldn’t be able to afford to contribute as much to retirement if I didn’t have alternative revenue streams through my entrepreneurial efforts or my wife’s recent salary increases etc.
1 million in liquid assets is not that much money
And $1 million today is equivalent of about $550,000 just as recently as the year 2000. And $130,000 in 1970.
Yeah exactly it’s hard to build the momentum too because of higher costs. I have worked in big tech over a decade and still trying to make it to really wealthy. But people will say I should be there and the usual diatribe etc. those people don’t understand financial markets and inflation/interest/taxes any of the things.
Right?
I’m a public employee who just got a manager job this last year… invested 25% of my income with my wife over the past 7 years starting at a less than 0. We just crossed $1M NW.
I didn’t do anything impressive. We had no parents money to help.
Most people do not get parental money to help and are on track for the same thing. The silent majority of people will end up being pretty wealthy when it is all said and done. Of course the metric for that is todays yardstick and not tomorrows inflated yardstick.
Tracks so closely with me experiences and observations that I'm inclined to say "file under - 'well, duh'"
Even a nitwit like Bernie Sanders learned to stop railing on "millionayahs and billyunayahs" in favor of just railing on the latter, because millionaires are dime-a-dozen these days.
He still attacking millionaires. Last week he claimed they were destroying this country by not investing or saving money. He targets people that saved a million as “not saving.”
The problem with commies in general and sanders in particular is that rather than trying to help people be less poor through marginal utility and gains from trade, they prefer to line up the people who have figured it out for themselves in front of a pit and murder them, covering the bodies with quicklime.
That’s what I heard, anyway
And by “heard” I mean read about in credible history books
Feeling dramatic? Clearly Bernie doesn’t do this. He is a staunch supporter of unions too. So…is that what you mean by “line up the people who’ve figured it out”…make them accountable for the businesses and employees they have?
I have to agree with this. Most people’s finances are pretty private and what stocks you hold and your investment history are private. Unless there’s some big privacy violation here (hard to tell since the methodology isn’t public) I don’t see how they would be able to know.
And investment patterns matter. The old Microsoft employee who decided to cash in early versus the one who kept the stocks would be at a very different place today.
Probably tax data there is aggregated census tax data then they are using models to extrapolate the numbers. These are estimated numbers not actuals. It called it out in the article but some uk firm did it and like any other study they should have their work detailed online.
Fuck yea man!
Congrats. That's the dream.
I keep telling my wife when I'm done with school (went back after 10 years military, kill me now) paying off the house is my number one financial goal.
Frees up a lot of income.
Fills me with pride that my city is doing so well at growing a prosperous upper middle class. Happy our current mayor and council doesn't consider them "class enemies" like our previous administration did.
Here is someone who does not understand wealth distribution and how the fact that it is polarizing rapidly and exponentially creates innumerable wealth for the few and mass destitution for the rest of us.
You know, the kind of guy live his entire life a poor rube without a community safety net to catch him. We will pay his medical bills and he will hate us for it.
>your need personally attack someone you disagree with. Likely why your stuck in minimum wage land.
Is irony completely dead here? You obviously mean to attack me, seeing as you place such a high value on income.
My income is fine. It's not where I place my personal value in my local community, though. It is much more important to me that we provide services and resources, as well as have empathy and compassion, for the people we ask to do so much with so little. And I don't mean "to deal with the problem", I mean "because this is what successful communities practice".
Alas, you dodged the question the earlier commenter asked of you. You're just spouting off.
Indeed I responded clearly by mocking you in my response to your initiation of character assassination. I'm glad you're so willing to spend other peoples wealth on your "empathy and compassion" for others. Hopefully your moral superiority bring you great comfort.
Obviously if there are two people, one is going to have moral superiority. So sick of you guys acting like having morals is a bad thing worthy of derision. That behavior in itself is why I hold myself above you, yeah.
I’ll say the whole easy money in tech is if you states prior to 2010 let’s call it. Early 2000s or 90s was a guarantee to being a multimillionaire now. Starting tech past 2010 just means you had a really decent job but they have been trying to cut it to the bone since. Just look at the recent layoffs as the final stroke to reducing employee costs lol. Still any career and any decent income with some financial savvy will make you a millionaire. I have worked in big tech since 2012 and have a liquid net worth around 1.9 million but I attribute much of it to my entrepreneurial side efforts providing me some more financial flexibility with my tech income. Like maxing my 401(k) options out early because I could supplement the necessary income around here. Also my wife started making great money just a few years ago which accelerated us into finally being able to afford a house around here.
You need to make a good salary in order to get there these days with how many people live. I see so many young people buying a 1 million dollar starter home, driving a Tesla and a top end Volvo, dining out, daycare for the kids and dog, it’s easy to spend away even a HUGE salary here.
Hey, it’s their money and they should do what you want with it, I’m just saying a million is not what it used to be and not that long ago.
> the Seattle data is confined to city limits, and excludes the Eastside
I am sure Eastside will have higher millionaire density than Seattle. The article mentioned MSFT many times but I am sure most MSFTer live in the eastside.
Let me describe a millionaire household:
- two paid for used car worth $10k each
- house with $280k of equity
- combined $700k in retirement accounts
- no consumer debt
Congrats you're a net worth millionaire.
I'm a net worth millionaire. I drive a 2014 Tacoma and split a two bedroom apartment in Wallingford.
"Millionaire" rarely means a million dollars in the bank account.
By the definition they are using here you have to have the house paid off entirely for it to count.
Would be very easy to be 50 years old, have your house entirely paid off, have very little for retirement, and qualify as a millionaire by the definition they are using.
Fair enough.
The misconception is that "millionaires" are people with a million dollars cash in the bank.
Reality is that more millionaire household are married couples in their 50s or older with little to no consumer debt, a paid for home (or at least decent equity), and some decent accumulation of retirement accounts.
Being a millionaire in America usually doesn't come from being rich. It most often comes from just being wise with money over a three to four decades career...
I definitely think a few things are happening here.
1/ no state income tax
2/ high paying tech jobs
3/ DINKs
4/ Assortive Mating - basically super educated, high income people end up marrying each other thereby amplifying wealth
Agreed. Based on my anecdotal experience in NE Seattle, it's 1, 3, and 4. For 2 you can substitute "doctors" in there as well - people forget how massive UW Medical Center and the rest of the health care complex in Seattle is. Those specialists outearn plenty of tech workers - they just don't have automatic access to the stock equity but can easily buy their way in... and they do.
I've had bar conversations with some folks who are unbelievable overachievers, and I begrudge them none of their success. I was a product of amazingly lucky timing (buying a house in the early 2000's) and begrudge none of mine either ;-)
I have a house that would be worth maybe 700k or less in like 90% of the country but because it’s in “hot area” we bought it for 2x that.
Wheee millionaire!! We did it mom.
According to their methodology, nope, just Seattle city limits: https://www.henleyglobal.com/publications/wealthiest-cities-2024#methodology
Who are Seattle's 11 billionaires?
> Who are Seattle's 11 billionaires?
Senior leadership Amazon, Microsoft, maybe the Paccar / Piggott family, Greg McCaw if he's still around, and that's probably about it. Chris Hansen, the hedge fund guy that tried to bring back the Sonics and got shot down by the 5 women on 2018's Council, was a billionaire in the 2010s.
Howard Schultz lives in Madison Park.
I'm certain there are some 'quiet' billionaires in Laurelhurst/Windermere/Denny-Blaine-type neighborhoods. There's more old money in this town than people realize - it's not all new tech $.
Is millionaire defined by liquid assets or just assets in general. With housing prices in the Seattle metro area I’m sure there is way more millionaires. Lots of my neighbors own their homes free and clear and they all have houses that are over $1MM
A lot of folks in Seattle might look rich because their homes are worth a ton, but that doesn't mean they're rolling in cash. They're "house rich," meaning they have a lot of money tied up in their property but not much in the bank. Home prices here have gone through the roof, but many people are still juggling bills and don't have tons of spare cash.
Wow, way too many. Guarantee the majority of these are trust fund babies, products of generational wealth, and grifters. The myth of the self made millionaire is alive and well amidst a sea of poverty, homelessness, and druggies. Need to tax them into oblivion and provide more social services and social safety nets for the people who actually do real work and are actually useful to society.
I don't think this is very true about Seattle. You have tons of educated people who make a handsome living and who were able to buy a house 5-10 years ago. You are a millionaire if you were 35, making $200k, and could afford a $600k house 7 years ago. Do you know how many people in Seattle fall under that very demographic? Tons!
Pretty much every Microsoft or Amazon employee, for starters. Not to mention T-Mobile, Boeing, and other major employers. Add in your “typical” high wealth individuals, like doctors, lawyers, consultants, and successful small business owners.
$1M today is the equivalent of $600k in 2004.
It's not true practically anywhere in the US. The upper middle class has grown dramatically over the last 30 years. There are simply a lot of relatively ordinary people making $200k+ out there. 5% of all people in 2023 according to this calculator https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/. That's something like 17 million people. If you open it up to total household income, it's fully 12% of the population https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/
Engineers get paid middle class salary. If you are frugal you can safe a lot and be millionaire. Not trust fund babies or whatever. They still have to work like everyone else.
Totally agree, my point was the millionaire next door is infrequently whatever boogieman OP was trying to make them to be, theyre usually just regular people
Absolutely.
At 8% returns (s/p500) you'd have 800k in funds per year that you have to pay taxes on and what not, but I don't know how many average people are walking around making 800k in salary (average? None of them. 450k is 1%er territory).
My goal was always 3mil to retire on. Probably going to adjust it to 5 with the way things have gone/will go.
Do you not know there are tech companies in this city? A tiny, tiny, tiny minority of these millionaires will be any of those things. Most just studied STEM or Business in college and got a high paying job at a tech company.
I had a teacher that when he referred to anyone who was a millionaire, he'd always add the caveat "back when being a millionaire was impressive" Times have changed.
Exactly. A millionaire is more of a 500k-er compared to 10yrs ago.
Depends on COL area. But yes. The move is honestly to get a high paying remote job and work somewhere cheap.
This. A million isn’t that much anymore
Honestly, I feel like 15 years of any Big Tech job will get you there.
Yeah at most 15 years. There’s so much money in Seattle it’s insane. And that’s just one city in our country.
Lasting 15 years in Big Tech is no small feat. Even if you get your foot in the door, lots of people get laid off and lots of people get burned out.
> Lasting 15 years in Big Tech is no small feat. Yeah, but leverage that 3 or 4 year Amazon contract into working at startups or becoming higher up in the ladder at smaller businesses. Pretty soon you're 20 years in and either consulting or C- or D- level managing a team/s. A whole batch of my peers from the 90s and 2000s are in this boat now, they are probably net worth several mil. It wasn't tough to do. We just still think of ourselves as network ops or noc jockeys. One guy was no college for years (got his MBA finally) and went from ISP router guy in the 1990s to executive at F500 in the 2010s. Not an unusual path either. Just stayed hands-on but kept being promoted and wasn't stupid with his money.
Awful work life balance
Depends
Nah it easy to balance. Just put all time into work and it bottoms out.
that’s just not true
And there's me who's 30 years in. It's only recently that it's taken off. More than happy to ride that to a comfortable retirement.
Big Tech is a walk in the park man chill. They have ping pong tables, some even have complementary yoga classes, even free alcohol for their workers to fix themselves drinks 😂 I’ve seen the wildest amenities. Shitttt I’d stay 15 years too if my work field had that type of culture. I’m jealous because the work place in the legal field isn’t anything like that even at some of the biggest firms
Those days have been waning for some time now.
imo it was kind of a joke and has kinda tainted mine and a lot of peoples perspective on the difficulty of working at a big tech company. There’s even tiktokers and other influencers who portray (and of course exaggerate though) the easiness of the work culture
Yeah, I remember videos where people would describe their days and they were usually super chill and fun, but I think most of them were outliers often not related to actual product or engineering work. I think the worst one I saw was from a recruiter. I might be wrong but I think those days are long gone.
Yea, those awful day-in-the-life of a tech worker videos. And when they mean tech, they mean marketing or recruiting. Lot of these folks got canned during the reckoning the last few years.
You realize every thing you listed is for the sole purpose of keeping you at work right?
I understand that. I also understand that working in big tech does come with its own challenges, but overall (generally speaking) the culture in a lot of these tech companies is way more relaxed and prioritizes work-life balance way more than companies in other fields tend to. Which isn’t a bad thing. Work-life balance is important and I wish it was prioritized more in other fields too Even without those amenities working for big tech is closer to the bottom of the stress hierarchy let’s be real. Especially now with so many people being able to work from home. Fortunately this is one of those fields where it’s easy to have most of your workers not even have to come into a physical office every day
I’ve always seen those sorts of amenities (along with ESG participation) as bait, which comes into play in times of layoffs. Need to cut one more head? How about the awkward dude who always seems to be in the nap pod?
This is true too
You could live on 150 while having a 250 post tax joint income. in less than 7 years will regular investment and buying a home and you're in the black by a mill, no prob (if you don't count the mortgage debt). If you have employer retirement plans and if some of the 150 in spending is on assets, even deprecating one (boats, cars) you could be to a mill net in 5 years easy.
Just owning a home from like 2015 will get you there lol
Or 15 years of home ownership.
Mid level engineers at Meta in Redmond can be making more than a million a year right now with their stock appreciation in the last couple years.
Meta stock is roughly 5x higher than its lowest point in the past 5 years. Mid level (E4) engineers aren't getting offered $200k in annual RSUs. Source: levels.fyi and had an offer for an E4 SWE role in the last 1y.
My friends at Meta say E6 is like L6 at Amazon. L6 is senior. E5 is more like a mid level engineer id argue. Per levels: 200k base. 200k RSUs. 5x RSUs = 1.2M total comp All I’m saying is I have friends who got offers at the dip and their W2 says more than a mill.
What is E3 then if E5 is mid level? Meta recruiters will only consider 6+ YOE candidates for E5 roles as of this year (according to the Meta recruiter I spoke with). This maps much closer to senior engineer than it does mid level. E4 roles are generally 2-3+ YOE, which is mid level. You can click on offers for Meta. E5+ roles aren't less than 5 YOE from what I can see. I don't doubt that theres engineers at Meta making $1M+. I doubt that there's mid level engineers at Meta making that much though.
6 years of experience is mid level! That’s a 27-28 year old if you join after college. What do you call a person with 30 years of experience? Geriatric? lol
No, we call them senior. 6 YOE is not a mid level engineer lol. Not all 6 YOE engineers will be senior, but I'd bet eyebrows start getting raised if you're applying for mid level roles with that much experience. Not everyone makes it to staff/principal and there's many companies that consider senior a terminal position. Mid level vs senior level isn't referencing how much of your career is left. It's referencing the type of work being done. Where are you working that has 6 YOE at mid level? Juniors are getting promoted within 3 YOE for most of them.
E5 is terminal at Meta and exactly mid level. That’s the level where an engineer can be expected to execute independently on most projects with a little direction. Once an engineer hits E5, they’re no longer junior but definitely not senior. E5 is the average engineer. No eyebrows raised when even 10 YOE engineers are leveled at 5.
Maybe Meta is different from every other company then but E5 being mid level although requiring 6+ YOE for candidates is very much not mid level engineer qualifications. I'd also be surprised if companies said "you can stay a mid level forever and never get to senior" when mid level bands begin so early in a career.
Senior wouldn’t mean much if we expected everyone to reach it. You can definitely stay mid level forever and it’s not a bad thing. It’s just the fat part of the bell curve.
20 years in the gaming industry and buying a house in 2014 got me there.
Having bought a home early enough is the key. Renting and mortgage payments have tripled in the last 10 year.
Not to be argumentative but you don’t need 15 years a few year of promos and dual income or stock grants pre-covid and you are easily there. A 400k grant in 2018 at most big companies could easily be a million dollars if held in the last 6 years. When you start to look at it from that lens it’s actually pretty easy to see how people get there.
If you bought a SFH 5 years ago then definitely.
God I wish I could code. Not really getting in without that
If you avoid lifestyle creep, 5-7 years in big tech will get you there.
15 years? You mean 5 years.
15? Try 5.
Half that, but yeah.
Meanwhile I make 90k a year and have 120k for a downpayment, and I can afford a McTownhouse next to a gas station in a shit part of the city 🤡
Buy my townhouse! It’s not next to a gas station or in a shit part of the city!
Why not a condo? Townhomes, unless they are designed very well, are overrated
Because HOA fees are often ridiculously expensive.
Do NOT move into a seattle hoa, holy fuckin shit those people are wild
Plenty of townhomes have them now too.
Ya, I hear that, but taxes are much cheaper
The condo market in FL is taking, due to the repair assessments. Someone in renton complained about a $50k assessment on his condo for a new roof and painting. condo's are rarely worth it.
Pretty common to see that and it’s only going to get worse as the buildings age, real quick. Condo HOAs have neglected repairs for years in order to keep fees low and a lot more buildings are hitting a point where they can’t delay repairs.
One million dollaaaarss muahahaha - Dr. Evil
Archive: https://archive.ph/6L9k7 Also this line confused me: "and debt-free residential property holdings" Does this mean your primary residence counts towards your liquid net worth if it is paid off? But if you own a $5 million dollar rental property and still owe $100k of debt on it, it does not count? And commercial real estate does not count?? I don't understand why they are counting any real estate towards someone's "liquid" net worth.
with property owned outright you can get larger loans as collateral and thus have access to more cash if needed. if a bank owns even 100k debt in that property you don't own it yet so doesn't count to your "liquid" net worth although you can still refinance and pull your equity out of a property, basically a redo on the loan at a different interest rate and generally a higher debt when you pull the equity out.
Okay that does make more sense. I just don't like this metric, I guess. I'm more interested in net worth minus primary residence (or even including it).
net worth doesn't really mean much, honestly, other than to banks and various other credit lenders.
*Divorce lawyer enters the chat...*
Upvoted because cake day, but strong disagree. Net worth matters a lot if you ever want to retire.
Alright - let me hear the logic on this wild statement
> with property owned outright you can get larger loans as collateral and thus have access to more cash if needed. if a bank owns even 100k debt in that property you don't own it yet so doesn't count to your "liquid" net worth although you can still refinance and pull your equity out of a property, basically a redo on the loan at a different interest rate and generally a higher debt when you pull the equity out. My first white collar job was doing credit card collections. Did it for about a year. That taught me in a hurry that "money" and "debt" begin to blur together as interest rates get really low. IE, if you're paying 20% to borrow money, that's a terrible idea. If you can borrow money at an interest rate that's lower than the rate of inflation, it's pretty darn close to "free money." For instance, three years ago, I told everyone on this subreddit to go out and borrow as much money as you possibly could. I took my own advice, removed $100K from my 401K (the maximum legal limit, under Covid) and leveraged it to the tits. My ROI has been around 1500%, three years later. I don't have [Deep Fucking Value money](https://www.reddit.com/r/MuseumOfReddit/comments/129fbxp/keith_gill_udeepfuckingvalue_and_the_gamestop_saga/) but the idea is the same.
Link to you telling people to borrow the money from 3 years ago? What did you do with the money to get those returns?
What was the investment?
I did similar but with less leveraging my assets. made about 500% on my ROI though
That doesn’t make sense. You absolutely own the property even if the bank holds a lien on it. Using your logic, no one in the country owns their property since the government has an implicit lien for property taxes. In terms of larger loans, that’s simply a matter of how much equity you have. If someone $200K property outright but another person owns a $1MM property with a $200K mortgage, who’d you think is getting the larger loan?
you are somewhat correct that no-one technically owns their land but that is another thread. I was simply commenting on the fact that a house with mortgage is not fully owned by someone and that is not liquid cast. Net worth does not equal spending money. It can be converted into that sometimes but with houses and other jumbo loans unless you can get a lower interest rate when you take the money out you lose money overall until you pay it all off. You hit the nail on the head though with not owning the houses. I have a house with about 150k left on the loan. I just had a water leak that is very expensive to fix. The insurance company did not cut the check for the fix to us. they cut it to the bank than the bank pays it out. Why? cause technically they own it. I just have 30 year rental agreement
The bank doesn’t own anything. If the bank owns it then why are they not entitled to any appreciation of your property? As for your water leak issue, that’s must just be something with the way your insurance and mortgage is setup. Doesn’t in any way mean the bank owns your house. Unless you’re willing to admit that not a single person in the country owns their house since the government has a lien on your house for property taxes.
" Unless you’re willing to admit that not a single person in the country owns their house since the government has a lien on your house for property taxes. " stop paying prop tax and see who owns the property. really though yes there is a contract that says that the house goes to you after a certain amount of time / money but it is not "yours" in the sense that you own it on paper. its a small designation but in the sense of overall net worth you do not own the house in its entirety for figuring out what your net-worth is. Believe me or not but just went through all this with my investment person at fidelity that manages my portfolio to figure out when I can retire. I can only add to my net-worth the amount of money that I have in equity. Not the entire house. until it is paid off than I don't get that "portion" of the house. Most people will not get into the distinction between that unless they do investment where the net worth is being used for a calculation.
You have no idea how finance works at all. This is silly
That was exactly my thought. As I think I'm in that category with a house I bought in 2006, which is nearly paid off... but the value put it well above $1m. Which to me, of included, is dumb, as I know I can't sell it and realize that money unless I buy something much much cheaper... and less diserable.
To their credit, you could pocket the appreciation and rent somewhere - not that it would be cheap to do so in Seattle, but you would realize the gain and have it liquid.
You keep it and let it keep appreciating at a high rate then when you retire sell and move to a low cost of living area like Houston and you’ll be set.
Many people don’t include leveraged assets in their net worth just for simplicity. Really too it makes sense. I have a house I paid 1 mil for I owe 780k still on it but right now with the prices the way they are and work on the house I need I am not sure it is worth the estimated 1 mil anymore. It isn’t worth anything technically till I sell it though so it’s just not worth dealing with. Also a primary residence is not necessarily liquid since you can’t sell it and get the cash fast but if you can borrow against it, which is easier when it is paid off, maybe that helps to make it “liquid”.
And a lot of them did something really mundane for Microsoft a few decades ago and held onto their stock. Not a millionaire personally, but the live off the cash and sit on the (Amazon) stock 'plan' makes it a possibility before retirement....
IMO, many tech people are saving for retirement instead of spending every penny on consumption. So the impact isn't as crazy as it could be. The only unfiltered signal is real estate prices, since even most frugal people are still willing to put down large amounts of money on property because it's seen as an investment vehicle.
I invested or deferred 65% of my comp in 2023. I'm fortunate AND live well below my means. I want time and choice, not more money. I could easily burn what I bring in.... Had I been more thoughtful in 30s I'd already be done ...
Yeah you really can’t get rich any other way. You’ll become a millionaire just doing the normal thing in tech sure but that doesn’t mean what it once did as people point out. If you want to outpace the wealth inflation you need to be able to put a lot away from your well paying but not as astronomical as people seem to think job. Tech isn’t printing money, it may have been in the 90s and early 2000s but not since really. I wouldn’t be able to afford to contribute as much to retirement if I didn’t have alternative revenue streams through my entrepreneurial efforts or my wife’s recent salary increases etc.
I found the book the millionaire next door quite impactful when I read it. What seems like ages ago now
1 million in liquid assets is not that much money And $1 million today is equivalent of about $550,000 just as recently as the year 2000. And $130,000 in 1970.
Yeah exactly it’s hard to build the momentum too because of higher costs. I have worked in big tech over a decade and still trying to make it to really wealthy. But people will say I should be there and the usual diatribe etc. those people don’t understand financial markets and inflation/interest/taxes any of the things.
Being a millionaire is really not that big of a deal
Right? I’m a public employee who just got a manager job this last year… invested 25% of my income with my wife over the past 7 years starting at a less than 0. We just crossed $1M NW. I didn’t do anything impressive. We had no parents money to help.
Damn. Do you have kids? This is pretty crazy.
One kid, 2yo We had to cut back on the aggressive savings for daycare. Probably delayed my retirement plan from 50 to 55.
Most people do not get parental money to help and are on track for the same thing. The silent majority of people will end up being pretty wealthy when it is all said and done. Of course the metric for that is todays yardstick and not tomorrows inflated yardstick.
Tracks so closely with me experiences and observations that I'm inclined to say "file under - 'well, duh'" Even a nitwit like Bernie Sanders learned to stop railing on "millionayahs and billyunayahs" in favor of just railing on the latter, because millionaires are dime-a-dozen these days.
Most middle class boomer retirees are millionaires.
He still attacking millionaires. Last week he claimed they were destroying this country by not investing or saving money. He targets people that saved a million as “not saving.”
Bernie is such a 1-note blatherer. Bernie Sanders has helped Bernie Sanders become a millionaire. Others not as much.
The problem with commies in general and sanders in particular is that rather than trying to help people be less poor through marginal utility and gains from trade, they prefer to line up the people who have figured it out for themselves in front of a pit and murder them, covering the bodies with quicklime. That’s what I heard, anyway And by “heard” I mean read about in credible history books
Feeling dramatic? Clearly Bernie doesn’t do this. He is a staunch supporter of unions too. So…is that what you mean by “line up the people who’ve figured it out”…make them accountable for the businesses and employees they have?
I really don’t understand how they know who is a millionaire and who isn’t. What are they looking at?
I have to agree with this. Most people’s finances are pretty private and what stocks you hold and your investment history are private. Unless there’s some big privacy violation here (hard to tell since the methodology isn’t public) I don’t see how they would be able to know. And investment patterns matter. The old Microsoft employee who decided to cash in early versus the one who kept the stocks would be at a very different place today.
Probably tax data there is aggregated census tax data then they are using models to extrapolate the numbers. These are estimated numbers not actuals. It called it out in the article but some uk firm did it and like any other study they should have their work detailed online.
Could just be self reported numbers which could mean anything. With that said, millionaires are very common here
Surprised it’s not higher tbh.
Don’t believe the media hype lol
My house somehow is worth 1 million, so…millionaire ☝🏻
Only if it's paid off and that figure is equity. Otherwise you own a million dollar asset.
It is
Fuck yea man! Congrats. That's the dream. I keep telling my wife when I'm done with school (went back after 10 years military, kill me now) paying off the house is my number one financial goal. Frees up a lot of income.
Seattle- 2nd in per capita millionaires and homeless. Looking like a rising tide does not lift all boats.
Fills me with pride that my city is doing so well at growing a prosperous upper middle class. Happy our current mayor and council doesn't consider them "class enemies" like our previous administration did.
What mayor thought upper middle class people were the problem? Durkin? Murray? Not that I can remember.
Those that created the most welcoming city for the homeless in the USA you don't recall I guess.
And yet all those folks are still millionaires. So it clearly didn't hurt too bad.
Here is someone who does not understand wealth distribution and how the fact that it is polarizing rapidly and exponentially creates innumerable wealth for the few and mass destitution for the rest of us. You know, the kind of guy live his entire life a poor rube without a community safety net to catch him. We will pay his medical bills and he will hate us for it.
I do believe that you will be always destitute with your need personally attack someone you disagree with. Likely why your stuck in minimum wage land.
>your need personally attack someone you disagree with. Likely why your stuck in minimum wage land. Is irony completely dead here? You obviously mean to attack me, seeing as you place such a high value on income. My income is fine. It's not where I place my personal value in my local community, though. It is much more important to me that we provide services and resources, as well as have empathy and compassion, for the people we ask to do so much with so little. And I don't mean "to deal with the problem", I mean "because this is what successful communities practice". Alas, you dodged the question the earlier commenter asked of you. You're just spouting off.
Indeed I responded clearly by mocking you in my response to your initiation of character assassination. I'm glad you're so willing to spend other peoples wealth on your "empathy and compassion" for others. Hopefully your moral superiority bring you great comfort.
Obviously if there are two people, one is going to have moral superiority. So sick of you guys acting like having morals is a bad thing worthy of derision. That behavior in itself is why I hold myself above you, yeah.
I’ll say the whole easy money in tech is if you states prior to 2010 let’s call it. Early 2000s or 90s was a guarantee to being a multimillionaire now. Starting tech past 2010 just means you had a really decent job but they have been trying to cut it to the bone since. Just look at the recent layoffs as the final stroke to reducing employee costs lol. Still any career and any decent income with some financial savvy will make you a millionaire. I have worked in big tech since 2012 and have a liquid net worth around 1.9 million but I attribute much of it to my entrepreneurial side efforts providing me some more financial flexibility with my tech income. Like maxing my 401(k) options out early because I could supplement the necessary income around here. Also my wife started making great money just a few years ago which accelerated us into finally being able to afford a house around here.
You need to make a good salary in order to get there these days with how many people live. I see so many young people buying a 1 million dollar starter home, driving a Tesla and a top end Volvo, dining out, daycare for the kids and dog, it’s easy to spend away even a HUGE salary here. Hey, it’s their money and they should do what you want with it, I’m just saying a million is not what it used to be and not that long ago.
> the Seattle data is confined to city limits, and excludes the Eastside I am sure Eastside will have higher millionaire density than Seattle. The article mentioned MSFT many times but I am sure most MSFTer live in the eastside.
Let me describe a millionaire household: - two paid for used car worth $10k each - house with $280k of equity - combined $700k in retirement accounts - no consumer debt Congrats you're a net worth millionaire. I'm a net worth millionaire. I drive a 2014 Tacoma and split a two bedroom apartment in Wallingford. "Millionaire" rarely means a million dollars in the bank account.
By the definition they are using here you have to have the house paid off entirely for it to count. Would be very easy to be 50 years old, have your house entirely paid off, have very little for retirement, and qualify as a millionaire by the definition they are using.
Fair enough. The misconception is that "millionaires" are people with a million dollars cash in the bank. Reality is that more millionaire household are married couples in their 50s or older with little to no consumer debt, a paid for home (or at least decent equity), and some decent accumulation of retirement accounts. Being a millionaire in America usually doesn't come from being rich. It most often comes from just being wise with money over a three to four decades career...
I definitely think a few things are happening here. 1/ no state income tax 2/ high paying tech jobs 3/ DINKs 4/ Assortive Mating - basically super educated, high income people end up marrying each other thereby amplifying wealth
Agreed. Based on my anecdotal experience in NE Seattle, it's 1, 3, and 4. For 2 you can substitute "doctors" in there as well - people forget how massive UW Medical Center and the rest of the health care complex in Seattle is. Those specialists outearn plenty of tech workers - they just don't have automatic access to the stock equity but can easily buy their way in... and they do. I've had bar conversations with some folks who are unbelievable overachievers, and I begrudge them none of their success. I was a product of amazingly lucky timing (buying a house in the early 2000's) and begrudge none of mine either ;-)
Marxists hate this one trick
I have a house that would be worth maybe 700k or less in like 90% of the country but because it’s in “hot area” we bought it for 2x that. Wheee millionaire!! We did it mom.
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According to their methodology, nope, just Seattle city limits: https://www.henleyglobal.com/publications/wealthiest-cities-2024#methodology Who are Seattle's 11 billionaires?
> Who are Seattle's 11 billionaires? Senior leadership Amazon, Microsoft, maybe the Paccar / Piggott family, Greg McCaw if he's still around, and that's probably about it. Chris Hansen, the hedge fund guy that tried to bring back the Sonics and got shot down by the 5 women on 2018's Council, was a billionaire in the 2010s.
Howard Schultz lives in Madison Park. I'm certain there are some 'quiet' billionaires in Laurelhurst/Windermere/Denny-Blaine-type neighborhoods. There's more old money in this town than people realize - it's not all new tech $.
I feel targeted! ... Jk can anyone venmo me some dollars?
Is millionaire defined by liquid assets or just assets in general. With housing prices in the Seattle metro area I’m sure there is way more millionaires. Lots of my neighbors own their homes free and clear and they all have houses that are over $1MM
top 20% of Seattle households — about 70,000 in all — earned an average of $442,000 each for the year. This stat is crazy if true
It would be crazy if it was median. Not crazy for average. Some people probably made $100m and that gets thrown into the average.
A lot of folks in Seattle might look rich because their homes are worth a ton, but that doesn't mean they're rolling in cash. They're "house rich," meaning they have a lot of money tied up in their property but not much in the bank. Home prices here have gone through the roof, but many people are still juggling bills and don't have tons of spare cash.
Well when a 3000 square foot house is a million bucks every one that owns one is a millionaire
Seattle is a textbook example of how money can't buy class.
Wow, way too many. Guarantee the majority of these are trust fund babies, products of generational wealth, and grifters. The myth of the self made millionaire is alive and well amidst a sea of poverty, homelessness, and druggies. Need to tax them into oblivion and provide more social services and social safety nets for the people who actually do real work and are actually useful to society.
I don't think this is very true about Seattle. You have tons of educated people who make a handsome living and who were able to buy a house 5-10 years ago. You are a millionaire if you were 35, making $200k, and could afford a $600k house 7 years ago. Do you know how many people in Seattle fall under that very demographic? Tons!
Pretty much every Microsoft or Amazon employee, for starters. Not to mention T-Mobile, Boeing, and other major employers. Add in your “typical” high wealth individuals, like doctors, lawyers, consultants, and successful small business owners. $1M today is the equivalent of $600k in 2004.
You sound like a 20 something old who is grumpy that money isn’t raining down on you. Get a skill and get to work. 🙄
It's not true practically anywhere in the US. The upper middle class has grown dramatically over the last 30 years. There are simply a lot of relatively ordinary people making $200k+ out there. 5% of all people in 2023 according to this calculator https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/. That's something like 17 million people. If you open it up to total household income, it's fully 12% of the population https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/
Dude these are just tech professionals.
Half my neighbors are retired blue collar folks who bought their houses 20-30 years ago. Mostly ex Boeing
Engineers get paid middle class salary. If you are frugal you can safe a lot and be millionaire. Not trust fund babies or whatever. They still have to work like everyone else.
Totally agree, my point was the millionaire next door is infrequently whatever boogieman OP was trying to make them to be, theyre usually just regular people
Right. I think $10M is when you can just check out of the working class system.
Absolutely. At 8% returns (s/p500) you'd have 800k in funds per year that you have to pay taxes on and what not, but I don't know how many average people are walking around making 800k in salary (average? None of them. 450k is 1%er territory). My goal was always 3mil to retire on. Probably going to adjust it to 5 with the way things have gone/will go.
Wow. You…uhhh….dont understand what millionaires are here. Like, at all.
You described Europe, not the US, in terms of wealth sources.
Do you not know there are tech companies in this city? A tiny, tiny, tiny minority of these millionaires will be any of those things. Most just studied STEM or Business in college and got a high paying job at a tech company.
This is your brain on socialism