Are there any engineers here who have retired early?

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juniordevops@reddit

11 months away from no longer needing to work for a living at <35. Average software engineer who was self taught. I invested \~50-70% of my income since around 26. I also bought a house with a 30 mortgage which roughly fixed my housing expenses to \~$2200/month forever (except tax+insurance increases).

I think anyone can retire early with a reasonably high paying job if they find a way to fix their housing payments and live below their means for 7ish years.

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whathaveicontinued@reddit

im trying to do what you did, im 31 and an electrical engineer. For self taught is there anything you can pass down to me? I'm just doing python stuff going to build some projects and make my github look nice then after about 6-8 months hopefully ill be qualified for a good SWE entry level job and work up from there - hopefully get into AI/ML industry one day.

I have a roster job as an EE atm, which gives me time to self study. Is this a good idea - some SWE's are saying there's no hope for me.

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juniordevops@reddit

Also, why not just double down on EE? If you get really good at what you already know your pay is unlimited.

Compare that to switching to SWE where the brightest and hungriest kids from around the world are competing with you.

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whathaveicontinued@reddit

Because I'm a maintenance EE, I don't really get to "engineer" or build things - more importantly im not building any transferrable or leverageable skills. If I leave this job (I'm a junior role) I basically start from scratch no matter where I go.

Pay doesn't scale the same way it does in SWE - I understand in SWE you gotta be smart, but in EE you got to be smart, lucky and popular. Those big jobs require 10-15+ years in project management roles to crack, the only thing close to making SWE money would be electronics (which im not in) and it's basically a smaller pay market than SWE.

for SWE the remote work is what I'm interested in the most, not just WFH 3x a week in an office or whatever, but being able to work on your craft anywhere in the world, I can't do with EE unless somebody wants to loan me their $500k MCC or substation in my backyard lol. I probably could more so in electronics, but still you need a physical testbench and big components and testing gear so remote work is pretty limited.

SWE is a huge scalable market, like every single person in the world consumes software. Yes everybody consumes electricity or electronics, but not everybody is going to buy a GPU or a motor (outside of their car), or are customers where they need you to be their Project Manager. Most people you see will be buying/consuming software though, mobile apps, websites, videos,

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juniordevops@reddit

Yeah I understand. One caveat is: everything you described is why it is so competitive to become a SWE. Ie: can work anywhere in the world remotely. That means you’re competing with the world for a job. And you either compete in terms of pay rate or work more hours. Even more so with AI potentially limited the number of junior engineering jobs.

Don’t listen to me though - do whatever your brain is wired to do. Just get really really good at it. Some of the algorithm stuff will be tougher to learn (which is roughly a requirement for interviews). Keep learning everything at the same time. It will keep your brain in a positive reinforcing state where it’s easier to learn new things. And don’t shy away from the stuff that you suck at or confused about. That’s exactly where you learn the most. Also work out too - it helps the brain learn better (and keep learning other non-software skills too for the same reason).

For interviews you should get to the point where you feel like you can code live with someone else to solve a problem. The only way to keep the nerves down and not freeze is to practice interviewing or mock interviewing. And always be a stream of consciousness to your interviewer. You should be speaking as if your brain is in debug mode. I probably did ~30-50 coding interviews before my confidence was good enough. And if I completely blanked I just laughed at it after and tried to learn something from it.

working software engineers have an advantage over you: they get to practice interviewing from the other side. As an interviewer you learn the process of interviewing, in a low stakes low and kind of fun way. basically have a jump start over everyone else. So I would say get a SWE job by any means necessary and the latch on to someone who’s a good interviewer and start shadowing interviews. You can do this as a junior. I’d say this is the biggest hurdle self taught engineers have vs others. Schools put students through internships and practice the interviewer process. You have to learn it by experience.

Funnily enough I bet your job has better job security than a lot of SWE jobs right now haha - for exactly the reason you mentioned (you need a $500k machine to work).

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whathaveicontinued@reddit

Yeah, that's probably the biggest barrier for me tbh. I'll be competing with guys who were coding since they were 13 for fun lol. So since I started so late I don't think I'm ever going to be as good as those guys, but I don't plan to be technically the best coder tbh - just good enough to earn freedom quicker than I would as an EE.

If anything, I spend the next 6-12months coding and learning a new skill to help with my tedious tasks I do in EE. If I'm a bit more lucky, I get an entry level SWE job and find out I hate it or its too hard for me and I come back to EE with a new perspective (some wasted time) and better software skills than 95% of EE's. If I'm super lucky I get a job in SWE and I love it lol.

Funny you say that, my job is actually on the verge atm since the minerals we mine are down (they might shut down our plant), but the industry and EE as a whole? Yeah probably recession proof tbh. So you're right EE is way more stable than SWE tbh lol, in fact I'll use that fact in case I hate SWE as a backup plan lol. The power industry is what we call the "retirement village" above average money, stable, boring, never changes. But maybe that would be more my style in 20-30 years lol.

Thanks for the tips, yeah interviews are going to be hard at first. I need to build way more confidence in my coding then I can do some specific coding interview work which I think would be priceless so thanks for the headsup.

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juniordevops@reddit

Also also, this is lame but show that you know all the latest code generation tools. Like cursor and things like that. For example Have a few stories about something very specific about cursor that bothers you or that’s really cool.

All tech directors are on the AI hype train right now. And none of them truly understand how any of it works. And most of the engineers using the stuff have stories like this. It’s kind of lame and a waste of time to practice these stories but it might make you stand out better.

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whathaveicontinued@reddit

dude thank you so much. honestly.

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juniordevops@reddit

Work on being likeable and having stories (from actual production projects) where you cross communicated with different teams.

If you don’t have production software projects like this make it up but use your electrical engineer projects.

For instance, let’s say you had some project where you had to work with another team to make sure your dependency was available so you could start your work. And throw in some emotional intelligence cues. Like, the other team was over worked when I approached them, so I offered to take on the actual work they would do + do a couple helpful things to make their code base better in exchange for support to unblock the dependency I needed.

Cross team collaboration is way more important than algorithms at your age

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juniordevops@reddit

Also, be ready to investigate a bug live in an interview. Meaning, they give you an example of a bug with some system design example. You have to know where in the system to start looking. Ie, you get paged in the middle of the night for a feature that was just deployed, how and where is the first place you look?

It might be something like:

Quickly check that features slack channel to see if someone mentioned something about it -> check the logs -> go back to slack and search the exact exception -> if no one said anything start tracing back the exception in the code.

Theirs caveats to this though, you have to know when a bug isn’t actually a bug with your code but is likely an on going infrastructure problem elsewhere in the company. Like for example, your kubernetes cluster might be down - how would this be revealed in your app’s logs? (You’d probably see a lot of timeout errors and other network related error logs)

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whathaveicontinued@reddit

bro thank you so much this advice is gold. i have a long way to go, since i don't know how to debug yet so ill continue to practice my coding and working on some projects, so ill have something totalk about. Just want to be able to crush a entry level role. thanks bro

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juniordevops@reddit

Yep keep working at it but only if you enjoy it. If you hate the work you won’t go further than mid level.

And definitely master bash / the terminal. Just ask chat gpt any questions about how things work / why. It’s generally pretty correct.

Same for system design questions. Chat gpt is generally pretty good at high level system design questions and even what algorithm to use for scenarios (because they were so commonly asked on stack overflow back in the day)

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juniordevops@reddit

Have like 3-5 actual example stories just like this one ready to go before interviewing. Practice them with random people you meet along the way outside of work.

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JohnDillermand2@reddit

I retired very early a few years ago. 2 high earners living as if they were school teachers. It's not hard to stash away enough to hit fire numbers.

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levelworm@reddit

Congratulations, do you have kids? I think that's the key point. Kids basically double or even triple costs.

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JohnDillermand2@reddit

No kids. It doesn't change the math much, but you will certainly struggle on paralysis of when enough is enough to fire. They say a kid costs a quarter mil? That's not crazy over the years, but where do you draw the line on how much of college to fund, cars, down payments for houses, ensuring they have a proper inheritance... That number can fall somewhere between zero and working an extra decade to give them the best setup in life. The distributions I pull to cover retirement would be fine with raising kids if I cut back on hobbies, but my FIRE number would definitely change for what I felt I needed in reserves.

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levelworm@reddit

I think kids cost way more than that -- but again as you said it's a very wide range. Anyway congratulations for making it happen! I'm really glad that people can retire and do whatever they want -- it's better for the human kind actually, sort of individual Communism as you can pursuit whatever you love.

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JohnDillermand2@reddit

It's the rat race of always handing your money over to pay debt. Crushing student loans you need to pay off. Then you load yourself up with a mortgage all while prefunding your retirement. It's just a different world when you are able to break above that.

No, I'm not living in the Bay area rolling around in my convertible Porsche... I could have if that was my goal, but no, my goal was always to be able to be left to my own devices. There were many intentional decisions made over many years to achieve that.

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juniordevops@reddit

You don't load yourself up with a mortgage, its literally the opposite - you fix your housing costs for 30 years or whatever while paying down equity that you otherwise wouldnt have. And eventually, you get access to capital if needed for emergencies with a HELOC

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AnyJamesBookerFans@reddit

Depending on interest rates and location, it can be much cheaper to rent than to buy. Especially if you’re planning on retiring early and not sticking around in the HCOL area where the good tech jobs are.

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juniordevops@reddit

yup

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levelworm@reddit

That's a good thought and we are trying to do the same too. A lot of people are sending kids to expensive private schools (we are in Canada so public is almost free) but I'm a bit reluctant about it.

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JohnDillermand2@reddit

Private or public, you are committed to chasing a different lifestyle to accommodate the children. You have to live in the district that has "the best" schools. That house has to have the ideal yard for them to play in. It needs the layout where I can watch them from the kitchen. They need their own bedrooms with ensuites. Can't move out of neighborhood because of little Jonny's friends.

Again kids can be inexpensive, but the lifestyle creep very quickly snowballs into an additional lifetime of working.

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KhonMan@reddit

Kids might not cost more than that if you consider having that amount now and investing it. Not all expenses for a child come all at once, they are spread across ~20 years

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juniordevops@reddit

Its really just daycare and health insurance. Once you stop working, one of those goes away

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juniordevops@reddit

I just want to work on personal projects and hang out with my kids more. My team is really interesting + fun to work with so I'm not leaving, but I think I'll have a better perspective on life in about a year

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db_peligro@reddit

What about if you develop a chronic condition in your 40s or 50s? Can easily be looking at 50k/yr in healthcare expenses even with obamacare until you are 65.

Generating enough income to cover living expenses ex healthcare is easy. Healthcare is the hard part.

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PragmaticBoredom@reddit

Can easily be looking at 50k/yr in healthcare expenses even with obamacare until you are 65.

At a 3.5% annual withdrawal rate that would require about $1.5 million invested to cover that alone.

IMO, anyone retiring early should have more like $3-5 million banked, at least, to cover everything that can happen. If an expensive chronic condition set in then you’d have to sacrifice vacations and luxuries, but you wouldn’t have financial collapse.

It’s really only a problem for the people who try to do ultra lean early retirement with $1 million or something. Those people are banking on nothing ever changing or going wrong, which is a bad bet to make over half your life.

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juniordevops@reddit

Time is more valuable than money. It is infinitely more valuable to enjoy time with kids now - assuming I have enough to cover all my expenses. Rather than spending a decade saving another retirement just because of a risk of disease. Plus, the odds of getting diseases go up with sitting in an office all day.

So on top of the benefit of spending time with young children, not working is paying dividends by preventing the risk of disease to begin with.

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Scarface74@reddit

Why not both? In the age of remote work, you don’t have to be in the office everyday. Besides kids are going to be in school most of the day and after awhile, they are not going to want to spend time with you that much anyway

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juniordevops@reddit

remote is almost worse for me personally, no separation between personal and work time

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Scarface74@reddit

How so? I go into my office and I work. When I get done with work, I close my office door and don’t think about work again

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juniordevops@reddit

There is no how-so, it is the way it is my friend

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Scarface74@reddit

It’s about discipline. I have my same routine without the commute working remotely as I did when I worked in the office

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juniordevops@reddit

not about discipline my friend best of luck

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Scarface74@reddit

So exactly how are you not able to start working at 8:00 and stop working at 5:00 everyday? This is strictly a you problem if you can’t manage that

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juniordevops@reddit

best of luck my friend!

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Scarface74@reddit

And still can’t answer a simple question…

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kabekew@reddit

Most ACA plans for individuals have max out of pocket of around $9,500 per year, so max costs of about $17K per year with premiums for a bronze or silver plan.

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juniordevops@reddit

$50k invested in an HSA should help weather that storm, and luckily have a spouse that can work if needed. My odds of disease / chronic conditions probably go up if I keep staring at a screen in an office for another 10-15 years

That said, I don't look at life that way. I could get hit by a truck tomorrow. If something like that happens I'll deal with it. A reasonable amount of income to cover my cost of living for me and my kids is all we need

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Electrical-Ask847@reddit

then they move to india or south america

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darksparkone@reddit

While developing countries' medical bills could be way smaller, the quality of services and availability of modern technology could also be at compromise. Imagine waking up after a double anesthetic dosage, in a room full of other patients, and no medical personnel around this support you with basic needs. Or running around the city at 2am because the hospital's surgeon needs a needle and a pair of gloves. Or a doctor making an injection that makes almost instant impact that have to be treated and leaving the floor for good. Or you make an MRT, but the main scanner is constantly broken for the last 5 years, and the backup one gives a blurry image - combine with a doctor who doesn't care and hello tumor. And so on and so on.

Source: I live in a developing country.

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InternetAnima@reddit

South America is not that primitive lol

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Electrical-Ask847@reddit

that might be the case where you live but no surgeon in a private indian hospital is running around the city for a needle and pair of gloves.

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mark0zz@reddit

This is often overlooked by people from first world countries

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Oatz3@reddit

What's your spend rate?

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juniordevops@reddit

$7k month currently with kids

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nutrecht@reddit

I wonder why they'd be in this subreddit if they're retired :) I sure as heck wouldn't :)

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pcglue@reddit

20+ YOE, I got laid off in Dec 2023, but undecided about whether I'll be going back to work as a software engineer. I applied for a few jobs here and there, only remote ones that sound interesting but haven't heard back from any. Meanwhile, my brokerage accounts have gone from 4M to 4.5M in the past year, so that's why I'm in no big hurry. But I'm still here even though I'm semi-retired because I might still be in the game.

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Kindly_Climate4567@reddit

I'd be up a mountain hiking.

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nutrecht@reddit

I'd be skiing down the same mountain ;)

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lynxerious@reddit

I'd be sniffing 10 lines of cocaine rn

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-ry-an@reddit

Exactly why you haven't retired. 🤣 Amazon's opening an office in Colombia though...

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northrupthebandgeek@reddit

Well yeah, where else would Amazon have offices except for the Amazon?

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junior_dos_nachos@reddit

Those are rookie numbers. You gotta pump them up

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nutrecht@reddit

10? Amateur. This is the sub for experienced developers!

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Empty-Win-5381@reddit

Not enough late hours

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GraphicalBamboola@reddit

I'd be the mountain 🏔️

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Empty-Win-5381@reddit

Two sides of the same coin. But you're close?

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nutrecht@reddit

Oh no, not at all. I'm 44 and will probably have to work well into my 60ies :)

I have two kids in their early teens and a lot of money is spent on doing fun stuff together, like skii trips, holidays, etc. I don't want to save up all my money and then "spend" it once I'm too old to enjoy it.

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levelworm@reddit

I'd probably be winter camping under a sky full of stars, sitting in a hot tent (disclaimer: never camped before but really love YouTube channels such as outdoor boys), and reading General Relativity (disclaimer: always dreamed about understanding more about the universe but didn't have the time and might not have the brain) or programming low-level projects, with a pot of mandatory hot chocalate on stove, an optional lovely dog laying at feet, and maybe an optional hunting gun leaning close by.

Damn I wish I could dream about this scene every night.

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_0x1_@reddit

Outdoor Boys is my favorite… I’m the opposite of an outdoor person but something about watching them is so cathartic

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levelworm@reddit

Yeah, me too. My DEX is so low that I couldn't figure out how to setup a basic camp and gave up this summer after a couple of tries, plus the sun really flares my eyes every time. I kinda want to go straight into winter camping but I know there is a lot of risks involved.

But yeah as you said watching that channel gives me a lot of inspirations.

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Empty-Win-5381@reddit

Both those things are spot on for understanding the universe. Both being in Nature and studying the work of those who modelled it

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levelworm@reddit

Yeah man, I'm already drooling over this dream...

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Electrical-Ask847@reddit

or coming down

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ImSoCul@reddit

you might get bored and hop back on reddit, old habits die hard. One of my professors in college was like first 50 people at Microsoft, his introduction to us was basically that he worked at Microsoft for a long time, retired, summited every mountain, got bored, and came to teach a course. He was an incredible lecturer, definitely top 3 I had. Reddit isn't quite the same, but sharing some wisdom on Reddit seems like a low effort way to scratch that mentorship itch :P

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thehardsphere@reddit

You may underestimate how badly you want to talk to people who will listen to you when you are older.

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levelworm@reddit

reddit is good enough. I never enjoyed face2face interaction throughout my life. I can spam a subreddit if I so wish and am allowed but talking to strangers f2f is really tough.

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nutrecht@reddit

If the answer to that is "Reddit" when I'm 70 I hereby kindly ask you to come by and put me out of my misery ;)

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levelworm@reddit

I'd probably still be here answering questions. It's the only kind of human2human communication I ever enjoyed.

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PLZ-PM-ME-UR-TITS@reddit

This and the "previous devs who do something completely different now, what are you doing?"

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its_a_gibibyte@reddit

I'm in this sub because I enjoy. I dont strictly think of being in this sub as a career advancement tool.

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nutrecht@reddit

I can't imagine, I already barely enjoy this sub while I'm working as a dev. Not shaming you or anything, anyone is entitled to their preferences! ;)

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soolaimon@reddit

Schadenfreude

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luciu_az@reddit

I just haven't unsubscribed yet. But my LinkedIn now reflects that I'm a farmer.

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TangerineSorry8463@reddit

Time to start /r/RetiredDevs

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nutrecht@reddit

/r/etireddevs ;)

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Imaginary-Cupcake328@reddit (OP)

Because this subreddit is fun 😆

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xilvar@reddit

I’ve been an engineer for about 28 years and the earliest I could have retired early was actually at the 9 year mark. If I’d actually paid proper attention to my investments then I probably would have been fine. As it is, I took about 2-3 years off pretty frequently after that time region.

I could definitely retire right this moment as well, but I actually kind of like to work because I like to do things, and the things you can accomplish with other coworkers, etc can be much greater than by yourself.

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zenos_dog@reddit

My son started his software career at a startup, got bought by a FAANG, left there to start his own company. Sold that to another FAANG and retired at 31. He enjoys life, travels some and doesn’t work, even part time.

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ProfBeaker@reddit

If you check out the financial independence subs/forums, they're full of them. It gets kind of tiresome sometimes - you'll see people ask if anyone in there has retired early without being an engineer.

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ninseicowboy@reddit

This kinda makes me sad. Imagine if firefighting was a viable path to retiring at 49

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AbbreviationsFar4wh@reddit

Lol. Start at 20. 30yrs of service = full pension by 50 at a lot of city/state govt jobs.

So already viable pretty much.

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ATotalCassegrain@reddit

My neighbor started as a trash man at age 16.

Retirement eligible at 41 (25 years since a dangerous job).

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ninseicowboy@reddit

Cool

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sparklikemind@reddit

It is if you work in a high value state and live in a low value state. California firefighters do this regularly

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photosandphotons@reddit

Yeah they have pensions as part of benefits

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OverEggplant3405@reddit

fwiw, I met a guy who started firefighting at a young age and began making a good salary without going to college. That sort of head start at a young age, combined with compounding interest, could be a viable path.

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LinkedInMasterpiece@reddit

Having been on the FIRE train ever since the beginning of my career, honestly speaking the FIRE subs/forums are the reason I don't want to FIRE anymore. CoastFIRE looks way more appealing at this point. A lot of the younger people on the FIRE sub sound awfully lonely and miserable, they kinda grind away their youth without investing in friendships and social skills, just don't sound like fun people to hang out with. A few young people (30ish) who FIREd I've met in real life actually confirmed the impression I got from Reddit. They all at least a little bit socially awkward and negative.

There is exactly one person who I know that has a vibrant social life after FIRE, but she FIREd from a finance career and is constantly considering going back to work because playing sports and eating out every day doesn't feel fulfilling anymore. She socializes with fellow multi-millionaires. A lot of them sound very competitive and status conscious, again don't sound like fun friends to hang out with.

I read this book called "Lost Connection" by Johann Hari, the author had some credibility issue, but he made the argument that fulfilling, meaningful work is actually essential to keep someone happy. I actually buy it, when I volunteered for NGOs with people I like. Coding felt like a lot of fun and I could concentrate for many hours. Loved every minute of it. We all did it for free and became good friends after the project was finished. I do think a project is a magnet to find people who have similar outlooks for their personal lives and how to improve the world.

TLDR: A good job has the potential to bring fulfillment and a great social network. So IMHO a good job > FIRE.

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ProfBeaker@reddit

I can't say about the under-30 set. For the older set, this is true in many, but not all, cases.

I know a guy that bailed out at 35, went back for a couple years and hung it up for good at about 40. Totally happy with it, no problems. He doesn't have a vibrant social life, but he never wanted one in the first place, so it's not a problem for him.

I know another guy that FIRE'd at about 48 or so, after being married twice and having a kid. That guy had more of a social life than I ever did.

OTOH, I bailed for a couple years and hit basically the thing you're talking about.

In the end, everybody needs a reason to get out of bed in the morning. For many people, that's connection, or work. For some it's not.

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tinmru@reddit

Having been on the FIRE train ever since the beginning of my career, honestly speaking the FIRE subs/forums are the reason I don't want to FIRE anymore. CoastFIRE looks way more appealing at this point.

Same here. After years of thinking I want to FIRE, I realized somewhat recently that's probably not for me (obviously I haven't tried). I have no idea what I would do with all this free time. I have some hobbies/interests, but I doubt it would be enough to keep me occupied and fulfilled for days/months/years. I'd probably start volunteering. Another thing is my social life is already in pretty bad shape, so at least going to the office 2 days a week gives me some semblance of having a social life...

At this point, I'm actually more inclined to reduce my employment to possibly 80%-60% (4-3 days work week) somewhere down the road, than 100% FIREing.

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gedrap@reddit

The thing with FIRE subs is that there's not much to actually talk about it. It's not something that you actively work on or have lots to discuss. It's more of a passive thing you do in the background. So the communities tend to attract LARPers and similar.

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tinmru@reddit

Yeah, I stopped frequenting those subs. I like the idea of FIRE and would like to possibly join the club someday, but a lot of people there really lose perspective and balance in life. Everything becomes about money and saving.

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ImnotArra@reddit

One of my old coworkers from my previous job is like this. Saves so much that he has no life outside work. No vacations, barely any hobbies, not much eating out or exploring the town. He'll be retiring sometime when he's 40. But damn, when I catch up with him every now and then, he's one of the most depressed people I know.

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squeasy_2202@reddit

I'll be six years behind him age wise and I'm far from unhappy. There are plenty of people on the FIRE path that understand how to balance aggressive savings with still living life and being happy.

For some, FIRE is a live preserver they cling on to because they're depressed. It's not necessarily that they're saving themselves into misery.

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adgjl12@reddit

I’m still earlier on in the journey but I agree. I’ve just had my hobbies shift to less expensive options and I still have fun. More actually. For example I now think going on a bike ride on a new trail a few towns away and then cooking a new recipe at home and watching a show we haven’t watched on AppleTV a lot more fun than a new popular restaurant and movies. Not that we don’t do that at all anymore, but less often for sure.

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drguid@reddit

Early 50's and would have retired by now had I not messed up my timing into the housing market.

At least I have a decent warchest so I only need to work if there are jobs around.

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moehassan6832@reddit

How did you know coding at 12 years old 40-something years ago?

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AnyJamesBookerFans@reddit

Not the guy you replied to, but started coding myself around the same time. My in was my dad. He was always technologically interested and bought a computer for the family from Sears back in the mid 80s. And he had actually had a course out two In programming BASIC back when he was in college (on punchcards no less) and was happy to tinker around in the version of BASIC that came with our computer, and to teach me.

I also lucked out in high school in befriending a kid who was a really good programmer (his dad was a professional programmer). He introduced me to Pascal, showed me how to use interrupts to get notified in response to mouse movements, thereby allowing one to integrate the mouse in DOS programs; how to use inline assembly to switch the graphics mode from text to VGA and plot pixels (so that you could now draw on screen), etc.

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TriviaBadger@reddit

Coding for fun was very accessible 40 years ago. The home computers of the early to mid 80s didn’t do a lot on their own. Coding was one of the main things to do with them. You could buy magazines at the grocery store with code to type into your computer.

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libre_office_warlock@reddit

I know one at enterprise who wants to and is definitely on track before 40 and wants nothing else to do with tech. I'm startups, probably on track to be a little early, and not really thinking about it right now. I like what I do and am convinced I will simply not make what I make now doing anything else, so I'd rather play it safe for as long as possible.

Pretty sure I'm not gonna code a ton when I retire; maybe something every 2 years while mostly writing or drawing.

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PragmaticBoredom@reddit

and wants nothing else to do with tech

This is the dark side I see in a lot of FIRE discussions: People convince themselves to work jobs they hate for marginally higher compensation in the pursuit of FIRE at all costs.

I think a lot of these people would be so much happier if they took a small compensation cut to work a job they liked for a few more years.

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libre_office_warlock@reddit

FIRE at all costs

This, too, is just something I can't really get behind. I'm not banking on my health (or the world) to be super wonderful even in 10 years; I'd rather enjoy the occasional splurge vacation now than be a miserly homebody who wastes the years of painless joints on his own bed.

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PragmaticBoredom@reddit

From reading the subreddits it’s clear a lot of the people who talk about FIRE all the time are doing it as a way of coping with jobs they hate, or an inability to cope with the regular stresses of adult life. They talk about FIRE as a return to the freedoms of youth and a magical solution to all of their problems

The people I know in the real world who have achieved FIRE all joke about how bad the online FIRE forums are. It’s like two different worlds.

The real world FIRE people I know are also on the ambitious and motivated side, so they’re doing a lot in their retirement including things that would count as paid work from time to time. Contrast with a lot of the FIRE online talk that makes it sound like FIRE means the end of work altogether.

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KhonMan@reddit

Marginally higher is one thing, massively higher is another. Can’t say for sure what situation this person is in.

I’m for sure considering taking a pay cut for my next job after being in big tech for a decade. I think the savings I accrued has made it extremely worth it, but it’s also not a job I “hate” now or for most of my career.

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wwww4all@reddit

I know plenty of tech people that have "retired" early. That's the whole point of FIRE.

I also know plenty of tech people that "unretired" for various reasons, including not enough money.

One example, an early BIG TECH employee made $$$Millions with stock options, decided to retire and ski full time. The company really needed his expertise. They settled on contract terms, where he works as consultant for about 3 - 4 months, paying FULL YEAR equivalent salary rate. Rest of the year, he ski full time at various resorts.

Git Gud, Git Paid.

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levelworm@reddit

Full firepower of envy! I need to do better and pull myself up.

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talldean@reddit

Faang principal eng here. I don't see doing this for another twenty years.

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Hefty_Brief_5111@reddit

I always imagined by the time you get to principal, you've already put in 15+ years, and you're likely to retire in 10 years or less... Especially with the high pay. What are your reasons for saying you don't see retirement happening for another 20 years?

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talldean@reddit

I’m 45 or so, and will not work this job until 65. ;-)

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tinmru@reddit

I think what he meant is that he doesn’t see doing the job for another 20 years.

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Scarface74@reddit

Not the main question you asked. But starting my own business would be more work than just working for someone else.

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Imaginary-Cupcake328@reddit (OP)

That’s true, but as someone who has tried that twice without success, it still feels much better to work for yourself rather than others, at least in my case haha

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wwww4all@reddit

Some people make $$$ millions owing McDonald’s franchises.

Some people make $$$ millions being employee #20 at google.

Some people do simple math and statistics, then grind away tech high income jobs.

Some people prefer independence, entrepreneur spirit and go for risk reward route, with 90% failure rate. Dreaming of tres comma club.

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Scarface74@reddit

The average McDonalds owner nets $90K - $130K a year in income…

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Scarface74@reddit

How so?

Now that I work remotely, I wake up, spend time with my wife, freshen up, eat breakfast and walk to my office and start my day.

If the weather is good outside like it was yesterday (Florida), I take a swim during lunch and hang out by the pool, grab a burger for lunch at the restaurant downstairs, shower and work for a few more hours.

I shut my computer down in the evening, and go back downstairs to the gym and workout.

I went on vacation for a week two weeks ago and I have a whole team to support the client in my absence.

I get paid the same amount whether I have work to do or not. I don’t have to chase clients. There is a whole sales team. If the company goes out of business tomorrow, I find another job.

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seminole2r@reddit

There’s time when you don’t have work to do?

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Scarface74@reddit

Me personally? Probably not until I get 65 and I’m 50 now. But that’s more because of some bad life decisions I made until I was 35 - divorce (since remarried), getting involved in real estate pre 2011, staying at my second job too long, etc - and purposeful decisions I made since then.

The main decision I made after my 3.5 year stint at AWS until 2023 (remote) is that I really hate large companies and I’m willing to take the reduction of pay because of that decision ($200K vs $350k+).

But then again, people already say I’m working/retired now. We sold our big house in the burbs this year that we had built in 2016 for twice the price we paid for it and moved into our vacation home permanently in Florida. It’s a condo unit in a resort - a condotel.

It’s in a state tax free state, with multiple pools, a running trail, two gyms, a restaurant, a convenience store, multiple bars a private lake, etc all on site.

We already travel a lot and we did the whole digital nomad thing for a year ending last October where we flew across the country taking one way trips visiting different cities and rented our vacation home out to cover expenses - the “hotel” part of the condotel takes care of it.

So really, I can’t imagine how retirement would look different from the way we live now. My hobbies are traveling, exercise and just hanging out with my wife. I can do that now.

Everything we own besides our condo still fits in 4 suitcases. We own our condo, but the furniture goes with the condo and it was pre furnished.

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RSF850@reddit

As someone who only ever worked for large companies and hates all the bureaucracy that comes with it, what was your experience with smaller companies that you liked over larger ones?

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Scarface74@reddit

In 2018, I was interviewing with a then new CTO of a startup that was brought in to bring development in house. The company was founded by two non technical brothers who hired an outside consulting company to write an MVP and find product market fit.

The interview was just sitting down and talking about challenges, opportunities, my previous experience. Me whiteboard proposals for his real world problems, etc.

I was his second technical hire. I didn’t have any bureaucracy. I would tell him “I see this problem”. I would research the solution, come back to him with a proposal, a timeline, and the number of people I would need if I needed anyone and he would say yes or no depending on business priorities.

As the company grew and if he needed something done real quickly as a proof of concept, he would grab me and ask me to get it done so he didn’t have to go through all of the “scrum/agile bullshit”.

I never got a “promotion”. He hinted at wanting to make me a team lead. I said “hell no” - we had a good working relationship by then. I told him I like just guiding strategy and being able to jump back and forth as the need arises. He said okay and he gave me the raise I wanted anyway.

I told him we were growing so much we needed a dedicated “DevOps” person. He talked to the owners. Gave me a budget and told me to talk to our HR person about putting out a job req and for me to write it. I did all of the interviewing.

It was a 100 person company including sales and operations and some contractors we kept.

I left there and went directly to AWS in the Professional Services department in 2020. I knew within 6 months it wasn’t going to be a long term play. Our youngest son (my step son) graduated in 2020 and I used the money I was making at AWS to pay off debt, save money, put a down payment on my vacation home that I knew we would move into permanently and we “decontented” our lives and got out of the rat race

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antoniocs@reddit

I'm sure there are many that want to and just leave all the bs behind

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tatanka01@reddit

I retired at 60, 8+ years ago and never looked back. TBH, the work kind of burned me out on code, so I've mostly avoided writing any. Worked 38+ years, most of it for the small company I retired from - never made it above middle-management (and I hated doing management). Retired as a senior SW engineer. I "quiet quit" before it was popular and retired before COVID. I was working in tech in the late '70s so got to see the whole microcomputer thing from the earlier (not earliest) days. Great times back then but there are a lot of us around.

Financially, retirement started out by living on the IRA and some savings (everything including the house was paid off). Today, we've added Social Security to that, probably couldn't do it on the IRA or SS alone but with both, everything's fine. Mostly, I kind of did the textbook "how they tell ya to do it" financial thing with a 401K that I always matched or more, never cashed out the mortgage, didn't drive expensive cars, etc. Most of my raises were barely COLA, like everyone else I worked with.

A friend has offered (even recently) to re-employ me at a decently higher wage and at a place without all the hassles. I laughed. He understood. 100% retired? Yeah, I don't do jack. Just ask my wife.

And now, I've said too much. 🤣

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SpaceGerbil@reddit

Sir. This is reddit. You need to say shit like "I had 7 million in retirement funds after working as an entry level engineer in FAANG for 2 years. I felt burnt out so I retired early at 25"

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wwww4all@reddit

FIRE @25 is possible with $7 Milly. 10 year T bill is returning 4%, that's $280K per year in ultra safe T bills.

Roll that into some conservative dividend growth fund, you can get at least $100K dividend income and stock growth for 40+ years.

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DaRadioman@reddit

Sure, but an entry level FAANG engineer isn't making 7 mil in 2 years.

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wwww4all@reddit

Nvidia employees. https://www.teamblind.com/post/NVIDIA-employees-how-rich-are-you-BbrTUpkF

Statistically, probably not.

But, FIRE is very possible at much lower threshholds.

Many people can FIRE comfortably even at $2 Milly mark, with even dirt simple basic no thought ultra safe investment returns.

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DaRadioman@reddit

Maybe someone with 2 YoE got lucky and has 2m. And that assumed basically perfect timing.

But no one made 7m unless they have a lot more than 2 YoE. Sure someone at Nvidia for years, certainly could have 10+m but not 2 years my man.

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wwww4all@reddit

Many people happen to be in just the right place, at the right time, to strike it rich.

Google employee #20 got hundreds of $$$Millions by being in right school, at the right time, hanging out with right people.

Nvidia is not going to release employee offers for everyone, so no one will ever know.

But, it's certain many people, including people with 2YOE, made millions during past 2 years, with "perfect" timing.

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jaytan@reddit

Can’t tell if this post is intended to be a joke or not?

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wwww4all@reddit

Are you disputing Nvidia stock growth over past 2 years? https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/NVDA/

Or are you disputing that $2 Mill invested in ultra safe 10 year T bill, which returns 4%, will return $80K per year. Most people can live comfortably on $80K per year.

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cballowe@reddit

I did. I worked for 23 years - 18+ at a big tech company that compensated me well. Still enjoy the work, but also saw that I had exceeded my lifetime needs by a fair margin so decided to stop. That was earlier this year.

(I graduated college into the dot com bust - arguably a worse job market for tech than the current one. Things worked out well enough :) )

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Adept-Result-67@reddit

Kind of retired. Self taught, 20+yoe. Built a SaaS, sold it to a large tech firm at age 33. Have been working for fun now more than money. And for some dumb reason diving back in to founding another business (glutton for punishment i guess)

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TheCoffeeHoldingMan@reddit

I have a few friends who "retried" early always the same formula: no kids and don't want them, low cost of living, usually one spouse continues to work for healthcare if in the US.

If any of those variables change so does their "retired" status.

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PragmaticBoredom@reddit

All of the engineers I know who retired early have kids. Spending more time with their kids was one of the drivers for early retirement.

Having kids is more expensive than not having kids, but IMO Reddit exaggerates the cost of kids to an extreme. If your goal is the earliest possible retirement, no exceptions, then not having kids is part of the strategy. However, early retirement and kids are not mutually exclusive in careers like ours where jobs can be found paying $200-$300K.

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levelworm@reddit

I think that's the US pay and I really congratulates you guys on that. In Canada $150K-$200K CAD is considered high for a senior, and cost is actually higher than some US cities too, because Canada only has three metropolitans.

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the_aligator6@reddit

I make 330K CAD and I live in a small town. The trick is two remote jobs, or one US job (if you manage to get the 1 in 1000 job).

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levelworm@reddit

Man that's really good, congratulations. I think 200K is good enough for me as my wife makes around 80k. It's difficult to get even one remote job nowadays...I work as a data engineer, just curious, what's your gig?

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the_aligator6@reddit

yeah I didn't have a single job for over a year since getting laid off, then boom two jobs. i am a team lead + a senior dev, both AI related

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levelworm@reddit

Wow that's really good, thanks for explaining. The best for you!

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thehardsphere@reddit

Retiring early is a lie.

so maybe you started your own business or have investments that sustain your living and you just work less than when you were an employee.

The "and" there in that sentence is the myth. Managing a business is a job. Managing a portfolio of investments can also be a job depending on what those investments are; the correct term for someone who invests in real estate that people rent is "landlord" not "retiree". That's rarely working less than you did as an employee.

My dad "retired early" when the company he worked for got bought by IBM in the 90s and he was laid off afterwards. He was in his 40s. He did some consulting afterwards, but I don't think it made much money. Eventually, he wanted to go back to get a full time job again. That didn't happen for a number of reasons, one of them being the dot-com bust. The other reason was that he was visibly older than most applicants.

Whatever money he had lasted long enough for me to finish high school before we moved to a place with a much, much lower cost of living. Fortunately, the sale of that house was right at the peak of the real estate bubble before the Great Recession, so he and my mom ended up OK, but it was really tough for a while.

He always told me never to retire early, that it was always a myth. I think he's right, so I don't intend to ever try to do it. But I'm also approaching the age he was when it happened to him, so... yeah, it's a cheerful set of thoughts all around.

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ElliotAlderson2024@reddit

it's not a myth, look at fastFIRE.

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wwww4all@reddit

Flipping condos > flipping burgers.

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ElliotAlderson2024@reddit

Ah yes the only 2 options.

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thehardsphere@reddit

That sounds like all I need to do to become President of the United States is get a $1 million loan from my father and start developing real estate in New York City.

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wwww4all@reddit

Stop being poor!

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Whatdoesthis_do@reddit

Does leaving the business because you’re close to a heart attack from being burned out, count?

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Akarastio@reddit

Works on my watch! Work shouldn’t break you

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Whatdoesthis_do@reddit

And yet… bills need to be paid. SDE is all i know…

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numice@reddit

real question is if I will ever get to 'retired'

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eloel-@reddit

I have a friend that retired early 40s. Now he spends his days kayaking and tinkering with whatever flavor of tech (hardware or software) he feels like.

I have some ways to get to that age, but I'm jealous of him fairly often

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levelworm@reddit

Jealous too! I'm already 40+ so I will look forward to being like him around 50+, but Canada has shitty pays and cost is still high...

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db_peligro@reddit

As of the first of the year I'll be retired. Definitely not done working but maybe done working for pay. Right now I don't see myself going back to software but we'll see. I'm 50 yo and \~13 yoe off and on. Self taught and got my first swe job in my thirties after trying other careers that were more creative but didn't pay enough.

Key for me was no kids, frugal lifestyle, working spouse. With US health insurance its much harder for both spouses to retire. She likes her job and knows I don't like mine, so is fine with me not working (we'll see how long that lasts). Also made two savvy purchases of income properties after the real estate crash that give us steady investment income.

When my wife is finally ready to retire in hopefully a few years, we are going to move to Colombia and chill there until we can get on Medicare then move back to the states.

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inventive_588@reddit

You are hopefully me in 20 years. Look into Serena Del Mar. We just bought property, hopefully will be a great investment and be a great place to be retired in Colombia.

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grapher1080@reddit

why did you not like your job ?

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db_peligro@reddit

I'm just not built for white collar life. Not in the US at least.

I got into software because I am smart and can learn fast and was desperate for a middle-class income but have always hated offices, performance reviews, 1:1s and all that bullshit.

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imacompnerd@reddit

I’m basically retired at this point. And yeah, co founded a startup that sold a few years ago.

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mswiss@reddit

You could look at Mr money moustache. I believe he retired in his early 30s.

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reboog711@reddit

I've always that is a bit smoke and mirrors. I thought he had some real estate / rentals which paid his expenses, and then made big bucks being the Internet poster child for the FIRE movement.

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thehardsphere@reddit

Yeah. "One man multimedia conglomerate and slum lord" is not a synonym for "retiree."

That guy is the biggest fraud there is.

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transferStudent2018@reddit

You should read up on r/financialindependence and such subs, where a lot of people (especially tech people, since this is reddit) have retired early

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givemebackmysun_@reddit

I’m retired. I was tired yesterday and I’m tired again today.

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theavatare@reddit

I was going that way but didn’t find anything todo after six months started working and running two companies right now.

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UniqueTechnology2453@reddit

Depends on what you call early. I’ll be 60 in the spring. I might have considered it if the election….

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jeerabiscuit@reddit

You got me at "engineers"

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phil-nie@reddit

I haven’t retired but probably could. I got a job at a big tech company and got promoted a bunch of times, plus I got a big bonus retention grant and then the stock went up a lot. At L7+ (Google/FB leveling system, other companies use it too) the yearly TC is 7 figures assuming some stock growth. I don’t spend that much money so I save over 80% of my post tax income and invest it in index funds.

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engineered_academic@reddit

A guy I used to work with retired from Coinbase a multimillionaire. He now lives in Miami and does angel investing.

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mkdev7@reddit

I know one, he mainly does charity work and work he enjoys in ML. He exited from 2 companies doing devops big name companies.