@ 80288: The ability to perform calculus involving multiple variables was apparently not your strong suit. Simply put: The emphasis of the industry has changed tremendously in the past 30 years. The R&D and the quality of technology has taken a back seat to cheaper production, increasing sales, and filing as many patents as possible to increase profits and block competitors. If you are starting out today with an MS in engineering or computer science, and you are making between $80,000 and $90,000 per year at a major company like Qualcomm, you will never make $200,000 per year as purely a software or hardware engineer. You will be lucky if you make $150,000 per year--including bonuses, and are not terminated well before ten years. You will be lucky if you can afford a crappy condo in Chula Vista. You will still be driving a Honda--because if you expect your spouse to work, she will need your beater Toyota to commute to HER job. College costs are already close to $60,000 per year, on average, at merely "decent" schools, once you factor in living expenses. By the time your kids are ready to go to college, it will no doubt be closer to $100,000 per year. You will not qualify for free tuition, or scholarships because of your FU assets. Enjoy the race to the bottom....
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On a federal level the IRS treats wages in excess of 200K as a high earning bracket and taxes you additional 0.9% on all income exceeding 200K - the money goes to the Medicare pool (in addition to whatever you pay in taxes for Medicare, typically 1.45% - so, all over 200K will be taxed at 2.35%). You are not middle-middle class if you make 200K in San Diego, San Francisco, Dayton or Omaha. You are just not, you are upper-middle class from the income level standpoint, accept it or not. Now you can throw in the real estate costs into this discussion, but truly that has nothing to do with how much you make - if a house is expensive, it's expensive for everyone, and it's more expensive for 93% of the population if compared to you. That's the only fact here. So, stop whining, you are making very good money.
Just to be clear here, 200K compensation puts you in a 7% of top earners in San Diego county. I am not sure what method you use to determine 'middle' in the 'middle class' but we'd have to agree that 7% is light years from 50%. We have 2 earners in my household and we are in a 350K range, believe me, I do not feel rich nor top 1%, but the statistical facts are hard to beat.... Go ahead, plug yourself in and see if you are truly a middle-class person: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/15/business/one-percent-map.html
HR is very active now, and they seem to be using hostile tactics. Keep it up, you will be even more hated.
Get back to work ya lazy f**kers and stop complaining!
I unfortunately agree. I'm a 39 year old engineer at Q, and an burned out and seeing the younger 25 year old kids pass me up.
I'm a manager now, and my sharpest guy makes 1/2 what I do. It's scary to think what comes next. There is a good blog called "retire by 40" by an ex-Intel guy who quit, it's an interesting read.
Many people like to think that if they make more money, say 10-20% more, then they would have breathing room and saving. Not really, when most people are living beyond their means. If you make more money you will just tack on more expense. Ask doctors and lawyers about their savings, and you will find that they don’t have much. If you are not discipline and manage your money, as well suggested by other posts, you will be house broke in your forties.
$200k annual comp (excluding health benefits, insurance, etc), is more then sufficient to do pretty well IF you manage your money decently. The problem is that most people in this country expect to be able to afford to live in a $1million home in North County and drive an expensive german car right out of school or just after a few years of working, while simultaneously having piles of student loan debt. And say what you want about homes in Mira Mesa ,but IF you bought any home in Mira Mesa as well as many parts of San Diego back in 2009/2010, you would have seen 50-60+% appreciation since then. You snooze, you lose. As far as working all the way until your 50ies as an engineer: a lot of "luck" has to go hand in hand with your skills/abilities. Skills/abilities aside, the "luck" portion consists of working for a company that has not seen any significant business hit/downturn. If you work at QC, you're being facetious because up until now, QC has not generally seen a significant downturn, unlike other tech companies. You know as well as I do that if you're in your 50ies and aren't in management or a high level architect, if you are unfortunate enough to be working at a company that has a sudden economic downturn such that they have to lay you off, your employment prospects elsewhere aren't nearly as good as someone in their late 20ies-early 30ies. Just ask many of the ex- Cisco, TI, Errisson, Kyocera, etc,etc,etc that are old(er).
Saying 200K isn't very lucrative any more isn't an "I deserve better" attitude. It's just fact.
Anonymous80370 and Anonymous80288
Both of you people are the typical I deserve better attitude. I am 57 years old and still kicking ass as an engineer, making good pay and benefits. I plan on working as long as I can. I have plenty of friends and co-workers not only QC, but Apple, Intel, etc that are in the 50s and doing well. You both speak from a narrow minded attitude of why you cant do any better, your jealous of others doing well, etc. I suggest you leave the company and go work for Circle K.
Engineering (200K comp) has now become lower middle class, if the middle class even exists any more. Enough to settle down in some Mira Mesa crapshack with a BMW for show. Not quite "living the dream". Plus, real "FU" money is like 10-50 million in liquid assets. Enough to be able to actually tell your boss "FU" and not get laughed at. So yeah, everybody should leverage up on ZIRP driven easy credit and become a slumlord for engineer tenants (until their office is moved overseas).
I said this before and I'll say it again. The useful career life expectancy of engineers these days is between 21-41 years old, if you can even make it to 40ish.
A lot of engineers have already figured out plan B is to using that 20 years to accumulate as much money as possible and invest it elsewhere in passive income producing assets so that your money can work when you don't want to/can't. Now more then ever, there is no other option. It's just not engineering, it's everywhere. For qualcomm, I don't think they really need to increase more h1-b's. All they need to do is just move more work overseas to its remote office locations. And everyone knows you don't enter engineering purely because the salary is good. You probably start out around the mid $80ies-$90ies these days with a masters....And if you're good, you can stay purely technical and have a peak comp package around $200k year, give or take $10-20k) somewhere when your in your early 30ies...Figure about 30% of it goes to uncle sam, another 10% goes to the state franchise tax board since you're on W2 or 1099. Compare that with your accomplished lawyer or doctor or dentist (assuming you can graduate not so knee deep in debt. Some of my neighbors that own private practices are seeing kids graduate with $400k+ student loan debts who will never be able to find a bank to loan then additional money for them to start their own practice). Financially speaking, you do "ok", not great. And worst, you have a lot more "maintenance" to keep up than lawyers/doctors do. You see many doctors/lawyers practicing all the way until their gray haired/beard. You don't see many engineers, unless you move into management or because a high level architect. The other alternative is to move into sales. There, you have the privilege of selling things that the company really doesn't have, that someone else will eventually have to produce, for which you don't have to be responsible for since you were already paid to meet your numbers. So invest wisely, my friends. Buy lots of dividend paying stocks, buy as many rental properties that generates positive net income. Buy your primary home and take out a low 15 year mortgage so you'll be done with it by the time your engineering "life expectancy" expires. Start tucking away money in that 529 plan for that kid(s) you might have now, so that your kid has a $200k when he/she goes to college to he/she doesn't have to drown in $200k+ student loan debt. Start a side business so that can be a your tax writeoff and hopefully eventually end up being profitable so it plus all of your other passive income ends up at least being equal or if not more than your W2 wage income. You really have no choice, plus it's the end all/be all when you have enough f*** you money.
Why spend money on wages when you can spend it on share buybacks?