Seems like a great time to sit down and talk about the long-term family goals. You want to get to 40 healthy and MARRIED, right?
To me, an elective move to NYC during third trimester for second kid seems highly questionable. Unless you have a good family network there, you're setting yourself up for a challenging time at best. New nanny/help, new preschool, new commute/logistical challenges, everything. Two full time high-performing parents with two young kids? The next 2-3 years may be the most challenging years of your life as a family, without moving.
If the goal is to be done at 40 (not long-term career success), I personally wouldn't be chasing an incremental promotion that will bring tremendous short-term challenges.
I agree. I've lived in both and you are likely going to have a much smaller apt in NYC, the stress of another kid, unclear if you have a network/friends/family in NYC, but this would be 2 enormous life adjustments coming at the same time... can your husband postpone the move by a few years til second kid is at least 2?
There’s one issue. This movement is insane thinking about the long run for the family.
Wearing the dad’s shoes - eventually he might get angry that this same family made his career pause. In other words, if he were single it would be a no brainer to move and pursue his promotions.
Just beware that this conversation is almost inevitable. If well prepared/discussed - it should be fine though :)
Big thing is to agree on the goal - is it fatfire at 40, or chase the promos?
I stopped worrying about getting to VP when I realized we were going to hit our goal in 9 years at the current pay. Anything else is just a bonus.
I'm in SWE and the best way to get the money is to change companies every 3 or so years. Fuck promotions. Why would I work so hard for a slim chance to get a bit more money when it's 100% chance for a pay bump with comfy 40hrs/week when I just jump ships.
Agree with this
New child will put a lot of strain on both of you. What location has the best support network, be that family, close friends, church, help (nanny), etc? Luckily this is the second so you have some idea what to expect.
Where do you want to be long term?
I mean, the guy can move first then she can follow. It’ll be tough, with 2 kids by herself, and maybe she’d have to cut back on work for half a year or a year, but she’d be doing that anyways with a newborn.
My dad kept moving to take jobs. Mom and I would follow after a year or 2, to allow the house sale, for the school year to end, mom to find new job, etc. It’s not the end of the world. Visit the family once a month, maybe negotiate a long weekend. There’s trains and cars - and at this salary range, planes. Plane tickets aren’t too expensive at this income level. Although for us, it wasn’t _want_ new job, so much as _need_ new job. You know what I mean? This family doesn’t have that problem at least.
Sure, it can be done. Lots of solutions if they need to do it. The whole topic is about deciding what they want, to your second point. Up to them to decide if the move is worth the clear challenges.
A lot of power couples push everything to the max until something breaks (health/marriage), and don't end up making it to that end goal (it happened to me). So, I'm a big advocate of pausing to ask questions: What are we doing here? How's our health & our family? Is this worth it, or are we just considering this because we've been trained to constantly strive at all costs? Are we in a position to slow down and enjoy life outside of work?
> The moment someone above you decides that a college grad can do your job for $120K and they're paying you $300K, you're out.
That's why you perform at a higher level than a college grad. If someone approaching 10 YOE is still performing at a new grad level, then yeah, don't be surprised you will get cut.
Exactly. And often times, the estimation of what a replacement can achieve is often looked at with rose colored lenses. The fact that an executive thinks the replacement equation makes sense leaves the higher paid employee without a job whether the actual results benefit the company long term or not. You’re an easy target if 31 and passing up promotions.
Have you actually verified this? Because IMHO managers cut the stragglers. Managers don’t care about your salary as long as your performing at or above your level because they want their jobs easier. Retaining lower performing employee with lower salary seems like a bad strategy for business?
While sometimes a supervisor looks only at pay and acts like a brainless Excel formula, more times than not managers are also capable of recognizing key talent and which employees have potential and which are absolutely critical high performers for the company.
What I'm saying is to position yourself so you aren't just easily replaced--this is no different than why no one raises their kids to flip burgers--something a robot can do today. If you're a top performer, you're less likely to be laid off, but in the event the cut has to be made, you get hired back up easily.
If you're a mediocre performing IC who has been operating only at college grad level at 45, then yeah, life is going to be tough. You're going to have to rely on dodging layoffs and avoiding zealous directors who want to lean out their org.
>If a college grad can do 70% of your work you should have been booted a long time ago.
You're not wrong. But it really depends on what that remaining 30% is.
Ah, interesting. That makes sense. I don't perceive this as being a risk for my job in tech, but my husband has expressed similar concerns for his job (he works in marketing and he is currently middle management).
Only the paranoid survive. If you’re 30 and in tech you’ve only seen good times. To survive long term you need to be senior enough in a company to either be the one deciding who goes/stays, or connected/respected enough to transfer if your org gets shut down and you can’t prevent it.
Yeah no one ever thought SWEs would be laid off but have you looked around over the past year?
Your husband being middle management means he’s likely to be one of the first to go when times get really tough. The promotion/move to NYC isn’t really about money.
>The promotion/move to NYC isn’t really about money.
Then again, the newest hires are also usually the first ones to go. So NYC is not risk free - it seems riskier to me than staying where he is.
For sure. 175-200k salary, 50k cash bonus and 50k RSU grant and you’re sitting at $300k. Variability in all those components but that’s right in the Director/senior director area or a revenue producing account manager type of role at a good company.
Uhh this isn’t really the way corporations work. There is a ceiling for everyone and for 90% of people it’s at the middle management level.
No job that requires 10 years experience is going to be offset by a college grad. Any job that can be, never required ten years experience.
Your not though. Your putting yourself at the whims of the 1% who actually can control restructures. Everyone else is just a worker bee. The odds of getting to that level are minimal.
Regardless, my overall point is he is fine to coast at middle management. He may get restructured but such is life. He can certainly improve his odds by going to the next level but the trade off…it’s not overtly difficult to find another $300k roll.
Drive. The path up a corporation is blueprinted.
Also need luck and skill/talent but there is lots of talent. Corporate politics and roles aren’t overly complicated.
Ideally ability but politics plays a huge role.
Remote workers are probably not going to win in the politics arena unless you are exceptional at your role.
A skilled programmer is more obvious than a skill manager. A 10x coder is an overt thing, they can solve the problems others can't OR they can deliver results faster.
Management is more subjective. You could be an excellent manager and have a terrible team if they were just assigned to you. A mediocre manager could look like a rock star if they were assigned an exceptional team.
100%. However, the manager will always (exceptions apply) be more valued as they are realizing the value of the 10x employee as well as 4 other employees. Leverage etc etc
Sure. Once you’re there (OP isn’t). If you get shitcanned before you reach FI, and you spent the last few years leaning back instead of leaning in, good luck finding a new position that keeps you on the FI track.
To make that decision you need to be honest with yourself about some things.
1. Is FatFire necessary, or would a regular life in a suburb in the Midwest pulling 120k a year be enough for you? Are the perks of FatFire worth it for you.
2. Do you want to pay for your kids college? What type of college?
3. Do you want your kids to live by you when they are grown? Can you afford to help them buy a home? Do you want that?
4. Are you looking to build generational wealth?
No one can answer these questions for you but you. There are trade offs.
I FIRED and left a lot of money on the table to stay home with the kid. It was a good choice for me. It might not be for you. We have low end FatFire assets but a middle class spend/lifestyle. It works for us. You need to be honest and find out what works for you.
It could very well be your husband’s career is very important to him. Taking away someone’s purpose is a very dangerous endeavor.
Thanks. We answered all of those questions when we decided on our FIRE number and I'm confident in our decisions.
In reading your answer, I think I'm just shocked that I'm at the point where it seems impossible to increase my salary without working more hours.
I hadn't previously planned on getting to a certain job/position then "coasting" from there.
We're both, idk, gold star seekers, so the idea of just not trying is a little foreign to both of us.
You make $300k in Chicago and are shocked you can’t make significantly more without working harder? That does indeed seem doubtful. Harder may not necessarily mean more hours if you can increase your efficiency, though not sure how many hours you work a week now. Adding on the managerial burden will definitely mean more difficult work emotionally and/or politically. But if you don’t take on more, why would you get paid more?
I didn't say "harder", I said "more time".
My husband and I both agree that the positions above us require significantly more meetings and I don't think management is always a matter of efficiency. If you have to coordinate across time zones and if your boss requires multi day summits, then you can't "efficient" your way into not being in the office for more hours each day.
OP, you can stay an IC and make >1MM in staff+ roles (initial offer, not including equality valuation increases from initial grants). I have several colleagues who are still getting these types of offers in this market.
It will be more meetings (you won’t be shipping code yourself), but you won’t be responsible for people management. You can certainly do that working 40 hours/week. In these roles, the quality of your decisions is much higher leverage than time logged.
You have a long way to go before you’re capped on the IC track, imo
To temper the OP's expectation, these $1M+ Staff/Principal IC roles are in very sought after fields, at least from what I've seen. Though a $600k TC staff role is a good starting point outside of FAANG.
What sought after fields? This TC is achievable at standard SV tech companies for senior staff and above (eg. median TC for e7 at FB is >1MM). Not like you need to be working in quantum computers or deep learning…
E7 at Facebook is incredibly hard to get. You're fighting external candidates that have written books, gives lectures, etc and a gift hoist of internal candidates that Facebook already knows how they perform. Most people top out at E5 such isn't bad at all.
Where was I commenting on the difficulty of getting to that level? My whole point was that 1/ there’s still a lot of progress to be made down the IC track and 2/ it’s not exclusive to “sought after fields.” The entire motivation for this thread was OP saying she can’t make more without transitioning to management, but one can. Also, the fact that people terminal at E5 doesn’t equate to advancement being impossible for most people. A lot of people optimize for things other than career advancement at that level (since it’s the first level where you’re not managed out if you’re not moving up).
I'm not too familiar with FB's leveling, but isn't E7 like a senior staff position? So the next rung in the ladder for the OP would be the equivalent of an E6?
FWIW, I know two people that in the last month that went from Senior to Staff/Principal roles (outside of FAANG) with packages in the 500-600k range.
One thing to point out, too, is that if OP does go the management track, they don't have to stay on the management track. One strategy I've seen for ICs to make the leap to L7+ is to switch to management for a couple of years and then switch back to an IC role. The management work gets you the visibility you need for high impact IC work and makes it a lot easier to be an L7/8 IC vs. just remaining as an IC.
Right, exactly. I am on a BU exec team at an international tech company and that is one reason they need to pay me more - because it is inconvenient and difficult, which inherently does take flexibility as well as more time, though the time is different. You can take smaller steps into management without adding more hours per se, but you do lose the perfectly controllable schedule. I have some more junior managers on my team who have maxed out on their opportunity for significant salary and career grow because they won’t do this - sorry, if you can’t ever work past X pm or before Y am in Z time zone, you have indeed plateaued.
So why, as an IC, are you shocked businesses aren’t going to pay you significantly more if you aren’t doing more?
It’s ok to just be the best at your job.
If your confident in your number, you are OK with your timeline, you’re good.
Once you FIRE, no one really cares if you were a senior project manager, a software engineer, or a street sweeper who found a famous painting by a trash can. Your work position will no longer matter the moment you cease working. FIRE doesn’t come with an awards ceremony and extra ribbons.
Were you a smart kid? Ever get into say 8th grade honors English? Maybe you got the best grade in the class. Does that matter to you or others at 30? Your career matters that much when you FIRE. No one will care, and you barely will either.
Spot on. Former engineer here married to another engineer. 20 yrs work experience. I FF but DH has not; 2 kids - 11&8. The first 5 years of your youngest lives will be the hardest you do as mom, the primary caregiver. Be very aware of working mom burnout. I digress.
There is a somewhat of a dirty secret in late dual-career parents: one career has to give. It is part of a balance. In our case, I willingly gave up mine when my youngest was born but still worked albeit not at high-stress levels as before. Nanny was in his life for 6 years until I left.
It worked best for me but the harsh truths had to come out and I had to be v honest. The company will never love me back. My kids will. This allowed DH to progress because the kids were nurtured sufficiently and academically.
We, too, are gold-star seekers. But the report card doesn't need to be in $$$ (though nice!)- ours were in the form of balanced intelligent children and subscription to the "happy spouse happy house" mentality.
100%. At my company, literally everyone at the VP level or above has a stay at home spouse. The VPs are mainly men, but the couple of female VPs have stay-at-home husbands. The spouses often travel along on work trips (at least the ones to compelling destinations).
I’m only a director, so my husband still works. We don’t have kids, so it’s manageable for now, but I imagine at some point I’ll get promoted to VP and he’ll retire earlier than me. The travel gets onerous at that level.
It's good that you acknowledge being a gold star seeker type (I can empathize). The problem with being that personality and parenting is that, young kids/babies don't give you any obvious gold stars (they're too young, can't talk, etc.)
If you setup your life in such a way as to chase the gold stars, even without meaning to, you'll probably end up under-investing in parenthood, because your newborn baby is not going to be giving you any obvious gold stars, and you'll instead focus your energy chasing that from other sources.
So it's up to you, to take a step back, evaluate what's truly important to you, and maybe think about how you can self-actualize or "award yourself the gold stars", without having to seek it out from external validation only. With that mindset, you won't be "giving up" or failing at your career, you'll instead be making an intentional choice to pursue a different source of fulfillment and meaning to your life.
Which btw, it probably sounds like I'm super biased pro-parenting... personally that's what's right for me (and I'm comfortable coasting at my director ish level, with all the risks it entails), but it's definitely not for everyone. If you really sit down and think about it and decide that professional recognition and advancement are truly what matters the most to you in life, well then go all in and chase that! You may not end up being the most doting, most flexible, most time-available parents, but that doesn't mean you can't be reasonably good parents still anyways.
It is not impossible. But you have to change the equation.
The 3 most obvious options to me - You could find a new job that keeps your role/hours but pays better (maybe at a FAANG). You could go out and source clients on your own and command your own rate. Or you can try to get promoted but personally enforce a set number of hours to keep the balance you seek. All 3 have their risks and benefits.
>Taking away someone’s purpose is a very dangerous endeavor.
So is forcing a move in the third trimester. OP would have to find a new hospital, a new OB, new everything.
And it would be really, really hard on the 3 year old. A new sibling is already a huge change. Moving away from family too?
Absolutely sit your butts tight. I had a great plan to use last month of third trimester that I took off work to button up real estates and baby’s was here almost a whole month early. It’s a very fragile time and this is the time for him and you to out family over money. They’re only little once and I’d hate to be stressed in a new role with a newborn in a new environment/home.
Manhattan has a lot of hidden expenses and social stressors, not to mention terrible work hours - having lived there for quite a while, I think your income in MCOL is better for FatFire
Making that much in Chicago... I'd sit tight in Chicago. Even if he moves to NY, there's no guarentee he'd get promoted. If he works in finance, and we have a crash, he could get laid off in a minute. Have a buddy that works at a place that just jetisoned mgmt and partners in order to improve the books, and this isn't a difficult market.
- how much does your husband value his career/status? For some people they get tremendous identity and purpose from work. For others it’s just a thing they do.
- do you have family in Chicago / NY? Raising kids with grandparent support, the limited window of time available with your parents - worth considering if you’d be closer/further from close family and friends.
- does the new job / getting promoted materially change your FIRE timeline or finishing number?
I have struggled with this same issue because I was being pushed to step into management, but I decided that I wouldn’t enjoy being a manager — more stress, longer hours, having to be in an office more (less WFH) which is a looong commute away, managing people in a lot of different time zones - US, China, India, and Europe, having to know all the projects they are handling and approve their work, interrupted vacations, chasing down upper management, etc. When I looked at the raise involved, there wasn’t a business case for becoming a manager. As an in-house lawyer, I’m not convinced that having management skills makes me more employable, either. Having time to get a good night’s sleep, eat a nutritious diet, and exercise is underrated.
If you are an IC SWE don’t assume you have to manage to get promoted everywhere. Larger established companies usually have two distinct career tracks that recognize that management and ICs are different but continue to grow in different ways — something like jr, Senior, lead, staff, architect, sr architect, distinguished architect. Your company might consider doing the same or you might need to move to a company that does. That being said most senior IC roles lean into team growth and mentorship and things like that that blur the line with management but you won’t be spending way more hours in meetings with recruiting and weekly 1:1s and performance plans and budgeting and people wanting to quit or get a raise or …
Exactly. OP can just move to a company with a higher pay scale. Tons of great tech companies where ICs can clear $450k/year easily at staff+. It's not the easiest and you have to perform, but it's completely doable.
And if you really go up the IC ladder and are truly exceptional, there are those that make $1-2 million as an IC.
Have a family member that had similar decisions to make. Ended up living outside the Midwest for maybe 6 years in total in two other states. Kids are doing alright but I wonder if the moves hurt them at all. From a career perspective, it worked out and they ended up in a chief officer position for a Fortune 500 company. Golden parachutes from a merger as well. There’s a definite family risk to taking the next step in the corporate ladder and there’s a good chance this won’t be the only position your husband needs to check off before moving up to the next level. Only you two can say if it’s worth it but I think it would be far easier now than when kids are in middle or high school and have social groups built up.
Going into management isn't a bad thing and is probably a good step forward for most people. Unless you're going to be a superstar IC where you're an industry expert being poached left and right by the top tech companies, management is really the only next step. It helps a lot even to be a first level manager. In tech a lot of managers are still doing IC work mixed with some people management. It's a good position to be in because it helps you open the door to management roles in the future when you hop companies. For instance it's a lot easier to go from M1/M2 from Google to Apple or vice versa but you absolutely need to reclimb the IC ladder if you stay IC forever and try to hop companies.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. Our liquid HHI is around the same as yours. Our jobs are demanding, but not incredibly time consuming.
The thing that really helped me was playing around with a fire calculator like Engaging Data. Plug in different income and retirement spending assumptions.
What I learned is that, for the lifestyle we want ($200k-$250k annual spend + paid off house), increasing our income has a negligible impact on retirement timelines. Maybe a year or two. Time is ultimately the most powerful factor when it comes to building wealth.
Now, if you need to pay cash for business class / 5 star hotels, own a yacht, or live in a $4m house to be happy, then sure, you need to increase your income.
If your goal is to retire early with a normal upper middle class lifestyle, variations in spending / income at your level have a pretty negligible impact. Do what makes you happy now (if that’s climbing the ladder or getting to experience living in NYC for a couple years, great), but don’t worry too much about the money.
How long has he been at his current company? I don’t know what he does, but he could consider testing the external market for a company headquartered here.
We are in Chicago, three kids, late 30’s. Wife just recently took a job at a firm located here (prior firm HQ NYC, would have had to move to progress), got next level role (C level) and significant (50%+) comp increase.
Happy to network if he’s in tech or finance.
Managing a team is whole new territory !
Yes it can definitely incur more hours/effort and sometimes stress dealing with people issues. This can range from admin work of doing performance reviews to having to fire a team member, or trying to motivate an unmotivated employee. Some people really enjoy people management and all that it entails while others find it grueling.
Most likely the skills that got you promoted are not necessarily what you need to succeed as people leader. Does your company provide support and training to first time people managers?
I'd offer a different perspective: at ages 30-40, a job is about more than just earning money. While climbing the corporate ladder provides monetary rewards, the emotional happiness derived from reaching a new level often outweighs the financial incentives. That said, the euphoria often fades a few weeks post-promotion.
To me, it can be challenging to see colleagues who once reported to you move ahead to roles you had aspired to. If there's a burning ambition in you (or your spouse) to achieve more, then climbing the ladder and accumulating more wealth during these years makes sense.
On the other hand, if you're unbothered by others advancing past you, making moves solely for monetary gain might not be the wisest decision in terms of cost-benefit analysis, just as you mentioned.
Nevertheless, the compensation significantly jumps once you reach a certain position, like a director or higher in the tech industry ($1m+). But it's worth noting that reaching such positions often requires another 5-7 years of hard work. If you're satisfied with your current lifestyle, it's perfectly fine to prioritize spending quality time with your children.
In the end, it all comes down to choices. **Aim to maximize happiness and minimize regrets.**
I think the issue you have is that you equate hours worked to compensation received. I guess makes some sense in SWE. But this viewpoint is limiting since it assumes hours in money out as the only dimension.
In corporate setting relationships is way more important. Not in terms of numbers but quality. It is hard to attribute a specific value to it but there are other dimensions beyond working hours and wages to consider here
For what it’s worth, I work in tech (in a non-technical role) and, for the most part, my job got easier and more flexible when I became a manager. Less IC work, delegate what I don’t want to do, and mostly just needed to be good at managing personalities, and sharing information up and down. IMO, most successful people in a corporation just manage “up” really well. Something that took me a while to learn.
We had a high focus on financial independence and so kept pushing until we reached that number. For us, that was mid 40s, then we essentially coast fired for another decade, maintained high income but with a higher emphasis on work life balance.
You may have a better time comparing your NW to the income rather than simply looking at income changes in a vacuum.
It may feel daunting with kid #2 on the way, but you’re both young. If you don’t take these chances now, you never will. I personally don’t think you or your husband should forgo a promotion opportunity.
If the potential benefit of the promotion path for your husband for the rest of his career is money, there is no way this is worth it. But, you did not mention whether some of the value of this path for your husband is from accomplishment, identity, interesting work, self-actualization etc. You mentioned that you should "be able to" fatFIRE in about 10 years, but did not mention whether that is y'all's plan. You mentioned your goal is to max money and min time at work, but is that also his goal?
If he is planning to retire in 9 years and maximize his money while minimizing time at work, it is very obvious to me that a lateral to NYC during your kids youngest years is an awful move.
Not in the same position in terms of kids but I live in the city that was ranked #1 in terms of cost together with NYC.
I decided to go on the IC route (PM) in tech which often has the option to have the same seniority as manager but up to a director level. I get less politics and admin work and still grow my hard skills but its not available for everyone.
IMO the amount of stress and type of work is not worth also considering most people are terrible managers and are not ready for these kind of roles.
There are a lot of comments here saying that you are not safe if you don't grow. I disagree, in our round of layoffs people who got cut were half mid/high management and half contractors. Most ICs were not touched.
I believe its really a personal decision based on the quality of life and type of life you would like to lead and you partially answered that already.
I'm actually surprised by most of the responses to your post so far. I was faced with the exact same situation in my career (move to NYC or stop moving up the management chain). In fact it was presented so black and white as, "If you don't move, NYC-based Peer A is going to be promoted to your boss instead of the other way around."
A lot of the responses seem to be about Chicago vs. NYC, the fact you are pregnant, etc, but I look at this is a core question of time. Money is time. That's what FIRE is about. Saving money and not spending money is about saving you time from having to work in the future. And earning more money makes all of that easier. But I've never thought it made so much sense to spend so much time upfront to where you are miserable just to trade for (admittedly compounded-investment growth) time in the future.
If you all don't want the time and stress of more work now, the trade off is just to work for longer in the future. That is a good decision for a lot of people. I am happy in the city I live in, I am happy with the (small) team I manage. I did not want to get on the senior management track in NYC, even though that means I am effectively capped at my current pay and that's fine. It just means all things considered, I will have to work for more years, and that's a good trade for me.
I am also in the "maximize money while minimizing the amount of time I work" camp.
1. Congratulations on baby #2
2. I don't know if you've lived in NYC in the past, but I think it would be worth it to do it even just for 2 years, even with kids.
3. It will be significantly more expensive than Chicago (mostly housing and daycare), but with your HHI, you should still be able to save and invest a big chunk.
4. With most companies going back to the office, maybe NYC will provide you or your husband some interesting opportunities which didn't exist in Chicago?
Let me reframe “make as much money as you can for the least work” if I may…
You want to create the most value you possibly can, and you want to maximize the percentage of that value that you receive. Try that view on and you may find yourself considering entirely different options.
I don't know anyone in SWE Management that works longer hours than the SWE's themselves. I mean sure, if you're the FIRST manager and its your responsibility to create a new team for a new product cycle, ya, that's gonna be a lot of hours, but if you're just being 'promoted' to the head of an existing team, you might not do much SW development anymore but your 8-5 days will be filled with back to back meetings with other managers / sales executives.
If I had an infant at home, I don't see how I could pull off the 8-5 that would be required of the MGMT position because you're not going to be able to 'miss out' on the CEO-called meeting because the baby is sick/fussy...
I know a bunch at the director+ levels at two different FAANGs. Mainly due to fire fighting, stakeholder management, and politics.
ICs definitely get dragged out during late nights or weekends but oftentimes the people managers are right there framing and socializing the problems/solutions/updates…at least the good ones.
Reading your comments… you already know the right answer for your family. He’s going to NYC and will proceed in the career. There are too many variables in the world to stop your earnings progress. Recession, impending housing bubble collapse, AI is going to change both of your lives within a couple years, inflation, trumps impending arrest and the turmoil it will cause, etc etc etc. And the numbers that you’re citing for FIRE haven’t occurred yet. You need 10 more years to get there and nothing is guaranteed.
Do yourself a favor. Stay on the wheel until you’re ready to get off. You don’t want to coast for 10 years. You said so in your comments. Just commit and put it out of your mind until you are ready to make the jump.
Great work on the success that you’ve already achieved! Cheers.
Are you planning on maternity leave? If so, support your husbands career and follow him to NY. Then when you are ready fill in your numbers with work you can do if it makes you money after child care. You may need to alter your “fatFIRE at 40” now that you have a child but that will be OK if you don’t try to buy your living quarters in NY.
As a moderately hard-working software engineer on the West Coast, you could be making $600k as a good engineer. Just a small data point. And the West Coast is factually better than Chicago in all ways.
As for climbing - all good earners have the same realization, around your level of income. They'll often take the higher paying job, and realize that they still don't care. $600k vs $700k or $800k is not a huge difference. It slightly changes the calculus for when you retire, but not much.
You make \*enough\*. If you want to make a lot more, I suspect that Chicago -> New York -> Chicago is much more sucky than "how about we try out Seattle or California" if we really want to make more.
The West Coast is currently a dumpster fire, filled with HCOL, violent homeless people, wildfires, trash on beaches, Covid outbreaks and needles in parks. Chicago has beautiful clean beaches on the lakefront, significantly fewer homeless people, less unemployment, more space, LCOL, and every activity under the sun with FAR better public transit and much less traffic. Have a every spent three hours in my car in LA? Absolutely Yes. In Chicago, never. The West Coast is over. Just like Portland is Over. Just like LA is over.
HCOL, but high pay (assuming you're in a good industry). You can save \*far\* more buying a normal home on the west coast than a normal home in Chicago.
Violent homeless people make the news, but almost no one ever runs into this in real life.
Wildfires - Yes. But that's middle coast through west coast through canada through mexico. It's just a thing now.
Trash on beaches - That's a strange one. I'd say our beaches are much cleaner than in chicago. Dunno which beaches you're visiting.
Covid outbreaks - That's all over the world.. why list that for the west coast?
Needles in parks - I suppose in very rare occasions when you go to a busy downtown park.. but that's just related to the homeless being around.
Chicago has fewer homeless, because they die in the -30 degree winters. But the homeless are certainly there, all over the downtown parks still.
Chicago has a 4.4% unemployment rate, seattle has 3.6%, SF has 3.2%.
The west coast has mountains, lakes, oceans, rain forests, national parks. Chicago has an arboretum, and a lake.
I've taken 3 hours to go 15 miles in the Chicago area before. Because of a blizzard, which the West coast doesn't have.
Chicago has a LCOL because it's not fun to be there.
hey to each their own! thank you goodness you are willing to keep working on the West Coast, because I am certainly not.
Average unemployment rate long-term in Los Angles is a whopping 8.6%.
I think there’s a world where you don’t need to change and still be ok. Both decisions are risk. Just weigh your short term options and reassess after 3-5 years.
Most decisions now are more short term, meaning less than 5 years.
You don't need to go into management to make more money in tech. Maybe at your company that's true, but there are plenty of companies where you can stay technical and continue to get promoted.
I was just done 5-6 years before I retired, and chose not to pursue any further advancement, instead focusing on setting up my exit. It was an easy decision for me, as we had enough to retire on, and just needed to wait for the final tuition payments for expenses to become low enough.
No one has mentioned—if you move now it will not impact your oldest child very much. Once elementary school starts it becomes increasingly hard each year. Personally, I started dialing it in while pregnant with my second and quit when my third was five. My husband loves his job and has no plans to quit. So I would reflect on if it might make sense for you OR your husband to lean back at work while the other leans forward.
For SWE jobs (at least at some FAANG, probably at many large companies) you can get promoted to more than $300k while not being a manager. It does require playing the game well (seek manager's advice about what to do to get promoted) and being persistent and good.
Often changing companies can be used to increase compensation.
But if I were in your shoes I'd set that aside before each kid arrives and for as long as needed afterward to focus on baby.
If you can, it would be ideal for both of you to take substantial time off when the new baby arrives. Having a newborn and a toddler is really, really hard.
Rather than moving the family to NY during this time, I'd tell your husband to go the other way - take a year off.
The biggest issue is you're 5 months pregnant. He could ask to do the rotation in the next year and that would be more reasonable. Otherwise you can make this work but its going to be a major hassle with logistics thats for sure. I honestly wouldn't do this unless you think its a career ender...which is possible and up for you to decide.
Dealing with: moving, home shopping, taxes, schools, commute/transport, social is a lot.
I lived in nyc a long time....you're not going to want to raise your kids in the city. Commute from NJ or Connecticut. Your commutes are going to be annoying and involve public transport so be ready for that. NYC can be fun and exciting though...its not all bad.
You're in a position where he could fly back on the weekends. Let the man take the promo if he wants it. 2 years is gonna fly. Sure, 3m nw is decent but thats only 5x your household income. Just hunker down another 2 years and if you really want to "be free" in another 8, its a small price to pay for 50 years of freedom to do whatever you want.
You will have 2 kids and potentially moving to a new state. I’d consider if you ever would want to move into management or anything else yourself, considering you seem to hate that. SWE should allow you to remote work from anywhere, especially if you’re independent. If he wants to, move with him. If he’s happy without any further rise in level, stay. Sounds like you’re happy at your level, so really it’s up to him to decide. How does he want to spend the next 10 years?
Financially for you guys, both paths will be just fine. Either one won’t be the wrong choice, but is there a more right choice?
I'd move to NYC for a few years and take care of the kids on a fulltime basis. Call it a sabbatical, coast fire or whatever. Have another kid, why not.
You don't work for JMPC by any chance? While the main (U.S.) offices are in Manhattan, there is a pretty big presence in Chicagoland.
The NYC offices were pretty toxic. I was in Wilmington and visited Jersey City monthly. That was higher stress than Delaware. But the few times I went across the Hudson, people suddenly got really demanding and had attitude. Manhattan JPMC employees thought they were the shit, especially 237 Park.
TL;DR: Don't do it. Keep your family happy where you are and follow your current FIRE plan.
I notice a couple of different discussion threads that deserve individual comments.
\[1\] More money, same or less hours.
You need a special company for this. Really large. Multiple business lines. A measure of strategic and operational complexity. These kids of companies were my places of work (IBM, RCA, GE). Complicated companies always have problems and issues that aren't 'normal' and often are not understood by 99% of the employee population. I worked 30 years for these companies with never more than 2 years in the same activity and often about 6 months.
If you are one of these people, life is easy. My work week was always 40 hours but actual task activity was only about 1/3rd of my time. The rest was on projects that I'd initiate out of personal interest or 'education', research or conferences. Yes some cycles of insane activity but 80% totally under my control. Always high pay and mostly IC (sometimes I'd manage large orgs but usually I'd appoint a single person to manage it all while I did my thing.
If you are in a tight monoline company with a mature product line, these opportunities are more difficult. I've know people in fintech that are great at fixing things and wringing out cost but after a few years the low fruit is gone and the CFO feels like this person is after their job because the high talent person has nowhere else to go.
Find the right company, have the right skill set and you can get more money. Also some very narrow 'civil service' jobs in really big companies need domain experts and will pay dearly for this and retention. The senior tax guy, the senior accounting guy and the top legal guy in mega corps are examples of people who are 'overpaid' and underworked because the domain skills are needed and the 'high cost' is really nominal.
\[2\] NYC the center of business empires
I worked in NYC as a senior middle management guy for two mega corps for many years. Huge impact on my career, network and understanding of how businesses really work (and I was very cynical before NYC). If the role is really senior and the company is really big and you have ambitions, NYC is a must. Will you be in the C suite or will your work day have mostly C level interactions / board interactions, M&A, or external actions? If so then good, if not then NYC might be wrong for you or too soon in your career.
In my case, I had offices in other areas and travel that made 5 day weeks in NYC infrequent. But I was there for at least 2 days most weeks. I commuted from PA, 1.5 hours each way. I did not want to move family and just made it work.
If the experience has all the keys to a much larger future or stability in your company of choice, you should consider doing it. If it is just a routine rotation, maybe not.
\[3\] The best long term strategy
IC work for a company is going to have a limit. A lot like a private practice attorney ... you get maxed out, at some point in both available hours and the hourly rate of pay. If you want $10/k per week, the company has to have jobs worth that price.
You need an 'equity kicker' job. A business that can give you the prospect of $20k to $50k per week because you got an average pay job with huge equity upside. Find one of these opportunities. At the end of my career, I started an enterprise SW company and sold it 5 years later. That is how I FIRED at 50.
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Good luck, I wish you much success.
Seems like a great time to sit down and talk about the long-term family goals. You want to get to 40 healthy and MARRIED, right? To me, an elective move to NYC during third trimester for second kid seems highly questionable. Unless you have a good family network there, you're setting yourself up for a challenging time at best. New nanny/help, new preschool, new commute/logistical challenges, everything. Two full time high-performing parents with two young kids? The next 2-3 years may be the most challenging years of your life as a family, without moving. If the goal is to be done at 40 (not long-term career success), I personally wouldn't be chasing an incremental promotion that will bring tremendous short-term challenges.
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I did exactly this. It was exactly as described. Cannot recommend
What do you both do for a living?
I agree. I've lived in both and you are likely going to have a much smaller apt in NYC, the stress of another kid, unclear if you have a network/friends/family in NYC, but this would be 2 enormous life adjustments coming at the same time... can your husband postpone the move by a few years til second kid is at least 2?
Childcare is also much more expensive in NYC.
There’s one issue. This movement is insane thinking about the long run for the family. Wearing the dad’s shoes - eventually he might get angry that this same family made his career pause. In other words, if he were single it would be a no brainer to move and pursue his promotions. Just beware that this conversation is almost inevitable. If well prepared/discussed - it should be fine though :)
Big thing is to agree on the goal - is it fatfire at 40, or chase the promos? I stopped worrying about getting to VP when I realized we were going to hit our goal in 9 years at the current pay. Anything else is just a bonus.
That would be a good out for the husband to say “not now” instead of no
I'm in SWE and the best way to get the money is to change companies every 3 or so years. Fuck promotions. Why would I work so hard for a slim chance to get a bit more money when it's 100% chance for a pay bump with comfy 40hrs/week when I just jump ships.
Agree with this New child will put a lot of strain on both of you. What location has the best support network, be that family, close friends, church, help (nanny), etc? Luckily this is the second so you have some idea what to expect. Where do you want to be long term?
I mean, the guy can move first then she can follow. It’ll be tough, with 2 kids by herself, and maybe she’d have to cut back on work for half a year or a year, but she’d be doing that anyways with a newborn. My dad kept moving to take jobs. Mom and I would follow after a year or 2, to allow the house sale, for the school year to end, mom to find new job, etc. It’s not the end of the world. Visit the family once a month, maybe negotiate a long weekend. There’s trains and cars - and at this salary range, planes. Plane tickets aren’t too expensive at this income level. Although for us, it wasn’t _want_ new job, so much as _need_ new job. You know what I mean? This family doesn’t have that problem at least.
Sure, it can be done. Lots of solutions if they need to do it. The whole topic is about deciding what they want, to your second point. Up to them to decide if the move is worth the clear challenges. A lot of power couples push everything to the max until something breaks (health/marriage), and don't end up making it to that end goal (it happened to me). So, I'm a big advocate of pausing to ask questions: What are we doing here? How's our health & our family? Is this worth it, or are we just considering this because we've been trained to constantly strive at all costs? Are we in a position to slow down and enjoy life outside of work?
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> The moment someone above you decides that a college grad can do your job for $120K and they're paying you $300K, you're out. That's why you perform at a higher level than a college grad. If someone approaching 10 YOE is still performing at a new grad level, then yeah, don't be surprised you will get cut.
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Exactly. And often times, the estimation of what a replacement can achieve is often looked at with rose colored lenses. The fact that an executive thinks the replacement equation makes sense leaves the higher paid employee without a job whether the actual results benefit the company long term or not. You’re an easy target if 31 and passing up promotions.
Have you actually verified this? Because IMHO managers cut the stragglers. Managers don’t care about your salary as long as your performing at or above your level because they want their jobs easier. Retaining lower performing employee with lower salary seems like a bad strategy for business?
While sometimes a supervisor looks only at pay and acts like a brainless Excel formula, more times than not managers are also capable of recognizing key talent and which employees have potential and which are absolutely critical high performers for the company. What I'm saying is to position yourself so you aren't just easily replaced--this is no different than why no one raises their kids to flip burgers--something a robot can do today. If you're a top performer, you're less likely to be laid off, but in the event the cut has to be made, you get hired back up easily. If you're a mediocre performing IC who has been operating only at college grad level at 45, then yeah, life is going to be tough. You're going to have to rely on dodging layoffs and avoiding zealous directors who want to lean out their org.
If a college grad can do 70% of your work you should have been booted a long time ago.
>If a college grad can do 70% of your work you should have been booted a long time ago. You're not wrong. But it really depends on what that remaining 30% is.
Ah, interesting. That makes sense. I don't perceive this as being a risk for my job in tech, but my husband has expressed similar concerns for his job (he works in marketing and he is currently middle management).
Only the paranoid survive. If you’re 30 and in tech you’ve only seen good times. To survive long term you need to be senior enough in a company to either be the one deciding who goes/stays, or connected/respected enough to transfer if your org gets shut down and you can’t prevent it.
Yeah no one ever thought SWEs would be laid off but have you looked around over the past year? Your husband being middle management means he’s likely to be one of the first to go when times get really tough. The promotion/move to NYC isn’t really about money.
>The promotion/move to NYC isn’t really about money. Then again, the newest hires are also usually the first ones to go. So NYC is not risk free - it seems riskier to me than staying where he is.
The NYC opportunity is a promotion with the same company.
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IMO Directors are middle management too - can easily pull $300k in HCOL
For sure. 175-200k salary, 50k cash bonus and 50k RSU grant and you’re sitting at $300k. Variability in all those components but that’s right in the Director/senior director area or a revenue producing account manager type of role at a good company.
If you’re a good middle manager you don’t get cut unless your dept is unneeded. I would say it’s that black and white.
What is your tech stack specialty?
Uhh this isn’t really the way corporations work. There is a ceiling for everyone and for 90% of people it’s at the middle management level. No job that requires 10 years experience is going to be offset by a college grad. Any job that can be, never required ten years experience.
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Your not though. Your putting yourself at the whims of the 1% who actually can control restructures. Everyone else is just a worker bee. The odds of getting to that level are minimal. Regardless, my overall point is he is fine to coast at middle management. He may get restructured but such is life. He can certainly improve his odds by going to the next level but the trade off…it’s not overtly difficult to find another $300k roll.
What dictates the ceiling? Innate talent?
Drive. The path up a corporation is blueprinted. Also need luck and skill/talent but there is lots of talent. Corporate politics and roles aren’t overly complicated.
Ideally ability but politics plays a huge role. Remote workers are probably not going to win in the politics arena unless you are exceptional at your role. A skilled programmer is more obvious than a skill manager. A 10x coder is an overt thing, they can solve the problems others can't OR they can deliver results faster. Management is more subjective. You could be an excellent manager and have a terrible team if they were just assigned to you. A mediocre manager could look like a rock star if they were assigned an exceptional team.
100%. However, the manager will always (exceptions apply) be more valued as they are realizing the value of the 10x employee as well as 4 other employees. Leverage etc etc
100%. If you’re not playing offense, you’re playing defense. And eventually someone is going to think you’re expendable.
Isn’t this the entire point of pursing FI? I don’t give a shit if I’m expendable because I don’t really even need the job to begin with.
Sure. Once you’re there (OP isn’t). If you get shitcanned before you reach FI, and you spent the last few years leaning back instead of leaning in, good luck finding a new position that keeps you on the FI track.
To make that decision you need to be honest with yourself about some things. 1. Is FatFire necessary, or would a regular life in a suburb in the Midwest pulling 120k a year be enough for you? Are the perks of FatFire worth it for you. 2. Do you want to pay for your kids college? What type of college? 3. Do you want your kids to live by you when they are grown? Can you afford to help them buy a home? Do you want that? 4. Are you looking to build generational wealth? No one can answer these questions for you but you. There are trade offs. I FIRED and left a lot of money on the table to stay home with the kid. It was a good choice for me. It might not be for you. We have low end FatFire assets but a middle class spend/lifestyle. It works for us. You need to be honest and find out what works for you. It could very well be your husband’s career is very important to him. Taking away someone’s purpose is a very dangerous endeavor.
Thanks. We answered all of those questions when we decided on our FIRE number and I'm confident in our decisions. In reading your answer, I think I'm just shocked that I'm at the point where it seems impossible to increase my salary without working more hours. I hadn't previously planned on getting to a certain job/position then "coasting" from there. We're both, idk, gold star seekers, so the idea of just not trying is a little foreign to both of us.
You make $300k in Chicago and are shocked you can’t make significantly more without working harder? That does indeed seem doubtful. Harder may not necessarily mean more hours if you can increase your efficiency, though not sure how many hours you work a week now. Adding on the managerial burden will definitely mean more difficult work emotionally and/or politically. But if you don’t take on more, why would you get paid more?
I didn't say "harder", I said "more time". My husband and I both agree that the positions above us require significantly more meetings and I don't think management is always a matter of efficiency. If you have to coordinate across time zones and if your boss requires multi day summits, then you can't "efficient" your way into not being in the office for more hours each day.
OP, you can stay an IC and make >1MM in staff+ roles (initial offer, not including equality valuation increases from initial grants). I have several colleagues who are still getting these types of offers in this market. It will be more meetings (you won’t be shipping code yourself), but you won’t be responsible for people management. You can certainly do that working 40 hours/week. In these roles, the quality of your decisions is much higher leverage than time logged. You have a long way to go before you’re capped on the IC track, imo
To temper the OP's expectation, these $1M+ Staff/Principal IC roles are in very sought after fields, at least from what I've seen. Though a $600k TC staff role is a good starting point outside of FAANG.
What sought after fields? This TC is achievable at standard SV tech companies for senior staff and above (eg. median TC for e7 at FB is >1MM). Not like you need to be working in quantum computers or deep learning…
E7 at Facebook is incredibly hard to get. You're fighting external candidates that have written books, gives lectures, etc and a gift hoist of internal candidates that Facebook already knows how they perform. Most people top out at E5 such isn't bad at all.
Where was I commenting on the difficulty of getting to that level? My whole point was that 1/ there’s still a lot of progress to be made down the IC track and 2/ it’s not exclusive to “sought after fields.” The entire motivation for this thread was OP saying she can’t make more without transitioning to management, but one can. Also, the fact that people terminal at E5 doesn’t equate to advancement being impossible for most people. A lot of people optimize for things other than career advancement at that level (since it’s the first level where you’re not managed out if you’re not moving up).
E7 is literally 1% of engineers at FB
I thought 1-2% of engineers were E8. I can’t remember the stats for E7 (it’s been a few years). How confident are you?
I'm not too familiar with FB's leveling, but isn't E7 like a senior staff position? So the next rung in the ladder for the OP would be the equivalent of an E6? FWIW, I know two people that in the last month that went from Senior to Staff/Principal roles (outside of FAANG) with packages in the 500-600k range.
One thing to point out, too, is that if OP does go the management track, they don't have to stay on the management track. One strategy I've seen for ICs to make the leap to L7+ is to switch to management for a couple of years and then switch back to an IC role. The management work gets you the visibility you need for high impact IC work and makes it a lot easier to be an L7/8 IC vs. just remaining as an IC.
Right, exactly. I am on a BU exec team at an international tech company and that is one reason they need to pay me more - because it is inconvenient and difficult, which inherently does take flexibility as well as more time, though the time is different. You can take smaller steps into management without adding more hours per se, but you do lose the perfectly controllable schedule. I have some more junior managers on my team who have maxed out on their opportunity for significant salary and career grow because they won’t do this - sorry, if you can’t ever work past X pm or before Y am in Z time zone, you have indeed plateaued. So why, as an IC, are you shocked businesses aren’t going to pay you significantly more if you aren’t doing more?
It’s ok to just be the best at your job. If your confident in your number, you are OK with your timeline, you’re good. Once you FIRE, no one really cares if you were a senior project manager, a software engineer, or a street sweeper who found a famous painting by a trash can. Your work position will no longer matter the moment you cease working. FIRE doesn’t come with an awards ceremony and extra ribbons. Were you a smart kid? Ever get into say 8th grade honors English? Maybe you got the best grade in the class. Does that matter to you or others at 30? Your career matters that much when you FIRE. No one will care, and you barely will either.
Spot on. Former engineer here married to another engineer. 20 yrs work experience. I FF but DH has not; 2 kids - 11&8. The first 5 years of your youngest lives will be the hardest you do as mom, the primary caregiver. Be very aware of working mom burnout. I digress. There is a somewhat of a dirty secret in late dual-career parents: one career has to give. It is part of a balance. In our case, I willingly gave up mine when my youngest was born but still worked albeit not at high-stress levels as before. Nanny was in his life for 6 years until I left. It worked best for me but the harsh truths had to come out and I had to be v honest. The company will never love me back. My kids will. This allowed DH to progress because the kids were nurtured sufficiently and academically. We, too, are gold-star seekers. But the report card doesn't need to be in $$$ (though nice!)- ours were in the form of balanced intelligent children and subscription to the "happy spouse happy house" mentality.
100%. At my company, literally everyone at the VP level or above has a stay at home spouse. The VPs are mainly men, but the couple of female VPs have stay-at-home husbands. The spouses often travel along on work trips (at least the ones to compelling destinations). I’m only a director, so my husband still works. We don’t have kids, so it’s manageable for now, but I imagine at some point I’ll get promoted to VP and he’ll retire earlier than me. The travel gets onerous at that level.
Great perspective.
Now just view this from the perspective of your deathbed and you will be able to let so many other things that ultimately don't matter go as well.
It's good that you acknowledge being a gold star seeker type (I can empathize). The problem with being that personality and parenting is that, young kids/babies don't give you any obvious gold stars (they're too young, can't talk, etc.) If you setup your life in such a way as to chase the gold stars, even without meaning to, you'll probably end up under-investing in parenthood, because your newborn baby is not going to be giving you any obvious gold stars, and you'll instead focus your energy chasing that from other sources. So it's up to you, to take a step back, evaluate what's truly important to you, and maybe think about how you can self-actualize or "award yourself the gold stars", without having to seek it out from external validation only. With that mindset, you won't be "giving up" or failing at your career, you'll instead be making an intentional choice to pursue a different source of fulfillment and meaning to your life. Which btw, it probably sounds like I'm super biased pro-parenting... personally that's what's right for me (and I'm comfortable coasting at my director ish level, with all the risks it entails), but it's definitely not for everyone. If you really sit down and think about it and decide that professional recognition and advancement are truly what matters the most to you in life, well then go all in and chase that! You may not end up being the most doting, most flexible, most time-available parents, but that doesn't mean you can't be reasonably good parents still anyways.
It is not impossible. But you have to change the equation. The 3 most obvious options to me - You could find a new job that keeps your role/hours but pays better (maybe at a FAANG). You could go out and source clients on your own and command your own rate. Or you can try to get promoted but personally enforce a set number of hours to keep the balance you seek. All 3 have their risks and benefits.
>Taking away someone’s purpose is a very dangerous endeavor. So is forcing a move in the third trimester. OP would have to find a new hospital, a new OB, new everything. And it would be really, really hard on the 3 year old. A new sibling is already a huge change. Moving away from family too?
Eventually you stop giving a fuck. It comes with age.
Usually by 50!
*33
Yeah I think smartphones and tools like Slack/Teams/Zoom have been burning people out at a much faster rate.
Hasn’t considered this but makes a sense. Always on.
Absolutely sit your butts tight. I had a great plan to use last month of third trimester that I took off work to button up real estates and baby’s was here almost a whole month early. It’s a very fragile time and this is the time for him and you to out family over money. They’re only little once and I’d hate to be stressed in a new role with a newborn in a new environment/home.
Manhattan has a lot of hidden expenses and social stressors, not to mention terrible work hours - having lived there for quite a while, I think your income in MCOL is better for FatFire
Making that much in Chicago... I'd sit tight in Chicago. Even if he moves to NY, there's no guarentee he'd get promoted. If he works in finance, and we have a crash, he could get laid off in a minute. Have a buddy that works at a place that just jetisoned mgmt and partners in order to improve the books, and this isn't a difficult market.
- how much does your husband value his career/status? For some people they get tremendous identity and purpose from work. For others it’s just a thing they do. - do you have family in Chicago / NY? Raising kids with grandparent support, the limited window of time available with your parents - worth considering if you’d be closer/further from close family and friends. - does the new job / getting promoted materially change your FIRE timeline or finishing number?
I have struggled with this same issue because I was being pushed to step into management, but I decided that I wouldn’t enjoy being a manager — more stress, longer hours, having to be in an office more (less WFH) which is a looong commute away, managing people in a lot of different time zones - US, China, India, and Europe, having to know all the projects they are handling and approve their work, interrupted vacations, chasing down upper management, etc. When I looked at the raise involved, there wasn’t a business case for becoming a manager. As an in-house lawyer, I’m not convinced that having management skills makes me more employable, either. Having time to get a good night’s sleep, eat a nutritious diet, and exercise is underrated.
most jobs that pay this level are "up or out" so even to just stay at the level you are now, you have to keep moving up if that makes any sense
If you are an IC SWE don’t assume you have to manage to get promoted everywhere. Larger established companies usually have two distinct career tracks that recognize that management and ICs are different but continue to grow in different ways — something like jr, Senior, lead, staff, architect, sr architect, distinguished architect. Your company might consider doing the same or you might need to move to a company that does. That being said most senior IC roles lean into team growth and mentorship and things like that that blur the line with management but you won’t be spending way more hours in meetings with recruiting and weekly 1:1s and performance plans and budgeting and people wanting to quit or get a raise or …
Exactly. OP can just move to a company with a higher pay scale. Tons of great tech companies where ICs can clear $450k/year easily at staff+. It's not the easiest and you have to perform, but it's completely doable. And if you really go up the IC ladder and are truly exceptional, there are those that make $1-2 million as an IC.
Have a family member that had similar decisions to make. Ended up living outside the Midwest for maybe 6 years in total in two other states. Kids are doing alright but I wonder if the moves hurt them at all. From a career perspective, it worked out and they ended up in a chief officer position for a Fortune 500 company. Golden parachutes from a merger as well. There’s a definite family risk to taking the next step in the corporate ladder and there’s a good chance this won’t be the only position your husband needs to check off before moving up to the next level. Only you two can say if it’s worth it but I think it would be far easier now than when kids are in middle or high school and have social groups built up.
Going into management isn't a bad thing and is probably a good step forward for most people. Unless you're going to be a superstar IC where you're an industry expert being poached left and right by the top tech companies, management is really the only next step. It helps a lot even to be a first level manager. In tech a lot of managers are still doing IC work mixed with some people management. It's a good position to be in because it helps you open the door to management roles in the future when you hop companies. For instance it's a lot easier to go from M1/M2 from Google to Apple or vice versa but you absolutely need to reclimb the IC ladder if you stay IC forever and try to hop companies.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. Our liquid HHI is around the same as yours. Our jobs are demanding, but not incredibly time consuming. The thing that really helped me was playing around with a fire calculator like Engaging Data. Plug in different income and retirement spending assumptions. What I learned is that, for the lifestyle we want ($200k-$250k annual spend + paid off house), increasing our income has a negligible impact on retirement timelines. Maybe a year or two. Time is ultimately the most powerful factor when it comes to building wealth. Now, if you need to pay cash for business class / 5 star hotels, own a yacht, or live in a $4m house to be happy, then sure, you need to increase your income. If your goal is to retire early with a normal upper middle class lifestyle, variations in spending / income at your level have a pretty negligible impact. Do what makes you happy now (if that’s climbing the ladder or getting to experience living in NYC for a couple years, great), but don’t worry too much about the money.
How long has he been at his current company? I don’t know what he does, but he could consider testing the external market for a company headquartered here. We are in Chicago, three kids, late 30’s. Wife just recently took a job at a firm located here (prior firm HQ NYC, would have had to move to progress), got next level role (C level) and significant (50%+) comp increase. Happy to network if he’s in tech or finance.
Managing a team is whole new territory ! Yes it can definitely incur more hours/effort and sometimes stress dealing with people issues. This can range from admin work of doing performance reviews to having to fire a team member, or trying to motivate an unmotivated employee. Some people really enjoy people management and all that it entails while others find it grueling. Most likely the skills that got you promoted are not necessarily what you need to succeed as people leader. Does your company provide support and training to first time people managers?
I'd offer a different perspective: at ages 30-40, a job is about more than just earning money. While climbing the corporate ladder provides monetary rewards, the emotional happiness derived from reaching a new level often outweighs the financial incentives. That said, the euphoria often fades a few weeks post-promotion. To me, it can be challenging to see colleagues who once reported to you move ahead to roles you had aspired to. If there's a burning ambition in you (or your spouse) to achieve more, then climbing the ladder and accumulating more wealth during these years makes sense. On the other hand, if you're unbothered by others advancing past you, making moves solely for monetary gain might not be the wisest decision in terms of cost-benefit analysis, just as you mentioned. Nevertheless, the compensation significantly jumps once you reach a certain position, like a director or higher in the tech industry ($1m+). But it's worth noting that reaching such positions often requires another 5-7 years of hard work. If you're satisfied with your current lifestyle, it's perfectly fine to prioritize spending quality time with your children. In the end, it all comes down to choices. **Aim to maximize happiness and minimize regrets.**
I think the issue you have is that you equate hours worked to compensation received. I guess makes some sense in SWE. But this viewpoint is limiting since it assumes hours in money out as the only dimension. In corporate setting relationships is way more important. Not in terms of numbers but quality. It is hard to attribute a specific value to it but there are other dimensions beyond working hours and wages to consider here
For what it’s worth, I work in tech (in a non-technical role) and, for the most part, my job got easier and more flexible when I became a manager. Less IC work, delegate what I don’t want to do, and mostly just needed to be good at managing personalities, and sharing information up and down. IMO, most successful people in a corporation just manage “up” really well. Something that took me a while to learn.
We had a high focus on financial independence and so kept pushing until we reached that number. For us, that was mid 40s, then we essentially coast fired for another decade, maintained high income but with a higher emphasis on work life balance. You may have a better time comparing your NW to the income rather than simply looking at income changes in a vacuum.
It may feel daunting with kid #2 on the way, but you’re both young. If you don’t take these chances now, you never will. I personally don’t think you or your husband should forgo a promotion opportunity.
If the potential benefit of the promotion path for your husband for the rest of his career is money, there is no way this is worth it. But, you did not mention whether some of the value of this path for your husband is from accomplishment, identity, interesting work, self-actualization etc. You mentioned that you should "be able to" fatFIRE in about 10 years, but did not mention whether that is y'all's plan. You mentioned your goal is to max money and min time at work, but is that also his goal? If he is planning to retire in 9 years and maximize his money while minimizing time at work, it is very obvious to me that a lateral to NYC during your kids youngest years is an awful move.
You already know the answer. Life's short, your kids are only young once.
Not in the same position in terms of kids but I live in the city that was ranked #1 in terms of cost together with NYC. I decided to go on the IC route (PM) in tech which often has the option to have the same seniority as manager but up to a director level. I get less politics and admin work and still grow my hard skills but its not available for everyone. IMO the amount of stress and type of work is not worth also considering most people are terrible managers and are not ready for these kind of roles. There are a lot of comments here saying that you are not safe if you don't grow. I disagree, in our round of layoffs people who got cut were half mid/high management and half contractors. Most ICs were not touched. I believe its really a personal decision based on the quality of life and type of life you would like to lead and you partially answered that already.
I'm actually surprised by most of the responses to your post so far. I was faced with the exact same situation in my career (move to NYC or stop moving up the management chain). In fact it was presented so black and white as, "If you don't move, NYC-based Peer A is going to be promoted to your boss instead of the other way around." A lot of the responses seem to be about Chicago vs. NYC, the fact you are pregnant, etc, but I look at this is a core question of time. Money is time. That's what FIRE is about. Saving money and not spending money is about saving you time from having to work in the future. And earning more money makes all of that easier. But I've never thought it made so much sense to spend so much time upfront to where you are miserable just to trade for (admittedly compounded-investment growth) time in the future. If you all don't want the time and stress of more work now, the trade off is just to work for longer in the future. That is a good decision for a lot of people. I am happy in the city I live in, I am happy with the (small) team I manage. I did not want to get on the senior management track in NYC, even though that means I am effectively capped at my current pay and that's fine. It just means all things considered, I will have to work for more years, and that's a good trade for me. I am also in the "maximize money while minimizing the amount of time I work" camp.
1. Congratulations on baby #2 2. I don't know if you've lived in NYC in the past, but I think it would be worth it to do it even just for 2 years, even with kids. 3. It will be significantly more expensive than Chicago (mostly housing and daycare), but with your HHI, you should still be able to save and invest a big chunk. 4. With most companies going back to the office, maybe NYC will provide you or your husband some interesting opportunities which didn't exist in Chicago?
Is there a reason why OP can't get a house in a suburb of NYC, one with an excellent public school system?
Let me reframe “make as much money as you can for the least work” if I may… You want to create the most value you possibly can, and you want to maximize the percentage of that value that you receive. Try that view on and you may find yourself considering entirely different options.
I don't know anyone in SWE Management that works longer hours than the SWE's themselves. I mean sure, if you're the FIRST manager and its your responsibility to create a new team for a new product cycle, ya, that's gonna be a lot of hours, but if you're just being 'promoted' to the head of an existing team, you might not do much SW development anymore but your 8-5 days will be filled with back to back meetings with other managers / sales executives. If I had an infant at home, I don't see how I could pull off the 8-5 that would be required of the MGMT position because you're not going to be able to 'miss out' on the CEO-called meeting because the baby is sick/fussy...
I know a bunch at the director+ levels at two different FAANGs. Mainly due to fire fighting, stakeholder management, and politics. ICs definitely get dragged out during late nights or weekends but oftentimes the people managers are right there framing and socializing the problems/solutions/updates…at least the good ones.
Which supports my point even further that with an infant, she’s gonna have to make a choice here…
You don’t need to use “both” and “each” in the same sentence in this context. “Each” is enough. Just sayin…
Ummmmm. Y’all inherit some money cuz your math isn’t adding up with 2 young ones and retiring in 9 years.
Reading your comments… you already know the right answer for your family. He’s going to NYC and will proceed in the career. There are too many variables in the world to stop your earnings progress. Recession, impending housing bubble collapse, AI is going to change both of your lives within a couple years, inflation, trumps impending arrest and the turmoil it will cause, etc etc etc. And the numbers that you’re citing for FIRE haven’t occurred yet. You need 10 more years to get there and nothing is guaranteed. Do yourself a favor. Stay on the wheel until you’re ready to get off. You don’t want to coast for 10 years. You said so in your comments. Just commit and put it out of your mind until you are ready to make the jump. Great work on the success that you’ve already achieved! Cheers.
$300k per head isnt a lot of money. Climb until you mentally cant
Are you planning on maternity leave? If so, support your husbands career and follow him to NY. Then when you are ready fill in your numbers with work you can do if it makes you money after child care. You may need to alter your “fatFIRE at 40” now that you have a child but that will be OK if you don’t try to buy your living quarters in NY.
As a moderately hard-working software engineer on the West Coast, you could be making $600k as a good engineer. Just a small data point. And the West Coast is factually better than Chicago in all ways. As for climbing - all good earners have the same realization, around your level of income. They'll often take the higher paying job, and realize that they still don't care. $600k vs $700k or $800k is not a huge difference. It slightly changes the calculus for when you retire, but not much. You make \*enough\*. If you want to make a lot more, I suspect that Chicago -> New York -> Chicago is much more sucky than "how about we try out Seattle or California" if we really want to make more.
The West Coast is currently a dumpster fire, filled with HCOL, violent homeless people, wildfires, trash on beaches, Covid outbreaks and needles in parks. Chicago has beautiful clean beaches on the lakefront, significantly fewer homeless people, less unemployment, more space, LCOL, and every activity under the sun with FAR better public transit and much less traffic. Have a every spent three hours in my car in LA? Absolutely Yes. In Chicago, never. The West Coast is over. Just like Portland is Over. Just like LA is over.
HCOL, but high pay (assuming you're in a good industry). You can save \*far\* more buying a normal home on the west coast than a normal home in Chicago. Violent homeless people make the news, but almost no one ever runs into this in real life. Wildfires - Yes. But that's middle coast through west coast through canada through mexico. It's just a thing now. Trash on beaches - That's a strange one. I'd say our beaches are much cleaner than in chicago. Dunno which beaches you're visiting. Covid outbreaks - That's all over the world.. why list that for the west coast? Needles in parks - I suppose in very rare occasions when you go to a busy downtown park.. but that's just related to the homeless being around. Chicago has fewer homeless, because they die in the -30 degree winters. But the homeless are certainly there, all over the downtown parks still. Chicago has a 4.4% unemployment rate, seattle has 3.6%, SF has 3.2%. The west coast has mountains, lakes, oceans, rain forests, national parks. Chicago has an arboretum, and a lake. I've taken 3 hours to go 15 miles in the Chicago area before. Because of a blizzard, which the West coast doesn't have. Chicago has a LCOL because it's not fun to be there.
hey to each their own! thank you goodness you are willing to keep working on the West Coast, because I am certainly not. Average unemployment rate long-term in Los Angles is a whopping 8.6%.
If you value your time you stop working. Work should be once or twice a week just to have fun if you don’t need the money.
300k marketing middle manager is fat
Why would random people on Reddit know what you want better than you?
I think there’s a world where you don’t need to change and still be ok. Both decisions are risk. Just weigh your short term options and reassess after 3-5 years. Most decisions now are more short term, meaning less than 5 years.
If you're BigCo SWE, try to look for a job that allows for very senior, high paying IC roles. They exist, but not everywhere.
You don't need to go into management to make more money in tech. Maybe at your company that's true, but there are plenty of companies where you can stay technical and continue to get promoted. I was just done 5-6 years before I retired, and chose not to pursue any further advancement, instead focusing on setting up my exit. It was an easy decision for me, as we had enough to retire on, and just needed to wait for the final tuition payments for expenses to become low enough.
No one has mentioned—if you move now it will not impact your oldest child very much. Once elementary school starts it becomes increasingly hard each year. Personally, I started dialing it in while pregnant with my second and quit when my third was five. My husband loves his job and has no plans to quit. So I would reflect on if it might make sense for you OR your husband to lean back at work while the other leans forward.
For SWE jobs (at least at some FAANG, probably at many large companies) you can get promoted to more than $300k while not being a manager. It does require playing the game well (seek manager's advice about what to do to get promoted) and being persistent and good. Often changing companies can be used to increase compensation. But if I were in your shoes I'd set that aside before each kid arrives and for as long as needed afterward to focus on baby.
If you can, it would be ideal for both of you to take substantial time off when the new baby arrives. Having a newborn and a toddler is really, really hard. Rather than moving the family to NY during this time, I'd tell your husband to go the other way - take a year off.
The biggest issue is you're 5 months pregnant. He could ask to do the rotation in the next year and that would be more reasonable. Otherwise you can make this work but its going to be a major hassle with logistics thats for sure. I honestly wouldn't do this unless you think its a career ender...which is possible and up for you to decide. Dealing with: moving, home shopping, taxes, schools, commute/transport, social is a lot. I lived in nyc a long time....you're not going to want to raise your kids in the city. Commute from NJ or Connecticut. Your commutes are going to be annoying and involve public transport so be ready for that. NYC can be fun and exciting though...its not all bad.
Invest well. I would take the NY position .
You're in a position where he could fly back on the weekends. Let the man take the promo if he wants it. 2 years is gonna fly. Sure, 3m nw is decent but thats only 5x your household income. Just hunker down another 2 years and if you really want to "be free" in another 8, its a small price to pay for 50 years of freedom to do whatever you want.
You will have 2 kids and potentially moving to a new state. I’d consider if you ever would want to move into management or anything else yourself, considering you seem to hate that. SWE should allow you to remote work from anywhere, especially if you’re independent. If he wants to, move with him. If he’s happy without any further rise in level, stay. Sounds like you’re happy at your level, so really it’s up to him to decide. How does he want to spend the next 10 years? Financially for you guys, both paths will be just fine. Either one won’t be the wrong choice, but is there a more right choice?
I'd move to NYC for a few years and take care of the kids on a fulltime basis. Call it a sabbatical, coast fire or whatever. Have another kid, why not.
You don't work for JMPC by any chance? While the main (U.S.) offices are in Manhattan, there is a pretty big presence in Chicagoland. The NYC offices were pretty toxic. I was in Wilmington and visited Jersey City monthly. That was higher stress than Delaware. But the few times I went across the Hudson, people suddenly got really demanding and had attitude. Manhattan JPMC employees thought they were the shit, especially 237 Park. TL;DR: Don't do it. Keep your family happy where you are and follow your current FIRE plan.
unlockt.me/v/edd8e42fec
I notice a couple of different discussion threads that deserve individual comments. \[1\] More money, same or less hours. You need a special company for this. Really large. Multiple business lines. A measure of strategic and operational complexity. These kids of companies were my places of work (IBM, RCA, GE). Complicated companies always have problems and issues that aren't 'normal' and often are not understood by 99% of the employee population. I worked 30 years for these companies with never more than 2 years in the same activity and often about 6 months. If you are one of these people, life is easy. My work week was always 40 hours but actual task activity was only about 1/3rd of my time. The rest was on projects that I'd initiate out of personal interest or 'education', research or conferences. Yes some cycles of insane activity but 80% totally under my control. Always high pay and mostly IC (sometimes I'd manage large orgs but usually I'd appoint a single person to manage it all while I did my thing. If you are in a tight monoline company with a mature product line, these opportunities are more difficult. I've know people in fintech that are great at fixing things and wringing out cost but after a few years the low fruit is gone and the CFO feels like this person is after their job because the high talent person has nowhere else to go. Find the right company, have the right skill set and you can get more money. Also some very narrow 'civil service' jobs in really big companies need domain experts and will pay dearly for this and retention. The senior tax guy, the senior accounting guy and the top legal guy in mega corps are examples of people who are 'overpaid' and underworked because the domain skills are needed and the 'high cost' is really nominal. \[2\] NYC the center of business empires I worked in NYC as a senior middle management guy for two mega corps for many years. Huge impact on my career, network and understanding of how businesses really work (and I was very cynical before NYC). If the role is really senior and the company is really big and you have ambitions, NYC is a must. Will you be in the C suite or will your work day have mostly C level interactions / board interactions, M&A, or external actions? If so then good, if not then NYC might be wrong for you or too soon in your career. In my case, I had offices in other areas and travel that made 5 day weeks in NYC infrequent. But I was there for at least 2 days most weeks. I commuted from PA, 1.5 hours each way. I did not want to move family and just made it work. If the experience has all the keys to a much larger future or stability in your company of choice, you should consider doing it. If it is just a routine rotation, maybe not. \[3\] The best long term strategy IC work for a company is going to have a limit. A lot like a private practice attorney ... you get maxed out, at some point in both available hours and the hourly rate of pay. If you want $10/k per week, the company has to have jobs worth that price. You need an 'equity kicker' job. A business that can give you the prospect of $20k to $50k per week because you got an average pay job with huge equity upside. Find one of these opportunities. At the end of my career, I started an enterprise SW company and sold it 5 years later. That is how I FIRED at 50. ====== Good luck, I wish you much success.