Meet a Subscriber #1
In the first of this series, we meet Ryan, a Staff Software Engineer from Instagram
In this new series, I will be interviewing subscribers and sharing their journey in tech and towards FIRE.
Interested in being interviewed? Have your own journey you’d like to share?Simply reply to this e-mail and I’ll be in touch!
In the first ever “Meet a Subscriber”, I interviewed Ryan Peterman. Ryan writes The Developing Dev newsletter which comes highly recommended by me.
Ryan’s answers to the questions below are US focused, but the principles and ideas are the same. He also shares some great insight around tech salaries. You’ll notice Ryan shares a similar philosophy to the one I highlighted myself in last week's post in that:
You should prioritise health.
In most situations, Big Tech is a better option than startups for achieving a pretty fat FIRE.
Let me know if you found this post interesting so I can get more lined up!
Q: Can you give us a brief tour of your career?
A: After graduating from UCLA my first job was at a small satellite office at Amazon. It was an unusual experience because there was no code review or source control. I ended up leaving after 8 months since I felt like I wasn’t growing. I’ve been working at Instagram ever since which was a great idea in hindsight since I grew to a Staff engineer much faster than expected.
Q: At what point did you become aware of FIRE? Why is financial independence important to you?
A: During college, I found the financial independence subreddit where I learned a lot about personal finance. Financial independence has always been important to me because money is a necessary part of life. Making sure you have that down on lock gets rid of a lot of potential stress. Now that I learned the basics (e.g. 401k matching, index funds, borrowing money) I don’t read that subreddit as much.
The “fatFIRE” subreddit is also a great community. I think of it as the rich person version of the FIRE subreddit. The content is interesting to read even though most of it doesn’t apply to my personal situation. For example, I found this entertaining comment about the different levels of ultra high net worth from that subreddit.
Q: What is your view on startups vs big public companies that issue sellable stock (such as Meta) when it comes to working towards FIRE. Do you think one is a better choice than the other?
A: It depends on what your financial goals are. If you have a high FIRE goal ($10m+), you kind of need to take on more risk to achieve that. Joining a startup is one of the ways to add risk to your portfolio.
For most people, the high-paying, consistent income from big tech companies is more than enough. Not to mention that you’ll be able to sell your stock along the way to finance large purchases (e.g. house, car).
Q: You are probably in the upper echelon of software engineer earners, working at Instagram. For those who aspire to earn higher salaries for FIRE purposes, what do you recommend?
A: If your goal is to earn higher salaries for FIRE purposes, the best path is probably to start working at a big tech company in the US and focus on career growth.
US big tech pays ridiculous amounts of money. Take a look at Google and Facebook compensations here for instance. When I first saw these numbers in college I didn’t believe them but now I’ve confirmed with friends that they are accurate.
These companies pay exponentially more as you get promoted. Take a look at Google:
L3 - $189k
L4 - $280k (48% increase)
L5 - $375k (33% increase)
L6 - $526k (40% increase)
Focusing on career growth once at these companies will help you achieve FIRE much faster.
Q: What items are you convinced are worth spending the extra money on?
A: I gladly spend extra money on my health and buying back time. These both make me happier and are an investment in myself, which help me get more done.
Health is a necessity. Without it, my quality of life would drop and make it so that I couldn’t do what I want. Buying back time helps me get rid of tasks I don’t want to do (e.g. cleaning, groceries) which both makes me happier and frees up time for me to focus on growth.
I don’t think I could have focused on career growth as much as I have without these investments.
Wrapping Up
I hope you enjoyed this post! If this is your first time reading The fat Software Engineer then welcome! Here is some other posts you might find interesting:
Thanks for the opportunity, help the info is helpful :)