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Survey: 56 Percent of US Developers Expect To Become Millionaires
msmoriarty writes: "According to a recent survey of 1,000 U.S.-based software developers, 56 percent expect to become millionaires in their lifetime. 66 percent also said they expect to get raises in the next year, despite the current state of the economy. Note that some of the other findings of the study (scroll to bulleted list) seem overly positive: 84 percent said they believe they are paid what they're worth, 95 percent report they feel they are 'one of the most valued employees at their organization,' and 80 percent said that 'outsourcing has been a positive factor in the quality of work at their organization.'"
80 percent think outsourcing has been positive? They must not be working with the resources we do... They lie, lie and lie some more. Shirk responsibility and ignore questions.
I want the drugs those developers are on.
I think I have a good shot at becoming a millionaire in my lifetime - not from hitting it big, just from saving more than I spend (especially into my 401k, with company matching).
And what *about* the current state of the economy? It seems to me that it's mostly recovered at this point. And it's not unreasonable for white-collar workers to expect *some* kind of raise at least every couple years, even if it's just a raise on par with inflation.
They must just be asking a lot of people who are understand math and have a little discipline. A carpenter can become a millionaire by retirement, all you have to do is start saving and keep saving.
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It has an annual safe return of $40k to $50K. For younger developers who may not retire until 2050, that is not much after several decades of inflation.
Out of the 30 or so I know only one smokes and none take weeks off to go to gaming/comic conventions.
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In case y'all hadn't noticed, our community is rife with hazardously inflated egos. This is a natural extension thereof.
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I've got a rather dumpy house in a nice urban neighborhood. It's paid for and worth a bit over $200,000. Looking at long term trends and the increasing popularity of urban living, it will most likely appreciate a fair amount before I retire.
That alone will get me a good chunk of the way towards being a millionaire in terms of net worth.
Now add in the gobs of money that they recommend you save for retirement and by the time you do retire... well, you've got a lot of money. This assumes of course that you can navigate yourself past the agism that's also part of being a developer and remain a well paid part of the workforce until you retire.
Being a millionaire not only means you acquire a million but also that you get to keep it. Essentially, it means you earn one million more than you need to live your life.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I am a software developer with 9+ years experience. I bought a house at the end of 2011 for $570K and zillow says it's worth $695K now. In 27 years, I think it's pretty likely I will be a millionaire due to inflation and paying off my house.
If you can't find a way to get to a million by retirement, something is wrong.
Here is a simple way to do it. Put $16,000 in your 401k and $5,000 in your IRA every year. Investing in a good S&P500 index fund which will return about 10%. In 18 years, you will be a millionaire.
Now getting to $10 million is tough.
>> 56 percent expect to become millionaires in their lifetime.
yeah and 99% of software engineers also seriously believe their initial time estimate to have that feature implemented by was actually realistic.
but a million bucks doesn't go as far as it used to
What's sound money? Fiat money is okay, gold standard money has deflationary problems, fractional reserve systems appear to establish money by loaning it into existence. Our current fractional reserve system appears to preclude economic growth: any "growth" is a growth of debt, a growth in economic sickness.
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If you don't understand why people want the ability to save large amounts of money without paying taxes on the principle, interest, or dividends until they withdraw it, I'm not sure you're as well off as you think you are.
1 million dollars invested in a conservative bond fund will yield $40,000 a year, with no hit to principle. Most of America lives (comfortably) on that (or less) today. In addition to that, you will have social security.
And if you are of retirement age today, 1Million is enough. Now project that forward 30 or 40 years.
To put it into perspective, if you had 500k in 1980, that gave you the same purchasing power as 1 million does today.
So if you think 1 million today is enough to retire, and you plan to retire in 25 years, you actually need to aim for 2 million.
If you are just entering the work force (18 to 20), you are looking at working 40-50 years, and will need even more. close to 3 million.
After retirement age, you also receive social security payments
Only a fool would count on it being there in another 25-30 years. Its already seeing the force of the boomer generation hit it. If you've got a million+ in capital at retirement I wouldn't be surprised that your social security will be stripped to zilch. I can hear the politicians bleating now... "we're paying middle class millionaires social security...is that worth a tax increase?"
They must just be asking a lot of people who are understand math and have a little discipline. A carpenter can become a millionaire by retirement, all you have to do is start saving and keep saving.
I fully intend to be a millionaire by the time I retire, and with inflation that should be enough for a tent and some camping supplies.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
I remember when I was younger and management would send out employee opinion surveys. I'd answer them, be truthful and feel like my opinion actually mattered. I felt it was proper to express exactly how happy or unhappy I was and that the survey was some mechanism for improving things.
Then I became part of management and I realized how completely wrong I was.
The employee opinion survey mostly serves as a crutch for manager's to pat themselves on the back and the do a very good job curve fitting the results to their preconceived notions of how things are. It also serves to weed out people with bad attitudes - I've overheard more than one discussion of trying to locate an employee based on the comment they made on the survey.
So, if you say you're happy with the wage you're getting, you won't be getting a raise. In fact, it's even seen as a sign that pay cuts should be happening. Likewise, if you feel like you're a valued employee, good luck getting any more benefits. It's more likely management will use that as an excuse to strip away that one little perk, like free soda or something, just because they'll decrease the amount of HR budget dedicated to keeping employees happy. Don't ever be happy on paper.
Unfortunately, it's not enough for just you to express your desire for a raise. If 40% of your colleagues think they get paid enough, that's probably enough for management to little to no wage increase. You really want less than 5 - 10% say they're happy - in other words, 90% of the employees in your department need to express displeasure with their wages in order for the survey to have any meaningful effect on wages. (There's plenty of other ways to get a raise though - an employee survey is probably one of the least likely ways for it to happen.)
PS. If you think your company is one of those awesome companies that cares, you're probably wrong. If you sat in the room with the CEO, COO, and HR Director and heard that private conversation about the survey, you'd be horrified.
----- obSig
Being out of work for a couple of years, while still paying mortgage and COBRA and kids expenses, really takes a chunk out of your savings. That's not even counting what could happen when (not if) the banks or S&Ls or whatever other financial institution does a number on the economy and your stocks tank. (And like a few folks I know, I have a drawerful of stock options in companies which no longer exist.)
If you're an older software developer prepare to be out of work for a long time if the economy turns sour. (I was out for 18 months when things went south in 2001/2002. I came back into the industry as a sys admin. Doesn't matter how good you are -- I still routinely learn new languages/packages/frameworks since I'm now in devops -- there's definitely an age bias especially in start-ups. The exceptions are those managers who are smart enough to recognize that the real skill in development is knowing what to do with a tool, not just how to use it. Any monkey can learn to code in a new language. Too many places don't want to pay you what you're worth, and don't want to hire you for what you're willing to take because "you'll just leave when something else comes along".)
One could say the same thing about high school athletes expecting to go pro.
... that developers are no less short-sighted, ignorant, or stupid than the rest of the US population.
Mudge
In theory, theory and practice are the same.
In practice, they're not.
yeah, in 20 years, i suspect being a millionaire would be like what it is today to earn a "six-figure income" - which is B.F.D.
I remember when I was a kid in the 80's, a "six figure income" was meaningful. Now in some places where software development is a common trade (cough: silicon valley), six figures is just-getting-by
I am not sure if accumulating $1M over a lifetime counts as "rich". I started working 35 years ago. I immediately started regularly and automatically putting a little from each paycheck into my IRA, invested in an index fund. The monthly payroll contribution was less than my car payment. Yet, today my IRA has over $700K. Unless there is a market crash, it should be over $1M by the time I retire.
The usual estimate of how much you can withdraw from your savings per year without having too much chance
of drawing down your capital is 4%.
So, $1M gives you an annual income of $40,000, not exactly a high salary, even adding in ~$30k in social
security income won't make you especially well off.
It looks like you skipped over the part, "that doesn't rely primarily on luck".
I've solved that a while ago. My referring currency is now cents and I was a millionnaire even before being out of school! :)
If your investment growth keeps tracks with inflation, then they balance out. If you can save 15K in 401(k) a year and put in an equivalent amount into a house, that is 30K a year and by the time you retire, should make you millionaire equivalent (zero inflation adjusted growth). .
Add to this the fact that the profile of a millionaire is very similar to that of a Developer
Average millionaire is educated with atleast college degree, earns about $100 K (which according to Dept of Labor) is what developers earn, own homes,work 40-50 hours a week etc.
Add to this the fact that most millionaires are very near retirement age and it makes it highly probable that a developer is highly probable to retire a millionaire.
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And that's hard?
As mentioned further below, saving ~$5000/year is possible - maybe throw away that $100/mo TV subscription or something.
Hell, my wife is in her mid 20's and I'm in my early 30's and we manage to squirrel away $28,000 every year on our two salaries (I'm a server admin, she's an engineer). If you're in the right industry and have a modicum of self-restraint it isn't too difficult to save.
The key is being in the right industry. The median income in the US is around $27,000/year. It is VERY difficult to save $28k if you are only making $27k. It seems to you like you have "self-restraint" because you still have money left over after paying for your necessities. Half the people in the country that make income make less per year than just a portion of your disposable income.
(and to the GP, you threw away that 100/mo TV subscription, that is only $1200 - where does the 5k come from?)
Enigma
Even outside of the valley in more normal priced places, if the first digit of that six figures is a '1', it's still solidly middle class, nothing more.
Yeah, if you continue to make 50k for 18 years straight, especially as a developer, you've done something very wrong. Living off of 29k pre-tax isn't difficult. Just difficult if you try and live like you have 50k to spend and only really have 29k. Getting ahead isn't easy if you have no self control, but it's really easy if you plan ahead and stick to it.
It looks like you skipped over the part, "that doesn't rely primarily on luck".
It doesn't depend primarily on luck. It depends on your ability to select a sequence of investments that will have an average payout of more than twice what they cost. You don't know the outcome of any one investment (success or failure), but your ability to pick a sequence of investments that are expected to offset each other's random risks and have sufficient average payout when taken together (expected total gain minus loss averaged more than twice cost), is one of skill, and it relies on decision making abilities.
Good luck is when the average payout turns out to be twice as much as expected and happens less than 1% of the time. Bad luck is when the payout is half or less, and happens less than 1% of the time.
This is assuming a skilled selection.
When we say "high risk"; we do not mean visiting a casino and placing bets, where you have an expected loss of 10% due to the house edge, (assuming you had infinite cash and placed bets forever).
Whoever mentioned that was an idiot.
Gold prices are driven by 1. Speculation and fearmongering about the state of the economy (I.e. preppers, pump and dump scammers, etc). 2. By how low interest rates are(if they can't gamble on the stock market or in loans, they gamble in gold). So, gold is a gamble against the economy (and therefore, the dollar), but that has nothing to do with inflation.
And that can be extended to the world economies as well.
If you want to see real inflation, you have to look at low profit margin commodities on a broad scale.
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Gold is a good measure of inflation if you take the 10-year-average, or maybe the 20-year, of gold prices. While gold is hopelessly volatile in the short term, it seems to keep reasonably equivalent purchasing power century-by-century.
Home prices work out about the same, BTW. While real estate markets can be just as volatile, long term house prices are flat with inflation, which makes a lot of sense (the % of income people are willing/able to spend on housing won't change unless human nature changes, so you expect the average house to represent a given amount of purchasing power).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
56 Percent of US Developers Expect To Become Millionaires
I downloaded the study by Chef (which amounted to a 3-page PDF), and there was no breakdown of the sample population by age, race/ethnic make-up, gender, marital status, location, degree and primary/secondary software skills. So, one has to wonder how much of a self-selection bias took place in this so-called study.
For instance, I cannot see a way by which a sample population of single men in their late 20s working as developers (or founders) at start-ups in Silicon Valley will respond the questionnaire in a manner comparable to, say, a mixed gender sample population of developers in their mid-30s or 40s working at established companies out of, say, Austin.
Also, regarding age, someone starting up today should not find it impossible to become, literally, a millionaire as in "having earned a million" by the time of retirement. To effectively be a millionaire - meaning having net assets worth a million or more (at current purchasing power) counting inflation, that is another thing.
The thing that made me scratch my head the most is that 2/3 of the sampled population believed their profession to be recession-proof. That strikes me as naivete (or stupidity) of youth/inexperience/arrogance.
The software industry is not recession-proof. It is recession-resilient for those who actively cultivate their professional network.
But recession-proof? Not. A. Chance.
Either this study is seriously affected by the Dunning-Krugger Effect, or it is an exercise in intellectual self-pleasure, or somehow Chef managed to sample a population composed by truly elite multi-discipline engineers, owners of very hard-to-get skills (like building software for radar systems or something.)
Doubling your money just once is very difficult, good luck doing it 10 times in a row. An amazing annual return is considered > 10%.
If you earn $80k+ a year, you need to be a double millionaire just in retirement savings to maintain your income when you retire. I guess this means 44% of developers don't expect to retire at age 65?
We are the 198 proof..
Becoming a millionaire over the course of a working lifetime isn't too challenging. Stay employed and put 15-20% of your income into broad-market index funds every year without fail. Don't throw it away on booze, drugs, or houses in a housing bubble. That said, a million bucks isn't a lot of money - it is maybe just barely retirement money at the same standard of living you had while employed.
Becoming a multimillionaire over the course of a few years is pretty challenging, and if that's what the survey really means, those people are mostly going to be disappointed.
10% growth won't be the norm in the near future because it's never been the norm, just a weird exception in some periods of intense growth. The average ROI over centuries is very very stable at 4%. This corresponds roughly to the price of houses.
I read an article today that explained that since 4% is higher than the average growthrate of economies, people having assets will tend to collect a larger and larger share from the GDP as opposed to just working for it. Hence the growing divide in society between people having money gathering more and more of it, and the rest gaining less and less.
Replace assets with capital and working for it with labour, and I think we're back at where Marx once started his analysis.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
So, no different to the peculiarly American trait of considering poor people "temporarily embarrassed millionaires". No thanks to the self-serving ideology peddled by the rich, that we'd all be better off if we all worked harder, never mind the fact that the rich get rich by capturing the surplus value of your labour.
There's a degree of this everywhere (e.g. the hundreds of millions of retards out there who consider themselves "middle class", despite needing a paycheck each week/month to survive), but nowhere is this stronger, than in the US.
Yeah, but if you are unemplyed, rob a bank to make up the difference. The best thing is, proceeds from robery are tax free, as the bank never files the 1099 under the right SSN.
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I'm tired of all this "six figures is just-getting-by" bullshit. I'm a software engineer in the valley who only a few years ago was making almost exactly six figures, and I was doing far, far better than just getting by.
I bought a house even before making $100k. It's a small house in a good part of San Jose. I probably would have had to get a roommate for the first few years had my then-girlfriend not been chipping in rent, but that's somewhat expected with a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. My monthly payment will stay the same forever, and inflation and salaries, even for non-engineers, are generally only going up in the long run.
Even with the house payment, I've always been able to stuff a significant amount of money into my 401(k) and IRA. By starting early and investing in index funds, I'm going to easily have enough money in retirement.
Even after putting a lot of money into a house and retirement, there was still plenty of money leftover for fun stuff. I was able to go out to nice restaurants, I bought myself nice toys like laptops and bicycles, and I generally didn't have to worry about money.
Admittedly I don't have kids and wasn't trying to support a family by myself, but a second income would also balance that out.
Are you able to buy a 5 bedroom, 3,000 sq ft house in Palo Alto on $100k? Hell no, but you can still live an extremely nice life. It's an insult to the people living paycheck to paycheck to say that six figures is just getting by.
Even assuming that you get your million dollars forty years before you plan to retire, you would need to pull in returns of more than 18% per year to hit a billion.
No one can do that reliably. It's luck.
Not getting a serious illness that your insurance won't fully cover is luck. Not being sued into oblivion by some asshat is luck. Not retiring during a major world recession is luck.
Also, if you hadn't noticed, there are a lot of rip-offs, scams and ponzi schemes going on in the investment market. Supposedly skilled and knowledgeable investors fell for them because the crooks are good at what they do. Would be nice if you could get by with just safer, guaranteed return investments rather than having to become some kind of financial expert.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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...
With a 10% annual growth, you hit a million in 20 years. That grows to $5 million in about 35 years. That becomes $2.5 million after 35 years when you count inflation, but that still shows it is pretty easy to hit a million in any professional level job.
Heck! With 20% annual growth you can hit a million in 14 years, and with 30% annual growth you can hit a million in 11 years!
Just ask Bernie Madoff!
The real long term return on stocks is 6% or so. You only get 10% if you carefully draw the period to cover two bubbles and avoid the post-bubble malaise, collapse and ensuing low-grade depression. That's called "cheating with statistics".
And even stock market optimists (like Jeremy Siegel) feel that returns over the next few decades will be around 5%, as the long hang-over of the Bush crash persists, and the relative decline of consumer purchasing power continues.
With a more realistic return of 5%, the time to accumulate a million is 30 years.
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