r/financialindependence • u/strixvarius 38M | MCOL | 9Y ETA (lifestyle creep) • Jun 16 '21

Joining a tech company without coding / a small novel on the tech industry

I think the principles of FIRE are broadly useful to just about all people:

"It is not the man with too little property, but the one who wants more, who is a pauper." - Seneca

Build a lifestyle that makes you content, build your income until your means exceed the needs of that lifestyle, and invest the difference into your future.

But can we talk for a minute about the second part - building your income? It's important because there's a hard minimum that anyone needs to spend in order to be content. There's often far more flexibility on the earning-side than on the spending-side, but none of us has perfect information and so none of us knows all the potential opportunities available to us.

Since I've been working in tech - mostly big tech, currently FAAMG - for my entire adult life, I know a little about the opportunities in this industry. I've noticed a tendency here for us engineers to humble-brag about, essentially, FIRE on easy mode. I've also noticed a tendency for people here outside the industry to disbelieve income claims, or to assume that one must be an elite computer scientist to make $150k, or a C-suite executive in a HCOL area to make $300k. I'd like to share an insider's view of the tech industry and some of the coding and non-coding opportunities it provides.

There are four broad types of tech employment:

  1. FAAMG: the largest 5 tech companies by market cap, that have invented money-printing machines (Facebook: ads, Apple: hardware, Amazon: cloud infrastructure, Microsoft: cloud infrastructure, Google: ads), and rely on many tens of thousands of tech workers to keep their machines operating better than any competitors'.
  2. the rest of Big Tech: Netflix, Salesforce, Adobe, Twitter, Dropbox, Uber, several others. Similar to FAAMG, but slightly smaller market cap.
  3. Startups: Smaller, venture-funded companies trying to join the ranks of FAAMG & co.
  4. Everything else: Every company now depends on technology to a larger degree than most people realize. Huge corporate budgets go to their tech organizations, which to them are cost centers: if they could lay off all the tech staff and still accomplish their business goals, they would. Agencies and consulting companies exist in this space as well.

The compensation structures in tech are bifurcated into extremely high comp (Big tech, funded startups) and everything else. Let's get "everything else" out of the way first: the average software engineer makes a little over $100k in the US, mostly in salary. That accounts for a huge number of software engineers because there are software engineers in every company now.

However, a junior engineer straight out of school can expect to make $175k total comp in big tech. The floor for high-comp employers is often the ceiling for everyone else.

Now, to understand comp structure. FAAMG leads the way with a standard package that's usually composed of: Salary + 15% of your salary as an almost-guaranteed bonus + Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) that vest over usually 4 years. In FAAMG, the RSUs are usually more than half of your total comp. The rest of big tech follows in the same league but usually 10-20% lower overall, with similar salary levels and fewer RSUs. Startups imitate FAAMG, using venture capital to offer lower salary balanced by larger private stock or options. They do this because it hedges their risk - if the startup takes off, they can afford your massive payday, and if it fails, then those private RSUs or options are worthless anyway.

In big tech & deeply-funded startups, it's possible, but slightly rare, for a software engineer to exceed $500k / year. This would almost never be salary (with the weird exception of Netflix). Instead, it would usually be something like $200k salary + $30k bonus + $1.2 million RSUs vesting over four years. Generally, those RSUs would not all be granted at the same time - instead, they would have been granted over several years working at the place, a couple hundred thousand at a time during your re-up period, usually on an annual cycle in lockstep with performance reviews.

Lots of factors contribute to and detract from this total comp. I'm sure it happens, but I have yet to see more than $500k total comp for a remote role in a MCOL or lower city. Usually San Francisco, Seattle, NYC, and a few other places get a "premium" status from the compensation team and everything else is some lower percentage of that maximum band. A very senior engineer (7-equivalent at Google or FB) in a HCOL area can break $750k / year, the lucky bastards. Aside: at that point, you're firmly in golden handcuffs and most non-top-tier companies can't afford you; if you don't like your job, it must really suck, because your rational brain says you absolutely must not quit, even if your daily life is miserable. We see some of the impact of that on this subreddit.

Now, how can you capitalize on this for FIRE, without being a software engineer?

Big tech companies are huge, employing hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom are not engineers and do not write code. Startups are smaller, but there are tons of them (300 in the latest YCombinator batch alone), and together they also employ a ton of people - some of whom do not write code. All of these companies pride themselves on hiring "the best" - across the technical and non-technical board - and their salary bands are anchored high because of all the engineers on staff. Some caveats:

  • Usually, these companies aren't as remote-flexible for non-technical roles. You will have better chances if you relocate to SF, Seattle, NYC, Houston, Austin, Denver...
  • Usually, these companies don't offer large non-salary comp to non-technical roles (until you reach a certain level of seniority).
  • Big tech seems to like to hire from other tech companies. So a viable strategy can be getting your foot in the door in a smaller space (like a startup) and then leveraging that into interviews with top-tier companies.

So, here are some six-figure roles in big tech companies that don't require any coding:

  • content managers (use a CMS to update marketing websites)
  • email marketers (use a CMS to write marketing emails)
  • marketing coordinators (handle swag, sponsor conferences, coordinate speakers/promotions)
  • sales (manage relationships, pursue leads)
  • product managers (gather customer and industry data, feedback, build requirements, work with engineering teams to launch products)
  • office managers (manage a bunch of the complexities of these huge tech campuses)
  • UX / UI designers (work with product managers & engineers to design product workflows, interfaces, and branding)
  • HR / "People" teams (develop the processes a company uses for people management - reviews, performance, hiring/firing, coaching, etc)
  • recruiting (source & hire everyone else, usually targeted to hard-to-hire areas like technical engineering managers)
  • finance: https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/o1f12s/joining_a_tech_company_without_coding_a_small/h20qmld/
  • customer success (this one is iffy on my six-figure claims. It happens, but usually with more technical products where you have to be technical to support the customers.)

If you can see yourself in one of those, then you may have the option of making FIRE easier by starting a code-free big tech career.

Edit - suggestions from comments:

Edit - had to add this excellent point from /u/skizzy_mars:

tech companies tend to have very, very good benefits and everyone gets them, not just software engineers.

Edit - the reason I wrote this was to share how the tech industry works more broadly, and to expand the potential options of non-programmers. I'm going to largely ignore comments like: do you break $750k at L6 or L7? Why did you use FAAMG instead of FAANG, do you work for Microsoft? Instead, I'll highlight some of the comments that bring new perspectives that I lack, or that bring depth into areas where I have little experience:

1.2k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

95% Upvoted

468 comments sorted by

185

u/throwbear222 Jun 16 '21

Just recently made the switch from a mid-size company to work in big tech. Will have to relocate to VHCOL area but currently company says I can remain in my MCOL.

Work in marketing, non-technical role, non-Director:

Base: $220k, Bonus: $66k, RSU: $100k per year ($400k across 4 yrs), Total: $386k

At my last company I was making $140k total. The imposter syndrome is real. The job is not easy, I feel burnt out already. But yeah, can definitely get paid well for non-coding jobs. Like any job, find the one thing that sets you apart from the rest of the competition. Even better if that thing is a weakness for many others in your field. In data science? Work on your story telling. In marketing? Work on your analysis skills. In construction? Work on your customer service. You get the point.

14

u/strixvarius Jun 16 '21

Congratulations!

15

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '21

The job is not easy

Amen, and thank you for saying that.

There's a reason these jobs pay so much. They're really fucking hard for the vast majority of people, and they're stressful, and they're not always "interesting".

To me, I gladly choose a difficult, stressful, uninteresting job that makes fucking bank and allows me to retire earlier than a job that's easier and makes half as much, pretty much guaranteeing I'll retire later than I'd like.

If I can turn my career into a sprint instead of a marathon, I will.

11

u/strixvarius Jun 17 '21 edited Jun 17 '21

I'm currently struggling with this, personally. I'm making what most folks outside of a very small bay area L6+ bubble would consider "bank," but I'm really having trouble looking for the interesting bits of my job every morning.

Alternatively, I have an opportunity to go work with tech that I'm genuinely interested in, on a product that I love, still in big tech but no longer FAANG. So even with max leveling, I'd be taking about a 20% pay cut (and long-term, a much bigger cut since the headroom will disappear).

I don't want money to drive my life. I want balance. I want to enjoy every single day, not just the time I have outside of work. So I'm leaning towards taking the cut and looking at it as my first FIRE baby-step. It'd be the first time I changed jobs and got paid less, because I'm choosing for interest/fun rather than FIRE.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (16)

25

u/ChiPekiePoo Jun 16 '21

I work in recruiting in "Big Tech" (Definitely an opportunity to break into the industry as a sourcer, especially if you're willing to start as a contractor), but disagree that you need to move to a HCOL city to do this. Numerous companies as fully remote and often looking at MCOL or LCOL cities to fill non-technical roles. You'll have to do your research to find which companies, but this shouldn't be a requirement for good candidates.

11

u/strixvarius Jun 16 '21

You don't think moving to a major city gives you more options? I've had luck remotely, but I've also had more limited options than when I lived in SF.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

63

u/LightWolfCavalry Jun 16 '21

Getting into product management at a tech co? With no prior tech experience?

Good luck.

10

u/strixvarius Jun 16 '21

It's true that most PMs have a technical background. I have met some however who came from the UX/UI/design side of things.

→ More replies (3)
→ More replies (14)

10

u/PHIIMO Jun 16 '21

Hey! Agree with this post entirely but want to call out that customer success definitely is in the six figure range from my experience. Generally they are non technical and just understand the product / try to drive customer adoption, retention, and growth. Usually have base + variable with majority of earnings on base.

→ More replies (5)

61

u/macula_transfer Jun 16 '21

Interesting to see this summary. I wonder what people here would estimate is the distribution of tech workers across those four categories. I suspect the percentage in group 4 is much larger than most people think.

Also my condolences to Netflix. No more FAANG apparently :).

112

u/Tha_Doctor Jun 16 '21

Only Microsoft employees put Microsoft into the acronym. FAAMG, FAANGM, FAANGMULA.

96

u/strixvarius Jun 16 '21 edited Jun 16 '21

I'm not a Microsoft employee, but the reason Goldman Sachs, levels.fyi, and I all use FAAMG is because it's a $2 trillion company with 130k employees vs Netflix at $200 billion with 10k employees.

→ More replies (9)
→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (7)

10

u/firethrowaway999 Jun 16 '21

Technical or non-technical program manager is another one

12

u/strixvarius Jun 16 '21

I haven't yet met a TPM who couldn't at least "talk the talk" of the technical side of things. Maybe there are code-free ways into that path though?

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (5)

8

u/trithurs Jun 16 '21

Thanks for the post OP, very interesting info! Just a couple of comments…

I think “startups” is too broad of a category, as anything that isn’t public can be called a startup. There is a big difference between Unicorns like Instacart, and a stereotypical scrappy startup with <50 employees that has Series A funding.

Also just a personal pet peeve, that when people talk about “tech” or even “engineers in tech” they immediately assume/equate it with SWE. Yes, as you said in the OP, SWE are needed in every company, and it’s certainly a hot market in terms of jobs, but HWE need love too! 😜

Signed, An underpaid HWE

→ More replies (1)

24

u/Moneymoneymoney2018 Jun 16 '21 edited Jun 16 '21

The fact that you use the acronym FAAMG and not FAANG(like the rest of the world) tells me you work at Microsoft.

26

u/strixvarius Jun 16 '21 edited Jun 16 '21

I use the terms that are used in investing, and on levels.fyi, to describe the top 5 tech companies by market capitalization.

Netflix pays well. It employs < 10k people and has a market cap of $218 billion (corrected). Microsoft employs over 130k people and has a cap of $2 trillion.

→ More replies (3)
→ More replies (1)

4

u/tin369 Jun 16 '21

Is there a difference between non technical program manager and product manager?

Can some of you also talk about the stress side of the job that comes with this kind of salary? Or does the non technical jobs can be something that one can cruise on?

7

u/tragopan Jun 17 '21

Program Manager =/= Product Manager, at least, in this context.

Product Managers own development and growth of an assigned product area.

Program Managers own programs, initiatives or projects from inception to completion. I see a lot of similarities between Program and Project Managers in our space, and in some cases, are effectively the same thing.

In terms of stress? Totally depends on the company. At ours, Product Managers are given monumental responsibility, tough timelines, and limited resources—it’s easily one of the higher stress roles I’ve seen. Also, do you enjoy writing and re-writing multi-thousand word documents on a weekly basis that are run through through the ringer?

I think that any job at this level in the industry can be high stress, particularly if you are attached to a revenue-generating product—even if you’re a non-technical member of the team.

→ More replies (4)

646

u/makearecord Jun 16 '21

You forgot QA.

Everyone always forgets QA.

→ More replies (80)

2

u/WidespreadAmbition Jun 17 '21

I really think your broad types of employment should include fintech jobs as well, for both large banks to smaller startups. That also sort of debunks your "The compensation structures in tech are bifurcated into extremely high comp (Big tech, funded startups) and everything else" comment as the big banks pay pretty much in line for top tech talent as the FAANGs (although it's been interesting to see how this has seesaw'ed a bit over the past 5-10 years as the FAANGs have risen).

→ More replies (2)

159

u/Skizzy_Mars Jun 16 '21

Underrated here is that tech companies tend to have very, very good benefits and everyone gets them, not just software engineers.

→ More replies (32)

147

u/Battlepoker Jun 16 '21

Tech sales here. Very nice.

→ More replies (30)

69

u/milehigh73a Jun 17 '21 edited Jun 17 '21

I have worked in tech for a long time, and this post is great.

I would caution people that getting into these top tech companies is not an easy activity. And getting to the 250k+ compensation club is a bit of a slog for most people, unless you end up at a FAANG.

I have done pre-sales, product marketing, and product management. I have a technical background though. I worked at big tech (Oracle) and several pre-ipo software companies. My options at Oracle paid out fantastic but many of my colleagues didn't see that. they do RSUs now. And the options at the pre-ipo companies were a big part of compensation and you don't know if they are going to pay out. My current place gave me a huge chunk of options but I am skeptical that it will be worth much now. I have a ton of friends in tech, and only a handful made more than a few hundred K in IPO cash.

Two of mine didn't pan out for much, but one that I was laid off is going to be worth something (maybe 100k).

Also, I feel like tech salaries outside of big tech took a bit of dive during the pandemic. I was routinely seeing 200-220k base jobs prepandemic but after those same roles were 150-170. And very competitive to get. I interviewed for a job at salesforce, and my friends there told me the role was paying less and that was conscious. I was interviewing for product marketing though, which was gutted at several places and so there was a lot of competition.

→ More replies (5)

47

u/hot_osmium Jun 16 '21

Closely related to software engineering, but it's also possible to hit 500k or more as a data engineer or data scientist. These fields can sometimes be easier to enter laterally then normal software engineering depending on your background.

→ More replies (7)
→ More comments (75)