Hey all, earning-to-give is one of my intended ways of contributing to EA. Working in tech myself, I wanted to see what kind of impact a tech worker could make if they focused only on earning-to-give over a 20-year career.
For this model, I'm using salary data from levels.fyi for a hypothetical SWE working at a top tech company (eg FB, Microsoft, Google).
First, I wanted to get a sense of what the salary progression for such an individual would look like.
According to Candor, it takes 6-9 years to become a senior SWE (L5) at Google. I decided to be conservative and estimated it would take 10 years for an average engineer at a top tech company to become a senior SWE.
Then, I took the average salary of 5 different companies for entry-level SWEs and senior SWEs (of comparable level).
| Entry-level SWE (Year 1) | Senior SWE (Year 10) | |
|---|---|---|
| FB | $184,311 | $386,970 |
| $190,443 | $358,417 | |
| Salesforce | $174,913 | $289,148 |
| Microsoft | $159,124 | $250,462 |
| Amazon | $168,124 | $342,335 |
| Average | $175,383 | $325,466 |
Using the averages, to go from an $175k to $325k in 10 years, I calculated that an engineer's TC would be growing at about 7.2% per year. I then used the calculator from Peter Singer's The Life You Can Save Pledge to calculate how much an engineer would have to donate each year for the first 10 years.
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | Year 6 | Year 7 | Year 8 | Year 9 | Year 10 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gross Salary | $175,383 | $188,011 | $201,547 | $216,059 | $231,615 | $248,291 | $266,168 | $285,332 | $305,876 | $327,899 |
| Recommended Gift | $7,298 | $8,561 | $9,915 | $11,366 | $12,921 | $14,589 | $16,377 | $18,293 | $20,348 | $22,945 |
| Percentage of Salary | 4.2% | 4.6% | 4.9% | 5.3% | 5.6% | 5.9% | 6.2% | 6.4% | 6.7% | 7.0% |
From what I understand, going from L5 to L6 is a significant jump, and requires taking on a lot of responsibility that some people would prefer to avoid. Therefore, I decided to just keep the income level at the Senior SWE level for the remaining 10 years of the hypothetical SWE's career.
| Year 11 | Year 12 | Year 13 | Year 14 | Year 15 | Year 16 | Year 17 | Year 18 | Year 19 | Year 20 | Totals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $327,899 | $327,899 | $327,899 | $327,899 | $327,899 | $327,899 | $327,899 | $327,899 | $327,899 | $327,899 | $5,725,176 |
| $22,945 | $22,945 | $22,945 | $22,945 | $22,945 | $22,945 | $22,945 | $22,945 | $22,945 | $22,945 | $372,063 |
| 7.0% | 7.0% | 7.0% | 7.0% | 7.0% | 7.0% | 7.0% | 7.0% | 7.0% | 7.0% | 6.5% |
Here's a visualization of income / donations over time
At the end of their career, the SWE would end up donating $372,063, or about 6.5% of their $5.7m in career gross earnings.
Pretty neat! This also doesn't factor in that many top companies offer donation match programs ($5k-$10k per year), which would add on another $100-200k if one happens to work at those companies.
This suggests that if you introduce a friend in tech to EA and they choose to contribute based on The Life You Can Save's model, you're bringing in another $300-500k+ into EA by proxy. Pretty exciting stuff!
