If you want to be a hundred-thousandaire, take the highest paying programming job in SV or on Wall Street. 100% success rate.
Except that doesn't work, because your living costs go up massively, and you also spend a huge chunk of it on taxes... see the beginning of http://swombat.com/2013/7/24/embrace-desire-money for some thoughts on this.
It's definitely possible within a couple years (I've done it). Just live a very frugal life (have some roommates) and you can easily sock away several hundred thousand dollars.
In most companies, if you're a programmer you'll also be working with people who make a lot less money than you. If they're managing to survive in the area, just live like them and you can save lots of money.
I don't know how easy it is to minimise taxes by being a contractor in the US but assuming you can do so, gross circa $300k/year on Wall Street, and live frugally (including apartment not in Manhattan, or even NYC), you should definitely be able to save at least $100k in a couple years. Granted you're temporarily reducing your quality of life, but arguably you're doing that with a startup anyway. The point is I think it's possible, not that I think it's something I would want to do myself.
To have a starting salary of 300k/year is very difficult. But if you are a star you can perhaps get to that after a couple of years. But it is pretty much impossible to get to that point if you do not live close to your job. There are people that make that much and more that live in the suburbs but they are usually the ones that have a lot of experience and seniority. If you are young and want to make that much money you have to be in the office all the time you have to have a flexible schedule, which means you have to live in the area.
You do not need to be in the office 24/7 to make $300K/year. You do have to deliver significant business value to your employer. Usually that is more easily accomplished by working steadily but leisurely, keeping a careful eye out for what problems really need to be solved that nobody else is working on, and then solving them quickly and efficiently.
> You'll have a hard time moving up the ladder on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley if you live in a low-COL area. You have to signal confidence to be groomed for promotions, and that requires buying a house in an expensive place (Brooklyn Heights is OK in most circles) and sending your kids to brand-name private schools.
That's true, but that's also only if you really want to be moving up a lot in finance. Elsewhere, you can make $150-200k as a developer without anyone caring where you live. Just live off $75k and save the rest—soon enough you'll have a couple hundred thousand dollars in savings.
Silicon Valley doesn't give a shit what sort of house you live in or where you send your kids to school. The way to signal confidence in Silicon Valley tech circles is to always know your stuff when it comes to technology, to have a solid track record of delivering software that people use, and to be ready to walk if a better opportunity comes along.
It's still easily possible. If you save a mere $10k/year for 20 years and get a return on your investments that beats inflation by 5%, you'll end up with $350k in today's dollars.
I save between 2k and 3k every month in SF, after tax and rent and food and utilities and going out with friends and treating myself a bit more than I should. I live in Oakland (cheaper), but my pay is slightly below industry average (and my BART costs as a result are ~200$ a month, and I eat out for lunch every day - that's easily $300 or so a month). I don't think I'd be able to do that on a $60k salary, no matter where in the US.
The reality is that most engineers spend way too much money and call it "the cost of living in SF". Sorry, living in a swanky apartment in SoMa, eating out every night, pre-ordering hipster shit on kickstarter, taking Uber all the time and going to Tahoe on the weekends is not "the cost of living in SF". You can save money in SF very nicely if that's a goal of yours. If you prefer living a more hip lifestyle, that's fine- but don't say that it's "the cost of living in SF".
Of course it works. I can and have lived in SV on a monthly budget of about $2000. That can be squeezed to $1500 in a pinch. Even in a year where I was severely underpaid, I saved $20,000. I came out of another year of voluntary mostly-unemployment down only a few thousand.
This doesn't work if you've got a family, but it's not that hard for a single person.
Except that doesn't work, because your living costs go up massively, and you also spend a huge chunk of it on taxes... see the beginning of http://swombat.com/2013/7/24/embrace-desire-money for some thoughts on this.