I'm AZ - Married With Kids, Looking to Escape The Golden Handcuffs!

[A Z]

Hello All!

I've read unscripted and now I'm going to be rich in 1 year! Just watch!

Just kidding. You can unroll your eyes now. Just wanted to enter with a little joke.

I wanted to introduce myself and get some advice(is that allowed on the intro threads? if not just direct me to the correct place).

A Little About Me
I am 27, married with a 2-year-old with a six-figure job as a software engineer living in the Atlanta area suburbs. Prior to that I grew up as a poor black kid with no parents and had a homeless stint in my teens, and spent most of my 20's truck driving. So you could say I am a success story, but if you ask me I'd deny that because I feel that I am capable of much more before calling myself successful.


A Quick Rundown of My Career Track
As a software engineer I REALLY love my job, and my career projection is favorable. I have only been a software engineer(frontend developer for those interested) for 1.5 years) and I am quite good at it. I started out at 80k but have been promoted twice at my current job now I make 120k and yes, I work from home . I even have recruiters reaching out to me from FAANG companies (Google, Facebook and Apple specifically) and should I do well in those interviews my new salary would more than double and I would be earning around 250k. The time frame for this to happen is within the next 6 months as I have to prepare for these interviews as FANG interviews are notoriously difficult.

After I get into a fang company lets say Google for example as a L4 engineer starting at 250k, its reasonable to expect that within 3 years I would have been promoted to L5 which pays around 350k, and within 2-3 years after that its reasonable to expect a promotion to L6 which pays 500k (you can find the salary info here: Levels.fyi | Salaries & Tools to Level Up Your Career).

My Problem
Even though I love my job and my career track will put me in the top 5% of earners as far as income goes, I do not think my career will last as long because being 40 in big tech is a challenge in a field where ageism is a thing, and I could see myself getting booted around then haha. I need to find a way to create some passive income to replace my fang salary, while still being able to work at my job long term.

Is there anyone who has had a similar problem here in the past? What's the best mindset to have while I am going through my career and independence journey?

Some Things I Have Thought About So Far
So far the best thing I could come up with is investing in multifamily real estate as it seems low patience and something that I could do in a few hours a week (once I have the systems and property management in place). I could realistically see myself acquiring 1m+ multifamily properties every couple of years because of how fast I could save large sums of money for the 20% down payment for each property. I could then live off the cash flow (targeting cap rates of 7-10%).

I like the idea of e-commerce as well, because as my best estimate e-commerce seems to be a field of trial and error, but once you have a winning product, you seem to be set. I'd have enough disposable income to spend around 5-10k a pop testing a product idea until I hit on one.

I do not want to start my own tech company as tech start-ups are too much work and I'd have to quit my job more than likely. However, I'd be open to building some small SaaS products that I could build in a few months as a side project that brings in a few thousand per month each, but I haven't the slightest idea where to begin finding a SaaS product idea that people want, and marketing it.

I also like the idea of acquiring local profitable businesses like car wash's etc (not franchising) but I feel like that kind of falls under the real estate category.

I'm not really interested in manual work like web design or running an agency either. Yes, I know clients can pay upwards of 10k each but I feel like it's just another job at the end of the day and I don't want to manage employees long term either.

What are some other things I should look into as having the potential to create enough income to replace my fang salary, while still being able to work at my job? Preferably something where I can leverage my personal advantages in capital and tech talents.

Or do I even need to do anything extra besides the FIRE strategy that my peers seem to be betting on? It seems nice, but is it a safe and reliable strategy like trying to go fastlane?

Thanks for taking the time to answer me and read my post!

Looking forward to hearing your responses!

 

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[Zealander]

O xuamf efwoti zua vu gostv dupdipvsevi up zuas desiis epf hiv opvu geph. Zua esi tezoph moli ov ot tadj ep ietz vjoph vu uf. Updi zua hiv vjev 250l temesz vjip O xuamf katv opwitv opvu opfiy gapft, siem itvevi.
Zua tjuamf siemmz eqqsidoevi jux madlz zua esi. Et e gsupvipf fiw op iasuqi zua xuamf ci madlz vu hiv 40l iasu xovj 1.5 ziest ug iyqisoipdi (op nutv qmedit, nohjv madl uav opvu tuni vuq vois dunqepz epf iesp e cov nusi cav zua hiv vji ofie) + sinincis 40% vey sevit epf wev up iwiszvjoph . Xju lpuxt jux muph vjot humf satj huoph vu metv? Jux muph dep at vidj dunqepuit tvez dunqivovowi eheoptv etoep/iasuqiep dunqepoit vjev qez 2y - 3y mitt?
Nz efwodi xuamf ci vu hiv opvu geph et tuup et quttocmi epf sofi vji vidj vseop et muph et zua dep.