How to reset expectations with a lower paying job

100k being "low paying" - certified HN moment.

That's almost peak career level anywhere outside the US.

First off, what city? 100K in the middle of Iowa goes much farther than a HCOL area like SF or NYC. But, even then, don't do it. 300K to 100K is too big of a swing. Depending on your lifestyle, it will also be the difference between retiring early or later in life. The non-profit world isn't a utopia and will come with all the same baggage as regular, for-profit companies.

If you still decide to go through with it, I would try to negotiate that 100K up as much as possible. Get the whole notion of non-profit out of your head, they are still competing for your time/expertise and should pay according to the market. Have a look at their public tax disclosures and see what the top brass is claiming as income. If you do a little digging, you will find many non-profits that have board members/c-suites/VPs/etc making quite large salaries while they pay peanuts to the grunt workers.

Jump ship. Happiness > Money any day. You always have the opportunity to make more later on in life.

When you see your money start to drain it’ll be a lot easier to start cutting the fat out of your lifestyle.

A side anecdote

I never broke $100K but I was close last corp I worked at.

I was working a side job that became my main thing. They agreed to pay my base bills per month eg. $3K/mo and we would try to get this company off the ground. I'm a 10% partner at least but it's 10% of $0. Anyway so far we have not gotten traction so it's interesting I'm developing another version of our app.

But I came out of my job at 59% loss in pay and in debt from crypto tanking... So I'm concerned there but I'm single. Could just get a job (I'm sad I turned down Amazon Prime Air recruiter even though I probably would not have been qualified).

But I wanted to say the break from a 9-5 that I had been doing for years has been great. I've been working projects more/getting blogs/videos out. I've been enjoying it other than the debt that's building up since I don't make more to pay it down. Eventually something will have to happen. I'm a co-inventor though that's cool I guess.

My end goal is to FIRE but I'm far from it right eg. ~-$50K net worth (mostly student loans). I will say my negative worth is not entirely me I have donated $40K+ to my own blood families (in a third world country) so far and donate to food shelters and what not not a virtue signal I'm just stupid.

Why not just switch teams at your current job? Its common for different organizations to be completely different working experiences.

Also, I would say dont let your momentary distress trick you into a long term financial decision...

You can either

(1) stay at a job you don't like

(2) take a 67% pay cut

(3) find a different job that pays as well or better than the current one

Pick option 3.

I'm a non profit guy and love it. I don't get so worked up about the mission, I've been doing this sort of thing in various roles for years and am pretty jaded, but the work is magnificent.

I'm a pretty junior, inexperienced dev, having retrained a few years back, but I get to play with all the things. Stuff I wouldn't be let near at a large Corp. I find my work very diverse, engaging, and as the go to guy for most things technology, I get a tonne of respect.

I guess it depends where you live and what your commitments are, but a six figure salary is still huge for most people.

If you can cope with the pay cut, why not take the plunge? Worst case scenario, it doesn't pan out: you've still got a FAANG on your CV, and it's a completely acceptable narrative when looking somewhere big again to say you wanted to do something meaningful for a while.

I did a similar thing. I burned out hard at Peloton and left back in November to join a hybrid private/state/federal entity. I get paid 30K less but I do make up for it with MUCH better work life balance.

I'd say look inside and see how this new job might be better aligned with your core values? I got tired of the rat race (always chasing higher comp, bonus, etc) and sick of the scrappy work attitude of startups and wanted to find a place that will let me focus on ME and not on the company. That usually makes me feel better. You can always join another higher paying job (including FAANG down the road).

Let me know if you'd like to chat. At the very least I can just be an ear for you to voice out your thoughts out loud.

Cheers.

Taking a large pay reduction also means that you will drop tax bracket(s), which slightly improves your take home pay. You really need to take stock of your spending. If you don't have much by way of savings, then it would indicate that you are spending most of what you earn. So how are you going to live on less than half the income? You should draw up a realistic budget ahead of time. Once you make the jump, it might be difficult to get back to your earlier higher income.

Has your lifestyle actually expanded to consume 300k/year? If so, what is your lifestyle like?

Maybe you could work 1 more year, living off of 50k post taxes (which is already considerably more than most in the US make post-tax) and save the difference. Then, you can quit being confident that you can control your spending enough to take a job with merely good as opposed to extravagant compensation!

I’d be wary of non profits if you’re the kind of person that wants to get too involved and will pull their hair if they don’t like how much of donations gets spent in fundraising.

There are good nonprofits out there, but in my experience and my close friends’, it can be a shit show of spinning wheels and never getting anywhere.

The biggest concern that I would have about the pay cut is the possibility in decreasing the caliber of team you'll be working with.

If you're experienced and taking this cut, what are the expectations of peers, juniors, even managers who aren't taking this paycut consciously.

Keep current job. Get a hobby and friends outside of work.

You'll benefit from dropping any notion of having expectations at all. Expectations usually lead to being disappointed.