INTRODUCTION

Hi, I am starting a series of blog posts about finances from a software engineer's view point.

This is also going to assume that the software engineer is at the age of 35, have nothing saved up, and have no equity in real estate. I want to cover the average software engineer and where they should be in life at different ages, starting at ground zero at the age of 35.

A typical software engineer starts their career earlier, and so I'm going to make a couple of assumptions: - Standard debt @35 and will have debt cleared by the age of 40-42. - Average software engineer salary is 70K - Employer doesn't give a 401k match

I believe this will bring us into a realistic situation, and what to expect for a software engineer in their mid 30s. Also, the said software engineer is not able to max out their 401k, or buy any property until they reach the age of 40. Let's assume the software engineer has an anticipated retirement "phasing" date of 67; whereby, the software engineer will start to do part-time work until they reach 72.

In any event, here's a table depicting what we think the 401k contributions will look like: This assumes no raises, no promotions, no employer 401k match, and just a steady 401k increase over the years. By age 50, it will start to max out the 401k @22K (or 32% of 70K).

Age | 401k Percentage| Total
35 5% $3500
36 5% $7000
37 5% $10,500
38 5% $14,000
39 5% $17,500
40 10% $24,500
45 15% $63,000
48 20% $99,000
50 32% $135,000
60 32% $355,000
67 32% $509,000