This is where I'm at. Same job for 4 years, top performer, only got about 3% in raises since, so around \~91k. Just accepted a new job this week,, less work, no on-call duties, making 105k with quarterly bonuses.
How did your old company react? Everyone (including me) is bailing from the sinking ship I'm on and management is absolutely panicking. Trying to make offers after people have submitted resignation notice etc.
They were fairly upset and seemed panicked as well, but understanding. I'm still in the 2 week notice period and my last day is next Friday.
They tried to counter with 110k, but we do shitty on-call every 5 weeks for a week, so the extra 5k (and no bonuses) just wasn't worth sticking around in something I was burnt out on and trying to escape anyways. Funny how they just now magically have money for raises but not when I was finishing tough projects/tickets.
If a company magically comes up with the money they think it would take to keep me, that's an even bigger sign that I should leave. If they were willing to pay me that the whole time, why didn't they?
I'm coming up on 10 yrs at my current job. It's gov't and union so it's a pretty safe job in terms of being not being laid off. But it's lead to complacency I'm afraid. This is the type of place where regularly we'll see people retiring with 30, 35 yrs at the organization. I've also got imposter syndrome bad and I'm afraid if I put my neck out there to try to get a different job I'll just be exposed as a fraud who doesn't actually know anything despite 7 yrs in the current position (first 3 years I wasn't doing Security work).
I mean, that makes sense. I'm not paying a chemical engineer 120k to mow my lawn.
I got hired once full-time by a company that realistically only needed about 1000 hours of work from me a year. It was great for me, but there has to have been a better solution on their end somewhere. The thing was, I apparently replaced two employees so I have absolutely no idea what they were doing.
There is something to be said about stability though.
I’m at a point where after this next hop, I could probably coast at a company for 10+ years and not be bothered by the minimal raises simply because I’ve hit that point where I make enough to be very comfortable. But that required a few job hops in the first 10 years
I worked in field bio and non-profit for nearly a decade, would make somewhere between $20k-$30k a year (no rent, but my student loans ate it up). Made $39k a year in a HCOL city in 2020 WITH rent so that was miserable. Left non-profit and tripled my income within 2.5 years, but it's eating at me in other ways now.
Just adding the requisite depends. I work in nonprofit fundraising and went from 35k to 135k in 8 years (this is before I started my own shop). Nonprofits are desperate for good fundraisers, and it’s a skill you can learn. Almost every director level fundraiser I know (in and around DC) makes over 100k.
Pretty easy, just keep failing upwards.
I am a chef - and until i started my own i thought i was a fuckup - turns out, nah - i just like simplicity and no yelling.
Tremendous what that can do.
Omg I’m very even-keeled and don’t sweat the small stuff so all these aggro kitchens with yelling chefs I’ve just been assuming I must not know what it takes bc all the best in the world with tv shows do it this way. Worked at a successful restaurant in my college years and don’t remember any yelling.
7 years in a Union machine shop. Right now I make $47.49 an hour which is “only” $98,779 a year (40 hours a week 52 weeks a year) but in July I’m getting a raise that’ll put me at $50.34 an hour and $104,707 a year, without overtime. If I actually worked OT I could probably hit $175 easily.
Union jobs can get you a pretty sweet deal if it's a good union. Besides the pay the benefits packages are usually excellent. The only downside is it can turn into golden handcuffs if you don't really like the job.
Government unions are a bit better with that, since your benefits and pension usually go with you if you move jobs within the government.
Don’t leave. Had a “golden handcuffs” job I’d say, and my mental health got so bad I resigned in December. And since then I’ve been looking for a job and the only thing I can find similar to the same type of work is graveyard shift, with lower wages. As well as the endless amount of submitted resumes, registering for the company website just to fill out the same exact information over and over and over again, with an email thanking you for the application, never hearing back from them, then getting a denial email. Everyday is the same routine of sitting on my laptop even applying to places I’ll probably never even get a job at or work at just to try and land something. I’ve redone my resume a few times, it’s just sad out here. Companies saying they’re hiring to look good but not actually hiring.
Thanks for this perspective. Usually it’s people bragging that they left and landed a sweet gig the following week. The real trick is to always be looking for a better job.
Yep I worked there for 8 years. I had a loved/hate for the union. Graduated college and decided to venture off into the business world. Buddy still drives and is my families UPS driver. Says the same thing but can’t imagine what else he would do at this point. Money is good and not working in an office. Could be worse jobs
that's very much how I am. Union position at a wastewater plant. I'm the lab supervisor, we're large enough we have our own lab. I've been looking for other jobs around but it's always a pay cut, I'd have less time off, and a longer drive to work. I literally can't go anywhere else with getting paid less to do more while having less free time. I might be able to get more pay if I move into a management position, but I'm again incentivised to stay here because I'll be closer and still have all my time off and our managment is going to be retiring in the next 1-5 years anyway.
Usually used in the white collar world. So much money is attached to high-status and prestige positions.. which are usually shitty fake email jobs.
But once you leave that rat race, it’s hard to get back in. And it’s hard to leave $400,000 a year BigLaw or Consulting / Banking
Yeah the Press operators at my job earn similar hourly rates but regularly work 60-80 hour weeks with overtime pay. Impressive how much they're able to bring home, but I prefer a work/life balance.
My friend went to an aerospace trade school kind of program at our local community college ~2ish years and he's making over 100k he says.
He works only nights (5pm start time "till I finish") and a lot of 15 hour shifts so I'd hate his job but he's happy doing it
M.S. in AE here: It's trivial to get over $100k/yr. The issue is the work-life balance. Many companies hiring for that sector allow little to no work-from-home and often have low leave amounts for white collar work (2 weeks or less). On top of that you're often expected to work OT whether you want to or not.
My second job out of University paid roughly $250k under these conditions, but I took a large pay cut for 39 days paid leave (plus holiday on top) and full time work from home. At a certain point the excess money is worth less than the time I could spend enjoying life.
What do these 15 hour shifts work out in terms of $/hr. Doesn’t sound like it’s worth it if the salary is barely over $100k unless there’s an opportunity to advance and get your life back.
How he explains it in his two week pay period he shouldn't be scheduled more than 80 hours and his OT only starts over 80hrs in a pay period not in over 8hrs in a shift
So some weeks he works 5 8 hr shifts and works like 5-1 and some weeks he works 3 crazy shifts and then is off for an extra day or two
But at least the company he works for he claims doesn't have a day crew.
Because that's what I said when he first started I was like "well how long till you work during the day?" And he said no one works during the day
I don't have great figures on his exact wage since he still lives at home and has a second job he's putting like a crazy amount of his aerospace check into his 401k
Or really any “engineering” field where they just don’t care about it. Which is probably 2/3 of them.
Civil’s and EE’s the do distribution side stuff are the only big ones where they care.
Yearly comp isn't the tricky part with engineering. It's managing unpaid overtime to try and keep some semblance of WLB and a good hourly compensation.
This is funny because over in the civil engineering sub all the young engineers are bitching and moaning they don’t make a lot of money and engineers are underpaid.
The degree felt like the easy part when compared with the license lol but yea, requires some forethought. It’s the same amount of schooling as a teacher with easily triple the salary when licensed. Most people don’t want to do the work.
I should’ve done engineering. I chose biochemistry because STEM pays well regardless, right?
For roughly the same amount of effort, I could be making double. I don’t know why, but chemists are like the red-headed stepchild of science.
The trick is to be willing to switch jobs often. A lot of companies don't do much internal promotion - I've switched jobs every ~2 years since college and gotten a $10k+ raise every single time.
Also there’s an old trope that makes it hard to get promoted.
“The company that born ya, will never give you the chance”
They remember having to train you to do the simplest tasks and that becomes a barrier to be promoted.
Sometimes you just get too good at your job for the company to willingly let you leave it. So there is a twisted logic to it.
As a example, when Andy Cowell left the Mercedes F1 group to work on Mercedes road cars. The team needed to hire or promote 4 people to fill all of his knowledge and responsibilities. That's how important he was! There's no way the team would have done that voluntarily.
Yep. It's always satisfying to leave a company and then watch them hire multiple people to replace your position. Especially when you see the job postings and the salaries for each is way higher that what they were paying you.
Or even better when they hire a full consulting firm to help. And all because it was over a title change or an "accidental" missed yearly COL increase. Been there a couple times.
This was me when I left my old org to go solo 1099.
My buddy who still works there said they increased the size of the team by 30% after I bailed. lol
I would've stayed if they just offered me a 25% raise! we both coulda been happy!
Yep, I had one where I had a bad title that didn't define what I did, I just asked my boss if I could have a title change that aligns more with my role. My boss came back and said sure, but title changes also come with more money and told me to think of a title. I gave him a couple options and then nothing happened for a couple months, so I asked about it and then my boss said there was actually no room to promote me, so I told him that I couldn't stay.
When I left, they split my role into two open positions; a dev role and a PM role. The PM role was listed for 50% more than I was making. They hired a consulting firm of 4 people to take the dev role. The PM didn't last long after they hired her.
Companies are just silly in how they operate. Employees are sunk costs, but the budget for new hires is expandable.
> Sometimes you just get too good at your job for the company to willingly let you leave it. So there is a twisted logic to it.
I was hired on as a designer at my current job (ad agency).
Since then, I've also become an animator, a video editor. On top of building my pre-existing design skillset.
It is pretty incredible how much I've learned and how valuable I've become – in contrast to how much my company is willing to fight me on the size of the raise I want.
Jokes on them, I'm interviewing at a bigger corporation this week....not crazy about working for corporate america, but I need to make more money.
Relatedly, I do community theatre on the side. In the town I started, I was only getting ensemble work which was appropriate for the time. As I skilled up though, I was still only *known* for being ensemble and only got cast as such. As soon as I moved away, nothing but lead roles. Perception of skill is all that matters.
Which is crazy to me. When you lose long tenured ppl it really hurts, they know a lot about how things used to work, how things should work, why things changed, why certain things cant change, why certain things happened, it’s so valuable. Companies need to pay to retain their good employees, just as much, if not more, than new hires.
this is the corporate equivalent of refusing to change your cars oil or fix an issue because it costs too much, then buying a whole new car when it breaks.
but since "maintenance" doesnt sound as sexy as "growth and investment" it doesnt get any budget.
This is 100% true. I think it comes down to higher ups not understanding the value of domain knowledge, and therefore not allocating enough budget to give raises for retention.
This ends up biting them in the butt because they end up spending WAY more hiring and training more personnel.
My current company periodically reviews salaries against the industry. My boss set up a meeting with me about six months after the annual performance raise to pass on the news that mine had been reviewed and I was getting an out of cycle raise of a few percent from that.
It's not just that corporate loyalty doesn't exist. It's that corporate stupidity is rampant.
"Do you want to promote someone from within who knows everything about how the company works and already knows everyone? Nah, let's just roll the dice on someone brand new who no one knows and has no idea how we do things here."
The other thing that's crazy about it is why does a business even want a job hopper? Say they're 25% more productive when they're at peak ability, they'll probably spend 3+ months underperforming while they are getting acclimated to the business. If they're there only there for a year or 2, you've now lost any productivity gains you may have gotten from a better worker.
It's always stupid short-term decision-making.
How often do we see the pattern:
1. Deny the talent raises and promotions because there's no money for it
2. Talent gets an offer elsewhere
3. Company desperately tries to match, thus proving there was money for it the whole time, thus validating the decision to leave.
4. Company is in a lurch and out way more than whatever the raise would have amounted to.
This happened to me, kept my raises low and used me to fill every gap for them. Then when I was like, screw this, applied for a job, got it, they scrambled to match. Sorry, no. Their match put me at base at my new job, and even if it didn't, you had years of under paying me and you want me to keep my time/energy with you.
Hard pass.
It was all my fault though, I allowed it for way too long. The devil you know and all that.
I spent nearly 5 years at my first job out of college. They kept giving 1-4% raises to keep up with inflation and even promoted me, but the gap between what I was being paid and what I was worth kept growing (after inflation I'm making 3.5% more than when I started in 2019). Finally got fed up and started applying elsewhere. Just got my first offer and it's 55% higher than what I'm currently being paid. Puts me over the $100k range.
My current company has been dangling carrots in front of me for years saying things like, "We can see you making $120k in the near future if you get this certification..." Well, I got that certification and the one after that. I paid for them myself. They still don't think I'm worth even close to $120k. I learned my lesson about company loyalty the hard way.
I got a lot of those over the years.
“We are setting up a bonus structure” and 3 years later they were still working on it.
“We are setting up an education program” that never materialized.
“We’re promoting you, but there is no wage increase and you’ll have no teeth to discipline, but you’ll be responsible for their fuck-ups”
My manager hit me with "I've been trying to position you for success in the company" when I told him I was applying elsewhere.
Oh yeah? By offering me $600 of stock that won't vest until next year? I'm underpaid by $30k, so thanks...
This! I stayed too long at one job. Finally my friend, who’s a serial job hopper, convinced me to move on. I went from $80k to $90k when I started my new job, then got a bump to $100k a year later at my new job.
Staying at growing companies can certainly be beneficial. The group that started the company will likely be running it in a few years.
If the headcount isn’t moving and the financial folks are delighted with 2% then yeah probably not going to be many easy opportunities.
I agree. My company has been exploding since slightly before I joined 12 years ago. Head count is more than triple and I have seniority over around 90% of the other employees. I still have room to move up and my salary has nearly tripled.
This is really the only situation in which you should “stick it out”. Just by being competent and being one of the first people there you will have far more opportunities than the new people.
I stay at my current job bc my manager is great and my hours are great. I know I could get 10K more somewhere else but I’ve gotten a few 10% raises over 3 years so I think it’s worth to stay.
But when I switched to this job after my first one I got a 20% raise.
It’s about balance. To me the better hours and job security is worth a few thousand.
100% this. I got a 3% raise this year at a company I've been with for almost 7 years. I absolutely realize it's time to jump ship for an instant 20% raise and I just can't make myself do it.
My direct boss is one of those boomers that refuses to retire and thinks the best way to move up in the world is by staying at one company and working your way up over 30 years with piss-poor pay raises. Fuck that noise.
Well, sometimes being consistently employed over a 10 yr arc at a stabile company is better than having to move jobs every 18 months. That can be stressful and you have no idea if you’ll just get laid off 6 months after starting your new job that paid +$10k
This. I’ve been with my company for 17 years. Not only does my company not lay people off, but even if they did I’m not the one getting pushed out. I’ve never had to worry about getting fired a day in my adult life, and that’s been a good feeling considering what’s happened in the world in that time frame.
$5000 in 3 years isn't horrible but you should be good to move on to another company if you have the option! You can probably get another $5-7000 from the switch and maybe they'll give you better raises. Best of luck!
This! I'm closer to 60 than 50. Worked in manufacturing plants for decades, for some huge companies too. I've moved around to different companies. In my younger years I found out many people I worked with had worked for this company before, they left and then came back, for more money. I talked to some of them and they told me you almost had to do that to get better money.
I worked 5 years at a company doing a great job with very little increase so I left. They didn't want me to, said they wanted me to become the operations manager. I left for more money.
51 weeks later, I came back to work for them, they called me and wanted me to return. My salary was $13K higher and with my bonus I was going to make about $18K more than I had during my last year there.
In time Ieft them again and 3 years later they called me back so I went back to work for them a 3rd time.
My best was working for a large ALCOA plant that had 750 employees. I was the production control manager and the plants master scheduler.I worked there a few years. I left the company to follow our old plant manager to another company where he became the VP of Ops.
I was doing the same work in that new company for him. I had a total of 33 people working for me, both direct and indirect reports.
My salary went up 72% by going to that new company as they paid a lot more than my previous company and again it wasn't due to me taking a higher position. I was doing the same work in my new company. I was in middle management but I was shocked to find out my starting salary was going to be 72% higher.
So, like others are saying, many times people really need to switch companies.
There are so many examples of people who have done this and it's worked out great for them in terms of money.
In a corporate role or in some sort of branch management? $60k is very low for a corporate management role. My entry level analyst job at a Fortune 500 paid that. You gotta switch companies.
I’m a dental hygienist.
School fucking sucked. Worst years of my life. To become a RDH is hard, but afterwards it’s mostly easy.
I work 31 hours a week-ish. If I worked 40 hours I’d be over the 100k mark. If I did temp work, I’d make even more. The salary for hygienists vary, but it is usually good.
Edit: I don’t work more hours or do temp work because I’m lazy and value time off work lol. Money is great. But money can’t replace time!
I get made fun of by my co-workers because I hire a company to do my lawnwork for me and have a cleaning company come out once a week and clean my house.
There came a point in time where I learned time is much more valuable than money and $250/month saves me probably 15 hours a month of free time which to me is worth every penny.
As a self-proclaimed “HR bad guy”, what’s in your opinion the reason internal promotion doesn’t happen as often anymore? Seems like the rewards for company loyalty have gone down the shitter in the last few years
As a fellow hr bad guy I can tell you once you join an org and stay within the dept your starting salary has you somewhat locked in at anticipated small increases and raises. Whereas if a new person joins a team or you join a new team you are creating your new starting line where those similar small increases start at. It’s much easier to set a new bar at a brand new environment than to convince someone at your current job you’re worth so much more than they currently have you tabbed at.
My company this year has been very vocal about "internal mobility" over promotions in current job. It is a big company, so they want people to seek other jobs inside as the best means for money or title changes. The message they give is that it helps people build bigger skill sets that help the company as a whole (more knowledgeable employees). I would consider this true to some extent, but I also think there is some desire to push people out who do just want to sit in one spot doing one job with no desire to do more. Personally I think there is a place for people who can do one job very very very well as well as someone who has a lot of knowledge of different jobs. But I see many people who sit in one spot and don't do that one job very well either but still expect rewards.
Yep. I remember $80k being huge. I had a fancy apartment in a big city, ate whatever I want, went out, did expensive drugs etc. Now, i’m just north of 100 living modestly. I’m grateful, but it ain’t what it used to be.
I remember when I was a kid my dad telling me if you make $40k a year you're in a quite comfortable spot in my area.
Now that's essentially straddling poverty
My gut instinct was to question why you were paying so much for rent, then I realized I'm almost paying that much for rent. It's crazy how fast housing costs have increased.
Yeah, I grew up in a rust belt town where that much money was more than my parents’ house cost. So that was a valid perspective, depending on your location. Problem was, it was a poverty area and still is. You could probably still find a house in places like that for $40k, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a lifestyle choice.
It’s not money that makes one upper middle class today (although, depending upon where you live, it could for a single person). But while Reddit makes it seem like $100k is no big deal, less than 20% of the population actually makes that individually. For HCOL areas like NYC, only 23% make six figures individually. In SF, 37% do.
In regards to $200k (which is thrown around Reddit as being quite easy to achieve by late 20s), only 6% make that individually in the NYC area. For SF, 12% do.
Hah yes, it's best not to look at an inflation calculator. On paper my income looks absurd to the 90s kid I still really am deep down, but then I realize that it's equivalent to $73k in 1995 and I am just sad.
In the midwest it was very good. 40k/year with no kids was pretty decent. Guys making 70-80k/year were buying houses and paying them off in like 5-10 years. ( in the 90s )
I always calculate back to the year I graduated high school when I get a raise. My brain solidified my target salary at that time and current wages have no meaning to me.
Yet somehow a few weeks later complains about never having even promoted past junior developer, but your smoozing coworker did!! You were the cool one that told people to stop talking to you if it wasn’t strictly about the one project you were assigned.
Everyone on Reddit is always complaining how hard it is to put food on the table and pay rent but then when a career advice or financial planning post appears all of a sudden everyone is making $250k+
The funniest part about this - every time this joke is made, at least 1 or 2 show up in the replies insisting upon telling everyone that they exist.
I was gonna reply to you saying “just wait… they’ll show up and tell you”… but they’re already here!
(To whom it may concern: Yes, you do exist. But there are not ‘a lot’ of you like often claimed. Your life is just centered in the middle of that very small demographic)
Engineering is a pretty easy route. I just hired a graduate at 85k, with no actual experience.
I spent 10 years in engineering at the same company, going from 50k to 72k. Since 2018, I've changed jobs 3 times. Left 72k, hired at 90k. left at 94k, hired at 97k. Layed off at 105k, hired at 120k. 1 year later, 145k.
Moral of my story, don't stay at jobs with no opportunity for improvement.
At least not for a long time. At the beginning of my career, I was hired at 85k too, and 4 years later I was making 50% more just from naturally climbing engineering levels and raises here & there. But then it stalled out quite a bit after that and became time to find a new job.
If you’re in a good job market, just don’t get too comfy and complacent once the pay increases start to dry up. Don’t wait too long to recognize it.
If you’re in a tougher job market, well things will be harder. Can’t offer much advice there, I was admittedly a bit coddled by being in a good job market for my industry at the time.
Got my CDL and after 6mo of driving, I started training new long-haul drivers. Cleared $116k my first year and hated myself for not doing it 15 years earlier.
Today, I took a $85k/yr job doing similar work locally because being home everyday became more important - had I started younger, I could have rode that gravy train longer, and perhaps increased it even more.
100k was easy, I'm a good software engineer, but I also got lucky.
38k (6months)
45k -> 52k (3 years same company)
80K (switched companies and city)
100k (got lucky, team lead quit right when I joined, 6months)
So I went from 38k -> 100k in 5 years. (This was back in 2000s)
200k is where I keep slamming my head against base salary wise, and have been for like 5 years. It's always the stock and what not that puts you over 200k.
Pretty similar to my trajectory (also a software engineer)
40k -> 50k (4 years at same company)
85k -> 100k (new job for 3 years -- got raise 2 years in)
120k (new job because last company went under 😅)
I consider everything past the 50k mark to have been luck on my part
Same thing happened for me. At one point I got something like a 70% raise but that was cuz I started at 35k. Which for a software developer was probably pretty close to the literal bottom wage that you could make
That initial jump always feels so crazy. I went from making minimum wage to $85k right after college. Man, I felt like a millionaire lol. Fast forward 7 years I’m at $210k base, plus stock and bonus.
I spent $375,000 on education and dedicated every aspect of my life from age 18-34 to my profession. I will die alone with slightly more wealth than if I had not done all this work. So …Should have just married well.
Lawyer seems to be the other possible option given the education cost and soul crushing early years. Accounting could have the soul crushing hours prior to getting seniority but that wouldn't have the school debt.
All in all, I love my life as long as I don’t run the numbers. But watching my brother take monthly vacations because he is wife is loaded does spark some jealousy.
It wasn't hard but had to sacrifice a ton of freedom and sanity in my 20s to make it happen. Constantly travelling. Living out of different motels every week for months on end.... Glad my wife stuck with me through all those years cause it was so serious bullshit. Took a lot of years to get my head back on straight after leaving that line of work.
Sales… took a sales job.
Track 1: work for big tech company as an SDR for 1-2 years making 80k, then become account executive (120-150), then enterprise (2-300+)
Track 2- home improvement sales, really windows- make over 100k first year
1. Pick trade.
2. Start apprenticeship.
3. Turn out and make over 100k.
I chose plumbing. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t easy. Five years of apprenticeship night school while also being an apprentice (doing all the bitch work and then some) while getting married, buying a house, and starting a family. It was a rough five years but coming out of it on the other end, life is pretty good. Even though 100k isn’t what it used to be, I feel lucky to be living relatively comfortably. Once our student loans are paid off life will be much better.
Went to school for software engineering. Took it seriously and found a good job out of college. Stayed with that company for long enough then took higher paying job offers. Now make 150k at 35. Pick a job that's needed and pays well enough to fit your lifestyle. You don't need to love your job, just like it enough to get through the hard days and enjoy your time outside of work.
In a HCOL area, pretty easy. entry level office admin/secretary roles here start at \~80k and break 100k gross after 2-3 annual raises/promotions. This is of course offset by $4000+ rents for 1 bedrooms in the city...
I would like to point out, though, that if you’re funneling money away into retirement (RRSP / 401k), even without company matching a higher salary but same quality of life means there’s more going away for later. It’s all percentage based. 12% of 120K is a heck of a lot more than 12% of 60k when compounding.
The danger is not having emergency funds.
It took me into my 40s and having a full time job, a full pension from 20 years in the Navy, and my wife having a full time job for our household to finally claim just barely over 100,000 on our taxes.
So yeah it's easy. All you need is 3 incomes from only two people.
Yeah I mean he phrased it that way ("claim 100k on my taxes") because the military pays tax free housing and food subsidies that can easily add 30k+/yr to take-home pay. Anybody that does 20 years and makes E-7 is getting 100k+ total comp unless they're in a VLCOL locale.
Very hard. Had to start on the bottom of the totem pole. My first ever job was minimum wage at $7.25/hr back in 2012. In the 12 years between then and now I changed careers twice and have moved around to many different jobs to get raises and promotions.
At each of those jobs I busted my ass to get better for my own sake (so this does NOT mean I was working crazy 70 hour weeks. Would never do those). Instead I’d simply learn more about my career and industry on my own time. Rinse and repeat over the course of about 7 years.
It’s all cumulated into the position I’m in now. I currently make about $3k/week or over $150k/yr.
Not that hard because of location because everything is inflated here.
To put it in perspective, a single person who makes $60K or less qualifies for rental assistance.
Second "real job" out of college, after a few years of screwing around in the bar scene as a bartender and manager. Once I went into IT, spent 3yrs at 70k, next job was 100k, 4 years there took me to 145ish. After that I switched to technical sales and have been doing 200+ for 2 years.
I used my time to build a broad base skill set in IT, then specialized in a pretty niche skill and got really good. Some side consulting work and a board position padded my resume nicely.
Broke 100k in early 30s, and 200k at 40.
My last job was a five year run.
I liked my colleagues, enjoyed a great working relationship with my boss, and had a lovely work life balance.
Unfortunately, the pay was very low ($76k before tax in a very HCOL area), there were no benefits to make up for it (no health or dental, despite repeated requests), and minimal bonuses - never mind annual raises.
I’d been comfortable for a while, but eventually started having to dip into my savings.
I made the case to my boss for a raise — she said it wasn’t in the budget.
I made the case to my boss for health care, or a stipend to offset it — after five years of waiting and being told mañana, she finally told me, “no, we can’t do it”
Okay then. If you can’t, you can’t.
I didn’t have to apply for jobs.
I just quietly put the word out that I was in the market.
A week later, I had completed the second round of interviews for a job paying literally 2x my take home salary.
I got the job, and yes, it has health care.
((The trick: networking like my life and career depended on it, and building up a two-prong skill set — the ability to read tech data, and just as critically: the ability to explain it easily to someone whose grasp of tech includes “smacking the monitor to make it work”))
Just a steady walk up to and over. Some people on Reddit tend to hate this next part, but I found great success at work trying to be good at everything. Including and especially dealing with coworkers. It’s not often discussed, but indirectly, your coworkers and their opinion of you have an influence on your success.
I would call it difficult, but only because you have to do things most people avoid. Here's my approach:
1. **Become indispensable.** Part of this is becoming excellent at what you do in general. The other part is becoming essential to your employer. Both are important.
2. **Get a better offer.** When something about your job is unacceptable (maybe your pay, maybe something else), don't up and quit. Instead, polish off your resume and apply elsewhere until you get a better offer. It's no fun looking for work while you're employed, but you have nothing to lose, and prospective employers know they have to make an enticing offer.
3. **Negotiate.** Inform your current employer that you've received a better offer. They may make a counteroffer, which may include paying you more and/or fixing the things making you unhappy. Even if they don't, though, you can just take the better offer. You win either way.
It's easy to fail at any of these steps. Some people never try to improve their skills or show their worth. Others up and quit, which puts them in a poor negotiating position. And many corporate cultures force feed employees a standard of loyalty that the business itself rarely reflects.
I'm sure there are exceptions, but most companies are not families. If you want $100k+, you have to recognize that you're a mercenary. Become worth that much, then push hard to be compensated for every penny.
Accidently got my first 100k. I got laid off/let go around 60k. So I started applying at competitors. Was a literal bidding war. So weird. One place just wants to get rid of you and then ither places pay almost double. Breaks my brain sometimes.
I started making over $100K in my mid 30s, at which point I'd been in the IT industry since I was 18. I'm 45 now. The answer for my industry is to never stop learning, a good skill set makes it a no brainer for hiring managers. That, plus a good work ethic.
15 years at one company got me up to 96k. Job hop got me to 106k 1 yr got me up to 110k Don't be like me children.
Yup. The comfort I had was my setback. I think in 15 years my top was ~90k. Finally quit that job and got offered 105k for *less* work.
This is where I'm at. Same job for 4 years, top performer, only got about 3% in raises since, so around \~91k. Just accepted a new job this week,, less work, no on-call duties, making 105k with quarterly bonuses.
How did your old company react? Everyone (including me) is bailing from the sinking ship I'm on and management is absolutely panicking. Trying to make offers after people have submitted resignation notice etc.
They were fairly upset and seemed panicked as well, but understanding. I'm still in the 2 week notice period and my last day is next Friday. They tried to counter with 110k, but we do shitty on-call every 5 weeks for a week, so the extra 5k (and no bonuses) just wasn't worth sticking around in something I was burnt out on and trying to escape anyways. Funny how they just now magically have money for raises but not when I was finishing tough projects/tickets.
Great choice. You're also now going to get exposed to an entirely new set of circumstances which will be good for your professional development.
Also, they will often make the bigger offer to keep you until they find a replacement then find some bullshit to fire you on.
If a company magically comes up with the money they think it would take to keep me, that's an even bigger sign that I should leave. If they were willing to pay me that the whole time, why didn't they?
I got my final raise after I had already received an offer. They couldn't do better.
10 years at a company got me up to 63k. Job hop got me to 115k. Don't be like me either.
Similar for me - 14 years got me to 67k. Job hop got me to 145k. Should have made the plunge much sooner.
10 years at one company got me to 55k. Imposter syndrome will suck the life out of you. Don't do that.
I'm coming up on 10 yrs at my current job. It's gov't and union so it's a pretty safe job in terms of being not being laid off. But it's lead to complacency I'm afraid. This is the type of place where regularly we'll see people retiring with 30, 35 yrs at the organization. I've also got imposter syndrome bad and I'm afraid if I put my neck out there to try to get a different job I'll just be exposed as a fraud who doesn't actually know anything despite 7 yrs in the current position (first 3 years I wasn't doing Security work).
15 years in one company got me to about $180k. My boss quit in 2020 and I got a raise from $75k to $160k. They only pay you when you’re needed.
I mean, that makes sense. I'm not paying a chemical engineer 120k to mow my lawn. I got hired once full-time by a company that realistically only needed about 1000 hours of work from me a year. It was great for me, but there has to have been a better solution on their end somewhere. The thing was, I apparently replaced two employees so I have absolutely no idea what they were doing.
I see a pattern of people claiming job hopping is great way to increase salary. Definitely intriguing only problem is hassle of the switch
It’s definitely the way. New hire money pot is definitely bigger than the raises pot.
Absolutely the way. I’m in engineering and got a $60k dollar raise over 5 years by hopping twice.
There is something to be said about stability though. I’m at a point where after this next hop, I could probably coast at a company for 10+ years and not be bothered by the minimal raises simply because I’ve hit that point where I make enough to be very comfortable. But that required a few job hops in the first 10 years
I had to leave non-profit work.
I worked in field bio and non-profit for nearly a decade, would make somewhere between $20k-$30k a year (no rent, but my student loans ate it up). Made $39k a year in a HCOL city in 2020 WITH rent so that was miserable. Left non-profit and tripled my income within 2.5 years, but it's eating at me in other ways now.
I made $140 as a director for a large and well-resourced nonprofit. It really depends on the nonprofit.
Non profit tech works can pay pretty well, not as much as the top dogs but still very respectable.
I made a decent living as the IT Manager at a non-profit, but I'm making considerably more now that I'm working for a tech company.
Just adding the requisite depends. I work in nonprofit fundraising and went from 35k to 135k in 8 years (this is before I started my own shop). Nonprofits are desperate for good fundraisers, and it’s a skill you can learn. Almost every director level fundraiser I know (in and around DC) makes over 100k.
Pretty easy, just keep failing upwards. I am a chef - and until i started my own i thought i was a fuckup - turns out, nah - i just like simplicity and no yelling. Tremendous what that can do.
Wait, I thought chefs have to yell?
#INCORRECT, CHEF
#BEHIND, CHEF
#PUT A HASHTAG IN FRONT OF YOUR COMMENT, CHEF
#THANK YOU, CHEF WONT HAPPY AGAIN, CHEF
^(fucking amateurs, i tell you...)
#YES CHEF!
YES CHEF!
# YES JEFF!
Omg I’m very even-keeled and don’t sweat the small stuff so all these aggro kitchens with yelling chefs I’ve just been assuming I must not know what it takes bc all the best in the world with tv shows do it this way. Worked at a successful restaurant in my college years and don’t remember any yelling.
Watch any michelin restaurant prepping and it’s very calm, subdued, and quiet. If you’re yelling you’re probably understaffed and/or underprepared.
\* Puts bread on either side of head \* "WHAT ARE YOU?" "I'M AN IDIOT SANDWICH, CHEF"
Im very glad you broke the mold. Too many people perpetuate the ego driven yelling sprees of the BOH. Glad you found something simple and fitting.
cycle breaker! prob better energy for the food too
7 years in a Union machine shop. Right now I make $47.49 an hour which is “only” $98,779 a year (40 hours a week 52 weeks a year) but in July I’m getting a raise that’ll put me at $50.34 an hour and $104,707 a year, without overtime. If I actually worked OT I could probably hit $175 easily.
Union jobs can get you a pretty sweet deal if it's a good union. Besides the pay the benefits packages are usually excellent. The only downside is it can turn into golden handcuffs if you don't really like the job. Government unions are a bit better with that, since your benefits and pension usually go with you if you move jobs within the government.
Golden handcuffs…. That’s exactly how I feel as a UPS driver. I don’t enjoy the job but the benefits and pension make it hard to leave
Don’t leave. Had a “golden handcuffs” job I’d say, and my mental health got so bad I resigned in December. And since then I’ve been looking for a job and the only thing I can find similar to the same type of work is graveyard shift, with lower wages. As well as the endless amount of submitted resumes, registering for the company website just to fill out the same exact information over and over and over again, with an email thanking you for the application, never hearing back from them, then getting a denial email. Everyday is the same routine of sitting on my laptop even applying to places I’ll probably never even get a job at or work at just to try and land something. I’ve redone my resume a few times, it’s just sad out here. Companies saying they’re hiring to look good but not actually hiring.
Thanks for this perspective. Usually it’s people bragging that they left and landed a sweet gig the following week. The real trick is to always be looking for a better job.
Yep I worked there for 8 years. I had a loved/hate for the union. Graduated college and decided to venture off into the business world. Buddy still drives and is my families UPS driver. Says the same thing but can’t imagine what else he would do at this point. Money is good and not working in an office. Could be worse jobs
its not the worst, plenty of people are trapped in a job due to financial necessity and economic immobility rather than lucrative incentives
I never heard the term “golden handcuffs” but I like it lol
It's a legit term. Very common to be stuck in your job bc the $ locks you in https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_handcuffs
that's very much how I am. Union position at a wastewater plant. I'm the lab supervisor, we're large enough we have our own lab. I've been looking for other jobs around but it's always a pay cut, I'd have less time off, and a longer drive to work. I literally can't go anywhere else with getting paid less to do more while having less free time. I might be able to get more pay if I move into a management position, but I'm again incentivised to stay here because I'll be closer and still have all my time off and our managment is going to be retiring in the next 1-5 years anyway.
Usually used in the white collar world. So much money is attached to high-status and prestige positions.. which are usually shitty fake email jobs. But once you leave that rat race, it’s hard to get back in. And it’s hard to leave $400,000 a year BigLaw or Consulting / Banking
Yeah the Press operators at my job earn similar hourly rates but regularly work 60-80 hour weeks with overtime pay. Impressive how much they're able to bring home, but I prefer a work/life balance.
Engineering - Not really hard as it's pretty common once you get your professional engineering designation.
Or you could decide to work in aerospace and not need to get a PE to make good money.
My friend went to an aerospace trade school kind of program at our local community college ~2ish years and he's making over 100k he says. He works only nights (5pm start time "till I finish") and a lot of 15 hour shifts so I'd hate his job but he's happy doing it
M.S. in AE here: It's trivial to get over $100k/yr. The issue is the work-life balance. Many companies hiring for that sector allow little to no work-from-home and often have low leave amounts for white collar work (2 weeks or less). On top of that you're often expected to work OT whether you want to or not. My second job out of University paid roughly $250k under these conditions, but I took a large pay cut for 39 days paid leave (plus holiday on top) and full time work from home. At a certain point the excess money is worth less than the time I could spend enjoying life.
What do these 15 hour shifts work out in terms of $/hr. Doesn’t sound like it’s worth it if the salary is barely over $100k unless there’s an opportunity to advance and get your life back.
How he explains it in his two week pay period he shouldn't be scheduled more than 80 hours and his OT only starts over 80hrs in a pay period not in over 8hrs in a shift So some weeks he works 5 8 hr shifts and works like 5-1 and some weeks he works 3 crazy shifts and then is off for an extra day or two But at least the company he works for he claims doesn't have a day crew. Because that's what I said when he first started I was like "well how long till you work during the day?" And he said no one works during the day I don't have great figures on his exact wage since he still lives at home and has a second job he's putting like a crazy amount of his aerospace check into his 401k
Or really any “engineering” field where they just don’t care about it. Which is probably 2/3 of them. Civil’s and EE’s the do distribution side stuff are the only big ones where they care.
Yearly comp isn't the tricky part with engineering. It's managing unpaid overtime to try and keep some semblance of WLB and a good hourly compensation.
Everyone knows engineering degrees are easy to get!
"I'd do anything to get paid top-end compensation" "Work to develop a top-end skillset?" "No, not like that!"
[удалено]
This is funny because over in the civil engineering sub all the young engineers are bitching and moaning they don’t make a lot of money and engineers are underpaid.
To be fair entry level engineering tends to not pay well. I had to have a senior title before I made "good Engineer salary".
Our company pays entry level engineers around 80k.
The degree felt like the easy part when compared with the license lol but yea, requires some forethought. It’s the same amount of schooling as a teacher with easily triple the salary when licensed. Most people don’t want to do the work.
I should’ve done engineering. I chose biochemistry because STEM pays well regardless, right? For roughly the same amount of effort, I could be making double. I don’t know why, but chemists are like the red-headed stepchild of science.
[удалено]
I'm still getting my PE Numbers in my head = good People in my head = pain
OP is forgetting that most engineers are very good with things and very bad with people. A PM job is entirely dealing with people.
True, but PMs are also easier to cut loose. And a PM will likely have to take more contracting jobs than a PE will.
The trick is to be willing to switch jobs often. A lot of companies don't do much internal promotion - I've switched jobs every ~2 years since college and gotten a $10k+ raise every single time.
This is probably the best advice out there. Corporate loyalty isn’t real and to move up (even top managers) you have to move companies
Hiring budgets are always higher than retention budgets.
Also there’s an old trope that makes it hard to get promoted. “The company that born ya, will never give you the chance” They remember having to train you to do the simplest tasks and that becomes a barrier to be promoted.
Sometimes you just get too good at your job for the company to willingly let you leave it. So there is a twisted logic to it. As a example, when Andy Cowell left the Mercedes F1 group to work on Mercedes road cars. The team needed to hire or promote 4 people to fill all of his knowledge and responsibilities. That's how important he was! There's no way the team would have done that voluntarily.
Yep. It's always satisfying to leave a company and then watch them hire multiple people to replace your position. Especially when you see the job postings and the salaries for each is way higher that what they were paying you. Or even better when they hire a full consulting firm to help. And all because it was over a title change or an "accidental" missed yearly COL increase. Been there a couple times.
This was me when I left my old org to go solo 1099. My buddy who still works there said they increased the size of the team by 30% after I bailed. lol I would've stayed if they just offered me a 25% raise! we both coulda been happy!
Yep, I had one where I had a bad title that didn't define what I did, I just asked my boss if I could have a title change that aligns more with my role. My boss came back and said sure, but title changes also come with more money and told me to think of a title. I gave him a couple options and then nothing happened for a couple months, so I asked about it and then my boss said there was actually no room to promote me, so I told him that I couldn't stay. When I left, they split my role into two open positions; a dev role and a PM role. The PM role was listed for 50% more than I was making. They hired a consulting firm of 4 people to take the dev role. The PM didn't last long after they hired her. Companies are just silly in how they operate. Employees are sunk costs, but the budget for new hires is expandable.
> Sometimes you just get too good at your job for the company to willingly let you leave it. So there is a twisted logic to it. I was hired on as a designer at my current job (ad agency). Since then, I've also become an animator, a video editor. On top of building my pre-existing design skillset. It is pretty incredible how much I've learned and how valuable I've become – in contrast to how much my company is willing to fight me on the size of the raise I want. Jokes on them, I'm interviewing at a bigger corporation this week....not crazy about working for corporate america, but I need to make more money.
A prophet is honoured everywhere except in their hometown.
Relatedly, I do community theatre on the side. In the town I started, I was only getting ensemble work which was appropriate for the time. As I skilled up though, I was still only *known* for being ensemble and only got cast as such. As soon as I moved away, nothing but lead roles. Perception of skill is all that matters.
Which is crazy to me. When you lose long tenured ppl it really hurts, they know a lot about how things used to work, how things should work, why things changed, why certain things cant change, why certain things happened, it’s so valuable. Companies need to pay to retain their good employees, just as much, if not more, than new hires.
this is the corporate equivalent of refusing to change your cars oil or fix an issue because it costs too much, then buying a whole new car when it breaks. but since "maintenance" doesnt sound as sexy as "growth and investment" it doesnt get any budget.
This is 100% true. I think it comes down to higher ups not understanding the value of domain knowledge, and therefore not allocating enough budget to give raises for retention. This ends up biting them in the butt because they end up spending WAY more hiring and training more personnel.
My current company periodically reviews salaries against the industry. My boss set up a meeting with me about six months after the annual performance raise to pass on the news that mine had been reviewed and I was getting an out of cycle raise of a few percent from that.
It's not just that corporate loyalty doesn't exist. It's that corporate stupidity is rampant. "Do you want to promote someone from within who knows everything about how the company works and already knows everyone? Nah, let's just roll the dice on someone brand new who no one knows and has no idea how we do things here."
The other thing that's crazy about it is why does a business even want a job hopper? Say they're 25% more productive when they're at peak ability, they'll probably spend 3+ months underperforming while they are getting acclimated to the business. If they're there only there for a year or 2, you've now lost any productivity gains you may have gotten from a better worker.
It's always stupid short-term decision-making. How often do we see the pattern: 1. Deny the talent raises and promotions because there's no money for it 2. Talent gets an offer elsewhere 3. Company desperately tries to match, thus proving there was money for it the whole time, thus validating the decision to leave. 4. Company is in a lurch and out way more than whatever the raise would have amounted to.
This happened to me, kept my raises low and used me to fill every gap for them. Then when I was like, screw this, applied for a job, got it, they scrambled to match. Sorry, no. Their match put me at base at my new job, and even if it didn't, you had years of under paying me and you want me to keep my time/energy with you. Hard pass. It was all my fault though, I allowed it for way too long. The devil you know and all that.
I spent nearly 5 years at my first job out of college. They kept giving 1-4% raises to keep up with inflation and even promoted me, but the gap between what I was being paid and what I was worth kept growing (after inflation I'm making 3.5% more than when I started in 2019). Finally got fed up and started applying elsewhere. Just got my first offer and it's 55% higher than what I'm currently being paid. Puts me over the $100k range. My current company has been dangling carrots in front of me for years saying things like, "We can see you making $120k in the near future if you get this certification..." Well, I got that certification and the one after that. I paid for them myself. They still don't think I'm worth even close to $120k. I learned my lesson about company loyalty the hard way.
I got a lot of those over the years. “We are setting up a bonus structure” and 3 years later they were still working on it. “We are setting up an education program” that never materialized. “We’re promoting you, but there is no wage increase and you’ll have no teeth to discipline, but you’ll be responsible for their fuck-ups”
My manager hit me with "I've been trying to position you for success in the company" when I told him I was applying elsewhere. Oh yeah? By offering me $600 of stock that won't vest until next year? I'm underpaid by $30k, so thanks...
This! I stayed too long at one job. Finally my friend, who’s a serial job hopper, convinced me to move on. I went from $80k to $90k when I started my new job, then got a bump to $100k a year later at my new job.
Staying at growing companies can certainly be beneficial. The group that started the company will likely be running it in a few years. If the headcount isn’t moving and the financial folks are delighted with 2% then yeah probably not going to be many easy opportunities.
I agree. My company has been exploding since slightly before I joined 12 years ago. Head count is more than triple and I have seniority over around 90% of the other employees. I still have room to move up and my salary has nearly tripled.
This is really the only situation in which you should “stick it out”. Just by being competent and being one of the first people there you will have far more opportunities than the new people.
I stay at my current job bc my manager is great and my hours are great. I know I could get 10K more somewhere else but I’ve gotten a few 10% raises over 3 years so I think it’s worth to stay. But when I switched to this job after my first one I got a 20% raise. It’s about balance. To me the better hours and job security is worth a few thousand.
What field are you in?
The one behind Walmart on King Ave. He has the big blue tent.
Did you bring the tarp?
100% this. I got a 3% raise this year at a company I've been with for almost 7 years. I absolutely realize it's time to jump ship for an instant 20% raise and I just can't make myself do it. My direct boss is one of those boomers that refuses to retire and thinks the best way to move up in the world is by staying at one company and working your way up over 30 years with piss-poor pay raises. Fuck that noise.
Well, sometimes being consistently employed over a 10 yr arc at a stabile company is better than having to move jobs every 18 months. That can be stressful and you have no idea if you’ll just get laid off 6 months after starting your new job that paid +$10k
This. I’ve been with my company for 17 years. Not only does my company not lay people off, but even if they did I’m not the one getting pushed out. I’ve never had to worry about getting fired a day in my adult life, and that’s been a good feeling considering what’s happened in the world in that time frame.
People do not place enough value on this. Job hopping is a costly stress.
I’ve got promoted twice with the same company. My first IT job. Started at 62k and now make 120k in 2.5 years. Went from IT helpdesk to Cloud Engineer
Worked up to middle management at a Fortune 500 company. It wasn't difficult, but it did take a while.
Entry level management here, been 3 years. 2 small raises and I’m still making just shy of $60k. Also a Fortune 500 company.
$5000 in 3 years isn't horrible but you should be good to move on to another company if you have the option! You can probably get another $5-7000 from the switch and maybe they'll give you better raises. Best of luck!
This! I'm closer to 60 than 50. Worked in manufacturing plants for decades, for some huge companies too. I've moved around to different companies. In my younger years I found out many people I worked with had worked for this company before, they left and then came back, for more money. I talked to some of them and they told me you almost had to do that to get better money. I worked 5 years at a company doing a great job with very little increase so I left. They didn't want me to, said they wanted me to become the operations manager. I left for more money. 51 weeks later, I came back to work for them, they called me and wanted me to return. My salary was $13K higher and with my bonus I was going to make about $18K more than I had during my last year there. In time Ieft them again and 3 years later they called me back so I went back to work for them a 3rd time. My best was working for a large ALCOA plant that had 750 employees. I was the production control manager and the plants master scheduler.I worked there a few years. I left the company to follow our old plant manager to another company where he became the VP of Ops. I was doing the same work in that new company for him. I had a total of 33 people working for me, both direct and indirect reports. My salary went up 72% by going to that new company as they paid a lot more than my previous company and again it wasn't due to me taking a higher position. I was doing the same work in my new company. I was in middle management but I was shocked to find out my starting salary was going to be 72% higher. So, like others are saying, many times people really need to switch companies. There are so many examples of people who have done this and it's worked out great for them in terms of money.
In a corporate role or in some sort of branch management? $60k is very low for a corporate management role. My entry level analyst job at a Fortune 500 paid that. You gotta switch companies.
I don't understand entry level management. You mean "entry level" as in after you've paid your dues and been managed?
I’m a dental hygienist. School fucking sucked. Worst years of my life. To become a RDH is hard, but afterwards it’s mostly easy. I work 31 hours a week-ish. If I worked 40 hours I’d be over the 100k mark. If I did temp work, I’d make even more. The salary for hygienists vary, but it is usually good. Edit: I don’t work more hours or do temp work because I’m lazy and value time off work lol. Money is great. But money can’t replace time!
Money is earned and spent. Time is only spent. Took my 20's to figure that one out.
I get made fun of by my co-workers because I hire a company to do my lawnwork for me and have a cleaning company come out once a week and clean my house. There came a point in time where I learned time is much more valuable than money and $250/month saves me probably 15 hours a month of free time which to me is worth every penny.
Make sure you job hop. You will get there much much faster. Signed, an HR bad guy.
As a self-proclaimed “HR bad guy”, what’s in your opinion the reason internal promotion doesn’t happen as often anymore? Seems like the rewards for company loyalty have gone down the shitter in the last few years
As a fellow hr bad guy I can tell you once you join an org and stay within the dept your starting salary has you somewhat locked in at anticipated small increases and raises. Whereas if a new person joins a team or you join a new team you are creating your new starting line where those similar small increases start at. It’s much easier to set a new bar at a brand new environment than to convince someone at your current job you’re worth so much more than they currently have you tabbed at.
They know you are scared to move jobs, it’s a lot of work to do so and some people can’t due to family (or other commitments).
My company this year has been very vocal about "internal mobility" over promotions in current job. It is a big company, so they want people to seek other jobs inside as the best means for money or title changes. The message they give is that it helps people build bigger skill sets that help the company as a whole (more knowledgeable employees). I would consider this true to some extent, but I also think there is some desire to push people out who do just want to sit in one spot doing one job with no desire to do more. Personally I think there is a place for people who can do one job very very very well as well as someone who has a lot of knowledge of different jobs. But I see many people who sit in one spot and don't do that one job very well either but still expect rewards.
[удалено]
That feeling makes me soar like a popped balloon.
Yep. I remember $80k being huge. I had a fancy apartment in a big city, ate whatever I want, went out, did expensive drugs etc. Now, i’m just north of 100 living modestly. I’m grateful, but it ain’t what it used to be.
I remember when I was a kid my dad telling me if you make $40k a year you're in a quite comfortable spot in my area. Now that's essentially straddling poverty
My rent is 30k a year lol
My gut instinct was to question why you were paying so much for rent, then I realized I'm almost paying that much for rent. It's crazy how fast housing costs have increased.
For those too lazy to math, $2500/mo is $30k/yr. Kinda crazy because $2500 is not unreasonable rent in many areas
2500 gets you a bedroom in someone elses house in some areas ha
Yeah, I grew up in a rust belt town where that much money was more than my parents’ house cost. So that was a valid perspective, depending on your location. Problem was, it was a poverty area and still is. You could probably still find a house in places like that for $40k, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a lifestyle choice.
It’s not money that makes one upper middle class today (although, depending upon where you live, it could for a single person). But while Reddit makes it seem like $100k is no big deal, less than 20% of the population actually makes that individually. For HCOL areas like NYC, only 23% make six figures individually. In SF, 37% do. In regards to $200k (which is thrown around Reddit as being quite easy to achieve by late 20s), only 6% make that individually in the NYC area. For SF, 12% do.
It's the same buying power of 47k in 1994. In my area, 100k is still 170% of the median household income. It's still a lot of buying power.
I live in Wash DC area so I get DC income.. I grew up in SW Michigan. I would love to make DC income and live in a "normal" income area lol
I make DC money and WFH 100% without paying to live in DC. It is pretty glorious.
Hah yes, it's best not to look at an inflation calculator. On paper my income looks absurd to the 90s kid I still really am deep down, but then I realize that it's equivalent to $73k in 1995 and I am just sad.
Admittedly 73k was a pretty damn good salary in 1995.
In the midwest it was very good. 40k/year with no kids was pretty decent. Guys making 70-80k/year were buying houses and paying them off in like 5-10 years. ( in the 90s )
I always calculate back to the year I graduated high school when I get a raise. My brain solidified my target salary at that time and current wages have no meaning to me.
This. I’m happy my 50k raise meant that I could keep living at my previous budget level 😂😂
[удалено]
Only 350k a year??? Pfft. I got hired as a janitor at a start up and they paid me in stock. Now I’m a billionaire.
I was a janitor and I solved a really tough equation on a chalkboard and now I’m Matt Damon
It’s not your fault
And only works 1-2 hours a day and plays video games for the rest
Yet somehow a few weeks later complains about never having even promoted past junior developer, but your smoozing coworker did!! You were the cool one that told people to stop talking to you if it wasn’t strictly about the one project you were assigned.
And if you want to meet other high income redditors, say literally anything about art school. Suddenly everyone else is a senior animator for Pixar!
Everyone on Reddit is always complaining how hard it is to put food on the table and pay rent but then when a career advice or financial planning post appears all of a sudden everyone is making $250k+
The funniest part about this - every time this joke is made, at least 1 or 2 show up in the replies insisting upon telling everyone that they exist. I was gonna reply to you saying “just wait… they’ll show up and tell you”… but they’re already here! (To whom it may concern: Yes, you do exist. But there are not ‘a lot’ of you like often claimed. Your life is just centered in the middle of that very small demographic)
Gotta love those junior engineers getting $350k lol
Engineering. 1 promotion since graduating 4yrs ago did it
Engineering is a pretty easy route. I just hired a graduate at 85k, with no actual experience. I spent 10 years in engineering at the same company, going from 50k to 72k. Since 2018, I've changed jobs 3 times. Left 72k, hired at 90k. left at 94k, hired at 97k. Layed off at 105k, hired at 120k. 1 year later, 145k. Moral of my story, don't stay at jobs with no opportunity for improvement.
At least not for a long time. At the beginning of my career, I was hired at 85k too, and 4 years later I was making 50% more just from naturally climbing engineering levels and raises here & there. But then it stalled out quite a bit after that and became time to find a new job. If you’re in a good job market, just don’t get too comfy and complacent once the pay increases start to dry up. Don’t wait too long to recognize it. If you’re in a tougher job market, well things will be harder. Can’t offer much advice there, I was admittedly a bit coddled by being in a good job market for my industry at the time.
Got my CDL and after 6mo of driving, I started training new long-haul drivers. Cleared $116k my first year and hated myself for not doing it 15 years earlier. Today, I took a $85k/yr job doing similar work locally because being home everyday became more important - had I started younger, I could have rode that gravy train longer, and perhaps increased it even more.
100k was easy, I'm a good software engineer, but I also got lucky. 38k (6months) 45k -> 52k (3 years same company) 80K (switched companies and city) 100k (got lucky, team lead quit right when I joined, 6months) So I went from 38k -> 100k in 5 years. (This was back in 2000s) 200k is where I keep slamming my head against base salary wise, and have been for like 5 years. It's always the stock and what not that puts you over 200k.
Pretty similar to my trajectory (also a software engineer) 40k -> 50k (4 years at same company) 85k -> 100k (new job for 3 years -- got raise 2 years in) 120k (new job because last company went under 😅) I consider everything past the 50k mark to have been luck on my part
Same thing happened for me. At one point I got something like a 70% raise but that was cuz I started at 35k. Which for a software developer was probably pretty close to the literal bottom wage that you could make
That initial jump always feels so crazy. I went from making minimum wage to $85k right after college. Man, I felt like a millionaire lol. Fast forward 7 years I’m at $210k base, plus stock and bonus.
Wasn't hard at all. The worst part is the depression. The trick is to balance it out with functioning alcoholism.
This hits a little too close to home.
Why doesn't my doctor see it this way
sounds like sales
I prefer weed gummies, thank you very much.
I spent $375,000 on education and dedicated every aspect of my life from age 18-34 to my profession. I will die alone with slightly more wealth than if I had not done all this work. So …Should have just married well.
…..medical doctor I’d assume?
Lawyer seems to be the other possible option given the education cost and soul crushing early years. Accounting could have the soul crushing hours prior to getting seniority but that wouldn't have the school debt.
You OK? Hope that is just a dry sense of humor and not really the way you see things. If not, hope things improve for ya.
All in all, I love my life as long as I don’t run the numbers. But watching my brother take monthly vacations because he is wife is loaded does spark some jealousy.
Still time to marry well - keep dreaming!
It wasn't hard but had to sacrifice a ton of freedom and sanity in my 20s to make it happen. Constantly travelling. Living out of different motels every week for months on end.... Glad my wife stuck with me through all those years cause it was so serious bullshit. Took a lot of years to get my head back on straight after leaving that line of work.
Sales… took a sales job. Track 1: work for big tech company as an SDR for 1-2 years making 80k, then become account executive (120-150), then enterprise (2-300+) Track 2- home improvement sales, really windows- make over 100k first year
1. Pick trade. 2. Start apprenticeship. 3. Turn out and make over 100k. I chose plumbing. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t easy. Five years of apprenticeship night school while also being an apprentice (doing all the bitch work and then some) while getting married, buying a house, and starting a family. It was a rough five years but coming out of it on the other end, life is pretty good. Even though 100k isn’t what it used to be, I feel lucky to be living relatively comfortably. Once our student loans are paid off life will be much better.
Went to school for software engineering. Took it seriously and found a good job out of college. Stayed with that company for long enough then took higher paying job offers. Now make 150k at 35. Pick a job that's needed and pays well enough to fit your lifestyle. You don't need to love your job, just like it enough to get through the hard days and enjoy your time outside of work.
Happened a lot faster than I thought it would. Also ended up being way less spending money than I thought it would be
same here ... it probably doesn't help that the cost of everything has just about doubled since 2020
In a HCOL area, pretty easy. entry level office admin/secretary roles here start at \~80k and break 100k gross after 2-3 annual raises/promotions. This is of course offset by $4000+ rents for 1 bedrooms in the city...
Everyone forgets the offsets!
Exactly, these threads are pointless because income means nothing if 50% goes to taxes and then 30% goes to rent and surviving.
I would like to point out, though, that if you’re funneling money away into retirement (RRSP / 401k), even without company matching a higher salary but same quality of life means there’s more going away for later. It’s all percentage based. 12% of 120K is a heck of a lot more than 12% of 60k when compounding. The danger is not having emergency funds.
Really? $80k office/admin roles?? Man, I’m in the Bay Area. I gotta do some research.
Seriously. In Boston and that’s not typical at all.
Its not true in Seattle and we have one of the fastest COL increase rates in the country.
Yeah, if this is true, then I’m doing something wrong and gotta look around lol
It took me into my 40s and having a full time job, a full pension from 20 years in the Navy, and my wife having a full time job for our household to finally claim just barely over 100,000 on our taxes. So yeah it's easy. All you need is 3 incomes from only two people.
You did 20 years in the Navy and not breaking six figures?? What about disability rating? That should add on
Yeah I mean he phrased it that way ("claim 100k on my taxes") because the military pays tax free housing and food subsidies that can easily add 30k+/yr to take-home pay. Anybody that does 20 years and makes E-7 is getting 100k+ total comp unless they're in a VLCOL locale.
Sounds kinda ass ngl
Very hard. Had to start on the bottom of the totem pole. My first ever job was minimum wage at $7.25/hr back in 2012. In the 12 years between then and now I changed careers twice and have moved around to many different jobs to get raises and promotions. At each of those jobs I busted my ass to get better for my own sake (so this does NOT mean I was working crazy 70 hour weeks. Would never do those). Instead I’d simply learn more about my career and industry on my own time. Rinse and repeat over the course of about 7 years. It’s all cumulated into the position I’m in now. I currently make about $3k/week or over $150k/yr.
what do you do?
I had to job hunt and job hop as my full time job for two years (STEM). Now basic annual raises feel substantial and I can just coast
Not that hard because of location because everything is inflated here. To put it in perspective, a single person who makes $60K or less qualifies for rental assistance.
Second "real job" out of college, after a few years of screwing around in the bar scene as a bartender and manager. Once I went into IT, spent 3yrs at 70k, next job was 100k, 4 years there took me to 145ish. After that I switched to technical sales and have been doing 200+ for 2 years. I used my time to build a broad base skill set in IT, then specialized in a pretty niche skill and got really good. Some side consulting work and a board position padded my resume nicely. Broke 100k in early 30s, and 200k at 40.
My last job was a five year run. I liked my colleagues, enjoyed a great working relationship with my boss, and had a lovely work life balance. Unfortunately, the pay was very low ($76k before tax in a very HCOL area), there were no benefits to make up for it (no health or dental, despite repeated requests), and minimal bonuses - never mind annual raises. I’d been comfortable for a while, but eventually started having to dip into my savings. I made the case to my boss for a raise — she said it wasn’t in the budget. I made the case to my boss for health care, or a stipend to offset it — after five years of waiting and being told mañana, she finally told me, “no, we can’t do it” Okay then. If you can’t, you can’t. I didn’t have to apply for jobs. I just quietly put the word out that I was in the market. A week later, I had completed the second round of interviews for a job paying literally 2x my take home salary. I got the job, and yes, it has health care. ((The trick: networking like my life and career depended on it, and building up a two-prong skill set — the ability to read tech data, and just as critically: the ability to explain it easily to someone whose grasp of tech includes “smacking the monitor to make it work”))
Just a steady walk up to and over. Some people on Reddit tend to hate this next part, but I found great success at work trying to be good at everything. Including and especially dealing with coworkers. It’s not often discussed, but indirectly, your coworkers and their opinion of you have an influence on your success.
Combination of extreme luck, hard work. would not be where I am without copious and consistent amounts of both over the last 19 years
I would call it difficult, but only because you have to do things most people avoid. Here's my approach: 1. **Become indispensable.** Part of this is becoming excellent at what you do in general. The other part is becoming essential to your employer. Both are important. 2. **Get a better offer.** When something about your job is unacceptable (maybe your pay, maybe something else), don't up and quit. Instead, polish off your resume and apply elsewhere until you get a better offer. It's no fun looking for work while you're employed, but you have nothing to lose, and prospective employers know they have to make an enticing offer. 3. **Negotiate.** Inform your current employer that you've received a better offer. They may make a counteroffer, which may include paying you more and/or fixing the things making you unhappy. Even if they don't, though, you can just take the better offer. You win either way. It's easy to fail at any of these steps. Some people never try to improve their skills or show their worth. Others up and quit, which puts them in a poor negotiating position. And many corporate cultures force feed employees a standard of loyalty that the business itself rarely reflects. I'm sure there are exceptions, but most companies are not families. If you want $100k+, you have to recognize that you're a mercenary. Become worth that much, then push hard to be compensated for every penny.
Accidently got my first 100k. I got laid off/let go around 60k. So I started applying at competitors. Was a literal bidding war. So weird. One place just wants to get rid of you and then ither places pay almost double. Breaks my brain sometimes.
I started making over $100K in my mid 30s, at which point I'd been in the IT industry since I was 18. I'm 45 now. The answer for my industry is to never stop learning, a good skill set makes it a no brainer for hiring managers. That, plus a good work ethic.
7 jobs in 7 years. Stay loyal to your salary. Not a company.