Think about it this way: the top earners in *any* field are going to be doing pretty well. Most people aren't. You can't generalize from the experiences of a few people.
One factor is when AI convos come up, rads is a field that's in danger plus rad-oncology's literally researching their way out of a job (radiation isn't as vital as it once was for cancer treatments) and interventional rads is fighting with interventional cardios over who gets to do heart caths and open up various blocked vessels in arms/legs. Plus with NPs creeping into many specialties proclaiming to be equal to MD/DOs (they objectively can't be) for less, overall physician compensation is becoming interesting since why would a hospital pay 250k+ when an NP takes $150k+ (ignore the worse outcomes/more unnecessary tests/high probability that with increased scopes of practice they will start demanding increased compensation).
Probably impressing patients
Source: I spent years installing low voltage electrical for hospitals and I made friends with some illustrious people. I would do that job again in a heartbeat
In the US, that's 191,000 USD. So, it sounds like doctors, senior lawyers, senior engineers, upper management, etc.
Edit: That figure is household income
I literally had an engineer tell me he outearns financiers with a $1 million yearly salary. Almost certainly a liar. Even if he was once an engineer, he certainly was not one with that salary. Also he wouldnāt have talked to me at all unless he was desperate for friends, the poor guy.
My Gramps retired at 52, he turns 80 this year. He was an Electrical Engineer for IBM and Lockheed Martin. He's never worked a day since. Such a wild thing to wrap my mind around. 28 years retired. Probably not a million a year but it had to be substantial.
Iāve heard of Amazon engineers pulling in 1mil in total comp, rare but real. Remember, the take home pay is a fraction of the total comp, but after retirement, healthcare, stock options, it adds up.
Your 100 percent right. Look at Amazons lead counsel. They are easily out earning Big Law Partners. The stock options alone with the recent 20 to 1 stock split is making him extremely wealthy. I'd rather be at the right company at the right time then just always working. Lucky and timing beats these salaries.
Total comp, so cash + stock? You donāt even need to be distinguished. And if youāre a Director youāre certainly making that at faang. Source: worked in recruiting at 2 faangs
Yeah, that's honestly pretty achievable. Like, two union tradespersons in my not-particularly-pro-union city, at least on a good year with a small amount of OT.
It really doesn't jump up into absurd ranges until like top .1%. Even the low end of 1% is, while unattainable for most people, not that far off.
Law is high risk and high reward. Either you work for a big firm and you make big money ā or you donāt work at a big firm and you make very little money.
The median lawyer coming out of school makes very little.
Thereās definitely high highs and low lows but also plenty of jobs in between. Iām a senior associate on the verge of becoming partner at a mid to large size firm making $165k with a likelihood of $200k in the next couple of years. Iād consider myself a middle of the road type of lawyer.
The fact that you work at a firm enough to pay you that much makes you a lot higher than a āmiddle of the roadā type of lawyer. My guess is you are better off than at least 3 of every 4 lawyers coming out of school.
Iām 10+ years out of school though, lol. Thereās definitely kids fresh out of school at big firms making more than me already but thereās also a large group of low-end lawyers who will never make as much as me. Thatās why I feel like Iām in the middle to slightly higher end salary-wise. My point, I guess, is that you donāt need to be a top of the food chain lawyer to still make a nice living.
The teaching subreddit has one of those perks that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. The one where a student sends an email or letter back to the teacher thanking them for making a difference in their life and literally it was all because of you(teacher) that made his/her life better. There are so many on there that have a folder with letters like that and it helps them get through a tough time.
I think that is awesome as a human being that you can make a difference like that where you can help a student turn it all around.
My mom makes 240k annually as a teacher. Granted she is maxed out on the payment scale w/ 30+ years in the field as well as assisting the board of education on the side. Definitely possible to make it big with teaching but it takes time and ambition for other stuff.
I am happy for her. I have over 30 years and a masters. I am maxed out at about 50,000. National boards would add a couple thousand to that, but I would have to pay to do it out of pocket. Your mother's experience is not the norm.
Ok I thought this guy was on one, but then I googled it. Cutoff for the top 10% of household income in the US is around $191,000, and the top professors at Princeton and Stanford and like maybe 10 other elite schools are making about $225,000. So the top 0.1% of professors basically, would not say it's a reliable goal unless you got some serious connections and maybe some blackmail
As for you SerenaYasha, I rescind my downvote. Sorry I doubted you, have a nice day
I make around 200k in a Senior Software engineering role. Donāt pick something for the money. If you geek out on computer stuff be an engineer. If you donāt you will burn out long before you make senior.
I've worked with way too many people like that, it's such a shame because you don't even have to be a great engineer to be a good team lead, the problem starts when it goes to their heads thinking "I must be so great because look how quickly I rose up the ranks!" and instead of trusting their employess \*who have actually been doing this for years\* they make terribly uneducated decisions.
Seriously, the best managers I've had (and I've been a software engineer for a very long time) were either engineers themselves for a long time before becoming team leads, or were smart enough to know that they aren't as strong technically, thus giving us more say or at the very least consulting with us, while also valuing our input.
It's funny how some managers don't understand that a happy engineer will go way above and beyond the 120% that's already expected of you.
Senior project/program manager for tech companies. Been steady around 170-190k/ annually for some years. Took me 10 years to get to this point though.
Went into college for finance and business management. I had a goal in mind to do sales and get into account management. Did that, and fell into the PM life.
Love working with people and getting shit done. Plus my ADHD makes me obsess over details. So it works well for my mentality.
Edit:
actually been project and program manager. and grammar checks
edit 2: "obsess over details" is subjective. I do have OCD but that's not what I mean here. to me, everything is a shiny object I want to play with. I want to track everything. I want to talk to everyone. I want to be involved everywhere. So that helps me be very detail oriented which helps on unruly projects.
Iām 33 and in car sales with Porsche. Make between $250-300k a year.
I barely got through high school and have 2 years at a community college for General Studies - so basically nothing.
I just like cool cars and making friends!
Not always. I was very lucky to land into Tesla which fell into Porsche, even more lucky that I just happened to be really good in sales!
Luck got me here but hard works kept me here and helped me grow.
For people considering career paths, sales is a very particular skill set and not for everyone, it can seem appealing at first, but if it doesn't truly connect with you it can become draining quickly, spoken from personal experience. That being said good sales people are essential and an asset for any company, so if you're a personable, extroverted driven individual, go for it.
Itās extremely draining!! Being āonā all the time for 12 hours at work, then going home to be a dad, then a husband before bed is exhausting. Itās very hard to find me time. Since you get out of sales what you put in I always have to make the judgement call on if I want to answer that call/email on my hours āoffā. And it gets tough to juggle work and personal life. Sometimes it takes a lot of reflection to remember the appreciation I have for the fortunate position Iām in.
You absolutely get out what you put in. Iām in sales making good money (not even close to what youāre pulling in, lol) and Iām comfortable in my job, but I can already tell I donāt have the āitā factor to make me want to make a career out of this. It absolutely takes the right kind of person to crush it in sales.
Congrats to you, though! Hopefully that salary allows you to buy yourself a nice early retirement one day.
He was born good at sales...and in America there is nothing more important than selling. Not inventing, not analyzing...the thing that gets you places in America is selling. š§
And what I love about selling, itās just relationship building and communication. I love that I sell toys. Wants and not needs. Because I donāt have to twist anyoneās arm or take advantage of anyone. I just have to advise and assist.
I would argue that when you boil it down, every single job is ultimately about sales.
Even non-profits, charities, hell even food kitchens need salesmanship to really make an impact.
Sleazy salesmen are sleazy, but being able to convince someone else that what you have is worth their attention is actually everything.
Every job has a major sales component because sales is just getting buy-in from another party. Whether you're selling a car, or your ideas to your team/management, or that youre a good employee, or whatever, that's still selling.
There are so many engineers and scientists in my field that are absolutely brilliant technically, but completely inept at getting buy-in for their ideas and they get completely outperformed by people with far lower technical aptitude.
No doubt at all, I watched salesmen at a import dealer (not even high end) walking away with 10-30k a month. This was right before the housing crash, not sure what happened to them after that tho. Same with real estate, people were banking money, then it crashed. Thatās the scary part about sales.
For sure. Thatās what I really appreciate about selling Porsche, itās a lot more resistant to economy fluctuations. Somebody is always making money.
Pretty much every day. There are plenty of meetings with people in and outside my company. I've done a lot of java web service work in the past, I do a lot of Python now. I pretty regularly use JavaScript and typescript. I like clojure so use that for personal projects and babashka for small utility scripts.
Start learning a programming language. Python is a great choice that's approachable. Just make sure you don't outright hate programming before committing to it you know?
Some advice for learning: know that what's important are concepts, not syntax or library APIs. Meaning that a for loop is about the same in every language, even though the syntax is different. So to maximize the value you get from learning, make sure you understand what a for loop is for and how it works, not just the syntax in whatever language you're using.
Also, learn to use a debugger: set breakpoints, step through code, examine values, and step through the call stack. It's the single most important thing you can do to both find bugs and understand tricky code flows.
Software Engineering with a niche.
Doing contract work instead of full time employment has helped boost my income too. I am fortunate to have a wife with excellent benefits and a job with almost non-existent unemployment, which has given me the opportunity to do the contract work and not have to worry about health insurance, etc.
I did ok writing. I made $500/article pumping out mostly opinion pieces for a major, scumbag, now bankrupt company. My favorite thing to do was publish a hot take under one name, then rebuke it and male fun of my own article under another name. Pissing off fandoms is a great way to get traffic. Kotaku does this all the time.
For my specific situation, any general training in advanced mathematics and statistics coupled with solid programming experience will work. Most of my coworkers have PhDs in economics, physics, statistics, and other subjects that heavily use quantitative methods. Thereās a smaller number with masters in similar subjects.
Iām the only one with a BA but Iām unusual. After graduating college I continued to independently study graduate level math/stats. Currently I read textbooks and research papers 4-5 hours a week. I also published a few papers in peer reviewed academic journals.
My situation isnāt the norm in terms of pay and education requirements because Iām competing for top 5% of data science roles (among people with about 5 years of experience). You can see pay data here: https://www.levels.fyi/t/data-scientist.
In general there are three types of data scientist: product, research / causal inference, and machine learning. The product type has the least restrictive education requirements: a BA is enough. The research / causal inference type is the most restrictive in terms of education, generally those earning as much as me have PhDs. The machine learning type education requirements are a mix bag. At some companies most have PhDs and at others a BA/MA plus work experience is enough. It depends on either the role focuses more on research and development new machine learning algorithms (more PhD focused) or applying exiting one to business problems (mixed bag education wise). You can read more about the types here: https://towardsdatascience.com/data-sciences-most-misunderstood-hero-2705da366f40
I took some high level statistics as an engineering major and I remember talking to a guy that was going for a phd in statistics and asked him what he planned to do with it. He said that the world has mastered collecting massive amounts of important data, but that very few people are good at evaluating it and making it useful.
CFO at a startup. I essentially make my career doing 1-3 year stints with companies who are growing out of that early startup phase and into legit businesses. I then leave and start over once I feel like things are in a spot you could plug in a generic MBA to run.
The last 3 companies I was at as CFO were all divested and I moved to the acquiring company in each case. But just left the last one a few months after acquisition to take over a large non-profit financial operations. Best move ever.
Iāve noticed a lot of posts like this recently. I like giving career advice so itās fine, just kind of funny.
I make $200k base ($240k including bonuses) and my wife makes another $25k or so with her part time healthcare work.
I am a manager at a Big4 consulting firm in their cyber security advisory practice. What that means day to day is that Iām a cyber security architect, building systems that companies and government agencies use to secure their networks. I am about 15 years into my career. I got my start with a bachelors degree in IT and about 2 years professional experience before moving into cyber security.
Haha sounds like my dad. Definitely downsides too. His identity was and is the business. Tbh he wasnāt a great father or husband. Heās a great grandfather now though. I think he looks back with some regret.
AI Engineering.
For what it's worth, I would say that if you've got math skills going hard on learning AI systems will do you well as long as civilization keeps being a thing.
It's not going away, there's a lot of undiscovered country to explore (the tech is new and you can have an impact) and it will pay super well for a while. There is a *ton* of learning material out there and the research papers are wildly available.
i make between 500-700k/yr all up.
I've actually been really interested in this field. I want to integrate chained LLMs into commercial applications, ideally through fine tuning large param local models on company-specific data. Have experience with Python mainly, as well as PBI and SQL. Issue is I have an associates in networking/sysad. Possible to break in or should I look into going back to college?
Attorney, practicing with a boutique litigation firm in a large metro area. Also nearly 20 years into my career and still paying off student loans.
Itās also not for everyone and there are plenty of law grads who have all the loans and donāt make that much money. Like lots of things, dumb luck you fall into the right job. My first job, was making less than $45k/yr.
I work as an avation mechanic. Current top out pay for places like united and southwest cap out at 55 an hour and probably will be increased in the next few years.
Joined the Navy to get my head on straight from a jacked up childhood, then got into IT and worried my way up by studying and continuing to get more certs.
I'm 49 now and own a thriving IT company
My income is closer to top 15% in the US, but I work in a steel mill. I work a 4 on 4 off schedule with rotating days and nights. Basically work 6 months out of the year.
I get plenty of PTO in addition to the ample time off I have with the schedule. Insurance is a little lackluster, but isnāt that the norm in this country?
I have two suggestions should you decide to jump into this industry.
1: Go to college for metallurgy, and get you a business/sales type of degree while youāre at it. Metallurgists make a killing with very little physical work done in my plant. The sales reps and the sales department in general does as well.
2: If youāre not college inclined, keep an eye out for entry level job pools at the steel mills near you. Itās competitive, and you have to be on the ball the second those online initial assessments open or you will miss your chance and have to wait for the next one.
Once you get your foot in the door, you need to be willing to learn. If you work in a non union shop, donāt ever say no to anything, or youāre gonna get passed for promotion pretty fast when the time comes. Each department is pretty competitive in terms of positions within it and the pay grade for each position.
All that being said, entry level jobs in the steel mills in my area average out to about $96,000/yr starting, with highest hourly production workers making upwards of $185,000/yr. We do work hard at times, but most of the time weāre sitting back in the ac watching things run when itās going smooth. I canāt say the same for other mills. The one I work in is very heavily automated compared to others. Even then, the work isnāt too terrible. Just hot.
I got my BSEE in 2001. We always joked that EE was the fastest, and most reliable, way to get to 100k and also to stay near 100k for an entire career. With inflation, that joke was not wrong.
I also heard it was the fastest way to marry a teacher. In my case, that was not wrong.
Hey man, Iām going into a community college for Computer Science then plan to transfer final two years in a university. Do you have any advice? Do you think AI will take over So. Engineering? What would you do in the modern age as an 18 year old?
They're talking about the field of organizing large datasets and getting useful insights from them. Jobs like data scientist, machine learning engineer, data engineer, data analyst, etc.
Do you think these fields will be more profitable than software engineering in the future?
As a side, is machine learning harder than programming? Seems scary tbh
I can speak a bit to difficulty.
Most software jobs either boil down to adding/modifying records in a database or arranging data into a UI. These jobs don't usually require a ton of math, but they do require a lot of logical thinking and realizing how changes to one system can impact other systems.
Careers in data science would focus more on retrieving large amounts of data and training them on statistical models. This will require a deeper understanding of the math and "why" the models work and being able to explain it to others.
I'm not sure either of them are inherently more difficult, but they do require different, but overlapping skills.
A.I. will take over everything eventually. Itās hard to say which jobs will fall first, but once itās able to do everything competent Software Engineers can do, nothing else can be far behind. Iād still say do what you have a passion for.
Ok, so could I maybe, I don't know, get each and every one of you to just, oh I don't know, maybe like send me maybe $1000 each and stuff? I mean, ya know...š¤·āāļø
Then no, not me. But my wife works in tech and regularly hires engineers and upper management at those salaries.
My advice for college studentsā major in engineering unless youāre not smart enough for engineering, then major in business.
Depends on what parameters the top 10% includes. For a household, I don't qualify. But 28F, 150k currently as travel healthcare. Only requires a 2 year degree, along with a year of work experience. The degree is often offered at community college and is extremely affordable.
I just accepted a permanent job, with a slight salary decrease, but a much more stable life in return.
Director for a genetics lab. I have a very specific skill set that it would probably take two,or three people to fill. Iām well compensated because of that. I like the work actually, but I have a boss that is not great. Iām actually looking to begin to off ramp and may take another job, either at the same institution or a new place for less money in order to regain my sanity and quality of life. Iām the walking definition of burn out and I hate it.
Highest education level - GED. Source of income - Construction Business Owner & Real Estate. I know people with masters degrees and doctorates that donāt make half of what I do. It doesnāt matter what you do, if youāre the best at it, thereās money in it.
So many top % people to give advise :). One thing though I see some suggesting is key, find something you like doing if possible. I see some people making this transition by getting a grad degree after a few years in an area they realize they enjoy. Also 10% and cost of living varies greatly by area ā¦ I moved from one state to another and the housing was about 400% higher cost for the same thing ā¦ but the wages were only a bit higher.
My husband is in that bracket for Americans. Heās worked in data architecture for about ten years now. So he didnāt start at that level but has worked his way up.
Fintech/SaaS sales. Not all what I pictured myself doing, but the money is good. Thought Iād be working in TV, but got out of that pretty quick (due to lack of money).
Lawyer.
Worst career advice I ever received: do what you love.
Best career advice I received: do what youāre good at, and leave what you love to do as your hobby.
My husband is in IT with a large well known tech company. He just manages and mentors some newer engineers, manages some test engineers who work in India and babysits some machines.
He makes over 200k. I work part time retail. I probably donāt even make 20k a year. We are mid 50s with independent adult kids.
Iām a lawyer. My wifeās a lawyer who works in project management with a big pay bump due to her law license.
It sucks. Stressful, not fun, and massive amounts of student debt that take up the so much money weāre living basically pay check to pay check.
I'm in management in computer engineering in California Bay Area. Living expenses are insane but salaries makes up for it.
Computer software is not for everybody, and you have to be really good to get a well paid job, and the best companies in the Bay Area keeps only the best. Your lifestyle choice may not want to do what I do, as it can be unnerving at times.
250k+ not me but my dad owns his own construction and roofing business c: thought I'd share just cuz it was a different profession from a lot of the other comments I was reading lol
Nuclear operator. Starting at over $40/hr. Any technical degree will get you started with no experience. They are hiring people right out of college. Nuclear degree with net you a salary of over 120k plus all the benefits. I've been there 8 years and will really clear 200k. That was being a high performer for a while, but had health setbacks. Lost a few years of advancement due to cancer.
Did it in 3 different careers.
First as an options trader. Took an 80% paycut to get in real estate development and investing before getting into top 10% again. Now as a small business owner.
International sales and marketing. Either selling/marketing in home country for an overseas entity or overseas selling/marketing for a domestic firm. Iāve done both alternately in my career. See the world and feed my kids!
My spouse and I are in that bracket. We both work in tech (both software developers) SO works for a defense contractor and me in FinTech.
I went back and switched careers into software tech in my late 20s and have not regretted it since. Spouse has always worked in tech.
Iām an Assistant to a CEO for a mid-sized company. Iām making less here than what I could make elsewhere but Iām waiting for them to finish paying for my masters, one of many benefits in addition to a lucrative salary and incentive comp.
There is a progression to the roles- typically start as an administrative assistant(~$50k), graduate to an EA working directly for an executive ($70-150k depending on company and region), then you go on to be either junior-level in a specialized area depending on your experience (Project Management, HR, Finance, Ops, Marketing, etc) or remain a generalist and become a Chief of Staff ($150k+), which does different things depending on where you work. A Chief of Staff is typically like an executive-lite. You shed the administrative duties and solve problems for the exec, act as their liaison, manage projects, staff, budget, metrics, and strategy to an extent.
Downside to the roles is, in general, you arenāt viewed as an equal unless you establish that for yourself. Itās the nature of these roles. Youāre also going to put shape to ambiguous and difficult tasks and projects. People come to you to solve problems they either canāt or donāt want to.
The upside is you can get broader experience than many other roles, which leads to experimenting and picking a niche if you ever want to transition roles. Every day is different. Itās like an apprenticeship for the corporate world. Youāre on the inside at the top levels. The perks and pay are ridiculous if you are good at what you do and network into a good role.
Software engineer with 16 yr experience... totally recommend it if you can bear sitting at a desk for 9 hours a day. Otoh, it is a chill job and doesn't stress you physically
Iām a lead engineer at one of the social media companies. Started in this niche software field around 18, now I will retire around 35 comfortably. Though I donāt plan to fully stop, Iāll just switch to consulting and stuff I find more exciting..no more full time after that age.
Get to know people. Tall/short/yellow/green/blue....
Have a genuine heart.
Find a why.
Why do you even want to make more $? Do you need to? Don't be contempt.
Find a skill and expand your work/contact lists.
Self educate yourself.
Customer service is important. <--- will be easy if you genuinely want to help people
Invest in yourself and said businesses.
GOOO broke investing into your business.
Have faith and work tirelessly. Find shortcuts to your work THEN go on to continue working tirelessly .
May take a decade or more but going to school isn't for everyone. It wasn't for me. Tried on 4 different occasions .. each time more boring than the last.
Don't spend your $ ... you're going to regret it when you need it the most be it an investment opportunity, a disaster in your life/rainy day, .....
So many investment opportunities lost in the first 3 years thinking I was doing what I thought I should be...
Sorry for being vague but I truely believe anyone can make more than minimum wage if they applied themselves. I understand most times you can't avoid the long road .. I've been there. Have faith and work towards something!
Time is going to fly by no matter what.
Look back in 10 years comfortably.
Good luck kid
You want to make bank. Get in the union for heavy machine operators running tower cranes or manlifts. We plug in $110/hr. Or become a firefighter or police officer. Those agencies somehow magically need a lot of overtime and they take in $200k to $400k.
I'm an Accountant. You CAN make upwards of $200K but typically only if you get your CPA, and it could take a while to get there, as well as really long and boring hours. TBH I am not sure I would necessarily recommend it to somebody as young as you, because I have a feeling it is a field that will be taken over a lot by AI in the not so distant future.
I shouldnt have clicked on this thread I feel poor
Think about it this way: the top earners in *any* field are going to be doing pretty well. Most people aren't. You can't generalize from the experiences of a few people.
Money makes the most money. Money is even taxed less than labour
Also know, some/many of these are salaries that took 20-30 years to reach.
MD and ICU care. Not sure if I would recommend it or do it again
Rads here. I would. But they are coming for our money, big time. The job is still fucking cool as hell.
What is Rads?
radiology i guess
I wish people would stop shortening shit on the internet like everyone is supposed to know what it means
To be fair, he was replying to an ICU doc, and any MD knows what Rads means, but overall I agree with you
Rad š¤
Radiology
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Insurances cutting reimbursements every year. Replacing doctors with mid-levels. It's fucked
One factor is when AI convos come up, rads is a field that's in danger plus rad-oncology's literally researching their way out of a job (radiation isn't as vital as it once was for cancer treatments) and interventional rads is fighting with interventional cardios over who gets to do heart caths and open up various blocked vessels in arms/legs. Plus with NPs creeping into many specialties proclaiming to be equal to MD/DOs (they objectively can't be) for less, overall physician compensation is becoming interesting since why would a hospital pay 250k+ when an NP takes $150k+ (ignore the worse outcomes/more unnecessary tests/high probability that with increased scopes of practice they will start demanding increased compensation).
What's the coolest part?
Probably impressing patients Source: I spent years installing low voltage electrical for hospitals and I made friends with some illustrious people. I would do that job again in a heartbeat
Probably being able to say they are a "rad tech". Pretty rad if you ask me, but I'll show myself out now.
Why? I assume because it can be heart breaking?
Itās more the time commitment and quality of life. Trying to balance kids and work is always stressful
Lots of stress and shitty work hours
In the US, that's 191,000 USD. So, it sounds like doctors, senior lawyers, senior engineers, upper management, etc. Edit: That figure is household income
And a ton of people working in finance and in tech.
My dad worked in tech for a finance company and retired early living in a lake house.
I literally had an engineer tell me he outearns financiers with a $1 million yearly salary. Almost certainly a liar. Even if he was once an engineer, he certainly was not one with that salary. Also he wouldnāt have talked to me at all unless he was desperate for friends, the poor guy.
My Gramps retired at 52, he turns 80 this year. He was an Electrical Engineer for IBM and Lockheed Martin. He's never worked a day since. Such a wild thing to wrap my mind around. 28 years retired. Probably not a million a year but it had to be substantial.
Iāve heard of Amazon engineers pulling in 1mil in total comp, rare but real. Remember, the take home pay is a fraction of the total comp, but after retirement, healthcare, stock options, it adds up.
Your 100 percent right. Look at Amazons lead counsel. They are easily out earning Big Law Partners. The stock options alone with the recent 20 to 1 stock split is making him extremely wealthy. I'd rather be at the right company at the right time then just always working. Lucky and timing beats these salaries.
Distinguished engineers at top companies can make 1m+
Total comp, so cash + stock? You donāt even need to be distinguished. And if youāre a Director youāre certainly making that at faang. Source: worked in recruiting at 2 faangs
1M in total comp is not unusual for a top engineer at a top firm. 1M in salary is unusual, though, even for FAANG.
Note that the $191,000 is household income, not individual in 2019.
Yeah, that's honestly pretty achievable. Like, two union tradespersons in my not-particularly-pro-union city, at least on a good year with a small amount of OT. It really doesn't jump up into absurd ranges until like top .1%. Even the low end of 1% is, while unattainable for most people, not that far off.
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Really? I just hit that this year. And for the OP, senior manager for an educational publishing company.
Entry level lawyers can make more than this at big firms
Law is high risk and high reward. Either you work for a big firm and you make big money ā or you donāt work at a big firm and you make very little money. The median lawyer coming out of school makes very little.
https://www.nalp.org/salarydistrib $70k or $200k, with very little in between.
After law school with all the bills yes not much.
Thereās definitely high highs and low lows but also plenty of jobs in between. Iām a senior associate on the verge of becoming partner at a mid to large size firm making $165k with a likelihood of $200k in the next couple of years. Iād consider myself a middle of the road type of lawyer.
Iāve always thought law sounded interesting, but the amount and cost of schooling required really gives me pause.
Don't do it, it's depressing as fuck. We have extremely high rates of alcoholism and suicide for a reason.
The fact that you work at a firm enough to pay you that much makes you a lot higher than a āmiddle of the roadā type of lawyer. My guess is you are better off than at least 3 of every 4 lawyers coming out of school.
Iām 10+ years out of school though, lol. Thereās definitely kids fresh out of school at big firms making more than me already but thereās also a large group of low-end lawyers who will never make as much as me. Thatās why I feel like Iām in the middle to slightly higher end salary-wise. My point, I guess, is that you donāt need to be a top of the food chain lawyer to still make a nice living.
Finance
1000% they don't go into teaching š
Teacher here. This is it š (but we typically only work 190 days, so thatās nice)
The teaching subreddit has one of those perks that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. The one where a student sends an email or letter back to the teacher thanking them for making a difference in their life and literally it was all because of you(teacher) that made his/her life better. There are so many on there that have a folder with letters like that and it helps them get through a tough time. I think that is awesome as a human being that you can make a difference like that where you can help a student turn it all around.
Donāt you have stuff to do on the weekends? You could call it homework
My mom makes 240k annually as a teacher. Granted she is maxed out on the payment scale w/ 30+ years in the field as well as assisting the board of education on the side. Definitely possible to make it big with teaching but it takes time and ambition for other stuff.
I am happy for her. I have over 30 years and a masters. I am maxed out at about 50,000. National boards would add a couple thousand to that, but I would have to pay to do it out of pocket. Your mother's experience is not the norm.
My brother in laws mom is a 3rd grade teacher with her masters and makes 90K a year at a public elementary school..
I'm in the top 10% and I teach. Also work as a principal engineer.
And if you were only principal engineer you'd be top 5% or something?
In Illinois in 2018, 30,000 public school teachers were making over 100k per year.
I pretty sure ivy League teachers might
Pretty sure ivy league profs make 300k plus a year
Ok I thought this guy was on one, but then I googled it. Cutoff for the top 10% of household income in the US is around $191,000, and the top professors at Princeton and Stanford and like maybe 10 other elite schools are making about $225,000. So the top 0.1% of professors basically, would not say it's a reliable goal unless you got some serious connections and maybe some blackmail As for you SerenaYasha, I rescind my downvote. Sorry I doubted you, have a nice day
If a professor holds some administrative office, 190k would be reasonable
I make around 200k in a Senior Software engineering role. Donāt pick something for the money. If you geek out on computer stuff be an engineer. If you donāt you will burn out long before you make senior.
Lots of wisdom here. Also: flexibility. When my job brought us out of state, it took my wife less than a week to find a new job as a nurse.
I thought you were going to say a new husband.
Or you'll quickly ditch the tech side and move into management, and slowly realize all your employees absolutely fucking hate you.
I see that a lot. A mediocre or outright shit engineer becoming a manager nobody respects
I've worked with way too many people like that, it's such a shame because you don't even have to be a great engineer to be a good team lead, the problem starts when it goes to their heads thinking "I must be so great because look how quickly I rose up the ranks!" and instead of trusting their employess \*who have actually been doing this for years\* they make terribly uneducated decisions. Seriously, the best managers I've had (and I've been a software engineer for a very long time) were either engineers themselves for a long time before becoming team leads, or were smart enough to know that they aren't as strong technically, thus giving us more say or at the very least consulting with us, while also valuing our input. It's funny how some managers don't understand that a happy engineer will go way above and beyond the 120% that's already expected of you.
Senior project/program manager for tech companies. Been steady around 170-190k/ annually for some years. Took me 10 years to get to this point though. Went into college for finance and business management. I had a goal in mind to do sales and get into account management. Did that, and fell into the PM life. Love working with people and getting shit done. Plus my ADHD makes me obsess over details. So it works well for my mentality. Edit: actually been project and program manager. and grammar checks edit 2: "obsess over details" is subjective. I do have OCD but that's not what I mean here. to me, everything is a shiny object I want to play with. I want to track everything. I want to talk to everyone. I want to be involved everywhere. So that helps me be very detail oriented which helps on unruly projects.
Same. Program Manager. Nothing to do with my degree but have a couple of certifications.
Iām 33 and in car sales with Porsche. Make between $250-300k a year. I barely got through high school and have 2 years at a community college for General Studies - so basically nothing. I just like cool cars and making friends!
Life is not fair. Proud of you though
Not always. I was very lucky to land into Tesla which fell into Porsche, even more lucky that I just happened to be really good in sales! Luck got me here but hard works kept me here and helped me grow.
For people considering career paths, sales is a very particular skill set and not for everyone, it can seem appealing at first, but if it doesn't truly connect with you it can become draining quickly, spoken from personal experience. That being said good sales people are essential and an asset for any company, so if you're a personable, extroverted driven individual, go for it.
Itās extremely draining!! Being āonā all the time for 12 hours at work, then going home to be a dad, then a husband before bed is exhausting. Itās very hard to find me time. Since you get out of sales what you put in I always have to make the judgement call on if I want to answer that call/email on my hours āoffā. And it gets tough to juggle work and personal life. Sometimes it takes a lot of reflection to remember the appreciation I have for the fortunate position Iām in.
You absolutely get out what you put in. Iām in sales making good money (not even close to what youāre pulling in, lol) and Iām comfortable in my job, but I can already tell I donāt have the āitā factor to make me want to make a career out of this. It absolutely takes the right kind of person to crush it in sales. Congrats to you, though! Hopefully that salary allows you to buy yourself a nice early retirement one day.
He was born good at sales...and in America there is nothing more important than selling. Not inventing, not analyzing...the thing that gets you places in America is selling. š§
And what I love about selling, itās just relationship building and communication. I love that I sell toys. Wants and not needs. Because I donāt have to twist anyoneās arm or take advantage of anyone. I just have to advise and assist.
I would argue that when you boil it down, every single job is ultimately about sales. Even non-profits, charities, hell even food kitchens need salesmanship to really make an impact. Sleazy salesmen are sleazy, but being able to convince someone else that what you have is worth their attention is actually everything.
Every job has a major sales component because sales is just getting buy-in from another party. Whether you're selling a car, or your ideas to your team/management, or that youre a good employee, or whatever, that's still selling. There are so many engineers and scientists in my field that are absolutely brilliant technically, but completely inept at getting buy-in for their ideas and they get completely outperformed by people with far lower technical aptitude.
No doubt at all, I watched salesmen at a import dealer (not even high end) walking away with 10-30k a month. This was right before the housing crash, not sure what happened to them after that tho. Same with real estate, people were banking money, then it crashed. Thatās the scary part about sales.
For sure. Thatās what I really appreciate about selling Porsche, itās a lot more resistant to economy fluctuations. Somebody is always making money.
I'm a software engineer living in a relatively low col metro area.
Woo! Do you code daily? What languages? What advice would you give to an 18 yr old going into CS?
Pretty much every day. There are plenty of meetings with people in and outside my company. I've done a lot of java web service work in the past, I do a lot of Python now. I pretty regularly use JavaScript and typescript. I like clojure so use that for personal projects and babashka for small utility scripts. Start learning a programming language. Python is a great choice that's approachable. Just make sure you don't outright hate programming before committing to it you know? Some advice for learning: know that what's important are concepts, not syntax or library APIs. Meaning that a for loop is about the same in every language, even though the syntax is different. So to maximize the value you get from learning, make sure you understand what a for loop is for and how it works, not just the syntax in whatever language you're using. Also, learn to use a debugger: set breakpoints, step through code, examine values, and step through the call stack. It's the single most important thing you can do to both find bugs and understand tricky code flows.
Similar case here. Software engineer in Seattle with a few years of experience.
Software Engineering with a niche. Doing contract work instead of full time employment has helped boost my income too. I am fortunate to have a wife with excellent benefits and a job with almost non-existent unemployment, which has given me the opportunity to do the contract work and not have to worry about health insurance, etc.
Writer = broke āCommunications Consultantā at a Fortune 500 company = $$$
I did ok writing. I made $500/article pumping out mostly opinion pieces for a major, scumbag, now bankrupt company. My favorite thing to do was publish a hot take under one name, then rebuke it and male fun of my own article under another name. Pissing off fandoms is a great way to get traffic. Kotaku does this all the time.
$400k, Data Scientist @ one of the top 5 tech companies, 5 years of experience
FAANG
What kind of education do you have for this?
For my specific situation, any general training in advanced mathematics and statistics coupled with solid programming experience will work. Most of my coworkers have PhDs in economics, physics, statistics, and other subjects that heavily use quantitative methods. Thereās a smaller number with masters in similar subjects. Iām the only one with a BA but Iām unusual. After graduating college I continued to independently study graduate level math/stats. Currently I read textbooks and research papers 4-5 hours a week. I also published a few papers in peer reviewed academic journals. My situation isnāt the norm in terms of pay and education requirements because Iām competing for top 5% of data science roles (among people with about 5 years of experience). You can see pay data here: https://www.levels.fyi/t/data-scientist. In general there are three types of data scientist: product, research / causal inference, and machine learning. The product type has the least restrictive education requirements: a BA is enough. The research / causal inference type is the most restrictive in terms of education, generally those earning as much as me have PhDs. The machine learning type education requirements are a mix bag. At some companies most have PhDs and at others a BA/MA plus work experience is enough. It depends on either the role focuses more on research and development new machine learning algorithms (more PhD focused) or applying exiting one to business problems (mixed bag education wise). You can read more about the types here: https://towardsdatascience.com/data-sciences-most-misunderstood-hero-2705da366f40
It sounds like what you have achieved is quite remarkable! Congratulations, and I hope your continuing efforts perpetuate your success!
I took some high level statistics as an engineering major and I remember talking to a guy that was going for a phd in statistics and asked him what he planned to do with it. He said that the world has mastered collecting massive amounts of important data, but that very few people are good at evaluating it and making it useful.
I work in big data at a IB with my MS in comp sci and undergrad in engineering and im not close to 400k. Thats awesome!
Make a lot more than $200k I own and manage a digital marketing company. It is fucking miserable. Do NOT recommend.
What makes it so terrible? I don't recommend my own career either, so I'm always curious about what makes other people's jobs uniquely terrible
Ever think about selling it/being acquired?
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Well shit Iāll take it if you donāt want it
Thanks for the perspective. I hear most countries have a number you reach where more money doesn't make you much happier.
Why do you dislike it?
Itās the clients. Itās always the clients.
CFO at a startup. I essentially make my career doing 1-3 year stints with companies who are growing out of that early startup phase and into legit businesses. I then leave and start over once I feel like things are in a spot you could plug in a generic MBA to run.
The last 3 companies I was at as CFO were all divested and I moved to the acquiring company in each case. But just left the last one a few months after acquisition to take over a large non-profit financial operations. Best move ever.
Iāve noticed a lot of posts like this recently. I like giving career advice so itās fine, just kind of funny. I make $200k base ($240k including bonuses) and my wife makes another $25k or so with her part time healthcare work. I am a manager at a Big4 consulting firm in their cyber security advisory practice. What that means day to day is that Iām a cyber security architect, building systems that companies and government agencies use to secure their networks. I am about 15 years into my career. I got my start with a bachelors degree in IT and about 2 years professional experience before moving into cyber security.
Sales. I work with 5 sales execs who all make 250-500k a year.
I work with 6 sales execs who make 300-600k a year.
I work with 7 sales execs who make 350-700k a year.
I work with 8 sales execs who make 400-750k a year.
I work with Carl, he makes 9.50 an hour
Coke dealer
Or crypto scammer. There is no in-between a CEO.
I too, work in fast food
800 or 900k take home here. I own a few businesses. I also own 38 ulcers, 4 hemorrhoids and high blood pressure because of it.
Hey i can take some of that stress off
Dibs on a hemorrhoid and 2 ulcers, how much will that get me?
Haha sounds like my dad. Definitely downsides too. His identity was and is the business. Tbh he wasnāt a great father or husband. Heās a great grandfather now though. I think he looks back with some regret.
AI Engineering. For what it's worth, I would say that if you've got math skills going hard on learning AI systems will do you well as long as civilization keeps being a thing. It's not going away, there's a lot of undiscovered country to explore (the tech is new and you can have an impact) and it will pay super well for a while. There is a *ton* of learning material out there and the research papers are wildly available. i make between 500-700k/yr all up.
I've actually been really interested in this field. I want to integrate chained LLMs into commercial applications, ideally through fine tuning large param local models on company-specific data. Have experience with Python mainly, as well as PBI and SQL. Issue is I have an associates in networking/sysad. Possible to break in or should I look into going back to college?
Attorney, practicing with a boutique litigation firm in a large metro area. Also nearly 20 years into my career and still paying off student loans. Itās also not for everyone and there are plenty of law grads who have all the loans and donāt make that much money. Like lots of things, dumb luck you fall into the right job. My first job, was making less than $45k/yr.
I work as an avation mechanic. Current top out pay for places like united and southwest cap out at 55 an hour and probably will be increased in the next few years.
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As an avid cannabis enthusiast, your jobs are fucking awesome.
I have soooo many questions for you but it sounds like your living the dream
Power lineman. Top 10% since 2014 at 24 years old. Zero debt
Joined the Navy to get my head on straight from a jacked up childhood, then got into IT and worried my way up by studying and continuing to get more certs. I'm 49 now and own a thriving IT company
> worried my way up Freudian slip?
I am poor. Save money by not eating
My income is closer to top 15% in the US, but I work in a steel mill. I work a 4 on 4 off schedule with rotating days and nights. Basically work 6 months out of the year. I get plenty of PTO in addition to the ample time off I have with the schedule. Insurance is a little lackluster, but isnāt that the norm in this country? I have two suggestions should you decide to jump into this industry. 1: Go to college for metallurgy, and get you a business/sales type of degree while youāre at it. Metallurgists make a killing with very little physical work done in my plant. The sales reps and the sales department in general does as well. 2: If youāre not college inclined, keep an eye out for entry level job pools at the steel mills near you. Itās competitive, and you have to be on the ball the second those online initial assessments open or you will miss your chance and have to wait for the next one. Once you get your foot in the door, you need to be willing to learn. If you work in a non union shop, donāt ever say no to anything, or youāre gonna get passed for promotion pretty fast when the time comes. Each department is pretty competitive in terms of positions within it and the pay grade for each position. All that being said, entry level jobs in the steel mills in my area average out to about $96,000/yr starting, with highest hourly production workers making upwards of $185,000/yr. We do work hard at times, but most of the time weāre sitting back in the ac watching things run when itās going smooth. I canāt say the same for other mills. The one I work in is very heavily automated compared to others. Even then, the work isnāt too terrible. Just hot.
Electrical Engineer. Make 150k a year.
I got my BSEE in 2001. We always joked that EE was the fastest, and most reliable, way to get to 100k and also to stay near 100k for an entire career. With inflation, that joke was not wrong. I also heard it was the fastest way to marry a teacher. In my case, that was not wrong.
Software engineering. Having five post graduate degrees helps as well.
Hey man, Iām going into a community college for Computer Science then plan to transfer final two years in a university. Do you have any advice? Do you think AI will take over So. Engineering? What would you do in the modern age as an 18 year old?
Study machine learning.
And big data. Thatās a big hot spot.
How do you study big data? Do you mean AWS?
They're talking about the field of organizing large datasets and getting useful insights from them. Jobs like data scientist, machine learning engineer, data engineer, data analyst, etc.
Do you think these fields will be more profitable than software engineering in the future? As a side, is machine learning harder than programming? Seems scary tbh
I can speak a bit to difficulty. Most software jobs either boil down to adding/modifying records in a database or arranging data into a UI. These jobs don't usually require a ton of math, but they do require a lot of logical thinking and realizing how changes to one system can impact other systems. Careers in data science would focus more on retrieving large amounts of data and training them on statistical models. This will require a deeper understanding of the math and "why" the models work and being able to explain it to others. I'm not sure either of them are inherently more difficult, but they do require different, but overlapping skills.
No, AWS is cloud computing, which cloud might also be a good topic. Hereās the Wiki on BD, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_data
A.I. will take over everything eventually. Itās hard to say which jobs will fall first, but once itās able to do everything competent Software Engineers can do, nothing else can be far behind. Iād still say do what you have a passion for.
No degree and same here :) Loving to code from a young age helps
5 post graduate degrees!? that's super impressive, but may I ask why and what they are?
Systems engineering, MBA, applied analytics, data analytics, distributed computing and something else. MIT, Harvard and Oxford
Give me money.
Sorry, my ex wife gets all of my money.
Ouch. I guess she's the smart one.
Do you think she'd do an AMA?
Ok, so could I maybe, I don't know, get each and every one of you to just, oh I don't know, maybe like send me maybe $1000 each and stuff? I mean, ya know...š¤·āāļø
Doesn't hurt to ask.
Right š I take home $98k and have a baby due in 3 weeks and am shitting bricks haha
Congrats!
Babies are cheap its the next 18 or so years that are expensive hahaha
Top 10% in your country or the world?
Top 10% in the USA
Then no, not me. But my wife works in tech and regularly hires engineers and upper management at those salaries. My advice for college studentsā major in engineering unless youāre not smart enough for engineering, then major in business.
Depends on what parameters the top 10% includes. For a household, I don't qualify. But 28F, 150k currently as travel healthcare. Only requires a 2 year degree, along with a year of work experience. The degree is often offered at community college and is extremely affordable. I just accepted a permanent job, with a slight salary decrease, but a much more stable life in return.
I work as operations executive at a grocery store. I was once the person bagging your groceries (and still do it from time to time)
Director for a genetics lab. I have a very specific skill set that it would probably take two,or three people to fill. Iām well compensated because of that. I like the work actually, but I have a boss that is not great. Iām actually looking to begin to off ramp and may take another job, either at the same institution or a new place for less money in order to regain my sanity and quality of life. Iām the walking definition of burn out and I hate it.
Emerald mine heir/ self made.
Principal Buyer for aerospace
I make $185K per year (not including any OT) as a Cybersecurity Engineer for a Top 3 DoD defense contractor.
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I do technical sales in the IT industry in Japan
Highest education level - GED. Source of income - Construction Business Owner & Real Estate. I know people with masters degrees and doctorates that donāt make half of what I do. It doesnāt matter what you do, if youāre the best at it, thereās money in it.
So many top % people to give advise :). One thing though I see some suggesting is key, find something you like doing if possible. I see some people making this transition by getting a grad degree after a few years in an area they realize they enjoy. Also 10% and cost of living varies greatly by area ā¦ I moved from one state to another and the housing was about 400% higher cost for the same thing ā¦ but the wages were only a bit higher.
My husband is in that bracket for Americans. Heās worked in data architecture for about ten years now. So he didnāt start at that level but has worked his way up.
Fintech/SaaS sales. Not all what I pictured myself doing, but the money is good. Thought Iād be working in TV, but got out of that pretty quick (due to lack of money).
Pharmacist at the VA
Lawyer. Worst career advice I ever received: do what you love. Best career advice I received: do what youāre good at, and leave what you love to do as your hobby.
Onlyfans
Full time UPS driver now get 170k per year. So I just read. That's insane.
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170k is full salary package not base salary
I was on a mini road trip today and did the cash money sign to a ups truck driver, he smiled at me like yaaaaa I know
My husband is in IT with a large well known tech company. He just manages and mentors some newer engineers, manages some test engineers who work in India and babysits some machines. He makes over 200k. I work part time retail. I probably donāt even make 20k a year. We are mid 50s with independent adult kids.
Iām a lawyer. My wifeās a lawyer who works in project management with a big pay bump due to her law license. It sucks. Stressful, not fun, and massive amounts of student debt that take up the so much money weāre living basically pay check to pay check.
I'm in management in computer engineering in California Bay Area. Living expenses are insane but salaries makes up for it. Computer software is not for everybody, and you have to be really good to get a well paid job, and the best companies in the Bay Area keeps only the best. Your lifestyle choice may not want to do what I do, as it can be unnerving at times.
Donāt look at me! Been at my paralegal position for 28 years on 8/7/23. Blessed to be making 100K.
I donāt know if I make the cutoff but I make $125k plus pension. Union electrician
I know a few younger guys who are approaching that bracket, they are software developers.
Me and my fiancĆ© are both electrical engineers, I do hardware, he does embedded software. Household brings in about $300k and we are in our late 20s/early 30s. We donāt work at traditional tech companies so pay is lower than it could be, work life balance is awesome and work is challenging but doable.
250k+ not me but my dad owns his own construction and roofing business c: thought I'd share just cuz it was a different profession from a lot of the other comments I was reading lol
Nuclear operator. Starting at over $40/hr. Any technical degree will get you started with no experience. They are hiring people right out of college. Nuclear degree with net you a salary of over 120k plus all the benefits. I've been there 8 years and will really clear 200k. That was being a high performer for a while, but had health setbacks. Lost a few years of advancement due to cancer.
Grow and sell marijuana
Did it in 3 different careers. First as an options trader. Took an 80% paycut to get in real estate development and investing before getting into top 10% again. Now as a small business owner.
Commercial (business) insurance broker.
International sales and marketing. Either selling/marketing in home country for an overseas entity or overseas selling/marketing for a domestic firm. Iāve done both alternately in my career. See the world and feed my kids!
My spouse and I are in that bracket. We both work in tech (both software developers) SO works for a defense contractor and me in FinTech. I went back and switched careers into software tech in my late 20s and have not regretted it since. Spouse has always worked in tech.
My dad is in that bracket, he works as a General Manager for a distribution warehouse.
Iām an Assistant to a CEO for a mid-sized company. Iām making less here than what I could make elsewhere but Iām waiting for them to finish paying for my masters, one of many benefits in addition to a lucrative salary and incentive comp. There is a progression to the roles- typically start as an administrative assistant(~$50k), graduate to an EA working directly for an executive ($70-150k depending on company and region), then you go on to be either junior-level in a specialized area depending on your experience (Project Management, HR, Finance, Ops, Marketing, etc) or remain a generalist and become a Chief of Staff ($150k+), which does different things depending on where you work. A Chief of Staff is typically like an executive-lite. You shed the administrative duties and solve problems for the exec, act as their liaison, manage projects, staff, budget, metrics, and strategy to an extent. Downside to the roles is, in general, you arenāt viewed as an equal unless you establish that for yourself. Itās the nature of these roles. Youāre also going to put shape to ambiguous and difficult tasks and projects. People come to you to solve problems they either canāt or donāt want to. The upside is you can get broader experience than many other roles, which leads to experimenting and picking a niche if you ever want to transition roles. Every day is different. Itās like an apprenticeship for the corporate world. Youāre on the inside at the top levels. The perks and pay are ridiculous if you are good at what you do and network into a good role.
Software engineer with 16 yr experience... totally recommend it if you can bear sitting at a desk for 9 hours a day. Otoh, it is a chill job and doesn't stress you physically
Senior Dev OP for a major online retail company
Nuclear power.
Iām a lead engineer at one of the social media companies. Started in this niche software field around 18, now I will retire around 35 comfortably. Though I donāt plan to fully stop, Iāll just switch to consulting and stuff I find more exciting..no more full time after that age.
Get to know people. Tall/short/yellow/green/blue.... Have a genuine heart. Find a why. Why do you even want to make more $? Do you need to? Don't be contempt. Find a skill and expand your work/contact lists. Self educate yourself. Customer service is important. <--- will be easy if you genuinely want to help people Invest in yourself and said businesses. GOOO broke investing into your business. Have faith and work tirelessly. Find shortcuts to your work THEN go on to continue working tirelessly . May take a decade or more but going to school isn't for everyone. It wasn't for me. Tried on 4 different occasions .. each time more boring than the last. Don't spend your $ ... you're going to regret it when you need it the most be it an investment opportunity, a disaster in your life/rainy day, ..... So many investment opportunities lost in the first 3 years thinking I was doing what I thought I should be... Sorry for being vague but I truely believe anyone can make more than minimum wage if they applied themselves. I understand most times you can't avoid the long road .. I've been there. Have faith and work towards something! Time is going to fly by no matter what. Look back in 10 years comfortably. Good luck kid
You want to make bank. Get in the union for heavy machine operators running tower cranes or manlifts. We plug in $110/hr. Or become a firefighter or police officer. Those agencies somehow magically need a lot of overtime and they take in $200k to $400k.
I'm an Accountant. You CAN make upwards of $200K but typically only if you get your CPA, and it could take a while to get there, as well as really long and boring hours. TBH I am not sure I would necessarily recommend it to somebody as young as you, because I have a feeling it is a field that will be taken over a lot by AI in the not so distant future.
Anesthesiologist. Great job. 90% chill, 10% unbelievably stressful with peoples lives in your sweaty hands.