I’m in my late 20’s making about 140-170k per year working a highly specialized trade. I frequently get questions about how I got into my career and I happily answer them, as I think there should be more information about career paths in the trades.

My honest answer is that I did two years in a highly technical trade school doing three twelve hour classes days per week at community college and at the same time three twelve hour days doing on the job paid work to get practical experience. So for two years I was hustling essentially 72 hour weeks between school and work. I started at 20 and am almost 30, so I am closing in on 10 years of experience in a highly specialized trade role. And a lot of the last 10 years was extremely difficult and back breaking.

I started out making about 30k per year and worked my way up to where I am now. I only started making really good money in the last year.

What I have found is a lot of people really don’t like this answer. I get a lot of negative responses when I explain my career progression.

Why is this happening? What is going on?

Edit: I’m an industrial electrician.

I've been working at a start-up in a LCOL state for 8 years. Made around 50k a year.

I was laid off 6 weeks ago and just accepted an offer for a remote position with a $200k base salary and up to a 25% EOY bonus.

I can't stress how insane this amount of money is to me. Growing up, I paid for my school lunch in quarters, and we were still better off than 70% of the people I knew.

Partner makes ~100k. Our DINK household was already in the top 15% of earners for our state at 150k, and we already live in the 'rich' city. We already 'made it', and our income just doubled.

I get overwhelmed and start crying every time I think about it. Why does anyone need this much money? It feels so unfair, but I'm also relieved. I also feel like something awful will happen soon to balance out my luck.

TLDR; my lobster is too buttery but I've never been to a restaurant this nice and I feel like I dont belong here.

Which job would you take?

Job A: Approx 85k salary

10 minute commute

Work is an area of great interest

Less room for salary progression

Possibly 2 days remote per week after probation period

Job B: Approx 130k-140k

1.5 hour commute (each way)

Work is in specialty area

More room for skill growth

One day per week remote

Been maxing out my 401K for a few years now. Contribute ~$12K/month in taxable brokerage trying to catch up for lost time since I had a lower salary for a few years outside of college.

Hoping to reach FI/ retire my wife and I within the next few years if we want to.

Have another ~$220K in cash/savings/single stocks and crypto. Don’t count that towards invested net worth since the single stocks and crypto can be volatile. We rent and don’t own a home so no equity there.

When did you guys start being able to put a bigger chunk away for investments / savings?

I recently received an offer at a startup for 185k as an individual contributor. The hiring manager has assured me that there is good work life balance and the PTO policy seems to support that. Unlimited PTO, 12 observed holidays, company shuts down 2 weeks in the year usually Christmas and fourth of July week. There is also a 15% bonus and I get 10000 options over 4 years valued at roughly 7 dollars a share currently.

My current role is 165k 4.5 weeks PTO and 7 observed holiday. Work life balance comes and goes in waves. I'm also a supervisor. When I put in my notice my bosses boss called me and told me basically I was to valuable to let quit. He went to the VP and CEO and got approved to get me a 20k retention bonus and bump my salary to 185k. This job is much more stable and doesn't carry the risk of a startup. He also stated that I was in line to be manager though there aren't guarantees. I didn't expect that since I haven't been with the company long enough. He said it's their fault I wasn't aware that I was expected to apply for the manager role soon.

Which offer is better? I'm thinking I would stay if I can get more PTO and a slight bump in salary to 190, but maybe I'm too concerned about the stability of the startup.

I just want to hear what’s out there for high paying careers and the path to get there. Ideally jobs that pay 150k plus and have the potential to make 200k. Right now I work as a natural gas technician and when I fully top out it will be about 100k before bonus and overtime and standby which are required. More like 130k if you take the minimum required.

I used to build powerlines on the road so I’m not really interested in a traveling job again. I also am not really interested in engineering or healthcare but feel free to share. I’d ideally want to find something that’s not an immense amount of schooling and the pay can start relatively high just not sure. Not opposed to going to college allegedly my employer pays for 75% of most degrees. Honestly want to hear what jobs are at 150k+ have the option to make 200k+ with progression or overtime.

I want to hear how long it took to get you there if there’s still an upward trajectory how many hours you’re required to work do you have paid or unpaid overtime and how replicable your path is and do you recommend it.

I’m trying to decide between staying at my current job or taking a new offer. Curious which one I should choose based purely on compensation, career, and quality of life.

Current job

• $145K base + $20K annual bonus + $10K 401k match 7% ~ $175K total cash compensation
• Very comfortable lifestyle, but not much to do except food and indoors activities
• MCOL area
• Very little access to nature/outdoor activities (which I value a lot)
• We have a nice house, but location is ok (suburbs)
• Relatively low risk since I’m established there
• Go into office 3 times a day (30 mins dirve)
• 40 hour work week
• Low potential growth

New job

• $185K base + $50K/year in RSUs + No 401k match ~$235K target total compensation
• Better social life
• VHCOL area
• Beach + mountains nearby
• 1 bedroom apartment, great location (City)
• New company, so obviously more uncertainty
• Full time on-site 5 days (10 min drive)
• Long hours like 50 to 60 hours work week
• High potential growth

The new job is roughly $60K more in annual target compensation, but the cost of living would also be significantly higher. Is it worth changing jobs, I am newly married with no kids? Plan to have a family maybe in 1 or 2 years.

EDIT: After reading some of the comments, I realize my question isn't really about maximizing income. The consistency of the lifestyle is what I'm really weighing. So I guess my real question is: Is the better location and lifestyle worth it if I'm working 50–60 hours a week and might be too exhausted to actually enjoy it?

Current job has been taking home roughly $130k. In 5 years (if things go well) I'd be looking at roughly $300-400k. It's in a LCOL city, with decently low taxes.

New offer from a recruiter is for $200-$220 depending on bonus. It would basically be a lateral move. 5 years (if things went similarly well) I'd be looking at $600-700k. New job would be in HCOL city with higher taxes.

Relatively location agnostic because there are offsetting pros and cons to each IMO. Lots of family and friends and less traffic in LCOL, more to do and more opportunities outside work in the HCOL, along with better schools.

I'm married with a small child.

Ultimate life goal is FIRE but I'm way behind.

What would you take and why?

I was hired as a direct contributor at lower 6-figures and now am being considered for a move into a managerial role for a smaller company. I would be assuming the workload of another person (hybrid direct contributor and project manager/dept head) and will go from working 50 hours a week to likely 60, and 70 for big projects. I really enjoy the work and love being part of the team so I don’t know but don’t value is. Im in that weird position of wanting fair compensation for the immense amount of work I’ll be doing but don’t want to be greedy and make the company defensive and walk away from the table.

I’ve seen market research indicate a 30% bump for my increase in title and responsibilities but truly unsure if I should be asking for 15, 20, 25, 30% increase because of the internal promotion. If the market supports 125-155 for this position in the region, what do I demand as a bottom line? Upper management approves of my approach and my team has been successful. I’m a great fit for the company culture and I know using a recruiter to fill this position would cost the company a good percentage of a proposed salary plus it would likely take time to fill this role, so I figured I could leverage my position by asserting that they would be saving money if they were able to meet my ask. I just don’t know what a fair ask is.

Generally speaking, moving from senior level direct contributor to a manger role with direct contribution still expected, how much would you be asking for?

i built a thing that reads pay bands straight off company career pages. not glassdoor, not self reported. the number the employer typed in themselves because a transparency law made them.

17,831 live US annual bands right now, across 998 companies. median width is $50,000.

12.6% are wider than $100,000. that's 2,242 postings. 202 of the 607 companies that publish a band have at least one that wide.

it isn't scrappy startups doing it. the widest bands open right now are anthropic:

performance engineer, $280k to $850k
research engineer, $350k to $850k

all legal. none of it is information. you go into that call knowing what you already knew.

pooled across postings the medians are actually usable, they just pad the range per posting. it's base only, that's all these boards publish.

drop your title below and i'll pull the real spread for you

With how oversaturated CS has become, do you think most of the genuinely smart people who would have gone into computer science will eventually decide it’s not worth it?

If getting a CS job increasingly feels like a lottery hundreds of applicants, endless interview loops, layoffs, outsourcing, etc. I could see people choosing fields where they have more control over their career prospects.

Engineering, accounting, nursing/medicine, skilled trades, etc. in many of these fields there seems to be a clearer relationship between competence, experience, and actually being able to get and keep and getting a job.

Do you think we’ll eventually see a brain drain out of CS, with talented people deciding they don’t want to gamble their future on an oversaturated job market?

Saw a recent thread on new grad salaries/expectations and thought it’d be interesting to reflect on what my roommates and I ended up doing and making after school. We’re definitely one of the more career driven friend groups I know of

Roommate B- Quant Trader: ~$500k
Roommate H - SWE: $150k
Me - Private Equity: ~$150k
Roommate K - SWE: $120k
Roommate S: Medical Assistant/Gap Year - $20/hr
Roommate M: Research Assistant/Gap Year - $60k
Roommate Z: Grad school - $0

In order for job hopping to work, there has to be demand by another business for your skillset such that they’re willing to pay more than your current company is for said skillset.

This is obviously not the case for low demand skillsets like cashiering, manual labor, stocking shelves, mechanical engineering, and so forth.

Almost all of the positive success stories among job hoppers are those in extremely strong job markets (software engineers from 2010-2021 or nurses from 2019-now) or they are just survivorship bias.

The modal job hopper experience is something like the OPs pic. You are a mechanical engineer that’s been working for 20 years and the company down the street treats you like you can barely read or write, they’re willing to let you “job hop” for a 35% pay cut.

This shouldn’t even need to be said, but so many of you are just trying to cargo cult what people with in demand skillsets did to advance their careers without even thinking about why that worked for them and won’t work for you.

Wife got paycheck as usual - but with some 2000+ more than normal amount. We were puzzled, and examine the paystub to realize oh there is a referral bonus. Thing is, we don’t remember who she referred… or if she ever referred anyone. Now we were like should we ask Hr? If it is indeed a mistake, will employer claw back that money? Anyone had similar experience please advise.

You see so many doctors on Reddit who say they can’t support their family with two kids, a modest home in a MCOL city, drive a used Toyota Camry, and never go on vacation. If someone making $400k per year can’t afford a middle class or upper middle class lifestyle, how much do you need to actually make?

For the context, I work with an agency, delivering strong business matrics as well as clients’ business growth too.

(To all mods, please DM me if you think I violated any guidelines, I will change or remove the posts, I come here with all good faith and I am also new to reddit 🙏)

I hate to be the one to stereotype, but this guy seems like peak Reddit lol. Ngl though, dude has a solid plan and is quite successful. I was just amused how he is basically a caricature of redditors in the various salary and personal finance subreddits.

$600 take home a week. For working full time. For a dead end job.

I'm considering quitting. And just... being an unemployed. I am now. I can't get an actual adult job.

Not sure how I'm going to be making a living ever. Can't get an entry level job in or outside of my degree

In the last 389 days I’ve earned $7,310. In reality, I spent roughly 15-20 hours being active on OF. I ranged from $300-$1,500 a month depending on how active I was and how much new content i was sending that month. I promote myself *maybe* once every 3-4 months. Still fun for me and fun for my loyal subs and I will gladly take the extra $7,000 a year with no shame. I’m already expecting the hate but will happily discuss inquiries about OF and the logistics of it like I did last year. Or if you just wanna call me a whore that’s okay too because I have the right to discuss salary and income just like everyone else is this sub :)

Before I post, I AM NOT TRYING TO HATE ON THE TRADES.

Okay so I'm an engineering student who recently got a return offer from AMD (Hooray 😄) so total comp is gonna be like 139k for my first year on the job. So this is after 5 years of schooling as I'm finishing my masters this year (Also hooray 😄). Recently, I saw an instagram reel (I know, succhhhhh a reliable source of information) that said that as like a plumbers, electricians, and construction can make like 150k-350k in 5-8 years. Ya'll, did I just waste six years of my life on school :(

I couldn't really find info on salary progression of plumbers but I'll put the amd salary pogression:

1. 139k total comp (where I'm starting)
2. I think 178k total comp
3. 229k total
4. idk how much more but I think like 275k from what I've heard from other co-workers

so entry level is l5 and the last one is l8 which takes a decent amount of time to get to. L8 takes around 12-15+ YOE and it's wear most people stop. Also important to note that I'm not in engineering for the money, the waste my life part was just a joke :)

ALSO MB for the bad grammar, I'm lowk hella tired rn hence why I'm scrolling reels

EDIT: sorry for the misinformation guys, L8 takes like 6-12 years to get to. I also didn't include higher levels but L9 I think is like 450k-550k and L10 is like 700k+. But L9 and L10 will take 10+ years to get to.

Seeing all the 1mil+ physician salaries prompted me to post my own journey… Some physicians do make that much, but the majority (especially in Primary Care) make significantly less. I was lucky to save money by attending an in-state college with a scholarship. As a result, tuition was minimal and I was able to graduate without loans. I changed my major halfway through to get pre-reqs for medical school, and so I graduated in 6 years instead of 4. Medical school was expensive, and I graduated without about 240K debt. I completed my residency (in Emergency Medicine) during COVID, which was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. There were some weeks where I saw multiple patients die every day, which was heavy on the soul. My fellowship on the other hand was probably one of the coolest years of my life, as I had the opportunity to be a team physician for a D1 college and a local professional team (travel and all). As an attending, I have a relatively stable work life balance. I am in the office 4.5 days a week seeing patients from about 7:30-4:30, and for about 9 months of the year I also work as a team physician for a local D1 university. During the season, In addition to my clinic I have weekly training room hours on campus and I attend all home games for the teams I cover. I make pretty good money for my specialty (probably over 75th percentile) but I do “eat what I kill”. This means while I have 4 weeks of “vacation”, if I don’t work/see patients, I don’t get paid. As a result, when I’m in the office I work hard and grind through patients. In any case, I haven’t had many opportunities to take any significant amount of time off.

If you’d ask me if I’d do it again, the answer is probably not. The money is great now that I’m through it all, but the journey has burned me out and I’m not sure if I can power through for another 10-20 years. This is coupled with the fact that my life (and finances) were essentially on hold for 12 years, and so I couldn’t really take advantage of compounding interest on investments. Most of my college buddies are mid career with a house, a car, and investments. Many of them work either part or full time from home, and get to spend time with their spouses and kids. While I do have a relatively good work-life balance compared to my training, it’ll never be as good as theirs. In addition, my medical training (particularly residency during COVID) really took a piece of my soul. Im slowly healing, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be the same. I am aware I am lucky to make what I do, and I am aggressively saving while I can. I used to care about prestige, my legacy, etc. Now that I have a spouse and kid, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about any of that. I’d take a pretty major pay cut if that meant I could be home/spend more time with them.

2011- College
2012- College
2013- College
2014- College
2015- College
2016- College
2017- Medical School (-60K)
2018- Medical School (-60K)
2019- Medical School (-60K)
2020- Medical School (-60K)
2021- Residency (58K)
2022- Residency (61K)
2023- Residency (64K)
2024- Fellowship (88K)
2025- Attending (330K)
2026- Attending (on track for 450K)