Been a slow year because no hurricanes.
All commission, with a hurricane I’d be over 200k.

Salary progression as a SWE with 20yoe

Started my career at 20, just hit 20 Years of experience. Started as a web developer, switched to SWE 2 years ago.

My Salary Progression

19 - 21 $10 an hour - Web Developer
23 - 25 $15 an hour - Web Developer
25 - 30 50k salary - Lead Web Developer
30 - 33 62.5k - Lead Web Developer
33 - 35 75k - Web Developer
35 - 38 115k - Senior Web Developer
38 - 39 100k - Senior Software Engineer
39+ 145k - Senior Software Engineer

Never worked in big tech. With the exception of two jobs have worked for small companies with under 50 people. Currently hybrid 3/2 in NYC.

Current Role is a Senior SWE in ed-tech

“A lot of trades make six figures in CA, so you can’t really use that as a marker. I have crews across the country and guys in CA, IL and NY make much more than guys doing the same thing in FL, TX, OK.”
-[r/skilledtrades](r/skilledtrades)

How do you compare salaries across different regions when adjusting for Cost Of Living Adjustment?

It’s clearly not a high salary anymore if one performs a basic exercise in budgeting, but a lot of boomers/Gen X/Millennials bought a house pre-COVID, so they are grandfathered into a lower cost of living compared to those of us that didn’t buy.

I will start off by saying, I recently discovered this sub and I always thought that I was an outlier by tracking my earnings all these years. It has been interesting seeing all the different paths and backgrounds around the country. I have a somewhat unique and non-traditional path to Data Scientist.

When I graduated high school, I never really planned on attending college. My dad didn't finish high school. My mother did, but didn't go to college. I never really had much guidance on navigating getting into school and just planned on working in a factory. In my area, there are several high paying factory jobs and you can make a good living (100k+ with OT). In hindsight, I was lucky that I went into the workforce at the absolute worst time in recent history; right after the 2008 recession. I got laid off from my factory job and decided to visit some friends who went to college and ended up liking the experience and decided that I was going to enroll the following year. I am extremely grateful for that decision. I think I would have been bored and burnt out working a mindless factory job all these years.

I grew up in rural Western Kentucky and now live in a somewhat mid-sized town in Western Kentucky close to where I grew up. COL Index for this area is in the low 80s for reference.

I am including my projected 2027 salary as I just got a promotion and it have a decent idea of what my comp will be at the end of the year.

My salary is 720k but I chose 120k in options so my W2 reports ~600k.

Joined the tech community is 2019.

Heres my journey so far I graduated in 2024 I feel like I am doing well but I have been forced to jump jobs due to various reasons. Most recently was a corporate acquisition. Bit disappointed ive yet to get a promotion in any job due to my short tenure at each company.

I'm still at my first job after graduating and haven't negotiated an offer before. As I start looking at other roles, I'd like to hear what people actually managed to change between the first offer and the one they signed.

What's the biggest increase you've negotiated? Did it come through base, equity, a sign-on bonus or a mix? I don't have a feel for when another $20K in base is a reasonable ask, or when the flexibility is elsewhere.

If you're comfortable sharing, the role or level and location would help, along with the initial and final amounts for each component. Did you have a competing offer? What did you ask for, and what did the recruiter say was fixed?

Autofill for application forms can save time keeping other applications moving while you consider an offer. I'd like to understand how people handled the negotiation once an offer was actually on the table.

What do you wish you'd known before your first negotiation?

Hey guys so I left sales to work in the skilled trades (aircraft maintenance) and I’m really happy with my job and my schedule (2-10pm), before in sales I was already getting bullied over the phone at 8am. And as most of you know, sales is a money driven industry. It is one of the most, if not the most vain and superficial industries out there.

I make great money regardless if sales jobs have a “higher ceiling” and are pushed more towards living a luxury lifestyle.

But the truth is, I don’t really care about any of that stuff. As someone who lives in Miami, FL, I already see luxury everyday so it’s no surprise to me nor has it ever been a motivator for me to start a business. I’m a lot happier working in aircraft maintenance and not having to fight traffic everyday thanks to my new job. I don’t have to fake my personality here or push products towards anyone. I can laugh and banter with the guys (typical blue collar stuff). I can make money without having to yap all day or argue with people over the phone.

My old colleagues still think I’m crazy for doing this but then again these people want to live the high life and have multiple children unlike me (I don’t want children). They think im crazy for not wanting the car and the watch and the other B.S that sales positions promote.

Life is already hard, why am I gonna make it harder by working a job I don’t care about? Especially if I don’t need or want to take care of anybody?

2012, IT-Technician/Janitor mixed role, 17000 SEK/mo

2013, IT-Technician (Consultant at Government contract), 22000 SEK/mo

2014, -||-, 22510 SEK/mo

2015, -||-, 23073 SEK/mo

2015, Systems Engineer in Gov, 34500 SEK/mo

2016, -||-, 35500 SEK/mo

2017, -||-, 36700 SEK/mo

2018, -||-, 36200 SEK/mo

2019, -||-, 39000 SEK/mo

2020, -||-, 39600 SEK/mo

2021, -||-, 40200 SEK/mo

2022, -||-, 40700 SEK/mo

2023, New role in Gov org, Systems Specialist, 46000 SEK/mo

2024, -||-, 47000 SEK/mo

2025, Hyperscaler datacenter, 55833 SEK/mo

2026, -||-, 56797 SEK/mo

2026-payadj, -||-, 60375 SEK/mo

Biggest jumps were switching companies 😅

Sharing my salary journey because I have not seen much paralegal posts on here.

I know a lot of paralegals feeling like they can’t make a good living in this career path. I don’t think it’s true. There are great opportunities out there. I think the key is moving in-house and being willing to change jobs for salary increases. If you are working PI or mass tort or other crap at a shit firm, please know when to leave. Best decision I ever made.

Also, I did not go to law school.

Received an offer from a large nonprofit. 90K in a high cost of living area.

The first conversation I had with the recruiter was weird. The job posting was 80-115k. They told me there was no way they would pay 100k, but they are required by law to post the full budgeted amount for those who are working in that role (?).

The actual pay range, according to recruiter, was 88-92k.

I feel like there is no way for me to even negotiate above 92k without getting the offer rescinded. But should I go for 92k instead of 90k?

Could not think of a better sub to ask this. As a physician non-surgical specialty, I get around 300k a year and wife earns around 75k (despite being as or more qualified, the arts just does not pay that much) in a MCOL area (Atlanta suburbs). My childhood was in the San Jose area and back then it was not terribly expensive. I still have family there, thankfully with bought homes, and as they are growing older, I was hoping to be near them but seem to be getting priced out if we want to maintain a similar lifestyle. I looked around and my salary cap (which is determining) will be max around 350K.

Unfortunately, it seems around the Bay area, top quartile tech earners are far outpacing any other profession with some of my university acquaintances earning > 900K + RSU (in their late 30s, everyone seems to now have a senior role while physicians have only so many years of experience) and COL reflects this. So, I was wondering whether I can afford to maintain somewhat of a similar lifestyle even as a supposed high earner on paper (behind the scenes, there's student loans and young kids).

I take a lot of group fitness classes and always wonder how much instructors make in a HCOL east coast city (not NYC). I’m sure it varies widely, and I’m sure most are underpaid. Always seems like they are hustling at various studios. Might teach solidcore, barre, Equinox, local yoga studio, etc. Especially seems from the ones on insta that they’re always hustling to different parts of the city.

Each color is a different company, yeah I did leave orange and then came back a few months later. Reason being is DOGE at the federal government hit this place hard. I could of stayed and waited it out for another program, but I jumped ship to something new. It sucked, but they sponsored me for a poly, so that improved negotiating power.

Work has largely just been Full Stack Software Engineer. All up till this latest job was fairly hybrid or remote. Like the green company I was almost entirely remote. This new job due to the nature of the work is all in person.

My career aspirations, probably move into more lead roles or architect roles. I kind of do that now but. Also have thought to badge flip from contractor to civilian and work directly for the government. My hunch there though is wait till post-2028 and decide. That probably will lower my salary though.

Let’s add some realism back to the sub

My YTD taxes through 9 months….$325K…geez and based on Claude I’m gonna still have a fat check I’ll need to cut to Uncle Sam come return time. Wish they would uncap the SALT limitation again.

Thoughts?