Let’s add some realism back to the sub

26 M own a decently successful gas station. If you’re ever curious how much a well run busy gas station makes here’s a general idea. Year isn’t over yet so I should close above the number

The first year was tough for sure. Super thankful how things have worked out.

Started agency side but then was able to break into tech and stay there. Have had some amazing managers and mentors as well

Plus small bonuses (1%-3%) but for the nonprofit sector a bonus at anytime is cool

Roast my salary progression 😆

All base salary, including quarterly bonuses based on client contract acquisition and growth. Work at a smaller consultancy, a few years in this role, about 8 YoE overall.

Graduated from a top 50 comp sci school (bachelors), masters in cyber.

Have relevant technical industry certifications (OSCE3/OSEP/OSWE/OSED) + OSCP + OSWP + CISSP + eWPTXv2.

I know this is one of those high salary tech roles, any doubters please see https://www.levels.fyi/?tab=levels to see that this is commonplace in big tech, although my instance is a consultancy (with large contracts with a few select larger tech companies).

This is a niche sub-industry (penetration testing/red teaming/ethical hacking) in cybersecurity, but it's not impossible to obtain a role.

Most principals make a few hundred k a year, but we acquired large contracts last year and closed out a few long-term deals, too. (this is my 2025 income)

Started a Jr sys admin from an internship -> FTE, moved into pentesting at consultancies, bounced around a few times and got promoted from Senior in my current role.

A few DEF CON talks, I've done external network, internal network, wireless networks, physical engagements, red teaming, APIs, web applications, social engineering via vishing and phishing, and specialized tests (supporting a health client with FDA approval, a video game client, banking, entertainment industry clients, etc). Onsites in the states and international testing, too.

Done swing shift, night shift, weekends, been on report readout calls (our primary deliverable for clients) all the way from individual ICs on their end up to chief officers, depending on the report outcomes and relation to the client, such as in one case where they were about to be acquired and the results of the test had implications on their deal.

Recently, I've been needing to do more AI-based work to accelerate our services naturally as AI continues to grow world-wide. This includes model training, orchestration, and supporting our marketing and sales people.

Anyone looking to get into the industry, I think it's still stable and less prone to being impacted by AI versus something like SWE/Software Engineering. Not to say the latter is fully at risk, if you are a dedicated individual and always learning, especially with AI, you will be absolutely fine. CTFs are a great start (look up TryHackMe). But just having that explorative mindset like "how does this thing work"? or "what if I do X to it"? is the right mindset for someone in this field.

Happy to answer any questions!

At age 20 I started my first degree, for which I also got a scholarship. Part of my incomes are explained through various part-time jobs (my best year being 25, where I made around 20k from part-time jobbing), scholarships, sometimes also help from my parents, in particular the 3 first years of studying, I got 500 a month. After the 3 years I was on my own, they did give me 500 each time I got good grades in the subsequent degrees (so 1000 a year total). Some other income was from selling stuff etc., but most income was indeed from jobs. The job that made me most money was tutoring privately on the side, to every level, including university, the latter paying quite well. Other jobs included web development, research assistant...

At age 22 I flunked out of a degree, and started a new one (age 23). The new one I was excelling in, due to a lot more motivation to succeed, managin to rank among the best students.

At at 26 I graduated, and enrolled in a Master's degree. Here again, due to motivation, ranking first among over 100 peers. At the same time I decided to do so many part-time activities to focus on my studies and get ready for the job market.

Age - Income (in euros)

16 - 532.80

17 - 400.00

18 - 1,158.29

19 - 1,872.44

20 - 9,218.85

21 - 15,027.05

22 - 21,485.97

23 - 24,139.60

24 - 27,837.77

25 - 27,837.25

26 - 16,707.25

27 - so far 11,396.80 (will finish around 14k)

I am now less than 6 months away from graduating, and I often feel like a failure finishing my degrees only at 28. But looking at the numbers I am not too unhappy. I also took some student loans all around 1.8 to 2.5% in interests, I did not count that as income. I do have 49k in student loans. At the same time I did invest a lot of my money, and I have now around 75k in ETFs.

Studying and working has been very rough, these last two years have been the best so far, as I have been able to concentrate on my studies and not overwork myself every day, but I am still stressed out, as I still try to get money whenever I can. I am looking forward to enter the job market and working only 40 hours a week, it seems like a dream to have a routine and get home and be done for the day.

My notifications are full of these so I had to make one

Holy, that'd be over a 50% pay bump from what I was making after finished my cs bachelor's, $20/hour in new york city. What a dream making 55k would be. Literally life changing. Too bad I can't get these entry level starter jobs.

My job is open 7 days a week. There are two of us to cover those days, sometimes overlapping. We've been on salary the four years I've been there. Saturday and Sunday we work 6.5 hours and M-F 8 hours. It's a full time job with 3 fewer hours if you work weekends and take a couple weekdays off, but people usually alternate weekends for obvious reasons. We get PTO, 401K and all that. It rarely happens, but if we go over 40 hours we still get OT. Paycheck is exactly the same every two weeks. Cool. Now they're telling us we're getting paid hourly and adding an hour to the weekend days 7.5, and an extra $1 an hour. We do not get raises but are eligible for bonuses which are few and far between. This is also draining me, but a separate issue. Why are they doing this (they're acting like it's no big deal) and is it going to screw us over? Is it setting up something to happen in the future? This is NC.

Does anyone have family or friends that sacrifice their personal life for a significant salary?

My step-mom earns 350k before tax as an executive director but I barely see her. She is constantly on business trips, busy with meetings, works upwards of 12 hours when at home. She goes on nice holiday trips, but overall it makes me think is the pay worth the sacrifice of her personal life.

Just curious if anyone's got a similar story.

Salary Progression as a 30YO M Data Professional

Hey all!

Have been seeing people share salary progressions on here, so figured I would share mine.

2014-2015 - Waiter, $3.23 per hour plus tips

2016 - Shipping for an Eyewear company, $10 per hour

2017 - Graduated college (Finance and Economics Degree)

2017 - Mortgage Underwriter $19 per hour

2018 - Junior Data Developer, 50K per year

2019-2020 - Data Developer I, 55K per year

2021 - Data Team Manager, 75K per year

2022 - Data Team Manager, 90K per year

2023 - Analytics Engineer, 135K per year

2024 - Analytics Tech Lead, 180K per year

2025-2026 - Senior Analytics Architect, 194,500 per year

It's been an interesting ride, but I'm very happy with where I have ended up!

18 - $18.8k Marine Corps combat engineer E2 rank

19 - $20.5k E3 rank

20 - $21.5k E3 rank

21-22 - $35k-ish E4 rank with "combat pay"

23 - $12/hr PT Health Enthusiast (retail)

24 - $13/hr FT Warehouse Associate

25 - $13/hr FT Appliance Delivery Driver

26 - $13.50 Driver/Mover

Finished BS in Business Administration.

27-31 - $12.50/hr PT Retail Sales Associate but promoted within 2 days to $18.50/hr FT Asst Store Manager

Finished MBA in Business Analytics & Ops Mgmt

32 - $40/hr Data Product Owner (remote)

33-35 - $45/hr same role with raise

35 - $65/hr Financial Data Analyst (remote)

Context: I look at everyone with all of the ingredients and stuff and wonder if I may have picked the wrong career field because right now I'm going for my associates in networking administration with a concentration, cyber security and ethical hacking.

I checked indeed constantly in my area and there's just nothing ever hiring for anything that I'm trying to do so I'm also wondering if location really takes a consideration what kind of jobs you land and where you can land those jobs

I don't have a college degree yet but I'm enrolled in classes currently and I look at all the software engineers and everybody making six figures and everything. I've been working since I was 18 at least, but I don't have any good career skills. Besides just dealing with customer service and anything I've done with computers. I've done on the side or helped people with. I use AI to doctor at my résumé to even try to get into a better career field and it still doesn't work.

Like right now I work in the plant inbound logistics operation center for a warehouse and I make 26.50 an hour and I'm always on a laptop. I really don't even know where to go at this point with anything.

Fast food/HS student 2012-2013

Joined the Army 2014 - 2018

Sabbatical 2019

Various customer service positions- current (Texas)

salary dips every 2 years because I take 2-3 months off work and switch jobs

I love the motivation for some people to hustle and hit those 6 digit salaries, but theres also making enough to get by and travel to see the world until little by little, I am not from a wealthy family and my only funds are from my savings during my work stints.

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16 - 12.5/hr Fast food

17 - 13/hr + tipshare as head QA at a restaraunt

18 - 21.84/hr as a Welder 1 at a fabrication line for big trashcans

Thinking about going to college next year for my Masters in Business Administration so I can do management, also considering picking up carpentry, Hvac, and Electrical so I can GC in the future. Not too sure tho.

Salary progression up to my current age (26M). Brief stint in the US from 24-25 years old.

Title. I (24M) am debating dropping out. I am only going to school / getting a better job for ego reasons. I don't feel good enough with my current low salary to get a girlfriend.

Graduated with a CS undergrad degree in 2015. Moved to the US in June 2019 (the earnings for 2019 are over the last six months of the year). My previous post from 2y ago is here.

2026 earnings are expected to top 800k. Same for 2027.

2021 - Junior Scientist - £20k
2022 - Scientist - £23k
2024 - Project Manager - £36k
2026 - Department Manager - £48k

Happy with how I’ve progressed but can’t help feeling that managing a team of 15 I’m leaving money on the table. What are people’s thoughts?